Assault (Red vs Blue)

23: Tested

23: Tested

Many Years Ago: The Mother of Invention (Primary freelancer facility/aircraft)

Attempting to train rookies was always a difficult thing. They always wanted to act like they knew everything, and listening to orders and advice from more experienced peers was never a top priority. Trying to train rookies and more experienced soldiers to work together was even harder yet. The veteran team members were trying to make the point that they were in charge, but it was an action that just made the rookies gun for their superiors' positions even more. Not to mentioned the more experienced members didn't want to listen to any kind of advice from anyone else. However — as York was quickly finding out — trying to deal with all of those things on top of one's own problems became downright infuriating.

At the moment, the freelancer found himself sitting in the observation deck with two of his teammates. The three of them were currently watching the new and improved Squad Two try to run a training session. So far, it wasn't going too well. There were a lot of hot tempers clashing with each other; particularly when it came to who was calling the shots. The whole thing was turning into an extremely disorganized disaster.

"I just don't get it," Wash was saying as he watched two agents in the training room below almost collide with each other. "Why is it so hard for them to work together? It shouldn't be this hard for them. Maybe all of us on Squad One should run a training session to show them how it's done."

"I'm sorry, have you met us?" York asked, looking at the other agent skeptically. "We still don't exactly get along the best, either. And we've been fighting together as team for almost two years already. So I don't exactly think we're qualified to give a demonstration on teamwork."

"We're not that bad . . . are we? I mean, I know some of us argue about certain decisions made on missions. Or about who's getting partnered up with who. Or about who scored better —"

"I'm gonna stop you right there. Do you hear yourself right now? Like, can you hear what's coming out of your mouth? Because you literally proved my point."

"Okay, but at least we still manage to get done what we need to do. So we've got that going for us."

"Do we though? Because I'm pretty sure our last training session was a bust. Just sayin'."

Wash made a face. "You know, ever since you had your accident, you've been kind of an asshole. This whole cynical outlook on everything is getting pretty damn annoying. And I can't be the only one that thinks that."

York crossed his arms, feeling his expression twist into a glare. "Oh, yeah? Why should I be fucking positive about anything at this point? Thanks to my asshole teammates, I'm now blind in one eye. And, in case you haven't noticed, it's kinda sidelined me from a lot of shit! I haven't been able to train, I can't go back out into the field because I'd be a liability. So sorry if I don't exactly see a reason to be happy about anything. Oh, wait; that's right. I can barely see at all!"

"You can't use that excuse when you still have one perfectly good eye! Fucking use it!" Washington fired back angrily.

"All right, just knock it off! Both of you!" North scolded. "Seriously, you guys are bickering like little kids. Just shut up for a minute." He turned his attention to Wash. "You need to stop and think before you speak. There's no need to start saying things that'll only get you in trouble with everyone else. And you," he looked to York then, "need to stop with the damn attitude. What happened, happened. It's done. I get it — the whole situation sucks and you feel like everything got taken away from you. But dwelling on it isn't gonna help you get back to where you wanna be. So you both need to get your heads out of your asses and just . . . do better going forward."