( A/N) Ah… I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but Halo: The Strange Ones, was written by me several years ago. I'm glad so many people enjoyed the story, but it doesn't feel like my best work and I'm still hesitant to admit it's even mine. But, because I don't like leaving loose ends and I'd like to pick Halo fanfiction up again, I've decided to rewrite the story with a more realistic spin (for a fanfic of both the humor and romance genre by my hand) and to help me remember that it's alright to have characters that are silly and fun loving. Lots of things have happened recently and it's taken a bit of a toll on my writing and my characters behavior, so letting them and myself go free feels like just what I need.
I've completely forgotten my password for the other account and the email I used to make it. So… I can't go back and rewrite everything on there, so I'll be doing the rewrite on here. I've actually got a different story of a somewhat similar type that I want to write for the Halo series, but it's actually a separate line I've been planning for a while. Kind of like my other story, Ulfeonar! But I digress.
Wish me luck and I hope you enjoy! Please leave a review if you're comfortable with it, it'd be much appreciated!
Disclaimer: I don't feel compelled to write a disclaimer every chapter because this is fanfiction, so I'll say it once. if I'd had any control over the Halo series it would probably not be anywhere near as popular as it is lol. I own absolutely nothing but my own original characters and a few imaginary places/happenings.
The winter night seemed to suck the light from the world, draping this part of it with cold and dark. As the streetlights struggled to make a dent in it for the cars rumbling on the nearly abandoned freeway, the brightest spot in the old city seemed to come from a simple, rundown looking building. Faint laughter and delighted voices tickled the air, warm golden light providing a safe place for late night pedestrians to walk. The bottom half of the apartment was a deep red brick, while the upper half was a gray wood, splintering with age and wear.
Despite the noise the upper level was making, no people screamed for them to shut up, no brooms banged against the interior of the building in desperation. Either no one else lived in the building, or the little poster stuck on the front door of the building and plastered on every wall of every floor indicating a party on this date since the month before… had done its job. The young woman making her way up the stairs knew the answer to be the former. Those posters were just for the landlord and the sisters who lived here to remember the date.
With a jaunty gate as she reached her floor, she shifted her backpack higher on her shoulder and navigated her way to the door she'd been looking for. The old wood was smoother and more well-polished than the outside of the building would suggest, just like how the carpet beneath her sandals was plush and fresh. Undoubtedly new. From here, she could still hear the voices and a grin pulled at the corners of her lips as she reached for the inconspicuous button next to the door.
A soft, light ding cut the laughter short, excited exclamations from within made her heart swell with love for the women on the other side. Like drum beats, she could hear a set of bare feet thundering across the wooden flooring of the hall, coming so close to the door she'd swear the person behind it would slam into the old door and blow it off its hinges. Luckily, the door swung open the opposite way to reveal a redhead with the brightest smile the world would ever see.
"Caia!" She exclaimed, long arms already reaching forward to pull the brunette into a tight hug that would squeeze the life out of a lesser girl. "Red!" Caia laughed, returning it with equal zest. Calls of "Aaayy" and "Yooo!" leaked from the apartment's living room, undoubtedly belonging to the other women of their curious clique. The redhead took the other woman's bag and set it down beside another- actually, three other bags despite the fact that two people here were permanent residents of the apartment.
"We missed you! Ugh, it's been way too long. How's work going for you? Didja get me any presents?" The ginger practically dragged the other girl into the apartment and allowed the door to close behind her, pale rangy legs making Caia work double time to keep pace crossing the short distance. With Red's mouth working double time too, her sentences quickly lost formality and delved into the madness of old internet teen talk. The brunette was barely able to open her mouth to reply before a set of strong arms scooped her up with a squeak of surprise.
Hearty guffaws rattled her bones as she was carried into the living by the one, the only… "Kacy!" Who just raised her higher into the air without a hitch. Caia barely resisted screeching in indignant rage and wriggled about in Kacy's iron grasp.
Kacy, being the tallest and second strongest woman in the group, had no problem with carrying other shorties like Caia around. Like many times before, the brunette collects herself and sighs. "Kacy, if you don't put me down I swear that I'LL BREAK YOUR LEGS AND THROW YOU INTO PUGET SOUND-" she stops short when she catches Kacy's grin. Her heart sinks into the pit of her stomach and already her mouth opens to form a 'no' but it was too late. "Okay." Was all the blonde said before flinging the smaller woman across the wide room.
