*The familiar Blood Gulch Blues plays as The Booth fades into view. *
"Oi, to anyone who's made it this far: congratulations! Apparently, it's a little hard to follow these. Please, let me know if I need to change anything about my set up for this story and if so, what and how? So far I've had a lot of fun with this, but I know it's a little odd. Personally, that's what makes this particular fic so much fun for me. But I digress," regenegel3 said, interrupting the show before The Booth could come fully into view. "So yeah. If there's something you want changed, like the frequency of the Peanut Gallery interrupting the story or the Peanut Gallery interrupting at all, let me know and I'll change it for future Shows. Thank you and have a nice trip!" *The Booth comes into full view and the author is... crouched behind Doc's chair?*
"Good day folks! I'm Doc..."
"Oi! What happened to the titles?!" Chi asked. Doc shrugged.
"Eh, felt like too much work," he said.
"Oi! Don't go getting all lazy on me Doc!" regenengel3 declared, leaping over the medic with a Author Power assisted jump. The medic shrugged.
"Regenegel3 does not own Red vs Blue and is just doing this for fun. That being said, have fun with this next show called..."
{Show 6: I Do What Now?}
"Today we rejoin the brave soldiers of Project Red and Blue team as they get pestered by their younger selves," Doc finished as the title popped up above him... formed from the purple sparks regenegel3's return leap over the desk left behind. The fact that she vanished before she touched the ground was completely overlooked.
"Seriously, are we not introducing ourselves anymore?" Chi asked. Doc shrugged.
"This is more interesting," he answered honestly. "Now shush! I want to see what stories they're going to traumatize their younger selves with!" The Booth fell silent as the destroyed training ground came into view.
/*/
Thirteen year old Dex frowned, his face twisted into a mask of confusion. "Okay, let me get this straight," he said, then pointed to Flowdie. "He was your," he pointed to Tucker and Church, "Captain, but he apparently died from an... aspirin overdose... before he," The Finger was then directed toward Caboose, "arrived in the canyon."
"Yep," Church said with a nod.
"And she," Dex pointed at Marley, "was a member of a top secret military project dedicated to something not even she knew."
"Correctamundo!" Marley said with a grin, swinging her legs off the surprisingly intact pillar she was sitting on.
"Then, she had visions of the future burned into her brain via dreaming, faked her death, went rogue, and got others out of the project while also blowing up aliens."
"Uh-huh," Marley replied again, bobbing her head.
"And when she heard about Blood Gulch, she came, kidnapped my older self, and dropped him in an active war zone."
"Yep," said Grif, glaring at the all-too-cheerful Marley.
"And that somehow snapped you out of deep depression and apathy, allowing you to actually become a decent soldier? And then she did similar things to the rest of your team?" Dex continued, deciding to ignore the grown-ups antics.
"Yeah, that about sums it up," Rick said with a nod. Dex shook his head at them in amazement.
"I'd ask when I finally go insane, but I think we already covered that," he said, causing the soldiers to crack up.
/*/
Chi nodded while Doc snickered. "Indeed, young Dexter, you go mad the moment you get drafted by Project Freelancer, then kicked down the rabbit hole without a parachute the moment Marley drags you into her ship," he said.
"Oh, good one, Chi! I'll have to remember that," regenegel3 said, scribbling the saying down in her notepad. Which appeared as randomly as she did.
"Happy to help," the A.I. chirped happily, though there was a hint of dark mischief in his voice. Doc just sighed and restarted the show.
"I'm surrounded by crazy," he muttered to himself.
/*/
Once he got himself under control, Rick threw an arm around the young Grif's shoulders. "Kid, if it wasn't clear by now, we're gonna be great friends in the future," he said with a wide grin. Dex wasn't too sure how to respond to that, but the fond smirk on his older face and the softness in his eyes told him it was a good thing.
"Yeah, our friendship is more like brotherhood... but it didn't start out that way," Grif said, causing his teammates to snicker. "Oh you laugh now, but when we first met, Rick hated me was a passion!" the orange clad soldier maintained.
"Yeah, I remember our first week together," Red reminisced.
"Heh, I'm still surprised you believed me when I pined the blame on Rick," Grif said, his best friend shaking his head in rueful amusement.
"You were a right jerk, ya know that?" the man said. Grif shrugged while Red scoffed out a,
"'Were?' Try 'are'!"
"Hey, it's a defense mechanism," Grif defended. "Anyway, I was the lazy idiot who did everything he could to do the least that he could while Rick here was a teacher's pet... for all that he was a wimpy asthmatic with a sever fear of heights."
