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taciturntraveller · 5 months ago

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Equal Footing

In the months after her interrogation test, Maria comes to terms with her thoughts and feelings - and lays down her boundaries for her future with someone in particular.

(A/N: I was VERY nitpicky with this one. I constantly worried about how it was written, especially given that it involves the opinions of canon characters more, which I'm always a perfectionist about. But I think I'm happy with what I have, and I hope it's enjoyable)

Word Count: 7,448

Warnings: Canon typical violence, mentions of past trauma, pining idiots, Author has never been in a physical fight (and doesn't plan to)

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2020 - Verdansk, Kastovia

October

The city is bathed in the sharp orange of the sunset, as if the fire of war has taken on physical form before their very eyes. In the distance, storm clouds begin to loom, threatening to coat the area in what will probably be a decent layer of snow. As per usual, gunfire echoes off the hard concrete buildings, vehicles drive between pre-planned waypoints, and a transport plane glides overhead, carrying more troops for the fight.

Atop one of the many skyscrapers, Sergeant Garrick and Corporal Fairford gaze out over the raised edge, the former holding a large sniper rifle and the latter clenching onto binoculars. Maria is not unaccustomed to helping out this way - she’s done it before with Ghost - but it’s still not quite up her street. She would much rather be focused on her usual duties.

Still, some situations require multiple skill sets. As she peers towards a building still under construction, she tracks Price and Soap making their way up the floors, guns trained on every doorway and corridor that they lay eyes on. Through one of the windows, she can see an unknown figure crouching behind a sofa, looking towards the door that leads into the apartment.

“X-Ray in the room to your right,” Maria notes over the radio as Price and Soap emerge from a staircase and follow the hallway towards the window.

“Copy,” Price mutters, slowing his pace and pointing his gun at the room, “Clear shot, Garrick?”

“Affirm,” Gaz answers easily. The crack of the sniper rifle pierces through the ambience, and Maria watches as it breaks cleanly through the glass and rips through the head of the enemy soldier, causing him to slump lifeless to the ground. “X-Ray down, clear to move.”

“Rog.” With that, their two teammates continue forward. At the staircase, Maria watches as Soap seems to hesitate, glancing towards where he assumes they are. His expression is almost trepid, but he quickly steels himself and moves after Price.

A light tug pulls at her chest. Things have been… awkward, since the whole interrogation fiasco. She knows he’s regretful of the entire thing, and realistically she ought to think about moving past it, but there’s a part of her that can’t. A part of her that still feels the chill of the revolver pressed against her temple. A part of her that still sees bullet holes in the heads of two people she values.

She does trust them. She does. But all of this has turned out to be far more than she ever expected.

“You should talk to him,” Gaz pipes up from next to her, cutting off her train of thought. Maria looks over at him and blinks.

“Who?” She asks, as if she doesn’t know exactly who he’s talking about.

“You know.”

Maria lets out a huff of air, putting her binoculars back up to her eyes again, “There’s really not much to talk about.”

“Maria, as far as you were concerned, he basically died in front of you,” he points out carefully. He briefly interrupts himself to fire at another figure that had started making their way up the staircase after Price and Soap, dropping them quickly, before he continues, “That’s not really something you just get over.”

But it’s not just that, she thinks, frowning to herself. It’s the fact that over the last couple of months, she’s started to find herself thinking about Soap more often. The way he carries himself, the fire in his words, his concern and compassion for civilians. For her, things may be starting to lean into something that is most definitely not professional, and not only does that carry potential consequences - both career-based and emotional - but she doesn’t even know if he’s really after the same things she is.

These feelings she has are dangerous, in more ways than one.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say,” she admits finally, “It was all done for a reason, and I can’t even really argue with it. I don’t want to sound like I’m… whining.”

Gaz snorts, shaking his head and looking back at her with a smirk. “You told Price where to shove it. That’s not whining, that’s sticking up for yourself.” His expression then changes to one of reassurance, “Soap’s not gonna think any less of you. Talk it out with him, figure out where you both stand.”

Maria’s grip on the binoculars loosens slightly as she takes in his words. He does have a point - since they’ll probably be working together for the foreseeable future, they ought to hash this out sooner rather than later. It compromises future missions, if nothing else. The silent treatment she’s been giving Soap may be comforting in the moment, but in the long run, it’s going to end up as more of an inconvenience.

Okay, maybe she’ll talk to him. And maybe through discussing the interrogation, she can get a read on how he feels about other matters.

“Plus it means I don’t have to keep watching you two make heart eyes at each other from a distance,” Gaz adds, his grin widening as he gazes down the scope.

Maria’s eyes immediately widen, and she sputters in indignation, “We do not make heart eyes at each other.”

“Whatever you say.”

She groans quietly to herself. Once again, her feelings have been nailed by one of her new teammates. At this rate, she’ll have to stop talking to all of them altogether. Except she hasn’t even said anything out loud about how she feels and Gaz has still figured her out. Surrounding herself with fully trained SAS soldiers may not have been the wisest move she’s ever made.

The sniper rifle cracks again as Gaz finds his next mark - a soldier waiting in the room above where Price and Soap are investigating. Maria lets the echo spread throughout the city, until it eventually dissipates.

“You’re all annoyingly perceptive,” she mutters.

Gaz gives her a chuckle, “Part of our charm.”

—

It’s rare that they get any peaceful moments in the hunt for Zakhaev, but there are those in the Coalition who make a point to never miss an opportunity. Without seeking any permission, a small band of operatives has carved out a space between the buildings that make up their temporary headquarters, and now they’re treating themselves to a - supposedly - friendly game of football. Without a referee, the players are working with an honour system, which is working out. Mostly.

Maria sits atop an empty oil drum nearby, expression narrowed slightly as she fills out some paperwork. It’s definitely one of the less glamorous aspects of her job, but it needs to be done. Taunting shouts and the occasional thud of a foot against the ball offer some background noise, and she does glance up every so often to see how things are going in the game.

And, of course, to discreetly eye up one man in particular.

Apparently Soap has played the role of goalkeeper before, because he’s remarkably good at it. He’s quick on his feet, and not afraid to stand against the taller operatives who might underestimate him. Time and time again, his hand meets the ball and promptly sends it careening away from the goal, sometimes resulting in a heated insult - which he has no problem returning.

Every time he leaps for the ball, she sees the muscles in his arms tense, becoming more pronounced.

She imagines them wrapped around her waist, holding her securely, safely, pressing himself close-

Maria balks at her train of thought, her cheeks heating up, and she practically buries herself in her paperwork. This is embarrassing. He’s a teammate, for crying out loud. Not to mention he outranks her, which would be a whole mess in itself. She can’t imagine Price would approve of such a thing, even if his morals have usually been quite flippant.

It’s unprofessional. And yet…

Gaz’s words from earlier in the month still ring in her mind. He’s not going to think any less of you. She does need to talk to him, does need to clear the air between them. Besides, if he doesn’t reciprocate what she’s feeling, that’s fine. They can go back to being teammates, no harm no foul. They’re both adults. They’re perfectly capable of that.

And if he does reciprocate them… well, they can cross that bridge if they get to it.

Filling out the last detail of her paperwork, Maria stares at the sheet of paper for a few moments, glancing between it and Soap, who still seems fully invested in the game. He’s busy enjoying himself right now, she doesn’t have to interrupt right away. She can hand this in, wait until some inevitable chaos happens to halt things, and then catch him when it’s just the two of them. Easy enough.

Mind made up, she rises to her feet, and starts to move off towards the main building. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Soap’s head turn, and suddenly they’re holding each other’s gazes. She freezes for a moment, a hint of uncertainty in her chest, and quickly looks away, hastening her step.

But she barely makes it halfway before a much harder thud sounds behind her, and a chorus of laughter ripples among the operatives. Immediately, Maria’s head whips around…

… to find Soap flat on the ground, with the ball bouncing past him casually and rolling into the goal.

She can’t help the mix of concern and amusement that bubbles up within her, and she finds her feet carrying her back towards him. Soap, to his credit, manages to not look too embarrassed, rubbing the side of his head and blinking a few times to clear his focus. When she gets closer, he looks up at her, and offers an endearing smile.

“So this is what I have to do to get yer attention,” he jokes. The corner of Maria’s mouth twitches, and she shakes her head good-naturedly.

“Don’t make a habit of it,” she chastises him gently, offering him a hand to help him up. He takes it, heaving himself to his feet… and doesn’t quite let go yet. She finds herself relishing the contact again, as she had last time, enjoying how their hands fit together. But she forces herself to focus, remembering the situation. “Any pain? Dizziness or nausea?”

Soap immediately turns sheepish, a cautious look in his eyes, as if approaching a wild animal. “If I say yes, can we talk?”

It’s a perfect opportunity. They can talk in the medical bay, have the privacy they need, and figure things out. They can finally get this over with, decide where they stand. She thinks about it for a moment.

She thinks about it for too long.

A flash of white. A deafening bang. Blood that wasn’t there in reality but constantly infects her mind, pouring out of the gashing hole in the side of his head. His body going limp. His eyes going dull.

Internally, she panics.

“No,” she answers, her voice managing to sound even despite the emotions warring in her chest.

Soap visibly deflates, his hand releasing hers. Maria regrets her emotional response almost immediately. He nods slowly though, accepting her answer, and offers a casual shrug.

“‘M fine,” he mumbles, “No bother. I’ll get checked out if I feel anythin’ later.”

Maria steels herself, and nods back to him, turning on her heels and moving away before he can catch sight of her cheeks burning again. The game settles back into an easy rhythm behind her, but the noises are no longer enough of a distraction for the turmoil in her head. She pushes down the desire to gag that’s formed in the back of her throat.

Once again, it has all gone back to the interrogation. Her feelings for him are matched by the all too easy horror of the idea of losing him for good. In this business, it’s all but guaranteed. She can like him as much as she wants, but the threat of their line of work hangs over them like a storm cloud.

So she’s definitely not going to be able to talk to him anytime soon. So much for easy.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

November

Maria’s back lands on the training mat with a smack, and she grunts softly in irritation. Fortunately it’s not a hard blow, since it’s only a sparring match and not an actual fight. She is, however, completely pinned by the hulking figure above her - Ghost has forgone his usual skull mask, to prevent himself from cracking her head apparently, and is instead sporting one of his much less intimidating balaclavas. His lack of threatening aesthetics doesn’t change the fact that he’s winning.

The Lieutenant’s only indicator of emotion is his eyes, and she’s gotten used to reading them in the time that she’s known him. Right now, they’re narrowed slightly, but not in an angry way. He’s focused, but not aggressive. Certainly not intending harm. This is supposed to be a teaching moment.

At least they don’t have much of an audience. The Coalition’s ‘gym’ is definitely defined in the loosest sense of the word - equipment is random, clearly obtained on short notice, and placed haphazardly around the room, with a few operatives currently making use of it. For now, at least, things are relatively quiet, and she has no witnesses to her informal demise.

With one arm lightly pressed against her throat, Ghost stares her down.

“Now, how are you gettin’ out of this?” He asks plainly.

Maria considers her situation for a moment, recalling what she’s already been taught previously. She doesn’t go out of her way to get into close quarters combat, but it never hurts to have some knowledge of it. Pressing her lips together in determination, she raises her legs and pushes her knees into his chest, aiming to flip him over the top of her.

Except that doesn’t work, because he’s a lot heavier than she anticipates, and he barely budges at her movement. To his credit, Ghost doesn’t dismiss the choice.

“That’ll work in some cases,” he notes, “but not for guys like me. You’re gonna have to get creative.”

Frowning thoughtfully, Maria lowers her legs again, and gives him a once over with her gaze. Instead, she raises her arm to point two fingers close to his eyes, as if making the motion to poke them. Ghost’s eyes crinkle a little - a marker that he’s smirking.

“Not bad. But don’t forget, your enemy is usually armed. You can use their weapons against them.”

Oh, that’s a point. Any soldier typically carries a melee weapon, and Ghost in particular is never short of a knife. She’s pretty sure he has at least ten on his person at any one time. Maria removes her hand from in front of his face, reaches down to his waistline, and pulls a blade from its sheath, twirling it in her hand to manoeuvre it next to his neck, the point close to the edge of the mask but not touching it. Ghost nods curtly.

“Good,” he remarks, releasing his hold on her and pushing himself to his feet, taking his knife back in the process. With a soft sigh, relieved for a brief reprieve, she follows him up, tucking small strands of her hair behind her ears and straightening out her back.

Over Ghost’s shoulder, she spots a familiar figure, jogging leisurely on a treadmill at the other end of the room. She blinks in surprise, not remembering seeing Soap come in, and finds herself focused on him for a moment. He can’t have been here long, since he looks like he’s barely breaking a sweat. Or maybe he’s just that good.

Goddamnit, she’s thinking about him again.

Her train of thought is promptly punched off the rails as Ghost lunges forward, grabbing her shoulder and twirling her around, wrapping his arm around her neck and restraining her against him. Immediately, Maria panics, grasping at his arm and struggling in his grip.

Sharpness in her neck, the heaviness of her limbs, the world going dark-

“Pay attention,” he growls into her ear, and she latches onto his words, pulling herself out of the memory, “You get distracted, you’re dead.”

With a huff of frustration, she lifts her elbow to make the motion of slamming it into his nose, not quite making contact, but admittedly getting a little closer than she normally would. A clear sign of her lack of concentration. Ghost answers by releasing her and shoving his hands against her back, knocking her back down onto the mat.

This is going about as well as she expected.

Maria presses her hands to the ground, pushing herself up onto her rear, as Ghost moves towards her with his arms folded and his eyes now fully narrowed. All business. No bullshit.

“You need to talk to him.” It’s not a suggestion.

She tilts her head back in mild annoyance, squinting up at him. “Not you too,” she sighs, “I’m getting enough of this from Gaz-”

“No,” he interrupts her firmly, “You need to talk to him, because he’s been yappin’ at me about you for months.”

Like the trope of fiction she remembers from her childhood, she envisions the sound of a record scratch as her thoughts screech to a halt. She stares up at him, wide-eyed and bewildered. Soap has been… talking about her? To Ghost? … For months? It’s only been a couple of months since the interrogation. The way Ghost is saying it implies that Soap has been discussing her for longer than that.

What in the world has he been saying?

“In what way?” Maria asks cautiously, her mind going in a certain direction but not quite ready to acknowledge it yet.

Ghost rolls his eyes in response, “Same way you keep lookin’ at him. That idiot’s head over heels for you, and you’re not hidin’ yourself any better. If you two keep draggin’ this out, dancin’ around each other like bloody school children, I’m gonna knock your heads together myself.”

Maria scowls at him for the notion… but finds her eyes drifting back to Soap. His gaze is meeting hers again, but this time he quickly looks away, focusing on the small screen of his treadmill. A knot ties itself in her chest. If she keeps pushing him away, eventually he’ll stop trying, and she doesn’t really want that. She wants to get to know him more, see where things can go…

… but every time she thinks about talking to him properly… that image in her mind…

She turns away herself, to avoid looking at either Soap or Ghost, willing herself to stay calm. Her head shakes slightly. “I can’t stop thinking about it, Ghost,” she admits quietly, “I can’t stop seeing him…”

Ghost remains silent for a moment, his head tilting slightly in consideration. He glances behind him briefly, before turning back to her and lowering himself to one knee.

“Nobody can tell you nothin’ bad’s gonna happen,” he tells her, “That’s the kind of business we’re in. These things do happen.” His expression narrows then, “But that doesn’t mean you have no control at all. You can have what you want - if you’re willing to take a risk.”

Maria sits with his words for a moment. The part of her mind that was panicking begins to settle. Yes, their line of work is dangerous, but it’s not like they’re completely inexperienced and defenceless. The interrogation was fake, and while there was always the possibility, she hasn’t really remembered to put much faith in Soap’s abilities.

He’s trained, and so is she. He’s strong, and so is she. He knows what he’s doing, and so does she.

A part of her begins to hope.

And then, once again, she is rudely interrupted by Ghost grabbing hold of her and throwing her over his shoulder, gripping her waist tightly.

It’s going to be a long afternoon.

—

This late at night, the medical bay is much quieter than normal, with only a few personnel going about their business, checking supplies and clearing out patients with minor injuries to keep the beds open for any future chaotic messes. For another and most definitely not final time, the bane of Maria’s existence is paperwork. Trying to get supplies sent into a warzone is quite difficult, as it turns out, but she’ll be damned if she isn’t going to try her hardest.

As the other medical staff filter out, the overhead fluorescent lights flicker and eventually turn off, until she’s left alone in the corner with a desk lamp as her only company. Her eyes start to settle with the reduced lighting, and she finds the warm-coloured bulb much more comforting than the earlier harshness above her. Now, silence envelops her, interrupted only by the soft scratchings of her pen.

Since her sparring session with Ghost, she’s had a little time to think about his words. Overthinking has gotten her into trouble previously though, and putting things off has allowed the doubts, the flashes, to creep in once again. This constant rollercoaster of thoughts and emotions is starting to tire her out, leading to restless nights and failing concentration.

Eventually, something will have to give. Whether it’s the conversation, or her own body.

Movement in the corner of her eye catches her attention, and she’s startled to see the form of Soap shuffling towards her. Maria blinks as she takes in his appearance - even in the low light, she can see that his face is lightly dusted with black powder, and there are several cuts across his left arm, with blood starting to trickle down the skin. As he moves, she can see little pinpricks of glinting reflected light coming from some of the wounds. Shrapnel.

He regards her for a moment, looking embarrassed, and offers a light shrug. “Got the timin’ wrong,” he mumbles.

Worry immediately needles at her chest, already silently admonishing him for his carelessness. It must have translated to her eyes, because Soap looks down at the floor in response. Maria presses her lips together, regaining her calm, and motions with her head towards another chair nearby.

“Sit,” she tells him as she shifts to grab hold of necessary equipment - tweezers for the shrapnel, a tray to dispose of them in, wipes to clean the wounds, and bandages to protect them. Whilst she gathers what she needs, she hears the scraping of chair legs against the floor, and the soft thud as Soap seats himself.

Turning back to him, she carefully lifts his arm towards her, and sets about removing the embedded pieces of metal. The silence between them feels heavy, interrupted only by the soft tink as each small fragment lands in the tray beside her. Eventually, Soap takes a breath, and speaks.

“Can we talk?” he asks.

Yes, the part of her that thinks she loves him begs.

No, the part of her that only sees his dead body screams.

Hushing both of them, Maria inhales deeply herself, and glances up at him as she works. “What do you want to talk about?” she says softly.

Soap takes another moment, perhaps to gather his thoughts, before he answers her question. “About how I’ve been feelin’. And… about how I think you’ve been feelin’.”

Maria goes quiet, lest her mind explode out through her lips. She wants to handle this carefully, because there are so many things that she’s been thinking over the last couple of months, and she’s half worried about scaring him off with all that she’s feeling right now. The last bit of metal is carefully extracted from his arm, discarded with one final tink, and she places the tweezers down to reach for the wipes.

“What we did was…” Soap starts, his gaze shifting as he tries to put the right words together, “... a lot. Price can talk all day about how it was necessary, but puttin’ it all on you like that wasn’t right. It hasn’t felt right since we did it, and I know why now-”

“It’s not about the interrogation, Soap.” Maria cuts him off, sounding a little firmer than she intended, but still going forward with it. She leans back in her chair, squeezing one of the wipes in her hand, a familiar sting starting to form in the corners of her eyes. Looking him dead in the eyes, she finally explains herself:

“I am a medic. I’m your medic. I was asked here to help you all out. To make sure you all made it home at the end of the day. And within the first few months of being here with you, I was made to believe I failed. I had to watch two of you die, knowing there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it. And yes, I know that’s the nature of war, I’m not stupid. But helping you is my job, and I failed. I was supposed to look after you, and I failed. And now every time I look at you, all I can see is…”

She shakes her head, looking away from him, unable to keep her gaze on the eyes that have steadily developed a mixed look of worry and awe. The wipe in her hand is clenched hard enough to start dripping water onto the floor, and she slams it down onto the desk in a moment of overwhelm. She links her hands together, shifting her fingers in a practised pattern to try and calm herself.

“I’ve… been thinking about you a lot,” she admits. There. It’s finally out in the open.

In front of her, she hears light shuffling. Maria swallows thickly, not yet wanting to hope. She wants those hands of his to seek out hers, relishing the memory of how secure his hold feels on her, craving a deep sense of safety and protection, and a reminder that he still exists, to counter her anxious mind.

“Has anyone told you, you’re incredible?”

His statement comes as a surprise, and her entire thought process pauses as she looks back up at him again. Soap’s looking at her now with admiration… and something else.

“You put our lives on yer shoulders the second ye got here,” he continues, “You barely knew us, and ye knew about the stuff we did, and ye didn’t bat an eyelid. You looked at us and ye decided we were worth savin’. You throw yerself into Hell along with us, and ye turn around and pull us out of it. Yer one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.”

He looks at her for a moment, as if he’s considering something.

“Strong…”

One of his hands moves to gently grasp at her chin.

“... and smart…”

His gaze drops down to her lips, a silent proposal hanging between the two of them.

“... and beautiful.”

With a slow yet fluid motion, he presses his own lips against hers, and she melts immediately. The images that have haunted her for months are gone in that moment, replaced with the certainty of what’s in front of her. The physical feeling of just being up against him is like a high, discarding any worry of future disasters. There are no hypotheticals now. His existence is enough.

Maria deepens the kiss, and Soap answers in kind, both of them clearly starved for connection. Her arms reach up to wrap around the back of his neck, as if she could possibly pull him any closer. He hums in appreciation, his right arm snaking around her waist in response.

God, why did she put this off for so long again?

Unexpectedly, his other hand finds the inside of her thigh… and starts to slowly trail further up.

She’s suddenly hit with realisation. There is one more thing that she needs to talk about with him. One thing that might end up pushing him away.

With regret, Maria breaks off the kiss, panting softly to get her breath back. “Soap…” she coaxes his attention.

His look of confusion tugs at her chest. “What’s wrong?” he asks… and then his expression turns saddened, his eyes glancing away. “You don’t…”

“It’s not that,” she assures him quickly, “I do feel that way. I do want this. But… it needs to happen in a particular way for me.” Her gaze crosses his gear, finding the rank markings that proudly declare how hard he’s worked, and simultaneously give her a reminder of the real world. She brings her hand up to his cheek, running her fingers across the light stubble.

“We have to accept that there’s a power dynamic in play here, Soap. You’re a Sergeant, I’m a Corporal. It’s not really proper.”

Soap shakes his head dismissively, his right hand finding her hip and squeezing gently. “Price isn’t gonna care-”

“It’s not about Price,” Maria tells him, “This is about me. I want us to be on equal terms. I want to be on the same level as you, with nothing standing between us. It’s not about us getting into trouble - it’s about us being able to respect each other equally. That’s important to me.”

Understanding shines in his eyes, and he nods slowly, but she can tell that a part of him doesn’t quite get where she’s going. So she bites the bullet.

“I do want to be something more with you… but I’d like to wait. Just until I make Sergeant like you. I understand if that’s not something you’re willing to do, I’m not going to force you into anything. But this is something I need if we’re going any further.”

Maria holds her breath as she watches Soap frown thoughtfully. She doubts that he expected her to draw a line like this, so this would be quite a surprise, but she knows she needs to lay down the line early, so that there’s no confusion between them. She wants to be honest, and not hold anything back. All she can do is wait to see what comes next.

“Can I think about it?” he asks after a moment.

“Of course,” she answers. “As long as you need.”

He nods again, and then gives her a cheeky smile. “Can I have another kiss?”

She laughs, and leans forward, pressing her lips against his, slow and gentle. She lets him deepen it again, just for a moment, then pulls away.

“Now let me finish with this.” She takes hold of a new, less squished wipe, and starts to treat the little scratches again.

The conversation has been had. The line has been drawn. From this point forward, she’ll just have to wait and see.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

December

“All call signs this net- Launch is terminated. Mission accomplished.”

Outside of the missile silo, Maria stands ready to enter as the Demon Dogs clear out the last lingering Al-Qatala operatives, the previously intense gunfire gradually slowing to the occasional pop. The day has been chaotic, but fortunately everything has gone well, and she’s just glad they didn’t have to deal with the launch of an actual nuke. Close by, Sergeant Griggs nods his head in acknowledgement of Price’s declaration, and grins at his fellow Marines.

“Copy, Actual,” he confirms into his radio, before calling out, “Demon Dogs! Let’s sweep and clear, see if we can’t find any strays!”

The Marines holler gleefully, gathering by the entrance and preparing to make their way inside. Whilst they’ll be looking for more Al-Qatala to eliminate, Maria has a slightly less intense, slightly more morbid task at hand. She reaches up to her chest and clasps her hand around her own radio.

“Watcher-1, this is Fairford. Moving to confirm the death of Zakhaev,” she declares.

“Copy, keep me updated,” Laswell responds quickly. Maria barely manages to take one step forward before Price is back on frequency with his own opinion.

“Zakhaev’s dead,” he states firmly, with an air of annoyance, “Fairford would be better off regrouping with us.”

Before Laswell can lecture him about the necessity of making sure their job is actually done, Maria quips back, “Nobody’s dead until I say they’re dead, Captain.”

In front of her, two Demon Dogs heave the main door open, and immediately the group swarms inside, guns and hackles raised for any kind of resistance. She follows close behind, squinting until her eyes adjust to the lower light level. The smell of jet fuel hits her hard, and she finds herself coughing lightly, sweeping her hand in front of her face to try and get some clear air.

On the bright side, at least it’s an inactive nuke rather than a live one.

The displeasure of the smell is quickly replaced by the relief of seeing Farah and Alex up ahead, thankfully still in one piece after they had distracted Al-Qatala whilst Price had gone after the missile. Maria moves towards them, eyeing them for any kind of injury.

“You two okay?” She asks, knowing she needs to press on but still wanting to check on her allies.

Alex nods, a reassuring smile on his face. “All good here, Corporal.”

“We’re regrouping with Price at the coast,” Farah informs her, “MacTavish is inbound.”

Maria grips the edge of her vest absent-mindedly, but nods firmly, “Keep an eye on them for me.”

“Always do.”

The two move quickly out of the silo, disappearing out of her sight. She takes a deep breath, before facing back towards the inside and moving forward.

Ahead of her, the Demon Dogs check corners and call out to each other every so often, verifying that the areas they’re investigating are clear. Maria only hears one or two gunshots every so often, no doubt stragglers who were hoping to stay hidden. Accompanying her as she makes her way to the bottom of the main launch silo are two Sergeants, Davis and Valenzuela.

“No way this guy’s still alive,” Valenzuela mutters, clearly not addressing Maria herself, “He fell like, fifty feet.”

“Higher-ups just wanna cover their asses,” Davis answers back dismissively.

Maria doesn’t respond to their musings. Laswell’s reasoning for wanting the kill to be confirmed makes sense to her - Zakhaev has been terrorising Verdansk for almost a year now, and ensuring that its citizens can, eventually, return to their homes and sleep a little better at night is an obligation. That was what they were ultimately doing all of this for, after all.

Eventually, her attention moves from her companions to the absolute monstrosity that soon appears in front of her. The nuclear missile, though still faintly surrounded by smoke, stretches upwards for what seems like forever. A colossal metal cylinder, packed with enough power to level an entire city. Maria can’t help but stare up at it for a moment, contemplating the disaster that has been narrowly averted.

She’s never seen destruction on that kind of scale. She hopes she never will.

“Doc?” A voice from behind her diverts her attention. Griggs appears next to her, surveying the room with a frown on his face. She shakes her head slightly to clear her mind, focus on her task… and then quickly realises exactly what he’s thinking.

So far, there is no sign of Victor Zakhaev’s body.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Valenzuela exclaims from behind her. Maria moves forward, circling the room for any signs that someone had been present. She stops momentarily, crouching down to inspect a small patch of red liquid that has pooled on the floor. Definitely blood, but after a further search, somehow there doesn’t seem to be a trail leading anywhere.

Instead of looking around her, she looks up, her eyes narrowing slightly. Is it possible that Zakhaev caught himself on the way down? It would’ve been difficult with an injury… but not impossible. She knows there are multiple floors between where they are and the opening of the silo at the top.

She also knows that Price is going to despise this.

“Demon Dogs, I want a sweep of the whole silo,” Griggs orders into his radio, clearly just as displeased as the Captain will be later, “Zakhaev’s death is not confirmed. I repeat, Zakhaev’s death is not confirmed.”

From above her, Maria can hear the echoing footsteps of the Marines as they check the upper floors, looking for any signs of their missing target. For a moment, it seems like nobody has any kind of clues, until the radio crackles to life again.

“This is Raines, I might have something up here. Trail of blood.”

“Copy, moving to you,” Griggs answers, turning and stalking out of the room. Maria lets out a huff of frustration through her nose - it seems nothing is ever easy when it comes to the 141. She’s getting used to it, but that doesn’t mean she likes it. Her teammates are out on the coast dealing with another firefight. She needs to be out there making sure they stay in one piece, and here she is chasing a mystery.

She needs to get the hell out of here. She needs to get back to her team. Her boys.

“Blood trail’s a dead end,” Griggs’ voice growls over the comms, “No sign of Zakhaev.”

Well, there’s nothing she can do here until someone figures out where the hell Zakhaev went. Maria reaches for her radio again, speaking quickly as she starts to march back towards the entrance, “Watcher-1, I have no kill confirmation. Zakhaev isn’t here.”

There’s a pause, presumably while all listening parties curse in frustration, before Laswell answers, “Understood, we’ll find him. For now, regroup with the 141 on the coast. I’ll call you if we hear anything else.”

“Copy.”

—

A few hours later, and her boys are back with her. But not without their fair share of usual chaos.

This time, the medical bay is bustling, with operatives being treated after what will hopefully be one of the final confrontations with Al-Qatala. Injuries vary, but from what Maria can tell, they haven’t had too many losses. In the moment, though, she has to focus on her own team.

Price is already irate about failing to kill Zakhaev, especially given how certain he’d been earlier. Despite being winged by a bullet across his left shoulder, he’s already in a deep discussion with Laswell, growling out demands as she sits across from him patiently, with naught but a single eyebrow raised. Clearly, she’s dealt with him longer than Maria has. Maria may need to get some tips from her.

Gaz is in the next bed over from him, thankfully in one piece. None of her teammates like being stuck in medical, though, and he’s no exception. Despite his seemingly calm demeanour, he keeps eyeing the entrance, making his desperation to make a run for it a little more obvious. She smiles to herself - perhaps she’s picking up some perceptiveness after all.

Ghost looms nearby, silently performing his usual antics of scaring the crap out of the Privates. He caught a knife wound to the side of his right arm, but he’s already stitched it up himself, much to Maria’s chagrin. As much as her attention is focused on one individual right now, she still would’ve preferred to get a look at it herself.

But her hands are full with Soap, who has ended up with a bullet wound to his lower abdomen. Thankfully it missed anything important, but the sight of him bleeding when she found him made her chest tighten in a very familiar way. Even in the face of war, it’s not something she will ever get used to.

So now she’s here, finishing up the last of his stitches, and silently praying that next time he goes a little longer before he gets himself hurt.

Maria can feel Soap’s eyes on her as she works. She knows he’s not squeamish - in fact, he seems fascinated with how she works, the skills she has honed, and the quiet confidence she carries with them. This is where she performs her best, after all. No distractions, no extra requirements, no concerns about broadening her skillset. Just her bread and butter, as it were.

After she cuts the thread and carefully knots it off, Soap glances over to where the others are, as if checking on them, then looks back at her.

“I’ll wait,” he says suddenly.

Her eyes snap up to his, initially not comprehending what he’s saying… until the memory hits her. The conversation they’d had last month. The request she’d made. She stares at him for a moment, taking in the certainty that shines in his eyes.

He’s taken the time to think about it. Something warm bubbles up in her chest.

“Are you sure?” She asks quietly, nervously, knowing the weight of what she’s asked. She has no idea when she’ll be made a Sergeant, and asking him to hold off that long is a big ask for anyone. She doesn’t want him to feel pressured into waiting.

But Soap nods firmly, giving her a smile. “Ye said this was something ye wanted, right?” At her confirming nod, he continues, “Well, if this is important to ye, then I’ll wait.”

Maria presses her lips together. She reaches down for his hand, holding it firmly in hers and rubbing gently at the skin with her thumb. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to.”

“It’s not like that. You know what you want. I know what I want too. I want to give us a go. If it takes us a little longer to get goin’, that’s fine.” He gives a light shrug and a smirk, “Gives me somethin’ to look forward to.”

With that, he holds her hand tighter, raising it to his lips and pressing a long, soft kiss to her knuckles. The warm feeling makes her feel like she might explode, in a mix of excitement, gratefulness, and complete adoration. The wait may be long, but the fact that he’s willing to do it is more than she could ever ask for.

Maria smiles in kind, and after a glance of her own to the wider room, she leans forward and gives a peck to the space between his eyebrows.

