thelegion | Video

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[This day had to come eventually, didn't it? Just another one of those damn Blood Gulch Sim Troops arriving here to crash the party, and predictability a little late like always. But hey, it wasn't like he hadn't been busy saving a planet or being blissfully retired or anything equally as important. Nope.

The video shifted a little as Tucker tried to set it upright, but it soon found itself quickly propped at an angle that said this wasn't his first time recording himself; the purpose of such skills would be left up to the viewer to guess at their own discretion. But hey, have Tucker with that beautiful aqua colored armor looking right back at you, even as he sat back down and tried to appear relaxed, cool, okay with ...well, all this. All this.

Ladies in hot tight superhero outfits definitely helped.]

So, yeah, Tucker here. [It felt like an interview with Dylan. Good thing talking about himself was one of his favorite things to do.] Please try to contain your applause, but ladies, feel free to toss your bras in my general direction.

[No shame, this one.]

You know, I was kind of busy back home. [With Church shit. It was always Church shit, and there wasn't a single damn regret for it; in a way, he hoped it kept being Church shit because that meant that bastard was still around. Tucker wanted to be back there, needed to be back there because--] Those idiots - my idiots - have no one to lead them now unless you count Sarge and no one counts Sarge. Shit, I don't even think the Reds count Sarge. Okay, so maybe Simmons does, but whatever.

[He sighed, rubbing his hand over his helmet before he just waved his hand.] But cool, superpowers, am I right? I mean, if I was getting chicks before, I'm getting triple chicks now.

[Let the record show that he was not, in fact, getting ladies before, and that the triple of "zero" is still "zero".]

Look, I just want to get this shit done and over with so I can get back to being a badass back home and get my shit done. So, you know, I'll do what I have to, I guess.

[There's a sigh, that burden of few choices and responsibility - ew - before he cocked is head up.]

Hey, important final question: where do all the hotties hang out around here? There's the title of wingman up for grabs if you tell me.

[At least the video ends there, and everyone was probably better for it.]

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[The more the talks the more questions jump to mind. 'Church', he said. He can't possibly mean the Director, and what the hell was all that about a laser face?]

Hold on, one thing at a time. Why was the other CT trying to kill you, and what did he look like?

[She's got a hunch, but she'd rather have answers.]

Never saw his face. [Which, for the record, was vice versa as well. Asshole didn't deserve to see this beautiful visage.] He had brown armor though, different helmet then mine.

[The why--]

Tell me why you're so interested first, and then I might spill it.

[So. It was him. She'd seen him wearing her armour when the league of villains or whatever had kidnapped the native Legionnaires, tried to get him to see sense but she couldn't get through. Why? What had changed him?

Connie stands up and leaves the screen, but only for a moment. When she returns, she's got her helmet under her arm.]

Does this look familiar?

[Holy shit holy shit holy shit! Tucker stared at it, remembered staring down the gun as the asshole walked him nearly off the tall peak of the temple. His breath caught in his lungs, and shit.]

Voice modulator?!

[Because how else could she have sounded like him but--wait. No. That didn't make sense because she asked him--]

Wait, I'm fucking confused.

I'm not him.

[Connie sets helmet down beside her.]

But I knew him. Before he took my name and my armour.

I'm guessing it's not to run up your credit card bill.

[Tucker sighed, shook his head, then grabbed the edges of his helmet and took it off. Brown eyes stared back at her, careful, cautious.]

Why? Why the hell did he kill a bunch of innocent diplomats and try to steal alien weapons? Did he hate you that much that he wanted to set off a inter-species incident and frame you for it?

[Now that hits her like a knife to the gut, to hear just how far he'd fallen...and just how familiar it felt to the shit the Director had them doing for the sake of 'progress'. And she remembers seeing him at the broadcasting station off Legion World, so sure in his belief that he was doing the right thing as he tried to convince her that senseless murder was the right path to take.]

I think that has less to do with me and more with who he was working for.

