- Do You Want To Live? (I) -
Halo (c) Microsoft, Bungie and associated creators. Red vs. Blue (c) Rooster Teeth. Content includes mentions of violence, death, inappropriate language and other mature content.
"Do you want to live?"
It was the oddest question in a sea of blackness. In blazing pain and fiery eruptions, he was still, lifeless, motionless. He and the wreckage were entangled as one, burnt to a crisp in his hunk of a modified MJOLNIR suit. There was only a crackle and a roar in his ears, and he could not see anymore, his eyelids fused shut by the heat.
"I said, 'Do you want to live?'"
Where was the cold coming from? It was stinging, overwhelming, and at the same time comforting. From the black came a figure, prowling in icy blues and whites, wolfish eyes staring down at him. It crawled downwards like it was pawing down a wall, and he could see icicles rising from its back. Its breath was frosted, the glow soft, like light through a scuffed glacier; he blinked in his mind at the sight. The creature paused, reaching out with a wickedly large paw, scythes for claws instead of the blunter nails of a canid.
"Don't let it take you, SPARTAN!" the figure yelled, its voice loud and echoing. "Come with me! Let me take you somewhere safe!"
The pain was overwhelming, as was the urge to let go and fade away. Yet, the bring light caught his attention, and he couldn't bring himself to be dead. His curiosity was perked; he was covered in third-degree burns and cooking alive. What could the monster do for him? Why am I calling it a monster...?
"Don't do this to Catherine!" the beast yelled. "She would have wanted you to live! Don't forget her, Carter!"
Catherine...Kat was dead. He could hear her giggles in one ear, his voice softly, gently calling to him from somewhere farther away. He let his mind drift, the light of the beast fading; what followed was a sharp, crackling pain through his mind, and then what felt like an icy lance. He cried out, a croak rising from his throat, no distinction as to whether it was mental or physical. The canid creature, the glowing beast made of ice, was up in his face and snarling. It was one of the most unnerving sights and sounds the SPARTAN-III had witnessed and heard.
"Live, damn you!" the wolf snarled. "If you're going to give up then I'll make you live!"
A figure pulled him from the wreckage, barely on its own two feet. It too wore armour, similar to his but blackened, scratched and banged-up beyond recognition. Like a living zombie, it seemed to have no free will, instead blindly following orders barked into its head and passed onto the nerves. A hunk of metal, a technical marvel of some kind, was activated and slapped onto Carter's husk from a belt; a green light announced that it worked. Carter's armour sparked, and in both heads, something growled long and low.
The blackened soldier, name and identity long unknown and forgot, began to undo Carter's armour. It was in such bad shape, it took most of the soldier's enhanced strength to pry it off. Skin tore and stuck to all the wrong parts and places, and whatever was controlling it was worried nothing would work. Yet, in its strange compassion for those called "SPARTANs", it would do everything it could to try. It whined and scratched at the mind of its current host, telling the barely-alive human to move faster; Carter's armour was thrown aside with a loud clank. One had bled to death, it counted; a second had been shot through the head, another was MIA, a fourth had been vaporized in slipspace, and the fifth, a fellow lone wolf, was untraceable. The last transmitted location of that hyper-lethal vector had been at the hands of Elites tearing him (or her, the entity couldn't recall) to pieces.
My last chance, thought the creature, a glistening AI of blue, white, ice and fur. It - he - hungrily stared down at Carter's body, watching as the healing unit was slapped onto Carter again. My last chance. Wake up, wake up, wake up little SPARTAN...