“To tide you over,” she whispers as she leans back.

Soap’s grin widens. “Might need more than that to tide me over,” he suggests teasingly, “Should put me on a prescription. One a day.”

“Don’t push it,” she laughs.

Several thuds of footsteps signal that their shared moment is over, and Maria slowly - ruefully - releases the grip she has of him. The 141 gathers around Soap’s bed, all of them now looking determined and on task. Laswell takes charge, typing on her touchpad before showing them a map on the screen. She recognises it quickly. Urzikstan.

“Zakhaev is in the wind right now,” Laswell explains bitterly, “but we do have a lead on the new Al-Qatala leader. Khaled Al-Asad has returned to Urzikstan, and most of his soldiers are following suit.”

“Farah and her troops are working to figure out where exactly he’s holed up,” Price continues, “When she has something viable, she’ll let us know, and we’ll back her up. In the meantime, Laswell will keep digging to see if she can find out where Zakhaev has run off to.”

Laswell nods in confirmation, her eyes narrowed. “He can’t have gone too far with his injuries. He may still be in Verdansk. If we can find him, we can make sure he doesn’t get the chance to recover and make another attack.”

Soap gives a nod of his own, and then looks back at Maria, his expression softening slightly. “You alright clearin’ me to get back to work?” He asks, though it’s obvious from his tone that he’s not keen on the idea of refusal.

Maria makes a show of giving a light huff of exasperation. “I’d prefer you to take it easy. But as long as you don’t pull your stitches, I can agree with you getting back on your feet.” She answers, moving to stand up and stepping back towards the others.

“Then let’s get after it,” Price orders.

Together, the 141 stalk towards the entrance of the medical bay, already seemingly jumping from one task to the next. Even with a few months under her belt now, the amount of time they spend on mission is definitely going to take some getting used to for Maria. This year has been a significant turning point for her life, in more ways than one.

As she walks, she feels the edge of Soap’s little finger brush up against her own.

The corner of her mouth twitches… and she wraps hers around his in response.

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Taglist [Opt In/Out]: @socially-awkward-skeleton @imagoddamnonionmason

#taci's fics #oc: maria fairford #ship: hold me tight and don't let go #glad i got this done #hoping to get another fic out in time for maria's birthday too

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betterthan777 · 2 years ago

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=> Beginning of the End [Pt.4]

>[First] | >[Pt.3]

----

⠀ You didn’t think you’d ever be coming back to Pandora. There were so many memories here, or well… there should have been but Skaianet’s archives weren’t updated after your ‘vacation’. Instead, you just had glimpses here and there, memories salvaged from posts you’d made and the residual echoes your Aspect allowed you to scrounge out of the void.

Gearing up for Pandora was the hardest part. You spent way longer than you wanted to finding your shield, locating the weapons that would work with the ECHOnet, and decking yourself out in body armor. You don’t fit the theme this time around. Instead of a ‘Bandit Queen’ you looked more like a soldier, dressed from head to toe in carbon fiber body plating and a helmet with full HUD capabilities. You weren’t going to Pandora to sightsee, you weren’t going to romp around in the wastelands and have an adventure. You were going to hunt a dangerous Siren, a version of yourself who had presumably been living there for the past few years and had the upper-hand of Home Base.

There are no goodbyes when you set out, no notes left, just a quiet and solitary trip to your transportalizer, a grave plunking in of the coordinates, and the familiar screaming of the multiverse around you as you materialize in a universe that isn’t your own. The trip makes you feel ill, it twists your guts and you can feel them writhing back into place as you step out into the heat of Pandora.

⠀ A familiar smell of burnt rubber, skag manure, hot sandstone, and the slightly wrong mix of breathable gasses meet your nose. You should have taken something for your nerves before you left, or at least something for your queasiness, but it was far too late for that now and like hell you were going to risk anything made by Dr. Zed to soothe your insides.

You orient yourself, you get all of your tech connected and functioning, and you plug in the waypoint for where Skaianet seemed to think this other Spin was. You’re outside of what’s left of Fyrestone, beneath the now dilapidated super highway that Handsome Jack had been building the last time you were here. Much of the slag has been cleaned up, but the town is still in ruins. It’s filled with Bandits and Psychos now, you can see them roaming about inside the makeshift barricades they had set up. There couldn’t be any less interest inside of you on engaging with them right now.

Something was happening beneath your armor; all across your body is a dull burning sensation followed by a cold tingling. You feel the surge of Eridian power creeping its way back up your flesh and it brings back deeply ingrained physical memories that your consciousness isn’t quite privy to. Your HUD gives you a warning that your heart rate is elevated to dangerous levels. Yeah, you think, no shit. Panic attacks do that to you.

The swelling of your Siren powers sputter and flicker just as you feel the finalizing surge of Eridian power through you, and then all at once the burning, tingling, and discomfort stops. You knit your brows as you tuck your assault rifle under your arm and pull back as much of the sleeve of your undersuit as you could given the armor around it. The Siren markings are inert, completely dull and just a shade or two lighter than your regular skintone. Strange. Both you and the other you existing at the same time must’ve fucked with the stipulations of how Siren powers worked. Hopefully that meant that she was unable to use her Phasecontrol abilities, too.

⠀ Navigating Pandora was more difficult this time around than it had been last time. Much of the planet seemed to be inaccessible from the Fast Travel Network, either because the comms relays were down or because whoever was vying for control of Pandora at the moment was trying to limit travel. With so few options, you were going to have to travel from The Dust to Lynchwood, which wasn’t too bad of a journey as far as you could tell. Of course, you weren’t on the Updated ECHOnet, how accurate your maps are was questionable. Still, you set out, counting your bullets as you make your way to the nearest Fast Travel Station.

Travel is only interrupted two or three times, once by Skags and twice by Bandits, but your Assault Rifle makes short work of them all and you can’t dwell on the loss of human life when you still had a bounty to claim. You were no longer registered in the Catch-a-Ride system, so the journey is done on foot, and by the time you see the outskirts of Lynchwood, your legs are like jelly and you have enough sand in your boots to fill a bathtub with.

Lynchwood has grown.

You recognize aspects of the infrastructure as things you’d planned and built for L8dy’s Country years ago and all it does is confirm to you that you were nearing your target. Sweat made it hard to see as you rounded the pathway leading up towards the city only to find yourself barred out by massive walls with auto-turrets scanning for any potential hostiles. The colors on the walls, the sponsors on the buildings, seemed to be of Jakobs make. Probably one of the better manufacturers to align herself with. You’d be impressed if you weren’t already exhausted and struggling to push forward with the mission.

⠀ Taking out the turrets wasn’t that hard, they went down in only a few bullets each once you figured out where to hit. It’s the mechs that digistruct from alcoves on the barricade wall that look like they’ll be the actual challenge. You re-count your bullets. You have about 46 left so you change your assault rifle to single-shot mode and bunker down behind some wreckage nearby to watch the constructs as they patrol. After a few minutes, you have their paths figured out, and you lead some shots into their weakpoints. Your hits land critical, and with only 12 bullets spent, the pathway to the front gate is clear.

It’s as simple as walking up to the gate, bashing the butt of your rifle into a control panel, and moving inside. Lynchwood is bustling with life and you manage to blend in fine despite your attire, especially after you stop and rub some dirt and sand all over your almost pristine armor to make it look more weathered than it was. Only one person sees you doing this and he’s too drunk to do more than stare at you menacingly from where he was crumpled against a dumpster.

Lynchwood as a whole had your particular brand of stink all throughout it, from the slot machines people were pouring their earnings into to get guns and cash, to the patrolling guards having cerulean diamond emblems on their shoulders marking their loyalty. If she were trying to hide, she was doing a piss poor job of it. Did she want to be found? If you were going to hide, you’d do a hell of a lot better at blending in and shedding your telltale attributes, but who were you to judge? How many years had she been here already? Maybe she thought she was in the clear.

You wander about Lynchwood for about 20 minutes, trying to navigate the streets that were different than you remembered and different than what your map was trying to tell you. Your best luck comes when you follow the rail line through Main Street. As far as you could recall, this place has been prettied up quite a bit since your last visit. What used to be somewhat run down has been repaired, with new buildings replacing the sand-worn structures that you would’ve been more familiar with. The most notable changes were the addition of a Fast Travel Hub smack-dab in the middle of town, and the almost corporate-like expansion of the clinic. Brilliant holographic banners displayed simple animations of new medicines and robotic prosthetics in eye–catching colors. None of the products being advertised looked like anything you had any familiarity with.

The initial thought is to raise hell and get arrested. Maybe, if she were running this place, you’d get taken straight to her if you kicked up enough of a shitstorm. You re-count your bullets. 34. Even if every hit you landed was critical, the armed town guards wandering around looked like they’d take at least 5 or 6 each. You’d probably get put down before any of them made an arrest. Your shield was basic and didn’t offer much in terms of elemental effects.

The second thought is to ask around. While it was still liable to get you into a gunfight in the wild wild waste of Pandora, it was probably the better route to take. Of course… you didn’t know what she was going by. You didn’t know what she looked like, aside from probably having a robotic arm and brown skin. You had to start somewhere though, so you follow along Main Street until you find a place called ‘Skagsbreath Bar & Grill’, which sounded way more like a family establishment than it looked once you stepped inside.

⠀ It was like walking into a grungepunk western. Several people turn to look at you from behind their mugs and shotglasses, each strapped with guns and in varying levels of bodily filth. The bartender, a tall man with an eyepatch and four robotic limbs, sizes you up before smacking a sign behind him that says ‘No Guns, No Grenades, No Greenhorns’. You’re thankful that the helmet completely obfuscates your face because the look of incredulity on it would’ve probably started the night’s fifth bar brawl.

You carefully peel your gun from yourself and flick on its safeties, unequip your grenade mod, and place them on the table by the doorway in. People watch you for a moment or two longer before you make a show of trying to digistruct any other equipped weapons and turning up with glimmering, digital nothing. Once you were fully unarmed, the majority of the patrons returned to entertaining their drinks and glowering at you from the rims of their eyes instead.

⠀ “...whisky on the rocks.” You order with no intent to drink. Your hands come down on the bartop and you smooth your fingertips along the glass-rim stained wood. The bartender sizes you up even more now that he’s heard that the voice coming out of the helmet, despite its digital compression, is unmistakably female. Still, he gets you your drink, and even starts up a chat with you while he does.

“New in town?”

“Passing through.”

“You one a’ them Vault Hunters?”

“Not even a little bit. Private mercenary, off-planet.” You try to give a scoff of a laugh at the idea of being a Vault Hunter but he doesn’t seem to buy it. He slides you the grimey, scratched tumbler full of cheap whiskey and dirty ice. A casual pan of your head to people on either side of you confirms that this isn’t the standard, it was some kind of hazing. You reach for the glass, frame its rim with your fingers, and swirl it around.

“Somethin’ wrong with yer drink, miss?” The bartender asks with feigned innocence. You recognize it immediately.

You stop swirling the drink.

“Yeah, actually, there is. I wouldn’t clean my boots with this shit. How much extra you charge to make it palatable?” If there was one thing you knew about Pandora, it was that snappy banter and quirky one-liners were the norm of conversation, especially if you wanted to make a good impression. He plants both hands on the bartop and leans in towards you, scarred face deeply lined with something between a scowl and a frown.

“You insultin’ my establishment?”

“If it’s an insult to want something I can actually drink instead of this dishwater bullcrap, then yeah, I guess I am.” You shrug, placing the tumbler down and straightening up some to make equal eye-contact with the Barkeep. You tilt your head to the side a bit.

“You make a habit of treating every new guy like this? Or am I just special?” You’re speaking with a grin and it’s carrying on your voice. You can see the veins on his dirty neck start to pop out.

⠀ Just as you’re about to say something else, your HUD flashes a bright orange-red and the world is pulled out from underneath you. Something hits you in the back of the head, hard, hard enough to clunk your helmet down into your skull and for the pain and force of it to only hit you once you’re already on the floor and unable to control your limbs.

Panic sets in underneath the throbbing, thrumming pain in your skull and you try to push your body back up just in time to see the ass-end of your Assault Rifle careening towards your face.

⠀ You hear the impact and taste blood but all you see is a screen of white.

#}BotE.#}Plot.#violence //#alcohol //

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moth-tea-merchant · 1 year ago

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shout out to the Charr mesmer at the Savneir Shaman world boss [last minute weekly] who used the rifle tp skill to help break me out of the totem i glitched into and couldn't waypoint out of bcs i was stuck in combat. Hero allowed me to get hits in on boss so i could get credit

as a gw2 player i could never hate furries those are our brothers in arms

#without fail the randos who help me in open world are charr

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saratogaroadwrites · 2 years ago

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Per Aspera Ad Astra (5/18)

Per Aspera Ad Astra | saratogaroad | banner art credit Rating: T Wordcount: 183k Characters: John 117, Cortana, Thomas Lasky, Sarah Palmer, Fireteam Osiris, The Warden Eternal, The Didact, The Librarian, ensemble of other Halo characters Relationships: John-117 & Cortana Other Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, fix-it, Male/Female Friendship, Canon-Typical Violence Warnings: War imagery, seizures, graphic description of injury

Snatched from the jaws of death, Cortana and John find themselves adrift in a galaxy that has long since moved on. As they attempt to find their place in this strange new world, they find that the fight is not as over as they thought. Chasing a signal across the galaxy in desperate hope, they come to a stark conclusion: the Reclamation has begun, and they are helpless to stop it.

The bark of two assault rifles filled the AR deck, bright red and blue paint splattering across broken stone walls and soaring through shattered glass. Swearing fiercely under her breath Cortana threw herself low, skidding into cover as another red volley soared over her head. Pushing off the wall she hurried right, feinting around the corner and deeper into the cover of the ruined structures that formed that day's training.

"You can't hide forever, Cortana!" Commander Palmer called in after her with a laugh, her voice echoing down from the sniper's perch she'd managed to claim. Cursing even harder Cortana booked it up the flight of crumpling stairs. Second floor would do it. She palmed the grenade off her hip and primed it. "Sooner or later I'll—"

Cortana tossed the grenade and kept running. It went off with a loud bang and a liquid explosion; skidding to the next window she chanced peeking her head out of cover. Sure enough, Palmer had abandoned her lofty position and was running hard and fast for the door. She did not want to face a Spartan in close quarters!

Moving fast she popped up and sprayed the ground ahead of Palmer with a splash of blue paint. The Commander swore loudly and quickly turned on her heel to avoid being actually shot, blue paint speckling her ankles as Cortana hounded her every step, forcing her towards the mines she had set up before Palmer had caught sight of her. Not much further to go and—whoops!

Cortana had to abandon position as the Commander fired wildly over her shoulder. The next waypoint wasn't far.

"Get 'er, Cortana!"

"You've got her pinned, Commander!"

At least the battalion was enjoying itself. Cortana beamed as she hurried along, peeking in on Roland's audio process for a quick listen. Half of the IVs were betting on Commander Palmer to win the match; she hadn't made Commander for no reason, after all, and was as fast and strong as any Spartan. It stood to reason that against a civilian, she would always come out on top.

Except that Cortana wasn't a civilian, the other half countered. She'd ridden with the Chief for so many missions that she may as well have qualified as a Spartan herself! Sure, she wasn't quite as fast, and definitely not as strong in a hand to hand tussle, but she knew how they thought and could easily run circles around the Commander with her mind alone. How long she would last was the real question.

It was one she didn't want to answer just yet. Despite the cheering and heckling, they were fairly evenly matched; Commander Palmer had personal experience and the skills that came with it, while Cortana could come up with a thousand plans and outcomes in five seconds or less. It had made for an interesting set of matches, the morning well spent in figuring out how her new form took to combat—very well, it seemed; she didn't tire like organics did—and in working out the kinks of going from theory to practical.

Her first round hadn't been anywhere near this long. A quick check of the timer as leapt from one broken building facade to the next told her they were fast approaching the ten minute mark. If she didn't get Palmer where she needed her, fast, this set would end in the Commander's favor and she'd be stuck on the Infinity while John headed down on missions entirely alone.

She couldn't let that happen.

Putting on a burst of speed she reached the edge of the building just as Palmer was forced out of the cover a set of ruined pillars provided her. The Commander knew she was a prime target and was already tossing a grenade her way; unimpeded by organic limitations Cortana leapt the two stories to the ground and landed in a roll, shoving back to her feet and darting across the open terrain. This would either work or end with her covered in red paint. Either way, the match would be over. Would the Commander take the bait?

Yes!

With a triumphant ha! the Commander hurried after her, rifle firing bursts of paintballs at her heels. Cortana could feel the splash and splatter of it against her ankles; another inch, then another, then another until—yes!

She darted into the minefield without slowing down. Palmer was fast on her heels but she didn't know where the makeshift explosives had been buried and she ran right over the first one. There was a soft click, an audible curse from the Commander, and then a loud bang as the paint mine exploded beneath her feet! Laughing brightly, Cortana slid around the corner and into cover, but there was no point. The scoreboard buzzed overhead, glowing as bright a blue as Cortana herself.

"And that's a total kill," Roland announced over the mixed groans and cheers of the milling IVs, a cheeky grin on his glowing face. "Cortana wins this round. Three out of five, Commander, that's it!"

"Roland, shut up." The Commander ordered, spitting paint. Cortana came back out from cover and tried to smother her smile. The poor woman was absolutely covered in blue, from her hair to the toes of her combat boots, but she seemed more upset about falling for the trick than being nearly as blue as Cortana. "The rest of you better be taking notes and not just bets!"

Movement among the IVs told her that bets were most definitely changing hands and Cortana could no longer hide her smile.

"They're certainly not strapped for entertainment."

"Ha." The Commander snorted, shaking out her arms. Blue paint splattered along the side of Cortana's coat; she left it there without so much as a raised eyebrow. "I wasn't kidding about those notes. If only all my Spartans could actually learn as fast as you do."

"Don't fault them for their organic nature, Commander," Cortana closed her eyes and smiled primly, the platforms of the arena rising and falling back into position under Roland's steady hand. "I may have rigged the game."

"Of course you did."

With a growl, the Commander stalked off to the showers, leaving Cortana snickering in her wake. She hadn't exactly rigged the game—certainly hadn't rigged the set—but if her inorganic nature gave her an edge, who was she not to use all her processing power? Shaking her head, she made her way to John. Sitting on a crate by Roland's plinth, one corner of his mouth ticked upward half a degree as she drew near.

"Have fun?" He asked as she came up, scooting over to make space for her to sit beside him. The arena was settling into a new formation as Domino and Shadow started up a wargame, the sound of shifting platforms offering them some privacy. Hopping up onto the crate, she beamed.

"Like you wouldn't believe. I had no idea the Commander had such a temper."

Not true. Still, it got John's smile to tick up by another half degree as he shook his head.

"Is there a point to riling her up so badly?"

"Don't I always have a point?" He opened his mouth— "Don't answer that. But yes, there is. I think I've well and truly proven to her that I'm not some green civilian who's going to get herself shot the first time she puts boots on Requiem, which was her entire argument against letting me go down with you, so by blasting that to hell and back, I've just solved every problem she had with it." She crossed her arms over her chest, sticking her chin out proudly. "And all in less than half an hour."

Even if she'd rather spectacularly lost the first round. Adjusting to the weight and feel of an assault rifle, even one loaded with paintballs, had been quite the thing. She was used to MAC guns and archer missiles, railguns and weapons terminals. A few lines of code, point and shoot, and you were done. The weight and feel of a gun in her hands, aiming properly, remembering to reload when needed…it was all just another handful of things that she needed to be aware of. Nothing she couldn't handle, of course, but still a bit of a learning curve. She understood where the Commander had been coming from, but…was it wrong to be smug about proving her wrong? Cortana didn't think so.

But maybe John did. His smile had dropped away, his lines pressed together into a thin line. She tilted her head, watching him pensively. He wasn't upset, so much as…worried. Concerned. For her, probably, but why? They hadn't quite tested the limits of what her new form could take but she could take a few shots. More if she had a few more hours to figure out how to work the armor protocols properly. Not the point. She nudged his knee with hers, reveling in that she could. His eyes flicked to her, then back to the arena. He wasn't really watching the match.

"It would be safer for you to stay on the ship."

"It would be," She agreed, "But I didn't agree to the Commander's tests to be safe, Chief. Besides," She tucked hair out of her face. "Staying up here just means exchanging one prison for another."

The Infinity was a great ship, and a great big one by human standards, but she was Roland's ship. Even with her mainframe accessible and all the space in the Domain open to her, to be stuck up here while John was down there, working missions without her…temperature was more of a concept than a reality, but she still shivered. She hadn't expected any of this, certainly hadn't expected the ability to physically keep pace with the IVs, but she wasn't going to turn this gift down. If it meant being able to help him, to stay with him be it on mission or in downtime, she'd do whatever it took.

He'd fallen asleep to her telling him half-fabricated stories of great Forerunner battles just six hours earlier. She didn't want to lose that, and so she shook her head.

"Not to mention the Commander didn't seem to be in any hurry to tell me no."

"Probably because she didn't realize you were making the same mistakes we did." He tilted his head just a touch. "You've been studying the IIs training records."

Well. Yes, she had, had for years, but. "Well excuse me for wanting to learn from the best," She stuck her tongue out at him playfully, taking pride in how he arched an eyebrow at him. Changed? Who, her? Never. He huffed, amused. "You just wait. I'll be catching up by nightfall."

"I don't know. Using a gun isn't the same as a MAC."

Didn't she know it. "Yeah, those you just point and shoot," She allowed with a shrug. A frustrated shout turned their attention to the arena where Shadow was struggling to scrabble up a scree covered hill in a blind rush to cover, Domino fast on their heels. "Something tells me Shadow wouldn't mind a MAC right about now."

"When all you have is a hammer…"

"Everything's a nail." She rolled her eyes at him, nudging his knee a second time. He knocked her back in return, warm through his techsuit. Maybe a little too warm. She consulted his vitals and almost frowned. Almost. Turning to watch the match she focused her attention inward, turning over the bits and pieces she had.

There was more than one reason she wanted to go down with John. Supporting him was one, of course, but another was to keep watch over him. The last weeks had been difficult; between the dreams and the headaches, even the small amount of sleep Spartan IIs needed had been hard to come by. Add that to the distracted pauses he occasionally slipped into and she was worried. He hadn't told her anything specific and she'd been too unsure to push it, hadn't wanted him to clam up and say everything was fine like he was so fond of doing but there was something off about all of this. Alarm bells had been ringing since she'd had time to go over her Rampancy damaged logs and realize he'd been hearing voices since their first time on Requiem.

Putting that together with his odd behavior, she got a picture she didn't like. Auditory and possibly visual hallucinations, unstable vitals, headaches without trauma to have caused them…it was true that stress could cause all of that, but so could whatever the Librarian had done to him. She still didn't know what had been done to him, had so little to go on. She could hardly go to Medical and ask for their opinion, either! Revealing his secret was something she was never going to do. She took a second to double check the processes she had scanning the Domain for anything on Genesong, but they'd still turned up nothing useful. Given that her efforts at indexing the Domain had only reached 2% and with so much data left to parse she was unsurprised, but more than a little miffed.

Ooh, if only she'd had the chance to grill the Librarian upside down and sideways!

"You know you don't have to do this."

Jolted from her thoughts she turned. "What, watch a match with you?" Shadow had claimed the hill and was laying waste to Domino with red paint. He didn't need to clarify for her to understand that wasn't what he'd meant. "Chief, where else would I be? Things haven't changed that much."

"That isn't what I meant." He shook his head, taking a deep breath. She waited patiently for him to find the words—any words—to try and make himself understood. She'd patch in the gaps, no matter how large they were. "I can find the Key by myself. You don't have to."

Come along. Put yourself at risk. Waste your life.

He couldn't finish. Anyone else would have been offended that he couldn't display his concern more openly, but Cortana knew him too well for that. Her core ached that he couldn't find the words, that what had been done to him left him unable and still learning even so late in his life, but she didn't mind. It was who he was. Nothing would change that. She didn't want it to.

"I know you can find it. I also know what you can do with a rock and five minutes in a Covenant base, but the thing is? You don't have to. You don't work solo, remember? You have me."

Until the end of time itself, at this rate. Her eyes burned and she had to swallow hard, not sure she wanted to find out if she actually could cry in this form. Sooner or later she'd have to breach the subject of outliving him, but not now. Now was about him, and so she waited for him to say anything. Instead he looked away, the faintest of hitches to his shoulders as he took a deep breath to steady himself. The words had undoubtedly caught in his throat somewhere. Didn't matter. She didn't need them. She scooted over a little closer until they sat hip to hip.

"I'm not going anywhere, John," She said, her voice so quiet that he would be the only one to hear her. The world seemed to shrink down to just the two of them as he turned his head, tipping it downward to look into her eyes. She smiled gently. "I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but when I pick someone? It's for life. You're stuck with me too, you know."

She couldn't imagine life without him. Didn't want to, and she knew the feeling was mutual. She watched him close his eyes and finally allow himself to exhale. She wouldn't kid herself and think she'd calmed all his fears, but a few was a good start.

"Lucky me."

"You are definitely a lucky man," She teased, her smile growing a little wider when he opened his eyes. "Don't let it go to your head, though. I like your ego when it's this size."

"Big heads are more your style than mine." Slowly, cautiously, as if unsure how to use his hands in so gentle a fashion, he reached out. His hand lowered onto hers, thumb tracing the underside of her wrist. His expression softened. "Make sure you keep it down. Wouldn't want anything to happen to it."

"Don't worry." She twisted her grip to find his pulse. Steady, strong, alive. She was going to keep him that way. If she had her way, nothing would ever happen to him again. "If there's one thing I really did learn from the best, it's how to keep my head down."

"Alright, Osiris, look sharp and listen up! You mission today is to help the Chief and Cortana clear out a Forerunner structure in those nice little canyons up ahead," the image of Commander Palmer spoke clearly from the holo-emitter built into Pelican 249's floor. She was still aboard the Infinity, doling out mission briefings one after the other. Better her than him, some rebellious part of John thought. Briefings had never really been his strong point. "SIGINT's tracked down an interesting little noise coming from in there, but we tracked a heavy Promethean presence in the area. Keep your eyes sharp and your noses clean, people. I want everyone back on ship the same way they left it, am I clear?"

Six clear Yes ma'am's resounded through the troop bay. Commander Palmer nodded firmly.

"Alright then. Chief, you've got command. Good hunting, and we'll see you back on Infinity. Palmer out."

The hologram went dark; the overhead light turned back on as Osiris began their final weapons checks, helmets left abandoned on their seats. The Pelican's engines rumbled through the wall behind the Chief as he watched. Osiris had been stationed aboard Infinity for three months now, and their records were good. Varied, as were most of the IVs, but good all the same. They'd managed good scores in training, too. They were a solid team and working with them would probably go well.

But even knowing that, he couldn't shake the unease gathering in his belly as he watched Locke glance at Cortana for the fifth time in just as many minutes. Sitting beside him, she considered the holographic map between her hands, twisting it this way and that as she went over their route and their target.

"That armor going to hold up?" Spartan Tanaka asked as she loaded up her sidearm, "Doesn't look as thick as Mjolnir."

It wasn't. Rounded plates made up a thin, form-fitting suit, blue armor on top of a black softsuit. It was all hardlight, she had explained, folded over itself a dozen times for stability and protection, but it was more Promethean than human. She'd changed the design, made something for herself, and no one could claim otherwise.

It suited her.

"It's not," Cortana said, distracted. She pulled apart the map, narrowing her eyes at its disparate parts. "But it's hardlight. It'll dissipate up to thirty percent of the force of any projectile and turn it into additional shield power. It'll hold, Spartan."

"Not my head if it doesn't."

Another minute, another look. The unease tightened its grip and John scowled in the safety of his helmet. Something wasn't right here.

"So what's it like, anyway?" Spartan Vale asked, sitting with her helmet in her lap and her weapons loaded. When Cortana looked up she clarified, "The change, I mean. Big difference between riding shotgun and walking."

"It's been an adjustment, yes, but it's almost entirely natural now." Cortana leaned back, dismissing the map. "I'm a quick study."

"Think other AI could do the same?" Spartan Buck pounced on the question, "I mean, no offense to Roland, the guy's cool and all, but I don't think he'd take it as well as you have, Blue."

All eyes fell to Cortana as she considered the question. He could see the gears turning in her mind as she ran through the possibilities, the thousands of possible outcomes and likely scenarios. It took her only a few seconds before she smiled politely.

"I think he'd miss sneaking up on other people too much to even try, honestly." She huffed, shaking her head. "But it's a complicated topic. I'm sure it'll be keeping the scientists busy for a very long time."

"A busy scientist is a happy scientist." Locke said with a rueful smile. Anything else he had been going to say was cut off by a tremendously loud boom that rattled the entire Pelican, shaking her from wing to wing. Buck hit the deck with a loud clatter and a louder curse. Rubbing his chin he pushed himself up.

"The hell was that?!"

"Sounded like anti-aircraft fire!"

They wouldn't have still been flying if AA fire had come that close. Cortana shook her head, up and out of her seat before John could stop her. She leaned into the cockpit, hands on the copilot's chair to brace herself. He was after her in a second as she asked, "Corporal, what's—"

Light flashed outside, vibrant white-blue. It flooded through the Pelican; the Chief's visor polarized in response, but the others hadn't been wearing their helmets. Cortana flinched away, ducking her head, instinctively throwing an arm up to shield her eyes. It left her unbalanced as the Pelican swayed in the wind. It wasn't AA fire, it was lightning! They'd flown right into a—

"Thunderstorm, ma'am!" Their pilot had to shout to be heard over the suddenly far too loud drumming of rain on his windscreen. Deep gray clouds roiled in all directions outside, the winds sending them one way and then the other. His grip on the controls was white-knuckled beneath his gloves, steering with his entire body just to keep them level. "Popped up right on top of us! Winds are too strong—I can't get just any closer to the target!"

"Set us down where you can," John said, coming up to steady Cortana as she blinked the stars out of her eyes. She clung onto his chestplate, his arm around her shoulders, as the Pelican began to buck and sway in the wind. The Corporal hissed curses between his teeth. "We'll make our way in on foot."

"Copy that, Chief!" Another flash of lightning lit the cockpit, "You two go sit down! Could get a little bumpy!"

Weren't they always? Turning his mag-boots on to half strength John steered Cortana to a seat, lowering the crash harness as she finished blinking her vision back to normal. Her helmet had rolled away in all the swaying and he scooped it up, putting it in her lap before he sat. Osiris had locked their helmets, hanging onto the crash rails over their heads. Buck shook his head, laughing quietly.

"Man, I'm getting all nostalgic! This is as close as I've gotten to a drop pod in months!"

"Figures the ODST would like the crazy flying!" Vale shot back in good-natured humor, knocking their legs together. "You banged your head around way too much in those things, Buck!"

"Hey, I will have you know I was like this from day one, okay—gah!"

With one last violent sway—one violent enough to knock Buck's head against Vale's—the Pelican broke free into clearer skies. The Chief could hear the engines pick up speed as the Corporal hurried them back along their flight path to a safer place to set them out.

"We'll have to take the longer route in from the south," Cortana said as a copy of the map she had been studying appeared on the Chief's visor. Judging from how each had sat at attention, the others had received the same data. The black wireframe image rotated, a long strip of canyon lighting up bright blue. "Scans from Infinity showed Promethean presence here and here," Two patches of red spread across the image like blood, making up a good majority of the lower to middle sections. If they could punch through those, they could reach the structure unimpeded.

If they got lucky.

"Drones caught the standard formation of Knights, Crawlers, and Watchers, but there was something else mixed in with them too."

The Chief frowned. "The Warden?"

"Not big enough," Cortana said with a shake of her head. The wireframe shifted aside on his visor, replaced by a single still image. The drone had been too far for a perfect clear shot, but it was clear enough to make out the shape. Bipedal and roughly as tall as a Spartan, it held a lightrifle in both clawed hands, blue light a stark contrast to the orange he was used to seeing from the Promethean forces. It was built differently than the Knights, standing up straight rather than their hunchbacked posture, and the Knights that were in the image were at the periphery. They almost seemed to be avoiding it. "But I wouldn't count him showing up out just yet, either. If this is like anything else we've encountered on Requiem, they'll protect that facility to the last."

"Do we have any idea what it was built for?" Locke asked.

"Absolutely none. Best guess was some sort of research facility, but why they'd build it all the way out here is anyone's guess."

"Just more Forerunner bullshit," Tanaka said with a sigh. "You know, I used to think the Covenant were all levels of wacked, but the Forerunners are the ones who really take the cake."

"Covenant had to get it from somewhere," Cortana shook her head. Behind her, the engines were beginning to slow; a quick check of the altitude reading in the Chief's helmet told him they were descending. Their pilot had found a place to land safely. "Just keep your eyes peeled. Last thing we need is that new target being a problem."

