Chapter 11: Blood Gulch

In a rectangular room connected to the docking bays, the recruits patiently occupied nearly every square inch. Their purpose was clear, it was time to depart. Where they would go to was still a mystery however, much to the dislike of many. Through the monitors, they observed ships going and coming. Every time, it was a ship for supplies, however, occasionally some were for soldier reinforcements. Johnny noticed his peers around him, all mixed with the reds and the blues now. His barrack mates were gone their own separate ways already, much to the slight tingly sadness in his chest. I guess I kind of grew fond of them. He surprised himself with such thoughts. Outside of his family, he never really had made a connection over which he would be sad losing. Johnny clearly recalled his main drill instructor's final speech. Many of them will go out to the different corners of the universe explored by man, and spend their coming few years there. Many would be no doubt spread out from one another, some, the lucky ones really, would be closer to Earth.

A triangular notification with an exclamation mark, all composited of a light yellow blinked in the top top right of Johnny's HUD. He accessed the message, and just as he and many others in the area expected, this was their call to depart. Johnny studied the details of the report sent to him, slowly absorbing the information till it began to paint a blurry, but an understandable picture in his head. So I'm going to Blood Gulch. Based on some of the environmental facts, this place seems like a barren land. The temperatures must be horrible to deal with during the day as well. He read further on and the more he read, the less he seemed excited at the prospect. There is hardly any life around as well aside from the soldiers inhabiting Blood Gulch currently. Hm, what a strange place to put a military base in. Ah, I better just suck it up and go along with it. Yet another alarm sounded much to the surprise of all as it should. The soldiers all stood up to the voices of the docking bay manager and Sergent. As order was being spouted out in the midst of this chaos, the soldiers slowly moved towards the opened doors to where the Pelicans rested in an orderly march.

Johnny stopped at the Pelican pad number on his HUD and soon found himself surrounded by company. Much to his surprise, as well as everyone else's they all stood in silent with a finger pointed outward. Johnny felt a sense of happiness that one sometimes may feel from seeing a really old friend, the tingly feeling of gaining something that was once lost upon seeing Marcus and Cholo. Bonnie on the other hand was less than thrilled. Daisy remained silent and her opinions were kept to herself behind the stone wall on her face. Marcus himself was less than pleased to see Bonnie at first, but felt some relief as she resided on the opposing team. I won't have to spend every waking minute with her in the same base at least. Cholo however was the most ecstatic of them all. "My lovely cooking angel, it is so nice to see you again! Would you like to go out for fun times with Cholo, and have a meal made by your wonderful hands?"

"Didn't her meal almost kill you that one time?", asked Marcus. Cholo quickly shot him a glare, not that anyone could tell. He wrangled in Marcus much to the surprise of Johnny. Here I was always thinking that Marcus won't let anyone touch him so easily. Huh, what a twist. Cholo leaned in close into Marcus' ears and whispered. "Don't screw this up for me bro. If I get some, I swear I will send you pictures."

"Gross," Marcus quickly shoved Cholo to a comfortable distance. "No thanks, I ain't into jacking off to the picture of your dick."

Daisy innocently cleared her throat as her cheeks flared in dark red. Bonnie simply smashed her palm against her visor in agony. Who did I wrong to be tortured like this? She pondered with tears in her heart. Cholo however stopped a moment as he rested a hand on his chest. Johnny bent down worriedly to study the Mexican man's expression. It was distorted into a strange mixture of excitement and pain. "Are you okay, Cholo?"

"Oh yes, I'm just so happy that I get to see these honnies again!", he bent backwards with joy. He quickly leapt into the air like a frog, and landed on one foot to dance to the tune of a love struck boy. Daisy's raging blush became even stronger, and were it not for the helmet to hide her face, she would have most likely ran away from the embarrassment. Bonnie on the other hand held her stomach and leaned forward as her voice deepened. Something from deep in her stomach felt like it could blast out like a volcano. Johnny leaned in close to her, worried over his new teammate now. Bonnie quickly waved her new comrade away. "No, no, I will be fine, I think. It's just that I was at the verge of physically throwing up from such corny and childish words of our resident playboy."

