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It began with the spreadsheets.
“Grif, did you hack into my spreadsheets?”
Raising an eyebrow, Grif slowly lifted his can to his mouth. Simmons waited impatiently for him to swallow.
When he was finally finished, Grif wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and raised three fingers in front of Simmons’ scowling face. “Three why’s to that question. Why should I know how to hack? Why would I want your stupid spreadsheets? And why would I waste my precious time on that?”
Simmons threw up his hands. “Because you always mess with my stuff?”
“Which brings me back to why number three. Why go through all that trouble when I could just have dumped my empty soda can in your room?”
He had a point. Simmons opened his mouth to protest, to remind Grif of all the times he had gone an extra length just to ensure Simmons’ frustrations. But then again – put Grif in front of a computer and the only thing he would say is “hack the mainframe”.
It did not change the fact that someone had messed with Simmons’ data. And that someone was going to pay.
“Do you even know what this means?” he groaned and ran a hand down his face. It was impossible not to think about how much work it would take to fix the mess. He would be up the entire night at this rate…
“No.” Grif leapt for the nearest couch, throwing a pillow behind his head and crossing his legs. He sighed as he accepted his fate. “But it sounds like you are going to lecture me about it so just let me get comfortable for my nap before you start rambling.”
Grif might not be the culprit, but at least Simmons had someone to scream at.
The culprit was actually found the next morning. Well, identified at least.
“Look!” Simmons pointed at the screen, finger shaking. The crowd surrounding him took a step closer to get a better look at the surveillance footage.
They all watched as a maroon-armored soldier stepped up to Simmons’ monitor and began to furiously click all the buttons. A minute afterwards he sneaked away, out of the camera’s reach, looking nervously over his shoulders the entire time.
“…Why did you hack into your own computer?” Tucker asked when the video cut to black.
“That’s not me!”
Caboose looked Simmons over with elevator-eyes, letting out a low sound of consideration. “Are you sure?”
“That sure looks like maroon armor!” Donut tilted his head. “Maybe with a tint of crimson.”
“Are you sure it’s not you?”
“Yes!” Simmons hissed at Tucker. “Just listen!” He replayed the recording, this time adding the sound as well. “He’s cackling! That’s a cackle! I don’t cackle!”
Tucker crossed his arms, snorting in amusement. “So you, what, giggle?”
“I don’t giggle! Donut giggles!”
“Guilty as charged!” Donut replied – with a giggle.
“Then what do you do?”
“I don’t know – laugh?”
Now it was Grif’s turn to snort. “Since when do you laugh?”
Simmons rolled his eyes – too bad the gesture was ruined by the visor. “Oh, ha-ha, Grif.”
“He’s laughing!” Caboose pointed out helpfully.
“That’s right. Simmons can only laugh sarcastically.”
“Shut up, Grif!”
Tucker leaned closer to the screen. Sure enough, the maroon soldier in the footage was letting out an evil laughter. “Let’s focus on the fact that Gene is apparently on Chorus.”
Grif sighed deeply. “Great, we’re being stalked by a vengeful nerd. Flee in terror, everyone.”
Simmons watched the recording again; eyes narrowing when he saw the man he loathed with his entire being messing up his precious dataset. It had taken him the entire night to fix the problem – but he was sure Kimball would appreciate his statistics on how color-divided teams would improve the overall efficiency, as long as you make sure to mix the teams on actual missions. “So what do we do? We should tell the Freelancers, shouldn’t we?”
“No way! Carolina and Wash are still in the hospital, and Grey’s having enough trouble keeping them there.” Tucker shrugged towards the screen. “’sides, Gene is a Red Team problem. Just leave a trail of calculators or something.”
Then Tucker turned around, gesturing for Caboose to follow him.
Simmons dropped his jaw, taking one step towards them. “Why is Gene our problem?!” he called out.
“’cause he’s your nemesis!” Tucker yelled back over his shoulder.
Simmons froze, blinking rapidly as the realization crept up on him.
Right.
He had a nemesis now.
As it turned out, the trail of calculators did not work.