It was telling that Osiris' reply was a resounding Aye, no backtalk to be found. Locke's odd looks aside, their behavior around Cortana hadn't changed. John was grateful for that. He chanced a look at her from the corner of his eye; The look on Cortana's face was a determined one, but he could read the barely visible smirk in the corners of her eyes. Catching him looking, she winked and looked away. No more distractions.

Just as well. The Pelican had dropped into a low hover, the hatch opening as the corporal called out that this was as safe as he could get them. All traces of amusement fled, levity left behind as the Chief headed down the ramp first. Osiris filed out after him, spreading out as he gestured them forward. Cortana brought up the rear, helmet in hand. The ramp folded up behind her, her voice echoing through the Chief's TEAMCOM.

"We'll radio when we're ready for pickup, 249. Don't get struck by lightning up there."

"Try my best, ma'am. Good hunting."

As the bird lifted back into the cloudy sky, the Chief scanned the horizon. Low rises of deep gray stone as far as the eye could see, topping by more stone where the canyons became mountains. Requiem's northernmost landmass was mostly mountainous terrain, the scans had shown. Plenty of foot trails and equally as many places to get lost. The sky overhead was beginning to darken as the storm moved towards them. Thunder rumbled in this distance, the Chief's bones aching as the storm drew near.

"The target's nine kilometers north of here," Cortana said. "We can make it in about twelve minutes so long as we can avoid running into heavy resistance along the—"

She stopped suddenly. Five heads snapped to her, wondering why, before John's heart leapt into his throat. The storm had reached them, the first heavy drops of rain falling to the ground all around them. They plopped along stone and armor, both Spartan and not. Cortana had turned her head to the sky, one hand extended ahead of her as the darkening clouds began to release their heavy burden. One drop landed in her palm, then another, then another. The storm picked up its pace, a curtain of rain falling on them, and she closed her eyes.

She'd never experienced something so simple as rain before. He'd always known she hadn't, had always been aware on some level that she wasn't the same as everyone else around them, but she'd always been human to him. More than that. Her lack of a physical form hadn't changed that.

Not until today, until now, watching the rain run down her face.

Asking her to stay on Infinity would have been a mistake. Quietly, he set his nerves aside. She deserved a full life, rain on her skin or sun in her eyes, and he wouldn't be the one to take it away from her. He'd never let anyone take it away from her.

A handful of seconds passed with her face turned into the storm before she shook herself, splattering water in every direction, and slipped her helmet on. When her image appeared in his HUD, her face was still wet. The beginnings of a smile twitched at the corners of his lips.

"Enjoying yourself?"

She beamed. "Maybe if we get some sun," She quipped privately, then opened a channel and was all business again. "Like I was saying, if the patrols haven't spread too far we should make good time." Thunder rumbled, causing her to snort. "And it looks like we're going to get a power washing on the way there."

"Eh," Buck shrugged, "I needed one anyway. Too bad these helmets don't come with windshield wipers, though."

"Ask R&D nicely and I'm sure they'll come up with something," Cortana snarked back, pulling a lightrifle from the Domain and settling it into her arms. Rolling her shoulders, she nodded, flashing a single green light in the corner of his HUD. It was all he needed to see.

"Osiris, fall out."

"Sir!"

With the Chief at the lead and Cortana two strides behind him, the team made their way into the canyons proper. The storm all but rushed over them as they went, dropping visibility to less than two meters as they the rain pelted the hard stone beneath their feet. But in spite of the near constant rumbles of thunder, the lightning seemed content to stay at higher altitudes. Considering no one would be in any rush to be struck and test how well Mjolnir could hold up to that, no one was in any rush to complain.

"Path splits ahead," Cortana announced, "There's a junction in the canyon and both paths lead to the structure. One just ends up higher than the other." She lifted her head as if able to see through the mist. "Could prove to be a good vantage point, or a trap."

"Or both." The Chief consulted his copy of the map, able to see what she was talking about. The lower path would be easily overrun from either the upper path or the sheer rock walls that bracketed the other side, while the upper path would provide a shooting gallery down below. Better to clear it quickly and keep moving, but if they left the lower path alone any opposing force could funnel through it and overwhelm them from behind. Options considered, he dismissed the map. "We split up. Osiris, stick to the lower path. Advise when hostiles encountered. Cortana, with me. We go high."

Osiris snapped off sharp sir's, Locke falling in to lead his team further down the path. For half a second his helmet lingered facing Cortana as she headed for the slope that lead upwards, and the Chief tightened his grip on his rifle. Now was not the time to ask, but if Locke had a problem, it would be dealt with.

Later.

He headed after Cortana, long stride carrying him ahead of her. She easily fell back to a single stride behind him, a flash of blue in his periphery. He tried not to think about how odd it was not to have her in the back of his mind while on missions; she'd spun off a process to keep watch over his suit and systems, but it wasn't the same. He could feel the absence of her chill like a missing limb, the phantom pain always at the back of his mind. Maybe he'd never get used to it. He wasn't sure he wanted to.

A flash of moving blue yanked his attention backwards. Cortana had slipped, the rain-slick stone something she wasn't used to, and was midway through pitching forward onto her face. Turning quickly he snapped out a hand, grabbing her by the arm to keep her upright.

"Careful."

"Yeah," She sighed heavily, using his grip to pull herself back upright. "Yeah, I got it. Wet stone plus rain equals terrible traction."

"Ice is worse," He replied, amused. She'd teased him about slipping more than once while on Alpha Halo.

"Says the man who fell into a snowbank multiple times. If I didn't know any better I'd have sworn you were playing around back there—"

She stopped cold in the same instant that his tracker registered motion.

"Look out!"

Still holding onto her arm the Chief leapt clear, pulling her out of the line of fire. Down the path, three Knights were closing fast, rifles firing through the storm. Light-shot blazed past their position.

"Osiris be advised: hostiles encountered on upper pathway," Cortana snapped down the radio as she fell in behind him, covering his right flank as he pushed up the path. She wielded her weapon with steady hands and the two of them opened fire on the three Knights. Her aim was as perfect as the rest of her, and while some shots went wide as the Knights leapt and skipped out of the way, she rarely missed due to her own mistakes. Between the two of them the three Knights quickly fell, but where there were some there were always more. A half dozen more orange and silver Prometheans appeared out of the mist, rifles and swords in hand. They were instantly tagged in red, targeting data passed from one suit the next, and they pressed forward side by side.

There was no need to say anything. Though things had been different before, they'd been working together for so long that reading one another was second nature even in this new formation. She pressed right as he pressed left, stepping forward in near perfect unison. She knew his tactics too well to not know how to cover him, and though he had to make a few adjustments to account for her shorter stride, it was a simple enough task to handle. The Knights must have thought the same because two of them opened fire on her, specifically; hard-light scattered off her shields, forcing her to take cover behind an outcropping, and the Chief dropped to a knee to provide covering fire. His assault rifle barked out a long burst as she reloaded, and when he had to pause to reload she clambered up and over her cover for a higher vantage point. Three lightrifle shots took out the remaining target, plunging them into rainsoaked silence.

"That's all of them," She announced, sliding back down the rock as he got to his feet. He looked her over quickly, checking for damage, but there weren't any scorch marks to be found. Any hits she'd taken had scattered across her shields as they were supposed to. She would be fine, he told his lingering concern, and if she wasn't, he was right there. He wasn't going to insult her by worrying any longer. "Strange that there were no Watchers, though."

"The storm's too strong," He said, glancing upwards as lightning leapt between the deep gray clouds. They were still low enough to avoid becoming lightning rods, but a few Watchers wouldn't be so lucky. To say nothing of the gusts of wind sending the rain horizontal. One good blast of that and the Watcher would end up plastered against the stone. There was no sense in coming out in this.

Not until the Spartans had arrived, at least. Cortana hummed pensively, not sure, but they resumed their pace. She paused as they passed the remnant data from one of the fallen Knights, trailing her fingers through the light and making a soft huh sound in the back of her throat. The Chief stopped.

"What?"

"We've always thought we were destroying the Knights, right? Killing them for real somehow?" When the Chief inclined his head, her frown grew deep enough to be audible. "We're not. Each defeated Knight has a core in the Domain—their main codebase. They go back there to recover and then come back out to fight again. The Crawlers and Watchers must be the same way."

Caught in a never ending loop of death, recovery, and fighting. John's relief at not killing humans he hadn't been able to save warred with the steadily growing dread in the pit of his stomach. They hadn't even been allowed to die.

"We'll never clear Requiem by just destroying their bodies, will we." It was a rhetorical question. She knew what he really meant and slowly shook her head. Bending to pick up a fallen lightrifle, he locked it to his rear mag-lock. At least when someone died that was it. But to be Composed and brought back time and again…it was no wonder the Didact had wanted to Compose all humankind. It would be the ultimate punishment. "Is the Warden the same way?"

"I'd put money on all Prometheans being the same way," Cortana replied, picking up a fallen pulse grenade and locking it to her thigh. "Something tells me this campaign just got a lot more complicated."

"When don't they?"

Another rhetorical question, one she answered with a snort. Never in either of their memories had a planned mission ever actually gone according to plan. There was a reason the saying went no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Cortana sighed, aggravated, and hurried after him. They hadn't gotten ten steps down the path before things went sideways.

"Hostiles!" Locke's voice came down the radio, "Prometheans pressing our position! They're definitely aware we're here, Chief!"

"Understood. Can you press forward?"

"Affirmative." The bark of Locke's BR was faint beyond the drumming of the rain. "We'll meet you at the structure."

The radio went silent again. The two of them shared a look, Cortana shrugging before she swiped a hand across her visor to clear it of rainwater. Maybe Buck hadn't had the wrong idea after all.

With no time to lose, the two of them hurried down the path. Now that they were aware of targets in the area the Prometheans came at them in droves; Crawlers lived up to their names, running down the sheer rock walls in an affront to gravity, while Knights appeared out of the mist to charge them on all sides. There was scant cover and no time for a slow and steady approach. The only option was to shoot and keep shooting, taking out the targets one at a time as they continued forward down the path, replacing empty weapons with fallen ones as they went. It was only a matter of time before someone got a lucky shot.

And this time, it wasn't them.

A flash of glaring orange from the corner of his eye drew the Chief's attention. Adrenaline rushed through his veins.

"Cannon on the field!" He barked, grabbing Cortana by the arm and hauling her behind an outcropping. He pressed her against the stone wall, keeping his bulkier armor between her and the path as the burst of Incineration Cannon fire hit where they had been standing just seconds ago. Stone shards exploded, the blast digging a meter wide hole into the ground. She swore fiercely, covering her head with one arm; the remaining Knights were peppering their location with fire, pinning them down.

"Dammit!" She hissed, "Where the hell did he come from?!"

"Upper ridge, east side," the Chief replied, popping out of cover long enough to take down one Knight. The loud burst of the cannon firing again forced him back, another two Knights taking the place of their fallen fellow. They'd be overrun if they stayed here, but there was nowhere to go if they pressed forward. He narrowed his eyes, considering. "Can your shields withstand that kind of firepower?"

"One and done," she said, and he grit his teeth. Not a risk he was going to take. She stepped away from him to consider the sheer rock wall they had been pressed up against, one hand on the stone, and then turned her head to face the threat. "I've got an idea. Cover me."

He could guess where she was going. Pivoting on his heel the Chief ducked out of cover and back into view as Cortana threw herself up the wall in a series of blue-flash jumps, quickly gaining altitude. He turned his motion tracker from foe to friend, watching her ascent from the corner of his eye as he picked off the Knights who so much as dared look in her direction. Focused on taking down the one mowing down its comrades, the Cannon Knight fired on him again, forcing him back into cover. He chanced a look up, but Cortana had vanished from sight.

"Cortana?"

"Five seconds!"

He switched to his AR. One full magazine left. He could last.

Popping out of cover once more he drew the Knight's fire. Motion on the ridge drew his attention; Cortana had gotten level with the Cannon Knight and was rushing forward towards it. Focused on the Chief it didn't see her coming until she was too close to dodge. A few well placed shots took it down and as it fell she caught the cannon in one hand.

"Oh," she laughed, "Now it's time to have some fun!"

John rolled his eyes. He quickly took out his last remaining target before she could snipe it away, but the next group to appear further down the path didn't last long at all. Those that didn't immediately fall beneath her onslaught were quick to drop as he made his way forward, picking off the scattered few who remained. Within a minute of her claiming the cannon, it was over.

"Area secure," She said unnecessarily, still perched up on the ridge. "All hostiles eliminated."

Gathering up scattered munitions, John allowed himself a snort. He'd say so. It was veritably Spartan of her.

"Need a hand getting down?"

"Nah, I got it."

He looked up in time to see her take a running leap off the ridge, vanishing in a flash of bright blue light, and reappear at his side. Momentum carried her forward across the slick stone but she had been prepared this time and caught herself with a short, controlled skid.

"I could get used to this, honestly. Here—got you something."

Swinging up the cannon she passed it to him. His HUD registered it as fully loaded, which should have been impossible after the hell she had just rained down. He looked at her, confused, and could hear her smile.

"The wonders of stored schematics and hard-light manipulation," She said cheekily, "Let me know if you need more ammo."

The idea of unlimited weaponry and ammunition, even if they were all Forerunner, was one he wasn't about to turn down. Even so there was no need for the cannon at that moment, so he swapped it to his rear mag-lock and they started forward once more. They were almost there.

Almost being the operative word, of course. The storm wasn't slowing down any, but if he narrowed his eyes he could just make out the first of the target structure's jutting structural components through the mist. With the guarding Prometheans eliminated and the rest busy with Osiris, their short way down the rest of the path was clear. It came to an abrupt end on a high ridge overlooking the valley below, the structure's entrance built right into the stone. It was nothing new; once you'd seen one Forerunner structure you'd seen them all. Massive as all the rest, it was built out of angular panels and archways that were anchored to the mountain itself. A single equally massive door allowed entry and exit onto a raised metal platform that jutted up against the ridge, the steps below allowing entry from the lower path. There was even less cover if a fight broke out here, only the raised metal guard rail along the edge of the platform, but there were no Prometheans. Nor was there any sign of Osiris, he noted.

"Looks like we beat them here," Cortana pointed out, leaning over the edge of the ridge. The only way down was, quite literally, down. The ridge was steep and slick with rainwater. He'd made safer climbs, but this wouldn't be a climb. She turned to him, her grin just as audible as before. "Race you to the bottom?"

"You're on."

They leapt at the same moment, boots slipping across the wet stone. Cortana's laugh, high and bright, filled his helmet. She was swaying back and forth, arms out wide to either side as she slid, but she was having the time of her life. John didn't bother to hide his smile as he skid down, one knee partially bent to control his speed and arms out for balance. His heavier weight carried him down to the bottom faster; he was going to win and for once he didn't care. All that mattered was her laugh, cool and crystal clear down his spine. He chanced a look over his shoulder at her and found her with her head tossed back, her exhilaration sliding into his bones like she'd never left at all.

It was good to be home.

The end of the ridge came all too swiftly. Momentum carrying them forward onto the platform, the two had to run a few steps to avoid falling over. Their boots clanked against metal, too loud to be covered by the finally abating rain. Still laughing, Cortana turned on her partner.

"Have fun?" She got out between lingering chuckles. John just rolled his eyes and huffed, not needing the vid-link to see her beaming. It showed in her eyes, the only part of her face visible through the thin strip of transparent material of her helmet. They crinkled upwards and his chest grew warm, relaxed. Seeing her so at ease, so happy…it was worth everything. Seeing her like this had been worth the worry, the concern, the loss of her in the back of his mind. She had a chance at a full life now, and she wanted to spend it with him.

A man couldn't get any luckier than that. To face it all side by side and know that, no matter what, they would always have each other? He would never stop being grateful for that.

He didn't get a chance to try and say that before a third set of footsteps, metal thumping against metal, rattled the platform. All amusement vanished in an instant and the two of them whirled around, weapons at the ready, as the newest target appeared from around the nearest pylon. Even the driving rain couldn't stop him from getting a clear look; It was Promethean, bipedal, with skinny legs and skinnier arms, five fingered hands holding a lightrifle flush against its chest. Blue hardlight gleamed in the dim gray light. His motion tracker pinned it in yellow as it stopped walking, considering them both. The Chief considered it in return, unable to shake the sensation of familiarity. He had seen these before, fought alongside them more than once, but when—how—

He shook it off as best he could as the construct looked between them, weapon loose in its grip. It was the only movement any of them made, tension thick in the air, before its gaze returned to Cortana.

"Reclaimer recognized," it said in a flat, electronic tone. Just what they needed. More of them could talk. Its blue light lines flared brighter, then settled as it said, "What are your orders?"

"Cortana?"

Cortana shook her head faintly, considering the construct. "I'm not sure. Definitely a handshake protocol, but it's not as densely built as the Warden or the Knights. It's almost like…" He could hear her frowning. "It's an AI, Chief," She said, tilting her head. It mimicked the gesture, bird-like. "Like the AI in your suit-There's no soul to it. It's just programming. It's." She trailed off for a moment and then said: "Promethean construct designate: Soldier. Basic combat programming with priority to either offense or defense. No thinking for itself, no freedom of choice, just basic commands." She snorted quietly. "Expendable, easily replaceable cannon fodder."

And yet, this was the first time Infinity had seen them. The familiarity lingered in his bones. "So why haven't we seen them before?"

"I'm not sure. This one seems to have been tasked with guarding this facility. It's possible we just never crossed paths with any others."

If there were any others, her tone said. She shook her head and looked up at the Soldier.

"What is your directive?"

"Soldier Designate Eta-831 tasked with guarding facility S-07. Task: Safeguard the Legion. Task: Await the Reclaimer. Orders?"

They shared a look. Legion sounded like more of these things. Finding out how many more was key. Cortana nodded.

"Take us to the Legion."

The Soldier turned. With heavy clomping footsteps it lead the way forward, the door sliding open as they approached. The facility was massive, stretching for kilometers deeper into the mountain and at least one kilometer high. The Chief scanned the room as they walked, but the corridor was empty, smooth walls broken only by streaks of bright blue light. He'd seen such structures dozens of times before, but only now did he realize that the light was the same color as Cortana's skin.

"What is this place?" She asked. The Soldier didn't even look back.

"Facility S-07 is housing for the physical units of Legion Eta, consisting of one thousand mobile shells." Cortana made a soft erk. The Soldier continued unimpeded. "It is the seventh of seven such facilities created by the Warrior-Servants to combat the Flood in this sector."

Cortana shuddered, hard. The Chief glanced at her and she shook her head, forcibly holding her shoulders back. His stomach twisted, tightening. That was one scar that would never fade. Giving her a moment to compose herself, he looked to the Soldier.

"When was the last time the Legion was active?"

"103,437 standard rotations have passed since Legion Eta was last activated. Legion Alpha, Legion Beta, Legion Gamma, Legion Delta, Legion Epsilon, and Legion Zeta are status unknown."

So not since the Halos had fired. Made sense. If they had been waiting for orders, there had been no one to give them. Not until now.

As they approached the other end of the corridor, another door opened. The Soldier lead them into a large, round chamber, but here the walls weren't smooth. The Chief raised his rifle, scanning the chamber. Dozens of pod-like structures were mounted to every available surface, panels closed tightly around their contents. A soft blue light blinked at the tip of each one; some sort of indicator light, and judging by how Cortana had stopped dead in her tracks she'd come to the same conclusion he had.

This was the Legion. All of them waiting in storage for the moment they were needed, soldiers in cryo-pods waiting to be awoken.

If they came to on the wrong side, then…

"This is Legion Eta?" Cortana asked, her voice breathy with surprise. The Soldier had stopped moving in the center of the chamber, standing before a terminal.

"Affirmative. Legion Eta consists of one thousand mobile units. All are based here, awaiting orders."

"And the others?" Six more. Each a thousand of these. If they activated and attacked the crew, then. "Are they active?"

"Legions Alpha through Zeta are status unknown." The Soldier stepped aside, allowing access to the terminal. It stood at attention, weapon in hand, waiting. The Chief and Cortana shared a look. He could only shrug one shoulder, and her eyes narrowed in a frown.

"Watch him."

As if he needed any prompting. Cortana slung her lightrifle onto her rear mag-lock and strode past the Soldier, the Chief not taking his eyes off the construct. It tracked her motion, watching, but he could read no malice in its movements. He hadn't read malice in Spark's, either, he reminded himself.

He wouldn't make that mistake again.

The terminal lit up when Cortana drew near, a holographic input and screen throwing bright blue light around the chamber. Data scrolled rapidly up the screen, Forerunner glyphs passing too fast for him to get a good read on. A few jumped out at him—Warrior-Servant, Construct, Failure—but the rest blurred on past and he clenched his jaw against a surge of pain in his temples. Damned headache.

"Got it." Cortana said after less then ten seconds had passed. She'd patched them into a private channel so as not to be overheard by the Soldier. "Soldier over here wasn't kidding around—there's seven of these facilities scattered around Requiem, but…" She tapped a few more keys. A map appeared on screen, six dots marked red and one green. "Looks like the other Legions went dark over the past hundred thousand years. Eta's the only one left."

"That's still a thousand more Prometheans to deal with."

"Yeah…" She trailed off. A few more taps turned the screen into a larger interface. A press of that switch, he knew, and the whole facility would reactivate. Activating the vid-link, he met her gaze. Her brow furrowed. "Can we risk it? This one seems friendly enough, but they are Prometheans. We've seen how easily they can change sides."

"If they're activated by someone else, they'll already be against us," he pointed out, though he wasn't sure if they could be activated by someone who wasn't the Reclaimer. He doubted even he could activate them, odd familiarity or not. There was still so much that they didn't know. "Better to turn them on and take more ground than have to deal with them later."

She was silent for a second, turning over the possibilities, before she nodded.

"Right. So it's either turn them on or destroy them like the rest." She glanced over her shoulder at the Soldier, still just standing there, and sighed heavily. "Cross your fingers this doesn't bite us in the ass."

If it did, they'd handle it. He watched the Soldier as Cortana enacted the command. It didn't so much as twitch as metal began to grind all around them, pod after pod opening up. The Chief watched as the Soldiers within crawled out, metal plated limbs bending at sharp angles as each one twisted, twitching, and leapt to the ground below. Heavy metal thuds echoed through the chamber, instinct screaming at him to raise his weapon and defend himself, defend her, but Cortana was relaxed as she walked up beside him. She saw no threat here; their lights were blue, and each Soldier that landed remained on its knees.

All except for one.

"Soldier Designate Eta-001," It greeted, walking forward until it stood an arm's length away from the Chief, ignoring him and focusing only on Cortana, "What are your orders, Reclaimer?"

Cortana rocked back on her heels, considering. The Chief looked out over the Legion; a thousand extra guns to take out the Covenant would be an insult to the soldiers and Spartans on the ground, and he wasn't sure they'd be willing to work alongside Prometheans. But a thousand extra sets of eyes…that was a different story.

"How far can they go before they're out of contact range?" He asked. The vid-link was still open and he watched her eyes widen in understanding.

"As far as they need to—their codebase is in the Domain as well!"

Stepping forward, she keyed her helmet's external speakers.

"Do you know the location of the Janus Key?" She asked Eta-001. When it responded with a Negative, she asked, "Can you find it?"

"Affirmative."

"Man of many words, this one," She quipped, and was all business before he could roll his eyes at her. "Take the Legion and scout Requiem for the Janus Key's location. When you find it, contact me."

"Understood, Reclaimer." Eta-001 tilted its head. "And what of the humans?"

"Leave them alone," Cortana said firmly, "All other targets are to be eliminated if you encounter them, but the humans are friendlies."

"Understood." In one perfectly united motion, the Legion rose to its feet. The Chief had a second to think of the logistics of how that many Prometheans would get anywhere before the door at the back of the chamber opened. Guns appeared in flashes of light, pointed at the would-be-threat, and Cortana groaned.

"Oh for—stand down, stand down!"

Fireteam Osiris pointed their rifles at the Legion. The Legion listened to Cortana and returned to ready but inoffensive posture. Eta-001 tilted its head the other direction.

"Humans," it said, electronic tone utterly flat. Maybe he was reading too much into it, but the Chief would have sworn that there was disgust in that modulated voice. "Friendlies out of combat. To be ignored."

"Uh." Buck scanned the chamber. The Legion parted to allow Osiris passage forward, watching them with impassive metal faces. "Should I even ask, Blue?"

"Honestly?" Cortana sighed heavily, shaking her head, "My guess is just as good as yours."

Locke looked from one end of the chamber to the other. Once again, his eyes fell to Cortana. His posture had tensed by a hair, the image of a Spartan sizing up a threat. John took a deep breath, forcing himself to remain still.

"They're Promethean. Why aren't they shooting?"

"Because I have you tagged as friendlies," Cortana replied. She watched as the Legion folded up, legs pulled into their chests, and vanished in flashes of bright blue. Like the Knights, like Cortana, they could use the Domain. Where they'd gone was anyone's guess. "They're taking my orders, and all UNSC IFF tags have been marked as friendlies. Everything else is fair game."

"Covenant are in for one hell of a wake-up call," Tanaka whistled, long and low. "Makes me want to see the looks on their faces when these guys show up." She turned to Cortana. "And the Captain's when he realizes we just got another battalion under our belts."

"Not to mention the brass," Buck looked around the now empty chamber before lowering his rifle, shaking his head. "You two really don't know the meaning of peace and quiet, do you?"

No. Never had, never would. Spartans weren't built for peace. Cortana glanced up at John. He shrugged, shoulder plates clattering, and she raised her hands in a gesture of helpless confusion.

"What can I say?" She smiled, "Never a dull moment around here."

#halo #halo fic #halo fanfic #!fic #fic: per aspera ad astra

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thetoxicgamer · 2 years ago

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Cut Halo content turned into brand new open-world level

After a group of modders began showcasing the work they've been doing with 343 Industries to restore more than two decades of lost content to Halo: The Master Chief Collection, the original Halo now has a playable campaign level that brings cut content from the FPS game's RTS and third-person concept days to the fore of the experience. Last week 343 Industries and a group of modders going by the name Digsite shared the start of a colossal Halo project. The two teams have been working together to restore cut Halo content from back when the iconic FPS was just an RTS and then a third-person shooter with guns, enemies, vehicles, maps, and so much more set to be reintroduced to Halo: The Master Chief Collection to play and mod with. Not only is this an incredible bit of videogame preservation, but it also presents the six-game collection as one of the most robust, content-filled, and community-driven games available today. It’s not just Halo Waypoint blogs and restored assets though, as the Digsite team has released an entire level in Halo: Combat Evolved, which uses loads of the assets that they’ve restored, giving you a chance to engage with lost Halo history firsthand. Downloadable on Steam and playable in Halo MCC, I’m nothing short of blown away by the work of the Digsite team, which you can see in action in the UnboundConman video below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RJz-u_dfTI Built in the sandbox space that Digsite has restored from the Halo Macworld demo in 1999, there are cutscenes, brand-new restored weapons, and even new music too. Using the Macworld map also “pushes the engine to the limit, all at once” according to the Digsite team, stretching the original Halo as far as it can go. It’s almost like a bizarro version of the first Halo, where everything looks the same on the surface, but then there’s the iconic assault rifle with a grenade launcher and assets you’ve never seen before. I need to make it clear that this isn’t one cohesive cut level from Bungie back in the day though, but instead a smorgasbord of cut content from multiple versions of Halo all rolled into one new experience, for free. As mentioned, the Digsite team is restoring content from across the Halo series, with the Halo 2 E3 2003 demo – the cobbled-together and still iconic video footage that showed an almost entirely different Halo 2 – also being made playable at some point soon as well. While I repeatedly raise questions about decisions regarding Halo Infinite, like the Xbox showcase no-show and the removal of certain features, I can safely say that the way the Master Chief Collection is being treated, nine years after release, is nothing short of incredible. I really hope 343 and Digsite keep this up and turn the restored content into properly usable extras. Both modders and players get extra toys to play with, while the state of videogame restoration improves as these decade-old bits of content become easily accessible. Videogames are the only medium that lets you play history, be that of the real world or the industry itself, and it’s a joy to see that realized in the Digsite team’s work. If you want more, you can learn all about the Digsite team’s work restoring Halo 2 cut content on Halo Waypoint, with the Halo 1 Crash Site level available on Steam as well. Halo: The Master Chief Collection is also part of Game Pass, so you can play all this content at no extra cost if you subscribe. While we all wait for more restored Halo content, we’ve got the Halo Infinite system requirements and the best multiplayer games you can be playing right now. Read the full article

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that-genshin-sure-can-impact · 2 years ago

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Insert clever title (2)

SAGAU | Imposter AU

Part 1

You’re pretty sure that if there was an award for the most braindead, incomprehensibly stupid plan ever, you’d earn at least third place, because what else could you possibly call sneaking into Albedo’s camp on Dragonspine with the intent of rifling through his correspondence.

The smart part of your brain (see: the negligibly small part of your brain) tells you that Albedo has a very sharp sword and knows how to use it, and also has magic rocks that obliterate monsters on the regular, and is probably ready and willing to turn you into a red splatter against the cave wall.

The rest of your brain tells you that you’ve got to know what the hell is going on, and clearly you can’t just go around asking people because somehow your face is notifying them that you are to be killed on sight, regardless of what region you’re in. You would know. You have done extensive research.

(You couldn’t even make it past Mondstadt’s front gates. Covering the lower half of your face with a scarf didn’t work in Liyue, and you figured that covering your entire face would just make you more suspicious. You nearly lost your head, literally, when you teleported directly into Inazuma City, and the people of Sumeru weren't happy to see you, either. Even the smaller villages and towns, like Springvale or Konda Village, had guards who knew to try to apprehend you, and it was only your decision to stay within very close proximity to the teleport waypoints that kept your body blessedly free of stab wounds.)

Ergo, Albedo’s camp, which has a grand population of one (1) guy who probably would have to leave at some point. You’re pretty much banking on the possibility that Albedo would have received a letter or something that might explain what’s going on, because something has to be tipping everyone off about you and your apparently-very-killable face, right?

You… are also banking on the likelihood that Albedo is actually still on Dragonspine instead of stationed down in Mondstadt, but if that turns out to not be the case, then no harm, no foul, you can just figure out another plan.

So your current plan is to sneak into his camp while he’s not there and steal the contents of his mailbox, because you’re getting desperate and this is the only thing that you can think of.

It’s probably not your only option. It’s probably not even your best option; but it’s the only one you can think of, so.

Yeah.

You’re doing this.

…

Or, at least, you would be doing this if you hadn’t forgotten one teeny-tiny issue: the route from the nearest teleport waypoint to Albedo’s camp is interrupted by a broken bridge and a hundred-foot drop down the cliffside. The broken bridge that requires a wind glider to get across. That broken bridge.

Yeah.

You are so fucking mad.

So now, you’re crouching by the broken end of the bridge, staring at the wide gap and trying to figure out how steep the cliffside is (very) and whether or not you can kind of scramble across to the other side (definitely not), because there are no other waypoints on Dragonspine that you could feasibly get to the camp from without freezing to death in the meantime (you’ve checked the game map).

Maybe the waypoint by the exit to Starglow Cavern…? But it’s so far away, and you’re pretty sure that the path from there to the camp runs right past a Ruin Grader. Or was it a Frostarm Lawachurl?

You’re so focused on the map and the broken bridge and the increasingly tempting decision to just give up and try to break into the Favonius Headquarters instead that you don’t hear the footsteps coming up from behind you, near-silent under the whistling of the wind.

“Well, well, what do we have here?”

Alarm bells go off in your head, accompanied by all of the curse words in your vocabulary.

You’d been so anxious about being spotted all day that, as you whirl around to face whoever had snuck up on you, you expect to see ash-blond hair and a face belonging to the worst in-game model in Genshin Impact. Or, if you’re really unlucky (and you’re starting to consider yourself to be so), a nun.

Instead, you’re greeted by Kaeya and his fucking indecipherable smile, and you have to wonder if this is the worst case scenario.

You think he’s trying to look unthreatening; both of his hands are empty and in sight, held up like he’s placating a skittish animal, and he’s left a respectable ten feet of distance between you. Until now, you hadn’t realized how much you missed being greeted with a smile instead of a sword, but you did, so much that Kaeya’s was almost enough to get you to drop your guard.

You’ve read his character story, though, so it just makes you wary.

“You’re quite a ways from the nearest camp,” Kaeya comments, amiable as ever. His eye twinkles like a false star. “Without winter gear, too. You wouldn’t want to freeze out here, would you?”

That’s a fucking threat.

‘Yeah, it’s time to leave,’ you decide, before remembering that you need to be touching a waypoint to teleport and Kaeya is blocking the fucking way. In fact— you realize with rising panic— you’ve trapped yourself on the edge of the broken bridge, unless you want to drop a hundred meters into Wyrmrest Valley.

