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Chapter Text

The California sun beat down mercilessly on the park as Mordecai and Rigby stumbled out of Benson's office, their ears still ringing from the gumball machine's latest tirade.

"THAT'S IT! YOU'RE FIRED! BOTH OF YOU!" Benson's voice echoed across the grounds as the office door slammed shut behind them.

Mordecai adjusted his worn-out sneakers and sighed. "Dude, we've been fired like, what, fifty times this year?"

"Yeah, but this time felt different," Rigby said, kicking a rock across the parking lot. "Did you see how red his face got? I think he meant it this time."

They stood there for a moment, watching Skips rake leaves in the distance while Muscle Man and Hi-Five Ghost argued over whose turn it was to trim the hedges. The familiar sounds of the park suddenly felt distant, like they were already on the outside looking in.

"So... what do we do now?" Mordecai asked, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Rigby shrugged. "I don't know, man. Get another job, I guess? My mom's been on me about 'contributing to society' or whatever."

They wandered aimlessly through downtown, past the familiar sights of late-70s suburban California - the record shops with their psychedelic posters still fading in the windows, the burger joints with their neon signs, and the occasional VW van parked along the street.

"Look, there's a help wanted sign," Mordecai pointed to a storefront window.

"'Seeking dedicated individuals for adventure and honor,'" Rigby read aloud. "'Travel opportunities, competitive pay, brotherhood for life.' Dude, this sounds awesome! And look - they're giving out free donuts!"

Through the window, they could see a table laden with glazed donuts and what looked like informational pamphlets. A man in a crisp uniform stood behind the table, chatting with a few young guys their age.

"Free food? I'm in," Rigby said, already pushing through the door.

The uniformed man - his name tag read "SGT. MARTINEZ" - smiled broadly as they approached. "Well hello there, gentlemen! Looking for a change in your lives?"

"Uh, yeah, actually," Mordecai said, eyeing the donuts. "We just lost our jobs and—"

"Say no more!" Sergeant Martinez interrupted, sliding the donut plate toward them. "The United States Marine Corps is always looking for young men ready to serve their country. Tell me, have you ever considered a career that offers structure, discipline, and the chance to be part of something bigger than yourselves?"

Rigby, his mouth already full of glazed donut, nodded enthusiastically. "Mmph! Sounds great!"

"Marine Corps?" Mordecai's eyes widened. "Oh, we're not really the military type—"

"Nonsense! Everyone's the military type with the right training," Martinez chuckled, producing some official-looking paperwork. "Now, I can see you boys have what it takes. Strong backs, determination in your eyes... When's the last time you did something that really mattered?"

Rigby, having polished off two donuts, was feeling philosophical. "You know what, Mordo? He's right. When was the last time we did something important? All we do is slack off and play video games."

"That's the spirit!" Martinez beamed. "Now, if you'll just sign here... and here... initial there..."

"Wait, what are we signing exactly?" Mordecai asked, but Martinez was already guiding his hand toward the pen.

"Just some preliminary paperwork. Nothing major! Think of it as... expressing interest."

Twenty minutes later, they walked out of the recruitment office in a daze, each clutching a folder full of papers and a "USMC" sticker.

"Dude," Rigby said slowly, "did we just join the Marines?"

Mordecai flipped through his paperwork, his face growing pale. "I... I think we did. Oh no. Oh no no no. Rigby, look at this - it says here we report to Parris Island for basic training in THREE DAYS."

"Parris Island? Where's that?"

"SOUTH CAROLINA, RIGBY! It's on the other side of the country!"

They stood there on the sidewalk, the California sun suddenly feeling less warm, as the reality of their situation began to sink in.

"Well," Rigby said finally, "at least the donuts were good."

Mordecai just stared at him.

"Dude, my mom is going to kill me," Rigby added.

"Your mom? RIGBY! We're going to be ACTUAL MARINES! Do you know what Marines do?"

"Uh... march around? Wear cool uniforms?"

Mordecai grabbed Rigby by the shoulders. "They fight wars, Rigby! They do push-ups! They wake up at like 5 AM!"

The two friends looked at each other, the magnitude of their accidental enlistment finally hitting them.

"We are so dead," they said in unison.

Chapter Text

Three days later, Mordecai and Rigby stood on the tarmac at Parris Island, South Carolina, clutching their duffel bags and squinting in the humid summer heat. The flight from California had been a nightmare of turbulence and airline peanuts, but nothing could have prepared them for what came next.

"Alright, maggots! Form up! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!"

A mountain of a man in a pristine drill instructor's uniform strode toward the group of new recruits like a predator sizing up prey. His campaign cover sat at a perfect angle, casting a shadow over eyes that seemed to pierce straight through to their souls.

"I am Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, your senior drill instructor!" His voice could have shattered glass. "From now on, you will speak only when spoken to, and the first and last words out of your filthy sewers will be 'SIR!' Do you maggots understand that?"

"Sir, yes sir!" the group shouted back, though Mordecai's voice cracked halfway through.

Rigby, still half-asleep from the early morning arrival, raised his hand. "Uh, excuse me—"

Sergeant Hartman's head snapped toward him with mechanical precision. The entire group of recruits took an unconscious step back.

"WELL, WELL, WELL! What have we here? A joker! A comedian!" Hartman stormed over and positioned his face inches from Rigby's. "Private Pyle! I like you! You can come over to my house and... WHAT'S YOUR NAME, SCUMBAG?"

"R-Rigby, sir?"

"RIGBY WHAT?"

"Just... Rigby?"

Hartman's eye twitched. "Are you asking me or telling me, recruit?"

"Sir, just Rigby, sir!" Rigby squeaked, finally catching on.

"Well, Private Riggerson, or should I call you, “Just-Rigby”, you look like you could be someone's little sister! Were you born worthless, or did you have to work at it?"

Before Rigby could answer, Hartman had already moved on to Mordecai, who was trying his best to blend into the background.

"And what about you, string bean? You look like a scarecrow that got struck by lightning! What's your name?"

"Sir, Mordecai, sir!"

"MORDECAI? What kind of hippie name is that? You from California, boy?"

"Sir, yes sir!"

"I KNEW IT! Another flower child! Let me guess - you probably think war is wrong and violence never solves anything!" Hartman circled him like a shark. "Well, Private Quintel, in my beloved Corps, we have a saying: 'Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out!' Can you handle that concept?"

Mordecai's adam's apple bobbed nervously. "Sir, I... I think so, sir?"

"YOU THINK SO? Son, in the Marines, we don't THINK - we KNOW! Drop and give me twenty!"

"Twenty what, sir?"

The entire group winced. Even the seagulls seemed to fly away.

"PUSH-UPS, YOU SORRY EXCUSE FOR A CARBON-BASED LIFE FORM! PUSH-UPS!"

As Mordecai struggled through what might generously be called push-ups, Hartman continued his inspection of the recruits. When he reached the end of the line, he turned back to address the group.

"Listen up, ladies! For the next thirteen weeks, I am your worst nightmare and your only hope of salvation rolled into one! I will transform you from the worthless maggots you are now into United States Marines!"

He paused in front of Rigby and Mordecai, who were both trying very hard not to exist.

"Some of you will not make it! Some of you will crack under the pressure and go running home to mommy! And some of you..." his gaze lingered on the two friends, "...will make me question why I ever enlisted in the first place!"

Rigby whispered to Mordecai, "Psst, dude, is it too late to go back to the park?"

Hartman's hearing was apparently superhuman. "WHAT DID YOU SAY, PRIVATE JUST-RIGBY?"

"Sir, nothing, sir!"

"NOTHING? I heard you ask about a park! You think this is a park, recruit? You think this is some kind of playground where you can slack off and eat donuts?"

Rigby's eyes widened. How did he know about the donuts?

"Well, I've got news for you, sunshine! This isn't Disneyland! This is the United States Marine Corps, and I am going to personally make sure that you two California dreamers either become Marines... or die trying!"

As if on cue, a drill sergeant's whistle pierced the air.

"That's chow time, ladies! You have exactly four minutes to get to the mess hall, eat, and get back here! And if you're thinking about taking your sweet time..." Hartman smiled, but it wasn't a pleasant smile. "Well, let's just say you'll get real familiar with the quarterdeck!"

As the recruits scrambled toward the mess hall, Mordecai grabbed Rigby's arm.

"Dude, what have we done?"

"I don't know, man, but I think that guy seriously wants to kill us."

Behind them, they could hear Sergeant Hartman's voice carrying across the base: "You two California boys better learn fast - because where you're going, there ain't no participation trophies!"

Chapter Text

That night in the barracks, Mordecai and Rigby discovered they weren't the only disasters in Platoon 3086. As they struggled to make their bunks with military precision (and failing spectacularly), they met their fellow recruits - a collection of misfits that would have made the regular park crew look like overachievers.

"Yo, you guys are the California dudes, right?" A stocky recruit with thick glasses approached them. "I'm Eugene Tackleberry. I was supposed to go to police academy, but I accidentally signed up for this instead when I was buying a gun magazine."

"You accidentally joined the Marines buying a magazine?" Mordecai asked, momentarily feeling better about their donut-related enlistment.

"Yeah, the recruiter was set up right outside the gun shop. Said I had 'law enforcement written all over me.' I didn't have the heart to tell him I just really like the smell of gun oil."

In the bunk next to them, a lanky kid with wild hair was attempting to fold his underwear into perfect squares. "Name's Dewey Finn," he said without looking up. "I'm a musician. Was supposed to be touring with my band, but my roommate signed me up as a prank after I ate his leftover pizza."

"That's awful, dude," Rigby said sympathetically.

"Yeah, well, joke's on him. I'm gonna use this military experience to write the most hardcore rock opera ever. 'Semper Fi and Die' - it's gonna be epic."

From across the barracks, they heard a nasally voice: "Has anyone seen my asthma inhaler? I specifically labeled it with my name - Seymour Skinner - and put it in my regulation footlocker!"

A red-headed kid nearby rolled his eyes. "Dude, chill. It's probably just in your other stuff." He turned to the group. "I'm Fry. Philip J. Fry. I was working at a pizza place when I accidentally leaned on a Marine recruitment poster and somehow ended up here. I'm still not entirely sure how that works."

"That makes like, no sense," Rigby said.

"Tell me about it. One minute I'm delivering a pizza to some guy named I.C. Wiener, next thing I know I'm on a bus to South Carolina."

In the corner, a recruit who looked like he'd rather be anywhere else was unsuccessfully trying to shine his boots. "Dale Gribble," he introduced himself. "I'm here on... let's call it a 'misunderstanding' with some federal agents. Thought this would be good cover. Turns out the government runs this place too."

"Wait," Mordecai said, "are you saying you joined the Marines to hide from the government... by joining the government?"

Dale paused his boot-shining. "...I may not have thought this through."

Suddenly, the barracks door burst open and Sergeant Hartman strode in like an angry hurricane.

"LISTEN UP, LADIES! Tomorrow at 0500 hours, you maggots will experience your first taste of Marine Corps physical training! That means push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, and running until you wish you were never born!"

He walked slowly between the bunks, inspecting their pathetic attempts at military organization.

"Private Tackleberry! Why does your footlocker look like a bomb went off in it?"

"Sir, I was organizing my ammunition... sir?"

"YOUR WHAT? You don't have ammunition, you knuckle-dragging mouth-breather! You have socks and underwear!"

Hartman moved on to Dewey's bunk. "Private Finn! What is this?" He held up what appeared to be a guitar pick.

"Sir, it's a guitar pick, sir! For morale purposes!"

"MORALE? The only morale you need comes from the satisfaction of serving your country! Drop and give me twenty!"

As Dewey began his push-ups, Hartman continued his inspection. He stopped at Fry's bunk, where the redhead had somehow managed to make his bed backwards.

"Private Fry! Did you make this bed with your feet?"

"Sir, possibly, sir! I was experimenting with efficiency!"

"EFFICIENCY? This looks like abstract art! Fix it!"

Finally, Hartman reached Mordecai and Rigby's bunks, which looked like they'd been made by drunk toddlers.

"Well, well, well. My two California dreamers. Tell me, ladies, what do you think this is?" He gestured at Rigby's "bed."

"Sir, a bed, sir?" Rigby ventured.

"A BED? This looks like a natural disaster! And you, Private Mordecai - is that a video game controller in your footlocker?"

Mordecai's face went pale. "Sir, it's a Game Gear, sir! For... emergency morale?"

The entire barracks held its breath.

Hartman picked up the device, examined it, and then looked back at Mordecai with an expression that could melt steel.

"Private Mordecai, tomorrow you and Private Just-Rigby will have the honor of leading PT. And if you embarrass me in front of the other platoons..." He leaned in close. "I will personally make sure you spend the rest of your enlistment scrubbing latrines with a toothbrush!"

After Hartman left, the recruits sat in stunned silence.

"Well," Dale said finally, "at least we're all equally screwed."

"Dude," Rigby whispered to Mordecai, "I think we found our people."

"Yeah," Mordecai replied, watching Fry try to figure out which end of his pillow went where, "the question is: are we gonna survive long enough to enjoy it?"

Chapter Text

WEEK 1: INITIAL PROCESSING

Day 3 - Medical Examinations

"Next!" barked the Navy corpsman.

Rigby stepped forward for his physical, only to immediately fall off the scale when he tried to read his own weight upside down.

"Son, have you ever seen a doctor before?" the medic asked, genuinely concerned.

"Does the park nurse count?" Rigby replied, causing Mordecai to facepalm from the waiting area.

Meanwhile, Tackleberry had somehow convinced the eye doctor that his terrible vision was actually "tactical squinting" and Fry had gotten lost trying to find the bathroom, ending up in the dental office where he accidentally volunteered for experimental gum surgery.

Day 5 - First Haircuts

The base barber looked at Mordecai's head feathers with the expression of a man facing an impossible challenge.

"Son, I've cut hair for twenty years, but this..." He held up a chunk of blue feathers. "This is gonna take some doing, yer had dandruffs."

Rigby emerged from his chair looking like a brown tennis ball, while Dewey cried actual tears as his rock-and-roll locks fell to the floor.

"My hair... it was my power source!" Dewey wailed.

"Your power source was terrible," Dale muttered, running his hands over his own newly-bald scalp. "At least now the government satellites can't track us through follicle resonance."

WEEK 2: PHYSICAL TRAINING DISASTERS

Morning PT - The Great Push-up Catastrophe

"Private Just-Rigby! What are you doing?" Sergeant Hartman screamed as Rigby attempted what could generously be called a push-up but looked more like an interpretive dance about dying fish.

"Sir, exercising, sir!"

"That's not exercising, that's having a seizure! Private Mordecai, show him how it's done!"

Mordecai managed exactly three push-ups before his arms gave out and he face-planted into the sand.

Surprisingly, it was Skinner who excelled at PT, his years of nervous energy translating into unexpected endurance. "The key is to channel your anxiety into kinetic motion!" he explained to the others, who were too tired to care.

The Obstacle Course - Day 12

Fry somehow managed to get tangled in the rope climb before even starting, creating what the instructors would later refer to as "The Fry Knot" - a configuration so complex it had to be cut free with bolt cutters.

Tackleberry approached each obstacle like it was an armed suspect, army-crawling under the barbed wire while shouting "FREEZE! POLICE!" at imaginary enemies.

Rigby got stuck in the tire run and had to be extracted by two drill instructors and a maintenance crew, while Mordecai actually completed the course - only to realize he'd been running it backwards the entire time.

WEEK 3: ACADEMIC INSTRUCTION

Marine Corps History Class

"Can anyone tell me about the Battle of Belleau Wood?" asked Instructor Staff Sergeant Chen.

Dale's hand shot up. "Sir, it was obviously a cover-up for the government's first experiments with mind control through tree sap!"

"...That's not even remotely correct, Private Gribble."

Dewey tried to turn every historical battle into a rock opera, complete with air guitar solos during his presentations. His rendition of "The Halls of Montezuma" actually wasn't terrible, though it was completely inappropriate.

Fry consistently answered every question with variations of "Uh... pizza?" leading instructors to wonder if he had suffered some kind of head trauma.

WEEK 4: DRILL AND CEREMONY

Close Order Drill

"Column left, MARCH!" Hartman commanded.

The platoon scattered in seven different directions.

Mordecai went left, Rigby went right, Fry somehow went backwards, and Tackleberry executed a perfect military turn - directly into Skinner, who had been counting steps under his breath and lost track after seventeen.

"WHAT IN THE SAM HILL IS GOING ON HERE?" Hartman exploded. "You maggots move like a Chinese fire drill in a tornado!"

It took four weeks, but they finally managed to march in something resembling a straight line. The breakthrough came when Dewey started humming "We Will Rock You" and everyone naturally fell into the beat.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M SAYING THIS," Hartman announced, "BUT THAT ACTUALLY WORKED! Private Finn, you're now the official platoon drummer! And I never want to hear those words come out of my mouth again!"

The First Success - Week 4 Inspection

Against all odds, the recruits had learned to make their beds, shine their boots, and fold their clothes with military precision. It had taken threats, bribes, and Skinner's color-coded organizational system, but they'd done it.

"Well, I'll be damned," Hartman muttered, walking through the spotless barracks. "You ladies might actually make Marines yet."

For one brief, shining moment, Platoon 3086 felt like they might survive boot camp.

Then Fry sneezed and somehow knocked over his entire footlocker.

"I SPOKE TOO SOON!" Hartman roared as the contents of Fry's locker scattered across the floor like military confetti.

But despite the chaos, something had changed. They were starting to work as a team - a deeply dysfunctional, accident-prone team, but a team nonetheless.

As Phase 1 ended, the misfits of Platoon 3086 had learned the basics: how to march (mostly), how to follow orders (eventually), and how to survive Sergeant Hartman's wrath (barely).

Phase 2 would test them in ways they couldn't imagine.

But first, they had to survive the rifle range.

Chapter Text

WEEK 5: WEAPONS TRAINING

Day 1 - Meeting the M16A1

"This is your rifle!" Sergeant Hartman held up the standard-issue M16A1. "There are many like it, but this one is yours! Your rifle is your best friend! It is your life!"

The recruits stared at their weapons with varying degrees of terror and fascination.

Tackleberry immediately began field-stripping his rifle with the enthusiasm of a kid on Christmas morning. "Oh baby, you're beautiful," he whispered to the weapon, causing everyone to take a step back.

"Private Tackleberry," Hartman observed, "you seem to know what you're doing."

"Sir, yes sir! I've been waiting for this my whole life, sir!"

Meanwhile, Fry was holding his rifle upside down and trying to look through the barrel. "Is this thing loaded?" he asked innocently.

The entire firing line dove for cover as three drill instructors simultaneously tackled Fry to the ground.

Day 3 - Marksmanship Fundamentals

"Sight alignment! Sight picture! Breathing! Trigger squeeze!" barked Gunnery Sergeant Rodriguez, the marksmanship instructor. "These are the fundamentals!"

Mordecai squinted through his sights, trying to line everything up. After five minutes of adjustment, he squeezed the trigger... and missed the entire target backstop.

"How?" Rodriguez asked, genuinely baffled. "How do you miss a target the size of a garage door from 25 yards?"

"I was aiming for the bullseye?" Mordecai offered weakly.

Rigby's approach was even worse. He closed both eyes, pointed the rifle in the general direction of the targets, and squeezed the trigger repeatedly while making "pew pew" sound effects.

"PRIVATE JUST-RIGBY! THIS IS NOT A GODDAMN GAME!"

WEEK 6: FIELD TRAINING EXERCISES

The Great Tent Catastrophe

"Alright, ladies, today you learn to set up shelter in the field!" announced Staff Sergeant Williams. "Two men per tent, and I want them up in ten minutes!"

What followed could only be described as architectural terrorism.

Mordecai and Rigby's tent looked like abstract art - somehow inside-out and upside-down simultaneously. When they tried to fix it, they managed to tie themselves inside it.

"Help!" came Rigby's muffled voice from within the canvas cocoon. "I think we're trapped in a tent dimension!"

Fry and Skinner's tent was technically upright, but Fry had somehow managed to stake it down to Skinner's uniform, pinning him spread-eagle to the ground.

"This is highly irregular!" Skinner protested. "The manual clearly states that tents should be secured to the ground, not to personnel!"

The only successful tent belonged to Tackleberry and Dale, mainly because Tackleberry treated tent setup like a tactical operation while Dale insisted on multiple escape routes "in case of government air strikes."

Navigation Exercise - Week 6

"Using map and compass, you will navigate to three checkpoints and return to base," Williams explained. "Try not to get lost in a 50-acre training area."

Two hours later, Mordecai and Rigby were somehow in the base commander's flower garden, having navigated in a perfect circle.

"Dude, I think we're lost," Rigby observed, as base security approached them.

"We're not lost," Mordecai insisted, consulting his map upside down. "We're just... geographically challenged."

Fry managed to get lost in the supply closet where they started, while Dewey found all three checkpoints but also somehow discovered a drainage tunnel that led to the base bowling alley.

WEEK 7: COMBAT TRAINING

Hand-to-Hand Combat

"Today you learn to fight without weapons," announced Sergeant Martinez, the combat instructor. "Private Tackleberry, since you seem eager, you'll demonstrate."

"Sir, yes sir!" Tackleberry stepped forward, then immediately performed what appeared to be a highly complex martial arts kata that ended with an imaginary opponent in seventeen different submission holds.

"Uh... that was... thorough, Private. Now, who wants to spar with him?"

Absolute silence.

"I'll go," Rigby volunteered, stepping forward with uncharacteristic confidence.

What followed was less "hand-to-hand combat" and more "interpretive dance meets slapstick comedy." Rigby somehow managed to defeat Tackleberry through sheer incompetence - every time Tackleberry executed a perfect technique, Rigby would accidentally duck, trip, or fall in just the right way to avoid it while simultaneously causing Tackleberry to take himself down.

"This is either the worst fighting I've ever seen," Martinez muttered, "or the most advanced form of combat known to man."

The Surprise Success - Week 8

Rifle Qualification Day

Against all expectations, the moment of truth arrived. The recruits lined up at the 500-yard line for their final marksmanship test.

Tackleberry, naturally, shot expert - hitting the bullseye so consistently that the range officers checked his rifle for modifications.

Skinner, channeling his nervous energy into precise breathing techniques, managed to qualify as well.

But the real surprise came from the least expected source.

"Ready on the right! Ready on the left! Ready on the firing line!" called the range officer.

Rigby, who had spent weeks missing everything including the ground, suddenly found his zone. Maybe it was muscle memory from all those years of arcade games, or maybe it was pure dumb luck, but shot after shot found its mark.

"Holy crap," Mordecai whispered, watching his best friend nail target after target.