The next day Simmons found out someone had messed with his laundry, resulting in Simmons bringing back pink underpants that had been white hours earlier.
Grif whistled. “He really knows how to get on your nerves. Almost looks like I trained him or something.”
“I’m gonna strangle him,” Simmons declared and threw the ruined clothes in the trashcan. “No, I’m gonna stab him in his stupid face.”
“Great. Murderous Simmons is back. I’ve missed that guy.”
Simmons threw some miscolored underpants in his face. “Laugh all you want. Your clothes were in that wash as well.”
But it turned out the joke was on Simmons – Grif’s underpants routine allowed him to only need one pair a week.
The shenanigans continued from there: calculators broke, scratches appeared on his visor, a can of soda had been spilled in his bed, one morning his pair of glasses was gone.
Sarge eventually found out about the maroon intruder, and his response was to spend all day marching around the buildings, shotgun ready. Two times he almost shot Simmons by accident, triggered by the armor color. Another time he had Simmons in a headlock, entirely convinced he had caught the enemy.
“Red hearts beats harder,” Simmons managed to squeak, the pressure on his throat and his panic making his voice two tones higher. The sound of Red Team’s secret password caused Sarge to loosen his grip, and Simmons furthermore proved himself when he went on to criticize the statement. “But that doesn’t logically make sense since all hearts are red and- Oomph.”
Sarge let go, causing Simmons to land face-first on the ground. “Area cleared,” he huffed before marching on.
“Thank you, sir,” Simmons said and brushed the dust off himself.
Unfortunately, Sarge’s patrols did not help the slightest. Gene continued to sneak in and out of the buildings without getting caught, leaving a well calculated mess behind. Simmons’ eye had been twitching for days at this point.
Eventually Gene managed to get some of a reputation, and one of the more popular tales among the younger soldiers went like this: in the quiet nights of Chorus, if you ridiculed Gene instead of cursing his name, you could hear his displeased screeches in the distance, carried by the wind.
And then someone (cough, Palomo, cough) decided to turn Gene into a myth. It was something about a shapeshifter that had been unlucky enough to get stuck as Simmons (“Hey!” Simmons had interrupted Palomo at this point, followed by an offended: “What is that supposed to mean?!”) and enraged by his imprisonment in that lanky body, he had sworn eternal revenge. Hide your calculators under your pillow, kids – you never know when he might slip inside your base.
Then one day, Gene went too far.
“Simmons, control your fucking nemesis!” Grif shouted the moment Simmons stepped inside his room. He was cradling something in his hands.
Groaning, Simmons felt the third headache of today invading his skull. “What did he do now?”
“He crossed the line, Simmons, he crossed the fucking line!”
It turned out that Grif’s favorite Star Wars movies had been replaced with the shitty prequels. It looked like he was about to cry.
“Those were vintage dvd’s,” Grif muttered miserably. He then clenched his fists before looking up at Simmons. “This means war!”
Simmons had not exactly tried having a nemesis before. So far he had learned that it was a pain in his ass but it also increased his coolness. He was the only one awesome enough to have a nemesis.
So he expected Tucker to be bit bitter when he came to ask for advice.
“And just why are you asking me again?”
“Because you know what it’s like having a nemesis!”
Tucker huffed. “Dude, are thinking about Felix? ‘cause you can’t really compare those two.”
“Of course I can!” Well, maybe Gene was a slightly different type than Felix but it still counted. “They are both nemeses!”
“Is that how you pronounce that word?” Tucker shook his head, trying to focus. “Whatever. Look, Gene is… meh.”
“What do you – meh? Gene is a totally acceptable nemesis.”
“C’mon, dude, he’s pretty lame. Felix was dangerous. You know, maniac with knives and all that. A badass.”
Tucker had barely finished his sentence before Simmons froze. As annoying as it was: the Blue had a point. One that Simmons had not even thought about before now…
“I have knives,” he whispered. The realization hit him like a brick to the face. “Oh my god, am I the Felix in this nemesis relationship?!”
