[audio]

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

Why aren't there any roads?!

[Hello, world of pokemon. Church is grumpy. You'll find this is normal.] I mean, I get that towns can be small, but come on, did I land in the middle of fucking nowhere?! You've gotta have roads--don't you have cars? Please tell me you have cars. How else do you ship things around, unless this is secretly an advanced civilization and everything's delivered by airships. Or like...drones.

But no, I haven't found a single road yet. It's just forest and dirt paths and tall grass and ledges that I can't seem to be able to hop up???

And, and, these stupid god damn mutant freaks of nature keep wanting to bust a cap in my ass. Thankfully I've got a sentient bowling ball to smack things with its body. Apparently. I got as far as a cave and apparently my electric powered lightning ball can't light anything up for shit, so I thought better of staying in a dark creepy-ass cave because I've seen horror movies, so now I have to go all the way back the way I came and walk--walk!--in the direction of a different town, and do you know what would make this way easier?

That's right. Cars. On roads. To ferry people to and from places without having to walk every god damn where. Shows me what I get when I go toward the first building I see.

In short, I hate this place, I hate your crazy experimental mutant creatures from the depths of every child's nightmares, I hate walking for days, I'm pretty sure if I ever have granola again I'm going to kill myself, and I'm ready to wake up from this stupid fucking hallucination any day now.

Comments

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

Uh. They're...animals? And you caaan--I've never ridden a horse, jackass. We didn't exactly have horses on alien planets.

[ratherbelocky]

Oh, huh! Alien planets? Where were you, dude? I mean, I've probably never heard of it, but you never know.

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

Dude, you weren't missing much. I was mostly in a box canyon, fighting other morons for no reason. At least it wasn't Sidewinder. Fuckin hate that place...so much god damn snow...

[ratherbelocky]

Wait. Sidewinder?

...Are you UNSC?

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

Oh my god. Yes. Yes I am, who the fuck are you?

[ratherbelocky]

I--uh.

[It occurs to him that he has no idea who this guy is whatsoever, and that coming out as a wanted fugitive and/or dead war criminal could get him in trouble.]

I'm retired, now. Took a grenade a little too close to the face. [All true, if uninformative.] You can call me Levy. You?

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

Private Church. [Just Church. Not Leonard L. Church. Not Leonerd. That's for Tex. Just Church.] Leader of the Blue Team of Blood Gulch.

Well, formerly, I guess. Shit happened. Reassignments. [And recovery agents, and meta-amalgamations, and emps.]

[ratherbelocky]

[There's a weird, muted thump of some kind, like someone just carefully shoved his hand over where the PokéGear's microphone sits.

Son of a bitch.

Church.

Private Church, though, and assigned to a sim team, no less. That's more confusing than it isn't, and York finally removes his hand again, a little wary, now, while his voice stays friendly.]

Blood Gulch, huh? You wouldn't've happened to have heard of the Freelancers, then?

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

[That's. kind of a reaction, a muted thump and a couple moments of silence. Maybe his reputation precedes him. Question is whether that's his reputation as Blue leader or his reputation as not-a-human-being.]

You've run into them, too? [There's a little suspicion in his voice.] I mean they are kind of hush hush, no survivors sort of crap, but yeah. Head of them. Dealt with some. Before. On occasion.

[ratherbelocky]

[Right. York sighs.]

Okay, who was it. Was it Carolina or Wash? [...Actually.] Shit, was it Tex?

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

Whoa, how many have you run into?

[ratherbelocky]

Well, thinking back...let's assume, roughly, all of them.

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

Did you...work with them or...something? On the project?

[ratherbelocky]

Ehhh, for a while. The leaders of the Project and I had...creative differences.

[And Church has one of their names, dude.]

For example, I'm not really into torturing the innocent, or mowing down our own soldiers. Little things like that.

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

Yeah, jesus christ, that Director dude must've had some seriously fucked up shit going on. Like...yeah. Crazy...crazy motherfucker in charge of other crazy motherfuckers. Better that you got out of there.

[ratherbelocky]

...It's kind of funny, because his name was Church, too. Dr. Leonard Church.

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

--excuse me?

[ratherbelocky]

Sound familiar? I hear it's not an uncommon name. Jewish.

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

What, you gonna get all anti-semitic now or something?

[ratherbelocky]

Uh, no? I told you my name was Levy, dude, I'm not sure it gets more Jewish than that.

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

Shafuckinglom then. I guess I should probably figure out what fucking bullshit time I've landed in if this place even uses an Earth calendar... [Did he just somehow change topics in an attempt to avoid this entire confrontation.]

[ratherbelocky]

[It's an impressively unsubtle dodge if York's ever seen one. He can respect that. Sort of. Maybe. ...He'll press him on this again later, probably.]

It's about the early two thousands. I mean early, just a decade or two off the turn of the millennium. But, as I'm sure you've noticed, the tech doesn't really match up, so I don't know what good the year's gonna do you. ...Listen.

[Okay, later is now.]

I'm not totally sure who you're supposed to be, man, because you sure as hell don't sound like any Church I know. Just answer me this: Are you gonna cause problems for any Freelancers who show up here?

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

What--what?! You say that like fucking Freelancers aren't the ones constantly moving the plot forward causing problems for me and my team!

So which one are you? Cuz you sure as shit aren't Wyoming or Washington or the Meta.

And I'm the only Church I've ever met. Thank god. So that just sounds like it'll have to be a personal problem for you, not mine.

[ratherbelocky]

Wow. Sure am glad Wyoming shot me in the chest before I could hear anyone comparing me to Wash. Yikes.

I'm Agent York. I worked pretty closely with Carolina, until I didn't. Answer the question, dude.

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

Sure wish you'd shot him in the chest before I had to face down a stupid army of that cockbite!

The fuck do you want me to say, Agent Carolina's-Partner? I'm serious, what kind of question is that? I'm me. I'm not the director of jack or shit. I'm just a simulation soldier. [And an AI. A pretty important one to the Freelancers. Buuuuut let's not say that part just yet.]