[Author's note: Eeew. Long wait. Sorry, guys. Slow. Editing takes time and all that crap. Hopefully I'll have Chapter 4 written soon.

Chapter III
Training in Armor

Corey woke up slowly. It started out as groggy, incoherent thoughts that soon formed into open eyes and actual ideas. The room was dark, Corey first realized. Really dark. The sun probably hadn't even risen yet so Corey's eyes drooped as he fell back asleep. Soon the events of the night before flooded back into his brain, but like most groggy people he disregarded it as a dream.

What a dream it was though! He dreamt he was in Red vs Blue, and it was such a vivid and realistic vision! He got shot at by Sarge and said hi to Donut! There was even a musical number!

Wait, no that was a different dream. That was the one with the clowns wearing sausage vests, but back to the Red vs Blue dream! It was so amazing! Corey couldn't help but muster up a smile in his half-awake state.

The only abnormal thing about this dream was that nothing odd happened. Usually in dreams the beginning is spectacular but then something pointless happens like the appearance of famous pop stars or the mysterious disappearance of clothing. Then as the grogginess wore off Corey pondered that maybe it wasn't a dream after all.

The teenager's eyes fluttered open as that realization came over him. It wasn't a dream at all! Corey's eyes adjusted to the darkness, and despite his previous glee at the thought of being in a machinima he was praying to see his room around him. Instead he saw a pair of blue eyes staring down at him.

"Oh shit!" Corey shouted, thrusting his arm up to smack the eyes with a sudden spike of adrenaline.

"Aahh!" Donut shouted in alarm at the sudden smack in the face. Corey shot upward sitting up in the messy tangle of sheets.

"Oh," Corey mumbled, rubbing his eye with the ball of his hand as the adrenaline wore off. "Sorry, Donut."

"N'yeah…" Donut groaned, touching the side of his face tenderly with his fingers, "No problem, Shorty. It happens."

Corey paused for a minute. That's right, the people here called him Shorty. He didn't know why but he supposed Shorty was just what he was going to have to roll with. He stood up, shooting a sheepish glance at Donut as he did so. Donut gave an understanding grin and left the room.

: - - - :

"Where are they?" growled Sarge, checking his wrist for a watch that wasn't really there. "Hurr."

Sarge moaned impatiently. He and Simmons were sitting at the table in the kitchen already in full armor minus their helmets, listening aimlessly to the clock ticking away on the wall. The room was filled with the normal dusty scent of the base, hiding just a small whiff of sweat, which was mostly masked by the fruity perfumes that usually drifted from Donut's room.

"I think they're still asleep, sir!" Simmons offered.

"Excellent surveillance, Simmons."

"Thank you, sir,"

Simmons and Sarge remained in silence as Sarge continued his frustrated moaning. It was five am! Nearly six! The soldiers should be up and moving, not lazing about! It was during the silent rage of Sarge's that Donut and Shorty came wandering into the rec room. Donut passed into the kitchen, the bounce in his step just bordering on feminine, contrasting greatly with Shorty's shy shuffle.

"Good morning!" Donut mused to his fellow Red soldiers, none of whom answered. Shorty mustered a small wave to the other two. The young teenager stood by the doorway, hands folded behind him, back to the wall, keeping his gaze fixated on Sarge just in case the Sergeant might pull out a gun and start shooting again.

"Men!" Sarge announced, but soon paused, looking about. "Where's Grif?"

"Who cares, sir?" Simmons suggested hopefully.

"Hrm. Right!" Sarge agreed, nodding to Simmons and then turning his head to the other soldiers. "Go get in yer armor! We have things we need to do!"

"Yes sir!" Donut said, prancing back down the hall to change. There was a short silence where Sarge simply stared at Shorty, waiting for him to leave. Shorty waited trying to avoid eye contact but Sarge continued to stare sharply at the younger soldier, ignoring his cringing.

"Um…" Shorty said, shifting uncomfortably and resisting the urge to leap up and scurry away like a frightened rodent."I don't have any armor."

Sarge stared at the newest addition to the Red team and grunted. He called out for Donut who appeared next toShorty in full armor with his helmet tucked under his arm. "Go get Shorty here some armor," Sarge commanded.

"'Kay, sir." Donut said, motioning for Shorty who was quick to get out of the same room as Sarge.

"Amagad," Shorty said, a strange quick way of saying 'oh my god,' it was something he often said when surprised, "That Sarge guy is freaking creepy!"

