I would like to thank PY687 for the Beta read
First story, enjoy and please review
"Talking"
"Thinking"
"AI Talking"
A Blast from his Past
It was 9:00 at night and Chris was walking home from his friend Carl's house after finishing a six-hour slaughter-fest on Halo 3. He shook his head and chuckled as he remembered the humiliation Carl's little sister, Morgan, had received after trying to take him on without backup. Chris stopped his saunter when he heard a whine overhead; looking all around for the source of the noise, he spotted an armoured figure in a jump-pack flying over towards an abandoned house a few yards away from Chris.
"Wow, nice landing," Chris mumbled. The figure had lost its balance while trying to land on the roof of the structure.
The figure regained balance and turned to survey the houses and road in front of the house it was standing on. Lucky for Chris, he was obscured from the stranger's viewpoint because he was standing in the shadow of a large tree.
"I've got to get to the hanger," Chris thought.
He moved slowly and silently through the trees before he came upon a cave. With a deft hand, he pulled back the covering of various branches and rope. Chris pulled a little keychain connected to a light bulb; after the light came into existence, he inspected the cavern. Walking further into the cave, he entered a second, larger cavern and flicked on a switch, causing light to flood through the cave. Two glass tubes on pedestals were revealed, along with a computer in front both tubes. There was a firing range and an obstacle course stationed in the room. However, Chris's attention was focused on what was inside of the glass tubes.
In the left tube, a blue-coloured suit sat; it was slender and contained purple patches, the colour mixing with the blue. The left arm had a button on the back of the hand, while the right arm had an arm cannon mounted to match the slender suit. The arm cannon was steel-gray in colour and had six cooling vents in the top. In the right tube was an orange and purple suit of armor, larger than the blue one and having more items attached to it than the blue suit, in addition to a big arm cannon in place of a right hand. Labeled on the tube of the aforementioned suit of armour were the words "Gravity Suit."
Chris walked over to the computer console and started typing commands into it; on a portion of the screen, a face appeared and an artificially intelligent being spoke. "Good evening, Chris; how may I be of assistance to you?"
"Maverick, I need to know which suit is up and running. There's an important matter I have to attend to."
"The Gravity Suit is not fully calibrated yet, so the Fusion Suit is ready to be activated; the only problem with that one is that the weapons and abilities will have to be tested before you leave."
"If it's the only one available, I'll choose it. Chris walked over to the left tube, labeled clearly "Fusion Suit."
A voice startled our protagonist as he made a move to open up the glass tube. "You will need to put on a Zero suit first," proclaimed the AI Maverick
"Oh yeah, I forgot," was Chris' surly reply. Chris moved away from the left tube and headed over to a locker across the room, which revealed two teal-colored Zero Suits. He stripped off his clothes and stepped into one of the Zero Suits. "Man, I just love these things." The Zero Suit instantly acted as a second skin for Chris, and kept him at a comfortable temperature. Chris smiled, knowing this suit will protect him from most physical harm inflicted by his enemies.
Now dressed in a Zero Suit, Chris started back to the left tube. The tube slid its glass wall up, and the robotic arms of the Fusion Suit started to disassemble. Chris stepped into the tube, and the parts fit onto him. As the last piece, the helmet, clicked into place, a holographic screen appeared on the inside; various symbols and gauges came into view. At the top of the screen showed the percentage of his shields, health, and ammo left. At the bottom were two crosses. The left cross depicted two icons, the top one showing a Combat Visor and the right one a Scan Visor. On the right cross it displayed weapon images: the top was the Power Beam, and the right one was the Wave Beam.
"Please walk over to the firing range to test your weapons," said Maverick.
Chris leveled his arm cannon at a floating disk target; the cannon was already set to the Power Beam so he just pulled the trigger. The Power Beam fired a yellow baseball sized shot, hitting the target and blowing it up.
"Now try the Charge Beam capability for the Power Beam," said Maverick
Chris pulled and held the trigger, and this time the cannon gathered energy at its tip and the shot grew twice as big. He looked down the range hallway, and a tight cluster of targets presented themselves to him. He released the trigger and the shot hit and destroyed all five targets.
"It is now time to test the Wave Beam and its Charge Beam capability," said Maverick.
Chris flipped a panel over on the side of the arm cannon; there were five buttons on it, and the colours for the active buttons were yellow for the Power Beam, purple for the Wave Beam, and blue for missiles. The other two buttons were inactive as they were dimmed. He pushed the purple button; the arm cannon widened out and the inside pulsated with electricity.
He aimed at another target and fired a shot; the Wave Beam fired three little "golf balls" of electricity that attracted and repelled each other allowing them to bounce in and out of a triangular pattern. The Wave Beam shot hit the target and destroyed it after shocking it with a jolt of energy. Maverick set up another disk and told Chris to test the Wave Beam's homing ability. Chris fired again at the target and immediately the target moved to avoid the shot, but the shot tracked and hit the target.
"You know what's next, charge and blast the target," said Maverick.
Chris again pulled and held the trigger and the cannon gathered electricity at its tip. He aimed at the target and released the trigger. This time, as a purple basketball sized shot raced down the range, the target tried to avoid the hit, but the aforementioned shot slowed down and moved with the target, which sped up in an effort to get away. However, the shot sped up as well and hit the target.
