Setting: Rainbow six base, mess hall, 0900 hours.

"Mark!" Sledge called his teammate's name.

The young man looked up at the burly Scotsman sitting beside him. "Huh, what?" He answered.

"You look like you just spaced out. You doing okay?"

"Yeah, just bored as hell." He answered, leaning back in his chair at the massive breakfast table in the mess hall where team rainbow ate all their meals, save for when they cooked by themselves.

The communications disruptor then began to form an idea, a mischievous smirk growing on his face.

Sledge looked up from his cereal and at his teammate. "You've got an idea, don't you?" He asked suspiciously.

Mute simply nodded. "Just a small prank I just thought up. You want to help?"

Sledge sighed. "Even if I say no, you'll still keep pestering me for the rest of the day, so sure, why not." He stated dejectedly.

Mark smiled. "Good. Now for my idea to work, we're going to need Bandit's help."

"Why him?" Seamus asked.

"Because the wanker seems to know his way around electronics and the device I plan on targeting is pretty well wired."

"But if it's electronically related, you just also ask Twitch." He responded.

Mute's face paled slightly. "I could, but she kind of…terrifies me. If anyone does something that she doesn't like, she sends out that little devil drone of hers and she'll taze you in your sleep!"

Seamus shook his head at Mark's irrational fear of the French woman. "So who are you planning on targeting?"

"Fuze. I want to re-wire his cluster grenade charges to fire purple and pink confetti instead." He replied with a smile.

"You sure about that guy? He's got one hell of a temper." Sledge said, remembering how he once saw the massive Russian man bend a solid steel bar when he was beaten in a training exercise.

"Nah, it's just a joke, I'm sure he'll be fine." Mute declared nonchalantly. "We just have to think of a way to coerce Bandit into joining our little escapade."

"You're not going to blackmail the poor guy are you?" Sledge asked concerned.

"If it comes to that, yes. But I'd rather not have all of the GSG-9 on my arse, so we'll have to think of some sort of a bribe." The two members of the SAS were deep in thought as they tried to think of same way to get Bandit to willingly join them.

Mute snapped his fingers as he thought of a way.

"I've got it." He said quietly, trying to contain his excitement.

"Lay it on me." Sledge replied with a sigh.

"I know the guy has a soft spot for the stollen that he asks the base cooks to make for him every once in a while."

"So you're plan on cooking? You can barely make toast." Sledge stated.

"I was getting to that. I also know that Blitz happens to be one of the best cooks around, so we'll get him to make them." Mute replied.

"Great… but how do you propose we get Blitz to make the bribe for Bandit?"

Mute slumped down in his seat. "Shite, this is going to be a lot harder than I thought." He said, massaging his temples with his hands.

Later, with Sledge:

Why do I let him do this to me? The Scotsman thought to himself as he walked down the halls towards the GIGN's quarters. It's not like I just can't say no, the guy is several years younger than me and I'm so much stronger than him! And yet, he somehow manages to drag me into his schemes that always end badly. He arrived at the French counter-terrorism unit's room and knocked on the door.

Montagne answered the door dressed in a dark blue t-shirt and denim jeans, whereas Sledge was wearing his standard combat gear aside from the jacket he wore to protect against bullets and his signature mask.

"Ah, Sledge what can I help you with, mon ami?" the friendly shield-bearer asked.

"Hey Montagne, I came to talk to Twitch, is she here?"

He nodded in response and turned around and yelled into his room.

"Emmanuelle, a friend wishes to speak with you!"

"To you Gilles, everyone's a friend." She said jokingly, walking up beside her teammate. She was also in civilian clothing, wearing a white hoodie with a blue lightning bolt on the front and a black t-shirt as well as dark blue jeans.

"Not the ones who shoot at me." Montagne replied with a smile.

"Tachanka shot at you." She said bluntly.

"Correction, he was shooting at my shield to help me test its durability in a training exercise." He turned his attention to Sledge who was still standing in the hallway. "By the way, Sledge wished to talk to you." He said, disappearing into their shared quarters.

"Hey Twitch, how are you?" Sledge asked politely.

The French woman's expression turned serious. "OK, what do you need?" She said, crossing her arms.

Sledge chuckled to himself. She was always was straight to the point. "I need you to help me to get Blitz to cook something for Bandit."