The brunette openly screeched this time as she clawed wildly for purchase to keep from the inevitable fall, but failed miserably at finding anything but the smooth faced ceiling. Laughter had long since restarted and it only kicked up a notch as she landed on the bounciest mattress she'd ever had the displeasure of sprawling on.
She almost bounced right off it, if not for the firm grasp on her wrist and the chuckle from in front of her. Caia hadn't realized she'd closed her eyes, but when she opened them her stress dissipated when her forest green eyes locked with a familiar set of brown so dark they almost looked black. But in the warm light, she could see chestnut brown and orange flickering delightedly within.
"Hey," Eben smiled, dark hair framing her rounded, square face as wonderfully as ever. As long as it'd been since the two girls dated, Caia still harbored a tiny crush on her longtime friend. Eben had graduated a year after the other girls became sophomores at the same school and they hadn't been able to see each other when she attended college. Both Caia and Eben changed over the course of those years and found when they tried to rekindle their budding relationship, they just didn't mesh well in the romance field anymore. Caia too young at heart and Eben a little too jaded by adult life at the time. Nonetheless, the two remained good friends and hung out often.
Although, since finding a summer job while she did her own college courses, the taller brunette hadn't had much time to hang out with anyone. Not even Eben.
"Hey yourself, " Caia replied, smiling cheekily as she pulled herself up straight and back onto the heaps of blankets and pillows atop what seemed like two mattresses stacked atop one another. "Where's the rest of the club?"
The mattresses bounced again as another body flopped onto them, Kacy's light blonde hair bobbing with the motions as she made herself comfortable next to them. She put up a hand and counted down the missing people. "Alexis, Jace, and Betty couldn't make it, Li broke his foot and is still out on pain meds, and Salto is on vacation in Japan. Nobody else has shown up yet, so we're assuming they aren't coming or are running late. I was planning on calling 'em up to make sure they're safe in an hour, just in case." She hummed.
Once more the mattress bounced, but hardly enough to jolt any of them as Red bounded into the middle of the mattress fortress, curling up by her sister's significantly shorter legs. Eben just chuckled and patted her ginger mane. Yeah, people wouldn't think the two were related at all, but if you looked in the right places the similarities would be noted. The same handsome features, the same cupid's bow lips, and high cheekbones. They shared the same mother, but not the same father. Eben looked like their maternal grandmother and her deceased father put together, while Red looked much like her father and a little like her mother.
But Eben looked harsher, had stern brows and a proud nose. Her sharpened eyes and stockier build made her seem like a force to be reckoned with. Red was daintier in appearance, a more delicate nose and sweet soulful eyes. Her brows always made her look a little surprised. But, while her visage was classically beautiful and elegant, at her core she was a madwoman. Absolutely mad. Her employers never saw it as she maintained a most professional persona around them but the moment she got home… Red was unleashed. Having seen the shift firsthand, the ginger had effectively scared the daylights out of Caia on more than one occasion.
She wasn't sure what she found more eerie. The fact that Red could appear so calm, serene, and in control in hiding such a whirlwind nature… or that the real younger Benroy was this fucking crazy underneath it all. Still, they were close friends and the unconditional love Red showed all game club members had won everyone over.
Red giggled and donned a most secretive look, eyes glittering like the Arabian sea. "So… which game are we gonna play?"
Kacy, the big buff of the group, was quick to answer. "ODST!" She barked, causing Red to whine. "But we played that last time! What about H2A?"
Every club meet, they played a different Halo game. Sometimes they played different aspects of the game they played last time, but usually they just went through it by whoever got the most votes. Even the losing vote didn't remain displeased for long, the Halo series was what the girls were all about. "Why not Reach?" Caia asked tentatively, but Eben shook her head. "Nah, I'd rather play Combat Evolved."
Kacy laughed maliciously, grinning with all the evil befitting of a demon. "So you can see your man at his peak again?"
Eben, though flustered, responds with a sly smirk of her own. A demon has no chance against the devil itself. "Like you can judge. You just wanna play ODST again you can fawn over the Rookie's adorkable ways. And his ass."
Kacy balked, sputtering her defense with as much vehemence as a woman on trial. "Bungee made him so cute! How can you not love him? He's literally the perfect embodiment of the strong and silent type. Plus, he's got a great set of buns! Excuse me for being the only one here to notice!"
Caia snorted. "Uh huh, compared to that of pretty much everyone in Reach? He's got nothing on Six or Kat. Not even our holy lord and savior Buck can beat that booty. "
Eben shook her head and laughed, about to strike Caia's argument as well, when Red's terrified voice cut the air.
