[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

[dosomethingslacker]

Dude, I've only been here for like - a week. You were just with me on the ship.

And yeah, the only Carolina we know?

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

No, I mean when we all got shipped off to different bases! What ship are you even talking about?!

1/?

[dosomethingslacker]

What? The different bases was like - years ago, what the fu--

[dosomethingslacker]

[Years ago and a different Church.

Oh.

Oh holy shit.]

[dosomethingslacker]

Fucking christ.

Church.

4/4

[dosomethingslacker]

You piece of shit asshole.

[Yeah he missed you, best buddy.]

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

Yeah, same to you, dickbag. You planning on making sense anytime soon, or do I have to get out my Caboose-to-English dictionary and start from there?

[dosomethingslacker]

Before I do that - what's the last thing you remember before here?

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

I remember--

[He remembers Wash's head, not a pleasant place, and the Meta's head, even less pleasant. And he remembers all the other AI. And he remembers, for the briefest of moments...shit he doesn't want to think about right now because there are way more pressing, important matters at hand.]

Yeah, look, there was some dumbass plan where Wash wanted to shove an emp down the Meta's throat, and, yeah, it's, y'know, somewhere around there, and you were gone fuck knows where. You missed a lot of wacky shit. I don't know if I'm jealous or not depending on what you were doing.

[dosomethingslacker]

Was stuck in the desert fighting of mercs form alien artifacts, not important.

Damn, it really is this fucked up. Okay, that shit? Happened years ago. [He hadn't known all the details, not even as much as Church just told him. Just knew 'he went and fought the Meta with Wash, died in the process'. Not a lot because who the fuck tells Tucker anything.]

Short version, Caboose found Epsilon and told him enough stories about Blood Gulch that he kinda became you, we took down the rest of Freelancer, and then were force-crashed landed on a backwater planet Chorus and were helping fight in this fucked up civil war. It's-- it's real fucked up, there's so much shit wrong.

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

......... [p r o c e s s i n g]

Go back to the 'kinda became you' part.

[dosomethingslacker]

[That almost, almost, gets a chuckle. Yeah that's Church. But better to get this out of the way now before Carolina comes not knowing.]

Your voice, mmmmmost of your personality. Caboose took to calling him Church, it was easier for him to stick to it.

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

And we're talking about Epsilon.

Epsilon the AI unit that the guys was supposed to escape with, to turn over to the military so that everything could get resolved and, y'know, this whole thing could be over and the right people could be held responsible?

Caboose replaced me with a vital piece of evidence.

Is what you're saying.

[dosomethingslacker]

Pretty much nailed it.

[1/2]

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

[Bad enough he has to deal with the 'surprise! you're not a real boy!' thing, and now the 'surprise! you ARE a real boy! look you have skin and everything!' thing, as well as the 'surprise! here's a mutated bowling ball and fucked up animals have fun' thing.

Now there's this. Now there's this, and part of him is still pretty sure he's having just a massive Gary-induced hallucination, and part of him?

Is very angry.]

Fuck you.

[Click! He's just hung up. Give him like five minutes, he'll be back. Probably.]

[2/2]

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

[It's right up around when the voltorb that's been following him around trips him up--and he's pretty sure the motherfucker did it deliberately just to get him to stop pacing around swearing like the nastiest sailor, and also to make him not kick things--that he realizes Tucker probably doesn't deserve the scorn. Asshole wasn't even there. He'd fucked off to a desert and something something aliens.

Kind of better than dying. Trust him--he'd know.

Church gives the orb a kick from his position on the ground, sole first, so as to not break any toes, and the orb glowers and sparks angrily at him. Hey, maybe his angry aura attracted an angry Andy-the-fucked-up-lightning-ball.

Okay. Okay. He's not calm about the situation, because it implies that he maybe died for real this time for nothing, and it also implies that this place has some wack-ass time travel shenanigans going on. He hates time travel. And he got dumped by Caboose. He's allowed to feel hurt, and then pretend he doesn't feel hurt at all, okay?

Okay. Breathe.

He logs back onto his handheld computer gear thing that is not as useful as a HUD and radio.]

You said there's so much shit wrong like there hasn't always been so much shit wrong with our entire lives. Also, this is bullshit. That's a general 'this'. 'This' encompasses everything. Everything is bullshit. Probably should've just said that.

[dosomethingslacker]

[When Church closes out of the conversation, Tucker just sighs. Yep, that's about how he figured that would go.

But unlike before, all those years ago in that deadbeat canyon, Tucker's grown to anticipate and be patient. Church's temper tantrums are nothing compared to the shitshow he's been dealing with. The Honedge he's been with gives a little whrrr? noise like it's expecting Tucker to do something but he merely shrugs. He knows this game. Wait it out.

And then Church calls back and Tucker's grinning despite himself. Predictable.]

Yeah, but if I'd said that, you'd want me to explain it all, so I just cut out about an hour of wasted time and cut to the chase.

But if it makes you feel any better, yes, everything is bullshit.

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

So. I can put two and two together, and I won't bother with some of the obvious stuff. [Like, the fact that he had to be replaced, and that he was replaced by Epsilon, and memory is the key, pretty much means he's dead.

It's a funny thing, knowing you're going to die, pretending/hoping like you're not, not actually getting to experience it, and being told by your best friend that yeah you're dead and that was years and years ago. It's already giving him a migraine, so he'll put it out of his mind as much as he can.]

It's over over, right? Actually over, we won, good guys one, Freelancer bullshit all squared away? Who's...do I wanna know who's left?

[dosomethingslacker]

[It's just as surreal to be talking to his effectively dead friend. That he'd moved on and gave up the chance to grieve properly, never got to say goodbye. Not that he would've done either of those things, not openly, because fuck that.

Really? He's feeling better than he has in a long time, having gotten to eat real food and sleep in a real bed for the first time since before basic. So all things considered? He's taking this fairly relaxed.]

Yup. Freelancer's gone, we were declared heroes by the UNSC.

Uh, basically everyone? Me, Caboose, Wash and the Reds. Picked up Carolina on the way.

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

...Wow, Caboose has managed not to kill anyone else? No wonder I was so fucking spec--wait, Washington survived?! That Freelancer motherfucker!

[dosomethingslacker]

Yeah, he's like a fucking cockroach.

[Probably better right now not to say Wash is blue leader now huh.]

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

No fucking fake, he was basically trying to suicide by cop or whatever at the end there. Last I saw. Which was before I got here.

God damn Freelancers.

Okay. Okay, so. This place that's full of creatures from the black lagoon. I've been trying to ditch the ball here but it won't--fucking cut it out--leave me alone, and when angry birds get angry, it throws itself at them. So. I guess that's nice. What the fuck do I do with it besides use it like a shield? Did you get Andy-without-a-mouth too?

[dosomethingslacker]

[God that sounds like Wash and the shit he pulled at the crash site. Fucking dick.]

The hell if I know. I got a sword that won't let me touch it then got teleported over half the area to meet up with Carolina. Haven't really had time to mess around with it.

[...............Just once. Just one thing, for old time's sake.]

How's the new body kickin' for you? Got it on straight?

[motherfucking_ghosttype]

Oh my god, you got a sword? Does it glow? Does it, y'know, unlock things? I can't believe I got an angry ball.

Uhhhhh. Yeah. New body. Yeah. Uh. I mean my legs are on straight. Um. Yep! Yyyyyep everything is...fine and dandy and normal over here.

[dosomethingslacker]

No, it just makes noises at me and moves away when I try to touch it.

............

You don't know what a body's like do you.

[Hi Church did you know Tucker knew all along.]