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At this point in Grif's life, he figured that people would finally try to stop fucking with all of the Reds and Blues, but most importantly with him.
Because the last thing that he was expecting to have happened while on a nice, carefree walk to get fucking kidnapped.
Seriously, what the fuck?! They had just dealt with more AI bullshit did he really need to be dealing with this right now.
And the kidnapping wasn't even good- which is not something that he thought he'd be complaining about.
He'd been armor-less, weaponless- as he said, a carefree walk- and these fuckers just appeared behind him with a goddamn chloroform doused rag and a fucking potato sack.
And so after having passed out, naturally, he's very irritated to wake up in some fucking random ass shack.
And he just so happens to be tied up, seated on the most uncomfortable ass chair in existence.
Groaning in annoyance, he glares pointlessly at nothing in front of him. When the guys eventually figured out that he was missing, and then however long it'd take them to realize that he was kidnapped, then they would never let him live this down.
He had his bets on it being Carolina to come to the rescue. She was the only one who could get anything done at all.
Figuring that he'd be here for some time, and that as much as he loved doing nothing he just knows he's gonna get bored out of his mind fast, he decides to look around as best he can to see if there's any hint on which idiots decided to mess with him, and sub-sequentially the others.
He's not embarrassed to admit that he let out a bit of yelp at the sight of Locus glowering at him from where he was also tied up next to him.
Grif opens his mouth to figure out just how the hell these people managed to get one over Locus, "Wh-"
"No hables," Don't speak, Locus interrupted him.
He closes his mouth, not needing any convincing, so he does his best to inquire what the fuck is going on. And just why Locus is speaking Spanish instead of English.
While waiting for a response, he takes the time to observe the state the former mercenary was in. There's dried blood smeared beneath his nose, and judging by the open wound on the bridge of it Grif can practically feel the hit that he must've taken. The 'x' shaped scar is slightly concerning, but upon further observation, Grif is pretty sure that it's an old wound. Hopefully, because otherwise, that'd be pretty damn cruel.
"No es seguro hablar inglés. Me las he arreglado para convencerlos de que no puedo hacerlo, y les aconsejo que hagan lo mismo," It's not safe to speak English. I've managed to convince them that I cannot do so, and I advise that you do the same, Locus tells him.
Ok, that makes sense. A smart play at not revealing any information. And it kinda makes him glad that it's him that got captured when compared to the other Reds and Blues. Because at least he could speak and understand the language, and given that Locus hasn't spoken a word of English yet, there must be a possibility of the room being bugged.
So yeah, it's a good thing that it's him here. The others would fuck this all up.
"Entiendo," I understand, Grif confirms, and he watches as a small amount of relief appears on Locus' face. "¿Qué quieren estas personas? ¿Quienes son?" What do these people want? Who are they?
"Poco claro," Unclear, Locus responds.
He blows out air as he slumps in his seat. This whole thing was a massive pain in the ass.
Grif couldn't find anything to ask Locus, not feeling like making any sort of idle conversation.
The door opens with a creak, and he straightens in his seat, ready to see just who the hell they were dealing with.
Two semi-armored soldiers walked in, and when nobody else filtered in behind them, Grif rolls his eyes at the realization that these were the only two bozo's involved in this.
Seriously how the hell did these two manage to capture both him and Locus again?
"Glad to see that you're awake," the male soldier stepped forward, his weapon held tightly in his hands. "Now we can get on with business."
The other one steps forward, crossing her arms as she glared down at him, "Maybe you'll be more forthcoming than your friend."
Glancing at Locus, he sees the look in his eyes and knows exactly what he has to do.
"Que te jodan," Get fucked, he says plainly.
Immediately the male slams the butt of his rifle against his face, and amidst the excruciating pain of his nose probably fucking breaking, all he can think about is how that son of a bitch Locus lied to him, they do understand Spanish.
But then the male soldier speaks, "No! No fucking way, you do not speak Spanish."
"Was that necessary," the woman asks. "You can't keep slamming your gun against every captive's face that we have."
"I can do what I want, Karen," he snarks, mockingly waving his hands up. He turns back towards Grif and growls, "I know that you speak English, we've watched videos with you in them, so speak English."
