Church's Crusade #21: Brother, My Brother
And now it was morning. Church had lined up Blue team and his renegade squad and was giving them a pep-talk. Well more of a brief than a pep-talk. The simple fact of the matter is that none of them were feeling particularly peppy.
"Okay,' said Church, 'So one of the enemy forces is in the middle of the canyon, pretty much where we want them already. That's the force that me and my little bunch of rebels here used to belong to. And the other force is camped at the old Red base. You all with me so far?"
There was a general murmur of agreement.
"Right, so just for the purposes of this briefing, we will call the team at the Red base the grey team and the team in the middle of the canyon the brown team."
"Hey!"
"Oh, right. Sorry Anna, I keep forgetting you wear brown armour. Okay let's call it the yellow team."
"Hey!"
"Oh yea. Sorry Sister. How about the maroon team?"
Church's radio crackled to life and Simmons' voice replied, "No we can't use that."
"What? Simmons? How did you get on this channel?"
"Oh that doesn't matter. The point is we need a different colour."
"Okay then how about…"
One hour later…
Church looked around the group, then spoke very slowly and carefully, "Okay, so we're agreed? The team in the middle of the canyon will be known as the slightly-indigo-with-a-touch-of-violety-mauve team. Is that okay with every one?"
"I still think we should use my idea,' said Donut's voice over the radio, 'after all it is the new-"
"NO!" yelled ten voices all at once.
"I must have spent too much time in this canyon,' said Rourke, 'That conversation actually made sense to me."
"Hey where's Doc," asked Paul.
"He didn't like the idea of all the killing that's going to happen soon,' said Tucker, 'So I tied him up out back."
"Good call."
"So anyway,' said Church, looking slightly annoyed at the interruptions, 'What we gotta do is lure the grey team over to attack the rear of the slightly-indigo-with-a-touch-of-violety-mauve team. Then Sarge can detonate the explosives and bring the ground down underneath them. What do you think?"
"It sounds okay,' said Anna, 'How are we going to persuade the greys to attack."
"Leave that to me. You just have to make sure they don't leave the target zone."
"Well what are we waiting for,' asked Sister, 'Lets get out there…"
Commander Arkturo was organising the patrols for the next week, when the sentry opened his office door within the small Red bannered fort. Arkturo looked up, "Yes?"
The sentry looked uncomfortable, "Sir we have a… well I guess the correct term would be prisoner. He just doesn't seem to want to act like one. Anyway he said he wants to talk with whoever is in charge."
Arkturo sighed and walked out from behind his desk, "Well I suppose I'd better see him." He looked back at his desk and smiled ruefully, "One day I'll actually manage to finish my work in one sitting, and then the world will end." He then turned around and followed the sentry through the camp.
They found their visitor with a large crowd of off duty soldiers watching. He was taller than most of the people nearby, wore cobalt armour with a large number 50 emblazoned on the back and wore what appeared to be a sabre at his waist. He was talking with one of the soldiers.
"…you don't hold it like that. See, if your holding your rifle like that, then I can reach out and grab your rifle here and twist it like this and smash it into your gut like this and you'll fall over like that." Church looked up from the man gasping on the ground at the crowd watching him, "Any questions?"
"No, Mister Church,' they chorused.
"So what will you do?"
"What you have told us to do Mister Church."
"And what will you not do?"
"Listen to our original training Mister Church."
"And why will you not listen to your training?"
"Because we do not want to be the sort of idiots who get shot every time we turn around Mister Church."
"And what sort of idiots do you want to be?"
"The sort that lives Mister Church."
"That's right. Now take fifteen and if I'm still here when you're done we'll run over some more exercises."
Arkturo watched this with no small amount of amusement, and when Church turned around, went over to greet him.
"Hello, I'm Commander Arkturo. And from what I hear, you're name is Church. What can I do for you and why were you undoing the training of my men?"
"Well on the subject of your men, I happen to believe that their training was wanting in certain areas. I took steps to correct that. As for what you can do for me, I have a proposition that could cause some trouble for a certain Commander Rieke and his boys. Are you interested?"
Arkturo grinned, "Oh yes. Tell me more…"
Church was skirting the edge of the base in the middle of the canyon when his sensors picked up movement. He spun quickly, his hand dropping to his pistol and looked around. He saw something slip behind some rocks. Whatever it was, it was moving faster than any normal human could. He sensed movement behind him and spun to see something jump high into a tree. There had to be more than one. Nothing could move that fast. More movement drew his attention and he kept turning, trying to catch some glimpse of whatever it was that was stalking him. He had backed up to the tree when he heard the sound of something landing behind him. He had forgotten about the one in the tree! Even as he turned he felt something jab him in the side, felt the pulse of energy stripping the power from his limbs, saw the blackness welling up to surround him…
When Church came to, he was in a circle of brown uniformed men, all with their guns trained on him. His hands flew to his weapons, only to find that someone had removed them while he was out. Someone nearby started to laugh and Church turned to see his former commander, one Gunthar Rieke watching him.
"Well, well, well,' he drawled, 'Look at what my new toys brought in."
Church pulled himself to his feet and looked at Rieke, "What do you want Rieke? And what have you done with my weapons?"
"Oh you'll get those back soon enough,' said Rieke calmly, 'No you don't have to worry about that."
"Well then give them to me and I will be on my way."
"Oh I'm afraid that won't work. You see you're an essential component in a test of sorts that I wish to undertake."
Rieke gestured over his shoulder and four figures stepped forward. Church stared at them. They were wearing almost the exact same armour he was wearing, the only difference being that theirs was brown in colour with what appeared to be four black claw marks painted on the sides of their helmets and on their right shoulders.
"After my men examined you while we were repairing you, you didn't really believe you were the only mechanized soldier in my forces did you?' Rieke looked at the four figures standing either side of him and smiled, 'These are the Devastators Church, and I guess you are their big brother…"
The characters Church, Caboose, Tucker, Simmons, Sarge, Grif, Sister, Donut and Doc are owned by Rooster Teeth Productions.