Captain Flowers stood atop Blue Base, keeping an eye out through his sniper scope for anything unusual. This was supposed to be the easy part of the job, keeping the Reds and Blues from killing each other. Just keep watch and make sure everything works out fine. He'd even been prepared for the possibility of a Scenario being run here, if only to keep certain Freelancers from looking at the books and wondering why this set of Sim Troopers never ran a Sim. But Maud was definitely not part of any simulation, and had thrown things for a loop. He was going to be the first to see anything else not to script that showed up so he could deal with it before it latched onto his charge again. He was going to keep control. He was...
...going to wonder why Sarge was marching out to the exact center of the canyon carrying the Red flag in one hand and his shotgun in the other. He came to a stop, lifted his hands to his mouth...and seemed to be shouting something, but it didn't carry. Thankfully, Flowers had the comm frequency to every trooper here, so it was easy to open the channel.
"-LEY!"
Flowers winced. He probably should have waited until between shouts. "You...do know we can open communications to the enemy, right?" he asked easily. "To trade insults, discuss terms of surrender, or to-"
"PARLEY!" Sarge screamed out again.
"Yes, that-" Flowers jerked his head up. "Wait...are you saying you want to parley with me?"
"I want to parley with the Blue leader!" Sarge responded loudly. "Get him out here, with the flag!"
Flowers thought that over for a bit. "And how do I know-"
"And don't bring the pony!" Sarge added loudly. "Or the wolf!"
"...okay, he's being sincere," Flowers deduced as he went back into the base to grab the flag. "Though I'll have to ask Tucker if he got a pet without telling me. Not that I'll mind, but I don't want it eating Maud...or vice versa, for that matter."
It didn't take long for Captain Flowers to meet up with Sarge with the Blue flag. "So...what can I do for you, Sarge?" he asked neighborly.
"I want the pony," Sarge stated flatly.
"I'm...pretty sure she'll say no to that," Flowers pointed out logically.
"I want your help to get her to say yes!"
Flowers stared at Sarge in silence, hoping something that sounded like sense would come out of his mouth at some point.
"There is absolutely no strategic value to this canyon, no matter how you look at it, except to say it's ours!" Sarge insisted. "As much as I'd be perfectly happy with the answer to 'why are we here' being 'to kill Blues', plainly it's something of even greater significance! The one thing this canyon has that nowhere else has...is that pony! We are here for the pony! We are to fight over the pony! He who holds the pony holds the key to an all new form of warfare! The time has come...to weaponize cute!"
It appeared to Flowers he would be waiting in vain. However 'logical' Sarge's deductions were, they most definitely were nonsense. "I'm pretty sure Maud wouldn't like it if you took her away from Private Church. She sees him as her Father."
"I'm not about to cross that Papa Wolf unprepared again!" Sarge insisted. "I still feel those punches!"
"Oh...that's what you meant by wolf," Flowers allowed. "But I don't see-"
"We should fight each other! Red vs Blue!" Sarge insisted.
At some point in the future, Caboose called out, "Ha! He said it too!" for no apparent reason. For some reason, this made the Maud of that time very happy, though it was hard to tell.
"...and this requires a parley...why?" Flowers asked carefully, glad he'd brought a combat knife instead of the sniper rifle. The flag could also be an effective weapon...
"So we can find a way to do it without killing each other!" Sarge snapped out.
"I...beg your pardon?" Flowers asked curiously.
"We have to be fighting!" Sarge insisted. "We're Reds and Blues. That's how it has to be! So if we're going to be fighting over Maud, let's formalize it so she'll go along with it! Every week, we have a Capture the Flag skirmish, winning team has Maud at their base till the next game. This continues until Maud's old enough to join in!"
"And you want it non-lethal because...?" Flowers coached.
"Because that pony scares the shiiii-"
"She's nowhere near here," Flowers pointed out.
"She teleports!" Sarge insisted. "That's part of why she scares the shitake mushrooms out of me and my men! We need to do this in a way that doesn't have her trying to play jumprope with our entrails as vengeance for hurting her Father!"
"I see," Flowers allowed, taking the suggestion in. The more he turned it over in his mind, the more appealing it was. "I like this plan!" he offered warmly. Not only did it give Church combat training without putting him in danger, it made it look like the focus of Blood Gulch was Maud and not Church, not the Alpha, which could only be good for the long run. "And I think I know just the way it can work."
"You do?" Sarge demanded eagerly. "Good! Cause I was at my wits end!"
"I happen to know of a particular training ammunition that locks up someone wearing this armor when hit enough to mimic taking a disabling shot, while also providing additional shielding to the one hit once they're immobilized," Flowers explained. "Works like paint balls. If we requisition a supply of those, we could skirmish with them without hurting each other, and Doc could easily scrape us clean after the match."
"Excellent!" Sarge declared excitedly. "I'll requisition the same from Red Command for 'training purposes', and we can get started. Now it's your job to convince Maud to go along with it!"
Flowers sighed as he turned to go look for Church. "Yeah, I always get the hard jobs..."