Immortal Warheads: REIMAGINED

Chapter 4: Now's a Good Time to Explain

    Aloe was laying on a couch scrolling through her phone, after getting Shepard and Alex to join her they had brought her back to their safehouse. Having these two with her meant she had a proper fireteam now, but when they were going back to the safehouse Shepard had brought up a good point to Aloe. They needed someone who had inside knowledge and ties with syndicates around the city and someone to help maintain their cybernetics. Aloe continued laying on the couch before she shot up getting an idea. "I've got it!" Aloe stood up and ran over to the kitchen where Shepard was cooking and Alex was sitting at the table on his phone. "I have an idea for intel!" Alex continued scrolling through his phone as Shepard turned around. "Alright, lay it on me." Aloe put her phone on the table and it projected a few files. "The Commandos. It was a small military type group that would go around helping any syndicate that offered a good amount. Back in the day, with my other fire team, we would always go to them for information while we were going on missions." Shepard turned off the flame and crossed his arms. "So why did it take you so long to bring them up?" Aloe sighed and her excitement mellowed out. "I haven't been in contact with them in over a year. The group went underground and we hadn't heard from them before we went on our last mission." Shepard shrugged and snapped his fingers. "Alex, you there?" Alex blinked and looked up from his phone. "Huh? Yeah?" Shepard sat down and pointed at the projection on Aloe's phone. "Think you can find this Commando group?" Alex stared at the files for a few moments before his eyes blinked to life, lines of code scrolling down his eyes. Aloe watched as Alex sat there his eyes moving from side to side as if he was reading something. "Don't worry, it just takes a minute sometimes." Shepard said sliding Aloe's phone back to her. Aloe put her phone away as Alex blinked and rubbed his eyes. "I found, something, but it isn't a whole lot." Aloe's expression changed as she leaned on the table. "What did you find?" She asked in a sort of rushing tone. "A location, that is it." Aloe leaned back up and put her hands on her hips. "That...isn't sketchy at all. Load up, we are going." 

    The car the three people got into slowly pulled up to an abandoned warehouse. Outside of the building there were armored vehicles and crates that were stripped and opened up, trash piled up beside them. As the three stepped out of the car Aloe walked up to a tank that was missing a barrel and its treads. "Fuck...having their gear on display is something they normally do, but the state it's in, this is not good." Alex leaned back on the car, his eyes lighting up again before the gate in front of them unlocked giving off a gust of smoke and dust. Shepard and Aloe waved their hands in front of their faces before they walked over lifting the gate up. Aloe drew her pistol slowly walking in. The warehouse was lined with the same scrapped and stripped vehicles, but not a single person was found. Shepard walked in right behind her holding a rifle that resembled an AUG. The comms on both people came to life, Alex speaking. "There is one heat sig upstairs. Might wanna start there." The two nodded to each other before heading up the steel staircase. "Alright kid, which room?" Aloe asked looking at the hallway of doors. "Take a wild guess." Aloe sighed seeing the one door at the very end. "You're joking right?" Shepard laughed and pressing his shoulder up against Aloe's causing Aloe to move away slightly. "I like these guys, you really know how to pick people that make life like a movie Aloe." Shepard started walking as Aloe groaned and started following him. Once they got to the door Aloe stacked onto Shepard's shoulder, right after, Shepard bust the door in scanning the room before a gunshot went off. Shepard held up his arm and the round bounced right off it. Aloe using this chance to run around Shepard and jumping onto the person that pulled the trigger holding her pistol up to them. "Ah, okay okay fuck! You got me, get the fuck off of me!" The figure said. Shepard walked to the side of the room and turned on the lights. Aloe slowly got off the man, He wore a white two piece suit with a blue tie, a bullet proof vest on top of his dress shirt and had a sword sheathe slung around his torso. The man had a ginger beard and hair braided in a Viking like fashion. "Joseph?" Aloe asked softly before he sat up. "Hello Queen Bee, still the aggressive bitch I remember you to be. But you got some upgrades." He chuckled and rubbed his head. "See, I told you changing your legs out was worth it." Aloe groaned loud lowering her pistol and turned around. Shepard looked at the two before putting his weapon down. "You two know each other? Like what, is he your ex or something?" Aloe looked at Shepard with a disgusted look on her face. "Lord no. He was my main contact." Joseph stood up and dusted himself off. "And I assumed your last after what I heard floating around the police department. But here you are, all alive and still fucking people's shit up." Aloe turned back to face him holstering her pistol. "Can't say the same about you. You live like crap." Joseph shrugged and sat back down in his chair. "Time's change Vera, you should know that better than anyone." Aloe scoffed and pulled a chair out to sit in. "Cut the garbage, what happened?" Joseph rubbed that back of his head and sighed. "Alright, couple of weeks before you went on your last mission, a new syndicate group came in and ran a hit on us. It was a mix of two groups. One group called The Covenant." As Joseph explained Aloe's eyes widened hearing that name. "Did, did you say The Covenant?" Joseph nodded and grunted. "Get's worse. Look, I can handle some deranged fucking cultists any day, but it's this little hit squad they brought with them. Called themselves Reapers, spelled REPR. After the hit, it left my group broken. Set us back months. We couldn't offer help to anyone and because of this a lot of my men left. Some went to go join The Covenant, others just joined other groups, leaving just me, myself, and I to run this place. So I just waited here for someone to come kill me." He said leaning back in his chair. "Didn't think it'd be you, Queen Bee." Aloe sighed and stood up. "Didn't come to kill you, came here for your help." Joseph looked up at her. "Sorry, don't think I got anything for you. No new info came through in awhile." Aloe shook her head. "Doesn't mean these people don't trust you anymore. How about you come with me and you get to start again?" Joseph rose an eyebrow before a smile crept across his face. "And work with 'the' Aloe Vera. You can count me the fuck in." Aloe groaned and held her hand out, Joseph taking it and standing up.

XXX

    Later, the group had stopped at a restaurant to eat. Alex and Joseph were talking, exchanging information about anything and everything. Shepard and Aloe on the other hand were outside waiting for them by the car. "So that's the mission huh?" Aloe perked up and looked at Shepard. "What?" "Our first mission, you're hunting those Covenant freaks right?" Aloe looked down, furrowing her brow. "I know that look you had when Joseph started speaking, that's your personal stake. Look, I won't stop you on this crusade, but I'm not gonna follow you into Hell without a safety net. You can't let your emotions dictate how this goes." Aloe nodded and took a long deep breath. "I won't, can't make the same mistake I made all those months ago. This time I'm going to do this right." Shepard chuckled and took a swig from his flask. "Well you are still missing one part before we go on this crusade of yours." Aloe looked over to him and tilted her head. "A doc of course, these guys wiped the floor with you and that Joseph guy. Means we are gonna be pretty banged up, and unless you somehow learned to fix cybernetics in under a night we are gonna need one." Aloe nodded and leaned back against the car closing her eyes. "There is one place I can think of. It was always on my radar, but there was nothing sketchy about it. Just some 'disturbing the peace' calls here and there. And you know how often that happens in this city so I never checked it out." Shepard put his flask away and stretched. "Then I guess it's about time we dropped by."