"MUFFINZ!"
A long-winded sigh left Eben and the two others just shook their heads.
"Red, what the fuck-" "THEY'RE EVERYWHERE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES BEFORE THEY TAKE THEM!"
The ginger bolted off the bed like a startled cat, spooking the actual three perched on their scratching post palace generally avoiding the noisy (and perhaps somewhat annoying) humans. Eben turned to Caia and Kacy while Red skittered around the apartment like a rodent. "At least we aren't living at home anymore, or mom and Andrew would be yelling at us to quiet down. It'd be fair with all the racket we can make though." Her juniors nodded in agreement.
Kacy sighed. "Okay, now we can't vote because we know how that would turn out with Red hiding in a corner. What should we do?" Eben smirked, dark eyes glittering wickedly. "Race ya." And off she goes, lunging towards the TV sets and the multiple consoles that took the club several years to put together. The blonde squawks indignantly and jumps after her, arms outreached in an attempt to drag Eben back. However, Eben being the smallest and fastest of them all, merely slips out of the way and rolls the rest of the distance to the consoles to pick her choice.
The shelves below the TV sets were filled with different games for the wide variety of consoles, although none of the game cases had quite so much wear as all those belonging to the Halo series. Well, Spore had definitely seen better days, but that was probably due to Red's relentless playing.
Caia laughed and made herself comfortable on the mattresses while the other two sorted it out, tilting her head to call out, "Red, time to play!"
From the far room of the apartment, she heard a muffled "Yay!"
The winner of the contest was, without a doubt, Eben.
Kacy had huffed at her loss and swept her short bangs to the side, claiming Eben had only one because of her head start. Which wasn't entirely wrong, but Eben had just smiled and selected her choice game with her lucky controller in hand. The lightly tanned girl had picked, of course, Combat Evolved to play first. Luckily, the Master Chief Collection made it significantly easier to play any of the games but considering they could only really play with two players at a time for Combat Evolved… They battled over who could play first and who would move on to either watch, wait to take over in a part the other girl couldn't do, or play another game on the other set. But all the young women were content to sit back and watch for the time being until needed. First companion player with Eben was Red, who sat chipper and bright with the controller in hand.
Caia and Kacy had fetched snacks from the kitchen while the other two got themselves set up. This was another stash the club set up… and had to keep setting up because it shrank even after the club meets ended because some people can't keep their hands off snack foods. And considering only two human beings live in this apartment, it should be pretty obvious who the culprits are. (At least they make sure to restock what they take.) Surprisingly, a lot of the food was healthy and long lasting, probably to keep the members from dying of a heart attack later in life. Still, cans of spam and other not so healthy things did find their way in! Probably Eben's doing, as heavy foods seemed to be the only thing capable of sating her voracious appetite. Several bags of chips, health bars, and other assorted goods littered the resting spots and were almost grabbed for blindly by both the players and their "AI" companions.
The startup was normal, amazing music leaking from the surround sound speakers, the sign in screen, etc, all of it ran smoothly. In fact, the women were able to get through the first level within record time after slaughtering the Covenant invaders and snagged the two skulls on the first Halo array on the second. But, as they approached the tunnel, the screen suddenly went blank, black, and the speakers cut off. A silence stretched over the room.
Until suddenly it was full of outraged cries, Red wailing a long and drawn out "Noooooo! We were doing so good! What about my mad skills bro!?" while Kacy nearly roared "WHAT THE HELL!?" Caia chattered angrily, too fast to be deciphered. Eben, grumbling, stood up to check the cables in the back. But she paused while rifling through them, turning back with furrowed brows. Perplexed, she checks the screen again and looks around the room. The indignity dies down as the others notice her reaction.
"Eben?" Kacy questions, but the girl just runs a hand through her hair as she glances at the Xbox One again.
"There's nothing wrong."
Caia raises a brow. "What?"
"There's nothing wrong. No cables wiggled out of place, no rats or mice have chewed anything into oblivion, and power is still on." Eben muses, stepping back to the mattresses and pillows to plop herself down. Red hums while Kacy aggressively smashes buttons on the TV remote. "The TV and sound system are both out, but I can see the Xbox is still running. Although, considering that we were in a hot zone and didn't pause the game beforehand, I should be gettin' absolutely destroyed right now. Yet, I can't feel any shots through my controller. You?"
