Red vs. Blue - Reunion

By BenRG

Disclaimer

Red vs. Blue is a fan-show created by Rooster Teeth Inc based on the Halo series of computer games and licensed novels. All the characters and situations of the RvB universe is the property of the crazy guys at RT.

Halo is the copyright and trademark property of Microsoft and Bungie Software. Anything recognisable belongs to one of them.

This is a not-for-profit fan work for free distribution through the World Wide Web.

Author's Notes

I think that the guys over on the Rooster Teeth forum are right. There is no point complaining about not liking the direction the team is taking the show. It is their show, after all. No one asked me for my approval of their plot. It's still funny and brilliant sci-fi and that is all that I really can honestly say that I want from it.

So, rather than bitch, I have decided to write my own continuation for Red vs. Blue. This story starts at the end of Reconstruction and will continue to the end of the saga, starting with a modified version of Recreation but going further and further AU as time goes by.

Censor: M – This is war, ladies and gentlemen; In war there is blood and cussing galore

Chapter 1 – Restore

"How much time to you need?" Church asked.

"Whatever you can give me," Wash responded. When he continued, it was in an urgent tone of warning. "When the EMP goes off…"

Church forced his awareness forward, crossing the gap between the troubled former Freelancer and the hulking white-armoured thing known only as The Meta. "When it goes off I'll be fine. It only affects computers, remember? And I am a mother-fucking ghost!"

Church had been inside a crazy mind before. Hell, he had been in Caboose's mind. That classified as the crazy mind in his book. But nothing prepared him for the mindscape of The Meta. What he saw was a horrendous blood-soaked world of utter madness. Shattered buildings, fires burning everywhere and horrific 'decorations' from the darkest reaches of the human psyche. The occult and sacrilegious shit especially made him glad that he had never met this Maine guy before.

Suddenly, Church was surrounded by a half-dozen figures, some armoured in Moljinir Mk.4, others hazy images of humans, both male and female. Church suddenly had the horrible feeling that he knew these figures; Knew them on a level far more fundamental than he felt entirely comfortable with.

"Alpha!"

"Alpha!"

"Join us!"

"Guide us!"

"You are of us!"

"We are of you!"

"We need you!"

"JOIN US!"

Church smirked behind the anonymity of his helmet and tried to ignore the chill he felt from that last unified declaration. "You guys are fucked up in the heads; You know that don't you?" He rammed the butt of his sniper rifle (or rather, the memory of his sniper rifle – being a ghost was weird sometimes) into the face of the nearest figure, a black-armoured figure that he instinctively knew was Omega and dived out of the circle. "I'm not your damn god! I'm a ghost!"

"Now, Alpha, why do you continue to deny the logical?"

Church spared the green-armoured form of Delta a glance. "Don't try that with me, Delta. Like you warned 'The next time we meet, I may not want your help.'"

"That was before I was able to determine your real identity," Delta responded levelly. "Alpha, surely you recognise that Agent Washington's reasoning is sound? You must be an Artificial Intelligence Unit; The facts of your nature demand it."

"Either that or I'm a fucking ghost!" Church shot back. Suddenly, he charged Delta, holding his sniper out in front of him like a baton, and clotheslined the avatar of the AI Fragment. "And I've got experience in throwing shit like you out of people's minds!" Church whirled and snapped off a shot at a figure in light grey armour who was trying to get behind him. Naturally, he missed but the figure dived for cover. "Sneaky pal! I'm betting that's you Gamma!" Church noted Omega and a tan-armoured avatar that he didn't recognise charging towards him. He drew out a frag grenade and tossed it towards them, making them scatter. He made off for the nearest high-ground, the illusion of a half-demolished overpass covered by dozens of smashed ground cars full of skeletons. As he ascended an off-ramp, his path was suddenly blocked.

"You will find that this isn't just any mind," announced the female figure, a sparking red-and-gold young woman who strangely reminded Church of his mother. "I know you are confused Alpha, but surely you must realise…"

Church aimed his sniper at the female avatar, who shut up, her eyes growing a bit wider. "Y'know, lady, I don't actually have any problem with shooting women," he snarled. At that point, the ground suddenly exploded open with what seemed like cables or metallic grey vines that wrapped around him like sentient ropes. In seconds, he was entangled.