[But if she had to guess? Grief. At least it started out that way before turning into a small kind of vengeance against the Director.]

You familiar with Charon Industries?

[Tucker didn't have the luxury of hiding the look of absolute rage that crossed over his face behind a helmet anymore, having foolishly removed it a few minutes before. Charon. Hargrove. If that wasn't enough of an answer, the curl of his fingers around his sword filled in whatever was between those lines.]

Yeah, I know it and the guy who runs it.

[His teeth were grinding. Breathe.]

What about those dickslits?

[Well shit. The sudden change and vehemence in Tucker's expression is enough to leave a bitter pit in her stomach. She'd thought Charon would be her way out of all the bullshit and lies way back then. Probably best she wasn't able to stick around for the tables to turn.]

That's who he was working for, even when Project Freelancer was running all the high tech train wrecks.

[Sorry, CT; it was just trading the devil you know for the devil you don't. And sure, Freelancer was horrible, shitty, cruel, wrong in every fucking conceivable way, but Charon was just as bad. Worse. Worse to Tucker, who had to watch a bunch of fifteen year olds fight and die just for profit margins.]

Charon was all about a-

[He stopped, brow furrowing, before looking around. Shit. The rule, the stupid, important rule.]

When are you from?

[If she had lived long enough to know she wouldn't have stayed. And then it would be 'escape from Project Freelancer' all over again. But with more alien weapons, it sounds like.

She blinks at the sudden stop, frowning past a tired sigh. Busted.]

Before Project Freelancer fell. But you don't need to worry about that.

[Tucker made A Face, before leaning back. Shit, there was so much he wanted to say, but this meant everything had to go into lockdown. Crap.]

Um, sorry, but yeah I do. I already said too much, probably.

You really don't.

[Have a frustrated face right back. Connie huffs a breath as she leans forward, weighing the bitterness in her next words. Outside of the Freelancer and the odd merchandise who already knew, she hadn't told anyone what she was leaving behind or what state she'd most likely return to if the Time Trapper left her in the state he found her.]

Over whose dead body do you think your CT will get his armour from?

[Well, that changed things, didn't it?

No, really. Did it?

For a minute, he just stared; it wasn't that he didn't believe her - he did; it was that he didn't know what to do now. Was it still safe to tell a dead person? Could that...somehow change things?

Probably not. ]

That sucks. [Teeth chewed his bottom lip before he asked. ] Freelancer did it? [Because what hadn't Freelancer fucked up?]

The Director never liked people knowing his secrets. I...defected when I found out. Everything. The tests, the lies, what he was really doing to all of us...to Alpha.

[shaking her head she has to consciously unclench her fists as her nails dig into her palms in memory. It's more honest than she's comfortable with but it's hard to hide the anger that's always been there.]

I didn't want me and my friends to pay for what he'd made us do. And they were who he sent to kill me.

So, like I said. You don't have to worry about it.

Church.

[It was instinct to correct someone when they said it. Alpha. Epsilon. Both were Church, and the name was out before he could stop himself, a different Church than the Director to him and his friends. And even after it was out, he didn't think anything of it. It was just his best friend, a name that never seemed to go away no matter how many times the guy died.

He stared for a minute, unsure of what to say; he knew some of the things that happened, knew of the stuff that he was put through, but he couldn't imagine the Reds and Blues being sent after him to take him out. Fuck.]

Shit I tell you, it stays here, right?

That's another thing I wanted to ask about.

[But that's also another confirmation, Tucker's 'Church' is Alpha. How the hell Alpha would find his way to a Sim Trooper base is a mystery to her, unless it was another one of the Director's convoluted plots.

Connie nods her head, matching Tucker's gaze.]

Of course. And likewise, I hope.

What do you want to know?

[And what he would give away. Church...as a certain topic, something important. And while Tucker bitched and complained and everything else, Epsilon's death created a divide, a caution on what he would share, to apparently dead people and still living.]

Lips are sealed, unless you're kissing me. [There was a small raise of his eyebrow; it was so much easier to joke than to talk about this.]