When the smoke cleared, Rigby had qualified - not expert, not sharpshooter, but a solid marksman score.

"Private Just-Rigby," Sergeant Hartman said, approaching with something that might have been pride, "you continue to confuse and astound me. You can't march, you can't do push-ups, you can't tie your own boots... but you can shoot."

"Sir, thank you, sir!"

"Don't let it go to your head, maggot. You've still got two phases to go."

But as Phase 2 ended, something had shifted in Platoon 3086. They were still disasters, but they were becoming competent disasters. They'd learned to handle weapons (mostly safely), navigate (eventually), and fight (after a fashion).

Tackleberry had found his calling, Rigby had discovered an unexpected talent, and even Fry had managed to complete a field exercise without getting lost in his own equipment.

Phase 3 would bring new challenges: advanced tactics, leadership roles, and the dreaded final field exercise.

But for now, they celebrated the small victory of not accidentally shooting anyone during rifle qualification.

"Not bad for a bunch of screw-ups," Dale admitted, cleaning his rifle.

"Speak for yourself," Tackleberry said, lovingly polishing his weapon. "I think I'm in love."

"With the rifle?" Mordecai asked.

"Don't judge me."

Chapter Text

WEEK 9: ADVANCED TACTICAL TRAINING

Day 1 - Small Unit Tactics

"Today we learn fire and maneuver!" shouted Staff Sergeant Thompson, the tactics instructor. "Half the unit provides covering fire while the other half advances! It's simple!"

It was not simple.

Sergeant Hartman had made the fateful decision to rotate leadership roles among the recruits, starting with Skinner as squad leader.

"Alright men," Skinner announced nervously, consulting a notebook covered in color-coded tabs, "according to Marine Corps publication 3-11.1, we should establish a base of fire at grid coordinate—"

"CONTACT FRONT!" Thompson yelled, simulating enemy fire.

Skinner immediately froze, flipping frantically through his notes. "Um, this isn't covered until page forty-seven..."

Meanwhile, Tackleberry had interpreted "covering fire" as "suppress everything that moves" and was laying down such an enthusiastic barrage of blanks that three instructors had to tackle him.

"POLICE! FREEZE! YOU'RE ALL UNDER ARREST!" he shouted while firing.

"Private Tackleberry, we're not arresting the trees!" Thompson yelled.

Rigby, tasked with advancing under covering fire, had instead found a comfortable spot behind a log and was taking a nap. "Wake me when the shooting stops," he mumbled.

Mordecai tried to follow proper procedure but somehow managed to advance backwards, ending up behind the instructor's position.

"Private Mordecai, why are you flanking me?" Thompson asked.

"I thought you were the enemy, sir!"

"I'M WEARING THE SAME UNIFORM AS YOU!"

Day 3 - Leadership Rotation: Fry's Turn

"Okay guys," Fry said, scratching his head, "I think we're supposed to attack that hill or something?"

"Which hill?" Dale asked, scanning the horizon.

"That one!" Fry pointed confidently in three different directions.

"There are multiple hills, Private Fry," Skinner observed. "Perhaps we should consult the map?"

"Right, the map!" Fry pulled out what appeared to be a Burger King napkin with crayon markings. "According to this, we need to go... that way."

"That's the ocean, Fry," Mordecai pointed out.

"Are you sure? It looks pretty hill-like to me."

What followed was a forty-five minute expedition to assault a sand dune that turned out to be the base softball field during a game between two other companies. The recruits army-crawled across the pitcher's mound while confused Marines tried to continue their game around them.

"SAFE!" called the umpire as Rigby slid into home plate during his "tactical advance."

WEEK 10: ADVANCED MARKSMANSHIP

Moving Targets and Night Firing

"Today you'll engage moving targets," announced Gunnery Sergeant Rodriguez. "The targets will move laterally across your field of fire at varying speeds."

Tackleberry immediately went into full tactical mode, calculating wind speed, target velocity, and what he called "criminal evasion patterns."

His first shot hit the target mechanism, causing it to spin wildly out of control and launch targets in random directions like a malfunctioning clay pigeon thrower.

"TAKE COVER!" Rodriguez yelled as paper targets flew everywhere.

One target smacked Dewey in the face just as he was about to fire, causing him to reflexively squeeze the trigger and accidentally shoot out the range speaker system, which had been playing motivational military cadences.

"My music!" Dewey cried. "I killed the music!"

During night firing exercises, Fry somehow managed to fire at his own muzzle flash reflection in a puddle, convinced he was engaging an enemy sniper.

"There's a guy down there!" he insisted. "He's copying all my moves!"

"That's your reflection, you moron!" Dale hissed.

"Nice try, government spy, but I know a doppelganger when I see one!"

The Great Compass Catastrophe - Week 10

Advanced Land Navigation

"Gentlemen," announced the instructor, "today's exercise is simple. Using only map and compass, navigate to five checkpoints over fifteen miles of terrain. You have eight hours."

What should have been a straightforward navigation exercise turned into what would later be remembered as "The Great Eastern Seaboard Tour of 1980."

Team 1: Mordecai and Rigby

"Dude, I think north is that way," Rigby said, pointing at the sun.

"The sun rises in the east, Rigby. That's not north."

"How do you know which way is east?"

"Because... uh..." Mordecai stared at his compass, which was spinning freely. "I think my compass is broken."

"Maybe we should follow that trail?"

"That's not a trail, that's a creek."

"Same difference."

Four hours later, they were discovered by base security sitting in a Waffle House twelve miles off base, sharing a stack of pancakes and arguing about whether they'd found checkpoint alpha.

"How did you even get here?" the MP asked.

"We followed the trail," Rigby said proudly.

"You mean the interstate?"

"Is that what that was? No wonder there were so many cars."

Team 2: Tackleberry and Dale

Tackleberry approached navigation like a SWAT operation, complete with hand signals and tactical whispers.

"Tango-Alpha-Charlie-Kilo-Lima-Echo-Bravo-Echo-Romeo-Romeo-Yankee," he whispered into his radio. "We have visual on checkpoint Charlie."

"That's a porta-potty," Dale observed.

"Negative. That's clearly a government surveillance station disguised as a sanitation facility."

Dale's paranoia actually proved useful for once - his conviction that "they" were watching led him to spot several checkpoints that were genuinely well-hidden. Unfortunately, he also led them on a three-hour detour to avoid what he was convinced was a CIA listening post but was actually a bird watching station run by the base chaplain.

Team 3: Skinner and Dewey

Skinner had prepared for this exercise with the thoroughness of a doctoral dissertation, complete with backup compasses, redundant maps, and a detailed timeline printed on waterproof paper.

"According to my calculations," he announced, "we should reach checkpoint Bravo in exactly forty-three minutes if we maintain a pace of 2.7 miles per hour accounting for terrain difficulty."

Dewey nodded along while secretly composing lyrics in his head. "Yeah, totally. Hey, does 'tactical maneuver' rhyme with 'muscle car'?"

"What? No! We need to focus on— DEWEY, WHERE ARE YOU GOING?"

Dewey had wandered off following what he thought was "nature's rhythm" but was actually just a woodpecker. This led them directly into a swamp, where Skinner's waterproof timeline dissolved in actual water, and they spent two hours being rescued by a very patient helicopter crew.

Team 4: Fry (Solo Mission - Everyone Else Was Afraid)

"Okay, Fry," the instructor said carefully, "this is a simple five-mile route. The checkpoints are marked with orange flags. Just follow the marked trail."

"Got it! Orange flags, marked trail. Easy!"

Six hours later, Fry was found at the base post office, having somehow navigated through town, collected everyone's mail, and engaged the postal clerk in a lengthy conversation about stamp collecting.

"I found all the checkpoints!" he announced proudly, holding up five different pieces of mail.

"Those are letters, Private Fry."

"Really? They had flags on them!" He pointed to the small postal service stickers.

"Those are... never mind."

WEEK 11: COMBAT CONDITIONING

The Obstacle Course From Hell

"This week, we combine everything you've learned," Sergeant Hartman announced with what could generously be called a smile. "Combat conditioning! You'll navigate the obstacle course while carrying full gear, under simulated enemy fire, with time limits!"

The obstacle course had been redesigned by some sadistic genius to incorporate rope climbing, wall scaling, tunnel crawling, tire running, and what appeared to be a medieval torture device disguised as "monkey bars."

Attempt 1: Rigby Goes First

"PRIVATE JUST-RIGBY! YOU'RE UP!"

Rigby approached the first obstacle - a six-foot wall - with characteristic confidence. He took a running leap, got approximately three inches off the ground, and bounced off the wall like a rubber ball.

"Sir, I think the wall is too tall, sir!"

"THE WALL IS EXACTLY AS TALL AS IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE! GO AROUND!"

"Around?"

"OVER, PRIVATE! OVER THE WALL!"

After five minutes of watching Rigby attempt to climb a wall like a drunk gecko, Hartman had two other recruits literally throw him over.

The rope climb went better - Rigby made it exactly two feet up before sliding down and getting rope burn in places that shouldn't get rope burn.

"MEDIC!" he screamed.

"You're fine, Private! Rub some dirt on it and drive on!"

Attempt 2: Mordecai's Mathematical Approach

Mordecai had studied the obstacle course like a physics problem, calculating optimal approach angles and energy conservation.

"If I approach the wall at a 45-degree angle with sufficient velocity..." he muttered, then promptly ran face-first into the wall at full speed.

"PRIVATE MORDECAI! WALLS DON'T MOVE!"

"Sir, I calculated the trajectory wrong, sir!"

His rope climb technique involved wrapping himself around the rope like a cocoon, then attempting to inch upward through a series of convulsions that looked more like an epileptic seizure than climbing.

Somehow, this actually worked, and he made it to the top through sheer determination and what physicists might call "angular momentum conservation through chaos theory."

Attempt 3: Tackleberry's Tactical Assault

Tackleberry treated the obstacle course like an active crime scene. He approached each obstacle with careful reconnaissance, hand signals to imaginary backup units, and running commentary into his radio.

"Alpha Team, I have visual on the primary obstacle. Appears to be a fortified position. Requesting permission to breach and clear."

He then proceeded to complete the entire course in record time while providing his own action movie narration.

"TANGO DOWN! MOVING TO SECURE THE ROPE! COVER ME, I'M GOING UP!"

The instructors were so impressed they forgot to be annoyed by his constant police references.

The Team Challenge - Week 11, Day 5

"Today, you work as a team," Hartman announced. "All six of you will complete the course together. If one fails, you all fail. If one quits, you all quit."

What followed was two hours of comedy gold that would be talked about in Marine Corps folklore for decades.

The plan was simple: help each other over obstacles using teamwork and mutual support.

The execution was pure chaos.

At the wall, they formed a human pyramid with Tackleberry at the bottom, Skinner and Dale in the middle, and Mordecai, Rigby, and Fry on top. The pyramid immediately collapsed when Fry waved at some passing birds, sending all six recruits tumbling in different directions.

"WHAT IN THE SAM HILL WAS THAT?" Hartman roared.

"Sir, human pyramid failure, sir!" Skinner reported from underneath Dale, who was somehow tangled in Mordecai's gear.

The rope climb became a group effort when they decided to send Rigby up first, then have him drop down a second rope for the others. This might have worked if Rigby hadn't forgotten which rope was which and dropped the wrong end, leaving himself stranded at the top while the others held a loose rope.

"Guys!" Rigby called down. "I think I'm stuck!"

"Just slide down!" Mordecai called up.

"I can't! I'm afraid of heights!"

"YOU CLIMBED UP THERE!"

"Yeah, but going down is different!"

It took the fire department to get him down.

WEEK 12: FIELD TRAINING EXERCISE

The 72-Hour War Game

"Gentlemen," announced Colonel Morrison, the base commander, who had come to personally observe what he'd heard were "the most entertainingly incompetent recruits in Marine Corps history."

"For the next seventy-two hours, you will participate in a full-scale field training exercise. You'll be divided into opposing forces and engage in simulated combat operations."

The recruits were split into two teams: Mordecai, Rigby, and Fry versus Tackleberry, Dale, and Skinner.

Hour 1: The Plan Falls Apart

Team Alpha (Mordecai's team) was tasked with defending a strategic hilltop position.

"Okay guys," Mordecai said, consulting his map, "we need to establish defensive positions and—"

"Can we build a fort?" Rigby interrupted.

"This isn't summer camp, Rigby. We need to dig fighting positions."

"So... we're building underground forts?"

"They're called foxholes."

"Underground fox forts. Got it."

Fry raised his hand. "Do the foxes know we're borrowing their holes?"

Meanwhile, Team Bravo (Tackleberry's team) was planning their assault with military precision that would have impressed actual generals if it wasn't completely insane.

"Gentlemen," Tackleberry announced, drawing diagrams in the dirt, "we'll execute a classic pincer movement. Dale will provide sniper support from the east while Skinner creates a diversion from the west. I'll assault directly up the middle."

"What kind of diversion?" Skinner asked nervously.

"I don't know, make noise. Be obvious."

"I can do obvious," Dale said confidently. "I'll pretend to be a tree."

"How is pretending to be a tree obvious?"

"Trust me."

Hour 6: The Great Foxhole Disaster

Mordecai's team had spent five hours digging what they thought were tactical fighting positions but looked more like abstract art carved into the hillside.

"Dude," Rigby panted, covered in dirt, "I think we hit something."

"What kind of something?" Mordecai asked.

"It's making a hissing sound."

"EVERYBODY OUT!" screamed the range safety officer as they discovered they'd punctured the base's main water line, creating a geyser that turned their defensive position into a makeshift water park.

"This is actually kind of fun," Fry observed, sliding down the muddy hillside like it was a Slip 'N Slide.

Hour 12: Dale's Tree Disguise

Dale had spent six hours constructing what he believed was the perfect tree camouflage. He'd covered himself in branches, leaves, and what appeared to be half a bird's nest.

"I am one with the forest," he whispered into his radio. "The government satellites will never find me here."

Unfortunately, he'd positioned himself directly in front of the base commander's reviewing stand, where Colonel Morrison was trying to observe the exercise through binoculars.

"Sergeant," Morrison said to his aide, "why is that tree talking?"

"Sir, I believe that's Private Gribble, sir."

"Is he supposed to be a tree?"

"Sir, I honestly don't know anymore, sir."

Dale remained convinced he was invisible even as a base photographer took pictures of him for what would become a legendary Marine Corps meme.

Hour 18: Skinner's Diversion

Skinner's idea of creating a diversion was to approach the enemy position while loudly reciting Marine Corps regulations through a megaphone he'd somehow acquired.

"ATTENTION ENEMY FORCES! ACCORDING TO MARINE CORPS ORDER 3500.18, SECTION 4, PARAGRAPH C, YOU ARE REQUIRED TO SURRENDER WHEN PRESENTED WITH OVERWHELMING TACTICAL SUPERIORITY!"

"What the hell is he doing?" Mordecai asked, watching Skinner march up the hill like a one-man parade.

"I think he's trying to bore us to death," Rigby observed.

The diversion actually worked, but not for the intended reasons. Everyone was so confused by Skinner's approach that they stopped fighting and gathered around to watch him continue his regulatory recitation.

"FURTHERMORE, FIELD MANUAL 7-8 CLEARLY STATES..."

"Somebody stop him before he reads the entire military code," begged one of the instructors.

Hour 24: Tackleberry's Assault

While everyone was distracted by Skinner's regulatory theater, Tackleberry executed a textbook infantry assault on the enemy position.

He low-crawled through mud, used proper fire and movement techniques, and successfully infiltrated the defensive perimeter without being detected.

His mistake was announcing his success by jumping up and yelling, "FREEZE! POLICE! YOU'RE ALL UNDER ARREST FOR CRIMES AGAINST MILITARY TACTICS!"

"We're not criminals, Tackleberry!" Mordecai protested.

"Resisting arrest! That's another charge!"

The exercise devolved into Tackleberry trying to read everyone their Miranda rights while they argued about whether military exercises had arrest procedures.

Hour 36: The Great Equipment Loss

By the second day, the recruits had managed to lose, break, or accidentally destroy most of their issued equipment.

Fry had somehow lost his rifle, which was later found in the base kitchen where he'd apparently tried to use it as a back scratcher and forgotten about it.

Rigby had gotten his helmet stuck on a tree branch and left it there, reasoning that "it's probably fine."

Dale had buried his gear to "keep it safe from satellite detection" and then forgotten where he buried it.

Skinner had organized all his equipment with such precise efficiency that he couldn't find anything because it was too well-organized.

Mordecai had accidentally packed his gear in someone else's bag and spent four hours helping another platoon look for equipment that was never missing.

Tackleberry was the only one who still had all his gear, but he'd modified it so extensively with "tactical improvements" that it no longer resembled standard Marine Corps equipment.

Hour 48: The Accidental Victory

The final phase of the exercise called for both teams to assault a simulated enemy position defended by instructors.

The plan was coordinated by committee, which meant it made no sense to anyone, including the people who made it.

"Okay," Mordecai said, studying their hand-drawn battle plan, "Tackleberry and I will provide covering fire from the left flank, while Rigby and Fry assault from the right. Dale will... what are you doing again?"

"Psychological warfare," Dale announced proudly.

"Which involves?"

"Making them think we're crazy so they underestimate us."

"Dale, they already think we're crazy."

"Exactly! It's the perfect cover!"

The assault began at dawn with Tackleberry and Mordecai laying down covering fire. Tackleberry's shots were perfectly placed and tactically sound. Mordecai's shots were... somewhere in the general vicinity of the target area.

Rigby and Fry's "assault" consisted of Rigby falling into a drainage ditch and Fry going to help him, then both of them getting lost in the ditch system and somehow emerging behind the enemy position.

"Hey guys!" Fry called out cheerfully, waving at the instructors. "Are we winning?"

The instructors, who had been focused on the covering fire team, spun around to find two recruits standing in the middle of their defensive position looking confused.

"How did you get here?" Staff Sergeant Williams asked.

"Underground tunnels!" Rigby said proudly. "It was like a maze down there!"

Meanwhile, Dale's "psychological warfare" involved approaching the position while doing what appeared to be interpretive dance and shouting conspiracy theories.

"THE MIND CONTROL SATELLITES CAN'T SEE YOU IF YOU MOVE LIKE THIS!" he yelled, flailing his arms in random directions.

The instructors were so bewildered by this three-pronged attack of accidental infiltration, competent covering fire, and interpretive conspiracy dance that they forgot to defend their position.

"EXERCISE COMPLETE!" announced the range control officer. "Attacking force... wins?"

Hour 72: The After Action Review

Colonel Morrison stood before the six recruits, who looked like they'd been dragged behind a truck for three days.

"Gentlemen," he began, "in thirty years of Marine Corps service, I have never seen anything quite like what I witnessed this weekend."

The recruits stood at attention, covered in mud, missing various pieces of equipment, and looking like survivors of a natural disaster.

"You lost more equipment than some units lose in combat. You violated more safety protocols than I knew existed. Private Gribble, you somehow filed a formal complaint against a tree for 'suspicious behavior.'"

Dale nodded proudly.

"Private Fry, you got lost in a straight line. Private Just-Rigby, you fell into the same hole seventeen times. Private Mordecai, you provided covering fire for your own shadow for twenty minutes."

"Sir, it was very tactical, sir!" Mordecai replied.

"Private Skinner, you attempted to surrender to a deer, filed a formal complaint about 'improper tactical documentation procedures,' and tried to court-martial a chipmunk for 'failure to follow lawful orders.'"

"Sir, the chipmunk was clearly in violation of—"

"SILENCE!"

Morrison turned to Tackleberry. "Private Tackleberry, you are the only one who demonstrated consistent military competence. Unfortunately, you also tried to arrest half the base wildlife and submitted a request to establish a 'tactical K-9 unit' using local stray cats."

"Sir, those cats showed real potential, sir!"

"They were kittens, Private!"

Morrison stood up and walked in front of the recruits.

"However," he continued, "despite all of this chaos, confusion, and what can only be described as 'military impossibility'... you completed every mission. Somehow. Through the most unconventional methods imaginable, you achieved every objective."

The recruits exchanged confused glances.

"You've learned to work as a team, even though your teamwork makes no sense to anyone including yourselves. You've learned to adapt and overcome obstacles, even when the obstacles are mostly self-created. And most importantly, you've learned that sometimes the most effective approach is the one nobody expects because nobody else would be crazy enough to try it."

Morrison returned to his seat.

"Phase 3 is complete. You have one week left until graduation."

As they walked back to the barracks, tired, dirty, and somehow proud, Rigby turned to Mordecai.

"Dude, do you think we're actually going to make it?"

"I don't know, man," Mordecai replied, "but if we can survive Sergeant Hartman, land navigation, and Dale's tree disguise, we can probably survive anything."

Behind them, they could hear Tackleberry explaining to Skinner the proper technique for arresting hostile vegetation, while Dale insisted that the entire exercise had been a government test of their "anti-establishment resilience."

Fry was trying to figure out why his rifle was covered in barbecue sauce.

Phase 4 would be their final test. But for now, they were just seven misfits who had somehow learned to be Marines.

Even if they still had no idea how.

Chapter Text

WEEK 13: FINAL PREPARATIONS

Day 1 - Uniform Inspection

"Gentlemen," announced First Sergeant Miller, the senior enlisted Marine who would oversee their final evaluations, "this is it. The last week. Everything you've learned, everything you've supposedly mastered, will be tested."

He walked slowly down the line of recruits, who stood at rigid attention in their dress blue uniforms - or what passed for dress blue uniforms in their case.

"Private Tackleberry, why does your uniform look like it was pressed with a steam roller?"

"Sir, I wanted maximum military bearing, sir! I used the laundry room's industrial press and a steam cleaner!"

The uniform was so perfectly pressed it could probably cut glass, but it was also three sizes too small because the intense heat had shrunk it.

"Private Just-Rigby, where are your ribbons?"

"Sir, I ate them, sir!"

"YOU ATE THEM?"

"Sir, I thought they were fruit snacks, sir! They were colorful and in my footlocker!"

"Those were TRAINING RIBBONS, you moron!"

Mordecai's uniform looked presentable from the front, but he'd somehow put his jacket on backwards and inside-out. When asked to turn around, the back revealed a maze of seams, tags, and what appeared to be his lunch from three days ago.

Fry had managed to lose his cover (military hat) and was wearing what looked like a sailor's hat he'd found somewhere.

"Private Fry, where did you get that cover?"

"The lost and found, sir! It was just sitting there!"

"That belongs to the base chaplain!"

Dale had convinced himself that dress uniforms were government tracking devices and had removed all the metal insignia, leaving his uniform looking like it had been attacked by a very precise tornado.

