A/N: Hello all and welcome to chapter 21! Didn't mean to leave this for so long but I got held up with work, sickness, and playing MCC. If any of you guys want to ever get a few games in with me, don't hesitate to add me on Xbox! My gamertag is in my bio

Paradox Effect

Summary: Dying sucked. Dying and being killed by the same teammate again? That sucked even more. Dying and being thrown back into Blood Gulch as a girl? That REALLY sucked. Now, Leona Church will have to put up with Tucker's perverted looks, Caboose's stupidity, and worst of all, Tex's laughter…

*Chapter 21*

York looked at Simmons, trying to get the simulation trooper to work a little bit faster than he was at the moment. "Simmons, how long until you can get Sarge and Caboose here?"

"I need time!" Simmons protested.

"We don't have time. In case you didn't hear, there is a bounty on our heads," York snapped.

"I don't work well under pressure!" Simmons's hands started to shake and he dropped a wire. "Fuck! Give me a minute, will you? Besides, isn't it just you who has the bounty on them?"

York had to give him that one.

"Okay, fair enough," he conceded. He peered at the teleporter systems and had to admit it was impressive seeing one of the simulation troopers was not a complete moron. No, he was just a kiss ass who was too much of a coward at times. That could be fixed.

Hey, if he could turn Agent Washington into one of the top ten agents in Project Freelancer, he could turn Simmons into a proper soldier. At least Simmons didn't have a locker full of cat pictures and a rubber duck. York still didn't understand how the hell Wash ended up with Massa.

"Got it!" Simmons pumped his fist into the air triumphantly. "We can now make visual and radio contact. All that we need now is for them to walk into a teleporter and they can get in here."

"Nice work." York slapped a hand on his shoulder. "Lemme see what outpost they ended up at." York peered through the teleporter and saw Caboose and Sarge fighting off horde after horde of simulation troopers in a woodland creek, both of them spotting some minor injuries. "Sarge, can you hear me?" 'Beaver Creek? Interesting. Didn't think Freelancer had anyone stationed there.'

"Simmons? Is that you?" Sarge ducked under a swing from the butt of someone's rifle and shot him in the face with his shotgun. "Haha! Take that, you dirty rotten Blue! You just got Sarge'd!"

"No, this is Agent York. We're communicating via the teleporter systems," York answered. "We've rigged them so you can get out of there. Looks like we all ended up in different places."

"Copy that. Kind of getting tired of shooting these morons. Also running out of ammo," Sarge replied with a grunt. "Hey, Blue-tard! Get over here!"

"Your toast is burnt! And no amount of scrapping will remove the black stuff! I shall eat your unhappiness!" Caboose roared from somewhere out of York's visual. Nice to see he had become insane instead of completely braindead. It was a pleasant change and York's headache eased somewhat, for reasons he didn't know.

All he knew was that the Director was an asshole for sending him out to Blood Gulch in the first place and that Leona and Tex really needed to get out of his more recent dreams. 'No, bad brain. Stop. Do not think about that, for god's sake.'

"Agent York, your pulse is elevated. And that is a very inappropriate image to be thinking about in our current situation," Delta reprimanded.

'No fucking shit,' York thought back dryly, ignoring the slight burning of his implant. 'And cut that shit out, will you?'

He didn't get a smartass reply back and he almost wished he did. It was preferable to total silence.

"YEEHAW!" Sarge yelled as he came in through the teleporter, landing on one knee with his shotgun at the ready. "WHO'S READY TO HAVE A TASTE OF MY RED JUSTICE!?"

Never mind, he took it back. York liked it better when it was nice and quiet.

"Sarge," he said evenly as the trigger happy old man got to his feet. "Where's Caboose?"

A large blue shape fell through the teleporter and crashed into the floor with a loud thud.

"Never mind…" York groaned and hefted Caboose up. Holy shit the guy weighed a ton. If York didn't know any better, he'd have said that Caboose was augmented or something. How else could he be so heavy?

Caboose shook his head, looking around in confusion. "Where are we? Why am I still wet? Hang on a minute…is this a game?"

"No, you big blue baby," Sarge said with a growl. "We're in a maze of tele-whatsits with no way of knowing if Grif is alive. Oh well. Best to leave him behind. He'll be forgotten immediately."

York rolled his eyes and glared (though with him wearing a helmet it didn't have as much of an affect as he would have liked) at the sergeant. "Do remember that Grif is also with both Leona and Alpha. I'm not leaving them behind if I can help it."

"You know, you seem to be close with a lot of women with short tempers," Sarge remarked gruffly. "You have a fetish or something?"

"I guess so." York shrugged and glanced at Simmons. "Hey, how long until you can lock onto Leona and Grif's location?"

"Give me five minutes," Simmons reported. "Should take no time at all."

York sighed and looked around. Caboose seemed to still be somewhat concussed and Sarge was bitching about having to work with a 'no good dirty rotten Blue'.

"I seriously hope Leona has it better than this…"

"Ugh, this is fucking bullshit!" Leona kicked the cell doors angrily, glaring at the spot Wyoming disappeared to. "Why does the universe just seem to fucking hate me so goddamned much!?"

"Because all you do is bitch and moan like you're permanently on your period," Grif shot back. "Man, I wish we had some blankets or pillow cases."

"You don't honestly think that's going to help us escape, do you? That shit only works in the movies, and terrible ones at that."

"Who said anything about escaping? I want to use them to make a bed. If I'm gonna die here, I want to do it in my sleep."

Leona growled in annoyance and she looked at Alpha. "Can't you do something to get us out of here? I mean, why the hell else are you here?"

"Because you dragged me out of my nice sleep against my will?" Church suggested dryly. "Yeah, I'll fucking do something alright, you rotten bitch."

"Dude, don't tell me you're still pissed off about me and Tex."

"Eh, I don't give a fuck. She was a total bitch. I see you also inherited it."

"Asshole," Leona muttered, rolling her eyes. "Then what are you going to do? Scare me?"

"Sure. Boo, motherfucker." Church sighed. The doors to the cell then opened and Leona looked back at the hologram.

"…did you do that?" she asked.

"The fuck do I look like, the doorman?" Church growled. "No I didn't fucking do it. Someone else must have done it from the outside."

Leona heard shotgun blasts and screams of agony, and she could only sigh. "I think I know who did it…" 'Real fucking subtle, York.'

Still, it was better than being trapped in a cell all damn day.

A/N: And that's it. Hope you enjoyed, and I shall see you again soon. Also, totally hit me up on Xbox if you want to play MCC with me!

A Lovestruck A2#5371