"He can be sometimes," Donut said, grinning nonchalantly. He led Shorty, still walking with a spring in his step and a bounce in his britches to a small, out of the way room the younger one hadn't noticed before, mostly because it was a closet inside the bathroom. It was a large walk-in closet full of random boxes.

"This is our storage," Donut explained, "It used to be Lopez's hang out but he came back to us as a dismembered head so he didn't need it anymore. Sarge got him a new body a few weeks ago from old Warthog parts and other things that we found around the base, but he still prefers using the kitchen as his room. Go figure. He probably eats all the food when we're asleep or something!"

Shorty pondered the fact that robots don't actually eat as Donut scanned the boxes and pulled one down that said 'Donut!' with a hearts and flowers colored on its surface. Donut grinned at his decorated box and dragged it into his room, Shorty in pursuit.

"This was my old armor," Donut said, opening the box, "Before command gave me this lightish red armor."

"Isn't it pink?" Shorty asked looking at the armor.

"It's not pink," Donut said impatiently as if he had to explain this millions of times before. "It's lightish red."

"Okay then," Shorty responded deciding to let the conversation drop. He instead looked down to his new armor, it was once as red as Sarge's armor but by now it had faded to a color that was not unlike Donut's, except maybe a little more pale in color with a few more scuffs and dings from age.

"So, would this be pink?" Shorty asked skeptically, picking up a bracer and sliding his arm into it, eyeing it suspiciously, and then comparing it to Donut's armor.

"No!" Donut said unconvincingly, "It's really more of a pale, um, salmon color. Yeah, salmon!"

"Salmon," Shorty responded awkwardly, "Alright. Well, I'll change into it then to see how it fits."

Shorty stood up and picked up the black under-armor shirt, tossing it onto Donut's bed. He was about to take his shirt off when he realized that there was still someone present in the room. He looked over to Donut who was still on the floor.

"Um, alone," added Shorty.

"Oh! Right," he said, standing up and quickly shutting the door behind him. Shorty let out a sigh of relief and began to change into the armor. He had never liked full-body suits, preferring shirts and pants. He grimaced, shrugging into the black matte. It was soft but just a little stiff from lack of use.

Nothing that a little breaking in won't fix, he decided, moving on to the standard armor. It was weird. It kind of clung to the matte with airlock things. He clicked it and it sucked onto the black suit. It wasn't uncomfortable, just a little heavy. Soon he was completely decked out in the… salmon armor. Shorty swept back his hair and tried to adjust his helmet.

"You can come in now," Shorty called.

"Hey!" Donut said as he popped in, "You got it on! Awesome."

"Yeah, how do you get this helmet to work? My hair keeps getting in the way,"

Donut 'hmmm'-ed and walked over to his dresser. "I have just the thing!" he said, pulling out a bejeweled barrette.

"Umm," Shorty drawled, looking at the painfully feminine item Donut offered to him.

Donut used his own hand to push Shorty's hair up, and clipped the barrette to the teenager's head to hold his hair back. "There we go!"

Shorty reached up awkwardly and felt the thing stuck in his blond locks. He'd never worn a hair accessory in his life, especially not those coming from the guy wearing pink armor. He decided to ignore the thought and slipped his helmet on. "Oh, that works." He admitted.

"Yep!" Donut said proudly, "I have a large set of them in my dresser that I like using. Great help, huh?"

"Yeah," Shorty looked around through the visor in his helmet. He could see a compass in it and a few other stat type things that he didn't understand. There was a radio too that spoke right into his ear which caused him to jump in surprise.

"Dirtbags!" the voice called. "Hurry up and get in the kitchen already!"

"Oh. Yes, sir," Shorty mumbled into the radio. He then looked to Donut, "Sarge wants us."

The two went into the kitchen when Grif finally appeared wearing his orange armor. Sarge and Simmons looked up from their plotting as Donut and Shorty came into the room.

"Wow," Grif sneered, "Another pink-armored solder. Great, you two could be twins."

"It's not pink!" Donut and Shorty both insisted in unison. They glanced at each other awkwardly as Grif gave a just slightly triumphant smirk. Shorty continued, "It's, really more of… salmon, really."

"Right, salmon." Grif said, the smirk still plastered, "Just another shade of pink."

"Well, it's not like—" Shorty started.

"Alright!" Sarge interrupted, "We have things we need to do, men. We need to prepare for the impending attack of the Blues!"

"Impending attack? What impending attack? They've been locked in their base for the past few weeks," Grif replied, "Not that I mind."

"They're Blues! They're only in there plotting their impending attack that will catch us off guard! They're sneaky devils,"

"Of course they are, sir!" Simmons added helpfully.