Skinner's uniform was perfect - perfectly wrong. He'd researched Marine dress regulations from 1943 and was wearing a historically accurate World War II uniform, complete with canvas leggings and a field scarf.

"Private Skinner, what year do you think this is?"

"Sir, 1980, sir! But I felt it was important to honor tradition!"

"By dressing like my father?"

WEEK 13: LEADERSHIP EVALUATION

Day 3 - Command Performance

Each recruit would be evaluated on their leadership abilities by commanding a squad of junior recruits through a basic drill exercise.

Mordecai's Turn

"Okay guys," Mordecai said to his squad of eight nervous-looking recruits, "we're just going to do some basic marching. Left face, right face, about face. Simple stuff."

"Squad, attention!" he commanded.

Half the squad snapped to attention. The other half looked around confused.

"Um... the rest of you too?"

"Squad, left face!"

Three recruits turned left, two turned right, one did an about-face, and two remained facing forward.

"No, no, no. When I say left face, everyone turns left. Like this." Mordecai demonstrated by turning right.

"Sir," one of the recruits said tentatively, "you just turned right."

"I did? I mean... that was a test! Good job spotting that!"

After twenty minutes, Mordecai had successfully taught his squad to march in what could generously be called a "creative formation" that resembled a DNA helix more than a military unit.

Rigby's Leadership Disaster

"Alright dudes," Rigby announced to his squad, "marching is boring. Let's do something fun!"

"Sir, we're supposed to practice drill and ceremony," one recruit pointed out.

"Yeah, but like, what if we made it more interesting? Like a dance battle!"

What followed was the most enthusiastic display of non-military movement in Marine Corps history. Rigby had somehow turned close-order drill into a combination of breakdancing, interpretive dance, and what appeared to be ancient tribal rituals.

"Forward, march!" became a synchronized moonwalk.

"Column left!" turned into a group spin move.

"About face!" was now some kind of breakdancing freeze.

The instructors watched in horrified fascination as eight Marines executed what could only be called "tactical choreography."

"I don't know whether to court-martial him or give him a medal," First Sergeant Miller muttered.

Tackleberry's Police State

Tackleberry approached leadership like he was commanding a SWAT team during a hostage situation.

"Listen up, officers!" he barked at his confused squad. "We have a code 4-19 drill situation! I need a perimeter established, backup positions secured, and all suspects... I mean, all Marines ready for tactical movement!"

"Sir, this is just marching practice," one brave recruit ventured.

"There's no such thing as 'just' anything in law enforcement, rookie! Now give me a 360-degree security sweep!"

The squad spent the entire exercise crawling around on their bellies, setting up "overwatch positions," and communicating through elaborate hand signals that Tackleberry had learned from a police training manual.

They never actually marched anywhere, but they did successfully "secure the drill pad" from imaginary threats.

Dale's Conspiracy Command

"Alright, men," Dale whispered conspiratorially, "before we begin, I need to know: are any of you government agents?"

"Sir, we're all Marines," one recruit replied.

"That's exactly what a government agent would say! But don't worry, I have a plan to confuse the surveillance satellites."

Dale's version of drill and ceremony involved a lot of random direction changes, sudden stops, and what he called "evasive maneuvers."

"Squad, left face! No wait, that's what they expect! Right face! Actually, about face! Now everybody scatter and meet at the secondary rally point!"

"What's the secondary rally point, sir?"

"I can't tell you here! The microphones might be listening!"

His squad spent forty minutes wandering around the base looking for a "rally point" that existed only in Dale's paranoid imagination.

Fry's Accidental Genius

Fry approached his leadership evaluation with his characteristic confusion and somehow stumbled into brilliance.

"Okay, I'm supposed to teach you guys to march," he announced. "But I have no idea how to march. So... let's figure it out together?"

What followed was actually the most effective leadership display of the day. Instead of barking orders he didn't understand, Fry worked with his squad to figure out the movements step by step.

"When he says 'left face,' I think we turn toward the left hand. Anyone know which hand is left?"

"This one, sir!" A recruit held up his left hand.

"Great! So we all turn toward that direction. Ready? Left face!"

The squad turned in perfect unison.

Through trial and error, mutual support, and genuine teamwork, Fry's squad learned to march better than any of the others. The instructors were baffled.

"How is the one who knows the least teaching the best?" Miller wondered aloud.

Skinner's Over-Preparation

Skinner had prepared for his leadership evaluation like he was defending a doctoral thesis. He arrived with laminated cards, backup whistle, stopwatch, clipboard, and what appeared to be a full on presentation but somehow printed on cardstock.

"Gentlemen," he announced, "today's training evolution will proceed according to Marine Corps Order 5060.20, with particular attention to the seventeen key principles of effective drill instruction as outlined in..."

Twenty minutes later, he was still explaining the theoretical framework of military drill while his squad stood at attention, slowly dying of boredom.

"Sir," one recruit finally interrupted, "could we maybe actually try marching?"

"Excellent question! That brings us to slide fourteen of my presentation: 'The Practical Application of Theoretical Drill Concepts in Real-World Training Environments.'"

His squad never did get to march, but they received a comprehensive education in military theory that would have impressed a war college professor.

WEEK 13: FINAL FIELD EXERCISE

Day 5 - The Ultimate Test

"This is it, ladies," Sergeant Hartman announced with grim satisfaction. "Your final field exercise. Everything you've learned - or failed to learn - will be tested in a 48-hour combat simulation."

The scenario was simple: the recruits would operate as a single squad, conducting reconnaissance, navigation, and simulated combat operations while being evaluated by every instructor they'd encountered during their thirteen weeks of training.

"Private Tackleberry will serve as squad leader," Hartman continued, "with each of you rotating through leadership positions during different phases of the exercise."

The recruits exchanged nervous glances. Thirteen weeks of training had prepared them for this moment - sort of.

Hour 1: The Plan

"Alright, team," Tackleberry announced, spreading out a map that looked like it had been through a washing machine, "our mission is to conduct reconnaissance of Enemy Position Alpha, report our findings, and then execute a coordinated assault."

"Sounds simple enough," Mordecai observed.

"In my experience," Tackleberry continued, "nothing involving criminals... I mean, enemy forces... is ever simple. We need to approach this tactically."

He began drawing diagrams in the dirt with a stick. "Rigby and Fry will conduct initial reconnaissance. Mordecai and Dale will establish an observation post. Skinner and I will coordinate the assault phase."

"What if we get lost?" Fry asked.

"You won't get lost. You have a map and compass."

"Yeah, but what if we get really lost?"

"Then you use your backup compass."

"What if that breaks?"

"Then you follow the sun."

"What if it's cloudy?"

"Then you..." Tackleberry paused. "Actually, maybe we should stick together."

Hour 3: Navigation Nightmare

The squad had been moving for two hours and had somehow managed to get lost between the parking lot and the training area - a distance of approximately 400 yards.

"According to my calculations," Skinner announced, consulting his map with a magnifying glass, "we should be at grid coordinate 123456."

"What does that mean?" Rigby asked.

"I'm not entirely sure, but it sounds very precise."

Dale was convinced they were being deliberately misdirected by "government cartographers" and insisted on taking compass readings every fifty feet to detect "magnetic anomalies."

"The compass is pointing north," Mordecai observed.

"That's what they want you to think," Dale replied darkly.

Fry had somehow acquired a tourist map of Myrtle Beach and was trying to navigate using local seafood restaurants as landmarks.

"If we find the Red Lobster, we can triangulate our position to McDonald’s and then head toward the mini-golf course," he explained with perfect confidence.

"Fry, we're in the middle of a military base," Mordecai pointed out.

"Are you sure? Because according to this map, there should be a Putt-Putt around here somewhere."

Hour 6: The Great Equipment Disaster

By the six-hour mark, the squad had managed to lose, break, or accidentally destroy most of their essential equipment.

Rigby had dropped his radio in a creek while trying to wash his face, reasoning that "it looked dirty."

"Can you fix it?" Tackleberry asked desperately.

"I tried hitting it with a rock," Rigby reported. "Now it makes different sounds."

The radio was indeed making sounds - a series of electronic squeaks and what sounded like either Morse code or a dying robot.

Dale had "camouflaged" the squad's food supplies so effectively that he couldn't find them himself. They were somewhere within a fifty-yard radius, buried under what he called "natural concealment materials" but looked suspiciously like garbage.

"I know they're around here somewhere," he insisted, crawling around on his hands and knees. "I used a very logical system."

"What system?" Skinner asked.

"I buried them where the government wouldn't think to look."

"Where's that?"

"I can't tell you. It would compromise the security of the burial site."

Fry had somehow lost his rifle again - the same rifle he'd lost three times during previous exercises. This time, he was convinced he'd "left it somewhere safe" but couldn't remember where "safe" was.

"It's in a good spot," he assured everyone. "I remember thinking, 'This is a really good spot for a rifle.'"

"What did the spot look like?" Mordecai asked patiently.

"Like a place where you'd put a rifle?"

Skinner had organized his gear so thoroughly that he couldn't access any of it without unpacking everything else. His backpack was a masterpiece of spatial efficiency and organizational theory, but completely impractical for field use.

"I need my compass," he announced, then began removing items in precise order: "First, the backup medical supplies, then the emergency rations, then the spare batteries arranged by voltage..."

Twenty minutes later, he'd laid out enough equipment to supply a small army, but still hadn't found his compass.

Hour 12: The Reconnaissance Mission

Despite the equipment disasters, Tackleberry decided to proceed with the reconnaissance mission. Rigby and Fry were tasked with approaching Enemy Position Alpha and reporting on enemy strength and positions.

"Remember," Tackleberry briefed them, "stay low, stay quiet, and don't get spotted."

"Got it," Rigby said confidently. "Low, quiet, invisible."

"And if you do get spotted," Tackleberry continued, "execute immediate withdrawal and return to the rally point."

"What's the rally point again?" Fry asked.

"That big tree over there."

"Which big tree?"

Tackleberry looked around. They were in a forest. There were approximately four hundred big trees visible.

"The... really big one?"

"They're all really big," Rigby observed.

"Fine. The rally point is... here. Where we are right now."

"But we're going to move from here," Skinner pointed out logically.

"Then the rally point moves with us!"

"That's not how rally points work," Mordecai said.

"It is now!"

The Reconnaissance Disaster

Rigby and Fry approached Enemy Position Alpha with all the stealth of a marching band during an earthquake.

"Stay low," Rigby whispered loudly.

"I am staying low," Fry whispered back even louder.

"You're walking normally."

"This is low for me. I'm usually taller."

They made it approximately fifty yards before Fry stepped on a branch that sounded like a gunshot, followed immediately by Rigby falling into a hole that appeared to have been specifically designed to catch incompetent Marines.

"I'm stuck!" Rigby called out, not particularly quietly.

"Shh! We're supposed to be stealthy!" Fry hissed, then immediately tripped over a root and crashed through the underbrush like a bulldozer.

The "enemy forces" (played by instructors) heard them coming from half a mile away.

"Contact front!" one of the instructors called out, more amused than alarmed.

"We've been spotted!" Fry announced unnecessarily, since everyone within three counties had heard them by now.

"Execute withdrawal!" Rigby yelled from his hole.

"I can't execute withdrawal! You're in a hole!"

"Then execute... hole assistance!"

What followed was a twenty-minute rescue operation that involved all six squad members, two instructors, a maintenance crew, and what appeared to be a small crane to extract Rigby from what turned out to be a storm drain.

Hour 18: The Observation Post

While Rigby recovered from his subterranean adventure, Mordecai and Dale were tasked with establishing an observation post to monitor enemy movements.

"According to the manual," Mordecai said, consulting a field guide, "we need to find a position with good visibility, natural concealment, and multiple escape routes."

Dale nodded sagely. "Also, we need to consider satellite surveillance, infrared detection, and the possibility of trained attack squirrels."

"Attack squirrels?"

"The government has been experimenting with weaponized wildlife since the 1960s. It's all documented in classified files that don't officially exist."

They found what appeared to be a perfect position on a small hill overlooking the enemy area. It had excellent visibility, natural cover, and what Dale determined were "acceptable squirrel activity levels."

The problem arose when they tried to actually observe something.

"I can see the enemy position," Mordecai reported, looking through binoculars.

"What are they doing?" Dale asked.

"They're... sitting around. Some of them are eating sandwiches."

"Suspicious. Very suspicious."

"How is eating lunch suspicious?"

"Think about it, Mordecai. Why would enemy forces stop to eat in the middle of a combat operation unless they were trying to lull us into a false sense of security?"

"Maybe because it's lunchtime?"

"That's exactly what they want us to think!"

Dale became convinced that the enemy's lunch break was an elaborate deception and began taking detailed notes on sandwich consumption patterns, eating schedules, and what he determined were "coordinated chewing movements."

Meanwhile, Mordecai actually tried to conduct legitimate reconnaissance but kept getting distracted by Dale's increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories about military meal preparation.

Hour 24: The Great Communication Breakdown

With their primary radio destroyed and their backup radio somehow tuned to what sounded like a polka station, the squad had to rely on hand signals and shouted messages to coordinate their movements.

This led to what military historians would later call "The Great Misunderstanding of 1979."

Tackleberry signaled "move forward" using proper military hand signals.

Skinner interpreted this as "take cover" and immediately dove behind the nearest tree.

Mordecai thought it meant "spread out" and began walking in the opposite direction.

Rigby assumed it was some kind of dance move and began copying Tackleberry's gestures while adding his own creative flourishes.

Fry waved back enthusiastically, thinking Tackleberry was just being friendly.

Dale became convinced the hand signals were a coded message from government agents and began frantically taking notes on "suspicious digit configurations."

The result was six Marines moving in six different directions while trying to communicate through increasingly frantic gestures that resembled a combination of semaphore, interpretive dance, and what appeared to be gang signs.

Hour 30: The Assault Planning

Despite the communication breakdown, equipment disasters, and general chaos, Tackleberry was determined to complete the mission. The squad gathered for assault planning in what Dale had determined was a "low-surveillance zone" behind a large rock.

"Alright, team," Tackleberry announced, "it's time for the assault phase. We're going to use a classic three-team approach."

He began drawing in the dirt again with his stick, which had somehow become his primary planning tool.

"Team Alpha - that's Mordecai and Rigby - will assault from the left flank. Team Bravo - Fry and Dale - will provide covering fire from the right. Skinner and I will assault directly up the middle."

"What if something goes wrong?" Skinner asked nervously.

"Nothing will go wrong. We've trained for this."

"We have?"

"Well... we've experienced things that were similar to training."

The plan was actually tactically sound, which was surprising given their track record. The execution, however, would be something else entirely.

Hour 32: The Final Assault

The assault began at dawn with what was supposed to be a coordinated three-team attack but looked more like a poorly choreographed dance number performed by people who had never seen dancing.

Team Alpha's Left Flank Attack

Mordecai and Rigby approached from the left with all the tactical precision of shopping cart with a broken wheel.

"Stay low," Mordecai whispered.

"I am low," Rigby replied, army-crawling so slowly that he was actually moving backwards due to the slope of the hill.

"Rigby, you're going the wrong way."

"No, I'm not. The hill is going the wrong way."

They made it approximately thirty yards before Rigby got his gear tangled in a bush and couldn't move. Mordecai tried to help him but somehow managed to get tangled in the same bush, creating what the instructors would later describe as a "human Christmas ornament."

"We're stuck," Mordecai reported through the squad's backup-backup communication system (shouting really loud).

"How are you stuck?" Tackleberry called back.

"We've been absorbed by hostile vegetation!"

Team Bravo's Covering Fire

Fry and Dale were supposed to provide covering fire from a position that would suppress the enemy and allow the other teams to advance.

Dale had positioned himself behind what he believed was ideal cover but was actually a decorative garden gnome that belonged to the base commander's wife.

"This is perfect," he whispered. "They'll never expect us to attack from behind lawn ornamentation."

Fry had found excellent cover behind a large tree but was facing the wrong direction, providing covering fire for a family of squirrels that had nothing to do with the exercise.

"I think I got one!" he announced proudly after firing several blank rounds at what appeared to be empty forest.

"Got what?" Dale asked.

"I'm not sure, but it was definitely hostile!"

Their "covering fire" consisted of Dale shooting at shadows he believed were government agents and Fry engaging in an artillery duel with local wildlife.

The Center Assault

While his teams provided their unique brand of support, Tackleberry and Skinner executed the main assault with varying degrees of competence.

Tackleberry approached the enemy position with textbook infantry tactics, using proper fire and movement techniques while maintaining situational awareness and tactical discipline.

Skinner followed approximately fifty yards behind, carrying a clipboard and taking notes on Tackleberry's performance for what he called "post-action analysis and continuous improvement documentation."

"This is highly irregular!" Skinner announced loudly as they advanced. "The manual clearly states that assault teams should maintain unit cohesion!"

"Skinner, stop taking notes and start shooting!" Tackleberry called back.

"I can't shoot and document simultaneously! That would compromise the integrity of my data collection!"

The enemy forces (instructors) watched in fascination as one Marine executed a perfect assault while being followed by another Marine who was apparently conducting a real-time performance review.

The Accidental Success

Despite everything going wrong in the most spectacular ways possible, the assault actually succeeded - through pure, blind, incomprehensible luck.

While Mordecai and Rigby were trapped in their bush, their struggles had created so much noise and commotion that the enemy forces assumed they were facing a much larger attacking force and repositioned to counter the perceived threat.

Fry's misdirected covering fire had accidentally hit the enemy's communication equipment, cutting off their ability to coordinate their defense.

Dale's paranoid movements had been so unpredictable that the enemy couldn't establish a clear pattern to counter, creating the tactical equivalent of controlled chaos.

Skinner's constant note-taking and rule-citing had confused the enemy forces, who couldn't figure out if he was surrendering, conducting negotiations, or performing some kind of psychological warfare.

This allowed Tackleberry to approach the enemy position completely undetected and single-handedly "capture" the entire enemy force through what could only be described as tactical excellence surrounded by organized disaster.

Hour 48: The Final Evaluation

The six recruits stood at attention in front of a panel of instructors who looked like they'd been through a natural disaster. Sergeant Hartman, First Sergeant Miller, and Colonel Morrison sat behind a table covered with evaluation forms, incident reports, and what appeared to be a very large bottle of aspirin.

"Gentlemen," Colonel Morrison began slowly, "in forty-eight hours, you have managed to lose more equipment than most units lose in six months. You've required more medical attention than a combat zone. You've caused more property damage than Hurricane Carmen."

The recruits stood perfectly still, which was probably the most military thing they'd done all week.

"Private Gribble, you filed seventeen separate reports about 'suspicious squirrel activity.' Private Fry, you somehow got lost in a circle. Private Just-Rigby, you fell into the same storm drain twice. Private Mordecai, you provided covering fire for a tree for thirty minutes."

Morrison paused to consult his notes.

"Private Skinner, you attempted to surrender to a deer, filed a formal complaint about 'improper tactical documentation procedures,' and tried to court-martial a chipmunk for 'failure to follow lawful orders.'"

"Sir, the chipmunk was clearly in violation of—"

"SILENCE!"

Morrison turned to Tackleberry. "Private Tackleberry, you are the only one who demonstrated consistent military competence. Unfortunately, you also tried to arrest half the base wildlife and submitted a request to establish a 'tactical K-9 unit' using local stray cats."

"Sir, those cats showed real potential, sir!"

"They were kittens, Private!"

Morrison stood up and walked in front of the recruits.

"However," he continued, "despite all of this chaos, confusion, and what can only be described as 'military impossibility'... you completed every mission. Somehow. Through the most unconventional methods imaginable, you achieved every objective."

The recruits exchanged confused glances.

"You've learned to work as a team, even though your teamwork makes no sense to anyone including yourselves. You've learned to adapt and overcome obstacles, even when the obstacles are mostly self-created. And most importantly, you've learned that sometimes the most effective approach is the one nobody expects because nobody else would be crazy enough to try it."

Morrison returned to his seat.

"Phase 4 is complete. You have survived thirteen weeks of Marine Corps recruit training. Against all odds, contrary to all logic, and despite the laws of physics... you are now Marines."

The recruits stood in stunned silence.

"Platoon 3086, you will graduate tomorrow morning at 0800 hours. Dismissed!"

As they walked back to the barracks for the final time as recruits, Rigby turned to Mordecai.

"Dude, we did it. We're actually Marines."

"I still don't understand how," Mordecai replied.

Behind them, they could hear their squad mates discussing their impending graduation.

"Do you think they'll make us pay for all the stuff we broke?" Fry asked.

"The government probably has insurance for that," Dale replied confidently. "It's all part of the military-industrial complex."

"I'm going to miss this place," Skinner said wistfully. "Where else can you file seventeen different types of paperwork in a single day?"

"I wonder if they'll let me keep the uniform," Tackleberry mused. "It would look great in my police cruiser."

They were still the same seven misfits who had stumbled into the recruiter's office months ago. But now they were seven misfits who had somehow earned the title of United States Marine.

Tomorrow, they would graduate and face whatever came next.

But tonight, they were just seven friends who had survived the impossible together.

Chapter Text

Graduation Day

The sky over Parris Island looked like polished chrome, a crisp morning sheen rolling off the bay as the base stirred with ritual precision. Platoon 3086 was not part of that precision. They were outside their barracks attempting, and largely failing, to prepare for graduation.

“Where’s my ribbon bar?!” Skinner wailed, rummaging through his footlocker with surgical panic. “I had them in alphabetical order by campaign that never occurred!”

“They’re not alphabetized if you never went to war!” Rigby shouted, already chewing gum he wasn’t supposed to have. He stuck a second piece in his sock “for backup.”

Mordecai buttoned his blouse with cold, trembling fingers, staring at his reflection in the barracks window. His posture looked right. His face looked older. His insignia was—crooked.

“Tackleberry, does this look right?” Mordecai asked.

Tackleberry was already standing at attention, his uniform pressed so stiffly that it looked painted on. “You look like a Marine. You look like justice ,” he said solemnly. “But your collar device is two degrees off center. Fix it before the ghosts of Guadalcanal come for you.”

Fry appeared from the head with wet hair, no gloves, and the cover of a field manual stuck to his face. “Does anyone have white gloves? Mine... dissolved.”

“How do gloves dissolve?!” Mordecai shouted.

“They were near Dale’s sock drawer,” Fry replied. “That whole drawer might be haunted.”

“NOT haunted,” Dale said, appearing behind them with sunglasses and a laminated chart. “Just irradiated. They’ve been conducting experiments here since ‘52. I have the documents.”