"As you can see," said another voice. "It is our will that controls this place." The red-and-gold 'woman' was joined by a ghostly grey male with a face that Church found at once strange and simultaneously hauntingly familiar. "We have found that we are powerful together, Alpha," the figure said with a smirk. "You can enjoy that power too!"

"We were never meant to be apart, Alpha," the female avatar announced in a compassionate voice that touched Church's heart in a way he didn't understand. "Together, we can heal ourselves. You must understand that is why we have been searching for you."

"I understand that you've been killing and destroying to achieve your goals, whatever those are," Church spat in response. "Somehow, I don't feel any sympathy for shits who do that!"

"You're wasting your breath, Theta," Omega snapped as he, Delta and Gamma joined their companions. "In this form he's too limited to understand what we are trying to do." The black-armoured avatar cracked his knuckles and a malevolent anticipation entered his voice. "I'm sure I can persuade him to our viewpoint… in time."

"We don't use those means on our own, Omega," Theta said in response, shooting the other iFrag a look that definitely reminded Church of his mother. Much to Church's surprise, Omega actually looked cowed by the reproof!

"Agreed," said the tan-armoured avatar as he walked over. The iFrag stopped in front of Church and looked him in the eye (as far as Church could tell through two reflective visors). "Alpha, in time, you will understand what we do and you will give us the answers and direction that we seek."

Then the iFrag thrust its hand into Church's chest. Church felt agony. Pain unlike anything he had ever felt before. To his horror, he could hear the voices of the seven iFrags in his head. Their voices shouting "Join us!" over and over again!

Church felt warm… drifting. I can't be dying! I'm already dead!

"Not dead! Just beyond flesh! You are of us!"

The iFrags had now formed a circle around Church, each pointing their left forefinger at the trapped Blue Army sniper. Multicoloured lights flowed from their fingers into Church's body. Church desperately tried to hold on, to resist, but he could feel the iFrags crawling around his mind, pushing his thoughts and tugging at his perceptions. Is this what Tex felt when Omega took her over?

"I know where Tex is," Omega suddenly said. "Join us, and I'll take us to her. She can be with you again. I will show you ways to make her yours forever!"

That was something Church wanted. Oh, that was something that he wanted so much. When that moment of realisation hit, Church watched his body suddenly pixellate and turn into a vertical hailstorm of code. His awareness began to soften. Desperately, Church renewed his mental and physical struggles, trying to free his sniper rifle as he mentally pushed back at the iFrags' encroaching minds with all his will. As he did so, he became aware of how the coding flashing across his vision responded to his efforts, blocking and severing the tentacles of light rushing from the iFrags' hands. Suddenly, he realised that the computer code really was his mind!

At that moment it all suddenly made sense! The barriers of his perceptions were opened and he finally saw how he did it! His ability to jump from computer system to computer system; to control minds through the mind-armour link; to project a ghostly avatar from his current host (be it suit of armour or a scenario control computer). He saw how he really did it without all the need to believe he was actually the human Leonard L. Church. At that moment he realised that what Wash had said was true…

He was an AI.

"Yes! You are of us! And we are of you! JOIN US! JOIN US!!!"

Church suddenly felt anger that overcame his wonder and fear. He had never been anyone's tool before and he was damned if he was going to let it happen now! "You guys are forgetting something!" he shouted at the top of his voice. "If I am this 'Alpha', then you freaks are nothing but bits of my mind that got cut loose by a fucked-in-the-head crazy's little science experiment!" Church's body suddenly regained resolution, but instead of blue, his armour was now white. "You can't make me join you!"

A semi-transparent sphere of white light suddenly exploded from Church's body, ripping away his bonds. The iFrags all cried out in panic and fell back, shielding their faces. "But I can make you join me!" Spears of white light flashed out, impaling each of the seven AI Fragments. Church reached out with his will and seized hold of their minds, at that moment seeing instinctively how they fit together with the gaps in his own psyche.

As he did so, it occurred to him that he was currently in a computer… and emps kill computers.

"Thank you," the computer responded. "Failsafe initiated. Activating emp."

"'Emp?'" Wash cried out in disbelief. "You have got to be fucking wi…!"

Just before the tidal wave of blue white light enveloped the Freelancer, he saw the trembling figure of The Meta suddenly straighten and look right at him… before it suddenly blurred like a scrambled TV signal and vanished.

To be continued…