"Oh, you weren't just lazy, Grif, you were rude and disorganized and... actually, I'm a bit amazed that I didn't notice when you started to actually keep your half of the room semi-neat," Rick said, drifting off slightly to muse on his own willful blindness.
"Eh, I've always been a disrespectful, rude, disorganized jerk. It's why Kai turned out like she did," Grif said with a shrug and a hint of self-loathing. His comrades, except Caboose, winced.
"Grif," Rick began, but Eagle laid a hand on his shoulder.
"I may be the youngest in my family, but even I know... nothing you say can make it even remotely better. Big brother guilt is too strong for anyone but the cause of the guilt to even come close to so much as touching it," the sniper told him. Rick sighed, falling into a slump.
"I know but... he's my twin," he said, his voice just barely above a whisper. Eagle nodded in understanding and looked over at Church.
"A little help here?" he asked. Church gave him the bland look only a mildly psychopathic A.I. in a robot body could.
"I'm a computer program, not a psychologist," he droned. "What do you want from me?" Rick shook his head with a fond smile.
"Let it go, Eagle. It's fine, really," he said.
"See kids? This is exactly what I meant," Eagle said, addressing the kids on their level, pointing toward Rick. Frank and Mike chuckled, but Dex and Richard both pouted and crossed their arms.
"Ya know... I wonder where our younger counterparts are," Flowdie told Marley. She shrugged.
"It's because the universe wouldn't be able to handle that much crazy. You'd break the World Tree and then we'd be stuck trying to fix it, living our lives on an endless re-loop," Church said seriously.
/*/
"Once more, my reference sense tingles," Chi intoned. Doc sighed.
"Stop. Just... stop," he said, leaning his head against the desk. "Regenengel3 seems to really like her references so every time you mention it..." he sighed again, sitting up while shaking his head. "Ya know what? Forget it. I'm past caring at this point," he remarked before returning to the show.
/*/
"Oh, and two of the rest of you aren't going to break the world?" Marley asked, quirking an eyebrow at them.
"Exactly. We were actually sane as teens. Except maybe Red. Looks like he's always been a little cracked," Tucker said.
"Oh really?" Flowdie drawled, quirking an eyebrow.
"Really," the cyan soldier defended, crossing his arms.
"Hey," young Lavernius piped up, staring at his older counterpart, "what happened there?" he asked, poking at a barely noticeable scar on the man's face.
"Oh. I got dope slapped by a Freelancer," Tucker said with a shrug.
"Which one?" Grif asked.
"Washington," Tucker said. "Crazy guy decided he just had to train me and I was... resisting." Church gave a mirthless chuckle.
"Understatement," he said. The teen version of his friend turned curious eyes on the robot, nearly compelling him to tell the story. "You see, it all started with a Civil War that began in Valhalla, spilled out into Sandtrap, got lead by a possessed Mongoose to an Off-Site Storage Facility, then got completely derailed by an obsessed A.I. fragment based off the memory of my dead wife before these idiots crashed a Pelican into the middle of the Freelancer Fight, just about everyone faked their deaths, and to make up for trying to kill us, the ex-Freenacers, who had taken the name of Phantoms and become a third Team, decided to train us all. Now, Marley, Flowdie, Ed, and Jack had already chosen students, though Marley snagged a whole Team, cheating little... Anyway! The former Agent Washington, we call him Dave just to irritate him, decided to take Tucker under his wing. Well, Tucker didn't want to learn how to be a soldier. In his own words he is 'a lover, not a fighter.' Which, I have to tell you, O Dearly Beloved, is Tucker-baka's go-to excuse."
"Tucker-baka?" everyone echoed.
/*/
In The Booth, Chi and Doc echoed it as well, Doc even going so far as to pause the show. "While I agree 'I'm a lover, not a' fill in the blank is Tucker's go-to excuse... baka?" Doc asked.
"It's Japanese for 'idiot' or 'stupid,'" Chi informed him, and those in the audience who didn't know.
"How does that explain why an A.I. based off a Southern Doctor from the U.S. would call his best friend 'baka' rather than idiot," Doc pointed out.
"Confession time. I'm a low level otaku," regenegel3 admitted, appearing in a swirl of leaves.
"Wait... the leaves, the smoke... are you a fan of Naruto?" Chi asked.
"Only the second series. Before the two year time-skip Naruto was just a little bit... too much," regenegel3 said.