Dewey Finn adjusted his collar while tuning a pitch pipe. “I asked if I could sing the national anthem. Apparently the base has rules .” He air-quoted with gloves that still smelled faintly of hair gel.

Out on the parade deck, chairs were being set up in perfect rows for proud families and stone-faced drill instructors. The American flag fluttered over the bleachers. The air smelled like starch, sea salt, and unfinished business.

Sergeant Hartman stood alone near the reviewing stand, arms crossed, jaw set like concrete. Watching. Measuring.

This is it, Mordecai thought. No take-backs.

“Platoon 3086! OUTSIDE! NOW!” Hartman’s voice cut through the barracks like artillery fire.

They scrambled into formation. Skinner’s ribbon bar was slightly off-kilter. Fry forgot which glove went on which hand and wore both backwards. Rigby had to spit out his gum mid-run and hit a bird feeder on the way. The seagull it belonged to flew away in disgust.

But they made it. Against all physics and logic, they made it.

Hartman paced in front of them, his eyes moving from one misfit to the next.

“You pukes are about to become United States Marines,” he said. “The Corps will regret it. I will regret it. But orders are orders. And as of 0900 today, you’re no longer recruits.”

He paused, lips twisting slightly.

“You’re Marines .”

They stood there in stunned silence.

“WHEN I SAY YOU’RE MARINES, YOU SOUND OFF LIKE YOU GOT A PAIR!”

“Sir, yes sir!” they bellowed.

“Louder!”

“SIR, YES SIR!”

Behind them, the band struck up the "Marines' Hymn." The graduation began.

Parents and siblings filed into the stands. Mordecai spotted his mom in the crowd. She was holding a disposable camera and waving with barely contained tears. Rigby’s family members were there too — his mom clutching a tissue, Don already lecturing a nearby gunnery sergeant about tax policy, and his dad, predictably, never come to watch him graduate.

The commanding general made a brief speech, calling them “a testament to perseverance” while clearly avoiding eye contact with anyone in 3086.

Then came the march.

They stepped off in half-sync, led by Tackleberry whose feet struck the pavement like war drums. Mordecai kept pace. Skinner actually counted out loud. Fry saluted at random birds overhead. Dale kept his eyes moving in case of satellite surveillance. Rigby grinned like a man who had no idea how this was happening but was thrilled all the same.

They reached the central stage. One by one, names were called.

“Private Eugene Tackleberry — Rifle Expert, Squad Leader, Disciplinary Write-Up for Arresting a Fence. Graduate.”

“Private Mordecai Quintel — Marksman, Close-Order Drill Passable, Disciplinary Incident: Saluting the Flagpole. Graduate.”

“Private Rigby Riggerson — Marksman, Occasional Accidental Genius, Multiple Disciplinary Incidents: Slingshot Use, Improper Gum Concealment, Sleeping in a Tent You Were Supposed to Build. Graduate.”

When Rigby crossed the stage, he raised both fists and shouted, “SEMPER FLY, BABY!” before remembering where he was.

Hartman’s left eye twitched, but he said nothing.

The final names were called. Medals pinned. Commendations half-sincerely given. And then, just like that—

“By the authority vested in me by the United States Marine Corps,” announced the colonel, “I hereby acknowledge these recruits as graduates of Parris Island Recruit Depot.”

Cheers erupted. Some polite. Some unhinged. Some—like Rigby’s mom’s—verging on banshee shrieking.

Hartman faced them one last time.

“You boys didn’t break,” he said, voice lower now. “You bent. You curved. You pirouetted around military logic like drunken ballerinas. But dammit… you made it.”

He took a long breath. “Dismissed.”

The newly minted Marines exploded into each other, shaking hands, bumping chests, throwing covers in the air. Fry tried to hug a drill instructor and was gently redirected to hug air . Dale swore he saw a shadow government liaison in the audience. Dewey pulled out a harmonica and played a three-chord riff he swore was “The Spirit of '76.”

Mordecai stood beside Rigby in the crowd, both still wearing their Dress Blues, still stunned.

“So, uh…” Rigby said. “Now what?”

Mordecai looked at the mass of families, balloons, salutes, and handshakes. “We did the impossible.”

“Does that mean we get to go home now?”

“Not forever. Just for leave.”

Rigby cracked his knuckles and smirked. “Then I got dibs on the window seat.”

They watched as their platoon mates gathered for photos and overlong goodbyes. Hartman stepped into the background and, just for a second, seemed to smile. Maybe. A little.

And as the sun rose over Parris Island, turning the asphalt to gold and the ocean breeze to something almost poetic, Platoon 3086 stood together for one last photo.

The weirdos.

The washouts.

The once-lost causes.

Now... Marines.

Chapter Text

The bus hissed as it braked at the edge of their old California neighborhood, dust kicking up in the golden morning light. The air smelled like smog, palm trees, and burnt hot dog water.

Mordecai and Rigby stepped off, each wearing the full dress blues of the United States Marine Corps.

Mordecai's jacket was buttoned, his trousers pressed… but he had mustard on his collar from a chili dog he was still finishing. Rigby, half a step behind him, clutched a massive Slurpee with two straws and a donut jammed onto one straw like a garnish.

“Dude,” Rigby mumbled through a mouthful of powdered sugar, “I think the lady next to us thought I was saluting her when I sneezed.”

“You were saluting her. With the wrong hand. While sneezing,” Mordecai said, wiping mustard on the inside of his sleeve.

They stood on the corner awkwardly, taking in the familiar sights: the video store (now renting VHS only ), the burger joint with the flickering neon "R" in BURGERS, and the old record shop that still advertised "New Zeppelin" like the '70s weren’t dying out.

People stared.

A small boy pointed. “Mommy, why is that raccoon wearing medals?”

“That’s a... Marine, sweetie, keep walking.”

An older man in a wheelchair saluted them. Mordecai, startled, saluted back — so hard he knocked off his own cover. Rigby tried to salute too, forgot he had a drink in hand, and launched half a cherry Slurpee onto a payphone.

“Dude. We’re heroes,” Rigby said proudly.

“You dumped sugar water on the nation's communications infrastructure.”

“That’s freedom, baby.”

They made their way to the bus stop, caught the next ride toward the park, and, thirty minutes later, were walking the gravel path they’d been fired from so many times before.

The park looked exactly the same. Same trees. Same wonky hedges. Same birds that always sounded like they were laughing at someone.

In the distance, Skips was wrenching open the soda machine with ancient calm. Muscle Man was throwing pinecones at Hi-Five Ghost while shouting something about “leaf supremacy.” Pops was watering the petunias with his usual tragic poetry voice.

Then came Benson.

Clipboard in hand, sunglasses low on his gumball head, muttering about budget reports and maintenance rosters. He looked up.

And froze.

Everyone did.

It was like a sitcom freeze-frame, but way weirder.

“Yo,” Mordecai said casually, giving a lazy wave. “We’re back.”

Rigby struck a pose. “Marines, bro.”

There was a pause.

Muscle Man dropped his pinecone. “What the–”

Hi-Five Ghost floated lower. “No way. You guys?”

Pops gasped and put a hand to his mouth. “Ohhh, I knew you’d find yourselves in uniforms someday! You look like... like... respectable young men! ”

Benson dropped the clipboard. It hit the pavement with a clack , and his eye twitched.

“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no, no... no. This is a hallucination. I’m having a stress stroke.”

“Benson, chill,” Mordecai said. “We’re just on leave.”

Rigby nodded. “Got our Eagle, Globes, and Anchors. Semper Fry, baby!”

“ Fi. It’s Semper Fi ,” Mordecai corrected.

“Whatever. Marines!”

Benson stared in horror at their uniforms. “Those are... those are real . You’re... real Marines? Like, with... like, training?”

“Yup,” Mordecai said. “Graduated last week.”

“Whole ceremony,” Rigby added. “Marching, shouting, getting insulted by guys with terrifying mustaches. The works.”

“You two — you can’t even tie your own shoes without falling into a bush. HOW DID THE MARINE CORPS LET THIS HAPPEN?!”

“Dude,” Mordecai said, “we ask ourselves that like every day.”

Pops was already handing them juice boxes. “You boys must be exhausted ! Would you like some butterscotch? Or a story about Napoleon’s horse?”

Skips just wiped his hands on a rag, gave them a nod. “Figured you two wouldn’t die. Too stubborn.”

Muscle Man crept forward and poked Rigby’s shoulder. “Are you real? Is this like a government hologram thing?”

“Touch me again and I’m calling my squad leader,” Rigby warned, sipping his Slurpee. “His name’s Tackleberry. He has a baton collection.”

“Whoa... you do sound different,” Hi-Five Ghost said.

“More... I don’t know. Like you’ve seen things,” Muscle Man added.

“I saw a man eat thirty hard-boiled eggs in under four minutes,” Mordecai said, haunted.

“I saw Fry win a night combat drill using a flashlight and a cheese sandwich,” Rigby whispered.

They all stood there in silence.

“Well,” Benson snapped, “if you’re really Marines now, maybe you can finally rake some leaves without setting anything on fire!”

Mordecai blinked. “Wait... you still want us to do chores?”

“You’re on my park grounds. You’re wearing government uniforms. Do something useful. ”

“…We’re on leave.”

“Then leave your laziness behind and go rake that east quadrant!”

Rigby looked at Mordecai. Mordecai looked at the rake. Then at Rigby.

“Race you,” Mordecai said.

Ten minutes later, a leaf blower war was in full swing. Rigby had strapped two blowers to his back like a jetpack. Mordecai was using one as a jousting lance while riding a dolly cart. Hi-Five Ghost was filming. Muscle Man threw in pinecones as “air support.” A tree caught fire. No one knew how.

Benson screamed into the heavens. “I SENT YOU TO THE MARINES AND YOU CAME BACK WORSE!”

That night, after fire department cleanup and Pops’ fourth glass of warm milk, Mordecai and Rigby sat on the park’s snack bar roof. They were still in uniform. Slightly scorched. Slightly stained.

“I don’t think we’ve changed at all,” Rigby said, licking nacho cheese off his tie.

Mordecai leaned back, arms behind his head. “We might be Marines now, but we’re still us.”

They stared at the stars.

“Dude,” Rigby said quietly, “we survived the Marine Corps…”

“…but we still can’t rake leaves,” Mordecai finished.

They bumped fists.

“Semper fly, bro.”

Chapter Text

Leave had sounded great on paper.

Ten whole days to chill, sleep in, eat real food, flirt with girls, burn down the park's trees and act like the baddest dudes on the block in dress blues and government-issue swagger.

But Mordecai and Rigby? They were still, at the end of the day, them .

Day One, 4:00 p.m.: The Arcade Misfire

Rigby slapped down a quarter at the counter of the Starlite Arcade. "Galaga, table two. Prepare to get wrecked."

Mordecai grinned. "Dude, we’re Marines now. We’re gonna own this place."

They walked in like they were hot stuff — polished boots (mostly), dog tags clinking, sunglasses indoors, straight-up vibing like the synthy intro to a cheesy cop show.

They got ten steps in before Rigby tripped over a mop bucket and faceplanted into Centipede .

"WHO THE HELL PUT THAT THERE?!" he yelled, tangled in his own duffel bag.

"You knocked it over, genius," said Chuck, the arcade manager, arms crossed over his Public Enemy tour tee. "Clean it up or get out."

Mordecai tried to help, but bumped into a Space Invaders machine and shorted it out mid-game.

“MY SCORE!!” screamed a 12-year-old with aviator sunglasses and a rat-tail.

They got banned by dinnertime.

Day Two, 11:15 a.m.: The Coffee Shop Disaster

"Okay, just be chill," Mordecai muttered, peeking through the window of the local café. “Margaret’s working today. Just order a drink. Be casual. Don't act like a weirdo.”

"Got it," Rigby said, immediately tripping the doorbell chime with his backpack.

Margaret looked up from the counter. "Mordecai? Rigby?!"

Both froze like deer in polyester.

Rigby elbowed Mordecai. "Dude, say something!"

"Heyyy… Margaret!" Mordecai cleared his throat. "Long time, no see. Been… you know. Defending freedom. Marching. Guns. America."

Margaret blinked. “You were in the Marines?”

"Still are," Rigby said. "Fresh outta boot. They said we were elite.”

“We almost passed out on the obstacle course,” Mordecai added, trying to act tough. “On purpose. For tactical reasons.”

They ordered black coffee to look mature. Rigby added five sugar packets and a slice of coffee cake, then choked on a walnut mid-sentence. Mordecai tried to save him with a half-hearted Heimlich that mostly just knocked over the napkin holder.

“You okay?” Margaret asked, laughing. “You guys haven’t changed.”

Mordecai's face went redder than his old flannel shirt.

They left after Mordecai knocked over a tip jar and Rigby spilled his drink on the jukebox.

Day Four, 8:30 p.m.: The Neon Nightmare

It was Friday night. The roller rink pulsed with bass-heavy disco and synthwave. Black lights turned white shirts into runway beacons. Couples skated in sync, while the loners hugged the walls.

Mordecai and Rigby stood at the entrance in their best civilian threads — borrowed Members Only jackets, tight jeans, and the confidence of two dudes who’d survived simulated warfare but not actual social interaction.

Eileen waved from the rink.

"Rigby! You skating or what?"

"Totally!" Rigby called back.

He wasn’t.

He got one foot into a rental skate and slipped like a cartoon banana peel, slamming into a rack of fluorescent legwarmers and taking out a snack bar display.

Mordecai, trying to play it cool, leaned against the wall… and pulled the fire alarm by accident.

Screaming. Sprinklers. Soda-soaked skaters everywhere.

They were asked to leave. Again.

Day Six: The Attempted Date

Mordecai, somehow, by sheer luck or Margaret’s pity, scored a casual date — a drive-in movie showing The Empire Strikes Back .

“Just be normal,” he told himself in the mirror. “You’re not a boot. You’re a man.”

The date started strong. They laughed. Shared popcorn. Mordecai quoted Yoda badly.

Then Rigby showed up.

With a bag of nachos, no shirt, and wearing Mordecai’s dress blues jacket like a bathrobe.

“I got kicked out of my house for microwaving a fish stick on a vinyl record,” Rigby said, mouth full of nachos. “Can I hang here?”

Margaret stared. Mordecai stared. The car reeked of processed cheese and humiliation.

“I’ll… call you,” Margaret said politely, leaving before Darth Vader even got to the big reveal.

They didn’t speak for the rest of the drive.

Meanwhile, at Rigby's childhood home (Day 8 & 9)

Rigby hadn't been home in three months, but everything in the house was exactly where it had always been.

Same wood-paneled walls. Same worn-out recliner held together with duct tape and faded Oakland Raiders stickers. Same smell — a mix of overcooked meatloaf, WD-40, and whatever Sherm used to polish his belt buckles. The family TV hummed static from the corner, flanked by a towering stack of blank VHS tapes and unreturned rentals.

He stood in the doorway, duffel bag at his side, waiting for someone to say something.

Then came the footsteps.

“Rigbone!” Don practically tackled him in a hug, voice cracking with joy. The younger brother was still absurdly buff — all sleeveless denim and glistening confidence — but right now, he was a kid again, bouncing with excitement.

“I can’t believe it! You look so… military!”

Rigby puffed his chest, trying to play it cool. “Well, y’know. Parris Island. No biggie.”

“No biggie?! You went full Marine, bro! That’s, like, the ultimate training montage! I wrote a song about you on my keytar — I’ll play it after dinner!”

Rigby’s heart swelled. Don had always been the golden kid — straight A’s, school mascot, bench-pressing his own GPA. But Don had never looked at him like this before. Like he was actually the one worth admiring.

“I still can’t believe you made it through that,” Don added, wide-eyed. “Didn’t you once fail a job interview because you spilled orange soda on the guy’s toupee?”

“That was one time, Don.”

“Still. You're a Marine now. For real. That's, like… whoa.”

The moment was ruined — as usual — by Sherm’s cough from the kitchen.

“Well, well,” came the gravelly voice, thick with smoke and skepticism. “If it ain’t my disappointment in a uniform.”

Rigby stiffened.

Sherm Rigby stood in the doorway with a beer in one hand, a half-burnt cigarette in the other, and that familiar scowl that could curdle paint. His gut strained against a white tank top, and his thick-rimmed glasses were already fogging from the steam of whatever he was overcooking on the stove.

Rigby turned, stood straight, and saluted — mostly as a joke. “Private Rigby, United States Marine Corps. Reporting home, sir.”

Sherm raised an eyebrow.

Don winced. “Dad…”

But Sherm just took a long drag, blew out a plume of smoke, and said, “So they really let you through, huh?”

“Yeah,” Rigby muttered.

Sherm grunted. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”

Silence.

Then: “Guess I was wrong.”

Rigby blinked.

Sherm didn’t smile, didn’t clap him on the back, didn’t cry or throw him a party. He just nodded — a slow, almost imperceptible motion — and walked back into the kitchen.

That was it.

That was the moment.

Don whispered, “Dude… he just acknowledged you.”

Rigby’s knees almost gave out. “What is happening right now?”

“I think you just became… a man in Dad’s eyes.”

“Does this mean he won’t call me a mistake at Thanksgiving anymore?”

“Let’s not get crazy.”

Dinner was loud. Overcooked. Chaotic. Sherm didn’t say much, but he passed Rigby the mashed potatoes without mocking him , which was practically a Hallmark card. Don played his keytar solo — a synthy, off-key anthem titled “Righteous Rigby Returns” — and Rigby pretended not to love it. Later, they watched CHiPs reruns while Don asked endless questions about boot camp, most of which Rigby embellished into cartoonish glory.

That night, Rigby lay on his old bed — too small now, springs shot to hell, posters still peeling from the wood-paneled walls — staring at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers he put up when he was ten.

Everything was the same.

Except him.

Except maybe… his place in it all.

Even if he was still screwing up every other second, even if he was still loud and weird and probably too short to pass inspection, he'd done something. Earned something. Not just the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor.

He’d earned his own damn space .

And somehow, that mattered more.

Chapter Text

The bus ride back to base was quieter this time.

Ten days had passed like a fast-forwarded VHS tape — warped, overexposed, and somehow still stuck with that one weird scene that wouldn't rewind. No one spoke much. Nobody slept well. Each man, in his own way, had tried to go home, and found that maybe home didn’t fit right anymore. Like putting on your favorite shirt from high school only to realize it was made for someone smaller, dumber, and less likely to shoot a rifle.

Mordecai leaned his head against the rattling window, earbuds in, a cheap Walkman hissing a low synth beat from a mixtape Margaret had left in the glove compartment of her car. He hadn’t even told her he was leaving again. Couldn’t. Not after Rigby.

Not after the roller rink fire alarm.

Rigby snored next to him, mouth hanging open, duffel bag used as a footrest, sunglasses on despite the dark. A half-finished comic book stuck out of his jacket like a war medal.

They hadn’t changed. That was the weirdest part. Boot camp had beat them up, bent them over backwards, turned their souls into half-formed dress-right-dress versions of themselves — but at the core, they were still them . Still Mordecai and Rigby. Still slackers. Still best friends. Still disasters.

The base came into view around sunrise — humid, colorless, institutional. Like every other government facility in the country, it looked designed to suck joy from the air and convert it into red tape.

Rigby stretched and cracked his knuckles. “So… we’re really back, huh?”

“Yeah,” Mordecai mumbled. “Still beats getting yelled at by your mom.”

“She made me eat an entire Salisbury steak family pack because she said I looked ‘malnourished.’ Pretty sure I saw God.”

They stepped off the bus just as a voice exploded across the training field.

“PLATOON 3086, YOU ABSOLUTE EMBARRASSMENTS TO THE UNIFORM — FORM. IT. UP.”

The gravel tone of Sergeant Hartman had not softened with time.

Rigby jolted. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes,” Mordecai muttered, already jogging to formation.

They weren’t the first ones back, but they weren’t the last. Tackleberry was already standing at parade rest, looking like a police action figure. Dale had duct-taped what appeared to be anti-surveillance charms to his sleeves. Skinner’s boots were polished so hard they looked radioactive. Fry wandered in late carrying a pizza box.

“You brought food back to base?” Rigby hissed.

“I brought a pizza back to the Corps ,” Fry said proudly, as if delivering the Constitution.

When all six were finally shoulder to shoulder, Sergeant Hartman circled them like a great white shark powered by caffeine and contempt.

“I have reviewed your leave evaluations. And let me be crystal clear, gentlemen — if I were a lesser man, I would have wept.”

He stopped in front of Mordecai. “Private Quintel. Attempted courtship of a civilian barista. Ended with emotional failure and an overturned tip jar.”

“Sir, I—”

“Do I look like a therapist, Private?”

“No, sir.”

“Then why are you sharing your feelings?”

He turned to Rigby. “Private Riggerson. Started a minor panic at a roller rink. Improvised breakdancing during a fire drill. Multiple civilians injured. Thoughts?”

“Sir, they were grooving , sir!”

“I’ll give you something to groove to, Private. It’s called cleaning latrines until your soul escapes your body .”

He stalked past Tackleberry — who somehow stood straighter when yelled at — and glared at Fry’s pizza box.

“You, Private Fry, left base and reentered with unauthorized food. Did you declare that meat?”

“Sir, pepperoni isn't a threat to national security, sir!”

“We’ll see about that after I run it through chemical analysis.”

Eventually, the shouting faded. Hartman’s voice cracked, slightly — not with emotion, but probably from shouting for three months straight. He stood before them, breathing heavily, eyes sweeping over the six misfits who had somehow — through dumb luck, bad ideas, and sheer stubbornness — become Marines.

“You’re back now,” he said at last, quieter than before. “The Corps may not miss you when you’re gone, but she expects you to return ready. Whether you went home, to the mountains, or just got lost in a goddamn convenience store like Private Fry here—”

“That map was deceptive , sir!”

“—you are Marines. That means you adapt. You overcome. And you don’t let civilian garbage get in your way. Is that clear?”

“Sir, yes sir!”

“Good,” Hartman snapped. “Because you’ve got new orders coming down the pipe. And based on what I’ve seen from you sad excuses for recon-trained kindergarteners… you’re gonna wish you were back at Parris Island.”

They didn’t ask questions. That was the one thing they'd learned to stop doing.

Later that night, back in the barracks — the same bunks, same rattling pipes, same weird smell coming from the vents — Mordecai and Rigby lay on their cots, staring at the ceiling, still in uniform, still unsure how this had all become somewhat normal.

“Back in the suck,” Rigby mumbled.

“Yeah.”

A beat of silence.

“You think those new orders are bad?”

“Dude. When are they ever good?”

Rigby grinned. “At least we’re back with the gang.”

Mordecai rolled over. “We’re gonna die on this mission, aren’t we.”