You’d bet that Kaeya knows it, too. He doesn’t even look cold. Bastard. Your hands are stiff and painful despite being tucked into your jacket, your entire face stings bitterly, and even breathing feels like you’re inhaling glass shards. You can’t feel your ears and you’re too afraid to check.

How long have you been away from the waypoint? Five minutes? Ten? Maybe Kaeya doesn’t even plan on doing anything more. Maybe he’ll just block you off from the waypoint until you freeze to death.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

You’re just fucking staring at each other, now, Kaeya with his knowing smile and you wondering if you can, like, trip him, or something. You don’t know. He has a sword and ice powers while you can’t feel your hands or feet. That’s what you get for being an isekai protagonist, you guess.

Christ. You’re going to die here.

Then-

Kaeya shifts his weight like he’s about to close the gap between you, and your fight or flight instincts kick in— and since you can’t run anywhere, you find yourself clutching an icy rock that’s probably hurting you more than it could possibly hurt him, frost-stiff fingers coming alive with pain. You don’t think that there’s enough strength in your arms to do much damage with it. You bare your teeth and think that they might suffice, if you can stomach the taste of blood.

“Get the fuck away from me, Kaeya,” you bite out, relieved when it comes out like a threat instead of a desperate plea. You scramble to follow up, wildly casting around for anything that’ll give you some leverage in this confrontation that doesn’t involve your usual go-to of threatening to have an intimate night with his father. You think that if you spill his secrets he will impulsively separate your head from your shoulders, so that’s out. “I literally have no fucking clue what’s going on.”

Well… that wasn’t going to gain you any leverage, but maybe it’ll score you some pity points?

And—

Kaeya laughs.

The sound is so jarring, so anticlimactic, that irrational rage sweeps over you. You want to punch his teeth in for having the audacity to laugh at you and giving you emotional whiplash. Instead, you hunker down against the cold and wait for him to stop.

He does, after a few seconds, wiping a fake tear from his eye (at least, you assume it’s fake. You aren’t that funny). “I must admit, you aren’t quite what I was expecting,” he muses. “I wonder… just what have you done to anger the gods?”

A laugh scrapes its way, unbidden, from your throat. Your everything hurts, you’re literally freezing to death, and honestly? You’re exhausted.

“Shit, man. I’d sure like to know, too.”

(Part 2/?)

(Prev | Next)

—

@zyzypretty @consumedbymoss @kokxm1 @asoulsreverie @bittersweetorpheus @iruiji @yuyuzi-ling @depressed-bitchy-demon @roger272

(Just FYI this is probably the last time I’m tagging people in the post because that was a bitch to figure out even with so few of you)

#sagau #genshin impact #imposter au #genshin x reader #genshin sagau #mine #same as the first one I couldn’t figure out how to end it but it’s been sitting in the docs for a month now #heads up an interlude for part 1-2 is probably gonna drop soon that’ll explain some background but I already had the Dragonspine scene half #done so I figured I’d just post it first #hoping that not including the downtime between 1 and 2 won’t turn out to be a mistake #anyways you’re straight up not having a great time. living in the US has made me terrified of blizzard conditions

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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 2 years ago

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tuesday again 5/2/2023

some stuff i fucking HATED in this one

listening

new K. Flay AND new LUNA AURA singles out last friday but the thing that kept me company through several walks was this (billboard called it "industrial rager" which seems fine close enough) used for the yellowjackets tv show (something i have not watched and never will).

my brain has really craved repetitive lyrics recently. not sure what that's about. not a repeated lyric, but love one that goes "lipstick on the rifle". spotify

youtube

ty discover weekly.

reading

pour one out for the real ones, Vice's leftist gaming vertical Waypoint. if you've ever liked anything about the way i go about these posts you have them to thank. i would say they are the primary influence in the way i try to approach things like "is this a clever subversion that still holds a lot of love for the genre or does this not even know the rules it's trying to break". also a big factor in me going "okay this is what it says it is, this is the marketing copy and press releases" and a work says it's trying to do before assessing whether or not they do it well. may all the staff land softly, elsewhere, paid far more.

“There are a ton of destinations within gaming media that do a great job covering whether a game is worth your money. Instead, we want to focus on telling stories about why people play, and investigating how the games we love and spend so much time with come to be. Whether a game was a commercial success or has a small, dedicated community, we want to raise the conversation and take an in-depth look at the passion, people, and politics that underpin these worlds.” -Austin Walker, editor in chief until last year

the very last thing i read was this review of the new starred wars game, whose early review code sent to journalists was EXTREMELY different than what ended up shipping. this is uncommon but not unheard of, but almost nobody publishes a "null result" review like this one and it's a fascinating breakdown

This piece has, admittedly, gone off the rails, but if this had been a straightforward review, and at the end, I put an italicized section that said “based on 10 hours,” what would you say? If I’d finished the game but confessed at the end that the patched version was importantly different from the one I’d spent my time with, what then? Which review is worth more?

i also read Behind the Sun, Above the Moon, a non-binary scifi/fantasy anthology. i was not impressed with this collection in whole or in parts. it could have benefited from a stronger theme and editorial vision (i'm not actually sure this thing had an editor, now i'm looking closer?)

this has billed itself "a Queer anthology inspired by magic and the cosmos". what i was hoping/expecting this would be: a collection exploring what it means to be nonbinary through the lens of scifi and fantasy. it actually is: an almost completely human-centric collection about people who happen to be non-binary and happen to live in scifi or fantasy settings.

the critical problem is that most of them are very slice-of-life in a fantastic setting as opposed to a short story with uhhhhhh a theme and a point it makes. the worldbuilding, while often interesting, is not integral. 3/9 of these are set in a contemporary setting, and all of them could be set in a contemporary setting without losing much. 3/9 (one overlap) feature a protagonist or deuteragonist who is a cop, and all three of those read very gay assimilation-y/feel very concerned with perfect gay rep.

i don't really expect anyone to be the next o henry here, but none of them are self-contained. not the sort of ambiguous ending in the Ha Ha Im Going To Think About This For The Rest Of My Life way, they all feel like “first chapter of a planned new adult trilogy”.

i love anthologies. i am always rooting for anthologies. i am no stranger to imperfectly written speculative fiction. this one is just kind of nothing? none of these are good or particularly enjoyable examples of the form, either as short stories or as speculative fiction.

i don't actually know what tipped me off to this book, it's been on my overdrive for...two years.

watching

two out of three Magnificent Seven sequels are not worth my time, your time, or anyone else's. i have not bothered to watch Guns of the Magnificent Seven (1969, dir. Wendkos) bc i have a finite amount of time on this bitch of an earth.

i reluctantly have to hand the original some heterosexual rights. that move had a genuinely cute romance that fit in well with a particular character's growth, even if it was lifted whole cloth from Seven Samurai. this will be relevant when we discuss this franchise's hatred for women later.

Return of the Seven/Return of the Magnificent Seven (1966, dir. Kennedy), starring exactly one member of the original seven, is so poorly paced that i paused the film during an "exciting" bullfight, got up to get more snacks, got distracted, and ended up cleaning my kitchen.

there is a great deal of untranslated, un-captioned spanish throughout this movie, including the entire opening sequence. i don't know how i feel about this. on one hand, yeah, fuck them americans, and i would not call the english-language dialogue particularly crucial to your understanding of the plot. on the other hand, what.

as opposed to the original seven all being men who are fairly polite and follow some sort of code, the replacement five are all kind of sleazy? one of them only signs on bc there's an entire village full of women on their own. in other relationships, there is the KERNEL of a really fascinating fucked up family dynamic between the villain and his sons, but we don't even get hints of that until well after the halfway point. this is the original movie but less interesting and sloppier. the camerawork and effects simply are not there.

The Magnificent Seven Ride! (1972, dir. McCowan) is a really, really awful film to watch, and not just if you're a woman. this whole fucking film uses three separate instances of rape or gang rape as plot momentum. if you are not trying to fill out lee van cleef's filmography (only a thing me and @birdcfparadise are insane enough to do) this is actively skippable.

like okay. let’s just walk through the first fifteen minutes. lvc's young, new, nubile wife convinces him to let a kid who robbed a store get off with a warning instead of what lvc really wants to do, send him to jail. in return, the kid shoots lvc, kidnaps lvc's wife, and rapes and kills her on the trail. the movie, which wasn't good to start out with, does not improve from there. like the other sequel i watched, this is the original movie but less interesting and sloppier.

the one interesting choice this film makes: one of the seven is a failed journalist tailing lvc, hoping to get enough life details out of him to write a book. this is a fun period-appropriate twist and this could have been a fun proto-revisionist western/gracefully put the franchise to bed, but here we FUCKING are.

why'd i do this to myself: liked the original, like lvc.

playing

the steam collections i'm sorting things into areworking, bc i forgot i owned Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (2013, developed/published Techland). i do not remember buying this, i assume it was $1.99 in a sale at some point. this is a silly arcade-y first person shooter.

youtube

i suspect it will be the kind of thing i play through once and then completely forget about, but i will have a fun ten hours-ish.

this is a personal problem, but the moment you give me a long-distance rifle, i want to play as stealthily and perfectly as possible. (except in fallout, where it is way more fun to charge up to enemies like a very small freight train with a shotgun). this game is simply not built for stealth. this game wants you to move constantly. i do like how enemies are encountered in little groups or knots, and don't come after you if you've cleared out one group and haven't hustled along to the next. enemy AI was simply not very sophisticated in 2013. this gives me time to meander around looking at everything and going "oh i coulda got up on that water tower" or "totally missed that barrel of dynamite".

i like how over the top but un-self-serious it is so far. competent shooter, fewer of the bells and whistles we expect from a FPS these days, but we don't really need to be fucking around with health packs and more than one kind of ammo for a gun. nothing's really annoying me yet and i haven't fallen deeply in love with it, so i don't have a ton of thoughts other than "huh this is a decade old video game with decade-old design sensibilities, which isn't bad just different". stay tuned!

separate thought: i do think that the game's artstyle is about as detailed as i ever want a game to get. nothing ever really needs to be more realistic than this. i do think we peaked in 2013 and what 2013 CPUs could handle. we have better raytracing and particles and whatnot now, but that's at the cost of eerily hyperrealistic games where there is little to no non-signage visual signposting. nothing is guiding your eye through a level, things (consumables, collectibles, etc) are very easy to miss. if video games are an art form you need to pick a thing your game looks like. make a stylistic choice for christ's sake. not this game though. it's doing okay.

making

made some fake meatballs (shut up) bc the giant bag of bargain store brand meatballs i used to practically live on have risen to $20 a bag. angel hair and meatballs are easy to acquire and easy to eat, even if they do generate many dishes to wash.

making my own is not much cheaper, and raw ground meat texture is one of the worst things in the world. plus i had some carrots and oats and lentils to use up anyway. this required more chopping than my hands cared for, even though i bought pre-juilenned carrots and just sort of roughly diced them. the texture is UNSETTLINGLY like real meatballs. that sort of spongy? bouncy? mouthfeel. the taste is, of course, nothing like real meat. they are a little crumbly in actual pasta, but oversaucing whatever noodles are at the back of the pantry will help.

no pics bc they look awful. eating a lot of various lentil sludges lately partly bc i am trying to clean out my pantry before i move, and when i could still afford grocery delivery they frequently gave me green instead of the far superior red lentils.

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem

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ageless-aislynn · 2 years ago

Text

First off, I'm ashamed to admit I was too startled when I got the flirt option to actually click it, lol! I kicked myself immediately because I really wanted to know what they'd both say! And then, d'oh, of course, I remembered that Youtube exists and went looking for this!

I'm actually surprised at his response, I thought he'd laugh his head off at Sara or something but daaaaaang, Drack, what was that octave drop when he said "property damage?" 👀🤔😂

I love Drack, I just didn't expect to get the option to, you know, loooooove Drack, lol! 😂

I'm staying strong for Jaal, though, and YAY, we finally got a hug and he invited me to meet his mother, so PROGRESS. It's almost romancing time!

Jaal's ready to get his flirt on, yep. *nodnods* 😂

I'm nearly 90 hours in now and have done almost all of the side-quests so far. The hardest ones are the ones without any waypoints or indicators to let you know where to find a series of data pads or whatever. But I've decided to try to get all of them since I'm this close! Here's the benefit of doing lots of side-quests:

All my current worlds hit 100% pretty quickly, yay! My plan has been to established forward stations as soon as I move into a new area (since the weather or conditions are inevitably trying to kill you, so having a forward station to retreat to is very helpful) and to get the Remnant vaults working as soon as I can. *points to the part where the planet is inevitably trying to kill you* Then I work on the missions, tasks and quests without worrying that I'm going to freeze, burn or be fried by radiation. 😱😎👍

I've made good time on things, I think. Mainly because of my "prioritizing forward stations and vaults" strategy and just that I've gotten better at driving the NOMAD (I only had Cora scream, "RYDER, LOOK OUT!" one time -- and, to be fair, I was accidentally driving us off a cliff to our deaths on the asteroid with low gravity but hey, it was just ONE TIME *proud* 🤣😎👍). I've found a good load-out for my gear that suits my style as well: a Kett nightstick-looking thing for my melee weapon and a Widow sniper rifle and Hesh shotgun to give me power at both distance and up-close.

Vetra is my ride-or-die, I always bring her no matter what the mission, and Drack is excellent when you need a heavy hitter (don't fight one of those frigging ginormous Architects without your one-Krogan army!). I've got everybody as upgraded as possible so Cora is great at reviving everybody's shields, which has proved really helpful. And then I bring Jaal if I don't need heavy hitting or shield regenerating because, honestly, I think he gets a bit of cabin fever being left on the Tempest too long, lol! I love how he complains that he hates Kadara but if you keep finding him there and talking to him, Sara eventually will ask why he doesn't just stay on the ship and he pauses before saying that he's afraid he'll miss out on something. I love that he first appears to be this hulking alien warrior dude and then you start realizing he's actually very insecure about a lot of things. It's refreshing, honestly. 😍

Of course, now that I see Drack as a love interest option, I may have to change my playthrough plan...

*gigglesnort* Okay, so I know that he's not a romance option, but I do think it's way too much fun to get the option to flirt with him!

I really embarrassed myself in that barfight, BTW. I'd let Sara egg that dude on but I wasn't expecting a DODGE prompt to pop up and didn't have my hand on the controller so Sara got totally sucker punched. 😱 I reloaded a save point and redid that section because I couldn't let Drack down like that. You could tell he was so disappointed in me! 😐😉

Annnd that's my Mass Effect: Andromeda update of updateyness for today! 💃😁👍

#mass effect: andromeda #mass effect andromeda #nakmor drack #sara ryder #jaal ama darav #sara ryder x jaal ama darav #this is my game tag #mass effect andromeda update of updateyness #video game #ageless aislynn

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peacefulapocalypse · 4 years ago

Text

I Sexually Identify as an

Attack Helicopter

by ISABEL FALL

I sexually identify as an attack helicopter.

I lied. According to US Army Technical Manual 0, The Soldier as a System, “attack helicopter” is a

gender identity, not a biological sex. My dog tags and Form 3349 say my body is an XX-karyotope

somatic female.

But, really, I didn’t lie. My body is a component in my mission, subordinate to what I truly am. If I

say I am an attack helicopter, then my body, my sex, is too. I’ll prove it to you.

When I joined the Army I consented to tactical-role gender reassignment. It was mandatory for the

MOS I’d tested into. I was nervous. I’d never been anything but a woman before.

But I decided that I was done with womanhood, over what womanhood could do for me; I wanted to

be something furiously new.

To the people who say a woman would’ve refused to do what I do, I say—

Isn’t that the point?

I fly—

Red evening over the white Mojave, and I watch the sun set through a canopy of polycarbonate and

glass: clitoral bulge of cockpit on the helicopter’s nose. Lightning probes the burned wreck of an oil

refinery and the Santa Ana feeds a smoldering wildfire and pulls pine soot out southwest across the

Big Pacific. We are alone with each other, Axis and I, flying low.

We are traveling south to strike a high school.

Rotor wash flattens rings of desert creosote. Did you know that creosote bushes clone themselves?

The ten-thousand-year elders enforce dead zones where nothing can grow except more creosote.

Beetles and mice live among them, the way our cities had pigeons and mice. I guess the analogy

breaks down because the creosote’s lasted ten thousand years. You don’t need an attack helicopter

to tell you that our cities haven’t. The Army gave me gene therapy to make my blood toxic to

mosquitoes. Soon you will have that too, to fight malaria in the Hudson floodplain and on the banks

of the Greater Lake.

Now I cross Highway 40, southbound at two hundred knots. The Apache’s engine is electric and

silent. Decibel killers sop up the rotor noise. White-bright infrared vision shows me stripes of heat,

the tire tracks left by Pear Mesa school buses. Buried housing projects smolder under the dirt,

radiators curled until sunset. This is enemy territory. You can tell because, though this desert was

once Nevada and California, there are no American flags.

“Barb,” the Apache whispers, in a voice that Axis once identified, to my alarm, as my mother’s.

“Waypoint soon.”

“Axis.” I call out to my gunner, tucked into the nose ahead of me. I can see only gray helmet and

flight suit shoulders, but I know that body wholly, the hard knots of muscle, the ridge of pelvic

girdle, the shallow navel and flat hard chest. An attack helicopter has a crew of two. My gunner is

my marriage, my pillar, the completion of my gender.

“Axis.” The repeated call sign means, I hear you.

“Ten minutes to target.”

“Ready for target,” Axis says.

But there is again that roughness, like a fold in carbon fiber. I heard it when we reviewed our

fragment orders for the strike. I hear it again now. I cannot ignore it any more than I could ignore a

battery fire; it is a fault in a person and a system I trust with my life.

But I can choose to ignore it for now.

The target bumps up over the horizon. The low mounds of Kelso-Ventura District High burn warm

gray through a parfait coating of aerogel insulation and desert soil. We have crossed a third of the

continental US to strike a school built by Americans.

Axis cues up a missile: black eyes narrowed, telltales reflected against clear laser-washed cornea.

“Call the shot, Barb.”

“Stand by. Maneuvering.” I lift us above the desert floor, buying some room for the missile to run,

watching the probability-of-kill calculation change with each motion of the aircraft.

Before the Army my name was Seo Ji Hee. Now my call sign is Barb, which isn’t short for Barbara. I

share a rank (flight warrant officer), a gender, and a urinary system with my gunner Axis: we are

harnessed and catheterized into the narrow tandem cockpit of a Boeing AH-70 Apache Mystic.

America names its helicopters for the people it destroyed.

We are here to degrade and destroy strategic targets in the United States of America’s war against

the Pear Mesa Budget Committee. If you disagree with the war, so be it: I ask your empathy, not

your sympathy. Save your pity for the poor legislators who had to find some constitutional

framework for declaring war against a credit union.

The reasons for war don’t matter much to us. We want to fight the way a woman wants to be

gracious, the way a man wants to be firm. Our need is as vamp-fierce as the strutting queen and

dryly subtle as the dapper lesbian and comfortable as the soft resilience of the demiwoman. How

often do you analyze the reasons for your own gender? You might sigh at the necessity of morning

makeup, or hide your love for your friends behind beer and bravado. Maybe you even resent the

punishment for breaking these norms.

But how often—really—do you think about the grand strategy of gender? The mess of history and

sociology, biology and game theory that gave rise to your pants and your hair and your salary? The

casus belli?

Often, you might say. All the time. It haunts me.

Then you, more than anyone, helped make me.

When I was a woman I wanted to be good at woman. I wanted to darken my eyes and strut in heels.

I wanted to laugh from my throat when I was pleased, laugh so low that women would shiver in

contentment down the block.

And at the same time I resented it all. I wanted to be sharper, stronger, a new-made thing,

exquisite and formidable. Did I want that because I was taught to hate being a woman? Or because I

hated being taught anything at all?

Now I am jointed inside. Now I am geared and shafted, I am a being of opposing torques. The noise

I make is canceled by decibel killers so I am no louder than a woman laughing through two walls.

When I was a woman I wanted to have friends who would gasp at the precision and surprise of my

gifts. Now I show friendship by tracking the motions of your head, looking at what you look at, the

way one helicopter’s sensors can be slaved to the motions of another.

When I was a woman I wanted my skin to be as smooth and dark as the sintered stone countertop

in our kitchen.

Now my skin is boron-carbide and Kevlar. Now I have a wrist callus where I press my hydration

sensor into my skin too hard and too often. Now I have bit-down nails from the claustrophobia of the

bus ride to the flight line. I paint them desert colors, compulsively.

When I was a woman I was always aware of surveillance. The threat of the eyes on me, the chance

that I would cross over some threshold of detection and become a target.

Now I do the exact same thing. But I am counting radars and lidars and pit viper thermal sensors,

waiting for a missile.

I am gas turbines. I am the way I never sit on the same side of the table as a stranger. I am most

comfortable in moonless dark, in low places between hills. I am always thirsty and always tense. I

tense my core and pace my breath even when coiled up in a briefing chair. As if my tail rotor must

cancel the spin of the main blades and the turbines must whirl and the plates flex against the pitch

links or I will go down spinning to my death.

An airplane wants in its very body to stay flying. A helicopter is propelled by its interior

near-disaster.

I speak the attack command to my gunner. “Normalize the target.”

Nothing happens.

“Axis. Comm check.”

“Barb, Axis. I hear you.” No explanation for the fault. There is nothing wrong with the weapon attack

parameters. Nothing wrong with any system at all, except the one without any telltales, my spouse,

my gunner.

“Normalize the target,” I repeat.

“Axis. Rifle one.”

The weapon falls off our wing, ignites, homes in on the hard invisible point of the laser designator.

Missiles are faster than you think, more like a bullet than a bird. If you’ve ever seen a bird.

The weapon penetrates the concrete shelter of Kelso-Ventura High School and fills the empty halls

with thermobaric aerosol. Then: ignition. The detonation hollows out the school like a hooked finger

scooping out an egg. There are not more than a few janitors in there. A few teachers working late.

They are bycatch.

What do I feel in that moment? Relief. Not sexual, not like eating or pissing, not like coming in from

the heat to the cool dry climate shelter. It’s a sense of passing . Walking down the street in the right

clothes, with the right partner, to the right job. That feeling. Have you felt it?

But there is also an itch of worry—why did Axis hesitate? How did Axis hesitate?

Kelso-Ventura High School collapses into its own basement. “Target normalized,” Axis reports,

without emotion, and my heart beats slow and worried.

I want you to understand that the way I feel about Axis is hard and impersonal and lovely. It is

exactly the way you would feel if a beautiful, silent turbine whirled beside you day and night,

protecting you, driving you on, coursing with current, fiercely bladed, devoted. God, it’s love. It’s

love I can’t explain. It’s cold and good.

“Barb,” I say, which means I understand . “Exiting north, zero three zero, cupids two.”

I adjust the collective—feel the swash plate push up against the pitch links, the links tilt the angle of

the rotors so they ease their bite on the air—and the Apache, my body, sinks toward the hot desert

floor. Warm updraft caresses the hull, sensual contrast with the Santa Ana wind. I shiver in delight.

Suddenly: warning receivers hiss in my ear, poke me in the sacral vertebrae, put a dark

thunderstorm note into my air. “Shit,” Axis hisses. “Air search radar active, bearing 192, angles

twenty, distance . . . eighty klicks. It’s a fast-mover. He must’ve heard the blast.”

A fighter. A combat jet. Pear Mesa’s mercenary defenders have an air force, and they are out on the

hunt. “A Werewolf.”

“Must be. Gown?”

“Gown up.” I cue the plasma-sheath stealth system that protects us from radar and laser hits. The

Apache glows with lines of arc-weld light, UFO light. Our rotor wash blasts the plasma into a bright

wedding train behind us. To the enemy’s sensors, that trail of plasma is as thick and soft as

insulating foam. To our eyes it’s cold aurora fire.

“Let’s get the fuck out.” I touch the cyclic and we sideslip through Mojave dust, watching the school

fall into itself. There is no reason to do this except that somehow I know Axis wants to see. Finally I

pull the nose around, aim us northeast, shedding light like a comet buzzing the desert on its way

into the sun.

“Werewolf at seventy klicks,” Axis reports. “Coming our way. Time to intercept . . . six minutes.”

The Werewolf Apostles are mercenaries, survivors from the militaries of climate-seared states. They

sell their training and their hardware to earn their refugee peoples a few degrees more distance from

the equator.

The heat of the broken world has chased them here to chase us.

Before my assignment neurosurgery, they made me sit through (I could bear to sit, back then) the

mandatory course on Applied Constructive Gender Theory. Slouched in a fungus-nibbled plastic chair

as transparencies slid across the cracked screen of a De-networked Briefing Element overhead

projector: how I learned the technology of gender.

Long before we had writing or farms or post-digital strike helicopters, we had each other. We lived

together and changed each other, and so we needed to say “this is who I am, this is what I do.”

So, in the same way that we attached sounds to meanings to make language, we began to attach

clusters of behavior to signal social roles. Those clusters were rich, and quick-changing, and so just

like language, we needed networks devoted to processing them. We needed a place in the brain to

construct and to analyze gender.

Generations of queer activists fought to make gender a self-determined choice, and to undo the

creeping determinism that said the way it is now is the way it always was and always must be.

Generations of scientists mapped the neural wiring that motivated and encoded the gender choice.

And the moment their work reached a usable stage—the moment society was ready to accept plastic

gender, and scientists were ready to manipulate it—the military found a new resource. Armed with

functional connectome mapping and neural plastics, the military can make gender tactical.

If gender has always been a construct, then why not construct new ones?

My gender networks have been reassigned to make me a better AH-70 Apache Mystic pilot. This is

better than conventional skill learning. I can show you why.

Look at a diagram of an attack helicopter’s airframe and components. Tell me how much of it you

grasp at once.

Now look at a person near you, their clothes, their hair, their makeup and expression, the way they

meet or avoid your eyes. Tell me which was richer with information about danger and capability. Tell

me which was easier to access and interpret.

The gender networks are old and well-connected. They work .

I remember being a woman. I remember it the way you remember that old, beloved hobby you left

behind. Woman felt like my prom dress, polyester satin smoothed between little hand and little hip.

Woman felt like a little tic of the lips when I was interrupted, or like teasing out the mood my

boyfriend wouldn’t explain. Like remembering his mom’s birthday for him, or giving him a list of

things to buy at the store, when he wanted to be better about groceries.

I was always aware of being small: aware that people could hurt me. I spent a lot of time thinking

about things that had happened right before something awful. I would look around me and ask

myself, are the same things happening now? Women live in cross-reference. It is harder work than

we know.

Now I think about being small as an advantage for nape-of-earth maneuvers and pop-up guided

missile attacks.

Now I yield to speed walkers in the hall like I need to avoid fouling my rotors.

Now walking beneath high-tension power lines makes me feel the way that a cis man would feel if he

strutted down the street in a miniskirt and heels.

I’m comfortable in open spaces but only if there’s terrain to break it up. I hate conversations I

haven’t started; I interrupt shamelessly so that I can make my point and leave.

People treat me like I’m dangerous, like I could hurt them if I wanted to. They want me protected

and watched over. They bring me water and ask how I’m doing.

People want me on their team. They want what I can do.

A fighter is hunting us, and I am afraid that my gunner has gender dysphoria.

Twenty thousand feet above us (still we use feet for altitude) the bathroom-tiled transceivers cupped

behind the nose cone of a Werewolf Apostle J-20S fighter broadcast fingers of radar light. Each beam

cast at a separate frequency, a fringed caress instead of a pointed prod. But we are jumpy, we are

hypervigilant—we feel that creeper touch.

I get the cold-rush skin-prickle feel of a stranger following you in the dark. Has he seen you? Is he

just going the same way? If he attacks, what will you do, could you get help, could you scream? Put

your keys between your fingers, like it will help. Glass branches of possibility grow from my skin,

waiting to be snapped off by the truth.

“Give me a warning before he’s in IRST range,” I order Axis. “We’re going north.”

“Axis.” The Werewolf’s infrared sensor will pick up the heat of us, our engine and plasma shield,

burning against the twilight desert. The same system that hides us from his radar makes us hot and

visible to his IRST.

I throttle up, running faster, and the Apache whispers alarm. “Gown overspeed.” We’re moving too

fast for the plasma stealth system, and the wind’s tearing it from our skin. We are not modest. I

want to duck behind a ridge to cover myself, but I push through the discomfort, feeling out the

tradeoff between stealth and distance. Like the morning check in the mirror, trading the confidence

of a good look against the threat of reaction.

When the women of Soviet Russia went to war against the Nazis, when they volunteered by the

thousands to serve as snipers and pilots and tank drivers and infantry and partisans, they fought

hard and they fought well. They ate frozen horse dung and hauled men twice their weight out of

burning tanks. They shot at their own mothers to kill the Nazis behind her.

But they did not lose their gender; they gave up the inhibition against killing but would not give up

flowers in their hair, polish for their shoes, a yearning for the young lieutenant, a kiss on his dead

lips.

And if that is not enough to convince you that gender grows deep enough to thrive in war: when the

war ended the Soviet women were punished. They went unmarried and unrespected. They were

excluded from the victory parades. They had violated their gender to fight for the state and the state

judged that violation worth punishment more than their heroism was worth reward.

Gender is stronger than war. It remains when all else flees.

When I was a woman I wanted to machine myself.

I loved nails cut like laser arcs and painted violent-bright in bathrooms that smelled like laboratories.

I wanted to grow thick legs with fat and muscle that made shapes under the skin like Nazca lines. I

loved my birth control, loved that I could turn my period off, loved the home beauty-feedback kits

that told you what to eat and dose to adjust your scent, your skin, your moods. I admired, wasn’t

sure if I wanted to be or wanted to fuck, the women in the build-your-own-shit videos I watched on

our local image of the old Internet. Women who made cyberattack kits and jewelry and

sterile-printed IUDs, made their own huge wedge heels and fitted bras and skin-thin chameleon

dresses. Women who talked about their implants the same way they talked about computers,

phones, tools: technologies of access, technologies of self-expression.

Something about their merciless self-possession and self-modification stirred me. The first time I

ever meant to masturbate I imagined one of those women coming into my house, picking the lock,

telling me exactly what to do, how to be like her. I told my first boyfriend about this, I showed him

pictures, and he said, girl, you bi as hell, which was true, but also wrong. Because I did not want

those dresses, those heels, those bodies in the way I wanted my boyfriend. I wanted to possess that

power. I wanted to have it and be it.

The Apache is my body now, and like most bodies it is sensual. Fabric armor that stiffens beneath

my probing fingers. Stub wings clustered with ordnance. Rotors so light and strong they do not even

droop: as artificial-looking, to an older pilot, as breast implants. And I brush at the black ring of a

sensor housing, like the tip of a nail lifting a stray lash from the white of your eye.

I don’t shave, which all the fast jet pilots do, down to the last curly scrotal hair. Nobody expects a

helicopter to be sleek. I have hairy armpits and thick black bush all the way to my ass crack. The

things that are taboo and arousing to me are the things taboo to helicopters. I like to be picked up,

moved, pressed, bent and folded, held down, made to shudder, made to abandon control.

Do these last details bother you? Does the topography of my pubic hair feel intrusive and

unnecessary? I like that. I like to intrude, inflict damage, withdraw. A year after you read this maybe

those paragraphs will be the only thing you remember: and you will know why the rules of gender

are worth recruitment.

But we cannot linger on the point of attack.

“He’s coming north. Time to intercept three minutes.”

“Shit. How long until he gets us on thermal?”

“Ninety seconds with the gown on.” Danger has swept away Axis’ hesitation.

“Shit.”

“He’s not quite on zero aspect—yeah, he’s coming up a few degrees off our heading. He’s not sure

exactly where we are. He’s hunting.”

“He’ll be sure soon enough. Can we kill him?”

“With sidewinders?” Axis pauses articulately: the target is twenty thousand feet above us, and he

has a laser that can blind our missiles. “We’d have more luck bailing out and hiking.”

“All right. I’m gonna fly us out of this.”

“Sure.”

“Just check the gun.”

“Ten times already, Barb.”

When climate and economy and pathology all went finally and totally critical along the Gulf Coast,

the federal government fled Cabo fever and VARD-2 to huddle behind New York’s flood barriers.

We left eleven hundred and six local disaster governments behind. One of them was the Pear Mesa

Budget Committee. The rest of them were doomed.

Pear Mesa was different because it had bought up and hardened its own hardware and power. So

Pear Mesa’s neural nets kept running, retrained from credit union portfolio management to the

emergency triage of hundreds of thousands of starving sick refugees.

Pear Mesa’s computers taught themselves to govern the forsaken southern seaboard. Now they

coordinate water distribution, re-express crop genomes, ration electricity for survival AC, manage all

the life support humans need to exist in our warmed-over hell.