Tucker choked on a laugh after imagining Simmons standing next to Locus, attempting to throw and catch the dagger like when Felix had showed off. But even imaginary-Simmons was not badass enough to pull off the trick, and the imaginary knife ended up on the floor. “Dude, I don’t exactly think-“
“I don’t want to be mass murderer!” Simmons cried, hands slamming against his visor in horror.
He leapt out of the room before Tucker could tell him to calm the fuck down.
Grif was on his way down the hallway when Simmons ran past him, muttering something about how he could not possibly betray Kimball, and that was certainly a cause for some kind of worry.
The orange soldier looked into the room where Tucker was still sitting in his chair with his legs crossed. “Just what did you tell him?”
Tucker had actually opened his mouth to answer, but he was cut off by Simmons’ panicked yell from the end of the hall.
“I don’t wanna sell my soul for money!”
But all things had to end and eventually Gene had to make his final move.
"Oh no.” Grif sighed dramatically and leaned back in the chair. The movement caused the ropes on his arms to tighten a little, but not enough to get uncomfortable. “I've been captured. The terror, the horror. Oh, what should I do?” His head snapped towards Gene who was fiddling with his gun. “Hey, asshole, is that good enough? You didn’t give me a script.”
Gene finally stopped pacing to stare down at him. “You don’t need a script! You just need to be scared.”
“Why the fuck should I be scared?”
“Because I have a gun! And you’re tied up! It would be a natural instinct!”
“Meh.” Grif let his chin rest on his chest plate – not because he felt defeated but because this was growing boring way too fast. “I'm gonna take a fucking nap. Wake me when you’re done with this whole thing."
“You can’t…” And cue the sound of snores. Gene looked down at his sleeping prisoner and sighed deeply. “Fine. Whatever. I just need you to lure him into a trap…”
He was rubbing his hands against each other, cackling as he mentally went through his mental checklist of his evil master plan (abandoned mine as the ideal location for a dramatic boss battle – check. Victim kidnapped – check. Victim tied to chair – check. His totally inferior nemesis’ arrival…).
His words caused Grif to wake up for a moment, opening one eye behind the visor. He asked challengingly, “How do you know you’re not the one being lured? Huh?”
“What?” Gene’s question was answered by snores again. He stood in front of the chair, sputtering, “What does that- What did that even mean?!”
And then the intruder arrived.
“Grif!” Simmons’ voice echoed all the way down to the center where Gene was waiting. A moment later Simmons appeared at the exit of a tunnel, gasping as he saw the scene in front of him. “Let him go!”
“Oh my god, fucking finally.” Grif turned his head to stare at who was supposed to be his savior – and immediately dropped his jaw. Simmons marched towards him as fast as he could, but he was slowed down due to the fact he was decked with every heavy duty weapon he had been able to find. It was rather impressive that Simmons was still able to move. "Dude, Overkill."
Simmons turned to him, almost stumbling over a shotgun in the process. "But it's the boss battle!” he pointed out and adjusted the strap of a sniper rifle that was hanging over his shoulder.
"I don't really think he's a boss, let alone a final boss..."
Behind them, in the distance, Gene tripped over nothing in his attempt to gain the higher ground, and he started yelling and cursing at no one in particular.
When he regained his balance, he dramatically spun around to look down at Simmons. “Finally! It is time! There can only be one – wait, is that a rocket launcher?”
Simmons looked over his shoulder to indeed see the top of the launcher. Yes. I-“
“That’s cheating!” Gene yelled, pointing a finger at him in accusation.
“No. No it isn’t. You didn’t specify what I should bring. I could bring everything-“
“You did bring everything,” Grif pointed out flatly from his chair. “Was the tank broken or did you just figure that maybe you brought enough explosives?”
Simmons shrugged, almost dropping two grenades in the process. “Well, Jensen did crash it last week-“ When he noticed that Gene had begun to flee at the sight of the sheer amount of firearms, Simmons tore off four guns in order to run after him. “Come back here, you little shit!”
While Simmons caught up with Gene, the rest of the rescue mission, which in this case happened to be Tucker and Sarge, ran up to Grif’s chair and began to cut the ropes.