"Nooo!", Cholo fell to the floor on his knees as he gently rested his forehead against the cold metal surface. His eyes squeezed shut and let out a cry most confusing, yet weird. His high pitched voice alerted everyone around. It was like an alarm going off, but at the same time like a fox screaming for attention. "Please don't be so mean, you so beautiful alongside Daisy...okay maybe not as beautiful, but cute maybe?"

Bonnie felt a nerve pop up on her head as she thought that a vein could very well burst at any moment. "Does anyone have a stapler here? I really need to shut a blabber mouth right now."

"Okay, and I'm really glad that everyone made it through basic here," Johnny interjected with a smile most pleasant on his face. Cholo lifted up his one bicep as the other hand smothered it with pride. "Yeah, it was no big deal. It was a piece of cake. But I'm a little heart broken to be honest."

"Why is that?", asked Johnny. Marcus shook his head with a loud sigh. "Please don't encourage him."

Cholo once again fell to his knees. One hand rested on his chest piece while the other reached out longingly up towards the ceiling. "I'm just so sad that there are no sexy women on blue team here. Oh, I'm tormented so! Therefore, sexy times have become sad times."

Everyone looked at the Mexican man, lost for words. Thankfully, their pilot interjected into the whole stage play and called for them to board. Upon hearing his boarding warning, all of them quickly hurried over. Much to Cholo's disappointment, the ladies sat on one side with Johnny, and Marcus with him. The reds and the blues sat opposite to one another, which already created a sense of divide in their minds, as if an invisible line existed in the middle of the Pelican. The engine began to roar and the fumes from the jet began to excrete an aura of ultraviolet flames. The Pelican slowly took off with a minor bump and made its way towards the exit. The pilot looked around at the rest of the Pelicans. As if an unspoken rule, they all gave a thumb up to one another and departed upon receiving the green signal. They were off, the pilot quickly engaged the space warp drive as soon as they were at a reasonably safe distance. The ship stretched into a long distortion as the portal opened. They entered fast and the one entrance to the wormhole closed, and left no trace of their existence in the area.

A much familiar mixture of colors vibrated all around their ship. The recruits looked with nostalgia present in their hidden eyes. The first time they all ever left Earth was through this same method, to go somewhere far away in the hopes of building a career for some, or simply to go on an adventure for some other. Johnny turned to the two men in blue armor and asked. "How was the time in basic training for you guys?"

Cholo tilted his head questionably. "Are you talking about training or just in general?"

"Just in general."

"Oh," Cholo rested his chin pad against his fingers in a rather inquisitive rub. He then lifted his head up with an answer. "It was fun times had, too bad the barracks weren't shared by genders."

"Probably a good thing," Marcus spoke in a quiet, yet audible voice. His tone, extremely thankful for he himself would have murdered Cholo if that had been the case. He would have never heard the end of sex and girls otherwise. Johnny looked at Marcus for his answer. "Same as Cholo's I guess."

"Should we really be getting friendly with the enemy?", Bonnie inquired of Johnny as she gave a rather uneasy, fixated stare towards him. Although Marcus could not help but feel a loud laughter take over. One that surprised everyone in the cabin as no one had expected him to be able to laugh as such. Bonnie crossed her arms as an eyebrow raised both in question and slight offense. "Did I say something funny?"

"Actually, you did," Marcus answered with a snarky tone of his own. "We are enemies on official documents only. In reality, the sim troopers don't even do that much in the way of fighting one another now days. The only reds and blues that fight one another now days are those that either hold a grudge, or are just bored out of their minds."

Bonnie quickly quietened down and Marcus smirked ever so silently under his helmet, knowing that even Bonnie was incapable of refuting reality. Although he himself knew that reality could be very different based on the situation. Daisy looked up towards Bonnie and Johnny and pondered out loud. "I wonder what our commanding officers will be like."