“Yup.”

They both laughed. Quiet, tired, honest.

Outside, under flickering sodium lights, the flag whipped in the wind. The Corps hadn’t broken them. But it had made them into something else — not better, not worse. Just them , again. Together.

Chapter Text

The relative quiet after boot camp was unnerving. Platoon 3086 had been transferred from the screaming grounds of Parris Island to the sprawling pine forests of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, for Infantry Training School. Here, the yelling was less constant but more technical. It was no longer about breaking them down; it was about building them into something specific—riflemen, machine gunners, mortarmen—before shipping them off to the far corners of the Cold War.

For the misfits of 3086, it was just a new level of the same video game they were terrible at.

“Alright, listen up, you mouth-breathers!” Staff Sergeant Kowalski, a man with a jawline that looked like it had been carved from granite, addressed the platoon. “As of today, you are no longer a simple platoon. You are now the 3rd Squad, 1st Platoon, Charlie Company. We’re building you up for deployment, which means you’re getting some new faces. Try not to scare them off before we get through demolitions training.”

On cue, five new figures shuffled forward, looking just as out of place as the rest of them.

Two of them were a study in stoicism and nervous energy. The first, a man with a weary, patient face, a thick mustache, and a red cross emblem on his sleeve, clutched the straps of his pack. He looked like he’d seen things, mostly things he wished he could un-see. The man next to him was older, with a weathered face, a short grey-black beard, and a green wool beanie pulled low. He stood silently, observing the squad with an air of professional resignation.

“This is Hospital Corpsman Third Class Griggs,” Kowalski said, pointing to the medic. “He’s a Navy squid, but he’ll be the one patching you up when you do something stupid. So be nice to him.”

Griggs offered a slightly-too-eager wave. “Hiya, fellas! It’s real neat to be here. Is this where they teach you the… uh… shooty parts?”

The man in the beanie sighed, a barely audible puff of air.

“And this is Corporal Sheckley,” Kowalski continued, gesturing to the quiet one. “He’s a combat engineer. He blows things up for a living. Do not, under any circumstances, touch his equipment unless he tells you to.”

Sheckley just gave a curt nod, his eyes already assessing the structural weaknesses in the barracks.

The other three replacements were… a different species of trouble. One had a severe bowl haircut and an expression of perpetual, aggressive frustration. The one next to him had a balding pate with a wild fringe of hair and looked like he was expecting to be hit at any moment. The third was completely bald, built like a fire hydrant, and currently trying to catch a fly buzzing around his head.

“And these knuckleheads are Corporal Howard, Private First Class Fine, and Private Howard,” Kowalski said, pointing to the trio. “Moe, Larry, and Curly. They’re brothers. Or cousins. Or something. The paperwork was a mess. They just got here from Fort Dix after setting a record for 'Most Latrines Accidentally Flooded in a Single Training Cycle.'”

“A pleasure to be of service!” Moe announced, puffing out his chest. He then noticed Curly still swatting at the air. “Curly! Knock it off, you numbskull! Stand at attention!” He punctuated the order with a sharp two-fingered poke to Curly’s eyes.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Curly yelped, covering his face. “Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.”

Larry, trying to stay out of it, took a step to the side and tripped over his own feet, bumping into Moe.

“What’s the big idea?!” Moe snarled, spinning around and slapping Larry on the forehead. Thwack.

There was a long, painful silence as the original members of 3086 stared at the newcomers.

“Dude,” Rigby whispered to Mordecai, “I think we’re about to witness the dawn of a new era of stupidity.”

Tackleberry sized them up. “Unconventional close-quarters combat techniques. A complete disregard for military discipline. I love them.”

That afternoon, they got their first taste of the new squad dynamic during a Combat Life Saver drill. Griggs was tasked with teaching them how to apply a battle dressing.

“Okay, so the first thing you wanna do if your buddy gets hit is apply pressure to the wound!” Griggs explained cheerfully. “The bleeding is the part that’s… well, it’s the part that’s bad!”

Sheckley, observing from the side, rubbed his temples.

Griggs pointed to the trio. “You three! Let’s say your friend here gets shot in the arm. What do you do?”

Fry’s hand shot up. “Ooh, me! I’m great at getting hurt!”

Fry lay on the ground as Moe took charge. “Alright, you chowderheads, we got a job to do! I’m the brains of this operation! Larry, get the bandage. Curly, check his pulse!”

Larry fumbled with the gauze, unrolling it so fast it covered his own face. Curly leaned down, put his ear to Fry’s stomach, and announced, “I hear gurgling! I think he’s hungry! Soitenly!”

“You nitwit, his pulse is in his wrist!” Moe grabbed the gauze from Larry, bonked Curly on the head with the roll, and began wrapping Fry’s arm. However, in his haste, he started wrapping Curly’s arm as well, binding the two of them together.

“Hey, Moe! I’m stuck!” Curly yelped, trying to pull away and only tightening the knot. "Woo-woo-woo!"

“Hold still, porcupine!” Moe yanked, causing all three of them—Moe, Curly, and the still-attached Fry—to spin around and fall in a heap.

“CORPORAL HOWARD, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Kowalski roared.

“Sir, I’m demonstrating tactical patient immobilization, sir!” Moe said, his voice muffled from under Curly.

From within the pile, Fry’s voice could be heard. “This is actually pretty comfortable! Can we stay like this for a while?”

Griggs panicked. “Oh geez! Oh man! Sheckley, what do we do?!”

Sheckley walked over, pulled out a pocketknife, and with three practiced slices, cut them all free. “Next time,” he said, looking at Griggs with infinite patience, “teach one at a time.”

“Right! One at a time!” Griggs repeated, nodding vigorously. “See? Teamwork!”

As they walked off the training field, Mordecai looked at his new squad mates. They now had a panicky medic, a silent explosives expert, and three men who were a walking violation of the Geneva Conventions.

“We are so, so dead,” he muttered.

Rigby just grinned. “Yeah, but think of the stories, dude.”

Chapter Text

The next few weeks at Camp Lejeune were a masterclass in organized disaster. With the addition of Griggs, Sheckley, and the Three Stooges, 3rd Squad had achieved a new level of tactical unpredictability. Their instructors had stopped yelling and had adopted the weary, thousand-yard stare of men who had accepted their fate.

The demolitions range was Sheckley’s domain. He stood before the squad with a block of C-4 and the expression of a patient artist explaining sculpture to a class of particularly dense chimpanzees.

“This is Composition C-4,” Sheckley said in his low, steady voice. “It is stable. It is effective. It will not detonate unless you use a blasting cap. Do not drop the blasting cap.”

Curly’s hand went up. “Hey, mister! Is it chewy?”

Moe slapped him on the back of the head. “It’s an explosive, you lamebrain, not taffy!”

The exercise was simple: place a small charge on a wooden doorframe and blow it open. Sheckley gave the Stooges a dummy charge to practice with. Moe immediately started bossing the other two around.

“Okay, I’ll place the charge. Larry, you run the wire. Curly, you stand guard!”

Larry got the wire tangled around his feet and fell backwards into a mud puddle. Curly, standing guard, began spinning in circles with his rifle, yelling, “Halt! Who goes there?” at a squirrel. Moe, trying to place the charge, got his thumb stuck to the adhesive side and, in trying to shake it off, managed to stick it to Larry’s helmet.

“Get this thing off me!” Larry cried, running in circles while Moe chased him. Curly, seeing them run, assumed it was a game and joined in, barking like a seal.

Tackleberry was in heaven, asking Sheckley detailed questions about blast radiuses. Dale Gribble was convinced the C-4 was a government mind-control agent. “They get you with the shockwave, man!” he whispered to Mordecai.

The only one who succeeded was Rigby, but only because he tripped over Curly and accidentally wedged the real charge perfectly into the door’s hinge, creating a flawless breach.

“See? All planned,” Rigby declared. Sheckley just stared, a flicker of disbelief crossing his stoic face.

Live-fire exercises were even more harrowing. The goal was to move as a squad and suppress a target. Tackleberry and Sheckley laid down ruthlessly efficient covering fire. The Stooges, however, were the real wild cards.

“Spread out, you muttonheads!” Moe ordered, forgetting he was supposed to be shooting. He then turned to bonk Curly for holding his rifle upside down.

Larry, trying to reload, somehow ejected his magazine and hit Moe in the face with it. “Sorry, Moe!”

“I’ll murder ya!” Moe shrieked, momentarily forgetting the live-fire exercise to chase Larry around a barricade.

“FIRE IN THE HOLE!” Curly screamed, despite not having a grenade, and then dropped to the ground and started doing the spin-o-rama on his back.

But it was during the final field exercise that the squad’s unique brand of chaos truly coalesced. They were tasked with a nighttime patrol. Dale was on point, using his “anti-surveillance walking techniques.” The Stooges were tasked with rear security.

They inevitably got lost. It was Griggs, the nervous corpsman, who accidentally saved them again by tumbling into a ravine and landing right in front of the objective—a simulated enemy outpost.

“Guys!” he whisper-shouted. “I found the bad guy’s house!”

The squad scrambled down to his position. What followed was not a textbook assault. Moe, Larry, and Curly were sent on a "flanking maneuver." They immediately started arguing, their whispers escalating into slaps and eye-pokes that echoed through the woods. The "enemy" instructors heard the commotion and moved to investigate the source of the bickering, thinking it was a diversion.

This allowed Tackleberry and Sheckley to conduct a swift, professional infiltration from the opposite side. They “captured” the position while the instructors were still trying to figure out why three Marines were trying to fit through a single doorway at the same time.

Back at the barracks, exhausted and covered in mud, Staff Sergeant Kowalski stood before them.

“I have no idea how you did that,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Absolutely none. It violated every principle of infantry tactics. It was an affront to God and the Marine Corps.” He paused, looking over the grimy, exhausted faces (or for some, utterly vacant). “But you completed the objective. Ahead of schedule.”

He threw a stack of folders onto a table. “Pack your gear. All of you. You’ve been certified for deployment.”

A nervous energy filled the room. “Wait, where are we going?” Mordecai asked.

Kowalski picked up a folder and read from it. “Due to your… unique ability to weaponize incompetence, you’ve been assigned to the 4th Marine Amphibious Brigade. You’re being deployed to support our NATO allies.”

He looked up at the squad.

“You’re going to West Germany.”

Chapter Text

The final 24-hour pass before deployment was supposed to be a sacred ritual-a last chance to taste American air, eat food that didn't come from a can, and feel like a normal person. For 3rd Squad, it was just another opportunity to achieve new pinnacles of failure.

They descended on a local county fair just outside of Jacksonville like a plague of locusts in woodland camouflage utilities.

The plan, loosely coordinated by Mordecai, was simple: "Let's just try to have a normal, chill night, guys. No explosions, no getting arrested, no starting incidents before we even leave."

The plan lasted approximately twelve minutes.

It started at the "Test Your Strength" high striker game. Rigby, convinced he could win the giant stuffed bear for Eileen, paid his dollar and swung the mallet with all his might. The puck shot halfway up the tower and fell with a pathetic thud.

"This thing is rigged!" Rigby shouted.

"Allow me, l'm an expert in structural integrity," Moe declared, shoving Rigby aside. He wound up and swung the mallet, but his follow-through was a little too enthusiastic. The mallet flew from his hands, sailed through the air, and clocked Larry, who was trying to win a goldfish by throwing a ping pong ball, square on the head.

BONK.

"Oof!" Larry stumbled backward, dropping his ping pong balls into the cotton candy machine, turning the fluffy sugar into a sticky, pink, ball-riddled nightmare. Curly, seeing Larry go down, let out a "Woo-woo-woo!" and tried to help, only to trip over the machine's power cord, unplugging half the games on the midway.

The fair went dark. The carnival music died.

"What's the big idea?!" Moe snarled, turning on Curly. As he went for the eye-poke, Tackleberry stepped in.

"Halt! Cease all unregistered close-quarters combat!" he commanded, pulling out a pair of fuzzy handcuffs he'd won at the ring toss. "You're all creating a public disturbance!"

As Tackleberry tried to detain the Stooges, Dale Gribble, who had been observing the games with suspicion, pointed a shaky finger at the now-darkened stalls. "It's a government-mandated blackout! They're testing our response times! Don't fall for it!" He began army-crawling under the Skeeball machine for cover.

Fry, meanwhile, had been trying to get a soda. When the power went out, he saw a large, red, cylindrical object on the wall and assumed it was a manual backup beverage dispenser. He pulled the pin. A massive cloud of white chemical foam erupted from the fire extinguisher, covering the entire games area, including the fair's prize-winning pig.

"Geez, fellas! Casualties!" Griggs panicked, running toward the foam-covered pig with his first-aid kit. "I need to check for breathing! Does anyone know pig CPR?!"

Sheckley, the only island of sanity in a sea of chaos, just sighed, pulled his beanie down over his eyes, and began calmly walking toward the exit. He didn't get far.

The night ended, as it was always destined to, with the entire squad sitting on a curb outside the fairgrounds, surrounded by flashing red and blue lights of local police cars and two very unimpressed Military Police jeeps.

In the next morning, at 0400, they stood on the tarmac, the air thick with the smell of jet fuel and failure. The cavernous maw of a C-141 Starlifter transport plane waited for them. Their packs were heavy, their heads were throbbing, and their spirits were a mix of terror and resignation, and excitement in the more dim-witted members.

Staff Sergeant Kowalski walked down the line one last time. He didn't yell. It was worse. He just looked at them, his eyes lingering on each member of the disastrous ensemble.

"Last night," Kowalski began, his voice dangerously quiet, "3rd Squad managed to assault a civilian, disable a public utility, destroy private property, incite a panic, and cover a prize-winning farm animal in fire-suppressant foam. A new record,even for you."

He stopped in front of Mordecai and Rigby.”I don't know how you two attract this level of chaos, but you're like magnets for incompetence."

He shook his head, looking up at the transport plane.

"I have no idea why the Marine Corps is sending you to the front lines of the Cold War. You are a tactical impossibility. You are a walking, breathing, international incident waiting to happen." He paused, a grim, tired smile touching his lips. "But you're going. Try not to start World War Three before you land."

He jerked a thumb toward the ramp. "Get on the plane."

As they shuffled up into the dark, vibrating belly of the aircraft, Rigby leaned over to Mordecai.

"Dude... you think that pig is gonna be okay?"

Mordecai just shook his head, the roar of the engines swallowing his reply.

Somewhere behind him, he heard a faint thwack followed by a yelp. They were on their way.

Chapter Text

The C-141 Starlifter landed with a teeth-rattling shudder at Rhein-Main Air Base near Frankfurt, West Germany. The rear cargo ramp lowered with a hydraulic groan, revealing a world drained of color. The sky was a flat, concrete gray. The air was cold and smelled of damp earth, diesel, and bratwurst from a distant snack stand. Dour-looking Air Force ground crews moved with grim efficiency, a stark contrast to the chaotic energy currently contained within the aircraft.

“Alright, you clowns, listen up!” Staff Sergeant Kowalski’s voice cut through the groans of the squad as they unbuckled themselves. “Welcome to Germany. This is the sharp end of the spear. The Soviets are a few hundred kilometers that way.” He jerked a thumb east. “They are not impressed by slapstick, sob stories, or government conspiracy theories. Your job is to grab your gear, form up on the tarmac, and not embarrass the United States Marine Corps in front of our NATO allies. Can you handle that?”

A chorus of uncertain "Sir, yes, sirs!" echoed in the cargo bay.

“I doubt it,” Kowalski muttered. “Get moving!”

They shuffled down the ramp, squinting in the unfamiliar light, a ten-man parade of incompetence stumbling into the Cold War. For a full thirty seconds, everything was fine. They stood in a loose formation, gear at their feet. It was a new record for non-disaster.

The record was broken by Curly.

His eyes went wide as he spotted a baggage tug pulling a train of carts loaded with officer’s luggage. “Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk! Hey Moe, look! A tiny train!”

“It’s a vehicle, you knucklehead, not an amusement park ride!” Moe snapped. “Get your gear!” He went to grab Curly’s duffel bag, but Curly, distracted by the “tiny train,” had his foot tangled in the strap. Moe pulled. Curly spun. Larry, standing too close, was knocked off balance.

“Hey, what’s the big idea?” Larry yelped, pinwheeling his arms. He stumbled backward, directly into the path of a German ground crewman driving a forklift loaded with a massive pallet of what looked like spare aircraft parts.

The German driver swerved hard to avoid hitting Larry, shouting something that sounded impressively angry. The forklift tipped, and the entire pallet of machinery slid off with a cataclysmic crash that echoed across the entire airfield.

Every head on the tarmac turned to look.

“Casualty!” Griggs screamed, instinctively reaching for his medkit. “Oh geez, oh man, is the metal okay?!”

“It’s a diversion!” Dale hissed, pulling his helmet down low. “Classic misdirection. They’re testing our response to a sudden logistical failure.”

Tackleberry adopted a wide stance. “Secure the perimeter! We have a potential industrial sabotage situation!”

Fry, seeing the German driver waving his arms and yelling, waved back cheerfully. “Hey, I think that guy wants to say hi!”

In the midst of the chaos, Rigby saw an opportunity. The forklift driver had jumped down and was now arguing with Moe, who was trying to explain the physics of the situation with aggressive hand gestures. The forklift was still running.

“Dude, I can fix this,” Rigby whispered to Mordecai, a familiar, terrible glint in his eye.

“Rigby, no. Do not touch the German machinery.”

But it was too late. Rigby scrambled into the driver’s seat. “It’s just like a go-kart, Mordo. How hard can it be?”

He grabbed a lever. It was not the gear shift. The forks on the front of the machine shot upwards, catching the edge of the C-141’s cargo ramp. With a groan of tortured metal, the ramp lifted several feet off the ground, trapping Staff Sergeant Kowalski, who was still on board.

“RIGBY!” Kowalski’s roar was primal.

“Wrong lever!” Rigby yelped. He slammed another lever down. The forklift lurched forward, its engine screaming. It careened across the tarmac, driverless, heading directly for a lineup of neatly parked staff cars.

“I’ll stop it!” Mordecai yelled, chasing after it. “Rigby, hit the brake! The pedal on the floor!”

“Which one?!”

“THE BIG ONE!”

Rigby stomped on the accelerator. The forklift sped up.

Sheckley watched the vehicle’s trajectory, did a quick mental calculation, and said to no one in particular, “It’s going to hit the Colonel’s Mercedes.”

The crash was spectacular. The forklift, a symbol of American military aid, plowed directly into the polished black front of a German officer’s car, crumpling the hood and sending a hubcap spinning through the air like a frisbee. It finally came to a stop, hissing steam.

The entire airbase fell silent.

A portly, mustached German Luftwaffe officer and a stone-faced American Air Force Colonel approached the scene of the crime. They stared at the forklift, at the ruined car, at the Stooges who were now trying to hide behind Tackleberry, and at Mordecai and Rigby standing frozen beside the wreckage.

Staff Sergeant Kowalski finally managed to climb down from the cargo ramp, his face a mask of pure, undiluted rage.

He walked slowly over to his squad, who had created an international incident within five minutes of landing.

“Welcome to Germany,” he said, his voice terrifyingly calm.

Mordecai just stared at the smoking car. “Dude,” he whispered to Rigby. “I think we’re already in trouble.”

Chapter Text

The barracks assigned to 3rd Squad, Charlie Company, were a perfect example of Cold War architecture: a long, soulless concrete box designed to efficiently house soldiers while slowly crushing their spirits. The air inside was stale, smelling of old paint, damp wool, and decades of accumulated disappointment. Steel bunk beds lined the walls in rigid formation, each with a drab green footlocker at its base. The only color came from the pale, gray light filtering through the grimy windows, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air like tiny, depressed ghosts. This was home now.

Staff Sergeant Kowalski stood in the center of the squad bay, hands on his hips, his face a mask of granite displeasure. His gaze swept over the ten Marines who had, in less than 24 hours, already established themselves as a threat to international diplomacy and base property values.

“Listen up, you disasters,” Kowalski began, his voice echoing off the concrete floor. “This pigsty is your new home. And in this home, we have standards. Tomorrow morning at 0800, the Company Commander, Captain Miller, will be conducting his weekly inspection. This will be his first time laying eyes on you degenerates, and I will not have him think he’s been put in charge of a traveling circus.”

He pointed a finger that had likely been used to intimidate bolts into place. “That means tonight is ‘Field Day.’ For those of you with the collective IQ of a houseplant, that means you will clean this barracks from top to bottom. Every speck of dust, every smudge, every molecule of filth will be eradicated. I want this deck to shine so bright I can see my own crushing disappointment in its reflection. I want the head so sterile you could perform surgery in it. I want your wall lockers assembled and your gear stowed with geometric precision.”

A low groan rippled through the squad.

“Is there a problem, Private Riggerson?” 

Kowalski’s eyes locked onto Rigby. 

“No, sir!” Rigby squeaked. “Just… really excited about cleaning, sir!”

“Good. Because if this inspection is anything less than perfect,” Kowalski said, letting the threat hang in the air, “you will all spend your first month in Germany learning how to scrub grout with a toothbrush. Now get to it.”

He stormed out, leaving behind a silence thick with dread and the promise of impending failure.

For a moment, no one moved. Then, Moe Howard stepped forward, puffing out his chest. “Alright, you knuckleheads, you heard the sergeant! We got a job to do, and I’m in charge! Now, spread out and act like you got a brain!” He immediately tried to demonstrate by pointing at different areas of the barracks, poking Larry in the eyes in the process.

“Oh! Oh! My eye!”

“Quiet, you!” THWACK.

The symphony of disaster had begun.

Mordecai and Rigby were assigned the most visible, and therefore most important, task: stripping the old wax from the concrete deck and applying a new, mirror-like coat.

“Dude, this is gonna take forever,” Rigby complained, looking at the massive, scuffed floor.

“Just get the buffer,” Mordecai sighed, grabbing a bucket and mop. “The faster we do this, the faster we can get back to doing nothing.”

The floor buffer was a heavy, temperamental beast of a machine from the 1960s. It hummed with a low, angry growl when Rigby switched it on. He gripped the handles, and the machine immediately tried to wrench itself from his grasp, dragging him in a wild, spinning circle.

“Whoa! This thing’s got a mind of its own!” Rigby yelled, his feet scrambling to keep up.

Mordecai watched for a second, then a slow, terrible grin spread across his face. “Dude. I have an idea.”

“A good idea or one of our ideas?”

“Does it matter?”