"So, I've devised us a training course!" Sarge said, "Come on! You men have got training to do."

"Training?" asked Shorty unhappily, "What sort of training?"

Sarge ignored him and left the base, followed closely by Simmons and Donut. Shorty followed, with Grif behind him, he went to the top of the base.

: - - - :

The training course Sarge had devised was an interesting one. It wrapped around the base once and had multiple obstacles from crudely crafted stick-targets and holes in the ground. Lopez was even sitting in the gunner position of the Warthog, ready and waiting. Shorty stared out at this and couldn't help but let out a frightened whimper.

"Incredible, isn't it?!" Sarge crowed proudly as the soldiers gathered at the end of the base's ramp to the ground, "It starts with a few holes yeh need to jump over with some Blue soldier models yeh need to shoot down in order to pass. Then yeh pass some large rocks where yeh have to dodge a million bullets from Lopez, who will be actin' as a Blue soldier. Last you have to dodge rocks and Lopez runnin' through with a pistol an' yeh have to dodge him and shoot him down—without damagin' him of course."

"How do we not damage him if we have to shoot him?" Shorty asked.

"Don't ask questions!" Sarge snapped, "Now, get ready, Simmons! You're up!"

Simmons glared slightly before stepping up to the starting line. He sighed and looked at the course, the nervous sweat beginning to bead on his brow. Shorty watched with a strange mixture of horror and sympathetic pain as Simmons ran forward, jumping over the pot-holes and scrambling over the random metallic hunks that Sarge had somehow acquired and placed on the obstacle course. Simmons grunted angrily as he tripped and fell forward, face into the dirt.

"Come on, Simmons!" Sarge urged his favorite soldier on.

Simmons grunted in determination as he jumped from his position and fired his gun several shots, taking out a makeshift Blue soldier. He needed to look better than the others, and he knew he would. Grif was lazy and would just walk through the course, Shorty was a newbie and would probably get shot, and Donut, well, he would probably try to tell the obstacles a joke so they would move out of the way. Simmons was different! He was better and he was going to prove it to Sarge!

Jumping forward to avoid Lopez's bullets, Simmons ducked behind a large rock. He closed his eyes and thinking for a moment as the rock vibrated under the constant barrage of bullets on the other side. His eyes flashed open and dived forward, hitting the side of the base, side stepping behind rock after rock until finally he made it to the finish line and he stood, panting and grinning broadly from behind his helmet.

"Good job Simmons!" Sarge cried.

"Thank you… sir!" Simmons panted, waving over to the other soldiers.

"Alright Shorty," Sarge said, turning to the newest soldier.

"W-What?" Shorty stammered. The young teenager was white as a sheet with fear, and after seeing what Simmons had gone through, he was afraid he would get shot. "I can't do that! I mean, I can't run and dodge bullets, I'll get shot! What if I die or I trip and hit my head, and what if I—"

"GO!" Sarge shouted and pushed Shorty forward. He didn't have much of a choice afterwards then to keep running. Clumsily putting on his helmet, Shorty ran forward at full speed, leaping awkwardly over the holes in the ground. They were hard to see through the visor, and though he was only halfway through the course he was determined to get in and out as quick as he could.

Shorty stopped short when he finally reached a rock he could hide behind. His chest was heaving up and down from the physical exertion and though it wasn't much, his adrenaline was pumping! He could vaguely hear voices beyond the ear-splitting sound of bullets striking stone.

"Shit," he breathed quickly, looking down to the next rock. It was only about ten feet, he could make it! He could make it. Turning to face it, Shorty got down on one knee to get a better kick off to run through the bullets that Lopez would soon shoot toward him.

Breathing harder still, Shorty prepared himself for the run. Without thinking too much about it, Shorty ran forward. It started as a full sprint, and he could feel the bullets hit the sand and shoot up the soil around him.

Closer and closer, the boulder was nearly within his reach and he could leap for it. Things seemed to slow to a crawl as the bullets and the sound faded from Shorty's head as he focused on his goal. He hurtled through the air, gliding parallel to the ground for a split second but a split second was all that was needed to halt his momentum.

Just as his outstretched arms and head had made their way behind the boulder, a rough, sharp pain stabbed through his pelvis and rocked down his legs. A stray bullet had made its way to his thigh and the force of the blow thrust his legs backward, in turn causing his torso to fly forward, his head painfully slamming into the boulder.

Everything blurred as he rolled across the dirt like a broken doll but he never felt a thing. His vision swirled as he vaguely felt the throbbing in his side. Blinking slightly, Shorty slowly closed his eyes and slipped out of consciousness.