"Same," Eben frowned. "And I was just duking it out with some Sangheili. With my fists. I'm not getting any vibrations from that either so I'm assuming this means something is wrong with the Xbox to boot. What the hell is going on?"
Suddenly, before anyone has a chance to speak again the TV screen flips to a blue screen. And by blue screen its that same too-bright primary color that does not contrast nicely with white letters. But at the moment, there are no white letters. Just a sea of blue making all the women wince in distaste.
"Uh… Benroys? Why is there a blue screen of death on the club TV?" Caia dared to ask.
"Probably some hacker bullshit." Kacy snarled. "Think it's so damn funny messing with other people. Little punk ass bit-"
Before she could finish her sentence, a winking white line appeared on screen, like the black line on a blank word document to mark where you're at. In a flurry, words started appearing on screen. But they weren't in English or Chinese or Afrikaans, they were familiar… but also not.
The girls, fascinated, leaned forward to get a better view, and thus were unaware of their rescue cats sneaking off to find a safe location in the house one by one like rats fleeing a sinking ship.
"… That's Latin!" Eben suddenly exclaims, looking surprised and delighted. Kacy frowned, looking unimpressed. "Yeah, we got that. But what does it say?"
"Gimmie a sec to translate it…" Eben hummed, squinting as though that would help her sharp vision decode the secrets of the speech.
The other women waited with baited breath until she looked victorious. "If you want to seize the day and save the galaxy… Destiny won't wait for you across the stars unless you give me your social security numbers."
Kacy looked impressed, as did Red and Caia. "How did you manage that?"
Eben looked smug. "I studied Latin in middle school. Along with Greek, Italian, Japanese, and I picked up some Mandarin in a class." Caia tilted her head, astonished, as were the other two girls. "You never told us that!" "Why didn't you tell me this? Some guy in Japan thinks I'm a prostitute now!"
Red's cry attracted the disbelieving stares of everyone else and a moment of silence for the death of more of Red's dignity. If she'd had any to begin with!
Eben scoffed. "Nah, I just made that up. Literally, the only things I recognize out of this spiel are the quotes 'Seize the day' and 'Destiny Awaits' which is pretty weird for a hacker to say. Everything else, not a clue."
Caia picked up a pillow and threw it against Eben's face.
"Well, that doesn't help us get back to playing Halo." Kacy grouches, lifting herself up with a long-suffering sigh. "But I don't remember us playing online for anything other than getting achievements, we were hardly using any Wi-Fi remember? How and why would a hacker pick us out of all the people in the world playing multiplayer and all the other online, global team games?"
Canting her head to the side, Red attempted to decipher it herself, reciting the words to the best of her ability despite having a staunchly Washingtonian inclination. Eben shook her head, smiling slightly. "No, you've gotta roll your r's and stuff, this is Latin we're talking about. The source of Spanish and dozens of other "love" languages- the root of them all!" To give an example, she recites the many phrases of Latin with accuracy.
At first, nothing happens- not that they expected it to, but a sudden silence, a sudden stillness sets over the room. It's almost… too quiet, for all the racket the girls had been making beforehand.
The TV screen went white, erasing the letters from sight and a breeze ruffled all loose hairs towards the screen. Caia shivered, as did Red, and as Kacy looked back for the source the breeze picked up so suddenly the girls barely had time to latch onto the heavy mattresses (and the couch for the two close enough to it) before it started to sweep them up. The suction was impossibly strong, the girls holding on for dear life with screams and shouts of alarm "What the hell is going on!?" Eben screeched, nails digging into the fabrics and feet bracing against the floor for extra purchase. Everything from her hair to her clothes was drawn towards the screen- just the same as everyone else's.
Witnessing a bag flying past her head, Caia realized with mounting terror that it was hers. The very one she had had left in the hall. It was like an omen that she would be following it soon.
Caia had found root in the couch, her own nails freshly painted chipping against the leather of the ancient sofa. She grimaced as she felt her nail cutting into the leather, leaving long scratches as her panic rose. She was slipping, even as her fingers strained to hold her in place. The brunette tried opening her mouth to warn about her looseness when a sudden surge of power ripped her away from the couch and mattresses, the short distance seeming to move in slow motion in her eyes. She reached out for her friends who watched in horror as she was drawn away from them just like those wrappers. With her feet angled towards the screen and her belly towards the floor, she looked down behind herself just in time to see the burning white screen right in front of her face.
Then it all went black.