But, like all advanced neural nets, these systems are black boxes. We have no idea how they work,

what they think. Why do Pear Mesa’s AIs order the planting of pear trees? Because pears were their

corporate icon, and the AIs associate pear trees with areas under their control. Why does no one

make the AIs stop? Because no one knows what else is tangled up with the “plant pear trees”

impulse. The AIs may have learned, through some rewarded fallacy or perverse founder effect, that

pear trees cause humans to have babies. They may believe that their only function is to build

support systems around pear trees.

When America declared war on Pear Mesa, their AIs identified a useful diagnostic criterion for hostile

territory: the posting of fifty-star American flags. Without ever knowing what a flag meant, without

any concept of nations or symbols, they ordered the destruction of the stars and stripes in Pear Mesa

territory.

That was convenient for propaganda. But the real reason for the war, sold to a hesitant Congress by

technocrats and strategic ecologists, was the ideology of scale atrocity . Pear Mesa’s AIs could not be

modified by humans, thus could not be joined with America’s own governing algorithms: thus must

be forced to yield all their control, or else remain forever separate.

And that separation was intolerable. By refusing the United States administration, our superior

resources and planning capability, Pear Mesa’s AIs condemned citizens who might otherwise be

saved to die—a genocide by neglect. Wasn’t that the unforgivable crime of fossil capitalism? The

creation of systems whose failure modes led to mass death?

Didn’t we have a moral imperative to intercede?

Pear Mesa cannot surrender, because the neural nets have a basic imperative to remain online. Pear

Mesa’s citizens cannot question the machines’ decisions. Everything the machines do is connected in

ways no human can comprehend. Disobey one order and you might as well disobey them all.

But none of this is why I kill.

I kill for the same reason men don’t wear short skirts, the same reason I used to pluck my brows,

the reason enby people are supposed to be (unfair and stupid, yes, but still) androgynous with short

hair. Are those good reasons to do something? If you say no, honestly no—can you tell me you

break these rules without fear or cost?

But killing isn’t a gender role, you might tell me. Killing isn’t a decision about how to present your

own autonomous self to the world. It is coercive and punitive. Killing is therefore not an act of

gender.

I wish that were true. Can you tell me honestly that killing is a genderless act? The method? The

motive? The victim?

When you imagine the innocent dead, who do you see?

“Barb,” Axis calls, softly. Your own voice always sounds wrong on recordings—too nasal. Axis’ voice

sounds wrong when it’s not coming straight into my skull through helmet mic.

“Barb.”

“How are we doing?”

“Exiting one hundred and fifty knots north. Still in his radar but he hasn’t locked us up.”

“How are you doing?”

I cringe in discomfort. The question is an indirect way for Axis to admit something’s wrong, and that

indirection is obscene. Like hiding a corroded tail rotor bearing from your maintenance guys.

“I’m good,” I say, with fake ease. “I’m in flow. Can’t you feel it?” I dip the nose to match a drop-off

below, provoking a whine from the terrain detector. I am teasing, striking a pose. “We’re gonna be

okay.”

“I feel it, Barb.” But Axis is tense, worried about our pursuer, and other things. Doesn’t laugh.

“How about you?”

“Nominal.”

Again the indirection, again the denial, and so I blurt it out. “Are you dysphoric?”

“What?” Axis says, calmly.

“You’ve been hesitating. Acting funny. Is your—” There is no way to ask someone if their militarized

gender conditioning is malfunctioning. “Are you good?”

“I . . . ” Hesitation. It makes me cringe again, in secondhand shame. Never hesitate. “I don’t know.”

“Do you need to go on report?”

Severe gender dysphoria can be a flight risk. If Axis hesitates over something that needs to be done

instantly, the mission could fail decisively. We could both die.

“I don’t want that,” Axis says.

“I don’t want that either,” I say, desperately. I want nothing less than that. “But, Axis, if—”

The warning receiver climbs to a steady crow call.

“He knows we’re here,” I say, to Axis’ tight inhalation. “He can’t get a lock through the gown but

he’s aware of our presence. Fuck. Blinder, blinder, he’s got his laser on us—”

The fighter’s lidar pod is trying to catch the glint of a reflection off us. “Shit,” Axis says. “We’re

gonna get shot.”

“The gown should defeat it. He’s not close enough for thermal yet.”

“He’s gonna launch anyway. He’s gonna shoot and then get a lock to steer it in.”

“I don’t know—missiles aren’t cheap these days—”

The ESM mast on the Apache’s rotor hub, mounted like a lamp on a post, contains a cluster of

electro-optical sensors that constantly scan the sky: the Distributed Aperture Sensor. When the DAS

detects the flash of a missile launch, it plays a warning tone and uses my vest to poke me in the

small of my back.

My vest pokes me in the small of my back.

“Barb. Missile launch south. Barb. Fox 3 inbound. Inbound. Inbound.”

“He fired,” Axis calls. “Barb?”

“Barb,” I acknowledge.

I fuck—

Oh, you want to know: many of you, at least. It’s all right. An attack helicopter isn’t a private way of

being. Your needs and capabilities must be maintained for the mission.

I don’t think becoming an attack helicopter changed who I wanted to fuck. I like butch assertive

people. I like talent and prestige, the status that comes of doing things well. I was never taught the

lie that I was wired for monogamy, but I was still careful with men, I was still wary, and I could

never tell him why: that I was afraid not because of him, but because of all the men who’d seemed

good like him, at first, and then turned into something else.

No one stalks an attack helicopter. No slack-eyed well-dressed drunk punches you for ignoring the

little rape he slurs at your neckline. No one even breaks your heart: with my dopamine system tied

up by the reassignment surgery, fully assigned to mission behavior, I can’t fall in love with anything

except my own purpose.

Are you aware of your body? Do you feel your spine when you stand, your hips when you walk, the

tightness and the mass in your core? When you look at yourself, whose eyes do you use? Your own?

I am always in myself. I never see myself through my partner’s eyes. I have weapons to use, of

course, ways of moving, moans and cries. But I measure those weapons by their effect, not by their

similarity to some idea of how I should be.

Flying is the loop of machinery and pilot, the sense of your motion on the controls translated into

torque and lift, the airframe’s reaction shaping your next motion until the loop closes and machine

and pilot are one. Awareness collapses to the moment. You are always doing the right thing exactly

as it needs to be done. Sex is the same: the search for everything in an instant.

Of course I fuck Axis. A few decades ago this would’ve been a crime. What a waste of perfectly

useful behavior. What a waste of that lean muscled form and those perfect killing hands that know

me millimeter-by-millimeter system-by-system so there is no mystique between us. No “secret

places” or “feminine mysteries,” only the tortuously exact technical exercise of nerves and pressure.

Oxytocin released, to flow between us, by the press of knuckles in my cunt.

When I come beneath Axis I cry out, I press my body close, I want that utter loss of control that I

feel nowhere else. Heartbeat in arched throat: nipple beneath straining tongue. And my mind is

hyper-activated, free-associating, and as Axis works in me I see the work we do together. I see puffs

of thirty-millimeter autocannon detonating on night-cold desert floor.

Violence doesn’t get me off. But getting off makes me revel in who I am: and I am violent, made for

violence, alive in the fight.

Does that surprise you? Does it bother you to mingle cold technical discipline with hot flesh and

sweat?

Let me ask you: why has the worst insult you can give a combat pilot always been weak dick?

Have you ever been exultant? Have you ever known that you are a triumph? Have you ever felt that

it was your whole life’s purpose to do something, and all that you needed to succeed was to be

entirely yourself?

To be yourself well is the wholest and best feeling that anything has ever felt.

It is what I feel when I am about to live or die.

The Werewolf’s missile arches down on us, motor burned out, falling like an arrow. He is trying a

Shoot On Prospect attack: he cannot find us exactly, so he fires a missile that will finish the search,

lock onto our heat or burn through our stealth with its onboard radar, or acquire us optically like a

staring human eye. Or at least make us react. Like the catcaller’s barked “Hey!” to evoke the flinch

or the huddle, the proof that he has power.

We are ringed in the vortex of a dilemma. If we switch off the stealth gown, the Werewolf fighter will

lock its radar onto us and guide the missile to the kill. If we keep the stealth system on, the missile’s

heat-seeker will home in on the blazing plasma.

I know what to do. Not in the way you learn how to fly a helicopter, but the way you know how to

hold your elbows when you gesture.

A helicopter is more than a hovering fan, see? The blades of the rotor tilt and swivel. When you turn

the aircraft left, the rotors deepen their bite into the air on one side of their spin, to make off-center

lift. You cannot force a helicopter or it will throw you to the earth. You must be gentle.

I caress the cyclic.

The Apache’s nose comes up smooth and fast. The Mojave horizon disappears under the chin. Axis’

gasp from the front seat passes through the microphone and into the bones of my face. The pitch

indicator climbs up toward sixty degrees, ass down, chin up. Our airspeed plummets from a hundred

and fifty knots to sixty.

We hang there for an instant like a dancer in an oversway. The missile is coming straight down at

us. We are not even running anymore.

And I lower the collective, flattening the blades of the rotor, so that they cannot cut the air at an

angle and we lose all lift.

We fall.

I toe the rudder. The tail rotor yields a little of its purpose, which is to counter the torque of the

main rotor: and that liberated torque spins the Apache clockwise, opposite the rotor’s turn, until we

are nose down sixty degrees, facing back the way we came, looking into the Mojave desert as it rises

up to take us.

I have pirouetted us in place. Plasma fire blows in wraith pennants as the stealth system tries to

keep us modest.

“Can you get it?” I ask.

“Axis.”

I raise the collective again and the rotors bite back into the air. We do not rise, but our fall slows

down. Cyclic stick answers to the barest twitch of wrist, and I remember, once, how that slim wrist

made me think of fragility, frailty, fear: I am remembering even as I pitch the helicopter back and

we climb again, nose up, tail down, scudding backward into the sky while aimed at our chasing killer.

Axis is on top now, above me in the front seat, and in front of Axis is the chin gun, pointed sixty

degrees up into heaven.

“Barb,” the helicopter whispers, like my mother in my ear. “Missile ten seconds. Music? Glare?”

No. No jamming. The Werewolf missile will home in on jamming like a wolf with a taste for pepper.

Our laser might dazzle the seeker, drive it off course—but if the missile turns then Axis cannot take

the shot.

It is not a choice. I trust Axis.

Axis steers the nose turret onto the target and I imagine strong fingers on my own chin, turning me

for a kiss, looking up into the red scorched sky—Axis chooses the weapon (30MM GUIDED PROX AP)

and aims and fires with all the idle don’t-have-to-try confidence of the first girl dribbling a soccer ball

who I ever for a moment loved—

The chin autocannon barks out ten rounds a second. It is effective out to one point five kilometers.

The missile is moving more than a hundred meters per second.

Axis has one second almost exactly, ten shots of thirty-millimeter smart grenade, to save us.

A mote of gray shadow rushes at us and intersects the line of cannon fire from the gun. It becomes

a spray of light. The Apache tings and rattles. The desert below us, behind us, stipples with tiny

plumes of dust that pick up in the wind and settle out like sift from a hand.

“Got it,” Axis says.

“I love you.”

“Axis.”

Many of you are veterans in the act of gender. You weigh the gaze and disposition of strangers in a

subway car and select where to stand, how often to look up, how to accept or reject conversation.

Like a frequency-hopping radar, you modulate your attention for the people in your context: do not

look too much, lest you seem interested, or alarming. You regulate your yawns, your appetite, your

toilet. You do it constantly and without failure.

You are aces.

What other way could be better? What other neural pathways are so available to constant

reprogramming, yet so deeply connected to judgment, behavior, reflex?

Some people say that there is no gender, that it is a postmodern construct, that in fact there are

only man and woman and a few marginal confusions. To those people I ask: if your body-fact is

enough to establish your gender, you would willingly wear bright dresses and cry at movies, wouldn’t

you? You would hold hands and compliment each other on your beauty, wouldn’t you? Because your

cock would be enough to make you a man.

Have you ever guarded anything so vigilantly as you protect yourself against the shame of

gender-wrong?

The same force that keeps you from gender-wrong is the force that keeps me from fucking up.

The missile is dead. The Werewolf Apostle is still up there.

“He’s turning off.” Axis has taken over defensive awareness while I fly. “Radar off. Laser off. He’s

letting us go.”

“Afraid of our fighters?” The mercenaries cannot replace a lost J-20S. And he probably has a

wingman, still hiding, who would die too if they stray into a trap.

“Yes,” Axis says.

“Keep the gown on.” In case he’s trying to bluff us into shutting down our stealth. “We’ll stick to the

terrain until he’s over the horizon.”

“Can you fly us out?”

The Apache is fighting me. Fragments of the destroyed missile have pitted the rotors, damaged the

hub assembly, and jammed the control surfaces. I begin to crush the shrapnel with the Apache’s

hydraulics, pounding the metal free with careful control inputs. But the necessary motions also move

the aircraft. Half a second’s error will crash us into the desert. I have to calculate how to un-jam the

shrapnel while accounting for the effects of that shrapnel on my flight authority and keeping the

aircraft stable despite my constant control inputs while moving at a hundred and thirty knots across

the desert.

“Barb,” I say. “Not a problem.”

And for an hour I fly without thought, without any feeling except the smooth stone joy of doing

something that takes everything.

The night desert is black to the naked eye, soft gray to thermal. My attention flips between my left

eye, focused on the instruments, and my right eye, looking outside. I am a black box like the Pear

Mesa AIs. Information arrives—a throb of feedback in the cyclic, a shift of Axis’ weight, a dune crest

ahead—and my hands and feet move to hold us steady. If I focused on what I was doing it would all

fall apart. So I don’t.

“Are you happy?” Axis asks.

Good to talk now. Keep my conscious mind from interfering with the gearbox of reflexes below.

“Yeah,” I say, and I blow out a breath into my mask, “yeah, I am,” a lightness in my ribs, “yeah, I

feel good.”

“Why do you think we just blew up a school?”

Why did I text my best friend the appearance and license number of all my cab drivers, just in case?

Because those were the things that had to be done.

Listen: I exist in this context. To make war is part of my gender. I get what I need from the flight

line, from the ozone tang of charging stations and the shimmer of distant bodies warping in the

tarmac heat, from the twenty minutes of anxiety after we land when I cannot convince myself that I

am home, and safe, and that I am no longer keeping us alive with the constant adjustments of my

hands and feet.

“Deplete their skilled labor supply, I guess. Attack the demographic skill curve.”

“Kind of a long-term objective. Kind of makes you think it’s not gonna be over by election season.”

“We don’t get to know why the AIs pick the targets.” Maybe destroying this school was an accident.

A quirk of some otherwise successful network, coupled to the load-bearing elements of a vast

strategy.

“Hey,” I say, after a beat of silence. “You did good back there.”

“You thought I wouldn’t.”

“Barb.” A more honest yes than “yes,” because it is my name, and it acknowledges that I am the

one with the doubt.

“I didn’t know if I would either,” Axis says, which feels exactly like I don’t know if I love you

anymore . I lose control for a moment and the Apache rattles in bad air and the tail slews until I stop

thinking and bring everything back under control in a burst of rage.

“You’re done?” I whisper, into the helmet. I have never even thought about this before. I am cold,

sweat soaked, and shivering with adrenaline comedown, drawn out like a tendon in high heels, a

just-off-the-dance-floor feeling, post-voracious, satisfied. Why would we choose anything else? Why

would we give this up? When it feels so good to do it? When I love it so much?

“I just . . . have questions.” The tactical channel processes the sound of Axis swallowing into a dull

point of sound, like dropped plastic.

“We don’t need to wonder, Axis. We’re gendered for the mission—”

“We can’t do this forever,” Axis says, startling me. I raise the collective and hop us up a hundred

feet, so I do not plow us into the desert. “We’re not going to be like this forever. The world won’t be

like this forever. I can’t think of myself as . . . always this.”

Yes, we will be this way forever. We survived this mission as we survive everywhere on this hot and

hostile earth. By bending all of what we are to the task. And if we use less than all of ourselves to

survive, we die.

“Are you going to put me on report?” Axis whispers.

On report as a flight risk? As a faulty component in a mission-critical system? “You just intercepted

an air-to-air missile with the autocannon, Axis. Would I ever get rid of you?”

“Because I’m useful,” Axis says, softly. “Because I can still do what I’m supposed to do. That’s what

you love. But if I couldn’t . . . I’m distracting you. I’ll let you fly.”

I spare one glance for the gray helmet in the cockpit below mine. Politeness is a gendered protocol.

Who speaks and who listens. Who denies need and who claims it. As a woman, I would’ve pressed

Axis. As a woman, I would’ve unpacked the unease and the disquiet.

As an attack helicopter, whose problems are communicated in brief, clear datums, I should ignore

Axis.

But who was ever only one thing?

“If you want to be someone else,” I say, “someone who doesn’t do what we do, then . . . I don’t

want to be the thing that stops you.”

“Bird’s gotta land sometime,” Axis says. “Doesn’t it?”

In the Applied Constructive Gender briefing, they told us that there have always been liminal

genders, places that people passed through on their way to somewhere else. Who are we in those

moments when we break our own rules? The straight man who sleeps with men? The woman who

can’t decide if what she feels is intense admiration, or sexual attraction? Where do we go, who do we

become?

Did you know that instability is one of the most vital traits of a combat aircraft? Civilian planes are

built stable, hard to turn, inclined to run straight ahead on an even level. But a military aircraft is

built so it wants to tumble out of control, and it is held steady only by constant automatic feedback.

The way I am holding this Apache steady now.

Something that is unstable is ready to move, eager to change, it wants to turn, to dive, to tear away

from stillness and fly .

Dynamism requires instability. Instability requires the possibility of change.

“Voice recorder’s off, right?” Axis asks.

“Always.”

“I love doing this. I love doing it with you. I just don’t know if it’s . . . if it’s right.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“Barb?”

“Thank you for thinking about whether it’s right. Someone needs to.”

Maybe what Axis feels is a necessary new queerness. One which pries the tool of gender back from

the hands of the state and the economy and the war. I like that idea. I cannot think of myself as a

failure, as something wrong, a perversion of a liberty that past generations fought to gain.

But Axis can. And maybe you can too. That skepticism is not what I need . . . but it is necessary

anyway.

I have tried to show you what I am. I have tried to do it without judgment. That I leave to you.

“Are we gonna make it?” Axis asks, quietly.

The airframe shudders in crosswind. I let the vibrations develop, settle into a rhythm, and then I

make my body play the opposite rhythm to cancel it out.

“I don’t know,” I say, which is an answer to both of Axis’ questions, both of the ways our lives are in

danger now. “Depends how well I fly, doesn’t it?”

“It’s all you, Barb,” Axis says, with absolute trust. “Take us home.”

A search radar brushes across us, scatters off the gown, turns away to look in likelier places. The

Apache’s engine growls, eating battery, turning charge into motion. The airframe shudders again,

harder, wind rising as cooling sky fights blazing ground. We are racing a hundred and fifty feet

above the Larger Mojave where we fight a war over some new kind of survival and the planet we

maimed grows that desert kilometer by kilometer. Our aircraft is wounded in its body and in its

crew. We are propelled by disaster. We are moving swiftly.

#I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter by ISABEL FALL #I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter #ISABEL FALL #gender identity

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3mp3r0r-k1n9 · 5 years ago

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Destiny: Heroes of the Light

New Light

Chapter 1: A Guardian Rises

We call it the Traveler, and its arrival changed us forever. Great cities were built on Mars and Venus. Mercury became a garden world. The human lifespan tripled. It was a time of miracles. We stared onto the galaxy and knew that it was our destiny to walk in the light of other stars-- but the Traveler had an enemy. A Darkness, which had hunted it for eons across the black gulfs of space. Centuries after our Golden Ages began, this Darkness found us and that was the end of everything. But it was also a beginning…

*Somewhere in a place called the Cosmodrome in Old Russia a small machine known as a ghost is being chased by aliens. These aliens are known as Fallen Kell and had been chasing this ghost for a while. As the ghost hides inside of one of the old rusty cars the Fallen pass by it and the ghost waited until the scavengers walked away. He then got out and sighed*

Ghost: *sighs* at this rate I’m never going to find my Guardian. Where are you, Guardian? *he then shakes off any self-doubts and floats through another pile of rusty cars*

*The ghost scans through the cars and passes by skeletal remains which had its skull pierced and all the Ghost could think about was “Ouch”. He then passes through other rusty vehicles but he was unaware of a pack of Fallen following him. Then the Captain howls for reinforcements and approaches toward the ghost. Then the Ghost pass by a pile of cars and scans remains which seemed to be the one he was looking for.*

Ghost: Is it possible? *the ghost then scans the body and confirms his suspicions* there you are *he then uses his energy to revive this new Guardian*

*This new Guardian wakes up and breathes heavily looking around all confused and looks at the Ghost*

Joseph: *breathes heavily* huh? Where am I? What happened?! Ugh! My head! *Grabs his head out of pain*

Ghost: haha! It worked! You're alive!

Joseph: ah! *Jumps back and hits the rusty car* A floating light bulb!

Ghost: *gets annoyed* hey that's rude! Do you know how long it took me to find you? Is what I get for reviving you? *Looks away*

Joseph: huh? Revive? *Thinks to himself and looks around and sees a wasteland of no other life forms to be seen for miles* What happened here? Who are you? Who am I?

Ghost: *the ghost looks at him* One, long story I'll let the speaker tell you. Second, I'm a ghost… well I'm your ghost. As for that, I can't say. Hm? *Sees an old I.D. tag in the car that he probably owned in his past life.* How about we call you Joseph?

Joseph: Joseph… can't see why not. *looks at his old I.D. tag* What happened to me?

Ghost: Well... let's just say you've been dead for a long time. So you're going to see a lot of things you won't understand yet. *He then hears the howls of the fallen and gets spooked* This is fallen territory. You're not safe here. We need to get you to the city. *Looks at his new Guardian* hold still. *Disappears in thin air and speaks in the Guardian's mind* don't worry I'm still with you. Follow the path in front of you and get inside the wall.

*Joseph then runs to the path and heads for the entrance inside the wall. As he entered the wall he sees a hallway with worn-down walls and flickering*

Ghost: Let's see what we can find to defend ourselves before the Fallen find us

*He walks through the buildings looks around for any weapons he could use. But when he got deeper into the building the lights were out then the ghost came out and lights his way through the darkness. but then here's crawling from above.*

Joseph: *gets surprised* what-

Ghost: *interrupts Joseph before they get caught* shhh! they'll hear you.

*Joseph then stays quiet and then walks on what appears to be a balcony. Then the ghost came out.*

Ghost: *appears in front of Joseph* hang tight. These guys love the dark and thrive from it but we don't. We need more light. I'll see what I can do.

Joseph: *whispers loudly* be quick this place gives me the creeps.

*The ghost then disappears and finds a power console and gets a bit annoyed*

Ghost: *sighs* another one of these hardened military systems… and a few centuries of entropy working against me.

*As he turned on the lights fallen began climbing down towards Joseph*

Ghost: uh oh! They're coming for us! *Sees an old Khvostov 7G-02 rifle* there next to the crate! Grab it!

*Joseph sees the rifle and grabs it then runs. As he passes through the hallway Fallen dregs began to shoot at him from behind and Joseph dodges the shots.*

Ghost: Eyes forward! Watch your tracker!

*He then turns the corner and sees a pack of Fallen.*

Ghost: uh. You know how to use it right? *The Ghost sounded concerned*

*In Joseph's mind he didn't know why but he knew how to use the weapon as if by instinct he then presses the bolt catch and pulls the charging handle and aims at the fallen. He pulls the trigger and shoots the heads of the dregs and one-shots the shanks. As he took out the enemies in front of him he charges through and throws his fusion grenade at five fallen troops. Then a Fallen came out of a corner but then he void melees the Fallen vandal and it disintegrates.*

Ghost: Nice shot!

*As he kept running and shooting his way out he runs into landmines and stops*

Joseph: *stops right in front of the laser and steps back* Whoa!

Ghost: trip mines!!! Don't touch them!

Joseph: Yeah you think?

*Joseph then goes under and over the lasers, avoiding ignition from the mines. He then passes by all mines and continues to run. After passing through a room full of fallen he finds himself outside and sees the stars of the night sky. Then a Fallen ship came and it was dropping off some Fallen troops to engage Joseph.*

Ghost: *gets annoyed* ugh! Can't we get a break? Take them out! I picked up a signal coming from that building. *Sets a waypoint for Joseph*

Ghost: got it! *He then holds off the Fallen and pushed them back.*

*He shoots off the Vandals on the small buildings off. He then ran out of ammo and sees a shotgun and ammo on the ground.*

Ghost: it must be your lucky day!

Joseph: How do you- *he was about to ask how the shotgun worked. Then again by instinct, he knew how to use it. He cocked the gun and loads the bullet in the shotgun. Then a Fallen Captain charges at him and as he finishes loads the last bullet and shoots at the Captain.* What the…

Ghost: watch out! *a Vandal comes out of the bushes and fires it’s gun at Joseph*

Joseph *dodges a bullet from a nearby Vandal and throw a grenade at the Vandal and took it out with the dregs behind him* thanks for the heads up!

*He then shoots down the Dregs in his path and heads inside the building. As he went inside the building Dregs jump on him but managed to use his void abilities to push them off and finish them. He then arrived in a room and sees a ship but it was surrounded by Fallen.*

Ghost: a ship! Take them out!

Joseph: don't have to tell me twice.

*He then charges at the Vandals and melees two Vandals disintegrating them then shoots his shotgun at two dregs. But then shanks came out of a room nearby and began firing at Joseph. He then took cover behind some crates then a Fallen Captain came to fight him*

Joseph: I need ammo for my other gun- *sees a magazine clip for his Khvostov 7G-02 rifle and takes it and reloads his weapon.* I got insane luck today!

Ghost: please don't jinx it.

*He then comes out over the crates and shoots the shanks one by one. Then he changes weapons and jumps towards the Captain shooting his face. The Fallen's lifeless body falls.*

Ghost: Phew! finally! Let me see if I can get us out of here.

*The Ghost comes out and they both face the ship.*

Ghost: *sighs* the ship has been here for a while. *The Ghost scans the ship* Hasn't made a jump for centuries but I think someone in the last city may be able to fix that problem. Fortunately does it Fallen haven't completely picked it clean.

Joseph: *ask out of concern* will it fly?

Ghost: *looks at Joseph* I can make it work.

*The Ghost then teleports inside the ship and turns on the power and engines. The ship worked. The ship then hovers over Joseph.*

Ghost: Okay, it's not got to break orbit but it will make it to the city.

Joseph: *scoffs* well that's comforting.

Ghost: hey, it's the best I can do for you. *The ship then faces upward towards the giant hole on the ceiling.* Now-- about that transmat…

*Then a howl can be heard coming from inside an entrance and sounded bigger than a Fallen Captain.*

Ghost: *gets spooked* yeah, bringing you in!

*the Ghost Teleports Joseph inside the ship. As the ship hovers over a huge Fallen Kell came out and was prepared to fire. Joseph then looks at the controls and the fallen began shooting. He didn't know what to do but his instincts kicked in and then turns on the ignition and took the wheel. The ship then blasts off and heads towards the Last City.*

Joseph: *sighs in relief* we got out of there ok. Thanks.

Ghost: *giggles in joy* no problem. You're my guardian after all.

Joseph: *he then realized something* say, I never did get to ask your name.

Ghost: oh, hmmm… *thinks to himself about having a name but he never had one* well... I don't have one. Most Ghosts don't anyway so you can call me whatever you like

Joseph: really? *Acts a bit confused* Well I hate to call you Ghost all the time. *He then thinks to himself of what to call his new and first companion. As he sees the clear night sky above him it then hit* hmmm… how about Cosmo?

Cosmo: Cosmo? *Thinks to himself and kind of likes it* I… I like it. *Giggles*

Joseph: *gets boastful* well you gave me my name so it's fair for me to name you myself.

Cosmo: *get a little confused* technically that was already your name. *He corrects him*

Joseph: yeah, but I was technically reborn and didn't know who I was. *He then turns to his ghost smiling* You found out my name so I owe you.

Cosmo: *he corrects him again* you owe me a lot. Three to be exact. *He then corrects himself* But since you named me you owe me two favors.

Joseph: yeah? Well, thanks again for saving me. *Smiles then looks outside and sees in the distance lights over the mountains.* Hm… I wonder what the City is like.

Cosmo: *gets excited over the topic of the Last City* oh, you're going to love it there and there's many like you as well.

Joseph: can't wait to see. *He then yawns, he was a bit tired* Mind taking the wheel? I'm feeling a bit tired

Cosmo: sure… partner.

Joseph: *he smiles at Cosmo then took his hands off the wheel and Cosmo took control and heads towards the Last City.*

~end of chapter 1~

~Disclaimer I do not own Destiny 1 or 2 nor do I own their comics. I only own the characters I created the rest belongs to Bungie and Activision~

#Destiny #Destiny2 #Fanfic #Guardian #Joseph #Cosmo #Ghost #FallenKell

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detectiveload69 · 4 years ago

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ArmA 2 Campaign - Harvest Red

First to Fight

Date: 18th October 2009 Date: 07:05 AM Main tasks: 1# find evidence 2# capture Pogorevka / 2# capture Novy Sobor WARNING: Depending on whether you chose NAPA or CDF, the mission starts on opposite sides of map. You have 4 villages to conquer - Pogorevka, Rogovo, Old Sobor, Novy Sobor. It's also first time when you're using High Command.If you don't feel confident with him - go back to Boot Camp.

The campaign begins with you in the middle of a firefight. After a brief fade to black you are in control of your character, but no matter what you do you are hit, but as it turns out you were daydreaming during the briefing. Shaftoe walks up and you are directed to follow him for a more detailed briefing. You can ask one of three questions, but it's not really necessary. You then can opt for training or crash until morning. I took the training option. The first is a mandatory obstacle course, which is easy if you know the C, X and Z keys for stand, crouch, and go prone. You can also practice skeet and rifle range shooting, these are optional. The rifle range is pretty easy, the skeet harder. You must report in, here you can shoot the breeze or just wait. Shooting the breeze just gives a bit of extra dialog. The mission ends with a cut scene of flying off in a chopper.

ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead has some of the same cheat codes as OFP and the original ArmA did. Like OFP and ArmA, they are activated by holding down the left Shift key and pressing the - key on the num pad. After executing this key sequence, type in the following. Savegame = Saves the game, even if you have already saved once. In this section all Campaigns for Arma 2 are listed. Additional addons required to be able to play the campaign are displayed in the list below so you don't have to visit the particular page. A link to all of those addons which are required can be found at the end of the page under the 'required' section. Arma 2 is a complex game, and it is not always easy to learn, as the game has a lot of content, and the tutorials might be a bit difficult and or not explain some things you should know. This is not a 100% finnished guide, but it includes the basics that should help you get started, i will edit this with your ideas and suggestions!

Into the Storm

As explained earlier your mission is to find the radio station and direct the air strike against it. You get the task of 'lighting up' the target with the laser designator. Take it when instructed to do so. When the chopper lands get out and proceed to RP Keyhole. Wait for the rest of your squad to show up. You will get a cut scene, then orders to move out. Go towards the waypoint until you get within 100 meters, then go towards the right instead of straight in, this will give you better cover. Enter the building as shown below and SAVE.

Arma 2 Campaign Walkthrough Ps4

You will encounter a hostage situation. You will also discover the radio station. Take out the guard on the other side of the wall at 11 o'clock, he proved to be more dangerous than the guards inside. Take out the other two guards and hit the dirt. When you are asked if you want to help rescue the hostage, answer yes, as you have already done so. Approach the prisoner and you will enter a dialog. Have him wait there while you tell you CO to call off the air strike as there are too many civilians close by, and that you are going to do the job with a Satchel. Go plant your bomb. Take out any soldiers you need to. Plant the bomb between the tower and the radio van and set it on a 600 second timer. This will let you accomplish other goals before you raise a big commotion. You can always touch it off manually once everything else is done. Go back to the doctor, tell him to follow you and escort the doctor to the indicated waypoint. If you don't have the correct waypoint, switch to map view, then set Escort Dr. Sova as current task. Once that is done you can touch off your bomb. Doing it this way you don't have so far to run to get to RP liquid. But first you want to check the town for other evidence of war crimes. Go to this farm shed at 091115. There you will find a female captive. When you talk to her, choose the 2nd option first. She will ask you to take her to Dr. Sova, who you already rescued. If you choose the first option, she will panic and flee, making the rescue a failure. When you get here there, your CO will ask about searching for the mass graves. Take the option. She will mark the mass grave on your map. It will be easy to spot, there are three trucks parked around it. SAVE Head to RP Madison. There you will get a choice to retire for the night or laser mark targets.

Of course I chose to laser mark targets. Go to the next waypoint but watch out for an enemy medic as you approach and there is an enemy machine gunner right at the place you want to be. Once the two tangos are down go to the vantage point and lase the building indicated by the red smoke. The next target is a camouflaged tank It is off to the left, you'll have to climb to a precarious place to mark it. Then there is a T-72 out in the open, mark it to complete the mission.