How many years ahead of me are you? I know I'm eight years behind Wash...

[And she's got the feeling that Tucker might be familiar with Wash, or at least some of the other Freelancers.

As for that last comment, she raises an eyebrow, replying in deadpan that would make Wash proud.]

Oh I don't know, you seem pretty fond of the whole kiss and tell thing.

Ten months ahead of Wash. But I haven’t told him anything about what happens.

[Oh, he knows Wash, for the good, the bad, and the answer came easy enough; he didn’t even hesitate to think of saying anything else, of questioning things. Right now, he was too busy being floored that he was talking to a dead woman who was the original owner of the armor that spent what felt like forever battling him in the goddamn desert.

There was a lot to unpack here, even without the Charon link.]

Baby, if you want to keep it under wraps, I can keep your secrets. In all ways. [Oh yeah. The implied catchphrase hung off the words.]

Good to know he's still kicking.

[Even if some of them weren't. She had so many questions, there were so many years Tucker's lived through that Connie will never see, so many new questions that layer on top of the old. But first things first, since he'd mentioned 'Church'.]

How did you find out about Alpha- or Church? And what's he like?

[Connie knows a a good deal about the trauma the Director put Alpha through; she can't help but wonder how much of himself was left by the end of it.

...Tucker, why do you do this? Connie shakes her head a little and gives him a flat look. You were doing so well.]

Well then, lets count this as a test run.

Pretty sure nothing can kill Wash at this point.

[And we're starting right out of the gates with that question, huh? Tucker frowned a little, looking at his hands, before sighing. Church. Shit. Well...]

Dude, he's kinda an asshole. [Nothing like mincing words.] He's constantly bitching and pissed off over something and always in the middle of a bunch of dumb drama. We're constantly going after him to help him out.

[But he also went to their greatest enemy to save Tucker when he was pregnant, and he saved their asses a bunch of other times, too, not to mention he was...well, his best friend. Not that he had a lot of options in Blood Gulch, but still. Church was--Church was important.]

We were stationed together on the same base, Blues against the Reds which was a bunch of bullshit. After Flowers died, he just kind of took charge. I mean, we still didn't do anything all day except sit around and bullshit and keep an eye on the Reds, but it was good, you know? It was out thing.

[That earns a small, bitter smile. She's proud that against all that he's been through, that Wash is still fighting, still alive. Just goes to show how full of shit the Director and his Leaderboard was.]

Asshole sounds about right. [She quirks a brow at the mention of Flowers- Florida, another Freelancer dead but one still apparently in the pocket of the Director- but otherwise she listens quietly.]

Sounds peaceful. If a bit boring.

[Tucker laughed. Boring?]

You would think, right? I mean, sometimes it was, and that was great; those were the good days. But when stuff started happening...it just never stopped. It was like this stupid snowball rolling downhill, getting bigger and bigger and faster. Freelancers kept showing up. Aliens. Certain Chosen Ones who had Certain Chosen One babies. Getting blown into the future except not really. It was way too much shit when all any of us really wanted was to sit in the canyon and just bullshit. That's when it was the golden era.

[He was quiet for a minute.]

I think that's when we were the happiest. Well, next to retirement anyway, because at least Carolina and Wash were there, even though...[He stopped for a minute.]

...even though Church wasn't.

[Connie nods at certain points of Tucker's recap. Grif had mentioned meeting Wyoming and Texas while at their sim base, but the rest of it as he goes on get a more and more surprised and skeptical look.

She's honestly probably most surprised about the retirement, and that Carolina was there. Given how Connie last saw her...it's hard to picture Carolina letting herself rest at any point. But who knows how she'd change after the fall of Project Freelancer.]

I take it back, that sounds like you've been through a whole lot of shit. But congrats on making it to retirement.

[That last part...well. Eight years, almost nine is a long time for an AI, even without all the trauma that the Alpha had been put through.]

I'm sorry you lost your friend.

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