Her expression remained the same as she digested what the Scotsman had said. "Try that again?" She asked.

Sledge sighed. "Mute wants to play a prank on Fuze and he needs Bandit's help to make it happen, but we both know he won't do it without some kind of a bribe so we need your help to get Blitz to cook our bribe for Bandit." He explained.

"Okay, and why do you need my help?" She asked again.

"Because me and Mute have seen how Blitz acts around you and we found out that Blitz is absolutely terrified of you." Sledge thought he saw the woman smile slightly at that fact but brushed it out of his mind.

"You mean the Blitz who works with the GSG-9?" Sledge nodded, which only made her smile even wider. "Okay, but I need you to get Glaz to paint a portrait of the whole GIGN team together. We need more decorations for the room." She said, gesturing at the room that was structurally standard for every CTU which featured four beds, two bathrooms, two windows a kitchen and a desk to work at, which was now strewn with designs with what looked to be possible modifications for Montagne's shield, where he was now sitting, Sledge noticed that the room had no paintings, posters or any other type of decorations adorning the walls.

Sledge sighed. "Okay, I'll see what I can do." He said, walking away towards the Spetsnaz's living quarters.

This is only going to get worse. Sledge thought.

Meanwhile, with Fuze:

The Russian explosives expert was sitting at the desk that all four members of the Spetsnaz shared busy working on how to modify his cluster charges when someone knocked on the door. He was currently dressed in a long-sleeved green shirt and cargo pants that resembled the color of his combat gear. The rest of his team were out at the firing range; Glaz with his sniper rifle, Tachanka with his deployable machine gun and Kapkan testing out a new variation of his traps. He put down his pencil and answered the door to find Sledge standing there with a shocked expression on his face.

"Sledge." The Russian acknowledged his presence in his deep rumbling voice.

The Scotsman was really hoping that Fuze wouldn't be in the room when he knocked on the door. Sledge knew he had a terrible poker face and was always really bad about lying, except to terrorists. He saw them as the enemy and no problem giving them nothing, as the rest of team rainbow did. But when it came to lying to people he trusted, Sledge was a mess.

"Oh uh… hey Fuze! How are you?" He asked quickly, nervously twiddling his thumbs behind his back.

"Not bad, just working on some new designs for my cluster charges. How about you?" The Russian answered politely. Fuze's appearance in his combat gear often gave people the impression that he was not someone you wanted to converse with when in fact; he could talk for hours about the most tedious subjects.

"Good, good. I was wondering if Glaz was in?"

"Net, him and my teammates are at the firing range now." He replied shaking his head.

"Okay, thanks!" Sledge said with a wave as he took off.

Fuze remained standing in the doorway as the Scotsman took off, returning his wave. That was weird. Probably just under a lot of pressure from Thatcher. He thought with a laugh, remembering how crotchety the old SAS operative could get.

Damn that was close. Sledge thought as he entered the indoor gun range. Upon looking inside, he saw Glaz and Tachanka in their full combat gear aside from their face paint and the bulletproof jackets they wore. Glaz was lying prone firing at a target that was about a hundred meters away while Tachanka was busy filling a metal target with holes as he pulled the trigger on his now-deployed machine gun, shell casings cascading down onto the concrete floor like metal water. He took another step forward and heard a high-pitched alarm. Surprised, he quickly looked down at his feet and saw a red laser where he had just stepped.

"MAXIM!" Glaz yelled angrily, putting down his rifle and standing up to face the now laughing explosive trapper laughing hysterically from behind the door of the gun range, stumbling towards the middle of the room. "I had my shot all lined up when Sledge tripped that alarm you set up! I thought I told you to get rid of that thing!" He said addressing his teammate who was now on the floor rolling around laughing.

"Give the guy a break Timur, it was just an alarm and you have to admit, seeing that expression on Sledge's face was absolutely worth it." Tachanka said, releasing the trigger of his weapon and smiling underneath his mask.

Glaz sighed as Kapkan regained his breath and stood up from his position on the ground. "Okay yeah I have to admit, that was pretty funny." Glaz replied nodding and breaking into a smile.

Sledge shook his head at the situation and glared at Kapkan. The Russian trapper merely smiled underneath the balaclava he was never seen without except at meal times. "At least now I know that it works, despite what you said, Timur."

