Chapter Summary: Next is the game's Launcher of a Thousand Ships, who isn't being shipped at all in this fic, Oscar Mike!

Notes: Oscar's chapter is second because I did attempt to just keep doing chapters with characters alphabetically. Again, this idea was abandoned. Still, this was when I decided to have a character from each faction in this fic. Oscar's the obvious choice for the UPR.

Chapter 2: Oscar Mike

Oscar was rather unashamed to admit that Whiskey was something of a hero to him. Honestly, before the original Planet Mike went dark, he was a hero to a lot of the clones. His bro, now Queen Mike, was one of them, even.

Honestly, he wasn't sure how there were clones that didn't see him like that. Whiskey probably had the highest battle survival rate ever. Heck, the UPR might have put him in a non-combat position just so other clones didn't get ideas that it might be better to actually try to survive, since most of them were dicks likes that (present company excluded, even Benedict, and he didn't like him).

And after that, the murder squads they kept sending after him kept getting murdered themselves. Sure, they kept saying how he was a "dangerous, defective clone", but for clones like Oscar, there was only two words going through their minds when they heard stories about him:

So. Cool.

And now he got to work with the guy! Sure, he seemed to annoy the guy more often than not (at first), but they used to say that he killed Peacekeepers on sight, and seeing as they were all still alive, if he wasn't going to kill him for that, then he wouldn't kill him just for bugging him.

And he really did seem to be as cool as he always thought he would be. But… not the way Oscar kept trying to be. Like, he was so badass, he didn't need to try to be badass and cool. He could be however he wanted to be.

It meant he could things like listen to Oscar when he freaked out over spiders, and didn't make fun of him for it or anything. He even told him once that the poetry he wrote about them and what and how they freaked him out was not a half-bad way of dealing with it. And pull him out of the way if he didn't notice someone was aiming at him in a fight. And agreeing with him that, yeah, Benedict really was pretty annoying, though apparently Whiskey had met worse. Oscar wasn't sure how someone could be worse, but was inclined to believe him.

It also meant that he would come to Planet Mike, a place that he really wasn't supposed to be allowed on at all, while he (Oscar, not Whiskey, because Oscar had offered to let him join and he'd turned it down) was undergoing his trials. He avoided giving a direct answer on why until after General Mike insulted his occupation. Then Whiskey had told him that, no matter how much "the obnoxious jerk general" might try to piss him off and insult him, that he would be back for the next one to make sure the other Mikes were treating him alright.

And he was! It took everything he had to not act like a stupid fanboy when he did, though focusing on his trial helped.

Sure, he did skip the fifth trial over something they said in the fourth trial (okay, and a few after that, but since he still had to actually do stuff with the other Rogues and those times weren't after any sort of incident, they weren't as important), but they had made things a little awkward for him by asking for more information about his relationship with Miss Deande (turned out they were in a pretty serious relationship), so Oscar couldn't blame him too much for that. People probably didn't ask him about relationship stuff a lot. This had probably been the first time Mike clones had ever asked him. They were lucky he had answered.

In fact, at first glance, all the interest he showed in Planet Mike's society seemed a little weird. Unless you were Oscar Mike and had gotten a letter with some life advice from him that you absolutely had not freaked out over getting. Then you figured it out after a little bit.

No matter what he said, Whiskey did care about the Mike clones. They were, after all, the closest thing to blood family he had, even if none of them were from the same batch. And like all of them, being alone and not having a connection to anyone bothered him. And since he figured out how to make them without coming across as a tool, in his own way he wanted to help them figure it out. Since the others seemed to be doing fine, though, he didn't need to be direct about it like he did with Oscar.

Which was cool with him. He kinda liked the idea of Whiskey being more of a personal mentor for him.

Oscar had actually expected him to deny it when he told him that. Instead, he'd just given him a look before chuckling and telling him he wouldn't quite call it that after giving him a friendly punch on the arm.

Notes:

I do realize that not every playthrough of that DLC has the same dialogue, so I tried to imply that. My best guess for why is that the rounds are a lot longer than what you play in the simulator, so the parts where different topics are being discussed are divided up and each made into their own subruns, and randomized for which one comes up when the simulation is run.

Next is our favorite robot nanny turned hero.

Comments are appreciated.