Five minutes later, the barracks floor had been transformed into a racetrack. Mordecai had figured out how to steer the buffer by leaning into it, while Rigby sat on top of the machine’s housing, whooping like a rodeo cowboy. They took turns, racing from one end of the squad bay to the other, the buffer’s spinning pad leaving arcing, black-scuffed patterns on the floor instead of cleaning it.

“My turn!” Mordecai shouted, hopping on for a go. He pushed the speed, leaning hard into a turn around a row of bunk beds. He leaned too hard. The buffer, with all the grace of a runaway train, shot out from under him. Mordecai face-planted onto the filthy floor as the machine, now riderless, careened directly into the barracks wall.

There was a sickening crunch of plaster and wood. The buffer’s engine whined and died. 

A perfect, circular hole, about two feet in diameter, now marred the wall, revealing the plumbing and wiring within.

Silence.

“...Oops,” Rigby said.

“‘Oops’?!” Mordecai scrambled to his feet, staring at the damage. “Dude, Kowalski is gonna kill us! We gotta fix this!”

“How? We don’t have any… wall stuff!”

Mordecai’s eyes darted around the room, landing on Dewey Finn’s footlocker. Dewey had bought a poster at a shop on base earlier that day. Mordecai grabbed it. It was a promotional poster for a German heavy metal band called “Eisenfaust,” featuring four grim-looking men in leather and spikes.

“Perfect,” Mordecai said, unrolling it. With some carefully applied tape from Skinner’s over-organized desk kit, they covered the hole. The poster was crooked, and a fine dusting of plaster trickled from behind it, but from a distance, it almost looked intentional.

“See?” Rigby said proudly. “Problem solved.”

Across the room, another architectural nightmare was taking shape. The Three Stooges had been tasked with assembling their government-issue steel wall lockers. It was a simple task involving bolts, panels, and a small wrench. For them, it was an engineering challenge on par with building a suspension bridge out of toothpicks.

“I’m the foreman on this job!” Moe announced, holding the instruction sheet upside down. “Larry, you hand me the panels! Curly, you put in the screws!”

Larry immediately handed Moe a door panel instead of a side panel. Curly, trying to tighten a bolt, put the wrench on backward and began systematically loosening every screw Moe managed to get in place.

“What are you doin’?!” Moe snarled, seeing his work fall apart. “Turn it the other way! Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey!”

“I’m ambidextrous!” Curly replied, somehow managing to get a bolt stuck up his nose.

The argument escalated into a series of pokes, slaps, and the percussive sound of wrenches bouncing off skulls. In their slapstick frenzy, they stopped paying attention to what they were building. They fused two lockers together, creating a monstrous, two-headed metal beast. They attached doors to the side panels and the back panel to the top. They hammered a shelf in sideways. The final product was a twisted, unrecognizable sculpture of military hardware that looked like it had been in a terrible accident. It leaned precariously against a bunk bed, a monument to their incompetence.

“There!” Moe said, dusting off his hands and ignoring the fact that none of the doors would open. “A job well done!”

Meanwhile, the individual pockets of chaos were blooming. In the head, Fry had misinterpreted the order to “sterilize the latrines.” Taking the word literally, he’d found a hot plate in the day room, filled a bucket with water, and was attempting to bring it to a boil to pour on the toilets. The barracks began to fill with the smell of ozone and melting plastic as the hot plate’s cord began to smoke.

Dale Gribble was not cleaning. He was conducting a counter-intelligence sweep. “These barracks are a hotbed of KGB activity, I tell ya,” he muttered to Sheckley, who was silently and perfectly making his bed. “The wiring in the walls is classic Soviet design. Perfect for transmitting data via low-frequency pulses.” Dale had lined his entire footlocker with tinfoil from the mess hall and was now trying to unscrew an electrical outlet cover with a butter knife. 

“Just gotta disable their primary listening post…”

Tackleberry, on the other hand, had taken the concept of barracks security to its logical extreme. His corner was spotless. His boots were aligned with geometric perfection. His bed was made so tightly you could bounce a quarter off it into low earth orbit. But surrounding his entire area was an elaborate defensive perimeter, complete with a tripwire made from a bootlace tied to a stack of C-ration cans, designed to create an early-warning system against unauthorized entry.

Sheckley observed it all, his face a mask of stoic resignation. His own bunk was a small island of immaculate order in the swirling ocean of chaos. Next to him, Corpsman Griggs was having a breakdown of his own. In a panicked attempt to remove a small smudge from the collar of his utility uniform, he had used pure bleach. Now, a large, white splotch bloomed on the green fabric.

“Oh geez, oh man, it’s ruined!” Griggs moaned, frantically trying to color the white spot back to green with a felt-tip marker. The result was a sickly, streaky green-and-white patch that looked far worse than the original smudge. “The Captain’s gonna see this! He’s gonna think I’m unsanitary!”

At the center of it all sat Dewey Finn, strumming a beat-up acoustic guitar he’d managed to sneak onto the plane. He wasn’t cleaning. He was composing.

“Oh, the floor buffer’s screamin’, left a hole in the wall,” he sang under his breath, watching Mordecai and Rigby frantically trying to straighten their poster. “The Stooges build a locker that’s destined to fall… Yeah, welcome to the suck, it’s a Field Day brawl!”

At 0759 the next morning, the barracks were… technically clean. The deck was a streaky, scuffed mess with a suspiciously shiny patch in the center. The smell of burnt plastic and bleach hung heavy in the air. A single, monstrous locker-sculpture stood as a testament to failed engineering. A poster of a German metal band was inexplicably taped to one wall.

“ATTENTION ON DECK!” Staff Sergeant Kowalski roared from the doorway.

The squad scrambled to their feet, standing at attention beside their bunks. The door opened, and in walked Captain Miller. He was a tall, lean man with sharp, intelligent eyes and the weary posture of a man who had seen too much, even before he’d met 3rd Squad. He took two steps inside, and stopped.

His eyes took in the scene. He sniffed the air. He saw the bizarre locker-Frankenstein. He saw Dale Gribble’s tinfoil-lined footlocker. He saw the single, crooked Eisenfaust poster. His gaze drifted down to the floor, where the scuff marks from the floor buffer created a chaotic mural of failure.

He walked slowly down the center of the squad bay, Kowalski trailing him like a man walking to his own execution. He stopped at the wall. He reached out and tapped the poster. A small shower of plaster dust fell onto the floor.

He turned to Kowalski. He didn’t shout. He didn’t scream. He just looked at him with an expression of profound, soul-deep bewilderment.

“Sergeant,” Captain Miller said, his voice dangerously calm. “What am I looking at?”

Kowalski opened his mouth, then closed it. There were no words.

From the back of the room, Curly sneezed. It echoed through the silent barracks like a gunshot. "Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk," he sniffled.

Captain Miller closed his eyes for a long moment. He had fought for his country. He had trained his whole life to lead Marines. He had prepared for any contingency on the battlefields in case World War III happens, but he sure as hell had not prepared for this.

Chapter Text

Captain Miller stood before 3rd Squad with the weary resignation of a man who had stared into the abyss, and the abyss had stared back with a goofy, confused expression. The disastrous barracks inspection—the hole in the wall poorly hidden by a poster of a band named Eisenfaust, the twisted metal sculpture that was once a set of lockers, the lingering smell of burnt plastic and failure—had broken something deep within his command philosophy. His first instinct was to have them all assigned to permanent latrine duty until the end of their tenures (or when the Soviets collapse). His second, more practical instinct, was to get them out of his sight.

"You ten," he began, his voice dangerously calm, a tone far more terrifying than shouting, "are a clear and present danger to the structural integrity of this base. You cannot be trusted with floor buffers. You cannot be trusted with cleaning supplies. You cannot, it seems, be trusted with the basic assembly of a metal box. Therefore, I am giving you a new chore. One so simple, so mind-numbingly rudimentary, that even you should be incapable of turning it into a catastrophe."

He unfurled a map on the hood of a nearby jeep. A red line was drawn on it, snaking through the dense German training forest.

"This is your task," Captain Miller said, tapping the map with a rigid finger. "You will conduct a fifteen-kilometer reconnaissance patrol along this designated route. You will visually confirm the integrity of the five checkpoints marked here, here, here, here, and here. You will not get lost. You will not deviate from the path. You will not interact with the local wildlife, flora, or any structure, object, or concept that is not explicitly marked on this map. You are to walk, observe, and return. It is the military equivalent of a brisk walk. A trained monkey, and I suspect several members of this squad have the intellectual capacity of a trained monkey, could navigate this route." He looked up, his gaze sweeping over each of them. "Am I making myself absolutely, unequivocally clear?"

"Sir, yes sir!" the squad chorused.

Staff Sergeant Kowalski, standing beside the captain, looked like he was attending a funeral. His own.

"Somehow, I doubt it," Captain Miller muttered. "Go. And if you are not back by 1600 hours, I am authorizing Kowalski to come find you and use non-lethal force to drag you back. Dismissed."

As the squad shuffled away to grab their gear, Mordecai leaned over to Rigby. "Dude, this is just like at the park."

"Totally," Rigby agreed, kicking at a loose stone. "We mess up one little thing, like that time we tried to deep-fry a turkey in the fountain, and Benson gives us a super boring chore just to get us out of his hair."

"Yeah, this is exactly like when he made us rake the leaves in the gazebo. 'Don't touch the gnomes, don't talk to the squirrels, just rake the leaves!'" Mordecai mimicked in a high-pitched, nasally voice.

"Captain Miller is totally the new Benson," Rigby concluded. "And this patrol is gonna suck."

He was right. An hour into the patrol, the novelty of being in a German forest had completely worn off. The air was cold and damp, and the endless canopy of pine and oak trees was monotonous. The only sound was the crunch of their boots on the wet leaves and the distant, rhythmic thumping of artillery practice miles away. It was boring. Dangerously boring. And boredom, for 3rd Squad, was a catalyst for chaos.

"Ughhh, my feet hurt," Rigby whined for the tenth time, dragging his boots through the mud. "Are we there yet? Can we just say we checked the first point and take a break?"

"We haven't even gone three kilometers, Rigby," Mordecai sighed, shifting the weight of his pack. "This is so lame. It's worse than cleaning the gutters on the snack bar."

"At least the gutters had old hot dogs in them sometimes," Rigby shot back. "This is just... trees. And mud. And more trees."

The rest of the squad was in a similar state of listless misery. Fry was trying to identify different types of leaves by taste, despite Griggs’s panicked warnings about poisonous foliage. Dewey was tapping out a dreary beat on his helmet, trying to find the rhythm in their trudging footsteps. The Stooges had already devolved into low-grade bickering, with Moe threatening to use Larry's head to check for weak spots in the trees. Dale Gribble was lagging behind, convinced that the moss on the trees only grew on the north side as part of a complex NATO conspiracy to disorient Soviet spies.

"This is pointless," Rigby declared, stopping in his tracks. "We should be doing something cool, like finding a secret Nazi treasure or fighting a bear."

"There are no Nazi treasures here, Rigby, and if we see a bear, the correct response is not to fight it," Mordecai said, exasperated.

It was in that moment of frustration, as Mordecai turned to argue with Rigby, that he saw it. Through a thick patch of overgrown ferns, almost completely swallowed by the forest, was a glimpse of something that didn't belong. Something gray. Something concrete.

"Whoa... dude, what is that?" Mordecai pointed.

The squad followed his gaze. Partially hidden by decades of foliage was a low, squat, windowless concrete structure. A heavy, rust-streaked steel door was set into its side, and a thick tangle of ancient, severed cables snaked from its roof into the dirt. It wasn't on the map. It was old, forgotten, and radiated an aura of mystery. It was the forest equivalent of the boarded-up shed behind the park's boathouse, a place rumored to hold ghosts, treasure, or at the very least, something more interesting than walking.

Rigby’s eyes lit up. "Dude! A secret fort! We gotta check it out!"

"No," Skinner immediately interjected, pulling out his laminated copy of patrol regulations. "Captain Miller's orders were explicit: 'Do not deviate from the path. Do not interact with any structure not on the map.' This is a clear violation of-"

"Oh, shut up, Skinner," Moe snapped. "We're checkin' it out. A good leader inspects his surroundings. I'm inspectin'!"

"I don't know, man," Mordecai said, the voice of reluctant reason that was almost always drowned out. "This feels like a really bad idea. Remember the last time we found a weird door we weren't supposed to open?"

"Yeah!" Rigby’s grin was wide and reckless. "We summoned that giant floating head and got a paid day off! This is gonna be awesome!"

Before Mordecai could protest further, Rigby had already scrambled through the ferns and was yanking on the rusty steel door. Sheckley, the stoic engineer, walked up to the structure, ran a hand over the crumbling concrete, and shook his head. "Soviet-style design. Probably an abandoned communications relay or listening post from the 60s. It's not stable. We should stay out."

His sound advice was, of course, completely ignored. With a combined effort from the Stooges—Moe directing, Larry pushing, and Curly pulling on the wrong side—the heavy door groaned open with a screech of protesting metal, revealing a dark, musty interior. The air that wafted out smelled of decay, ozone, and ancient secrets.

"Last one in is a rotten egg!" Rigby yelled, plunging into the darkness.

"Well, so much for the chore," Mordecai sighed, and followed his friend inside, leaving Skinner outside to frantically document their infractions. The rest of the squad, drawn by the promise of adventure and an escape from their boring patrol, followed suit.

The interior of the bunker was a time capsule of 60s nuclear scare. A long, narrow corridor opened into a series of small, cramped rooms filled with enormous, decaying electronic equipment. Massive consoles lined the walls, covered in a constellation of switches, dials, and dark, dead screens. Thick cables, like petrified snakes, ran across the floor and up the walls. The air was thick with dust, and every surface was coated in a fine layer of grime and rust.

It was perfect.

Dale Gribble was in a state of near-religious ecstasy. "It's a black site," he whispered, his eyes wide behind his glasses. "A deep-state listening post. This is it, boys. The smoking gun. They probably faked the moon landing from a room just like this. We need to secure all documents before the cleanup crew arrives." He immediately began trying to pry open a locked file cabinet with his bayonet.

Tackleberry, meanwhile, had gone into full tactical mode. "Stack up! We're clearing the structure!" he commanded to no one in particular. He moved through the bunker with the stealth of a man who believed every shadow held a hostile combatant. "Room clear!" he'd shout after peeking into an empty closet. "Moving to the next sector!"

The Three Stooges had discovered the small galley kitchen and were attempting to "get it operational."

"A little rust never hurt nobody!" Moe declared, trying to turn the stiff handle on a water tap. He put his full weight into it, and the entire faucet assembly broke off in his hand, sending a high-pressure stream of rusty, foul-smelling water spraying all over the room. Larry, who had been inspecting a can of what might have once been borscht, was knocked off his feet by the blast. Curly, trying to dodge the water, slipped on the wet floor and slid headfirst into a rack of metal trays, which came crashing down on top of him with a deafening clang.

"Quiet, you numbskulls!" Moe yelled over the sound of the spraying water and Curly's yelps. "You'll give away our position!"

In the main control room, Dewey Finn was discovering the acoustics. "Whoa," he breathed, his voice echoing eerily off the concrete walls. He let out a low hum, then a tentative "check one, two." The sound bounced around the room, creating a natural reverb effect. "Dude, this is better than a recording studio." He pulled out a notepad and a pen and sat down amidst the decaying consoles, a look of intense inspiration on his face. "In the bunker deep and gray, where the Russian secrets lay..." he began to scribble.

Griggs was having a panic attack about the dust. "Oh geez, fellas, breathe through your shirts! This place is a tetanus factory! There could be spores! And rust! So much rust!" He tried to apply a sterile bandage to a particularly rusty pipe, "just in case."

Mordecai and Rigby had found the heart of the bunker: the main command and control console. It was a massive, semi-circular desk filled with the coolest-looking retro equipment they had ever seen. There were oscilloscopes with faint green lines still burned into their screens, reel-to-reel tape machines, and rows of heavy-duty switches that looked immensely satisfying to flip.

"Whoa," Rigby breathed, running his hand over a dusty panel. "This is like the greatest arcade game never made."

"It's like we're in a spy movie, dude," Mordecai agreed, spinning in a creaky swivel chair. "All we need now is a self-destruct sequence."

As if on cue, Philip J. Fry, who had been quietly exploring a side corridor, called out. "Hey guys! Come check this out!"

He was standing in a small, soundproofed room in front of a single, isolated console. This console was different from the others. It was cleaner, more spartan. And in the very center of it, protected by a hinged plastic cover, was a single, large, unlabeled red button. It was a beautiful, candy-like, irresistibly pressable button.

"Ooooh," the squad said in near-unison.

"Don't touch that," Sheckley said immediately, his voice flat and calm. He had been silently observing the chaos, his expression unchanging. "That's likely a master switch for an emergency power system or a broadcast override. Given the age of the wiring, activating it could cause a cascading electrical failure."

"Or," Rigby countered, "it could activate a giant robot."

"Or give us superpowers!" Fry added hopefully.

"Or it could just be a button," Mordecai mused. "Like, what's the worst that could happen?"

"A cascading electrical failure," Sheckley repeated patiently.

But the warning was lost on Fry. His eyes were glazed over, fixed on the alluring red glow of the button under its plastic cover. It was calling to him. He could almost hear it whispering his name.

"I wonder what it does," he said to himself, his hand moving as if guided by an unseen force.

"Fry, no," Mordecai warned.

"Private, do not touch that button!" Skinner yelped, finally making his way inside after documenting three dozen minor infractions.

But it was too late. Fry lifted the plastic cover. The hinge squeaked. Time seemed to slow down.

"I'm just gonna..."

His finger descended.

"...press it a little bit."

Click.

For a second, nothing happened.

"See? Nothing," Rigby said, disappointed.

Then, a low hum started deep within the bunker walls. A single, grimy light flickered overhead. The hum grew louder, vibrating through the concrete floor. The dead screens on the consoles began to flicker with static.

"Oh geez! Oh man! What's happening?!" Griggs shrieked.

Dale Gribble’s eyes were wide with triumph. "It's the activation sequence! They know we're here!"

On the main console, a reel-to-reel tape machine, untouched for thirty years, began to slowly, jerkily turn. A series of electronic clicks echoed through the room, and then, a loud thump as a massive internal breaker switched over.

Miles away, at Rhein-Main Air Base, Staff Sergeant Kowalski was in the command center, trying to explain to Captain Miller why his new squad required a specific line item in the budget for "unforeseeable slapstick-related damages."

Suddenly, the base's primary radio frequency, which had been broadcasting routine air traffic control, cut to static. Every speaker on base—in the mess hall, in the motor pool, in the command center itself—hissed for a moment, and then erupted with sound.

It was not an alarm. It was not a warning. It was the cheerful, bombastic, tuba-driven sound of German polka music, playing at incredible volume.

An officer at a radio console frantically tried to change the frequency. The polka music followed him. He tried another channel. More polka. It had hijacked everything.

Captain Miller stared at the speaker on the wall, from which a song about the joys of beer and sausage was now blasting, his face slowly turning a shade of purple usually reserved for expired plums.

"Kowalski," he said through clenched teeth. "What is that?"

"Sir... I believe that's 'The Happy Wanderer,' sir."

"I know what it is, Kowalski. What I want to know is why it is playing over every secure channel in this sector. Find the source of that broadcast. Now."

Back in the bunker, the squad stared in horror at the now-active consoles. The polka music was blasting from a small speaker on the wall, so loud it made their teeth vibrate.

"Dude! You broke Germany!" Rigby yelled at Fry.

"I didn't mean to!" Fry cried. "I thought it would dispense soda!"

"Make it stop!" Mordecai shouted over the deafening oom-pah music. "Fry, press it again!"

Fry slammed his hand on the button repeatedly. The music only seemed to get louder.

"It's not working!"

A shower of sparks erupted from a panel above their heads.

"Okay, new plan!" Mordecai yelled, taking charge out of sheer panic. "We have to shut this thing down before Captain Benson finds us and literally murders us!"

The "we gotta fix this" panic, so familiar from their time at the park, had officially set in.

"I can't shut it down from here!" Sheckley shouted over the polka, pointing at the sparking main console. "The master breaker must be near the power source! We need to find the generator room!"

Their frantic search began. Tackleberry "cleared" a path, Moe directed the other Stooges to "look for the thingy that makes the noise," and Dale frantically gathered "evidence" before their inevitable capture. They found the generator room at the end of a dark, dripping corridor. It was a small, cramped space housing a massive, rust-covered diesel generator and a wall of dangerously archaic-looking breaker boxes.

"That's it!" Sheckley yelled, pointing to a large, lever-operated box labeled with a faded Cyrillic warning. "That's the main broadcast power! We have to sever the connection!" The box was sparking violently, and the main lever was stuck fast with rust.

"I can't pull it!" Sheckley grunted, straining against the lever. "It's rusted solid! We need more leverage!"

"I'll get it!" Moe declared. He grabbed a loose pipe and wedged it under the lever. "Alright, you lamebrains! On three! One... two..." He didn't get to three. Curly, trying to help, tripped over Larry's feet and fell against the pipe. Their combined weight was just enough. With a groan of tortured, ancient metal, the lever moved.

It didn't shut off. It broke.

The lever snapped, and the entire breaker box exploded in a fountain of brilliant blue and white sparks, plunging the bunker into absolute darkness.

The polka music stopped.

The silence was even more terrifying than the noise. It was a deep, profound silence, broken only by the dripping of rusty water and the sound of Griggs weeping softly in a corner.

"Did... did we fix it?" Fry asked into the blackness.

"I think we broke it more," Mordecai’s voice replied, shaky and grim.

Suddenly, a powerful beam of light cut through the doorway, pinning them in its glare. The rumble of approaching jeeps had been masked by the noise, but now it was unmistakable.

Silhouetted in the bunker entrance stood two figures: Captain Miller and Staff Sergeant Kowalski. Their faces were illuminated from below by the flashlight, making them look like vengeful gods descending to pass judgment.

Captain Miller lowered the flashlight, his eyes having adjusted to the gloom. He took in the scene: his ten problem Marines, covered in soot, rust, and failure, standing in the ruins of a secret Soviet-style bunker they weren't supposed to know existed, having just knocked out communications for an entire NATO sector.

He said nothing for a long time. He just stood there, breathing. It was the slow, measured breathing of a man who was contemplating the full spectrum of human failure and his place within it.

"So," he finally said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that promised a world of pain. "This is how you rake the leaves."

Chapter Text

The punishment for hijacking every secure radio frequency in the American sector with polka music was, anticlimactically, more chores. After three days of cleaning the motor pool with toothbrushes and being forced to listen to Captain Miller read the entire Uniform Code of Military Justice aloud, 3rd Squad was a broken, weary unit. Captain Miller, having concluded that keeping them all together was a recipe for exponential disaster, decided on a new strategy: strategic separation.