"I said that it probably wouldn't work." He retorted. Turning his attention to the newcomer, his expression returned to normal. "Anyway why are you here, Sledge? Hoping to get some target practice in?"

Sledge shook his head. "No, I actually wanted to talk to you, Glaz."

"Okay then, talk." He replied.

Sledge looked at Kapkan and Tachanka. "Actually, could we talk somewhere else?" he asked.

Glaz shrugged. "What's wrong with here?"

"You guys are planning a prank aren't you?" Kapkan interjected with a wide smile. He and Mute were the only two people who came from separate CTUs that called each other by their first names. Their personalities were quite alike in that they both loved to prank others and were relatively quiet outside of missions. "Mark probably came up with it right?" He asked Sledge.

The Scotsman sighed and nodded. Tachanka then immediately began packing up his machine gun and began to leave.

"If you guys are going to play practical jokes on our fellow members then I want nothing to do with it." He stated leaving the range, accidentally setting off the alarm Kapkan had set up on the way out.

"Anyways, yes this is a prank and I need your help, Glaz." Sledge declared, returning to the topic at hand.

"I don't want to know who you're targeting, just tell me what you need from me. If something goes wrong, I want to have full deniability."

"If you're planning a prank, then I'll help. I don't care if something goes wrong." The Russian trapper said.

"Fine Kapkan, I guess I could use your help." He then smiled and nodded. "Glaz, I need you to paint a portrait of the GIGN team together. Twitch wants…" He was about to continue when the sniper held up a hand to stop him.

"I want no details. I will paint the portrait on one condition." He said with crossed arms.

"Name it." Sledge said.

"Considering that it will take me a considerable amount of time, I need you to tell Frost that our date on Wednesday will have to wait and I need you to reschedule one for Saturday night." He finished.

Kapkan stared slack-jawed at his teammate. "Since when are you and Frost dating?"

"Jealous are you?" Glaz said with a smirk.

Sledge cut off Kapkan before he could even begin to object.

"Okay fine, I'll talk with Frost." He said, throwing his hands in the air. Kapkan left his teammate at the firing range and followed behind the Scotsman.

"So, who's the target?" Kapkan asked once they were out of earshot of Glaz.

"Mark wants to modify Fuze's cluster grenade charges so that they fire confetti." Sledge stated.

Kapkan laughed loudly. "That's genius!" He said in between breaths.

Sledge sighed. "I just hope it's worth all this trouble."

A little while later, with Kapkan and Sledge:

The conversation with the Canadian huntress went extremely smoothly compared to the others as she simply accepted that Glaz had another task to attend to.

"It's a damn good thing that Canadians are nice." Sledge said walking back to the SAS quarters with Kapkan in tow.

"I'm just glad she didn't ask for anything in return." Kapkan added.

Sledge nodded in agreement as they reached the SAS quarters. The door was unlocked so Sledge let himself in and saw Mute at the desk they shared, working on one of his signal disruptors with Thatcher cooking something in the kitchen and Smoke in his bed, sleeping soundly. It was strange for anyone outside of the SAS to see the four of them at the same time without their masks on. Kapkan could see now that while they all had hair cut short for military regulations except for the bald Scotsman, Thatcher's was black and graying whereas Mute had brown hair, which he already knew, and Smoke had dark blonde hair.

"Hey Max." Mute greeted the Russian as he entered alongside Sledge.

"I'm only cookin' for the four of my mates." Thatcher declared, not taking his eyes off the pot that was on the oven where he was working.

"Sorry I'm not staying over for dinner, Thatch." Kapkan replied sarcastically, which elicited an annoyed grunt from the fifty-five year old operative.

"So do you have everything sorted out, Seamus?" Mute asked the hammer-wielder who nodded.

"I only had to talk to three different people but yes, everything's all ready to go. We just have to make sure that everyone keeps their word and it'll all go smoothly, provided we can get Fuze away from his charges for a few hours." He stated.

"Let me take care of that, Mark. I think I can come up with a good lie to get him off-base for a while." Kapkan said, leaning up against the team's door.

"Okay, good. I'll talk to Twitch when she's received the painting to get her to start intimidating Blitz." Mute declared.

Kapkan smiled underneath his balaclava. " So when do we start?"

Sledge turned to face him. "Well first off, we have to get Glaz to paint all of the GIGN team together and that could take quite a while so I propose that we go talk to him now."