Blood dripped down his face and got into his mouth, so he simply says, "No."
"Aha!" the man shouted pointing a finger at him. "I knew that you spoke English, see Karen? He was just trying to trick us-"
"Ustedes dos son unos idiotas, ¿no?" You two are fucking idiots, aren't you? he says, deducing that from just a simple observation.
The man turns back towards him slowly, a look of pure irritation on his face, as he asked, "Did you just speak Spanish?"
"Si," Grif watches as the man's eye twitched furiously.
He took in a deep breath before asking, "Do you know any English?"
It took a lot of effort to keep the shit-eating grin off of his face as he said, "No."
"But you just did-" the woman- Karen, and from what he could see she did look like a Karen all right- pushed him, effectively cutting him off.
"Really, Corey?" she snarked. "Really?"
"What?" the now-named Corey indignantly asked. "What did I do?!"
Slamming her hand against her head, she snapped, "How did you manage to get the two people involved in deep Chorisian affairs who don't. Know. English?!"
"How's that my fault?" he retorts, gesturing at himself.
"You're the one who picked them out!" Karen accused.
"Oh, yeah, totally, that's totally my fault, my bad," he rolled his eyes. "You're the one who told me to get the orange one specifically!"
"I did not!" she said, affronted. "And besides, you're the one who fucked up and got the brown soldier instead!"
His jaw dropped in shock, the soldier said, "I never took you for a racist, Karen-"
She smacked him upside the head as she growled, "Armor, you dolt. This is clearly the one who wears brown armor."
"No, I definitely saw him wearing orange earlier," Corey shakes his head.
"What lighting did you see him wearing it in? You know how similar the two colors look depending on lighting!" the woman looks more and more exasperated by the minute.
The man opens his mouth to defend himself but then closes it and cocks the side of his mouth as he struggles to remember the lighting.
He eventually settles for, "I don't know."
"Idiot," she growls out. "That's it, we can't look more stupid to the prisoner's than we already do, we're leaving."
"What about the information? How're we supposed to assassinate the president if we don't know her habits or where she'll be exposed?" Corey asked as she stalked towards the exit.
Snapping back to look at him, she says, "How the hell are we supposed to find that out if they don't speak English!"
"Ooh, that's a good point," he trails after her, letting the door slam on its own and leaving Grif and Locus alone in the warehouse once more.
Well, that was a lot to take in.
But nothing to be concerned about because Grif really doubted that those idiots would ever be able to even get near Kimball, let alone find an opportunity to kill her.
Pursing his lips, he turns back towards Locus who still hasn't said anything and asks, "Entonces, ¿cómo lograron esos idiotas capturarte?" So, how'd those idiots manage to capture you?
"No quiero hablar de ello," I don't want to talk about it, Locus answers.
"Vamos, no hay necesidad de avergonzarse-" Come on, no need to be embarrassed- he started.
"Dije," I said, Locus interrupted. "No quiero hablar de ello."
"Esta bien. Esta bien," Grif says, not wanting to piss off the other, stronger male, knowing that even if they were tied up the other could and probably would kill him for probing too much.
Finding himself without anything to say, Grif would have twiddled his thumbs had he not been tied up, because he doesn't quite feel like engaging in small talk. Reminds him too much of when he had nothing to do but start and end his own conversations. Locus probably wouldn't appreciate a repeat of all the blabber from when he picked him up from Iris.
Plus, he figures that the two soldiers- were they soldiers? They certainly had the same amount of common sense as the run of the mill SIM Trooper, but the lack of brightly colored armor dissuades him from that vein of thought. They were definitely enemies of the state though, but he figures he might as well stick to calling them soldiers- wouldn't take that long trying to figure out their next plan of attack.
And hey, maybe Carolina would bust down the doors any minute now.
Grif's pretty sure that he and Locus won't be prisoners for too long.
It's fucking four hours later when the two dumbasses- who Grif loathes for the simple fact that despite their incompetence managed to hide the two of them in a probably remote as fuck location that not even Carolina has found them yet- return.