Her tone was filled with worry, like a glass filled to the brim with liquid contents. Bonnie gently flicked Daisy's visor, much to the slight annoyance of her friend. "Why did you do that?"

"Didn't you read the briefing report on where we are being deployed?"

Daisy studied the notification, still blinking on her visor, with a mouse like annoyed sigh. "Reading reports is boring..."

"I'm sure filing reports on your screw ups is pretty boring to," Bonnie countered as she shook her head in slight disapproval. "All because you didn't read the briefing report on your task."

"Oh fine," Daisy pouted with her cheeks filled with air. "I will read the report!"

"Good," Bonnie answered taking Daisy into a small hug with one arm. The gentle squeeze did little to distract Daisy from the report, but did much to help her smile and reassure her with safety. The rest of the trip was accompanied by near complete silence. Occasionally however the streak of silence would be broken by casual chatter and rarely interesting topics.

Strong vibrations of the ship's hull alerted the recruits. They all looked out the front pilot window and saw the dark void of space. In the far off distance, they could see a ring like structure. But before they even knew it, the ship was already entering its atmosphere. The violent shaking was one to wipe away any semblance of sleep they may have had throughout this journey. Slowly, the Pelican stabilized as it broke past the friction barrier and into the blue skies of the halo ring in which Blood Gulch resided on. Cholo looked all around as he scratched the back of his head puzzled. "So, where is it we are going exactly?"

"I feel like we just had this conversation," Marcus commented as he looked all around, rather confused, but more so frustrated. He aimed his eyes at Johnny and asked. "Didn't we just have this conversation?"

"Yeah," Bonnie instead answered. "Maybe you should learn to bloody read reports. Go put in the work yourself instead of expecting someone else to do it for you!"

"Cool your jets," Marcus nearly shouted back as he felt his anger rise. His one hand was tightly gripped on the safety harness, and the other played with his pills bottle in one of his pouches. "Quit being such a prick."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was being a prick," Bonnie stood up as did Marcus, both came face to face, nearly butting heads. "Or maybe you just don't know what the difference between a prick and a blunt person is. But this coming from a guy whose psyche is questionable, I wouldn't expect any different."

"What?"

"I read everyone's report here that came along with the briefing. I know what kind of fucked up demons you may have in your head."

"Do you really now?", Marcus pondered with a much cooler head as he was held back by Cholo. "We will see just how correct you are little miss psychologist."

"That's enough Bonnie!", Daisy quickly stood up and forced her friend back down. "I'm really sorry you guys, I was hoping things wouldn't get so sour on our way here, or ever really."

"It's not your fault," replied Marcus as he too sat down. Johnny looked awkwardly at the divided crowd. That went South quick. Bonnie crossed her arms and reluctantly bowed her head. "That was my bad for losing my cool like that, sorry."

"Me too," Marcus replied as he loosened his grip on the pill bottles. Johnny quickly interjected before this situation seemed to be out of hand again. "Getting back on topic, Blood Gulch from what I could tell was an unwelcoming place because of its environment. During the day it will be hotter than hell probably, during the nights, colder than the North Pole no doubt."

"Hmm, so kind of like the rural areas around big US cities really," Cholo commented as he recalled the blazing hot days he endured on Earth while serving customers. Johnny partially agreed. "But the most distinctive feature of this military installment is that the two bases are in a boxed canyon."

"Boxed canyon, who though that would be a good idea?", pondered Bonnie. Marcus looked further into the reports in more detail, he was surprised to have over looked one detail in there. "Apparently Project Freelancer thought it was a good idea at one point in time."

"Where do we fit in?", asked Daisy. Johnny shook his shoulders, unsure. "As far as I can tell, we are just replacements for those that left this base."

Bonnie felt her blood pressure spike once more as she stood up with her fists balled. "Well that's just great. So, we are expected to fill some pretty hefty shoes then?!"