"Ah," the A.I. remarked, picking up the remote and starting the show again. As the characters stared at Church in confusion, Chi looked at the remote in nothing less than shock. "Wait... how did I do that?" Regenengel3 was pointedly not smirking and her right hand was certainly not glowing a purple-green that matched Chi's hologram.
/*/
"Yeah, because he's an idiot, now shush," Church declared, waving a hand at them. "Now, Dave isn't one to take no for an answer, especially when it comes to training, so he would follow Tucker around, nagging him. At one point, Dave even went so far as to shoot at the lazy bag of bones."
"Ah~! To hear that directed at someone other than myself~! Rick, I forgive you for laughing at my pain now," Grif said, nodding to his friend who scoffed and shook his head.
"I didn't laugh at your pain... I laughed at Sarge's ignorance," he said. Grif blinked, regarding his friend with great confusion.
"Say what now?"
"Oh yeah, I may have been willfully blind toward you being a Red Agent, but I'm still not as blind as Red," Rick said, waving Grif's confusion aside. "I knew you weren't just a lazy bag of bones when you started doing three year old level chores, even if your side of the room looks like an overworked college student's dorm."
"Hey, I'm telling the story here!" Church cut in, exiting his robot so he could glare at the two Reds properly.
"Ya know... I just realized something," Eagle said, tilted his head to the right.
"Yeah? What?" Church asked, expression going from 'highly annoyed' to 'mildly interested.'
"You introduced yourself as 'Leonard' Church, not Alpha. Why?" That brought everyone up short. The rather realistic looking hologram cupped his chin in thought.
"Huh, you're right. Must have just been close proximity to Epsilon for an extended period of time. He has this annoying habit of transferring memories to me ya know. Course, it helps my All Knowing Big Brother persona, but the carry-overs are a little annoying. I mean, thinking of Allison as my wife is a little, eh. And sometimes, if I'm not careful, I start thinking of Carolina as my daughter. How weird is that, right?" Church said.
"You look more like my uncle than me," the younger Church remarked. The soldiers, and A.I., turned to the teens.
"Huh, looks like we forgot about the minis," Red remarked.
"Hey, you were talking about Kai earlier..." Dex began but Alpha Church the Magnificent Hologram of Awesomeness...
/*/
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" regenegel3 yelled, knotting her fingers in her hair. Doc and Chi turned toward her. She liked to think it was in concern, but it might have been curiosity. Shock? Eh, they were looking at her anyway.
"You okay?" Chi asked.
"NOOOOOOO! ALPHA CHURCH HAS HACKED MY STORY!" the author wailed, hitting her head against the desk. Chi and Doc shared a look.
"O... kay. And why do you say that?" asked Doc, notepad once more in hand.
"There's no other explanation. I would never give him that title. NEVER!" regenegel3 declared heatedly. The other two shrugged and went back to the show.
/*/
… glared at him.
"Oi, can't a guy finish a story anymore?" he asked with dry venom. How venom could be dry, no-one was really sure, but somehow, the A.I. managed it. Dex snapped his mouth shut and help up his hands with an unapologetic smirk. "Thank you. Now, as I was saying before names and annoying habits of my A.I. brothers interrupted us, Dave had gone so far as to shoot at Tucker to motivate him. Our dear, lazy, Tucker didn't take to kindly to that, so he turns around and starts yelling at the former Freelancer. So, Dave goes all still and I could have sworn the temperature dropped a few degrees as he glared at the ranting idiot before he punches Tucker in the face so hard, it knocked his helmet off. That wasn't enough, because Tucker started yelling about that too. Dave growls and slaps the mess out of the fool with his titanium armored hand. 'Shut up and get moving or the next time it's a knife,' Dave snarled at the bleeding idiot. Tucker shut up and got moving."
"That... was the lamest scar story ever. Of all time," Teen!Red remarked. Once more, the soldiers cracked up while Red turned the color of his armor.
"Ho man! And Dave isn't even here!" Eagle sang.
"I know! That's what makes it so gosh darn funny!" gasped Rick.
"Well, I'm glad I can amuse you," Red growled, trying his best to loom over his former subordinates, but seeing as he was at least three inches shorter than Eagle, and a good half foot shorter than Rick, it was a little difficult. It was even more so considering the fact both men had ceased being afraid of him years ago.
"I'm glad you're glad," they said at the same time, carefree grins plastered across their faces. Grif chuckled, slinging his arms around their shoulders.
"I am so proud of you two right now, you don't even know," he said with a down right evil smile on his face. Frank and Richard turned to Dex.
"Oh, hey, don't look at me! I'm the sane version, remember?" the teen said, holding up his hands and backing away.