"It is now time to test the missile system," Maverick told Chris.
"No," said the impatient seventeen-year-old
"But protocol states that I must warn you about not…"
"I don't have the time to test every little thing on the suit, Maverick; that Space Pirate I saw earlier could have already moved from its position," interrupted Chris. His only reply was a series of beeping noises. "Is there something wrong?"
"Yes; I must comply with your order and let you go, so move over to the Recharge Station, and reboot your suit's system."
Chris jogged over to the station and stood still with his gun raised. A robotic arm descended and attached to the end of the arm cannon, and Chris felt the suit get light as air as the suit's power cells were recharged to full their full capacity. The Fusion suit would enhance Chris's speed, agility, reaction time, and reduce his weight. The only weak statistic it had not enhanced was his strength.
"So are you going to use any other systems?" asked Maverick
"Like what?"
Maverick listed them off. "The equipments available at this stage are Morph Ball with Bombs, Speed Boosters, and Space Jump Boots."
There was no hesitation as Chris answered the AI. "Of course I'm going to use them, Maverick."
"But they will need to be tested first, or there could be complications."
"I know they need testing, but I don't really care right now because if that Space Pirate gets away and warns anyone then we're screwed."
Chris jogged out of the cave, not waiting for an answer. He even forgot to insert a chip with a part of Maverick that helps him stay alert in battle to all threats around him. He stopped just inside the line of trees. He was a little surprised to find the Space Pirate had not moved from his original spot, he was still there crouched on the roof. "He must be looking for someone," Chris thought. "It doesn't matter; I have to take him out as fast and as quiet as possible." Chris pressed the button for the Power Beam and fired a trio of shots at the pirate. In a small, hushed voice, he mumbled, "Let's test this guy." The Pirate looked around at the sound of the cannon firing and met the sight of three yellow balls coming right at him. He jumped from the roof of the abandoned house and activated his jump pack; he hovered in the air trying to locate the source of the shots. After he had fired the shots, Chris had crouched to the ground hoping to stay out of sight. However, it was to no avail – the Space Pirate had seen the movement of Chris crouching.
The Pirate aimed his wrist-mounted blaster at the movement and fired shots similar to the Power Beam in five-round bursts. Chris rolled onto the street out of the way and then heard the screech of rockets being fired at him. Chris jumped into the air and watched as the rockets blew holes into the road. "So much for being quiet," Chris mumbled as he looked at the Pirate. He was surprised to see a second flying Pirate next to the first. Chris fired a charge beam at them as they returned fire at him; while he was still in the air, he activated the space jump and jumped over the second volley of rockets. Chris hit the ground and rolled to avoid more blaster shots and rockets.
He rolled into the Morph Ball and rolled into a storm pipe to dodge a rocket. One of the Pirates landed to flush Chris out of his hiding spot by firing his blaster into the mouth of the pipe. The Pirate paused in his firing as he heard the ball rolling, and he saw a bright yellow ball come shooting out from the pipe right at him, Chris, in Morph Ball mode, had used the speed boost to turn the pipe into the barrel of a cannon and had "shot" himself at the Pirate. The result was the force of a train hitting a car; the Pirate was hit in the legs and he found himself face down in the dirt. It had difficulty get up because the lower half of his armour was dented and broken, restricting his movement on the ground. Chris got out of Morph Ball and taunted his enemies.
"All of your rockets missed me. Now let's see what a missile can do," With that said, he pressed the blue button for missiles and the tip of his arm cannon split into four sections. Chris pulled the trigger and a missile (with a long blue streak for a tail) flew at the weakened Pirate. Unfortunately, as the missile got halfway to its intended target, it lost trajectory and swerved off-course, hitting the truck in front of Carl's house. Chris groaned as he watched the whole thing, and he saw the door open and a person coming out to investigate all the noise. Carl's thirteen-year-old sister, Morgan dropped her jaw as she saw two flying Space Pirates – one on the ground having trouble moving, and the other in the air above the nearby abandoned house. She also saw someone in a blue-and-purple coloured suit.
There was a three-second pause as everyone looked at each other, forgetting what they had just been doing. The first one to react was the Pirate flying in the air, who swooped down with the intent of grabbing Morgan to take as a hostage. Chris was the second person to react, as he switch back to the Power Beam and started firing at the Pirate in the air to stop him from kidnapping Morgan; however, the weakened Space Pirate distracted him by firing blaster shots and rockets at Chris. Chris did a space jump to avoid the shots and ended up in the middle of the street. Angry at the outcome of the battle so far, he switched to the Wave Beam.
"Alright, no more games from now on," he yelled. He charged up the Wave Beam and pressed the blue button for missiles at the same time, so the cannon would fire a combination of the weapons, creating the Wavebuster. Instead of a large flexible beam of electricity shooting out at the pirates, the ball of electricity at the end of the arm cannon was sucked back into the gun, and the feedback from the failed Wavebuster went back up into the suit, causing major damage and throwing Chris back about fifteen feet. He landed on his back, unable to move his body save his head and left arm, his right leg feeling numb. "Did my Wavebuster shot backfire?" he thought. "What the hell just happened?"