General Doyle, still carrying the Great Key of Chorus, is seen running until he reaches a very steep cliff ledge. He stops just short of the edge.

Doyle: (panting) OHHH, dear!!

Felix shows up behind him.

Felix: (chuckling) End of the line, General.

Doyle: I wouldn't advise pointing that weapon at me; (turns to face Felix and holds the sword over the edge of the cliff) I am prone to fainting after all!

Felix: (lowers weapon) Oh? Very bold... but a coward doesn't put his life on the line like that. And you are a coward, Donald Doyle.

Doyle: Shoot me, and you lose the Sword!

Felix: You're bluffing.

Doyle: You can't take that chance.

Felix slowly walks forward, weapon raised.

Felix: I can if it's a sure thing.

Doyle: STAY BACK!

Felix: Give me the sword.

Doyle: FINE! ...Fine... (turns off the Sword) You can have it... (throws the Sword into the air, off the cliff) AH! HA!

Felix: NO!

Doyle runs away from the cliff while Felix runs forward. He leaps onto the cliff edge, barely catching the Sword in his left hand.

Felix: Gotcha!

Cut to Caboose, Tucker, Donut, and Lopez running to General Doyle's position.

Donut: There he is!

Doyle: (yelling) He has the Sword!

Tucker: What?! (looks up to where Felix is on the cliff) Oh, shit!

The Reds and Blues present take aim and fire at Felix. Felix brings up his lightshield and deflects the shots.

Felix: Well look who it is; Lavernius Tucker, and his other less important but equally annoying friends.

Cut back to the group

Caboose: (shouting) No one steals from the North Pole and gets away with it!

Donut: I don't really see how that's relevant, but I agree!

Tucker: Hand over the Sword, Felix!

Cut to a shot from behind Feilx, as he holsters the Sword on his magnetic hardpoint.

Felix: Oh, now I think I am going to keep that right here.

Tucker: Dude, you're surrounded! You've got nowhere to go!

Felix: Then come get me. (stands his ground, Hard light shield still up).

Cut to Tucker, who doesn't move, still pointing his weapon at Felix.

Felix: Oh... not so tough after all, huh? I guess without your big bad, Freelancer buddies, you can't really do much, can you?

Tucker: We've outsmarted you!

Felix: Oh, I'm well aware of that, Tucker. You see, not many people get the best of me. (Cut to a wide view of the cliff Felix is on as Locus ascends from beneath the cliff in a Falcon, facing the Reds and Blues with Doyle) But no one gets the best of me and lives to tell about it.

Caboose: Ohhh, that's- that's bad.

Freckles: Affirmative.

Doyle: He was stalling!

Tucker: Ya think?!

Locus fires the ship's cannons on the Reds and Blues and Doyle, who take cover behind some rock outcroppings nearby. Felix gets on the fighter.

Felix: (sighs) And you say I talk too much...

Locus: You do.

Locus flies away from the scene, Felix on board with the Sword.

Felix: (yelling back at the group as he flies away) Ha, ha, ha, Sayonara, losers!

Cut back to Doyle and the Reds and Blues.

Doyle: You have to stop them! He's going to use that Sword to kill us all!

Tucker: Chill out, I don't think he knows how it works yet.

Doyle: What makes you say that?

Tucker: Well, if he did, he probably wouldn't have left without killing you.

Doyle: ...Uhhh... me?

Caboose: Yeah, ummm... whatever happened to Church?

Cut to the bottom of the cliff where Carolina landed. She is lying unconscious in the snow while Epsilon sits on top of her chest plate, slowly shaking his head.

Epsilon: She is going to be so pissed off when she wakes up.

Suddenly Epsilon hears footsteps and he sees Ash limping towards them. Epsilon stands up.

"Whoa! Dude, are you okay?" Epsilon asks.

Ash reaches the two. "Yeah, just a bullet to the leg. It'll take a lot more than this to kill me."

"Where's Xi?"

"...Taking a nap." Ash says as he bends down and picks Carolina up. "God, she's heavier than she looks." Ash then looks at Church. "Don't tell her I said that."

"Right."

Ash begins to walk away and Epsilon flashes on his shoulder.

"What exactly does it take to kill you?" Epsilon asks.

"A stab to the shoulder, falling out of a giant space ship, two punches to the stomach, stab to the chest, breaking all the bones in my right arm, two gravity hammers to the face, and a stab to the gut." Ash replies.

"Wow... that's very specific."

"Well, that's what it took to kill me back when the Mother of Invention crashed." Ash replies.

"You remembered that?"

"Yeah, after that whole fiasco with the True Warrior trial I gained a few more memories. That being one of them. A very painful memory."

"I bet."