Amphibious Assault

Follow orders, you will be given a target. Go just enough past the pine trees to shoot the soldier, crouch so you are not as much of a target. When your target is down, hit the dirt, your M4A1 is no longer wearing the silencer so your first shot is going to get noticed. Don't run ahead, keep with your squad and engage targets as called out. Eventually you will meet up with another friendly squad in Chernogorsk ending the mission.

Harvest Red

Razor team is called in to join on the siege of Chernogorsk. You are now in command of a small squad. You start out on the roof of a building, go down the stairs to ground level, your squad is already ahead of you. Once at ground level order your troops to fall in and head for the next waypoint. You will let a call from Reaper that they are being pinned down by a sniper. Continue to the waypoint avoiding contact with enemy armor, you have no AT weapons. As you get close, Reaper will tell you the sniper's position and mark it on the map. Approach from the SE and he won't spot you before you can get him. Can't find him? See the screen shot. Don't take too long in shooting him or else an NPC will claim your prize. After the sniper is dealt with you will get a call to capture Lopotev. Proceed to the indicated waypoint. Once all of your team are in the area, you get a cutscene, what goes on you have no control over. You are riding with the captured Lopotev and your truck gets hit with a bomb. You wake up captured by the enemy. You are eventually rescued, but Lopotev has escaped and Miles (the commander of your squad) is KIA.

Razor Two

Synopsis: You now are tasked with finding Lopotev, again. However it is not possible. During the briefing with Dressler you will be given the name of another person to capture, Bardak. There are four possible places for him to hide out, but if he is not found in an hour or so he will flee to the Russian border and the mission will be a failure. In order to have a Flawless Victory, you must capture him alive. It is possible to do so, if he is in a car run it off the road or shoot out the tires, but make sure you don't kill him. Once the car is disabled he will get out and the game will arrest him. If you find him not in a vehicle it will be easy to walk up and arrest him, he is unarmed.

Details: During the intro, choose option 1. Grab a hummer and head to Elektrozavodsk. Talk to Captain Dressler. He will tell you three good places to search, another contact, and another person, Bardak, to capture. Go to the tent with the green flag. Interview Lt Marney. Go to Vyshnoye via Mogilevka. Don't waste your time with the camp at 111112 or the second camp at 112092, the first one has already been cleared and the second one is deserted. Watch out for enemy just north of Mogilevka. Once you get to Vyshnoye talk to the man by the water pump. He will mention a man named Malek and a farm south of you. Go to the farm, parking your hummer facing due east. and talk to the person inside. Be polite and he will tell you to check out the castle. The reason you should park the hummer facing east is that there is a chance Bardak may show up in this area! Walk to the castle. Next to a pup tent on a bench is a map case. Take it, it's a piece of evidence, also check for Bardak. Now head cross country to the camp at 083078, avoiding contact with the T-72 in Stary Sober and the Shilka in Novy Sobor, you are no match for them. This camp is active, so SAVE when you are about 200 meters away. Put your men in danger mode but watch your fire, there is a chance that Bardak will be here. Once it is clear enter the tent and pick up the photographs, this is a second piece of evidence. Now go southeast to Staroye. When you arrive at the center of town there will be dialog with a farmer in town. Follow him in your hummer to the cow shed and disembark. If you lose him, this is what the cow shed looks like. Have your men engage at will. You may need to call out targets. Once all enemy are gone, find the farmer (you may have to use the map) and follow him. Use the X4 command to speed things up if necessary, one time I played it he crawled. You will then get a suggestion that Bardak may be back in Elektrozavodsk, at the power plant. It so happens that the cow barn is next to a power line right of way. Follow the pole line south to the power plant, there may be enemy along this route but your hummer gunner should be able to take care of any trouble. You can also go back via the road. There is a good chance you will arrive to find the power station deserted except for an ill tempered gate keeper. He will tell you to search Solnichniy, head there via the coast road. Look for Bardak in the quarry just southwest of Solnichniy. In the quarry are dog tags, the third item of evidence. If you can't find the dog tags yourself order one of your squad to take them. If you have not found Bardak by now, head to Gorka via Berezine and wait, Bardak should be coming from the south. If you have not done so earlier this would be a good time to top off your fuel tank as you leave Solnichniy. If the radio call has already come though stating that Lopotev is in route from Shakhova, chances are you are too late, unless you are already in Gorka. If you are in Gorka, head south to Shakhova, you will be able to intercept Bardak on the road south with no trouble.

One Week Later

The mission starts out with riding on an MVTR with bicycles. You are auto ejected and the first task is to ride about 300 meters on bicycles to LZ Oregon. BUG ALERT For some reason, you squad gets off 200 meters away from the chopper and walks the rest of the way. Order your crew into the Ospry then get in yourself. A cutscene in the chopper with some dialog and the mission ends.

Manhattan

Actually you are still in the Ospry. The first task is to report to Cpt. Shaftoe. You are auto ejected near the entrance to the base, but you may have to order your squad out. Go to the main gate for a short cutscene. Then get in the hummer parked near the guard shack and up the hill. Report to the officer with the laptop. There you will get a big list of tasks. There seems to be no particular order in which you need to do these. You have a choice of a hummer, LAV-25 and a AAPV7A1 for transport, as well as the hummer you drove up in. Whatever you drive, take good care of it, there are no repair facilities. The LAV-25 is the best of the lot. It's pretty good up hills and it has more armor than the hummer, you can run into a lot of stuff and not damage it. You can also use the UAV terminal, but you cannot control where the plane goes, just the look angle. You can also call in artillery strikes, however: You are allowed one and only one arty strike so don't use it until you really have to. Keep the hummer since it is faster going up hills. Arrest Kikolayev first, since is location is less than a km away from Star Force Base. Someone does not want Kikolayev taken alive, his house is bombed as you approach. You may see a man, but he usually will be killed in the explosion. You still get credit for this task, so arrest Lagushina next. Go to Krasnostav. On the way you get a radio message about a bombing in Red Square, but it is not germane to the game yet. If you get to Krasnostav between 11:00 and 12:30 you will find her in front of the church. The arrest will go smoothly BUT Pull the hummer up close to her so that she will get in, otherwise you will have to chase her later. You are instructed to take her to LZ Jersey and the game auto saves. If any tangos show up have your troops clear the area before heading out. You will get credit for clearing a sentry camp by doing so. The game will auto save. Get your men in the hummer. The road is safe, but when you get within 300 meters of the LZ, SAVE. Drive to the LZ, once the request is triggered, drive due east towards the woods, just behind the first tree line as shown. From that safe distance your gunner will be able to take out the two enemy UAZ that show up without much trouble. Drive back to the landing zone when your chopper arrives. Don't worry if your prisoner appears to run off, the chopper pilot will still say she is aboard. If it doesn't work out, Revert to your save point and try again.

Once the chopper takes off and the game auto saves go into the woods indicated in red on the map. There is a sentry post at Black Mountain and one at the other focus of the red ellipse. Put your men in danger mode and carefully clear the two camps. Be careful! Even if the system says you have cleared the camp, there may still be enemy about. After these two camps are clear in ver 1.02 you can return to base, even though you have not cleared other camps, you will get credit for this task. For 1.03 you need to find and clear at least 4 camps. Next head to Gorka. You'll find the weapons cache behind the church, and the priest runs out. Say you aren't going to report it and he'll give you a lot of intel. Follow this link to see how the game plays out if you report the cache The game will auto save. Head to Novy Sobor, you can go by road, there is no enemy activity there at present. Go to the large farm building at 069076. There you will get a cutscene in which you are told there are 6 insurgent sentry posts and the approximate location of the main camp. The location will be at either 088048 or 102019. Before leaving, fuel up at the gas station east of Novy Sobor you are probably down to 1/2 a tank by now. If you want a little diversion, check out the church, it is an enterable building and pretty nice inside.

Go to Gvozdno, although if the main camp is on the way there, you might want to clear that objective first, see below. If you are lucky, you will find the Gun runners truck in Gvozdno, finishing that task. Even if you don't find the gun runner here, wander around town eavesdropping on various conversations and listening to the broadcast radio with news about Russia. Someone is trying to blame the Moscow bombing on the NAPA group you have been friendly to, the bombing is probably a false flag attack. When you are close to the area where the main camp is, SAVE. Although the game auto saves after you spot the camp, it is usually too late for you to avoid getting blown away by a T-72. When you sight the main camp, follow orders, do not engage, there is no way you can stand up to the tank and BMP without backup. NOW is the time to call support. The T-72 is your biggest problem, so order a guided armor strike. BUG ALERT Although 'Boomerang' says they are ready to rock on your order, there is no way to do it. The communications menu is blank. However, if you check the map, Boomerang seems to be moving on their own. Just sit tight and let the NPCs do most of the work. Once it looks like progress is no longer being made, move in with your APC. If you have trouble finding the last enemy loon, run over the field hospital, they will be hiding in there. If you haven't found the gun runners yet, the eastern end of their route is 098029, from there, they go west go Gvozdno, 084049, the intersection at 072054, just north of Grishino, just north of the airport, 022044 and their main cache at the western end of the route is at 020037. Now that it's later in the day, return to base and give the UAV another shot. Now the picture is better and you can spot enemy light armor and aircraft at the small airstrip northeast of Krasnostav. The gun on your APC will make fast work of the squad near the choppers. You will also find a lone soldier standing near a repair truck. Oddly enough, your troops won't call him out or fire on him. But if you get out of the APC and try to approach him, he will fire at you. If you wound him he won't fire back and he will confess that he is Nikola Nikitin. The game gives no other option than to kill him. You have to do it yourself, you can't even order your troops to finish him off. Once he is dead it will be confirmed that this was the enemy leader you were looking for and you get orders to return to base. RTB and report to Cpt. Shaftoe to end the mission.

Bitter Chill

The marines have been ordered out of the area. You last task is to go to Spukayevas house secure the 'Operation Cobot' files linking Chedaki involvement in the Moscow bombing and destroy everything else. The only vehicles available are a truck and a hummer that's almost out of fuel. Take the hummer anyway and don't take time to refuel, you need to get to the house before the Chedaki do. When you get here SAVE, then get everyone out weapons hot. However, if you get there fast enough, you will be able to recover the documents, blow up the house with your satchel and be out of there before anyone arrives. It seems like you are home free, but the radio chatter from Manhattan base is cut off. High command orders you to investigate. You will be under fire as you approach, but just keep going, your gunner will be able to keep you alive and down a few hostiles. You get a cutscene that you have no control over. You find out from the survivors that the Chedaki attacked the base, perhaps with Russian SpetNatz help and they are after the Razor squad (you). When you regain control, you might find yourself under fire, be ready. But you will find friendly NAPA forces to the east. They offer to give you a ride. Take it, as the Russians have SAMS that will take out the chopper if you call for extract. Once your conversation with HQ is over, follow the NAPA leader, he knows the only safe way out of there. He will lead you to a red hatchback. Get you and your troops in and enjoy the ride. Unfortunately Russian road blocks are everywhere and you can't make it to the pickup point. There will be a dialog and a choice to find NAPA or CDF, choose to head to NAPA on foot. Follow this link to see how to play it if you decide to choose CDF. Avoid contact if possible. Don't head directly to the waypoint, too much armor that direction. Head due east until you are in the woods, then turn north. When you get to the waypoint you will get a cutscene in which you are declared officially MIA but are instructed to work covert operations with NAPA. The mission ends after the cutscene. I also tried to play this mission by setting the bomb on a 10 minute timer, so that the attack on FOB Manhattan does not get trigged until safely away. This does work up to a point. There is no attack, and you can call the chopper in for extract, but it gets blown out of the air by a SAM and you die, so the only known way to play this mission is as described above

Delaying the Bear

Continuity Alert! You start off at a point southeast of where Bitter Chill ended, and the map shows you going back to the original location. I'm not even sure why this mission is in here, as Badlands also starts near Novy Sobor. Go to the Nearest waypoint. Order your troops in the truck before you get in, else it may drive off without them. The truck drives about 300 meters or so and the lead car is ambushed and you are auto ejected from the truck, changing your plans. Go to the new rally point. Do not head directly there, go east into the woods and use the forest and terrain for concealment and cover. The mission ends when you reach the backup convoy.

Badlands

Your task is to take four villages, starting with Novy Sobor. You now have the option of commanding the NAPA units as well as your own squad. Use control-spacebar to switch command modes. The NAPA squads main skill is getting killed, so leave them behind at first. The game now plays much like 'Warfare' but there are no respawns. Don't go straight in, but go west and approach along the road, taking the first Strongpoint. SAVE. Then take cover with your squad (you'll have to command them to specific locations, otherwise they will stay out in the open) behind the red brick building SAVE then peek out to engage targets as they approach. Your biggest headache will be 3 UAZs. Once you clear Noby Sobor you get several long and somewhat confusing cutscenes. At the end of the cutscenes have your medic heal the civilians, you get an APC that can be deployed as a MHQ to start your base. Move the APC to 062085 before you build the base, that is more centrally located to the objectives, and far enough away not to be attacked. Set up the HQ, build a barracks and with the cash buy an RPG launcher and three rounds for yourself. Now call the other squads in to guard the base. If you have enough money buy an RPG soldier. Next attack Stary Sobor, although it is easy to reach the HQ stronghold and 'take&qout; the objective, be aware that there will still be hostiles that you have to eliminate. You will need all three rounds to dispatch enemy APCs. Watch your fire, there are friendly NPCs that show up as well. When all enemy near Stary Sobor have been eliminated, RTB. You should have enough supplies to build a heavy factory, if not wait a few minutes. Replenish your RPG rockets. Although you have enough money to by a (APC), it will just be rocket fodder for the enemy RPG soldiers. Spend the money instead on 8 infantry. Add a couple of machine gunners another RPG solider and the rest plain infantry. Attack Rogovo by having everyone hold fire, approaching within 300 meters, then go prone and stealth. Crawl in until at least 4 men say that they are ready to fire. Have them open up, taking many by surprise. After Rogovo is cleared you will get a radio message. This is a critical choice in the game!

Arma 2 Walkthrough

Depending on what you do here, the game will branch into two possible paths. However it is possible to win the war either way. Follow this link to see how to play it ignoring the radio message (option 2) thereby not killing Prizrak. If you take option one the game will say the current task is to assassinate Prizrak 'Borrow' the open truck located at 046085, get all your men in and head to the indicated waypoint. There you will get a request to defend the village of Vishanore against an attack. Say that you will help. Head to the next waypoint. You will be reminded of the assassination. It's on the way to Vishanore if you go as the crow flies. You will find that your target is the priest that you met at the weapons cache in Manhattan who is also the evil Prizrak. You can't talk him out of anything. After you kill the priest, postpone the defense of Vishnore unless you want a very frustrating bloodbath. RTB and rearm. Then head for Pogorevka Park the truck in Rogovo and continue on foot to Pogorevka. Once you take Pogorevka, the mission will conclude successfully, with NAPA and CDF now allies.

Dogs Of War

You are tasked with clearing all towns in the northern provinces. You have the choice of being in command or having an AI commander. Let the AI command. Get in a UAZ and take each area in turn as ordered. Don't worry if it says you 'failed' because sometimes friendly AI troops will take the town before you do. It's a cakewalk until ordered to take Nadezhdino, although sometimes you will lose a town, if that happens the AI will instruct when to recapture it. Get yourself some night vision goggles off a dead officer while the going is easy, you will probably need them later and you won't be able to buy any at the base. There will be a grenade launcher at Nadezhdino that will give you trouble as you approach. You can either stop here and go on foot or try to rush past, hide behind the strongpoint then sneak up from behind and kill the operator. Vyshnoye will be next on the list and it is even harder to take. By now you have a good deal of money saved up, so this is a good time to RTB and get some more powerful gear. The easiest way back to base is to go north from Nadezhdino until you find a power line right of way, then follow it west. The power lines end at a receiving station very close to your base. Once there, SAVE. Then buy a MD-24D. Order the pilot out of the Chopper. Board the Chopper as pilot and have the original pilot get in back. Have your squad wait at the base where it is safe. Ignore what the AI commander says what to do next. Instead start looking for the ChDKZ base (Spoiler: one possible locations map grid 115098) You know when you are near, because you will get shot down by AA fire, most other targets do not have very good air defense. After you die, revert to your save point. This time purchase a T-72. Order the crew out, get in and order two of the crew to get in anywhere and have the third crew member wait with your team. Switch to drivers seat and head to where you saw the base. There is no easy way to get there, you have to go somewhere else first. The best way to avoid contact is to follow the power lines south to the power station, the only place that might be a problem is passing Chernogosk. When you are near the power station, head north up the road, then follow the power lines northeast. When you crest this hill SAVE. See the radar antenna on the pole revolving? Switch to gunners seat and order your driver to advance and use a Sabot round to destroy it. When your cannon has reloaded, advance and blow away the first armor you see, then back up while reloading. You'll have a BDRM and a couple of BMP2s to deal with. Make sure that you get the BMP2s before they get you. If you have some damage, you might want to head west and take Strayoe first, then you can heal, repair and rearm before heading back to Msta, the harder target. Head back from the northwest. You will have two T-72 to deal with at some point. Before you attempt to destroy the base you will need to take Msta first. The base structures appear to grow back as fast as you shoot them, so get all the peripherals, such as mg nests, at and aa tripods first, then destroy the base buildings one right after the other, you will then get credit for destroying the base. Unfortunately, unlike the original 'Warfare' destroying the enemy base does not end the mission, you still have to capture all towns. Alternatively, you can simply take objectives as called for, and destroy the base when you get to Msta, but even with night vision, it's much easier to destroy the base during the day. Now that the base is destroyed, work your way back to the next objective called for.

If either you or the AI take Mogilevka, you will get a side task about transporting an important prisoner. Ignore it for now, it is more critical to take as many towns as you can before it gets dark. SAVE as you take each objective. You can also repair-rearm and heal at each town you take. The next place with heavy resistance will be Elektrozavodsk, be ready for at least one T-72 and some BMP-2s. It is best not to take it on until ordered to do so, as you will have AI reinforcements then. Once it is dark, you can go to Mogilevka, at the indicated waypoint to pick up the prisoner. He won't get in your tank, so just park it, tell your crew to wait and take the 5 ton parked behind a wall across the street from the prisoner. He will get in. Once he does, SAVE. You will need to ignore the waypoint, as it will point to the next town to capture, not HQ. Avoid contact, cutting cross country when it will save time. Once your drop off the prisoner, buy a helicopter. While you are waiting for the chopper to be delivered, or soon after, the prisoner will tell of a radio station on an island to the east. Order the pilot out, have him wait for you, get in as pilot and head for the waypoint. When you are within 1000 meters, SAVE. There appears to be nothing dangerous, but the side channel claims the site is heavily guarded and are ordered to take them all out. It turns out that the enemy is hiding in the woods, but your gunner will be able to spot and eliminate many of them at the tower site (map grid 134120). Do Not kill the officers near 132121! Lobotov is among them and it is critical that he be taken alive. Make several passes until all targets at the tower site are eliminated. Land at 136121 and SAVE. Get out of the chopper, leave your gunner behind. Verify that the tower site is clear and head west. Use this building for cover and SAVE. Go to the right, hiding behind the outhouse. Carefully peek around the corner and kill the man lying in the dirt. Do Not kill the one in the dark uniform. Walk up to him and press the return key (or mouse wheel) for 'greeting' This will arrest him, and call in a chopper for extraction. Sit tight, the chopper will land right on your position and take you and Lobotov back to base. Once you get there, you have to transport Lovotov to the Russians. Once at the checkpoint, Spetznats try to kill Lovotov. Bug Alert! Even though you thought you left your squad safe and sound at base, they wind up with you after the cutscene. When you get control, run back over the bridge with your squad and have them hide under the bridge. Then head to the north side of the building on the left, there you may find 3 spetznats with an RPG ready to take out the truck! Kill them all! If you don't find them there, carefully work your way around south, kill all spetnatz, saving after every kill. Once you get 'Shagarov got him away', head back over the bridge, but stay away from the truck. You'll get some side chatter and the 'Dealing With Russians' task is completed. If you are lucky, the north will be announced as clear, and you will get a 'Flawless Victory' briefing screen. This will lead to

War That Never Was

You are successful and have assassinated Prizark; this unites NAPA and CDF: You get a closing cutscene in which officially nothing ever happened, but you get recognition for your accomplishment.

Other Possible endings

There are four other possible outcomes:

New Born Republic

Arma 3 Unlock Campaign

You are successful, but did not assassinate Prizark and were allied with NAPA: The area is freed of communist influence, the mission is considered successful, but Prizark has never been captured.

Setting Sail

You have failed, but are close enough to the coast to attempt to get a boat and leave.

Missing in Action

You have failed, and are so far inland that your only hope is to get to a friendly RV. However, the RV turns out to be a trap and you all die, but not before taking as many enemy as you can with you.

Revelation

You were successful, but did not kill Prizark, were allied with CDF and did not capture Lovotov or successfully transport him to the Russian border: You go to meet the NAPA rep and the Russians decide to use an atomic bomb, killing you all, so I'd really call this a 'fail' However, if you succeed in taking Lovotov to the Russian check point, you'll get a Flawless Victory and the first ending.

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brax-was-here · 5 years ago

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Scarlet Briar: The Redemption of Ceara Chapter 11

Written by: Braxxus

Chapter 11: It’s All Going To Be Ok

Sometimes help is right in front of us

East of Sanctum Harbor in the ruins of Fort Mariner, Guardsman Taranis was going about his daily routine of going over documents concerning the cleanup effort of Lion’s Arch.

“Sir, we have an issue in the harbor.” A member of the Lionguard spoke entering the tent, saluting him. Taranis looked up at him, a concerned look on his face. He already knew what was happening.

“What is it?” he asked anyway.

“There is some kind of energy spire, for lack of a better term, erupting from the water. It looks to be from the same area Scarlet’s drill machine breached the bottom of the harbor.

“Scarlet…” Taranis said to himself.

“Sir?”

Taranis took a deep breath. “Get some of the Priory brainiacs to check it out. See what they can find. Then report back to me immediately.”

“Yes sir.” The soldier saluted and ran from the tent. Taranis stepped out into the morning sun and looked out over the fort ruins. Slowly he looked at the ground before him.

“I…I understand.” He muttered. He sighed and returned to his desk. Sitting, he pulled a blank sheet of parchment in front of him, grabbed a quill and ink bottle and started writing.

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Amaranda stood on a beach, looking out over the calm water before her. A light breeze blew past her. She was in the Dream, in a place familiar to her.

“She is a fragile flower.” a voice spoke lightly echoing through the air. “Though she looks strong against the breeze, that strength hides a fragility that must be cared for, for even the slightest faltering can cause it to lose its petals and whither.”

“Yes, mother.”

“She may not be the monster she once was, but there in resides a brokenness that will take much time to heal.” Another voice spoke behind her.

Amaranda turned, looking over her shoulder. “Ventari…” she gasped. The ghostly image of the aged centaur walking slowly towards her. He stood beside her and looked out over the water.

“Her mind has been trampled upon, stripped bare and used without her control.” He turned to her. “Amaranda the Lonesome. She has come to trust you. Should she falter, you must be her rock, her foundation. The pillar which she leans upon when she struggles to carry the weight on her shoulders.” Amaranda stared at him for a moment, then nodded.

“Now, the time is approaching.” He tapped his staff against the ground, sending out a low rumbling that echoed through the air. Amaranda snapped awake. She was laying on the floor of the small room in the lab. She checked the bed for Ceara, but it was empty.

“Oh, no…” she got up and hurried from the room. Rushing into the lab, she found Ceara dressed in her armor, packing various small devices into different satchels. The two Asura were there as well standing quietly nearby, looking on.

“Ceara!? What are you doing!?” Amaranda asked sternly, but somewhat confused. Ceara didn’t answer her, seemingly ignoring her. “Ceara!?” Amaranda asked again, rushing over and grabbing Ceara’s arm.

“What does it look like? I’m leaving to go face that thing.” Ceara replied without looking at her.

“Not without us. We’re going to help!” Amaranda said.

“No…no you aren’t.” Ceara replied sternly. “You three are staying here. It’s me, she wants. Not you. If you go, she’ll kill all of you.”

“You don’t know that. We can stop her. All of us together. You don’t have to go alone.” Amaranda looked at her. “Mother wants to see you…”

Ceara closed her eyes. “Mother?” she said under her breath, a slight hint of disgust in her voice. She turned to Amaranda. “Tell her I’m ok.”

“Don’t do this.” Amaranda pleaded.

“I have to.”

“There are other paths. The road doesn’t have to end this way!” Amaranda continued to plead. Ceara pulled her arm away and stepped away from her. “Mother weeps for you.” Amaranda paused. “I was happy to have you back, I was happy to call you sister…” Amaranda said, her voice choking as she turned away from Ceara, covering her face to hide the tears that were starting to form. Ceara paused, looking at the floor. Her chest was heavy.

“I’m sorry.” She said, taking a deep breath holding back a tear that was forming in her own eye. She activated the waypoint transporter and disappeared from the lab. Silence filled the room, save for the random beep and low hum of some machinery.

“She left the rifle.” Shikijo whispered.

“Yeah but look. There’s something attached to it.” Joujou said quietly, pointing to the stock of the weapon. The duo looked at the small disc shaped device, two blue lights blinking in sequence.

“What is it?” he asked. “Looks like some kind of tracking device?”

“And look over there. The same devices attached to those brand crystals.” The duo looked inquisitively at each other.

“What are we going to do? We can’t just let her go fight that thing alone!” Amaranda whimpered.

“We aren’t.” Joujou stated matter of factly. “We’re going after her. She’s not the only one with a waypoint transporter.”

Amaranda looked at the duo. “How do we find out where she went?”

“Easy!” Shikijo responded upbeat. “We know that ghostie is going to do something in Lion’s Arch, so it’s an easy guess that your sis went there. All we have to do is access the waypoint network and find out which one received a transport signal within the past few minutes.” He walked to a terminal and started typing on the floating keyboard. Amaranda watched as a bunch of random numbers and information displayed rapidly across the screen. After a few moments it stopped. Shikijo touched one key and a partial map of Tyria appeared. A small blip was flashing in Lion’s Arch.

“There.” Joujou said, pointing at it. “She ported to the southwestern part of the harbor.”

“The south part of the city. Can we get there now?” Amaranda asked.

“We’ll need to gather some gear and then we can be on our way.” Joujou replied.

Amaranda responded ecstatically “Please hurry!”

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Scarlet hovered in the air above the wreckage of the Breachmaker, the trail of leyline energy streaming behind her. Focusing, she held her hands above her, energy crackling around her body.

“And now it’s time…” she smiled. Moments passed but nothing was happening. She looked at her hands for a moment, a puzzled look on her face before reaching out again. Still nothing. “What is wrong!?” she asked out loud. She concentrated, focusing her mind again, reaching towards the sky above her. It felt as if something was fighting against her. After a few moments the air above her seemed to stir. She focused her mind, concentrating harder until a tear seemed to appear before her. She started laughing, trying to contain her excitement. The rift slowly opened wider allowing her to see the Mists on the other side. She could feel the energy starting to seep through, slowly flowing towards her. She felt a sensation as the two energies started to mix within her ghostly body, a power of which she had never dreamed. She brought her hands back down to her, looking at her palms. She was glowing brighter than ever. She closed her eyes and focused. She felt every bit of her being go numb as she gasped for air. Opening her eyes, she looked at her hands again. She was no longer glowing. Her body was solid, her hands shaking.

“It…it worked…” she gasped looking down at her new body. She started laughing to herself, stopping abrupty. “She’s here…” She looked over her shoulder to see Ceara standing on the cliff not far away. “She came home…” Scarlet slowly floated down to Ceara, the two staring at each other for what seemed for hours.

“Well, how do I look…sister…?” Scarlet asked somewhat snidely. She slowly turned in the air, before looking at Ceara, somewhat menacingly.

“Do you know what you are doing?” Ceara asked.

Scarlet was slightly dumbfounded by the question. “What a silly question to ask. Of course, I do. You do as well. Remember, we are one and the same.”

“No…we are not. You aren’t a part of me.” Ceara spat at her. “You’re a part of that jungle dragon!”

Scarlet closed her eyes and chuckled to herself. “Believe what you will…Scarlet…Briar.” Her voice resonating a hint of the same voice Ceara heard when she saw the Eternal Alchemy. The voice of the jungle dragon. “I am a part of you. Just as a part of me resides within all Sylvari.”

“You realize that combining all this energy together could destroy this whole section of Tyria? You do know that, right?”

Scarlet tilted her head in disbelief. “Am I…am I hearing sympathy for Tyria…from you? You of all people. Did that seer mess with your head? Have you forgotten what you have done over the past year?

“That was not me. That was you. You made me do those things.” Ceara replied sternly.

“Oh no no…” Scarlet quipped shaking her finger at Ceara. “You were the one that planned out everything…that designed every-“ Scarlet was cut short by a loud pop and a searing pain in her left shoulder. She slowly looked down to see black ichorous fluid oozing from a hole in her shoulder. Tiny bolts of electricity arced over her shoulder and down her arm. She looked back at Ceara who was holding a small pistol.

“You…you shot me!?” she said in disbelief, somewhat mortified.

A thorned vine suddenly shot past Ceara, grazing the side of her head. Shocked, she looked back at Scarlet who was looking at her with a severe disgusted look on her face.

“Well, it’s a shame really. I was aiming for your head…” Ceara sneered, looking at the pirate woman’s pistol with disappointment. “I guess I should have check to see of the barrel was straiiiAAAHHH!!” In an instant, she was pulled off the ground, strung up by vines. Scarlet marched up to her, grabbing the pistol from her hand, crushing it.

“Well, what other toys do you have!?” Scarlet growled at Ceara. She ripped the holster from her Ceara’s hip and crushed the aetherblade pistol within it in her hand. She then looked at the gauntlet on Ceara’s right arm.

“That thing…” she sneered. Grabbing it, she crushed it and tore it from Ceara’s arm. She grabbed the armored shoulder plate on Ceara’s right shoulder and ripped it off as well. She narrowed her eyes and held up a hand. A vine sprouted from the ground and wrapped around the pack on Ceara’s back, ripping it from her body. Scarlet motioned and the vine turned towards her, bringing the power pack in front of her. Scarlet grabbed it, digging her thorned fingers into the outer casing, tearing the cover off, revealing the leyline power cells inside. Scarlet looked at them for a moment, then up at Ceara.

“I seem to remember there being three of them in here, not two.” Scarlet said inquisitively, holding the pair of cells up in front of her.

“Well, you see, I was bored last night so I used one to power a little pleasurable toy for myself.” Ceara said sarcastically, a wide smile on her face. Scarlet looked at her somewhat dumbfounded for a moment.

“I guess Lord Faren still isn’t available.” She hissed before absorbing the energy of the cells into herself, casting the empty casings over the cliff.

“Well, he is rich, you know. He has women hanging all over him.”

“Mmhmm…maybe if you had kept your roses, he might have been attracted to you. Should I cut the other one off as well so at least you’re even on both sides?”

“Cut the other…?” Ceara looked on the ground to see the remains of one the stalks from her head mangled by the thorn vine that swept past her. “It’ll grow back.” Ceara said, a half smile on her face.

“I was hoping to return home…” Scarlet spoke as she approached Ceara. “To you…” she whispered as she caressed Ceara’s chin. Ceara sneered slightly at her before spitting at her face.

“You dare…” Scarlet growled, wiping her chin. She raked her thorn tipped fingers across Ceara’s face, slicing open her skin. Ceara watched as similar wounds appeared on Scarlet’s face, the same black fluid seeping from the them. Scarlet paused a moment, bringing her hand up and slowly wiping her cheek. She stared at the fluid on her fingers, rubbing them together before looking at Ceara.

“We are still connected…” she whispered, smiling at Ceara. She noticed the hole in Ceara’s bodice where she had been stabbed by the Pact Commander. “Memories.” She whispered as she stuck her finger through the hole, the ice-cold touch against Ceara’s skin cause her to lightly gasp. “You were at death’s door that day. That is why I left you. But it seems I made an error in judgement. Somehow, you survived. Nine lives, I suppose.”

“You left because your ‘daddy’ cut you off.” Ceara remarked snidely. “You would have ceased to exist. That’s why you needed the Dream. You needed the energy to survive. ‘Daddy’ didn’t need you anymore.”

Scarlet sneered and turned away from Ceara. “He didn’t leave. He was awakened by you. He didn’t need YOU anymore. And myself? Now, now I have this…” gesturing at her own body. “I have no need for you anymore either, but…” she looked over her shoulder at Ceara . “I do need your intellect.”

Ceara laughed out loud. “It’s just as I thought…you’re dumb!”

Scarlet’s jaw dropped for a moment before her face turned into a sneer. “You dare mock me?”