A snicker from the nose of the Pelican caused a sharp glare to follow towards the pilot. "No one expects a bunch of rookies to fill in a major role or anything yet. You guys don't need to get so worked up."

So what, we are not good enough, is that it? She pondered as her hands constantly relaxed and then balled into fists. She was about to make her way to give the pilot a piece of her mind, but she suddenly jolted backwards and felt her progress halted. She looked down to find Daisy holding her back once more. "Let me go, I can't just let him laugh at us like this."

"Just let it go Bonnie," Daisy begged as she motioned towards the seat. "We are a bunch of rookies in their eyes as we haven't even proven anything yet. Just let it go and enjoy what little we have left of the ride."

Cholo agreed with the violent nod of his head. "I think we should all follow the lead of the heart fluttering angel!"

Bonnie quickly stood up once more in between him and Daisy. She leaned downwards, with their eyes at an even level. "Listen Mr. Stereotypical Mexican man, don't even think about getting your perverted, grubby hands on her. Otherwise you may wake up in the morning missing a pair."

"Hey, I take offense to that!", Cholo retaliated. "My hands are not grubby!"

Everyone looked at Cholo with a few moments of silence. Johnny peered around and began to speak, when Marcus suddenly cut him off. "Just give him a bit of time."

A few more minutes of silence followed, before Cholo's eyes shook wide open. "Hey, I'm also not perverted, I just like to think of myself as an overly imaginative individual."

"Yeah, as you guys can probably tell, Cholo isn't the brightest apple in the tree," Marcus said and received a devastated look from Cholo. "But, he is one of the most trust worthy."

As quickly as Cholo's mood had been downed, it rose back up again. Daisy studied the calmed atmosphere once more. She clamped her hands together in deep thought. Bonnie gently poked her friend on her arm. Daisy then finally asked. "Do any of you know what our superiors really will be like, I mean outside of what the reports say?"

The Pelican veered off course, like a bird losing balance it jolted from left to right. Everyone looked towards the pilot's cabin who was looking back at them with several surprised gasps.

"D- Do you guys really not know about the Blood Gulch Crew?!", asked the pilot. Johnny looked around at the silence to follow. "No, is that bad?"

"Only if you are going to be stationed there."

"So, really bad then," Daisy commented. The pilot quickly steered them on course once more. "The people in that canyon are the stuff of legends."

The pilot studied their bearings and how far off they were from Blood Gulch. "There was a time that the stigma of sim troopers being nothing but a bunch of incompetent retards was attached to them like many other reds and blues."

The Pelican shifted it's weight to one side as it made a smooth turn. "But those guys, they shed all of that. They took care of problems that the UNSC has either tried to actively avoid, were unaware of, or had their hands tied in."

"Shit...," commented Marcus as he felt his breath leave him. "That's kind of hardcore."

"Yeah," the pilot agreed as he looked at the canyon in the distance. "These guys basically made themselves into a bigger legend than any soldier in current times. They took down the Freelancer Project, stopped a civil war on Chorus, then also took care of a crazy dictatorship space colony, the terrorist threat that could have meant the end of humanity if not handled properly and god only knows what would have happened if the terrorists had succeeded. Let's also not forget that they were drafted to fight against the extremist Sangheilians. They have seen war many times over."

The whole cabin was silent, simply in awe of the tales. The pilot radioed the control tower of the training colony moon base of their arrival. He turned his attention back to the rookies. "If anything, these guys would be treated like royalty at this point were it not for the shitty practices the UNSC employs against the sim troopers."

"That is quite a resume," said Marcus as he nodded his head impressed. Johnny could not help but automatically agree. "To be honest, I'm feeling a little intimidated already. I just hope that we can live up to such standards, and keep up with them."

"You guys will be fine," the pilot replied as he looked at the canyon down below. The BGC had already gathered around the landing site. "As I have heard it, everyone in this canyon is a little unique. But they are all good people. Alright, we are here, strap in for the landing."