Cut to the Armonia vehicle hanger, with Lopez waiting nearby as drivers pull up in damaged vehicles. Cut to Simmons, Grif, Sarge, Caboose, and Tucker inside the War Room. There is silence for a few seconds.

Grif: Sooo, uh... that did not go well.

Tucker, Simmons, and Caboose almost speak in unison.

Tucker: Yeah.

Simmons: Mmm-Hm.

Caboose: It was real bad... (short pause) We found Doc.

Grif: Uhh, yeah.

Simmons: That's technically good.

Sarge: ...Well I had a great time!

Kimball is then heard yelling nearby.

Kimball: (off screen) Oh, GOOD FOR YOU!

Sarge: Thank you!

Cut to Kimball and Doyle entering the room.

Kimball: No, not you! Him!

Doyle: It was a split second decision, and I stand by it!

Kimball: Well, thanks to you, the mercenaries now have the power to kill us all.

Doyle: Only if I die first!

Kimball: Great! So now we'll get to waste valuable men to guard you 24/7!

Doyle: Well, we'd have more men if you hadn't led them all into a trap!

Kimball: Don't you dare turn this around on me.

Cut to Agent Washington facing the group.

Washington: Okay, ENOUGH! (walks over to Doyle and Kimball) You two are acting like children!

Grif: HA-HA! You're immature!

Kimball: (turns to Grif) Dish duty!

Grif: Fuck!

Washington: What's done is done. So let's quit focusing on what went wrong and start thinking about what we have now, and what we can start doing.

Simmons: How's Church, Carolina, Ash and Xi?

Doyle: Our dear friend Emily has assured me that Carolina and Ash will make a full recoveriy. Uhh, as well as your purple friend from the caves.

Simmons: Eh, tough luck, can't win 'em all.

Washington: Epsilon's and Xi's situation are more problematic; he's doing fine now, but there's something he's not telling us. Complete armor failure just doesn't happen out of the blue. Ash won't tell us what happened to Xi, but she just came back online. So hopefully she'll tell us later.

Sarge: Well, if you want my tactical assessment-

Grif: We don't.

Sarge: (continues) -It looks to me like we've got to get to the alien-phone-tower-thingy, pronto! Make a collect call to Earth.

Washington: Well...

Sarge: Dial 1-800-Send-ships-and-kill-pirates! Standard text-messaging rates apply.

Washington: ...Are you done?

Sarge: I'll think of more.

Washington: We can't go barging in like we did with Alpha.

Doyle: I couldn't agree more.

Kimball: Well, we can't just sit here and wait for Charon to attack!

Doyle: Why not? It's heavily fortified and the city reactor rules out the risk of aerial bombings. Our alien artifacts are no good to Charon post-explosion, my dear.

Kimball: Then they'll surround us and wait for our supplies to run dry. Jesus, don't you think about any of this?!

Doyle: So, you suggest we throw Tucker out there to search for the tower? They'll kill him, and then they'll have two Swords!

Tucker: Hey, I could make it... maybe.

Kimball: I don't have all of the answers, General, but I do know that sometimes you have to risk lives if you want to see results. Even your own. Especially your own. You should have thrown that Sword off the mountain and taken the fucking bullet, but you're too much of a stupid, selfish coward to see that.

Washington: KIMBALL!!

Kimball: ...This meeting is over. (leaves)

Washington: Wait, we need to come up with a plan!

Another brief silence.

Grif: Sooo, uh... that didn't really go well either.

Doyle: She's right, though... (starts walking away as well)

Washington: Where are you going?!

Doyle: My quarters. I'm a failure of a General, and apparently a failure of a human being. Should any of you actually need me, you know where to find me. (walks around the corner)

Simmons: Actually, I don't think you ever told us where your quarters are.

Doyle: (yelling from down the hallway) Well then I'm a failure at leaving, too!

The sound of the door closing can be heard. Cut back to Tucker, Caboose, and Sarge.

Tucker: Well, shit.

Sarge: I say forget the both of them. If they don't want to run this show, then we'll just do it for them. First order of business: Red uniforms!

Washington: The problem isn't just with them. The Feds and Rebels may be working together, but they still aren't... working together. There's no trust, no... anything!

Simmons: Well, it took us ages before we were able to trust the Blues.

Grif: Yeah, and some of us are still working on it.

Camera rotates from Simmons and Grif to Sarge, who is pointing his Shotgun into the back of Caboose's head, muttering incomprehensibly.

Tucker: Face it dude, these guys spent years killing each other. They're not going to get all buddy-buddy.

Washington: I know. But if we can't bring them together soon, we're not going to stand a chance.

Fade to black.

Sarge: (off screen) Operator, I'd like to place a collect-call... to vengeance...! Knew I had one more in me!

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07-26-2022