[b]The misadventures of RNG6, Baboon and Caterpillar, part II: Meet the fireteam[/b] As I came to, I realized I wasn’t in the ship anymore. Instead I was lying on some sort of balcony, with Daddy-G hovering over me. I got up, shook my head and tried to focus. Behind the balcony railings there was only open sky for several hundred meters, a cityscape below and some ways out there was an enormously big orb silently drifting in midair. I turned around. Beyond the balcony there was a small plaza. Then I noticed a strange couple, who were studying me from a few feet away near a bunch of flagpoles. One of them had a metal face with bright red burning lights for eyes and antennas at each side of his head. He was dressed in a garish outfit which combined bright yellows and purple. To my surprise the man with the metal face walked up to me and extended an ironclad hand. “Hiya! Still feeling groggy from the wake-up call? Nice to meet you! Whew, what’s that? You smell like you haven’t washed in over a hundred years, which technically is true, of course.” “She pissed her pants when she came face to face with her first Fallen Captain,” Daddy-G explained, his light twinkled mockingly.” The –blamming!- bastards were hunting her.” I blushed, but the metal-faced man seemed unperturbed. “That happens to the best of us, let’s hope you will never have to meet the Hive. You will crap your pants for sure, get a clean pair and do it again for good measure.” “Of course you will then shit your breeches again when they disembowel you,” said his companion who was still leaning against the flagpole. He was looking kind of blue. Literally: his skin was blue with a purplish hue. The gloomy expression on his face and in his violet eyes suggested he was figuratively blue as well. He made no move to come over and shake my hand as the metal man had done, instead he looked me in the eyes for a moment , looked away, and started polishing his rifle. “Where are our manners: let’s get introduced. I am RNG6 and the blue bastard over at the flagpole is called Caterpillar.” The man with the metal face pointed to his companion, “And you, you are our new fireteam buddy!” [i]Fireteam buddy?[/i] “Caterpillar? Arrenjeesis? Those are weird names…” [i]Crap! I said that out loud and they may take that as an insult. You don’t know who you are dealing with here, that guy may decide to blast me with that gun for the slightest reason[/i], I thought. The metal man laughed out loud, which sounded more human than I expected. “Well, you see this?” RNG6 unbuttoned his embroidered vest and revealed a metallic, dented chest that sported a large and red G and 6. “I used to be called G6. That is not only a number on my chest, I also remember I was called G6 by the people who made me, although I don’t know who they were or why they did it. My name isn’t the only thing I remember either. I remember lots of things from before I was inactive.” “Lots of useless things, mostly” Caterpillar interjected as he kept on polishing his rifle. “Right,” RNG6 continued cheerfully,” which is why people started calling me the Random Nonsense Generator, RNG for short, which together with the 6 makes me RNG6. Neat name, huh?” “Random [i]Nonsense [/i]Generator?”, I asked incredulously “Well, it used to be Random Bullshit Generator, but the Speaker does not like it if we swear.” For the first time since I met him, Daddy-G’s light flared up fiercely. “Yeah, -blam!- him, I should be able to –blamming!- swear if I –blamming!- feel like it, but the hypocritical –blammer!- has blocked me from tapping into one of my most cherished, creative subroutines. -Blam!- that!” The intensity of his light seemed to convey anger, if such a thing was even possible for a flying metal eye. “Who is this Speaker?”, I asked. [i]A Speaker, that sounds kind of religious. Have I somehow ended up among some crazy fanatics, playing out their post-apocalyptic fantasies?[/i] Then I remembered the open-air mass graveyard I woke up in earlier today and realized that even if they were not religious fanatics, whoever survived the end of the world must have gone a bit crazy anyway. “The Speaker is the boss, or actually he speaks for him. We take names kind of literally here, as you will find out. Don’t worry about the Speaker, though. You will soon meet him,” RNG6 replied. “And you will be none the wiser for it,” added Caterpillar. [i]This guy seems to be a bit of a cynical bastard[/i], I thought to myself. “So, what should we call you? You still have a name?” “No, I don’t think so, at least not one that I remember.” “Cool!”, RNG6 grinned enthusiastically, “because that means, as your fireteam buddies, we get to make up a name for you!” Caterpillar rolled his violet eyes “Here we go again. Prepare to be butt-hurt, kid.” “Talking about butts… No offense, but for a Hunter you have kind of a big ass and those pants with the bright red butt patches you are wearing aren’t doing a lot for you either.” “Hey now, that isn’t fair! I don’t know how I ended up in this body or with these clothes for that matter! Daddy-G woke me up and I was already looking like that.” “Yeah, so –blamming!- what if I took some artistic liberties with the original model? I happen to like a bit of junk in the trunk. Sue me.” “Never mind that: a big, red butt is fine! It makes you unique! A uniqueness that I may use to give you a name. Now, let me think…” RNG6 closed his eyes. After mere moments he opened them again, grinning contentedly. “Tell me, have you ever heard of a baboon?” “I… can’t remember”, I said. “Well it used to be a species of animal, an ape to be exact, in the same family tree as you humans. Guess what? They had big, red butts, just like you. I think we should call you Baboon!” “You seriously want to name me after an animal with a big red ass?” “Yeah, Babs! It will be great, it will give you something in common with Caterpillar, who is also named after an animal.” “Do I even want to know why he is called that?”, I asked hesitantly. “You don’t,” growled Catterpillar. “Fair enough,” I said, “I do have some other questions though. Where am I and what am I doing here?” “This, kid, is the Tower. The tallest spire filled with the biggest bunch of airheads you are like to see this side of eternity”, Catterpillar responded. “Home sweet home for us Guardians” said RNG6,” at least when you are not out and about, fighting the good fight. Which brings me to the answer of your second question: we’ll be going on all sorts of missions to fight the Darkness.” “Which as you will soon find out is not as exciting as it sounds,” said Caterpillar, ”and a big time sink. Still, it is why we are here and it is the only remotely fun thing to do on this lightforsaken earth anyway.” “That and playing a bit of football in the plaza and fooling around with the kiosk rooftop fans to make you float up in the air,” RNG6 chimed in enthusiastically. “Before we do that, let’s get you some new pants though. With red butt patches of course. We do want people to remember your name.” My strange new friends walked off and, after hesitating for a moment, I followed. [i]Daddy-G had been right on the money[/i], I thought, [i]there were a lot of things that I have heard and seen today that do not make one –blamming!- bit of sense[/i]. Little did I know that was just the tip of an iceberg-sized amount of crazy.