A/N: All usual disclaimers still apply, and this is a AU season 2, in which Doc never arrives. However, all the other events will likely occur, so be advised for spoilers. Seriously, go read Never Loyal, it is a great fic and needs some more reviewers/readers.
Private Leonard Church watched in amazement, as the black clad figure opened fire at the red team. The shots blew out the front tires, sending it tumbling end over end, crashing into the side of the base with a tremendous crash. From the wreckage, the red team emerged, and immediately began running for their base, with the maroon solider in the lead, followed up by the rest of the team. Church looked at the black figure, which did nothing, merely watching them flee back to their base.
Tucker's head popped out from the base and he said to Church "who is that guy?" Church only shrugged, and felt a shiver of fear trickle down his spine as the black figure turned, and walked towards him, and as he drew closer, Church could tell that they had gotten another Freelancer, and this one appeared to be more restrained than Tex, which was a good sign he supposed. The Freelancer wore jet-black armor like all the others, but he seemed to walk differently than Tex. Tex had a walk that could be described as arrogant, while this person's could be described as cautious. The figure then spoke, "Hey, you're Church I presume."
Church's face reddened beneath his helmet, and he said" well, it seems that you know my name whereas I don't know yours." He heard a chuckle emerge from the figure who said" remember the conversation we had barely 10 minutes ago? I am Freelancer Vermont, and I am here to avenge the death of my friend, Tex. So, dare I ask what the status of the Blue Army garrison here is?"
Church said" Vermont, with all due respect, if the Reds ever decide to seriously put up a fight, we're screwed. We have Private Caboose, Private Tucker, and me. Caboose and Tucker are useless in a fight, but I am a good shot with the sniper rifle. However, I think someone keeps messing with its sights as I keep missing with it."
Vermont mulled the information over. He knew that the training grounds were supposed to be crewed with the dregs of the military: soldiers who showed promise but lacked discipline, were too high demanding to be of any use in the field or were just plain too stupid to receive any orders except for the most basic. Originally, Command had been planning to turn them away, but then Project FREELANCER had come on line, and they needed test subjects for the Freelancers to test out their equipment. The dregs were planted in a canyon in the middle of nowhere, told they were on two different sides, and left alone for the most part. Occasionally when a Freelancer wanted to relieve some stress, or to test out some new equipment, they came to the canyon. Before then they had been forced to use isolated outposts, which were often better defended than they would have liked.
Vermont himself had nearly been killed when he had attempted to take out his stress on a Red Army outpost, which had just received a shipment of armor piercing ammunition and a couple Hornets that were equipped with COM jammers. The shipment had been sent to the wrong outpost, as they were expecting spare parts for their Warthogs. To say the least, the next few hours had been quite… interesting, as they had chased Vermont all over the ruins of the city the outpost was guarding. He had only been saved when Agent Colorado had arrived and had managed to bushwhack the Hornets with a M19 SAM launcher.
Once they were down, Vermont had summoned the Falchion to his location. Once it had arrived, Vermont had spooled up the AIE-486Hs, and had cut a swath through their ranks. After the attackers were dealt with, he proceeded to the base and placed 7 pounds of C-12(2) high explosive inside the armory. The explosion vaporized the base, and leveled a five-block radius around the base. As He had flown away from the ruins, Vermont vowed that he was never, never doing that again unless he had thoroughly researched the target beforehand.
Vermont asked, "What kind of armaments does the Blue Army have at the base, Church?" Church did a mental checklist in his head and said" we have seven MA5Bs, half a crate of frags, and my sniper rifle. We have enough ammunition, but the big thing we need is parts for the tank."
Vermont nodded and started walking towards the tank wreckage, leaving a staggered Church behind him. Vermont reached the Scorpion tank and gave the wreckage an once-over, sighing as he did so. Apparently, the tank had been nailed with some heavy ordinance, which had ripped through the ceramic-titanium mixture like a knife through hot butter. He saw that the tank had been given some basic repairs, rendering it capable of movement and firing its main gun, but the armor plating had not been replaced, leaving the cockpit open to small arms fire. He inspected the cockpit electronics and found that they had been fried due to an EMP blast. He also noticed a smell that he recognized from his first combat situation: the smell of cooked Freelancer armor and layered underneath the stench of molten armor components, he thought he smelled cooked human flesh. All of a sudden, he noticed a white, translucent figure running towards him, out of the corner of his eye! He tried to react, but was too slow! The figure plowed through him, and he felt a presence engulf his mind. He struggled to move, but he could not. He began to black out, his artificial eyes slowly losing focus.
As he began losing conscious, he heard the other person speak, in a voice that was terrifying yet familiar to him." Buenos Dias, Cockbites. Guess who's back?"(3)
Church watched as the Freelancer inspected the tank. Vermont's attitude was the opposite of Tex's: she was cocky, arrogant and a true bitch. Vermont's was one of laid-back professionalism, confident of his abilities but not so much that he got into trouble. He then noticed the Freelancer was lying on the ground jerking and twitching. It seemed almost like when… like when he had possessed the Red team's commander, and then when he had possessed their robot. Then the figure stood, and said in a loud, clear voice that was distinctly female (4)," Buenos Dias, Cockbites. Guess who's back?" He gasped in shock and said,"" TEX? Is that you?"
(1) This is the Machine Gun turret from Halo 3.
(2) This is their version of C-4 only more powerful. A 4x4 inch cube can bring down a 5-story building so 7lbs would pretty much guarantee that the base was going bye-bye.
(3) Need I really say who the figure is?
(4) I am not sure if in the RVB universe if a person is possessed they speak in the possessor's voice or their host body, so I figure that the possessor's voice makes more sense.