A/N: Hello and welcome to chapter 23! Last off we had Leona, Grif and Alpha reunite with three of our favorite idiots and York. Now? Well…cut to Blood Gulch and Tex losing what's left of her sanity.

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 23*

Tex looked at the heavy bandages covering most of her upper body and groaned. They were stiff and didn't allow her to move freely like she was used to doing. If anything, she was more annoyed that she allowed herself to get her ass kicked by an idiot with multiple personality disorder than anything. She was the best damn agent in Project Freelancer; how the hell did a fucking pacifist medic manage to beat her like it was nothing?

Oh right. He had a fucking rocket launcher. Cowardly little shitstain. Tex would kill him slowly and painfully, just like she did to that kid Jimmy back on Sidewinder. She'd rip out Doc's skull and beat him to death with it. She was old fashioned like that.

The blonde Freelancer had murder in her heart. She had heard the phrase was technically, 'boner for murder' but in her case it was kind of inapplicable. Despite what Tucker said she did not have a dick. Leona would know that first hand.

Speaking of Tucker she had originally came outside to see if he had bled to death yet. Hearing him moan and cry in pain for four hours was pretty goddamn annoying. "Hey, Pinky! Is that asshole dead yet!?"

"It's not pink, it's lightish red!" the soldier protested.

"Just answer the fucking question." Tex rolled her eyes. She was feeling York's pain already. Poor bastard was alone with most of the Reds and Blues and probably losing some of his sanity in the process. At least he had Leona with him.

Wait a minute…no, he wouldn't do that. She was definitely not feeling somewhat jealous. Nope. Negative. No way.

"He's fine," the pink soldier said. "But he wants me to kill him for some reason. Says to finish what had been started."

"Too bad." Tex snorted and folded her arms, feeling somewhat exposed without her armor covering her body. "Tell him he can't die until Leona says so."

She glanced over at their smart tank, noticing the main gun was pointed at her. "…Sheila, please refrain from pointing that at me. I'm pretty sure I only have one life."

"I was only going to ask you a question," Sheila complained. "Do you ever feel as though…the men stare at you?"

"Yeah, all the fucking time." Tex snorted in laughter. "Welcome to the life of a woman in the military. Everyone stares at you and either wants to try and beat you or have sex with you. Sometimes both, depending. I don't exactly have treads or a ninety millimeter cannon like you do, but I have other things that catch their attention."

"Oh? And what are they?" Sheila asked curiously.

"…they're called tits," Tex deadpanned. "How the hell did you not know even that!?"

"I do not know. Perhaps it was an oversight in my design to include that information in my databanks," Sheila answered. "After all, my contractor made the lowest bid."

"Gee, I wonder why."

"I too often wonder why they refrained from adding necessary information to me."

"That was sarcastic…" Tex rolled her eyes and walked back inside to grab a sniper rifle to do some scouting. If she was stuck here, at least she could be somewhat productive while she waited for her girlfriend to turn back up. 'Fuck me this sucks. I hate waiting.'

Almost as much as she hated Tucker. She was the only one who got to feel Leona's ass, not him. Asshole.

She found one of the long range weapons in the base's armory alongside a few standard assault rifles and pistols. The blonde initially grabbed two handfuls of magazines, only to put most of them back and only take five. If she needed that much ammunition on a mere scouting run, she was probably dead anyway.

"Hey, Sheila! I'm heading up to the cliffs to scout a bit! Come find me if everyone gets back here before I do!" she yelled at the tank, rifle slung over her shoulder.

The tank fired a shot at Tucker in response.

"Missed." Good enough.

The blonde Freelancer glanced once over her shoulder and trekked along the canyon wall until she reached the weather beaten path to the cliffs. Once there, she took cover behind a rock jutting out and drew her rifle. She didn't think she'd spot any trouble but it never hurt to be prepared. Especially if what she had heard from her source inside of Freelancer Command was true.

According to the latest intel, the Director hadn't taken York's desertion too kindly and put a 'KOS' mark on him for negligence of duty. The person hunting York was none other than Agent Wyoming, another Freelancer. And, in Tex's mind, the most annoying out of them all. Yes, even including that bitch South Dakota. Vulture.