And they're dragging a red paint splattered Lopez between them.
No, they didn't-
Grif watches as they go through the process of tying up Lopez, and he's still trying to convince himself that they're not that stupid. It's clear as the day is long that that's Lopez, who happens to have paint on himself. Holy shit they really were that stupid.
"Time to remove the armor lock," the woman said, pulling out a very familiar-looking remote, and pressing the button. She must have noticed his staring because she smugly waved the device at him whilst staying, "Recognize what this is? We bought this not too long ago from internet user MarkMyWords off the digital black market. Lucky us, this was the last one left."
He's not too sure how comfortable he is with the knowledge that more of those remotes are out in the open unsupervised, but that's overshadowed by his waiting for Lopez to get online.
The woman presses the button, and it doesn't take too long before Lopez's helmet rises, processing the two figures in front of him and the duo tied up beside him.
And Grif can just see how Lopez is about to speak, and part of him wants to shake his head, 'no don't do it... yet' but the male idiot beats him to the punch, declaring, "This time we made extra sure to grab the right SIM, your infallible Red leader. If the two of you won't talk, then he will."
Grif doesn't think he's ever gonna be as happy as he was right now as he watched Lopez turn towards the man, red splattered helmet enunciating how perfect his next words were gonna be.
And he has to do everything in his power to not burst out laughing when Lopez monotonously states, "¿Te parezco una bolsa de carne?" Do I look like a flesh bag to you?
The soldiers face crumples, the woman clenches his teeth and screams, walking away from the other man as he breaks down right where he stands.
Lopez turns towards him and asks, "¿Es aquí donde has estado? No es que me importe, idiota." Is this where you've been? Not that I care, idiot.
Nodding his head, and ignoring the way that the man has collapsed against a nearby crate, he says, "Sí, y si esta experiencia me ha enseñado algo, es que caminar es malo y es mejor que no lo haga nunca." Yeah, and if this experience has taught me anything, it's that walking is evil and I'm better off not doing it ever.
Lopez simply nods, before craning his helmet towards Locus, who only glances at him from the side, and he says, "Hola, competente." Hello, competent one.
Not wanting to be rude, but also not wanting to be associated with anything going on, Locus merely responds back, "Hola."
The man slumps over and mutters, "I give up- I just- can't. How?"
Karen has not stopped kicking the wall.
Grif would feel bad for them if they hadn't, ya know, kidnapped him and Locus and Lopez, and were plotting to kill Kimball. But this little display before them was pitiful.
And hey, maybe he's just judging unfairly, after all, he's never had to plan out an assassination. Maybe this was a common occurrence, it wasn't just that these two were stupid as all hell.
Oh, who is he kidding? These idiots were just that- idiots.
The only thing that could possibly make this sweeter was if he had a bucket full of popcorn and if Carolina showed-
The door is kicked off of its hinges and a shadowy figure appears from the light.
Speak of the devil, and she will appear.
"Hello, boys," she greets them, before looking at the two stunned and obviously screwed soldiers. "I think the two of you took something from me."
"It's- it's not what it looks like," the man tries, but at seeing Carolina continue to stalk forward, he suddenly points at Karen and says, "She roped me into this, I was just following her lead."
"Corey, you sniveling little bastard-" she yells at him, but her voice fades out when she hears the sound of Carolina cracking her knuckles.
And being ever the instigator, Grif calls out gleefully, "¡Patea su trasero!" Kick their ass!
Carolina, of course, doesn't respond, but he's sure that she got the message anyhow.
The three of them watch on as she destroys the two wannabe assassins, and over the sounds of fist meeting helmets, Grif turns towards the two and says, "Deberíamos hacer esto mas seguido." We should do this more often.
"No," Lopez says simply.
"Haz una cosa de eso," Make a thing of it, he says as a body slams harshly against the floor in the background. "Vamos un paso más allá y hagamos nuestro propio equipo también." Let's take it a step further and make our own team too.
Locus growls while Lopez list off a litany of expletives at him, but considering that this is the second time that the three of them partnered up, Grif's pretty confident that by the next time it's just the three of them they're totally gonna make a team.
It's practically a given.