B E G I N
P R O L O G U E
"Are you ready, Hannibal?" asked Rayven as she sat down with a glass of water in her hand.
"Yeah, I am. I scanned my equipment last night so as to minimise proficiency faults," Hannibal replied as he brushed his messy, sandy-blonde hair out of his silver eyes, "You?"
"Same here. I am actually eager to begin this mission, so I can exact revenge on them," she said, flicking her own, longer, mahogany hair out of her eyes, "aren't you glad?"
"I guess…" he began as he looked out of the floor-to-ceiling window of his quarters.
"What do you mean, Hannibal? I always thought that our saviours taught us to have a healthy hatred of humans."
"Haven't you seen yourself, Rayven? We are human. I feel that this mission may jeopardise the Great Journey, somehow.
"To answer your first question, yes I have. We have been given a chance to redeem ourselves in the eyes of the gods, you must be thankful for that. And don't worry about the Great Journey, your fear is misplaced."
Hannibal stood and walked to the door. "I think you should get your armour on. You'll need to be ready in a few hours, and we can't afford any delays."
"Yes sir!" Rayven said as she saluted him and ran for the other quarters.
Hannibal walked out the door and to the bridge of the ship. On his way he began to think of his life up to this point. His first fourteen years of life were a complete blur to him, although the Council told him they had rescued him and 23 others from the humans at this point. All he remembered from those times were the combat skills he was given, his old human Battle Rifle, which lay under his bed, and Rayven. He was told by the Loyalists that the humans were experimenting on them all, and were rescued by the Covenant.
After this, his life was six years of solid training, from which he had developed prodigious skills with all weapons he laid his hands on, and his own martial art, which was a hybrid of the ones taught to him by the humans, and ones taught to him by the Covenant. In the next four years he slowly raised himself to become a Chieftain on par with the best of the Jiralhanae, almost all of whom he despised. He was a Chieftain of a different breed, though. He was the Chieftain of the 24 represented humans in the Covenant, dubbed the Holy Demons, because of a legend of a warrior of human descent who nearly obliterated the entirety of the Covenant, and split it in two. He was named Demon by the Covenant, and he was experimented on in the same manner the Demons were.
Hannibal walked over to the Shipmaster, an old, wizened San 'Shyuum. "I hope this plan works the way we mentioned, my lord,"
"Nothing is to fear, my child. The plan will be completed in perfect fashion."
"I hope so," Hannibal thought as he stared down at the sapphire orb that was Earth.
E N D
P R O L O G U E
What did you think? R&R please. your feedback is appreciated.