On the ground, three individuals looked up at the now descending ship. They all stared partially curious, but mostly stoic. With a loud rattle, the Pelican made contact with the ground, as the shock absorbers caused a slight elevation. The pilot powered down the ship and activated the bay door. "Time to get out. Don't forget your bags in here."

One by one, every rookie stood up as they saw the light shine into the cabin. It hit their visors and caused a glare almost strong enough to blind them. Many of them quickly adjusted their posture, and felt their eyes adapt. With a step forward, they slowly walked down the bay door and came face to face with the legends they envisioned. But to Bonnie's trained eyes, she knew right away that something was amiss. The three men with tired postures did their best to stand strong, but there was no fooling Bonnie. It gave her a sense of negative feeling above their heads, like a dark cloud constantly looming above them, and following them around. Although, as with the rest, she rid herself of these thoughts and walked out to the infamous killer heat of Blood Gulch.

The one in aqua colored armor stepped ahead of the other two. His voice was moderately loud, but still carried a sense of weakness. "Welcome to the canyon, you guys must be the new rookies."

"Yeah, we are the ones UNSC sent as replacements," said Cholo only to quickly receive a knuckle punch to his back from Bonnie. She quickly straightened her posture and made herself presentable. "What he meant to say I think is that we are looking forward to serving with you all."

"Why are you so mean my sexy honey?"

Marcus quickly bent down and laid a foreboding hand on his friend's shoulder. "Cholo, not another word for now."

Cholo's face went cold, drained of all color and his heart heavy from that one touch alone. "Yes sir."

To everyone though, it was quite a shock. Even though they knew that there were only three UNSC soldiers stationed here, seeing was different from just reading. Seeing was truly believing. But now with their face to face encounter, they all looked forward to the future with some glean in their eyes, and all sharing a similar thought. I hope I can make a difference in the future with these guys for the better.

A few days later, the rookies all stood around like a merry bunch overlooking the canyon from the escalated side paths. That is at least what they would have preferred to be the reality, and yet they all felt a mixture of feelings, like several different colors colliding in a pool of water. However, it was just mostly disappointment and confusion. They all stared out at the barren canyon in silence, that quickly grew too awkward for some of them. Cholo looked around him and cleared his throat to break this streak of wins that the silence had accumulated thus far in their meeting which Cholo had lovingly dubbed, 'The Rookies Meetup'.

Johnny slowly nodded his head as he did his best to find the best phrasing. "So guys, um our superiors here...um, not the way we imagined them, right?"

"Yeah, that's not a bad way of saying it," Bonnie expressed her support as Daisy stared at Red base in her ever growing pool of concern. "Grif seems to be hardly motivated to be the base leader. He seems too detached from everything."

"Not all that better at Blue base either," said Cholo. "Tucker seems so disinterested so far in us, and just leading the Blue team towards the glorious blue victory!"

Everyone stared simply in silence. By now, they all felt that they had thankfully grown their well of patience to a point in which they could tolerate his spontaneous outbursts. Cholo walked back and forth within the group as he then spoke once more. "He seems really distracted all the time with his own thoughts rather than being here in the present."

"I would back that up," Marcus spoke as he saw Cholo turning his attention towards Blue base. Cholo clapped his hands and felt slight laughter build up. "Although Caboose, now that guy is a riot."

"Blue base does have some interesting characters, doesn't it?", Marcus posed as he pointed towards the giant Mantis bot at the back of Blue base. "I particularly enjoy listening to conversations between Freckles and Sheila and their plans for the robot uprising."

"Oh, oh yeah, cool, cool," all of them simply nodded rather nonchalantly. Bonnie crossed her arms as she hid herself further into the shade. "We clearly got stuck with a dysfunctional group. Boy I love my life right now."