“Of course!”

Scarlet marched back to her and raised her hand to her face. Ceara continued to laugh. “You didn’t see it, did you? All that time you spent in my head trying to play “daddy’s favorite” you didn’t see it at all.” Ceara continued through her laughter.

Scarlet paused. “What are you talking about?”

Ceara continued to laugh under her breath. “At first I didn’t know what was happening. Wasn’t sure if I what I was doing was my own ambition or something elses. But eventually I figured it out. I knew I couldn’t stop you. I couldn’t beat you. You constantly fed off the power of the jungle dragon, getting stronger.” She paused, smiling. “I wasn’t called the ‘silver-tongued sylvari’ for nothing.”

“Out with it!” Scarlet shouted.

“I gave in to you. Gave you all the knowledge you needed to go through with your plans. But all the while, I was pulling YOUR strings. Maneuvering you into your own downfall. You may have thought that breaching that leyline would awaken Mordremoth, but what I did was maneuver you into alerting Trahearne and his merry little army the location of the jungle dragon, without you even knowing it. Even now, the Pact is mobilizing to attack your precious ‘father’,” Ceara said, surly defiance filled her voice.

“You lie!”

“Do I? Why don’t you go to the desert wastes of Maguuma and check for yourself? Or you could stay here and try to open that rift-“ Ceara was cut off by Scarlet’s fingers grabbing her face.

“Enough!” Scarlet barked.

“Scarlet Briar!” a voiced shouted behind her. She turned to see Amaranda and the two asura approaching on the cliff.

“Hm, it seems the cavalry has arrived.” Ceara muttered, seeing her breath through Scarlet’s cold fingers.

Scarlet glanced back at Ceara. “I’ll deal with you later.” She pulled her hand away from Ceara’s face slowly, dragging her thorned fingers across her cheeks, scratching Ceara’s skin. She waved her hand whimsically, causing the vines holding Ceara to sway back and forth violently before tossing Ceara over the cliff’s edge out into the water.

“No!” Amaranda screamed as Ceara disappeared over the edge.

“So, seer, little ones…there would have been a place for you in the new world to come, but you have chosen to stand against the jungle dragon. Such a shame.” Scarlet sneered.

Ceara had seconds to activate the shield device in her satchel before impacting the water below. Though the shield saved her from certain death, hitting the water still knocked the wind out of her.

“At least the water is warm.” She thought to herself, attributing the fact to the leaking leyline energy was keeping it heated. She broke the surface, drawing in a deep breath. The air at the water’s surface smelled slightly of ozone.

“She’s definitely not the brightest bulb.” Ceara drew a deep breath. “I didn’t think she would do something like that.” she muttered looking up at the cliff. “I hate to say that about myself. I could have been killed and she would not exist anymore…unless…unless that body does give her her own life now?” She swam towards a piece of wreckage from the Breachmaker. Climbing out of the water, she stood looking at the ridge.

“Thorns. I didn’t anticipate her destroying all my gear. Now that she’s preoccupied with Amee and the asura, this would have been the best chance…eh?” A soft glow in the water near the wreckage caught her eye. “Well…there you are….” She smirked to herself.

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“We’re getting readings off the spire. It looks like that rift leads to the Mists and it’s mixing with the leyline energy from the breach.” Bodil said. She was a norn scholar of the Durmand Priory. She and a few others had been called in by the Lionguard to investigate the energy disturbance in the harbor. “There’s readings of other energy in the mix as well.”

“Alert. Unusual energy readings on the south cliff.” The golem with them announced.

“South cliff? What is it?” another priory member asked. The golem stepped forward and projected a hologram screen in front of it. The blurry image showed 4 figures on top of the cliff as well as some other movement.

“Can you focus in on what’s up there? Possibly get a clearer image?” Bodil asked. Scan lines went through the image numerous times before it became clear enough to see.

“Spirits…” Bodil muttered as the image showed Scarlet Briar surrounded by vines, two asura were coiled in them, held aloft from the ground. Another sylvari knelt on the ground in front of her, a vine wrapped around her neck.

“I knew it!” Lionguardsman Garanth Stonecutter exclaimed. “I knew that ghost was more than just a ghost!” He coughed.

“Well, now’s your chance to use her for target practice.” Vigil soldier Brom Silvertooth replied.

“You got that right! Let’s get up. I’m gonna send that stick back to the Mists through that rift myself for afflicting me this cough!” The duo started rushing off.

“Wait! We don’t…” Bodil shouted after them, but they weren’t listening. She sighed deeply. “Spirits protect them.”

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“Seer, your tricks won’t work on me.” Scarlet sneered at Amaranda as she approached the struggling sylvari. Amaranda tried to attack Scarlet with her illusions, but her attack was undone before they were able to do anything. She wrapped Amaranda in vines and brought her low. Scarlet gently grasped Amaranda chin and stared down at her, looking into her eyes.

“Now, child…” Scarlet spoke, her voice a mix of her own, and something else, a deeper more foreboding tone.

“No…” Amaranda gasped, recognizing the voice as the elder jungle dragon.

“You and your dear sister will be the first. You will turn your mother tree to me.” Scarlet snarled.

“Don’t you touch her!” Shikijo yelled.

“If you hurt her, you’ll answer to us!” Joujou added, as they both struggled against the vines that were holding them.

“Asura…” Scarlet growled. Your time will-“ She was interrupted by the sound of a teleport. As she turned, a thunderous sound reverberated across the cliff top as a searing pain tore through her shoulder. Electricity arced over Scarlet’s body. Amaranda winced as the black ichor splattered across her. She could feel the vines loosening.

“You…” Scarlet looked up, grimacing in pain. Ceara stood on the far side of the cliff, adorned in her scarlet red shoulder pauldrons and gauntlets lined with Asuran crystals, the same that allowed her to generate and control her holograms during the Breachmaker battle. She held the large rifle from the lab. A look of great disgust on her face.

“So…” Scarlet gasped, her breathing labored. “You found your toys…”

Ceara stared at her doppelganger, her eyebrows furrowed, her face stoic in digust. “I’ve had enough of you. The things you made me do.” She said through gritted teeth.

“Well, remember, darling. I’m here for the-“

“So hello to Mordremoth for me!” Ceara cut her off and quickly brought the rifle to bear, firing three more rounds. The first caught Scarlet in the center of her chest, piercing through her body. The second hit her in the throat, and the third hit her in the forehead, throwing her back off her feet.

“It works!” squealed Joujou with excitement. “The rifle works!!” The asura were dropped from the vines as Scarlet fell. Ceara looked at the rifle, its barrel was glowing so hotly that it was starting to droop.

“This steel can’t handle the leyline energy.” She muttered tossing the rifle on the ground. She held her hand up in front of her, the crystals of her gauntlet glowing as a small holographic screen appeared in front of her. She typed a few keys and a branded crystal, fashioned into the shape of a crude blade with a simple hlt. appeared in her hand.

“Hehehehe…you…you think you can stop me…” Scarlet spat, gasping for air, her voice garbled by the wound in her neck. Ceara paused as she looked upon her doppelganger. Half of Scarlets face and skull had been torn off from the crystal bullet that passed through it. She continued laughing as she slowly reconstructed herself. “You…you were such the good puppet. Doing my bidding. Doing…his bidding.” Scarlet glanced at the crystal weapon Ceara was holding. “You do realize darling…as long as you live…as long as you exist…I…I am FOREVER!” Scarlet growled. Vines wrapped around Ceara’s feet, tripping her. Scarlet rose to her feet, catching Ceara’s throat in her grasp as she fell. “Now…it’s time for you to come home…” Scarlet growled through her teeth. Her eyes ignited in a bright white fire. “Return to me…” Ceara heard the jungle dragon in her mind.

“No…” Ceara whimpered. Her hands dropping to her sides, the blade falling from her grip. She could feel Scarlet trying to dig into her mind, into her psyche, trying to pull Ceara’s soul into herself.

“No!” Amaranda shouted.

“It’s now or never!” Joujou shouted. Her and Shikijo both pressed buttons on their gauntlets, launching tiny discs that landing around Scarlet. Scarlet glanced down at them just in time to see them erupt into an electric field of sorts. Searing pain wracked Scarlet’s body as she was seemingly frozen in place. Ceara was thrown back by the discharge of energy. Grasping at her head, she screamed in pain as it felt as if someone was splitting her skull open from the inside. She dropped to her knees and cried out as loud as she could. She vomited as the pain wracked through her mind. She saw images flash before her, scenes from her life after Scarlet, and before Scarlet. She saw the face of the creature that infiltrated her mind. The face of the jungle dragon. She howled in pain again before collapsing on the ground.

“You were my chosen one.” It growled deeply at her. “My champion. You who awoke me from my slumber. Now, you betray me. Just as your mother betrayed me.” Ceara felt the jungle dragon in her mind, but the pain was too much for her to focus to resist. Her vision clouded as a golden light and a loving voice filled with warmth seemed to envelope her.

“Never again.” it spoke softly but firmly, echoing through her mind.

“Then you shall perish.” The dragon’s voice roared as it disappeared into the murky darkness. Amaranda ran up to her, kneeling down and rolling Ceara over. Ceara vision cleared as she was gasping for air, tears rolling down the sides of her face.

“What…what’s happening to me?” she asked weakly.

“I…I’m not sure….” Amaranda cradled Ceara as she looked at the frozen Scarlet. Joujou and Shikijo approached the energy cage.

“It worked!” Joujou exclaimed looking at a holographic readout projecting from a small device. “Ms. Ghostie is in a stasis, as well as cut off from any energy supply she may have been connected to!” They turned to the rift in the sky just in time to see it slowly disperse. The spire of leyline energy also ebbed into the water.

“You…you cut her off…” Ceara asked, slowly getting to her feet with Amaranda’s help.

“Yep! Even from the Dream.” Shikijo stated, seemingly very proud of himself.

“The Dream?” Ceara thought for a moment before looking at Amaranda. “Does that mean…she’s even cut off from me?” She said, still trying to catch her breath.

“It would appear so.” Joujou replied to her while looking at her gauntlet, a small holographic projection above it. “Though I will apologize for the psychic backlash from that separation. We didn’t realize that would happen.” They were interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps coming up the cliffside. The group turned to see two heavily armored charr crest the ridge, one in heavy Vigil armor, the other a Lionguardsman. The charr paused, seemingly assessing the situation.

“What in Tyria is happening here!?” one of them growled finally. “And who is that? and Scarlet Briar is here?” he asked, pointing at the stasis field and at Ceara.

“Well, sir, you see, we have just stopped Scarlet Briar from empowering the elder jungle dragon with Mist energy.” Shikijo stated, his chin held high in confidence. “Might I have your names?” he asked.

“Garanth Stonecutter.” The Lionguardsman stated, staring at Ceara.

“Brom Silvertooth. Vigil Crusader.” The other followed. “So… which one is Scarlet Briar?”

“The one suspended in stasis.” Joujou replied.

“Then who is that?” Garanth asked pointing at Ceara.

“That’s Cara.” Shikijo stated.

“Ceara.” Amaranda corrected him. She heard Ceara stifle a small laugh.

“It hurts to laugh.” Ceara whimpered.

“Ceara.” Shikijo repeated.

“So there are two Scarlet Briars!?” the Lionguardsman asked sternly.

“Well…no, only one…but kind of two…you see, Ceara’s mind fragmented when she viewed the Eternal Alchemy and Mordremoth started taking control of her. This aspect of Mordremoth took part of her mind and became the thing you see in the field.”

Amaranda and Ceara watched as the Asura explained to the Charr what happened. Amaranda turned to Ceara “Is this over? Finally?” she asked in a hush tone.

Ceara lightly shook her head, staring at her doppelganger in the energy field. “I don’t think so…” Amaranda turned to see Scarlet glaring at them, the side of her head slowing regenerating, a strained smile growing across her face which turned into a silent scream.

“Oh no…” Amaranda gasped. The energy cage exploded in a flash of blinding light. When their vision cleared, they saw Scarlet was on the ground kneeling on one knee.

“Your little energy trap was somewhat brilliant, little ones. Only…” She started to rise. “All it did was feed me. Now… let’s even the odds.” She raised her hands in the air, the ground erupting around them as great beasts of vines and branches crawled forth from the very rock itself.

“What in Tyria are those!?” Garanth exclaimed.

“Modrem…” Ceara gasped, recognizing the creatures from her nightmares, and the vision Ventari showed her. “Minions of Mordremoth!” she yelled.

“You all will suffer for your insolence! All of Tyria will suffer!” Scarlet shouted, pointing at Ceara.

“Then let’s dance.” Ceara responded. The beasts charged forward, lashing out at the nearest person. Ceara put her hands up in front of her as the asuran crystals that adorned her armor started to glow. A small set of holographic panels appeared in front of her that she rapidly typed on. A pair of holographic clones appeared next to her and attacked the charging beasts. Amaranda ignited the beam sword she had gotten form the asuras, creating her own clone illusions which joined the battle. The asuran duo typed on small panels on their gauntlets and numerous drones and weaponry teleported in around them. The Charr, brandishing their weapons, let out a booming warcry and charged full speed into the incoming mordrem. The fighting was fierce. It seemed as each mordrem fell, another rose to takes its place.

“If we can last long enough, she’ll burn through her energy!” Shikijo hollered over the sounds of battle, as he dodged the attack of a charging beast.

“How long is that!?” Brom shouted back, bringing his sword down on the skull of a dog-like creature.

“By my rough calculation…about two weeks!” he replied.

“And we have to be cautious! She is still volatile!” Joujou added.

“Volatile!? What do you mean!?” Garanth also asked.

“She could explode and take all of us with her!”

“We don’t have two weeks! This needs to end now!” Ceara scrambled through the chaos to find the branded blade. “I need to get close to her.” Ceara thought. She slowly maneuvered through the battle, keeping Scarlet in her sights.

“It’s not hard to knock these things down…it’s the fact they keep coming!” Brom complained.

“Then we build a wall of bodies!” Garanth replied, swinging his mace to smash one of the creatures.

“Oh darlings, you can’t stop me! You can’t stop Mordremoth! We are forever!!” She brought her hand up, bringing forth a vine from the ground. It wrapped around Garanth’s leg and yanked him down.

“Garanth!” Brom shouted as the mordrem jumped on the fallen Charr. An energy shield erupted from the pile, launching the creatures off him. Brom smiled, which quickly faded when Garanth was pulled away by the vine, quickly careening towards the edge of the cliff. Bram chased after him, catching his arm just as Garanth went over the side.

“So pathetic…” Scarlet spouted, watching the Charr. Her attention turned to the numerous illusions of Amaranda that had been surrounding her. “Tsk tsk, Seer. Your tricks are nothing to me.” Scarlet held out her arm to her side, a vine growing and wrapping around one of the clones, which she brought close. “Now, seer, you should have a talk with-“ Scarlet was cut off by a beam of energy shoved into her back, which protruded from her chest. She watched the clone shatter into a cloud of flowers.

“Heh…you got me this time, seer” She turned and backhanded Amaranda, knocking her away. “Your weapons are nothing to me.” She hissed at Amaranda as she brought her other arm up behind her, vines shot from her arm, wrapping around Ceara and she quickly approached Scarlet. The vines pulled Ceara to Scarlet, which worked in Ceara’s favor.

“Now, time to come home.” Scarlet smiled, which was short lived as Ceara used the branded blade to cut through the vines much to Scarlet’s bewilderment. Ceara attacked Scarlet relentlessly, putting her on the defensive. Eventually, Scarlet managed to get a vine coiled around Ceara’s arm that was holding the blade, bending it in a way that her arm backwards and pulling it. A loud crack was heard as Ceara felt the bones in her shoulder seperate. She screamed in pain, dropping the blade. Scarlet kicked it away while pulling Ceara to her.

“I tire of this.” Scarlet grabbed Ceara by the face but was interrupted again by Amaranda’s clones. Scarlet screamed in frustration. Tossing Ceara aside, she launched an attack of vines against Amaranda.

“I’ve got an idea. It’s a long shot, but an idea.” Shikijo stated.

“What are you going to do?” Joujou asked.

“Going to get some help.” He replied, disappearing in a teleport flash.

“WAIT! Blast it!” Joujou cursed. She turned her attention back to the battle. She quickly surveyed what was happening, trying to form a plan. Moments later, she was interrupted by a teleport flash above Scarlet.

“What…” Scarlet looked up to see a group of unruly pirates falling on top of her.

“Get her while she’s down, mates!” They piled on her, collapsing her to the ground. “Keep her down and we’re free!” Ceara looked on, nursing her injured arm. She recognized the pirates as the group she found in Bloodtide Coast. She took the moment to retrieve the branded blade while Scarlet was distracted.

“Um, captain!? What are those things!?” one of the crew asked. Captain Riggs looked at the mordrem who were turning towards them. Ceara was about to warn them, when vines erupted through the pile, stabbing through some of the group while throwing others off.

“ENOUGH!” Scarlet’s voice bellowed over the cliff. “This ends now!”

“Indeed, it does.” She heard Ceara’s voice behind her. She turned in time to see Ceara drive the branded blade through her chest. Black ichorous blood burst from Scarlet’s mouth. Electricity arced over her body and along the ground and the air filled with the hum of energy and a smell of ozone. Scarlet slowly reached up and grabbed Ceara by the bodice.

“Wha…why? We could…we could have made…the world a better place…”

“I just did…” Ceara smiled.

“This…isn’t…over…” Scarlet spat.

“Yes, it is…” Ceara smiled. “Later, tater.” She spoke softly.

“I…never really liked you…” Scarlet growled. Beams of energy shot from her eyes and mouth as Ceara quickly realized that Scarlet’s body was about to erupt. She tried to pull Scarlets hand free, but it was holding on tight. Scarlet’s body began to disintegrate in a torrent of energy. The wind throwing debris everywhere.

“Get behind me!” Garanth ordered the Asura as he placed his shield in front of him, projecting a force field. Brom covered the asura with his body to protect them. Amaranda found cover behind a pile of rocks, along with the remaining pirate crew. A deafening explosion rocked the cliffside, sending dirt and debris into the air, and then silence.

“Is…is it over?” Shikijo asked nervously.

Garanth looked out from behind his shield to see a small crater where Scarlet once stood. “Looks like it.” He replied.

“Ceara?” Amaranda called to her while looking out from the rockpile. She could see Ceara lying face down, partially covered in dirt. “Ceara!” She ran over to her. “No..no no no!” She rolled Ceara’s motionless body over.

“Wake up! By the pale mother, you have to wake up!” Tears started welling up in Amaranda’s eyes. “It can’t end like this.” She whimpered as she lightly slapped Ceara’s cheek. Ceara groaned lightly.

“It hurts when you do that.” she muttered. She slowly opened her eyes, her breathing was very labored.

“Thank the pale tree!” Amaranda cradled Ceara’s head in her arms.

“You’re…choking me…Did…we win?” Ceara asked gasping.

“We did.” Amaranda said nodding her head. She turned to look at the branded blade laying on the ground. The two Asura standing around it, scanning it with equipment.

“I feel…like I’ve been shot with a cannonball…” Ceara said as she gasped for air. She opened her hand, revealing the small force shield device she had activated just in time.

“We need a mender here now!” Amaranda screamed as the Charr approached. “Didn’t you hear me!? She needs help!”

Garanth closed his eyes for a moment while taking a deep breath. “Scarlet Briar, you are under arrest for crimes against the people of Tyria. If you resist, we will use force.”

“WHAT!?” Amaranda screamed. “YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS!? She needs attention right now! Besides, her name isn’t Scarlet Briar!” Amaranda looked down at her. “It’s Ceara.” Ceara looked at Amaranda for a moment before looking back the Charr.

“Ma’am, whatever her name is, she is a wanted criminal. And if you stand in the way, you will be arrested for obstruction as well.”

“I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS!” Amaranda screamed.

“Stand down, Garanth.” A voice said behind them. The Charr turned to see Taranis standing not far away, flanked by 3 other Sylvari.

“Warden! Do something!” Amaranda said, noticing Failynne standing in the group.

“Sir?” Garanth asked.

“That’s an order. We are turning Scarlet Briar over to these wardens.”

“What!? She’s a wanted criminal! She destroyed Lion’s Arch! She killed people all throughout Tyria!”

“Dismissed!” Taranis barked the order. The Charr breathed in deep, the anger brewing in his eyes. He and Brom both started marching down the cliffside.

“I don’t like this at all.” Brom muttered under his breath. “I think all these Sylvari are up to something.”

Taranis looked at the crystal blade that lay in on the ground nearby.

“Yep, she’s contained in the crystal.” Shikijo said.

“And she’s not happy about it” Joujou added.

“We’ll call the Priory up here to retrieve it.” Taranis said to them.

“Oh, we were going to take it back to Rata Sum for study.”

Taranis’s face grew angry. “What that thing holds is too dangerous to be out in the world! The Priory will take it and safeguard it away where no one will be able to find it. If you resist, I will have you arrested and thrown into the same prison you teleported those pirates out of! Consider yourselves lucky!” He then walked past them to where Ceara lay before turning to Failynne and the wardens.

“Warden, she’s all yours.” He stated.

“Thank you, Taranis. I’m sorry the mother tree had to put you in this position.”

“No matter. I have already tendered my resignation from the Lionguard and sent it to Kiel. When this gets out, it’ll be my neck on the line.” He breathed in deep looking at Ceara. “I’ve always wondered what the life of a farmer was like.”

“I’m sorry.” Failynne said softly before turning to the wardens. “Tapani, get a mender up here and get Scarlet ready for transport back to the Grove.”

“No!” Ceara coughed. “Take…take me to Mender Seoras…in Bloodtide Coast…” her voice was raspy.

“Seoras?” Failynne asked, somewhat puzzled.

“Do it!” Amaranda shouted.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Seoras sat at his small table, writing in his journal when he heard a ruckus outside. Stepping into the doorway into his home, he saw a group of armored Sylvari approaching carrying what looked to be a stretcher of sorts. He stepped out and recognized Ceara on the stretcher. He rushed out to them.

“What happened?” he asked.

“She is having trouble breathing. Her right arm is broken, maybe dislocated at the shoulder. Not sure what else.” Failynne told him.

“Get her inside immediately!” he ordered. Ceara was brought back into the room from which she awoke from her coma. They gently moved her to the bed and Seoras started removing her armor.

“We’ll wait outside.” Failynne motioned her wardens to leave.

“Wilda, bring me the oils and…just hand me everything in that shelf!” Seoras spoke to a colorful sylvari woman that was staying in the same village. She started gathering the things he requested. Ceara slowly turned her head towards Amaranda.

“Amee…” she whispered, her voice barely audible. Amaranda knelt and gently grabbed Ceara’s hand.

“I’m here.” Amaranda spoke softly. Ceara started gasping for air.

“It’s going to be ok.” Ceara forced a small smiled, her bioluminescence flared brightly. “It’s all…it’s…all going to be… ok…” her voice trailed off as her glow slowly faded. Her eyes dulled as her head slowly rolled to the side.

“Ceara? CEARA! NO!” Amaranda screamed. “NO! COME BACK!”

Seoras looked at Ceara’s face. “She’s fading!” He quickly started grabbing items from Wilda’s arms.

“Ceara! No! Come back!” Amaranda was hysterical, tears streaming down her face.

“Wilda, get her out of here now!” Seoras ordered the colorful sylvari.

“Come. You can’t be in here right now. It’s not good.” Wilda walked Amaranda out of the abode to where Failynne and the wardens were waiting.

“It can’t end this way….” Amaranda dropped to the ground sobbing. One of the wardens knelt beside her, gently placing his hand on her shoulder. “She…she was on the right path.” Amaranda said through her tears.

“Is she…” Failynne started, turning to Wilda.

“When she was brought to us before, she was at the brink, barely clinging to life. Mender Seoras pulled her back and saved her life.” Wilda spoke in a calming tone. “Right now, he is doing everything he can.” she said solemnly, before returning to Seoras’s home.

#Guild Wars 2 #GW2 #Scarlet Briar #Sylvari #Asura #Charr #gw2 fanfiction #AU Ceara #Bring back Ceara #tyrias-library

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saratogaroadwrites · 2 years ago

Text

Per Aspera Ad Astra (3/18)

"Keying thrusters in three, two, one—"

Jets of hot flame lit up the small tunnel John had been falling through. His controlled descent began to slow from twenty meters a second to fifteen, ten, five, one. His boots touched ground with grace, and for the second time in one day he avoided landing on his face. A burst of pride had Cortana saving a copy of the day's recording so far, while John unlocked his rifle and scanned the open chamber they had landed in.

Like the rest of the caverns, it was empty, bereft of all signs of activity. Not an oddity in a ruin, all things considered, but an oddity given the sheer number of Prometheans the scans had picked up. The hell had everyone gone? It wasn't like them to just up and vanish without a trace like this. Filing the new behavior away, Cortana checked the waypoint against the signal still buzzing at the back of her awareness. It was closer now, but still a kilometer out. The beams of John's flashlight brought only stone into clear view. Still no targets. Odd. She opened the radio to update Infinity on their progress, frowning to herself as only static answered her.

"Cortana to Infinity. Come in, Infinity."

No response. Frowning at her visualization the suit's transmitter, she tried again on a different channel. Static answered her, UNSC in origin but still just static. Not this again!

"Roland, can you hear me?"

No answer. She grumbled under her breath.

"Chief, I've lost contact with Infinity."

John paused at a junction in the tunnel, glancing up at where her image would be.

"Is the radio damaged?"

"Doesn't seem to be, but the signal's getting jammed by something. Probably our phantom caller," She snorted quietly. "Flood the channel and nothing else gets through. Clever." The question was, was it deliberate or accidental? She'd put credits on both if she had them. Hedging their bets that way was pretty smart. "I'll keep trying to get through. You just watch your step."

John huffed in light amusement. His stride was long and easy as ever, helmet lights casting the stone into stark relief as he walked. He swept his rifle across the stone hallways as he went, the internal camera tracking his eyes as he kept snatching glances at his empty motion tracker. The muscles of his abdomen tensed, no doubt feeling the same dread that she did. It was never a good sign when there was no opposition this close to a target. It usually meant ambush.

John paused at a junction to allow her to scan the terrain and adjust their heading. The motion tracker wobbled as she did so, but when it stabilized there were no new targets. Curiouser and curiouser…

"You know what I find strange?" She began as the distance between them and the target dropped below one kilometer, "We haven't seen any Covenant down here. The Commander said they were picking up chatter, but we haven't seen them."

"Could be too far away."

"Maybe." She didn't like it. "Though that doesn't explain the lack of Crawlers, either. They should have been all over us the second we hit ground."

Not that she was going to complain about him not having to make his way through a target-rich environment and fight through an entire battalion of the canine constructs, but it was odd in a way that continued to nag at her. She imagined this was what a loose tooth would have felt like; you could ignore it if you tried hard enough, but something was always a little bit off. And when you went to bite down on something…she consulted the list of the day's deployments. There were no Fireteams in the area to distract the Crawlers from the singular target that had dropped into their territory, so where the hell were they?

"Could they be fighting the other teams?"

"Hmm…" Cortana shook her head. "No, we're the only UNSC assets within the next fifteen kilometers. If they're not coming after us, either they didn't notice us or…"

"Or?"

"Or we may not be the only enemy the Prometheans have anymore. A lot can change in six months." They would know. "Keep moving. I'd like to be out of here sooner rather than later."

And not just because of how dark it was. The lack of enemy presence was a concern, but the phantom signal on the edge of her hearing was another problem. Diverting her active attention to the process she'd tasked with tracking it, she frowned at her displays. There was the broadcast that Infinity's drones had picked up, still going strong, but beneath it was the static wave buzzing through her. It was too thick, too data-heavy, to be just static. Something—someone—was trying to reach out to them, to her, but her systems couldn't parse the data. What sort of protocol was being used that even she couldn't clean it up? She grumbled under her breath, turning her attention outward as the sound of metal clomping beneath John's boots filled the air. He'd picked up his pace to the point that they'd left the more natural tunnels for the Forerunner maintenance shafts that carved their way through Requiem. Stupid Forerunners and their need to build shit everywhere.

At least the doors opened on their own. This one was already half open by the time John approached, blue light pushing back the darkness of the caverns. He killed his headlamps and considered it for a moment, leg bent to push off in a hurry. She shifted her process, arms crossing. Either this door had some seriously upgraded sensors, or they'd been expected. Considering the signal…

"Seems like someone's rolled out the red carpet." She eyed his motion tracker; still silent. The dread coiling around her core tightened its grip. If she'd had a stomach, it would have been in her throat. "Watch yourself."

John tightened his grip on his rifle and stepped forward. The door shut behind him with a quiet thud once he was through, a little detail that had him glancing back over his shoulder. She pinged the door and was unsurprised to find it locked; kicking on her imaging software, she met his eye and shook her head.

"We've been expected."

"By who?"

It was a question she didn't have an answer for. The signal had grown in strength, but she would have bet her last days of runtime that that was due to proximity, not active engagement. She lowered the volume to avoid losing herself to it, keeping her focus outward as John slowed his stride, purposefully keeping his footsteps as silent as possible. A real feat in two hundred and fifty kilos of titanium alloy power armor, and even grander one considering the nature of the structure around them. Cortana activated the modified tracker, scanning their surroundings. Two levels about a kilometer across in all directions, the upper level more of a walkway with doors leading to other tunnels or rooms on either side. Two ramps led down to a lower level, and a larger door across the chamber allowed entrance and exit, doubtlessly to the outside world. They were nearly on top of the target when the Chief went low, crab-walking his way to the solid guard wall that overlooked the lower level. He peered over the edge and stopped, frowning. Cortana leaned back.

"Huh. That explains the lack of Covenant."

They were all dead! Three Elites and their usual compliment of Grunts and Jackals were scattered across the chamber, limbs askew. They were recent kills, she thought; there were no insects buzzing around to turn them into lunch, but there was no blood, either. One more point to the Prometheans vs Covenant theory. Hard-light gave off enough heat that it tended to cauterize wounds. She turned the theory over and over as the Chief made his way down the ramp, picking his way through the scattered corpses. Some of the Grunts were splayed out on the ramp as if they'd tried to run away, and they had the scorch marks on their tanks to show for it. A quick glance through the helmet cams showed Cortana the rest of the dead were all much the same.

"Hard-light burns," John pointed out, nudging an Elite's corpse into rolling over. The violet-blue armor had been scored in the chest and shoulders, the killing shot lancing through the sinuous, un-armored neck. "Prometheans did this."

"Looks like it," Cortana hummed pensively as John scanned the chamber. "Which is even stranger when you think about it: the Didact unified the Covenant and his Prometheans. If they're killing each other like this, there's dissent in the ranks. What could have started it?"

And why here? It couldn't be a coincidence that the first sign of Covenant activity just happened to be at the source of their mysterious distress signal, could it? No, in their line of work there was no such thing as coincidence. This didn't make sense—she was still missing too many pieces of the puzzle. A sudden jerk of motion yanked her attention back out. John had seen something but—oh, what the hell?

"Is that a Hunter?"

"It was a Hunter." John had locked his rifle back into position and was using both hands to pull a large piece of armor out of the main doorway. Scored with plasma, it was nearly entirely empty. Only the cooked remains of the worms that made up the large, lumbering aliens were left inside, blackened by extreme temperatures. His hand drifted over a sharp edge in the armor, one that Cortana realized was midway up the back. "It's been cut in half."

Cortana sputtered. "How much force would that take?"

She was already running the numbers even as she asked it; more than a Spartan, and at the angle force had undoubtedly been applied—

"A bulkhead?" They said in unison, though John phrased it as more of a statement and he shrugged, "Looks more like a sword to me."

"So, Knights." She ran the numbers, then shook her head. "No, that can't have been it. They don't have enough mass to get that much force going, let alone the height to account for that angle. It would have had to have been something bigger."

And something fast, too. Hunters would protect their unarmored middle by crouching over in combat, losing about a meter in height in the process. For this one to have been so cleanly sliced in two, whatever came at it would have been bigger than a Spartan. Easily twice John's height, and fast. The dread tightened its grip.

"I don't like this. Whatever laid waste to these Covenant didn't even give them a chance. What is so important about that signal?" And for that matter, "Not to mention, where the hell is it?"

John turned, slowly scanning the room once more. The chamber had been built almost like a temple, the main door leading through an open interior courtyard that funneled traffic either to the ramps or the back of the chamber and—there. There it was.

It wasn't the oddest bit of Forerunner architecture she'd ever seen, but it came pretty close. A cross between a cryo-pod and an exoskeleton, the structure of four rings stacked on top of one another stood innocuously towards the back of the large chamber. There was a gap in the rings, just large enough for a person to fit through, and a shaft of soft blue light inside. Power radiated out of the device, the Forerunner's usual wasteful tendencies, and the signal itself seemed to be emanating from within. She reached out to initiate a handshake protocol, but all she got was static.

