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The map was still, the trees didn't even stir in the wind. The silence was the most uncomfortable thing for the Spartan crouched in the small cave near the beach head at the bottom of the hill. If there was no noise, then she only had her best guess as to where they enemy lied in wait for him.
Staying crouched, she peaked out from behind the cave wall and, with her Battle Rifle in hand, swept the front of the fortress that lay before her. The building was an old UNSC military base that was reactivated after the slip space rupture in New Mombasa, with on small structure towering over the rest of the base.
She didn't see any movement so she dashed forward toward the small, crumbling stone wall that had a drop pod from a UNSC carrier on the other side. The Spartan reached over the wall and retrieved the weapon that was in the pod, an M41 rocket launcher, and attached it to the back section of her armor.
After waiting a few seconds to see if she was spotted, she sprung up and ran toward the other section of the cave that led toward the bases tunnel entrance. She would use the tunnel entrance to enter behind the enemy, and then continue to sweep each room until she found her and eliminated her.
The plan would have been perfect if it wasn't for one small detail, the blue orb that allowed anyone to have active camouflage that was located in the cave was gone. This could only mean the enemy had it, which means she wouldn't have been able to see her, even if she was in the open.
It was too late. The shotgun shell entered her back and blew her down to the ground.
"No way!" Taylor yelled into her headset. "You were behind me the entire time!?"
A laugh came over the headset.
"You sneaky devil." Taylor said as she impatiently waited for the game to end and for 'the enemy' to stop T-bagging her dead corpse. "That's necrophilia you know."
"Shut up." Zoey said still laughing. "You're the one that taught me that anyway."
"That's because I'm a necro," She joked back to her, "Didn't you know?"
Zoey laughed again as the screen went black and returned them both to the pregame lobby.
"Let's check those stats and see how badly you cheated." Taylor taunted as she opened up the stats menu and began sifting through the data that it showed. "Your other four kills were with the ghost."
"The ghost rocks," Zoey defended, "And besides, your only kill was with a sticky."
"But it was a bad ass sticky," Taylor said, causing Zoey to laugh again, "Got you all the way across the map."
They both laughed for a second before Taylor heard someone come into the background of Zoey's headset.
"Ok….yeah….yes," She must be talking to someone, probably her parents. Taylor never said anything to Zoey, but Taylor hated it when people didn't mute their mics while they were talking to someone else; it was like hearing half of a conversation. "Yeah, I'll do it."
Zoey stopped talking for a moment and let out a sight, so Taylor assumed the other person was gone.
"Who was that?" She asked relatively curious, "You sounded angry."
"It was my dad," Zoey said sounding mildly annoyed, "I have to go to some stupid dance type thing for his work. 'Families invited'".
"When do you have to go?" She really wanted to play a few more matched before Zoey had to leave, she had nothing planned all day, and Zoey was pretty much her only source of fun these days.
"Like now." A rock dropped into Taylor's stomach.
At that moment there was a quiet beep and the indication someone had sent her a game invite had popped up on to her screen. That was strange, there were no other friends online besides Zoey, and she didn't recognize the name.
"xXMenDiCaNt BiAsXx" Taylor said over the mic, slowly saying every letter. Zoey and her had always thought it was ridiculous to put the 'xX' before and after your name, so they decided to make fun of it instead of complain about it. It was just one of their many hobbies they acquired over their two year friendship on Xbox live.
"Who's that?" Zoey asked.
"I dunno, the guy just sent me a game invite."
"Well accept it and invite me, I have time for ONE more match."
Taylor felt like the stone in her stomach had vanished, if only just for now, and she opened up the Dashboard and accepted xXMenDiCaNt BiAsXx's game invite for Halo 3. When she joined the lobby, the guy who sent the invite was no longer in the party.
It was a strange lobby too, the map name was Harvest and the picture accompanying it was that of a large field. There was no game type, only a countdown. 60…59…58…
"Hey, you might want to join now," Taylor said as she sent Zoey the invite, "This looks like some sort of self starting modded map."
"Oh yeah?" Zoey asked as she joined. "Remember when we used to mod back on halo 2?"
"And we had that giant snorlax in the middle of 'Sanctuary'", she answered as they both began laughing again.
50…49…48….
"This game better not take too long, I don't want my dad coming in here and telling me to get ready again."
"I really wish you didn't have to go, I've got nothing to do today." Taylor said as the stone began to reform in her stomach giving her that feeling of sadness again.
"Didn't you say there was a football game at your high school tonight?"
"Yeah, but it's not any fun really." They truthfully weren't anymore, most of her friends stopped going so it was usually just her sitting in the cold watching her team get stomped each game. "Besides I'd have no one to go with."
"Well neither do I," Zoey said trying to sound supportive in her own way, "But I'd go with you if I lived there."
It always made Taylor happy when Zoey said things like that. She knew it was kind of lame to think of her like that, but no matter how she tried to explain it to herself it just came out as 'she's my best friend'.
"Yeah," Taylor said quietly, "I'd go with you too."
40…39…38
There was an awkward silence for a moment until Zoey heard a strange but familiar static come across the headset.
"Are you playing that damn electric twanger?" Zoey said mimicking an old man's voice.
Taylor didn't say anything; she just laughed and continued playing. It always bugged Zoey; she never knew if Taylor was any good, or if she was just strumming it to annoy her, since the only thing Zoey could here was static.
"Are you any good at that?" Zoey asked.
"Umm, yeah I suppose."
"How long have you been playing?"
"Since the end of eight grade, so almost four years."
"Well if you're not good then you should probably pick a different hobby." They both laughed as the timer reached the twenty second mark.
When it came time they both counted down from ten as loud as they could, trying to beat each other and make the other one laugh.
"10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1!"
Then there was blackness.
"Power Surge." Taylor said to herself disappointed at the fact that she wasn't going to play with Zoey. It was also disappointing that she wasn't going to be able to see that map; it looked like it was going to be pretty interesting.
It was only around noon, but she felt pretty tired all of a sudden so she laid her head back expecting to not be able to get to sleep like usual, but she drifted off almost immediately.
"I'd go with you." Those words rang through Taylor's head as she began to sleep. "I'd go with you."
…
Taylor had the most amazing dream; it started with her being only five again, on an unfamiliar planet. Then it went to her being abducted and put into the Spartan II program, it went through most of her training. She watched her body change from the pathetic, lanky form it had been, to the roman statue body build of the Spartans.
She watched as she learned all the military language, all the hand signs, all the code words, she watched as he became the hero that earth needed her to be. Then it stopped, and she began to be wisped through space at what seemed like warp speeds, passing the various battles and locales of the Halo universe until finally reaching Harvest, the place of first contact with the covenant.
Then she woke up…
…
Taylor felt like someone drove a car into her, her whole body ached and she had a massive Migraine. She began to get up from bed when she hit her head on the bunk above her, which needless to say, didn't help the migraine one bit.
"What the fuck?" Taylor asked. How could she hit her head on the bed above her if her bed was never a bunk bed?
She slid out from the bed onto the freezing cold steel beneath, which caused her to fall back onto her bed. Her floors were carpeted; this had to be some kind of joke, or a dream or something. She looked around to get the surroundings; it was a small room with only the bed she was sitting on and two small desks.
There was a label on her bed and she leaned close to read it.
"Spartan 086" was all it had on it.
The only words Taylor could muster were "No fucking way."