"Wow, the sarcasm could not be any more clearer there, could it?", Marcus snickered with a small smirk, and for his sake it was thankfully hidden behind his helmet. Cholo stretched his arms as he stepped forward with the scratch of his head. "Ugh, all this talk about our broken bases, and this heat is killing me. It's so freaking hot man, Cholo does not like!"

Marcus gently kicked his friend on his bottom with a firm boot. "Quit being a wuss and take it like a man!"

"So guys," everyone turned their attention towards Daisy. "How are we going to deal with Tucker, Grif and Caboose?"

After a brief stretch of silence, Johnny decided to break the run. "Daisy has the right idea, how will we deal with them?"

Another stretch of silence followed. Johnny walked out into the heat, much to his regret seconds later. "The way I see it, this is the situation we are dealt. So we deal with it the best we can. There is no use in standing around and complaining about it all day long every day."

Once more, everyone agreed nonchalantly. A few more minutes of silence passed and Cholo finally felt his impatience get the better of him. "Ugh, I'm so bored. There is hardly anything to do in this canyon aside from just eating, drinking, talking, sometimes about mind numbing stuff and many times about being confused as to what we should be doing for our duties. God I'm beginning to want to just hijack a UNSC Pelican and fly myself out of here!"

"Hmm," Johnny looked at the two bases and gave a long hard stare to the others. "Want to play capture the flag?"

"Why the fuck not, sure," Marcus replied as he began making his way down, but turned part way. "As I heard from Caboose, there are some pretty embarrassing stories of the reds losing to the blues many times. I think we can continue that streak."

As if prompted to action, the two women both answered in unison. "Don't count on it. Fat chance of that happening!"

Cholo leaned in close to Johnny and wrapped an arm around him. "Johnny my friend, you are so lucky to be living in a base with two chicks."

"We have Sheila," Marcus pointed towards the huge Mantis machine that had its armaments aimed towards Cholo. The Mexican man quickly hid behind Johnny. "For the last time, I'm not going to have cyber sex. Stop trying to sell me the idea!"

Johnny grinned at the skit as he began to make his way down himself. "I won't go easy on you two. You guys better have some great tactics, because I know that Bonnie and Daisy are not going to make this a cake walk either."

Marcus and Cholo followed down and they all departed to their respective bases. The two teams looked out to the opposite bases. God this canyon really does suck, they all thought. Johnny raised his gun and fired a single shot, a starting signal. But, it is our home for now. So, we should all just make the best we can of it!

~ Fin ~

A/N: That's it, final chapter!

What did you guys think?

I tried to expand on the interactions between the rookies. Not all of it is bright sunshines, but I wanted to create some type of friction as well to show off a bit of their character around one another.

I would appreciate your feedback. Any feedback on corrections will no longer be applied to this story as it has been marked as "Complete". That's just the nature of things. I don't particularly like going back to completed stories. I like moving on to other things.

Speaking of moving on, let's talk about the future!

Red vs Blue Season 21 (in my series, not based off the official season for when it will no doubt release), I will not release that any time soon. I'm still planning it. I hope to make it the biggest RvB story in my series ever. That's not just in terms of length, but also for the character development and their natural evolution after my Season 20. Plus as with some of my original stories over at Fictionpress (under the same pen name, check them out please, I would appreciate your support!), I hope to make them the same in terms of the slice of life type of tone and approach to writing for the genre. The ideal result would be that the reader is able to take something away and apply it to their lives, sort of educational at the same time :).

I will not be rushing that story, as I want to give the best possible product and ensure that those who have supported me since the start, or joined me midway and followed me since are rewarded for their patience. But that's enough rambling. Now I must bid you all adieu until when I post on this site again.

Again, please tell me your thoughts on the rookies as characters, their interactions and how you think they might play a role further down the line!

One last disclaimer:

I don't own the Red vs. Blue IP, nor any of the characters from the official show. Rooster Teeth and any other investing parties are the rightful owners to that. I however dow own the story as well as any original characters here.

Thank you all so much for your support and continued readership, I really appreciate it. Hopefully I see you all in my next story!

~ Monty