"Maybe, but you're still acting like you're older than us," Richard said, crossing his arms.
"Me and Rick are practically twins and I've claimed Eagle as my little brother. Tucker's being considered for possible future brother-in-law status, but it's going to take a lot for him to move up past 'imaginary friend,'" Grif said 'helpfully.' Dex blinked.
"The guy who likes to make dirty jokes? You're considering him for a possible candidate to be Kai's husband?! What is wrong with you?!" he ranted, eye's going wild.
"Eh, he's really not that bad... once you threaten him with a fate worse than Blood Gulch in Summer with Officer Hot Pants," Grif took a moment to shudder theatrically, "even if such a thing is hard to imagine."
"Oh? So I actually managed to scar you? Sweet," Eagle grinned wickedly.
"Aw man, I knew the farm would drive me nutso!" Frank wailed, staring at his older self in terror. "I just knew it! NO! I don't want to turn out like Grandpa Jed! Or Great Uncle Ted! NOOOO!"
"You did not turn into Grandpa! Or Crazy Uncle Ted. You got out in time... but you did end up somewhere even crazier than the family farm," Eagle told him.
"Oh, well, in that case... THAT DOESN'T HELP!" Frank bellowed, glaring at his older counterpart.
"Yikes. Never thought I'd be scared of a sleepy place like Iowa, and yet, I find myself filled with dread at the thought of visiting. How odd," Grif drawled, regarding Frank with open curiousity.
"It's people like you that make me wary of visiting Hawaii, I'll have you know," Rick remarked drily.
"And people like Kai that make me want to hit the beaches! Bow chika bow wow," Tucker cut in with a smirk... before he was sent flying from Grif's punch.
"Heh. Grif POUNCH!" Church chuckled, grinning at the spot where his teammate vanished.
"HA! See? It isn't just us that like retro gaming!" Flowdie cheered. Marley glared at the man.
"It's a Church, Flowdie. Forgive me if I am wholly and utterly unsurprised by his nerdom. Especially considering he's an A.I. based off of a mad scientist," she drawled.
"Wait... I go mad?" Leo asked, jade eyes going wide.
"Grief, it changes a man," Flowdie said wisely, nodding his head at the boy.
"Not to mention war, isolation, verbal abuse, university physics, and have a little blue version of yourself talking back to you. Oh! And having your test subjects prank you to Harvest and back," Church added, nodding along. Pretty much everyone blinked at that.
"Okay... what?" Leo asked, a little afraid of what his future held.
"Hey wait... guys... I just realized something," Tucker said, turning to Leo. "We have the thirteen year old Director of Project Freelancer here," he expounded. Everyone above thirteen turned to the now highly uncomfortable Leo.
"Huh. You're right Tucker. Now, what do you propose we do with him?" Grif said. Church's hologram took on a distinctly disturbing smile.
"Oh, I have a few stories saved up and this... this seems like the perfect time to pull them out," he said, a screen popping up behind him, "literally~!" he finished with a purr. Shivers run down the others' backs.
"That... was one of the most terrifying sounds... I have ever heard," Teen!Tucker said.
"I've heard worse," Teen!Sarge and Dex said in unison.
"Don't care~!" Alpha sang, his hologram devolving into a blue armored SPARTAN as he rubbed his hands together with a cackle. "Let the show begin~!"
/*/
"For the sake of our reader's sanity," Doc began.
"And because something tells me regenegel3 doesn't, in fact, know embarrassing and/or traumatizing stories from the Director's past," Chi added.
"We are not going to show what, exactly, Alpha Church showed the thirteen year old version of Leonard Church. On behalf of regenegel3, who is busy smashing her head against a wall trying to come up with a way to make the Civil War spill out into Sandtrap so that the Mongoose can get possessed to lead to the off-site storage facility, I ask that you use your amazing imaginations to come up with what poor Leo might be witnessing."
/*/
"I'm never going to look at kumquats the same way ever again," Leo muttered, eyes wide, while everyone above thirteen died!
"Oh oh! I've got something!" Grif said, grinning. "True, it's not as good as yours," he added, nodding to Alpha Church.
"Dude, I don't think any of us could top that!" Rick said, also grinning.
"True, true... but it is gonna traumatize the minis!" Grif said.
"Tell on my good man, tell on," Eagle waved.
"Gladly," Grif grinned. "Now, see, it takes a lot to scar a normal SPARTAN... and yes, I do realize what an absolute fallacy that statement is, now hush... but for a guy like me? It's only marginally easier. This heavy armor isn't just for show ya know? But, that said, I have my fair share of scars and as everyone knows, each scar tells a story."