Tex looked through her rifle's scope and clicked on the black button on the side, making everything zoom in thanks to the weapon's 5x scope. It could be dialed all the way up to 10x if needed, but if the target was that far away, she wasn't sure she'd be hitting it. She wasn't a master with the damn thing like the project's sharpshooters.

Just holding the SRS99 made her think back to one of the times she walked in on Wyoming, North Dakota, and Massachusetts all having a pissing contest as to find out who was truly the best sniper. It was funny to watch; York and Washington were cheering them on with buckets of popcorn in their laps while Maine just stared silently like he always did. Florida…well the upbeat old fuck made comments about how he wished he could go back to his younger days.

She couldn't remember who eventually won the contest, though she could remember that it sure as shit wasn't Wyoming. He was good, no doubt about it. But North and Massa were on totally different levels. During the break in to Freelancer Command, North had managed to hold off his sister with two sniper rifles, one for each hand. Smug bastard.

'Nope. Not a fuckin' thing out here. Nothing but sand.' Tex sighed and she wasn't sure if she was disappointed at the lack of action or relieved. She wasn't exactly wearing anything resembling armor with it completely wrecked back at Blue Base.

"Why is there nothing to do in this fucking canyon but sit around and talk all goddamn day?" she complained to no one in particular. "This is so dull."

If she had to sit here and wait for any longer she was going to lose her shit. Well, she'd lose what little of her sanity remained. Thanks for ruining that too, Omega. Fucking asshole.

The heat from the sun was making her sweat heavily and she groaned, wiping it out of her eyes. "I fucking hate my life sometimes."

"TEX!" Tucker yelled from below. "DONUT'S AT MY ROCK! GET HIM AWAY FROM IT! IT'S MY ROCK!"

"…never mind, I take it back." The blonde let out a threatening growl and started to stomp towards the fallen Blue. "I hate everyone else's life. Wish they didn't fucking have them."

…

"Oh my god I'm starting to sound like Leona," she realized with a sigh. "Fuck this goddamned canyon. I bet Leona and York don't have to deal with anything this annoying."

She jumped from her perch and made her way over to Tucker, who was finally able to move again. "I'm trying to fucking scout, and you call me to complain that some asshole is by a fucking rock!?"

"You don't understand," Tucker protested, wobbling up to his feet and clutching his side. "That's my special place. During 'Alone Time'."

"…do I even want to know what you do during that?"

"Well, uh, it's kind of a sec—"

"Rhetorical question, jackass." Tex narrowed her eyes and glared. One perk to not wearing a helmet. Her glares were actually effective for once. The aqua soldier cowered, now experiencing her glare for himself for the first time, and he slowly backed away towards Blue Base.

"Yeah…I'm just…gonna go back to base and lay down…" he murmured, not wanting to suffer any more physical trauma.

"That's the first good idea you've had since you were deployed here." Tex rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Now please…do not disturb me unless it's vitally important."

"…does some weirdo doing weird shit to my—"

"NO!"

"Eh. Had to try." Tucker shrugged and continued on his way, humming a cheerful tune. "By the way…you might want to consider soundproofing your room. It's getting really hard to explain to Caboose what you and Leona keep doing in the middle of the night. Or whatever the fuck passes for night here."

CRACK!

"I'm going, I'm going…" Tucker broke into some sort of weird limp/jog thing and Tex lowered her weapon.

"…I seriously am not paid enough for this shit." Hmm, maybe she ought to find out if she could steal some vacation time. It would help her deal with whatever the hell she was suffering from mentally.

She didn't want to tell Leona about lest she become the biggest worrywart in the galaxy, but she was pretty sure she had some sort of mental ailment thanks to Omega being in her head for so long. She'd black out and not remember doing things, but Leona would remember it. So would York.

'…for once, I really wish we didn't hand Doc over to the Reds as a hostage.'

A/N: Yeah, not sure if I mentioned this in other fics I've done, but I'm like 90 percent sure that Tex has suffered some sort of trauma from the constant experiments done to her. "Oh sure, let's just place a really angry artificial intelligence unit inside your head. There will be noooooo side affects whatsoever."

Really? Come on.

A Lovestruck A2#5371