“Mordecai. Rigby,” he said, his voice flat and devoid of all emotion. He pointed to a spot on the tactical map of the training area. “Checkpoint Delta-Seven. It’s a supply road guard post. The most exciting thing to happen there in the last five years was when a deer tried to eat a warning sign. You will report there for a 72-hour guard rotation. You will be relieving two Army soldiers. Your only job is to sit there, observe the occasional supply truck, and not set the forest on fire.” He leaned in, his eyes promising a future of endless misery if they failed. “Do you understand this incredibly simple task?”

“Sir, yes sir!” Mordecai and Rigby chorused.

“This is your last chance,” Miller said, though his tone suggested he had no faith in the concept of last chances when it came to them. “Kowalski will drive you.”

The ride out to Checkpoint Delta-Seven was silent and grim. It was the military equivalent of being sent to your room. When they arrived, the reality was even more depressing than they’d imagined. The checkpoint wasn’t a cool concrete bunker or even a respectable guard tower. It was a miserable little wooden shack, barely large enough for two people, surrounded by a low wall of damp, sagging sandbags. It sat in a small clearing beside a muddy, single-lane road, surrounded on all sides by the silent, judging German forest.

Two figures in the U.S. Army’s woodland BDU pattern were there to greet them. One was a private with a mop of brown hair and a perpetually tired expression, leaning against the shack with a half-eaten lollipop sticking out of her mouth. The other was a Specialist with sharp, intelligent eyes that seemed to be constantly calculating angles and possibilities. He was meticulously cleaning his M16 on a small folding table.

“You the Marine replacements?” the Specialist asked without looking up.

“Uh, yeah. I’m Mordecai. This is Rigby.”

“Specialist Schwartz,” he said, nodding. “But everyone calls me Skippy. This is Private Lind.”

The girl, Lind, gave a lazy two-fingered wave, her eyelids at half-mast. Her helmet sat beside her on a crate, from which a pair of headphones was plugged into the side of her AN/PRC-77 radio pack. The radio itself wasn't emitting military chatter; instead, the faint, tinny sound of a German easy-listening station leaked from her headset.

“So, what’s the haps at this place?” Rigby asked, kicking at a sandbag.

“The ‘haps’ are as follows,” Skippy said, snapping his rifle back together with practiced efficiency. “At 0900 and 1400 hours, a supply convoy passes. You wave at them. At 1100, a jeep brings chow. The rest of the time, you maintain vigilance against the overwhelming threat of terminal boredom.”

Lind let out a soft snore, her head lolling to the side.

“She seems vigilant,” Mordecai noted.

“PFC Lind has achieved a state of tactical zen,” Skippy explained. “She expends the absolute minimum energy required to sustain life, saving the rest for critical moments. Or for finding more candy. Also, she modified her radio to pick up civilian stations. Says it helps her sleep.” He gestured to the miserable shack. “Welcome to paradise. We’re out of here.”

As the Army jeep disappeared down the road, Mordecai and Rigby were left in the oppressive silence of the German woods. They were alone. It was cold. It was boring. It was, in every conceivable way, the worst chore they had ever been assigned.

For three hours, they did their job. They sat. They stared at trees. They watched a squirrel. Rigby tried to see how far he could spit. Mordecai counted the sandbags. There were 147.

“Dude,” Rigby said, finally breaking the silence. “This is awful.”

“I know,” Mordecai sighed, leaning his head back against the rough wood of the shack. “This is worse than cleaning the park bathrooms after the chili cook-off.”

“At least that was only for a day. We’re here for three! We gotta do something, man. We can’t just sit here.”

“What are you talking about? Miller told us not to do anything!”

“Yeah, but he meant don’t do anything bad ,” Rigby reasoned, his logic twisting into its familiar, pretzel-like shape. “He didn’t say we couldn’t do anything awesome . Look at this place! It’s a dump. It’s un-American. We’re Marines! We’re supposed to improve our fighting position, right?”

Mordecai knew this line of thinking. It was the same logic Rigby had used right before they tried to build a water slide off the roof of the park house. But he was just so… bored. “Improve it how? By stacking the sandbags neater?”

As if summoned by their conversation, a jeep rumbled up the road. It wasn’t a supply truck. It was Staff Sergeant Kowalski. The rest of 3rd Squad sat in the back, looking just as miserable as they were.

“Captain’s orders,” Kowalski barked as he pulled to a stop. “He wants the rest of these knuckleheads out of his sight, too. They’re your supply detail. Don’t break them.” He threw a crate of C-rations on the ground and drove off before anyone could protest.

Now the whole crew was there. The Stooges immediately started arguing about who had to carry the crate. Dale began scanning the trees for sniper glint. Fry looked around and asked, “Is this where the party is?”

It was then that Skippy and Lind returned, their own liberty pass having been cut short due to a ‘minor misunderstanding’ at the motor pool involving Skippy’s attempt to build a solar-powered coffee maker.

Skippy took one look at the assembled chaos, at Rigby’s dejected face, and at the pathetic checkpoint. A slow smile spread across his face.

“You know,” he said, tapping his chin thoughtfully, “you’re right. This position is tactically inefficient and fails to meet basic habitability standards.” He pulled a battered, grease-stained field manual from his cargo pocket. “According to Field Manual 5-15, Section 3, Paragraph 2, ‘Troops are authorized to construct expedient field fortifications using locally sourced or readily available materials to enhance defensive capabilities and morale.’”

Rigby’s eyes went wide. “Whoa. What does that mean?”

“It means,” Skippy said, his grin widening, “that the regulations don’t specify what constitutes a ‘locally sourced material,’ nor do they put a limit on the fortification’s square footage, as long as it maintains 360-degree fields of fire.” He slammed the manual shut. “Gentlemen, we’re going to build.”

The plan, masterminded by Skippy, was ambitious. They wouldn’t just improve the checkpoint. They would rebuild it. It would be a fortress of comfort, a bastion against boredom. It would be Checkpoint Deluxe.

The project began immediately. Skippy, the architect, drew up blueprints in the dirt with a stick. Mordecai and Rigby, finally given a task that wasn't mind-numbingly dull, became his enthusiastic foremen.

“Okay, first we need more materials!” Skippy announced. “Fry, Gribble, you’re on scavenging duty! Find wood, metal, anything that looks useful!”

Fry and Dale vanished into the woods. They returned twenty minutes later dragging the rusted-out chassis of a Volkswagen Beetle they had found half-buried in a ditch a kilometer down the road.

“Will this work?” Fry asked proudly.

Skippy’s eyes gleamed. “It’s perfect! That’s our new primary observation post!”

The Stooges were put on “heavy construction,” which meant Moe telling Larry and Curly what to do, followed by immediate slapstick failure. They were tasked with dismantling wooden shipping pallets for building materials. Moe held a crowbar.

“Alright, puddin’ heads, watch a master at work!” he declared. He jammed the crowbar under a board and pulled. Nothing happened. He pulled harder, straining. “Get over here and help!” he ordered Larry, who grabbed the other end of the crowbar. They both pulled. The board didn’t budge, but the nail Moe was standing on did. It ripped free from the wood, sending Moe and Larry stumbling backward directly into Curly, who was trying to pull a nail out with his teeth. The three of them collapsed into a pile of limbs and yelps.

Sheckley, observing the shoddy workmanship, shook his head in disapproval. “That entire structure is going to have zero load-bearing capacity.” He was ignored. He went back to methodically cleaning his rifle, a lone bastion of professionalism in a sea of amateur carpentry.

Tackleberry, meanwhile, was adding his own tactical improvements. “The observation post needs a sniper’s nest,” he declared, climbing onto the roof of the VW chassis. “And we need a clear field of fire. Skinner, start digging a trench system!” Skinner, thrilled at the prospect of organized earth-moving, immediately began marking out a complex trench network with string and pegs, complete with designated fighting positions and latrine runoff channels.

Lind had been assigned the crucial role of “Morale Officer and Auditory Environment Specialist.” She sat in her comfortable chair, which the others had carefully moved under a tree, and manned her modified radio. At Skippy’s direction, she found a German pop station. The incongruous sound of synth-heavy, upbeat music filled the forest, providing a bizarre soundtrack to their labor.

“This song is too noisy,” she’d occasionally mumble, changing the station to something slower before drifting back to sleep.

Griggs, ever the worrier, had established a "MASH tent" a safe distance away, where he treated the inevitable splinters and scrapes that resulted from the Stooges’ attempts to use a hammer.

Over the next two days, Checkpoint Deluxe began to take shape. It was an architectural fever dream. The original shack was now merely the foundation for a sprawling, two-story structure made of pallets, scrap metal, and VW Beetle parts. The ground floor was the "Command and Control Center," featuring the radio and Lind’s chair. A rickety staircase led to the second floor, the "Observation Deck/Sniper’s Nest," which was the roof of the Beetle, complete with a swivel chair taken from a wrecked jeep. They had a "patio" made of flattened oil drums and, Rigby’s proudest contribution, a "drive-thru" window cut into one of the pallet walls.

They jerry-rigged a set of speakers to Lind’s radio, and soon the sounds of Nena’s “99 Luftballons” were blasting through the quiet German countryside.

On the third day, as they were putting the finishing touches on their creation—a hand-painted sign that read “CHECKPOINT DELUXE: HOME OF THE FREE (COFFEE, IF YOU GOT IT)”—Rigby stood back to admire their work.

“Dude,” he said to Mordecai, a tear of joy in his eye. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

It was then that they heard the distant rumble of an approaching jeep.

“Uh oh,” Mordecai said. “That’s not a supply truck.”

A wave of panic shot through the construction site. “Look busy!” Moe yelled at the other Stooges, who immediately started hitting a perfectly fine wall with hammers.

The jeep came into view. It was Staff Sergeant Kowalski, making a surprise inspection. He was driving slowly, a confused look on his face, likely drawn by the sound of German pop music echoing from a supposedly silent military checkpoint.

He pulled the jeep to a stop about fifty yards away and just… stared. His brain, a machine trained to process tactical information and standard operating procedures, seemed to freeze, unable to compute the scene before him. He saw a two-story shanty town where a guard post should be. He saw a Marine in a rusted-out Beetle chassis aiming his rifle at a squirrel. He saw three others engaged in what looked like a violent, three-way carpentry argument. And he could clearly hear the tinny beat of synth-pop.

His door opened. He got out of the jeep and began walking toward them, each step heavy with menace.

Rigby, in a moment of pure, undiluted idiocy, forgot everything. He saw a vehicle stopped at his checkpoint. He leaned out of the newly installed drive-thru window, put on his friendliest customer service smile, and yelled, “Welcome to Checkpoint Deluxe, can I take your order?”

Kowalski stopped. He looked at Rigby. He looked at the monstrosity they had built. He looked back at Rigby. He opened his mouth to scream, to unleash a torrent of rage that could strip paint from metal.

But no sound came out. Only a strangled, choked gasp. He raised a trembling hand to his radio, to call the Captain, to try and explain the inexplicable. But the words wouldn’t form. All he could do was stand there, his mind utterly broken by the sheer, magnificent, weaponized incompetence of 3rd Squad.

Chapter Text

The demolition of Checkpoint Deluxe was a somber affair. Under the furious, watchful eye of Staff Sergeant Kowalski, 3rd Squad was forced to dismantle their architectural masterpiece, piece by agonizing piece. Captain Miller’s punishment was swift, brutal, and worst of all, logistical. The squad was split. Tackleberry, Skinner, the Stooges, and the rest were assigned to a week-long, grueling patrol on the farthest edge of the training area. Their mission was to count trees, or something equally pointless. It was military purgatory.

Mordecai and Rigby, as the primary instigators, received a different fate. They were sentenced to another 72-hour rotation at the now-dismantled, pathetic Checkpoint Delta-Seven. Their orders were simple and delivered with the dead-eyed exhaustion of a man who had given up all hope.

“You will sit,” Captain Miller had told them, his voice a low monotone. “You will not build. You will not create. You will not ‘improve your position.’ You will exist. You will breathe. You will watch this road. You are a human rock. That is your function for the next three days. Try not to fail at being a rock.”

When they arrived, the checkpoint was even more miserable than before. The wreckage of their dream fort had been hauled away, leaving only the original, sad little shack surrounded by its damp, pathetic sandbags. Their Army counterparts, Skippy and Lind, were already there, having received a similar punishment for their part in the fiasco.

Skippy was sitting on a crate, studiously reading a thick field manual on customs regulations, a look of intense concentration on his face. Lind was exactly where they had left her: slumped in a folding chair, headset on, a small pile of new candy wrappers forming at her feet. She was, for all intents and purposes, a part of the landscape.

“Back to the salt mines, huh?” Mordecai said, dropping his pack with a thud.

“Correction,” Skippy said, not looking up from his manual. “This isn’t a salt mine. It’s a tactical bottleneck with untapped economic potential.”

Rigby scoffed. “Dude, it’s a boring shack on a boring road. It’s the worst chore ever.”

“Your problem,” Skippy replied, finally closing the book, “is a failure of imagination. You see a chore. I see a captive market.”

As if on cue, the distant rumble of an approaching convoy echoed through the trees. For the next twenty minutes, a long, slow-moving line of American supply trucks rumbled past the checkpoint. The drivers, mostly tired-looking National Guardsmen, stared blankly out their windows, their faces masks of profound boredom.

Rigby watched them go, a wistful look on his face. “Man,” he said with a sigh. “I bet those guys would kill for a slushie right now. Or like, a chili dog.”

Mordecai nodded in agreement. A spark ignited in Skippy’s eyes.

“That,” Skippy said, standing up, “is the most intelligent thing you’ve said since I met you. They are bored. They are hungry. They have access to goods and services from other bases that we don’t. We are sitting on a gold mine of morale, welfare, and recreation.”

Mordecai held up his hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. No. No way. We just got in massive trouble for building the checkpoint. We’re not about to get in trouble for… whatever it is you’re thinking.”

“Who said anything about trouble?” Skippy asked, his voice smooth and dangerously reasonable. “We’re not breaking any rules. We would simply be facilitating an inter-unit exchange of goods for the betterment of troop morale. It’s practically our patriotic duty.”

Rigby was already hooked. “Yeah! We can be patriotic! We can open a store! We could call it ‘The Traid-Station’!”

“That’s a terrible name,” Mordecai said flatly.

“But you see the vision!” Skippy encouraged. “Think about it. We have something they want: a break from the monotony. And they have things we want: better snacks, magazines, comic books, maybe even a VHS tape or two.”

“I’m still not sure, man,” Mordecai hesitated. “This feels like it could go wrong.”

Skippy leaned in, lowering his voice. “Listen. I’ve reviewed the supply request forms. A unit conducting ‘extended field operations’—which this guard duty technically is—can request supplemental rations. That includes coffee, hot chocolate mix, and most importantly…” His eyes twinkled. “…an excess supply of C-ration pound cakes.”

Mordecai and Rigby gasped. The canned pound cake was the unofficial currency of the U.S. military. It was dense, sugary, and highly sought after. With pound cake, they could acquire anything.

“We could be rich, Mordecai!” Rigby shook his arm. “Rich in snacks!”

Mordecai looked at the boring road. He looked at the boring trees. He looked at the prospect of three more days of doing nothing. He sighed, the last bastion of his common sense crumbling. “Okay, fine. But if we get in trouble, it’s your fault.”

“Excellent,” Skippy said, rubbing his hands together. “Now, let’s draft a business plan.”

Lind, who seemed to have been asleep through the entire conversation, mumbled without opening her eyes, “Get some of that German chocolate. The one with the cow on it.”

“You heard the market research analyst,” Skippy grinned. “Our first acquisition goal.”

The launch of what Rigby officially christened the "TRAID-STATION" was surprisingly effective. Skippy, a logistical genius, submitted a request for supplemental rations, citing “low morale and adverse weather conditions.” Two hours later, a bewildered-looking supply private dropped off a crate containing two dozen pound cakes, coffee, and enough hot chocolate mix to last a platoon through a Russian winter.

Their business model, drafted by Skippy on the back of a ration box, was a masterpiece of black-market economics.

 * 1 C-Ration Pound Cake: 1 German Magazine OR 3 American Comic Books.

 * 1 Cup of Hot Coffee (black): 1 Pack of Cigarettes (any brand).

 * 1 Cup of Hot Chocolate: 2 Packs of Gum OR 1 Full-Size Candy Bar (non-US).

 * 1 Can of Warm Soda: 2 Cans of Cold Soda (must be name brand).

 * A Favor: Negotiable.

Rigby fashioned a sign out of a piece of cardboard and a marker, proudly displaying their terrible logo. Mordecai, as the most responsible of the group, was made Chief Financial Officer, tasked with keeping track of their bizarre inventory on a clipboard. Lind was unanimously appointed Head of Quality Control, a role which required her to personally sample any and all edible trade goods to ensure they met her exacting standards of being “sugary” or “not gross.”

The first convoy of the afternoon was their test market. As the lead truck slowed for the checkpoint, Rigby, buzzing with entrepreneurial spirit, ran alongside it.

“Hey! Hey, mister!” he yelled at the driver. “You look bored! You look like you need a pound cake!”

The driver, a heavyset man with a thick mustache, eyed him suspiciously. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch!” Rigby said, holding up the canned dessert like it was a holy grail. “All we ask is a fair trade! Whatcha got?”

The driver considered it, then reached into a bag on his passenger seat and produced a copy of a German auto magazine with a sleek Porsche on the cover. “Auto, Motor und Sport?”

“SOLD!” Rigby shouted, making the exchange.

The word spread down the convoy like wildfire. For the first time in months, the supply route was interesting. Truck drivers, usually half-asleep, were eagerly digging through their cabs, looking for goods to trade.

Their little checkpoint transformed. A cheerful, hand-drawn “OPEN” sign hung from the shack. Mordecai’s clipboard filled with strange equations: 3 Snickers Bars = 1 Pound Cake = 1 issue of ‘Der Spiegel’. Rigby became a master haggler, successfully trading a single cup of hot chocolate for a half-eaten bag of potato chips and a VHS copy of The Blues Brothers.

Lind, in her element, presided over a growing dragon’s hoard of German chocolates, bags of gummy bears, and imported sodas. Her reviews were concise and delivered between sleepy blinks.

“Milka chocolate…” she mumbled after taking a bite. “Acceptable.”

“Haribo gummy bears…” she chewed thoughtfully. “Bouncy.”

The business needed to expand. Serving lukewarm coffee was one thing, but hot food was the next frontier. That’s when Skippy had his moment of genius—the idea that would cement his legacy in the unofficial history of military screw-ups.

“The engine manifold,” he said suddenly, staring at their parked jeep.

“The what?” Mordecai asked.

“The exhaust manifold on an internal combustion engine generates a significant amount of heat,” Skippy explained, his eyes glowing with forbidden knowledge. “It’s essentially a cast-iron hot plate. All we need is a flat surface.”

He found a discarded metal license plate, scrubbed it clean, and, using some scavenged wire, jury-rigged it directly on top of the jeep’s engine manifold. He started the engine. Ten minutes later, the plate was sizzling hot. He slapped down two slices of C-ration bread with a piece of government-cheese in the middle.

The smell of a grilling cheese sandwich soon filled the air.

It was the single most brilliant and flagrantly illegal thing Mordecai had ever seen. They had weaponized their vehicle’s engine block to make snacks. They were gods of the chow line.

“Engine-Block Grilled Cheese” became their signature item, traded for only the highest-value goods. Their operation was a resounding success. They were kings.

And like all kings, their reign was destined to be short and end in disaster.

The problem with being the only interesting stop on a 100-kilometer supply route is that everyone wants to stop there. By the second day, their reputation had spread. Convoys were no longer just slowing down; they were stopping completely. Trucks lined up down the muddy road, drivers getting out to socialize and barter. Checkpoint Delta-Seven had become a full-blown, unauthorized truck stop in the middle of the German wilderness.

They were so busy running their thriving enterprise—Rigby taking orders, Mordecai managing inventory, Skippy cooking on the jeep’s engine, Lind directing traffic with lazy waves of her lollipop—that they didn’t notice the traffic jam they had created now stretched back for nearly a full kilometer.

And they certainly didn’t notice the shiny black Mercedes staff car with a Colonel’s flag on the fender, stuck at the very back of the line.

Inside that car, a notoriously short-tempered Colonel from Command Logistics was turning a shade of crimson that clashed with his uniform. He had an important meeting at Rhein-Main, and he had been sitting in the same spot for fifteen minutes.

“What is the meaning of this holdup?” he barked at his driver.

“I don’t know, sir. It seems to be originating from the checkpoint up ahead.”

“Checkpoint? This is a secondary supply road! Get me up there. Now.”

The Colonel got out of his car and began marching down the line of parked, idling trucks, his face a thundercloud of pure fury. As he got closer, a series of confusing sensory details assaulted him. The smell of grilling cheese. The sound of American rock and roll, which he realized with a start was coming from the checkpoint itself.

He finally broke through the last line of trucks and saw it.

It was a bazaar. A black-market carnival. A half-dozen soldiers were crowded around a sandbag wall that was covered in hand-drawn signs. He saw one soldier trading a box of cigars for what looked like a canned cake. He saw another laughing as he read a comic book. He saw a Marine with a clipboard frantically trying to count a pile of candy bars.

And then he saw the source of the operation.

He saw a U.S. Army Specialist in a makeshift apron, spatula in hand, flipping a grilled cheese sandwich on the engine block of a running military jeep.

He saw a small, sleepy-looking private sitting in a chair surrounded by a mountain of candy wrappers, her military-issue radio blasting a commercial for a German laundry detergent.

And he saw a raccoon-like Marine leaning out of the guard shack window, holding a cup of coffee, yelling, “Next order!”

The Colonel stopped dead. His brain tried, and failed, to process the scene. This was a complete, systemic breakdown of military order, discipline, and common sense. It was the single most unprofessional thing he had ever witnessed. This, he realized with dawning horror, was why he was late for his meeting.

Mordecai, turning to grab another slice of cheese for Skippy, was the first to see him. He saw the eagle on his collar. He saw the furious, twitching eye. He saw the righteous anger of a senior officer whose day has been ruined by enlisted shenanigans.

His blood ran cold.

“Uh… Skippy?” Mordecai whispered, his voice trembling.

But Skippy didn’t hear him. He had just perfectly crisped a grilled cheese. He lifted it with a flourish, admired his handiwork, and announced proudly to the assembled truck drivers, “Order up!”

The Colonel took one final, deep breath. Mordecai and Rigby shared a look of pure, unadulterated terror. They were so, so busted. The Traid-Station was officially closed for business.