"I thought we did this bit already?" Tucker asked, looking a little uneasy. Grif's grin certainly didn't help.
"Oh, we did... but I only mentioned my tamer scars!" the weapons master said, causing the swordsman to pale considerably. "And that's not to mention the scars I've accumulated since then!" Grif found Tucker's whimpers quite amusing. "Now, the one on my chest... it's pretty epic. I'd show you if I could but... this armor's a pain to take off so you'll just have to take my word for it." The other soldiers chuckled.
"Kids, Grif is prone to exaggeration, but this armor really is a pain to remove so... yeah. Besides, I think I know the one he's talking about, so I can vouch," Marley said. Grif smirked.
"Nice to know you care, Marley," he quipped, causing her to shrug.
"Just get on with the carnage, Agent," she told him, waving dismissively at the man.
"Yes ma'am, Agent Black," he answered with a salute that managed to be both cheeky and sincere. "So, there was a unit of UNSC troops holed up in a cave, pinned own by a bunch of insurrectionists. Marley caught their SOS and decide to crash the party. Of course, she wasn't stupid enough to crash it by herself, so she came and got me. Of course, this is us I'm talking about, so as soon as we reach the area things start going wrong. I fall out of the Pelican, Marley gets shoot off course, and I land on a Gravity Hammer. Now, normally this wouldn't be too big of a deal, but as soon as I rolled off of the Gravity Hammer, a grenade got shot not even three feet above me! The blast, combined with the fall, nearly did me in, but I knew Marley was counting on me for back up, so I grabbed a gun and started shooting, aiming for the joints. Insurrectionist armor isn't as good as SPARTAN, so I destroyed a good number of joints and took several enemy soldiers down."
"Oh, so that's when you got practice hitting the joints. I had wondered," Rick remarked.
"Why?" Dex asked.
"Oh, because when we were reassigned to Rat's Nest, Sargent Dexter over here had a thing about going for the knees. Especially the kneecaps," Rick answered. Grif scoffed.
"And who was known as the Elbow Destroyer, hum?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow at his teammate. Rick chuckled, mildly self-conscious. Richard gaped at his older self.
"You... what?!" he squeaked. The Blues were curious as well.
"Yeah, say what?" Tucker asked. "I thought you were the nice one." Eagle laughed.
"Rick? Nice? Heh, most of the time, yeah, but when it comes to a fight? Dude's vicious," he said.
"What about you?" Frank asked. Eagle smirked.
"Well, I'm a sniper. What do you think?" he asked. Frank swallowed heavily and inched away from his older self.
"Ah relax! He's only vicious when he needs to be. Though... he does have a habit of messing with your head. Oh! And if he ever goes monosyllabic on you... hide. In a cave. Behind a rock," Rick said with a grin.
"Okay, we've heard from Rick, Grif, Alpha on behalf of Leo, and about Eagle. What about me?" Teen!Tucker asked. The Reds grinned evilly and Alpha chuckled darkly.
"You... get impregnated by an Elite while you were stupidly sleeping in the same area and gave birth ah la Alien. And don't worry, you'll learn what an Elite is later," Marley said. Flowdie shook his head.
"Congratulations, you broke Tucker before he even had the chance to live," he said.
"Meh, no great loss," Alpha remarked... then got Whacked by Eagle's A.I. Whacking ThingTM courtesy of Adult!Tucker.
"Idiot," the soldier remarked, tossing the Eagle's A.I. Whacking ThingTM back to the grinning sniper.
"Sure you don't want to keep it?" said grinning sniper asked. Tucker shrugged.
"Eh, I might. Or you could just throw it at his head the next time he says something stupid," he said. Eagle nodded.
"I can do that," he said, tucking his A.I. Whacking ThingTM into his personal Hammer Space(Marley had finally decided that was where everything went. Even if she wasn't too sure how it worked... Even if she used it herself.)
/*/
"A~nd that's as good a stopping place as any," Doc declared. Chi snapped his head to his host.
"Really?" he asked.
"Yep. I really don't want to listen to a Caboose!Story or a Red!Story and they're about the only ones left," Doc said with a nod.
"Ah. Got cha. Well! I'm Chi 'the Sarcastic One' Church."
"And I'm Doc the Medic."
"And this is the Project Red Spin-Off Show, signing off!"
/
/
/
"Aw man! I missed the outro! Oh well. Review and let me know what scenes in the life of Dr. Church you think Alpha showed the teen version!"