"I'll talk to him, you get Twitch to intimidate Blitz. Tell her that she'll get that painting soon on my word." The trapper stated.

Mute nodded to his Russian friend. "Thanks. So after we talk to Twitch, she'll get Blitz to cook that thing that Bandit likes and hopefully he'll join us." Mute continued.

"Then after Fuze is off-base, we get a hold of his cluster charges and you and Bandit will take care of the rest." Sledge said addressing Mute.

Mute was now grinning from ear to ear. "This is gonna be awesome."

After a long discussion between Twitch and Mute regarding Kapkan's trustworthiness, she eventually agreed to intimidate Blitz without receipt of the painting just yet. Surprisingly, the intimidation process only took a few seconds after Twitch had mentioned that if Blitz didn't cook what she wanted, she'd blind him with his own shield without using the flash feature.

After the strange German cuisine was cooked and ready, Sledge and Mute brought it to Bandit who immediately devoured it as if it was the last thing to eat on earth.

"Vhat did I do to deserve that?" The German electrician asked patting his stomach contently.

"Actually it's something we need you to do." Mute started.

"Go ahead." He told the young man.

"We need your help to rewire Fuze's cluster charges so that they fire confetti."

"Scheisse." Bandit mumbled. "I really vish I hadn't eat that now. But, seeing as how it's only a harmless prank, I don't see vhy not." He said.

"Great, we just have to wait for Kapkan to get Fuze off-base and then we'll rewire the charges." Mute said happily.

The three of them waited in the GSG-9's room for Kapkan to come and retrieve them once they were sure that Fuze was out. About an hour after Bandit had eaten the stollen and agreed to help the pranksters, Kapkan burst into the room and looked at the three of them.

"OK, he's gone, but we've only got about an hour and half, maybe less." He said worriedly.

"Then there's no sense in wasting time, let's get going." Sledge declared. The others nodded and they made their way down to the Spetsnaz's quarters.

After Kapkan pointed out to Mute and Bandit where Fuze kept his precious charges, they took them down to the armory to rewire them. The process only took about forty minutes and they were unsure if it was even going to work, but they managed to get the charges rewired and back in Fuze's duffle bag before he got back.

"So out of everyone, you decided to prank Fuze? The man who is renowned to have the worst temper out of everyone? You could prank any of the FBI SWAT team or the Navy SEALS?" Glaz said, now pacing back and forth, regretting his involvement.

"Don't worry about it. You have full deniability whereas we…" Kapkan pointed to Bandit, Mute, Sledge and himself. "Do not."

By the time everything was ready and set up and Fuze was back, all they had to do was initiate their diabolical scheme.

Kapkan walked up behind his teammate and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Da, Maxim? What is it?" Fuze asked.

"I think that Frost from the JTF2 wants to see your cluster charges at work. Do you think you'd be willing to show her how they perform on the training floor?" Kapkan asked. It was a half-truth. Frost was curious about what Fuze brought to team rainbow but didn't care if she saw it or not.

Fuze smiled. "Of course. But since I don't like wasting them, could you bring anyone else who hasn't seen them yet with you?"

It was Kapkan's turn to smile. "Absolutely. We'll meet you there as soon as we can."

They parted ways and five minutes later, everyone assigned to team rainbow was on the training room floor, eager to see Fuze's charges at work. Kapkan had not informed them of the prank that Mute had devised, he thought it would be better if it were a surprise.

"I thought I told you to bring anyone who hasn't seen my charges work yet." Fuze said, looking at the people whom he knew had witnessed the destructive power of the Matryoshka.

"We have" Ash said, taking a step forward. "But they are pretty cool to see go off."

Fuze nodded at the compliment, primed the Matryoshka and planted it on a wooden barricade. A blast proof window separated the observers from the danger zone, where they all watched as Fuze went over to the window, pressed the detonate button, only to watch as pink and purple confetti flew out of his precious Matryoshka charge five times.

Silence blanketed the group until Bandit, Mute, Kapkan and Sledge exploded in laughter at the expression on the large Russian man's face.

Slowly, Fuze turned around to face his four laughing comrades.

They all slowly regained their composure as the rest of the room laughed along with them. Amongst everyone else's laughs however, they could still make out one word from the victim of their joke.

"RUN."