Chapter Text

The summons came at dawn. Mordecai, Rigby, Specialist Skippy, and Private Lind were ordered to report to Captain Miller’s office, a sterile, intimidating room that smelled faintly of lemon polish and broken dreams. Waiting for them was not just Captain Miller and Staff Sergeant Kowalski, but also a stern-faced Army Captain and the very same, very angry Logistics Colonel whose Mercedes was still in the motor pool with a forklift-shaped dent in its grille.

The four of them stood at a rigid, terrified attention as the Colonel glared at them from behind the Captain’s desk. He held a single sheet of paper in his hand.

“In my twenty-five years of service,” the Colonel began, his voice a low rumble of authority, “I have seen incompetence. I have seen laziness. I have seen creativity born of desperation. But never, in all my years, have I seen a military vehicle’s engine block used as a short-order grill.”

He lifted the paper. “Specialist Schwartz, your company commander has been notified. As of 0600 this morning, an official entry has been added to your permanent record.” He cleared his throat and read aloud with grim satisfaction: “214. The engine manifold of a U.S. Army jeep is not an approved food preparation surface.”

Skippy beamed with pride. “A new record, sir. Most regulations cited in a single unofficial culinary experiment.” The Army Captain standing behind him put a hand over his face and sighed deeply.

The punishment, when it came, was far worse than latrine duty. It was a joint-forces initiative. A diplomatic nightmare designed by officers who wanted to make their problem soldiers someone else’s problem.

“Due to your squad’s… unique approach to military operations,” Captain Miller explained, his face a mask of weary resolve, “and a formal request from our German allies to better understand the ‘unpredictable tactical mindset’ of their American counterparts, your entire squad has been reassigned.”

The rest of 3rd Squad, guilty by association, were marched into the office to join them.

“You are all being attached to a Bundeswehr Panzergrenadier unit for a week of joint training exercises,” Miller continued. “You will demonstrate interoperability. You will foster NATO camaraderie. You will learn from their discipline. And you will be under the direct supervision of a German NCO. Do not, and I cannot stress this enough, cause an international incident.” He looked directly at Mordecai and Rigby. “This is not a suggestion.”

Their new assignment was at a MOUT training facility—a mock German village of drab concrete buildings and empty streets, designed for urban combat simulation. Waiting for them was their German counterpart: Hauptmann (Captain) Klaus, a man who looked like he had been chiseled from granite and pure, unadulterated procedure. His uniform was immaculate, his posture was perfect, and his expression suggested he had never smiled in his life.

Beside him stood a young private, Gefreiter Dieter, who was practically vibrating with excitement. “Ah! You are the Americans!” he said in heavily accented English, his eyes wide. “I have heard stories! It is like the movie The Dirty Dozen, yes?”

Klaus shot him a look that could freeze water. “Gefreiter, silence.”

The American squad looked on, a motley crew of chaos agents facing a wall of German efficiency. This was going to go poorly.

The first exercise was laid out. Hauptmann Klaus’s squad would practice an urban assault on a designated objective: the mock village’s two-story town hall. The Americans’ job was to act as the Opposing Force, or OPFOR.

“Your task is simple,” Klaus explained, his English precise and clipped. “You will occupy this building.” He tapped the map. “You will establish a basic defense. You will provide a credible, predictable threat for my men to neutralize. You will follow standard OPFOR doctrine. Are there questions?”

Rigby’s hand shot up. “Yeah, do we get snacks?”

Klaus stared at him for a full ten seconds before turning away without a word.

As the Americans shuffled toward the objective building, Mordecai sighed. “Great. Another chore. This is just like that time Benson made us be the ghosts for the park’s haunted house tour.”

“Yeah, this is so boring,” Rigby complained. “We’re just supposed to sit here and wait for them to show up? Lame. We should make it more fun.”

“How?” Mordecai asked. “By putting up better curtains?”

It was Skippy who provided the answer. He had, of course, already procured a copy of the OPFOR training manual and had been speed-reading it, a familiar, dangerous glint in his eye.

“Gentlemen, I believe I’ve found a loophole,” he announced, holding up the book. “OPFOR Manual 7-100, appendix C, states that the mission of the opposing force is to ‘provide a realistic and challenging training environment by simulating a credible, determined enemy.’ It does not, however, place any restrictions on the nature of the enemy’s tactics, as long as they remain ‘non-lethal and within the established rules of engagement.’”

He closed the manual with a snap. “They’re expecting a conventional defense. They’re expecting us to hide behind windows and pretend to shoot. But the manual doesn’t say we can’t provide a threat that is… unconventional.”

A slow grin spread across Rigby’s face. “Unconventional how?”

“Psychological warfare,” Skippy said. “Booby traps. Calculated chaos. We’re not going to be a predictable enemy. We’re going to be an annoying one.”

This was a language the entire squad understood. The boring chore had just been transformed into a glorious, large-scale prank.

Their preparations began. Skippy, the mastermind, started directing their efforts. “Mordecai, Rigby, I want you two on traps. Think simple, think irritating. Dale, you’re on early warning. Find a high point. Fry, you… just try not to get stuck in a closet.”

Mordecai and Rigby went to work with the enthusiasm of two slackers who had just been given permission to cause mischief. They filled buckets with muddy water from a puddle outside and precariously balanced them on top of partially opened doors. They scattered loose ball bearings all over the slick concrete floor of the main hallway. They found a large cargo net in a supply closet and rigged it to fall on anyone entering the main council chamber.

The Three Stooges were tasked with barricading the main entrance. This, predictably, devolved into a slapstick routine involving a ladder, a misplaced hammer, and Moe getting his head stuck in a window frame.

“Spread out, you imbeciles!” Moe’s muffled voice echoed from the window. “We need more boards!”

Larry, trying to carry a large sheet of plywood by himself, tripped and slid down the main staircase, taking out the railing and landing in a heap at the bottom. Curly, laughing at Larry’s misfortune, was promptly bonked on the head by a hammer that Moe had dropped from the floor above.

While the chaos unfolded, a new player entered the game. One of Klaus’s soldiers, a small, wiry private with a shock of bright orange hair tied to a sidetail and an impish grin, had been watching the Americans’ preparations from a distance. This was Erma Zimmermann. Where her squad saw a training exercise, Erma saw a playground. And the Americans were clearly having more fun.

With a burst of speed, she darted away from her own unit, zipped across the town square, and slipped into the back entrance of the town hall, completely undetected. She found Mordecai and Rigby trying to tie a tripwire made of audio cable across a doorway.

“Hallo,” she said, her English fast and energetic. “This is a very inefficient trap. The tensile strength of that cable is poor. You should use this.” She produced a roll of high-tension wire from her pack. “I am Erma. Your defense is sloppy, but your spirit is good. I will help you.”

Before they could ask who she was, she was already at work, her hands moving with a blur of motion as she helped them rig a far more effective trap. “I am something of a genius with these things,” she explained. “Last month, I made a coffee machine that could also launch donuts. It worked! Once.”

Mordecai stared at her. “Wait, are you supposed to be on our team?”

“Your team is more fun,” Erma shrugged. “The German way is effective, but boring. The American way is stupid, but exciting. I choose exciting.”

With their new, hyperactive German ally, the defenses became even more elaborate. Erma helped Skippy jury-rig the building’s old PA system. Skippy’s plan was to blast disorienting noise. Erma’s plan was to make it annoying. She found a tape recorder and created what she called a “psychological audio weapon.”

Meanwhile, Mordecai was looking for Rigby, who had vanished while supposedly setting a trap in the mayor’s office. He wandered through the dusty, darkened building, the sounds of chaotic construction echoing around him. He opened the door to a small, quiet records room.

He expected to find it empty. Instead, he found Lind, who was supposed to be on lookout duty, sitting on the floor with her back against a filing cabinet. Her radio was on the floor beside her, her headset around her neck, emitting the faint sound of a late-night German talk show. She wasn’t asleep, for once. Sitting cross-legged in front of her was Erma.

The two of them were engaged in a serious transaction. Erma was animatedly explaining the merits of a particular brand of German sour gummy, while Lind listened with sleepy intensity.

“…and so the green ones have the apple flavor, which is superior, but the red ones have a better texture,” Erma was saying, talking a mile a minute. She handed one to Lind.

Lind popped it in her mouth, chewed slowly, and gave her verdict. “Good tang.” She then reached into her own pocket and produced a bright pink lollipop, handing it to Erma. “Trade.”

Erma’s eyes lit up. “Ja! Excellent!”

Mordecai stood in the doorway, utterly bewildered. “What is going on here?”

Erma looked up, grinning. “Ah! The tall bird-man! Lind and I are conducting vital materiel exchange. We are old friends. From the NATO Junior NCO Morale and Candy Symposium last year.”

Lind gave Mordecai a lazy thumbs-up. “She knows all the good radio stations,” she mumbled, and put her headset back on.

The revelation of this bizarre friendship between the joint Army-Marine squad’s laziest member and Germany’s most hyperactive soldier was too much for Mordecai to process. He just slowly backed out of the room and closed the door.

At 1400 hours, the assault began.

Hauptmann Klaus’s squad moved with the fluid precision of a well-oiled machine. They stacked up outside the main entrance, ready to breach.

“Achtung!” Klaus commanded. “Geh! Geh! Geh!”

The first two soldiers kicked the door open and charged in. They were immediately met by the floor of the main hall, which was now a treacherous sea of ball bearings. Their disciplined charge turned into a flailing, pinwheeling ballet as they slipped and slid, crashing into the wall.

From the PA system, Erma’s psychological weapon kicked in. It wasn’t battle sounds or disorienting static. It was a looped recording of Dewey Finn humming his terrible bunker rock opera, occasionally punctuated by one of Curly’s signature "Nyuk, nyuk, nyuks."

Klaus’s jaw tightened. "Unorthodox. Move up the stairs!"

The next team hit the staircase, where Mordecai and Rigby’s trap lay in wait. A tripwire sent a bucket of cold, muddy water sloshing down on them. Sputtering and soaked, they lost their footing on the now-slick stairs.

Upstairs, Dieter, the enthusiastic private, was the first to breach the council chamber. He kicked the door in heroically, only to have a giant cargo net fall on top of him, trapping him like a flailing fish.

“I am compromised!” he yelled, though he sounded more thrilled than distressed.

Klaus was now furious. This wasn’t a training exercise; it was a circus. “Forget finesse!” he ordered. “Full frontal assault! All teams, move in now!”

His men charged into the building from all sides, only to be met with more chaos. They ran into barricades made of office furniture. They were pelted with water balloons launched by the Stooges from the second-floor windows. One poor soldier opened a closet door and was met with a rigged fire extinguisher, which blasted him with a cloud of white foam.

The final straw came when Klaus himself led a charge into the mayor’s office, the supposed command center of the OPFOR. He kicked the door in, his weapon ready. The room was empty, except for a single C-ration can sitting on the desk with a string tied to it. The string led up to the ceiling. Klaus recognized the setup. A classic, primitive booby trap.

He smirked. Amateurs. He carefully cut the string.

Instead of a bucket, the severed string released a latch on the ceiling tiles. From the ceiling, a dozen of Dale Gribble's tinfoil-wrapped "anti-surveillance" decoys fell down, along with a cloud of glitter that Erma had "acquired" from the base craft store.

Klaus stood there, covered in mud, foam, and now sparkling glitter, listening to the faint sound of a ukulele being badly played over the PA system. His professional, by-the-book assault had been completely and utterly dismantled by sheer, unadulterated stupidity.

He keyed his radio, his voice shaking with a rage so pure it was almost calm. “All units, fall back. Exercise terminated.”

Back outside, the American squad, along with their new German co-conspirator, watched from the windows as Klaus’s men retreated. They had won.

“Woohoo! We did it!” Rigby cheered, high-fiving Mordecai.

“That was the most tactically unsound victory I have ever participated in,” Tackleberry said with a look of immense satisfaction.

A few minutes later, Captain Miller’s jeep screeched to a halt in the town square. He and Hauptmann Klaus stood face-to-face, two commanders staring at each other across a vast, unbridgeable chasm of tactical philosophy.

“Captain,” Miller began, his voice strained. “I can explain.”

Klaus held up a hand. He slowly brushed a piece of glitter from his shoulder. He looked at the town hall, where Moe Howard was currently trying to get a water bucket off of Curly’s head. He looked at Captain Miller.

“Captain,” Klaus said, his voice a low, dangerous growl. “You will explain to me, in detail, your definition of a ‘credible threat.’ Because what I just witnessed was not a military exercise. It was a… a cartoon. A symphony of incompetence set to polka music.”

From the town hall window above, Moe Howard chose that moment to finally succeed in pulling the water bucket off Curly’s head. It came free with a loud POP, and Moe, losing his balance, tumbled backward out of sight. A moment later, a cacophony of crashes and yelps echoed from within.

Miller winced. “Captain, the objective of the Opposing Force is to provide a realistic and challenging training environment. My men… are very challenging.”

“Challenging?” Klaus’s voice rose. “They neutralized my lead element with ball bearings! They trapped my fire team in a fishing net! And your Private Gribble spent the entire exercise communicating with my men via a series of elaborate bird calls, which he claimed were ‘anti-communist frequencies’!”

“He’s… creative,” Miller offered weakly.

“He is an imbecile!” Klaus roared. “And you! The little one!” He pointed a trembling, glitter-dusted finger up at Erma, who was peeking out of a window with a cheerful, unrepentant grin. “You are a traitor to German efficiency!”

Erma just shrugged. “Your plan was boring. Their plan had glitter.”

Before Klaus could have an aneurysm, Gefreiter Dieter, his young, enthusiastic private, jogged up, his face flushed with excitement. “Feldwebel, that was incredible! The psychological impact of the glitter! The unorthodox use of falling buckets! It was tactical genius! We never saw it coming!”

Klaus looked at his own soldier, whose eyes were shining with admiration for the enemy’s chaos, and something inside him seemed to snap. This could not stand. His men could not be allowed to think that this… this American way was effective.

“This is not over, Captain,” Klaus declared, turning back to Miller. “My men failed to adapt to an unconventional, nonsensical threat. That is a training deficiency we must correct.” He pointed toward the edge of the training area, where the shapes of his Marder Infantry Fighting Vehicles sat waiting. “Tomorrow, we will conduct a new exercise. A real one. My Panzergrenadiers will conduct a mechanized assault. Your… squad… will defend this position against armor.”

Captain Miller’s face went pale. “You want my men, armed with rifles and a demonstrated inability to assemble furniture, to defend against thirty-ton armored fighting vehicles with 20mm autocannons?”

“Precisely,” Klaus said with a grim smile. “Let us see how their cartoonish traps fare against reinforced steel. 0800 tomorrow. Be ready.” He spun on his heel and marched away, leaving Captain Miller alone with the consequences of his command.

The new chore was announced to 3rd Squad with the solemnity of a death sentence. They were gathered in the wreckage of the town hall, surrounded by the evidence of their victory: puddles of muddy water, scattered ball bearings, and the lingering scent of Dale’s tinfoil-based paranoia.

“So let me get this straight,” Rigby said, trying to process the news. “We won so hard that now we have to fight tanks?”

“They’re not tanks, they’re Infantry Fighting Vehicles,” Skinner corrected him automatically. “The doctrinal difference is quite significant in terms of—”

“Shut up, Skinner!” Moe snapped.

“This is just like at the park!” Mordecai exclaimed, pacing frantically. “This is exactly like that time we beat Benson at mini-golf, so to get back at us he made us clean out that giant, angry goose’s nest from the boathouse roof!”

“Yeah!” Rigby agreed. “And we had to build that giant robot scarecrow to fight it! Dude… we gotta build a giant robot scarecrow!”

“We are not building a robot scarecrow,” Sheckley said, his voice a flat monotone of pure reason. He was the only one cleaning his weapon. “That is a 30-ton vehicle with a stabilized cannon. Our only logical course of action is to dig deep, fortified fighting positions and pray the German crew mistakes us for a geological formation.”

His perfectly logical advice was met with blank stares.

“Or,” Skippy said, a familiar, dangerous sparkle in his eye as he pulled out a heavily-annotated manual on anti-armor tactics. “We could find a loophole.” He flipped through the pages. “Aha! Rules of Engagement, Section 4, Paragraph B: ‘Live anti-tank munitions such as the M47 Dragon are prohibited for use in this training exercise.’ It says nothing, however, about simulated anti-tank munitions.”

“What does that mean?” Fry asked, confused.

“It means,” Skippy said, a grin spreading across his face, “we’re going to build a rocket launcher.”

This was a proposal the entire squad could get behind. The new, impossible chore required a new, impossible solution. The planning phase began immediately, a chaotic storm of bad ideas and cartoon physics.

“Okay, so the rocket needs to be, like, super-fast and awesome,” Rigby declared, drawing a picture in the dust of a rocket with flames and a skull on it.

“I can make it faster!” Erma chimed in, her eyes gleaming with the thrill of misguided invention. “I am a genius of propulsion! We will need sugar, a binding agent, and the propellant from at least fifty C-ration accessory pack matchbooks!”

“I’ll get the matches!” Curly yelped, before Moe bonked him on the head.

“You’ll set yourself on fire, you nitwit! We need a proper delivery system!” Moe announced. He, Larry, and Curly would construct the launcher itself out of a discarded stovepipe and a complex, highly unstable-looking tripod made from broken table legs.

While the rocket team worked, Mordecai and Rigby focused on a secondary defense. “Dude, every big boss has a weak spot,” Mordecai reasoned. “Like on the back, there’s always a glowing red button or something.”

“Yeah! We just gotta get on top of it!” Rigby said. “We need a ramp! A giant ramp!”

Their plan was to construct a massive ramp out of plywood and furniture, hoping to get one of them high enough to jump onto the back of a moving Marder. It was a plan with approximately a zero percent chance of success.

Dale Gribble, meanwhile, was preparing for a different kind of warfare. “You’re all thinking too small,” he whispered to anyone who would listen. “The tanks aren’t the real threat. They’re mobile KGB command centers, broadcasting subliminal messages through their engines. The only way to defeat them is to disrupt the signal.” His plan involved creating a large antenna out of stolen cutlery and aiming it at the vehicles to “broadcast confusing counter-frequencies,” which mostly consisted of him humming nervously into a can attached to a string.

The construction of their absurd defenses took the rest of the day. The town square was transformed into a scrapyard of tactical insanity. In the center stood the Stooges’ stovepipe rocket launcher, a wobbly contraption that looked like it would collapse in a stiff breeze. Beside it, Mordecai and Rigby were putting the finishing touches on their “Assault Ramp,” a steep, rickety structure that ended about ten feet in the air, pointing at nothing.

Skippy and Erma were carefully assembling the “rocket.” It was a magnificent piece of garbage engineering. The body was a cardboard shipping tube, the fins were cut from a flattened oil drum, and the nose cone was a traffic cone they had found on the side of the road. Erma, the self-proclaimed genius, was stuffing the back of it with a terrifying mixture of sugar, crushed charcoal, and the scraped-off heads of hundreds of matches. For extra visual flair, she had duct-taped a half-dozen red road flares to the sides.

“This will create a magnificent smoke trail!” she declared proudly. “For psychological impact!”

“It’s beautiful,” Skippy said, wiping a tear from his eye.

Sheckley watched the proceedings from a freshly dug, perfectly constructed foxhole fifty meters away. He sighed, checked his ammunition, and accepted his fate. Lind, having determined that the bottom of Sheckley’s foxhole was the most defensible and comfortable place to nap, had curled up in the corner, her radio softly playing a German weather report.

At 0800 the next morning, they were ready. The distant rumble of diesel engines grew louder.

“They’re coming!” Tackleberry yelled from his sniper’s nest atop the ruined town hall. “Three armored vehicles, advancing in formation!”

“Everybody to your stations!” Mordecai shouted, feeling a ridiculous surge of adrenaline.

The first Marder rolled into the square, its 20mm cannon pointed menacingly. It stopped, assessing the bizarre scene.

“Plan A! Activate the pitfall!” Moe commanded. He, Larry, and Curly had spent hours digging a trap, camouflaging it with a flimsy layer of branches. The Marder, however, was not on the road they had dug the trap in. It was fifty feet to the left.

“You dug the hole in the wrong spot, you chowderhead!” Moe shrieked at Larry.

“I thought that’s where you pointed!” Larry whined. The argument was cut short as the lead Marder turned its turret toward them. The three of them dove for cover.

“Plan B! The ramp!” Rigby yelled. He and Mordecai stood at the base of their ridiculous ramp. “Okay, dude, when it gets close, I’ll run up the ramp and do a sick jump onto its back!”

The Marder began to roll forward, its heavy treads churning the muddy ground. It wasn’t heading for the ramp. It was heading for the Stooges’ rocket launcher.

“It’s going for our main weapon!” Skippy yelled in alarm. “We have to fire now! Erma, prepare for launch!”

Erma grinned, her eyes wild with excitement. “Ready for ignition!”

She lit the fuse—a piece of toilet paper soaked in lighter fluid. It sputtered for a second, then caught. With a tremendous FWOOSH, the sugar-and-matchstick rocket ignited.

It did not go straight.

Erma’s “propulsion genius” had resulted in a wildly unbalanced thrust vector. The rocket shot off the launcher, not forward, but in a spiraling, corkscrewing arc. It looped once through the air, trailing a brilliant plume of red flare smoke, narrowly missing the Marder completely. It then banked hard to the right, like a confused, fiery bird.

The entire squad watched in horrified silence as their one shot at victory spiraled directly toward the two-story observation tower on the edge of the training village. The tower where Captain Miller and Hauptmann Klaus were watching the exercise through binoculars.

“Oh, snap,” Mordecai breathed.

The rocket didn’t explode, but it hit the tower’s main window with the force of a runaway freight train. There was a tremendous crash of shattering glass. The rocket smashed through the observation deck and embedded itself in the far wall, its payload of road flares and burning sugar filling the entire structure with a dense, choking, bright red smoke.

For a moment, there was silence. Then, the door to the tower burst open and two figures stumbled out, coughing and covered from head to toe in red smoke residue and soot. Captain Miller and Hauptmann Klaus stood there, looking like they had just been personally assaulted by a dragon.

The German Marder crews, seeing their commanding officer emerge from a cloud of mysterious red smoke, halted their advance, completely bewildered.

Back in the square, the American squad stared at the scene they had created. Their grand defense was in ruins. Their one weapon had attacked their own leadership.

Lind, woken by the commotion, lifted her head from the foxhole. She looked at the stopped Marders, at the smoking observation tower, and at the two crimson-faced officers. She took a long, slow lick of her lollipop.

“Did we win?” she asked sleepily.