“So how did you end up here?” Tucker asked a bit too smugly.
Grif shook the loose ropes of himself. “It involved a burrito and a lot of boring monologue. Let’s just watch Simmons beat up his evil twin, okay? Did somebody bring popcorn?”
Simmons had quickly managed to pine Gene against a wall, one arm putting pressure on his throat while the other hand was raising his knife in the air, aiming for the visor.
Gene was trying to wriggle himself out of his grasp but did not have much luck. “Wait, wait, wait, wait. Simmons, let’s talk about this.” He let out a nervous eep when he eyed the knife again. “I made backups!”
Apparently this was not enough for Simmons – he had, after all, already spent an entire night correcting the sabotage in his data – and he raised the knife even further.
The others arrived just in time to see the scene and react (in Sarge’s case, the reaction was an impressed whistle).
“Dude, he messed with your spreadsheets,” Tucker reminded Simmons while sending the trapped, shaking soldier a distasteful glance.
Simmons looked over his shoulder. “I know! That’s why I’ll stab him!”
“No, that’s why we call him pathetic and laugh at him.”
Sarge immediately yelled, “Go for the jugular!”
“Sarge!”
“Fine. Kneecap then.”
By the time Simmons had decided that stabbing a calculator-wrecking, laundry-sabotaging, dvd-stealing, rather pathetic nemesis right in the face was perhaps a bit too harsh, the maroon soldier had already gone limp in his grasp.
Simmons stepped backwards in surprise, letting him fall the floor. The visor met the floor with a satisfying smack.
“Holy shit, did you kill him?” Grif asked, kicking the body just to be sure – and as a payback for the too long monologues.
“Nooo?” Simmons let out a tiny sigh of relief when Gene’s hand twitched. “No. Definitely not. I would never do that…” He let out a weak, nervous laughter before looking at his friends. “He fainted.”
Tucker crossed his arms, wondering just how Gene had survived life so far. “Of fucking course.”
It turned out that they were not coldhearted enough to shoot an unconscious man to death, and once Gene woke up his pathetic begging did annoy them but on the other hand… It was Gene. Straight up executing him seemed a bit too much, though Simmons kept a tight grip on his dagger.
It was actually Sarge who came out with the punishment. To say that it worked was an understatement.
Only two hours after being locked up in Grif’s room, they could hear Gene’s sobs on the other side of the door (he continued to insist that the tears were caused by the stench in the room), the villain begging to be let out of the pigsty. Even after he told them he had seen one of the trash piles move, they refused to let him out.
But eventually Carolina found out about the whole thing, and then handed the traumatized Gene over to the UNSC.
“Buzzkill.”
“He’s a wanted criminal, Tucker,” she reminded him sharply.
“Oh. Right, I almost forgot that. He really doesn’t seem like the terrorist type, huh?”
Simmons huffed loudly, crossing his arms. “He’s been terrorizing me by messing with all my personal items.”
Tucker teasingly punched his shoulder, and gleefully reminded him, “And by kidnapping your boyfriend-“
“He’s not my-“
“I wasn’t kidnapped!” Grif cut him off. “I went along on his stupid plan ‘cause I was getting tired of this shitshow. It was easier to skip to the finale and let Simmons be a badass and beat him up already.”
Simmons turned towards him, voice shaking with disbelief and pride as he asked, “Do you- Do you think I was a badass?”
“Next to Gene? Absolutely.” Grif looked straight at him, head slightly tilted. “Good job with the rescue, nerd.”
Before Simmons could reply to that (though him seemingly growing two inches at the praise revealed just how touched he was), Tucker held up his hands and began to back away. “Okay, this is getting sappy.”
“At least we’ll have some peace and quiet from now on,” Simmons sighed as he stood next to Grif, arms almost brushing against each other.
“Let’s see how long that lasts,” Grif snorted. For a moment they just remained where they were, enjoying the fact that their calculators and dvd’s were safe, and that the next time Grif would go missing it would be by his own choice, probably just to enjoy a nap.
“Also, by the way, I was the one who spilled soda in your bed.”
“Grif!”