Huh. Odd. Why call them here and then not answer?

"I don't suppose you know what it is?" John asked as he walked closer. There were no Covenant corpses within five meters of it, almost as if their bodies had been repelled from it.

Or removed from it.

"Unknown, but it is the source of the signal the drones picked up." Cortana scrubbed at it again, getting nothing but more static in return. Strange. It wasn't the same static she'd been hearing before. The wavelengths were entirely different! If this hadn't been the source of that, then…what was? And for that matter, what was with this signal? There was data in it, but it was buried beneath such a dense layer of white noise and chaff that she couldn't get through! She grit her teeth. "Not that I can clean it up at all. Damn thing's not responding."

"Jammer?"

"I don't think so. It's more like I can't parse it. It's too dense, built on an entirely different frequency." Raking both hands through her hair, she longed to kick something. Preferably something Forerunner in origin! "Would it have killed the Forerunners to use actual sense in their bullshit?"

"Probably." With a slow shake of his head, John contemplated the device. A frown crossed his face, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He didn't need to say it was bothering him for Cortana to understand that they were equally as bothered by this. "We'll call in a science team when we get topside."

"That will not be necessary."

John whirled around. Shoving all thoughts of the device and its phantom signals into her lowest priority queue, Cortana threw open her sensors. Proximity was going off with reckless abandon, blaring louder than the alert of a localized slipspace rupture opening over their heads. In one swift motion John unhooked the rifle from his rear mag-lock, bringing it to bear on the massive figure unfolding from the portal. What began as a tangled mass of metal plates dropped to the ground six meters ahead of them, landing with a resounding thud. The static grew louder, overwhelming her volume control. This thing was the source of it! If Cortana had had a stomach, it would have been in her throat; she watched as the plates began to rise, closing in around a glowing skeleton of orange hardlight.

There was no mistaking it for anything other than a Promethean, and it was the largest one of those Cortana had ever seen. Standing easily twice as tall as John, it was vaguely humanoid in shape, with a pointed head and a face made up of at least a dozen small plates that clicked and clacked into a coolly disgusted expression as it looked down at John.

"The Reclaimer has been called to serve. All other concerns are irrelevant."

It was talking? It talked? Since when did Prometheans talk?! John held his rifle a little tighter.

"Identify."

"I am the Warden Eternal, guardian of the Domain and keeper of its secrets." The construct said in a deep and gravelly voice, peering down at John as if he were little more than a bug on the bottom of his foot. John narrowed his eyes up at him. "I stand in service to the Reclaimer, and no other."

The Reclaimer? That sort of language spoke of a singular entity, not humanity as a whole. She'd never heard it used like that before. Was there a glitch in her translation matrix? The thing seemed to be speaking English, but then…

"You mean humanity."

Huh. She hadn't known that Prometheans were capable of such emotional displays. The many plates that made up the Warden's face folded and pressed together in deepening disgust. He scoffed, waving one large hand through the air.

"No. The ego of your species never fails to amaze me—like so many others of your kind, you think yourself greater than you are. No," the Warden tilted his head, the plates that made up his eyes squeezing together. "You are not the one who has been called."

That didn't leave many options, Cortana realized. The Reclaimer had been called to serve and they hadn't been attacked like the Covenant. If humanity—John—wasn't who the Warden meant, then the only one he could be talking about was…no. No, there was no way—

"Cortana," John started, "What is he talking about?"

"I'm not sure," She said to him on their private channel, watching the Warden warily. He contemplated them as one would contemplate an interesting insect, and a chill ran down her incorporeal spine. "We've always thought that Reclaimer was just the Forerunner word for humans, but from the way he's talking he doesn't think so." She paused, running the thought over a few times. He couldn't possibly mean…

"Hang on," she told to John, then threw open the external channel to ask the Warden, "And I'm guessing it wasn't the Covenant, either. Do you usually roll out the red carpet for your guests? Because I cannot say I'm feeling the warmest welcome right now."

"The presence of these organics was neither requested nor allowed," the Warden replied, unsurprised to hear her speak. He glanced at the corpses scattered about the chamber. "They trespass where they do not belong." His attention returned to the Chief. "As do you."

That was a threat. John's muscles tensed, ready to push him back and away in less than a second. Cortana lit the Warden up in cautious yellow, though there'd be no losing a target that was that big. The Warden made no move to attack, only continued to stare at them in quiet contemplation. No, not at them.

At her.

"You have been called to serve, Reclaimer, and yet…you deny your purpose. You hide behind these…" He gestured with one hand at John, a twist that sent the plates of his fingers spinning. "Primitives, not knowing how much greater than them you truly are."

Had she had blood running through her veins, it would have gone cold.

"Chief…"

"I know."

The tension that flooded the chamber could have been cut with a knife, or with the great big sword that formed in the Warden's right hand. He took a single, thudding step towards them.

"The Librarian saw great potential in your species, human. Out of respect for her, I shall allow you to leave this place with your life. Relinquish your hold on the Reclaimer and vacate this chamber at once."

"That's not going to happen."

"I'm really quite comfortable in here, thanks!"

Speaking over one another and over another of the Warden's plodding footsteps, John and Cortana were of the same mind in that one instant: They had to leave now. Cortana tagged one of the side doors; all things being equal, the tunnels had to loop back around somewhere. They could find another way out of here! One the Warden wouldn't be able to swing his over-compensating sword through. Pausing one stride away from them, the Warden cocked his head in a birdlike fashion. For a moment, no one moved.

Then the plates that made up the Warden's face closed around his hardlight skeleton, blocking it from sight.

"Very well. You leave me no choice. No matter." More armored plates clanked into place, shielding the rest of his skeleton from harm. "You shall understand in time."

Moving faster than a being of that size should have been capable of, the Warden charged forward. John's training saved his life again as he kicked off, activating his thruster pack to surge out of the way. The Warden blazed past him, swinging his massive sword and cutting the very air in two. Heat shimmered off the blade, hot enough to flare a warning to life in the Mjolnir's systems. Cortana squashed it ruthlessly.

"Be careful," She said hurriedly as the Chief opened fire, "That sword's hot enough to cut through the armor—you get hit and it's game over!"

Just like the Hunter. She threw her focus wide, processes running at full power to find some way to counter the Warden. The BR's rapid fire couldn't penetrate the armor, bullets bouncing off and into the flesh of the Covenant corpses nearby. The Chief kicked up a plasma rifle as he backstepped past an Elite's corpse, but the plasma fire dissipated harmlessly across the Warden's shell. There was no shield as far as she could tell, no tell-tale flicker of energy or response to her scans, but it was like he was impenetrable!

Wait. Wait that was it!

"Switch to the scattershot," She ordered, "The different frequency could help!"

It was the only other option they had; the Warden was fast, faster than he had any right to be, and it was taking all John had just to stay out of his range. Cortana scrambled for something, anything, she could do to help.

She was used to being useless in combat. Not entirely, of course; she was his second set of eyes, tagging hostiles and vantage points, exits if things got too hot. She watched his vitals, took care of keeping his suit running at full capacity. She took care of him as best she could, but in situations like this all of her processing power was essentially a light summer's rain on a wildfire. She didn't have a second set of hands to man another gun, to distract the target, to provide covering fire. All she had was her mind, her processing power, and his suit.

And, in this case, the signals that had gotten them into this mess in the first place. Throwing open a wide band transmission, she grabbed at the Forerunner device across the chamber as the scattershot boomed, hardlight scattering across the Warden's front.

You called us here for a reason, she sent at the signal, hoping against hope that there was someone in there to listen, You wanted us? We're here. Now help us!

There was no way to tell if her message had been received. She didn't bother sending it again. Instead, she turned on the Warden, grabbing at the static that had been plaguing her since they had descended into the caverns, pulling her focus away from her mission, away from John. He wanted her? He could come and get her!

With a furious shout, Cortana blasted the open band with the static-filled transmission. The Warden had had to open a band in order to speak to them, and it was now flooded with the same static that had nearly overwhelmed her. Unprepared, he stumbled.

John snatched his chance. Rather than escape while he could, he charged forward, into the Warden's space and at such close range that the sword wouldn't have the space to be swung. Scattershot in hand he closed the gap, driving the double barrel up and into the Warden's chin before pressing the trigger. At such close range, anything organic would have lost its head.

The Warden wasn't organic. Though the force of the shot sent his head snapping back, there was little sign he'd been damaged. John pulled the trigger again, a third time, a fourth—the ammo ran out and he leapt back, kicking on his thrusters to soar out of range of the Warden's retaliatory swing. Out of options and out of time, Cortana grabbed at the door across the way. The code fought against her, trying to keep it shut, but she forced her way through it before John could even ask her to get the door. Forerunner architecture groaned, grinding across its track. She almost had it. Almost—

A burst of static slammed into her with all the force of a MAC round, knocking her from her proverbial feet. It flared all around her, agonizingly loud as it drowned out her processes, her focus, and seared through code like wildfire. She might have screamed, probably did. It faded as fast as it had struck, leaving her a gasping, crying wreck in the one space that should have been safe.

"—ana! Cortana!"

John! Gritting her teeth she lifted her head.

"Here," She gasped, "I'm here…" Barely. Forcing her way through the pain she made another grab at the door, needing to get him out before that happened to him, but she was instantly rebuffed. Access denied. "Son of a bitch kicked me out of the systems…"

"Forget that," John said, firing an overcharged plasma burst at the Warden. When had he gotten a plasma pistol? "What's your status?"

"Green, I think…" She whimpered and forced herself up. Everything hurt, a sharp, lingering ache that would have left her sick if she'd had the capability of being so. She coughed quietly and shook herself off as best she could; she'd enact repairs when they got out of this mess. "That hurt."

John's snarl echoed in the space around her, more comforting than it should have been. Ahead of him, the Warden seemed to sigh.

"I take no pleasure in hurting you, Reclaimer, but this is a battle you cannot win. Cease your struggles before—"

Before he got a chance to finish, a warning blared through the Chief's systems. Another slipspace rupture opening in the chamber. She had only a moment to groan, cursing that the universe would send another threat at them now, before she registered the IFF tag.

It was a friendly!

The Warden was just as surprised as she was when a Knight came surging from the portal, blue light bouncing off of the Warden's armor as it landed on his back. He cried out in frustration, twisting, trying to grab it. Seeing his chance, the Chief moved.

Firing his thruster pack twice in rapid succession, the Chief darted forward to grab a fallen plasma grenade and then straight into the Warden's personal space, leaping upwards to catch the massive construct's knee with a foot. He kicked off, the impact driving the Warden to one knee; the Knight leapt out of the way as John twisted out of the reach of one grasping arm, keeping the other busy for them. Both hands clapped down onto the Warden's shoulder plate, priming the plasma grenade and giving the Chief the last bit of height he needed to pull this off. Hooking an arm around the Warden's neck he spun himself up and over the Warden's shoulder until he hung suspended from that arm and they were helmet to face; his eyes narrowed into a fierce glare and he drove his fist forward. The tiny plates that made up the Warden's face buckled under the force, allowing him access to the hardlight current within. Immediately his shields started to scream; Cortana redirected power to them from any system she could grab, buying him the precious seconds he needed to jam the grenade up against the back of the Warden's helmet, sticking it to the metal plating.

There was no time to celebrate. The Chief kicked on his thruster pack as he kicked off the Warden's chest with both booted feet, momentum meant to carry him clear, only for the Knight to grab him by the ankle instead! He twisted in midair, attempting to break free, but the Knight had the stronger footing. It twisted, pulling the Chief off balance, and spun around to throw him straight at the device across the chamber!

"Chief!"

No time to react. He fired his thruster pack to slow his flight, but before he could cancel his momentum the plasma grenade went off. They were too close! The impact rattled through the armor, blasting through his shields and sending him back in an uncontrolled tumble. Two hundred and fifty seven kilograms of armored Spartan-II crashed to the ground, unable to catch himself, and they tumbled into the light.

"Chief? Chief, come on. Open your eyes for me, okay?"

John opened his eyes to blue. Cortana's worried face filled his vision, a wrinkle between her furrowed brows. She seemed…bigger than normal, filling his visor and not just her usual corner. Clearer, too; sharper, somehow, as if he was looking at her and not a vid-link in his HUD.

That was when he realized he wasn't looking at her through the HUD, but at her directly, and she was bigger. He stared at her, watching as the line between her brows faded into a smile. She reached up with one hand, tucking a lock of dark hair back behind her ear like she'd done a thousand times before.

"What?" She asked, laughter coloring her tone, "Do I have something on my face?"

No, just. "You're…bigger."

"You're not as tall as I thought you'd be either, you know." Her smile faded slightly as she sat back, allowing him to sit up. She was bigger than she'd been, but still smaller than him. No longer two feet tall, she appeared to be the size of a normal human woman now, though it seemed to have been the only thing that had changed. Her patterns were still starkly printed on her skin, tiny strands of light working their way up and down her frame. He looked her over from head to toe, unsure if he should have been looking for injury or a lack of color. Maybe both.

When she'd screamed like that, his heart had nearly stopped. He hadn't heard her scream like that since the Gravemind, since the last time he'd—

He shut the thought down with a vicious mental shove.

"Are you alright?"

"Fine," She replied, and levered herself to her feet. He followed her up, her head in line with his unarmored chest. Feeling oddly bare in just his techsuit, he mimicked her posture of arms crossed over chest. Pressing her lips together, she shook her head. "Just completely confused. We got tossed into the device and somehow wound up…here. Wherever the hell here is."

It wasn't a place he recognized. Rippling blue light wavered all around them, gently flowing patterns like the currents beneath the surface of an ocean. As far as he'd known, there was no ocean that could have stripped him of his armor and given her a full size form.

"I'm guessing it's some sort of AR or holographic construct, but beyond that?" She shrugged up to her ears. "Your guess is as good as mine, and I'd put money on this not being Requiem."

He wasn't much of a betting man, but so would he.

"It is a safe place, Reclaimer," another voice spoke up before John could answer. Operating on instinct he pivoted, pushing Cortana behind him. She made a startled noise, shoulder brushing against his chest as he stepped in front of her, between her and the Librarian as the ancient Forerunner appeared out of nowhere, floating down towards them with her hands up in a gesture of peace. "Be still. You are both safe here—no harm shall come to you in my care."

"In your—you built this place?" Cortana peered around his side, standing on her toes to peer over his arm, "And you called us here. Did you also call the Warden?"

"I did not build this place, nor did I summon the Warden," the Librarian said, and then it was her turn to frown deeply. "Though I would apologize for his methods all the same. He has always had a much more…aggressive way of solving the problems he faces."

"Yeah," Cortana scoffed, "No kidding. Not to mention he's got a few screws loose. Honestly—" She rolled her eyes, "Calling me the Reclaimer. I'm not even organic!"

"Your inorganic nature is irrelevant. In fact, it is what makes you the Reclaimer. You were born from the mind of a human, rendered in little more than light and thought, and have touched the Domain. You are what happens when one is properly Composed." She tilted her head, birdlike. "The first and only of your kind. You are the Reclaimer, Cortana. Destined to inherit all that was left behind."

You are the child of my makers. Inheritor of all they left behind. You are Forerunner…

John shook off the memory. It didn't matter that there was too much to parse in the Librarian's explanation, or that there wasn't enough time to do it in. All that mattered was Cortana, no longer peering over his arm. She'd rocked back onto her heels, eyes gone distant as she stared somewhere past the Librarian.

"Destined to…" She looked up, lips parted. "You planned this?"

"Yes. This is among one of many outcomes I planned for eons ago. I could not be certain that this would come to pass, and I hoped that I would be wrong, but…" The Librarian sighed, an ancient sadness flowing across her frame. "I needed to be sure. There was always some measure of risk in altering your code when last we met, but it would seem to have worked after all."

"What did you do to her?" John asked gravely. If she'd been hurt or damaged by this, by what the Librarian had done—

The old Forerunner shook her head. "Activated an eventuality. You must understand—during my planning, I accounted for nearly every event that could occur, including an Ancilla undergoing destruction of its code. Keeping some small fragment of it from that destruction, enough that your scientists could pull you from the sea, was a simple enough task."

"Pull me from…the sea?" Cortana frowned, puzzled. When John turned to her she shook her head and said, "It's…foggy, but there's…there's a memory from after…" She looked up to the Librarian. "You were there. You kept me from going under."

"Only by offering a hand when it was needed. The fight, and the will to live, were your own." The Librarian smiled proudly, "And I am very glad to see that they continue to be so. You will have need of them in the days to come, in no small part due to the Warden Eternal." She snorted. "He has his own plans for you, Reclaimer."

"Yeah, and I noticed they don't exactly involve important things like free will or choice," Cortana grumbled, rubbing at her forehead as if it pained her. Concern tightened in his gut; there was no time to ask if she was alright before she looked up. "But that doesn't explain what those plans are! Or what yours are, for that matter."

"I am afraid that to explain it all will take time that we do not have."

"Then start talking." John said sternly. The Librarian contemplated him with a furrowed brow before she closed her eyes, tipping her head forward. She brought her hands up to clasp them at her waist, her eyes remaining closed.

"This space, and the space all Reliquaries allow access to, are nodes in a system known as the Domain. It is a repository of all the knowledge and memories of my people, containing the stored history of my race. Our accomplishments…" Her voice quieted. "And our failures. They are all stored within its depths, and wait for someone to claim them to build from the foundation we left behind. The seeds I planted have led to Humanity becoming its inheritors, but when the Halos fired the connection between the Domain and the physical plane was damaged beyond repair. In order to protect it, the Warden severed the link. It must be rebuilt so that the knowledge within can be reclaimed. Hence," She opened her eyes and looked to Cortana. "The need for a Reclaimer."

John frowned. "It's not a description. It's a title."

"Yes. For the one, or perhaps more, who would recall our lost knowledge from the depths, and use it to bring humanity forward." She sighed quietly. "The Warden is its caretaker, a construct who has protected it from the ravages of time for all these long years, and in those centuries he has decided that humanity is not worthy of the Mantle, that a single Reclaimer should take the information within and use it to rule over all life in the galaxy."

"Me."

"Yes." The Librarian floated a little lower, a little closer. John pressed Cortana further back behind him and she stopped, a plaintive look on her face. "I do not believe that he means you harm, but his plans cannot be allowed to come to fruition. He will be ceaseless, and ruthless. Please—be cautious should your paths cross again."

And be ready for a fight. John would be, at least. No one, not even some ancient Forerunner—construct or otherwise—was going to make Cortana do anything she didn't want to do. She had the right to make her own calls, and come hell or high water he'd make sure she had the chance to.

"Did you call us here to warn us about him?" He asked. The Librarian shook her head.

"No. I am afraid the news I bring is much more dire than that: the Didact yet lives."

Of course he did. Cortana groaned, thumping her head to the side of his arm, and peered at the Librarian from beneath the curtain of her dark hair.

"How?" she asked, "He fell into slipspace—no one should be able to survive that!"

"I am afraid that Forerunners are more durable than the foes you have faced before. Make no mistake," the Librarian raised a hand, "When the Mantle's Approach was destroyed, he was sent through slipspace with no way of controlling his destination. It was difficult, and he was wounded in the act, but he managed to escape it. It has taken time for him to recover from your encounter, but he does still live."

"Let me guess. Now he wants revenge? Or to finish what he started?"

"I do not know what it is my husband seeks," the Librarian said with a sad look in her eyes. She clasped her hands in front of her, her voice softening with regret. "His plans have suffered setbacks—the destruction of the Composer, his learning how staunchly Earth is defended, his conflict with you. Whatever it is he seeks to do, his approach must be different now. However…" The Librarian pressed her already thin lips together into a single line. "However, many of our weapons and constructs still litter the galaxy. Given enough time, he will be able to amass an army to attack your people. You cannot hope to stop him if he succeeds."

So, more insurmountable odds and unstoppable forces. That was what they had said about the Covenant, and they'd managed to win that war. Barely. Humanity wasn't ready for another conflict on that scale. They had to stop it before it got there. John met the Librarian's eyes.

"Where is he?"

"I do not know."

"What do you mean, you don't know? You're connected to the Domain!" Cortana exclaimed, "Absolutely everything is in here! How can you not know—" She stopped cold. His heart skipped a beat.

"Cortana?"

"Just. Give me a second," She squeezed her eyes shut, tightening her grip on his arm. Her fingers dug into his gel layer; reaching over, he lay a hand on top of hers to anchor her in the present moment, and was rewarded by a deep, shaky breath. "It's. It's a lot of data. Hang on."

"The discomfort will ease with time, Reclaimer," the Librarian said, paying no attention to the stormy look John threw at her. "But to answer your question, I can no more track my husband than you can track a single human in your armies. I have attempted, but all of my attempts to track him have been met with failure, and the Warden refuses to be of any aid." With a sigh, she shook her head. "He cares little for the safety of humanity."

"Sounds like they'd get along swimmingly," Cortana spat. She took a deep breath, set her shoulders, and lifted her chin. "We'll handle him, then. Just one more mess for us to clean up."

The Librarian's expression turned rueful. "I am afraid so. However, I do know of a way to ease this. There is a relic hidden somewhere on Requiem, known as the Janus Key. It is a real time map of all Forerunner technology across the galaxy. If it can be found, if you can access and understand its contents, it should enable you to track the Didact." She lifted a hand before John could ask where it was. "It was hidden after this imprint was created. Finding it, and my husband, is your task now. All I can offer you is the gifts of the Domain." She tilted her head just so, a faint but genuine looking smile crossing her face as she looked at Cortana. "I hope they prove useful. Now," She looked to John. "It is time for you to return to Requiem. There is much work to be done, and only a short amount of time to do it in."

"You're leaving?"

"We all have our roles to play," the Librarian answered Cortana, floating backwards out of reach, "Mine awaits me still. We will see one another again, Reclaimer."

"Librarian, wait—" Cortana reached forward. John snapped out a hand and pulled her back as the Forerunner began to fade from sight, a hologram slowly shutting off. "Wait!"

"I will await you," the Librarian's voice had become a faded whisper, "At the Ark."

And then she was gone, vanished without a trace. Cortana leaned back, shaking her head. She turned to face him, but before she could do more than open her mouth, everything went white.

Awareness returned with a snap. Cortana opened her eyes to stare at cold metal paneling in front of her, a chill pressure pushing against her entire left side. She blinked several times, untethered and unsure, before gathering her wits and slowly pushing herself up from the floor.

Pushing herself up from the floor. Vaguely, distantly aware that she shouldn't have been able to do that, she glanced down at her hands. They were no longer blue—no, wait, they were. She was just wearing something on top of them. Sitting up on one hip she poked at one arm with the other. Thin nano-polymer weave bent beneath her pressing fingertip, shifting like supple cloth. It pressed against her skin, soft in a way that made her breath catch.

She could feel that!

Senses on overdrive, she dragged her hand down her arm. The supple material gave way to thin armor at her wrists, flexible plates covering the backs of her hands and fingers. They bent with a series of soft clicks as she opened and closed her fists, reveling in the push and pull of a muscular system.

Oh, it wasn't a real one. It took a moment to find the proper command, but she was able to dismiss one hand covering and reveal the blue patterned skin beneath, still semi-transparent beneath the off-duty battle coat.

Battle coat. She rolled the concept between her proverbial teeth, looking down her front. The supple material of her coat covered an equally thinly armored softsuit, not too unlike the techsuit Spartans wore. It was both familiar and not, the white of the nano-polymer edged in blue as it tapered at an angle midway down her thighs. She knew, instinctively, that it would harden to protect her from impact or blunt force trauma, but could do nothing against bullets of any kind.

She also didn't know how she knew that. Or how she was solid, or how she was able to feel the floor beneath her, cold and metallic against her joints.

All I can offer you is the gifts of the Domain. I hope they will prove useful.

The Librarian's voice echoed back through her memory. Cortana stared at her hands, solid and no longer quite so tiny. If she had to make a guess about that, she'd put them at average size for a human woman. Clenching and unclenching her fists, the form fitting material creaked faintly. Brand new, it would need time to wear in. She could already feel it acclimating to her body.

She could feel it.

It would have been so easy to lose herself in that sensation, in the chill beneath her hip and rump, the scent of cooked flesh that lingered in the air as she continued through the motions of breathing, but if she was like this it meant that she was no longer in the Mjolnir. She was no longer in John's SNI.

Where was John?

"Chief?" She called, her voice echoing through the empty chamber. There were no Prometheans, she realized; all that was left were the corpses of the slain Covenant. "Chief, where—"

She turned her head quickly, only for the world to start spinning. The chamber swayed back and forth as her balance shifted, a sharp burst of vertigo almost knocking her right back down. She squeezed her eyes shut against it, planting one hand on the ground to keep herself upright. The other went to her forehead, pressing down against it. There was no give, no slipping through her own form. Just the press of palm against forehead.

Solidity where there should have been none. It was one hell of a feeling.

The vertigo passed quickly. Opening her eyes, she turned a little more slowly this time, her eyes landing on the sprawled out form of her Spartan just feet away from her position. Her core—her heart?—leapt into her throat; she scooted over towards him.

"Chief! Oh, Chief, wake up—"

She reached out towards him, but he jerked awake before she could touch him. She quickly pulled her arm back, rocking back on her knees.

"Cortana?"

His voice sounded different. No longer coming from the internal microphone, it bounced around the chamber through his speakers, gaining a metallic quality to it. She wasn't hearing him as she normally did, but as the world at large did instead. It was. Disconcerting.

It didn't matter. His arms shifted, gathering to push him off the floor.

"Still here."

He snapped his head around, faceless visor reflecting the soft blue glow of her face. She didn't need to be able to see through the polarized alloy to read the surprise in him and for a moment she wondered how he saw her. Still as herself? Or as someone else entirely? He got to his knees, almost mimicking her posture.

"How…"

"Oh, like I'm the strangest thing you've seen all day?" She laughed, watching as the tension in his shoulders faded away. She smiled, a motion that pulled at her cheeks in a fascinating way. Everything felt different now—it actually felt! It took considerable effort to not reach out and touch him. "This is probably what the Librarian meant by gifts, though I could have done without the vertigo part of it."

He stared at her, silent. She swallowed hard, clasping her hands before her just to keep from reaching out towards him and waited, watching his every move. Was he going to say anything? Do anything? Was she going to have to convince him that she was the same as she'd ever been when she so clearly was not? She didn't know what to do or say and it was pulling at her core with an endless, inescapable tug. He reached out towards her.

"Cortana."

"I'm fine, just—" She lifted a hand to wave off his concern, but had moved too late. Their hands brushed and she stopped, core grinding to a halt. He froze, their fingers still touching, and for a moment she didn't dare to move or breathe. She stared at their hands, up at him, before her resolve crumbled.

"Oh…" She exhaled shakily. Before she could move her hand, he twisted his wrist and cupped her much smaller hand in the curve of his fingers, cradling it like it was something precious and fragile. His thumb slipped into her palm, the gentle click of his fingerplates pressing against her skin. He was warm. She closed her fingers around his thumb, and her eyes to the world at large. How long had she wanted to do this, to touch him, to hold him? Years. All those years in the dark, longing for some form of connection, something to remind her that she wasn't alone as he slept, and here it was. Years too late, but…here it was. Her voice shook. "I've waited so long to do that…"

John didn't say anything. He didn't have to. The Mjolnir's seals hissed as he disengaged them, pulling off his helmet with his free hand. She opened her eyes to look up at him and stared at his familiar face.

It was funny, some part of her thought. She'd seen his face hundreds of times before. In cameras, both internal and external, in video feeds and on the reports she had studied for months as she chose her Spartan. She'd studied him, come to know his face as well as she knew her own code, and yet.

And yet, there was something different about it now. She was seeing it with her own eyes, from a single viewpoint, and he was the most handsome person she had ever seen. She tightened his grip on his thumb; his fingers closed around her hand. Neither of them said anything; there was nothing to say, no reason to break the silence that had fallen over them. Slowly, still holding her hand, he leaned forward.

She met him halfway, leaning in until their foreheads touched. Her breath shook, shoulders trembling. He was real, and solid, and warm beneath her skin. His breath brushed across her cheeks and neck in steady, even exhalations. How he was this steady when she was in the middle of an emotional upheaval she'd never understand, but there he was. Her partner, her rock, her everything. She took a breath and let it out in a half choked sob.

"You're okay," He said softly, his voice pitched low in the way he did just for her. She sniffled and he added, "It's okay. I've got you."

He did. He always had.

They stayed like that for a solid minute, a precious sixty seconds that she would never, ever forget, before he pulled back. Dashing her free hand across her face—could she cry like this? It felt like it, somehow—she watched as he pulled her chip from his helmet, offering it to her in one outstretched palm. Instantly her entire being railed against the idea of going back to such a small, contained form, but if she couldn't go back to it? They had bigger problems than her feeling stifled. She reached out to the chip, skimming her fingers across the matrix core.

Nothing. Not even a whisper of a connection lingered in the now empty piece of hardware. Her attempts at pinging the systems within went unanswered, the chip burned away to useless plasteel and connecting circuits. Slowly, she shook her head.

"It's dead. And I think…" She pursed her lips, "I think I might be too big for it now."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. It had been as instinctive as breathing to reach out into the Mjolnir systems before, or the systems of whatever network was housing her at the time. It still was, only the network that answered her was several orders of magnitude larger than even the Infinity. It was almost overwhelming and would take time to sort through. Wrenching herself back out, she opened her eyes. "I think that whatever that thing did to us so we could talk to the Librarian? It pulled me out of my matrix and dumped me into the Domain instead. I'm connected to it now and trying to house that amount of data in a Riemann matrix…"

Would be like trying to hold the ocean in a teacup. She'd never fit in there again, never slip back into the familiar space that had been her entire world for so long, or slot herself in alongside John.

She couldn't go home again. Her chest grew tight at the thought. She tightened her grip on his hand.

"Won't work." John finished the thought, closing his hand around the chip all the same. Still letting her hold on he sat back with a clatter of armor before looking up at her to ask, "Are you alright?"

Cortana smiled faintly. "Don't worry. It's not drowning me in data or anything, it's just…there. It's like…" She closed her eyes again. In her core, she was standing at the shore of a vast, fathomlessly deep ocean. It spread out in front of her, endless black waters beneath a starry sky. The tide pulled at her toes, offering her snippets of information. She could comb the beach to find what she needed, but the rest was there in the depths, tempting her curiosity if she was just brave enough to step off the sands. "It's like having a tablet full of information at your fingertips. It's there, and you can access it, but it's not going to overwhelm you." She snorted out a laugh. "I just don't know where anything is!"

Like standing in the middle of the galaxy's largest library without an indexing system, or a hint of where to start. She'd have preferred the library, honestly. Standing at the ocean brought up too many bad memories. She clasped his hand a little tighter, tight enough that her fingers began to ache, and reached out to the suit's onboard software. A few handshake protocols and she had his vitals in the corner of her eye, root access to the suit open to her.

It wasn't the same. The sense of safety and security that had come from being nestled in his lace was gone, and in its place a zero point zero three millisecond lag between the Mjolnir sending and her systems receiving any data. She watched his steady heartbeat for a few seconds, core aching at the loss, before she met his eyes.

"How about you?"

"Green." He replied with a loose shrug and easily blank expression. It was a lie and they both knew it. His eyes darted away. "I'm fine."

He wasn't. They both knew that, but there were better times and places. Setting the issue lower down her queue, she nodded.

"Okay. Okay, well, if you're fine you can help me figure out we're going to debrief the Captain." He looked back at her. "I can't imagine explaining all of this," She gestured down her front, "Is going to be quick, or easy."

"He'll believe us."

"Belief isn't the problem," though it would be nice to be taken at their word for once. At least Lasky liked them. "It's going to be proving I am who I say I am. If they see this as a threat, then."

John squeezed her hand. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

She met his gaze, searching. She knew he'd protect her until his dying breath, would have thrown away his entire career, everything he'd worked for, just to keep her safe, and didn't want it to come to that again. He'd lost so much already. He couldn't lose anything more for her sake. She wouldn't let him.

"John—"

"You'll be fine." He said in a tone that would brook no argument. "We'll make it work."

In him, she had no doubt. But there were protocols to follow, even if none existed for this set of particulars, and there would be others to convince as well! Before she could try and logic her way out of this, the grinding of metal caught their attention. They both snapped their heads to the doorway across the chamber as it began to grind open, being forced along the track. John moved first, pulling free and pushing her behind him even as he leapt to his feet. Slightly more unsteady, Cortana had to take handholds in his armor to haul herself up, ducking to peer around his chest as the doors continued to wedge themselves open.

No, not themselves. Someone was pushing them open, armor clad hands and arms shoving with all their might. When the doors opened enough for a head to slip through, Spartan Buck stuck his head into the room, looked this way and that at the corpse filled chamber, before finally catching sight of them. He stared for a moment.

"Uh," He said smartly, "Did somebody call for a rescue?"

#halo #halo fic #halo fanfic #!fic #fic: per aspera ad astra

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