Chapter 1: Foundling

"I will show you fear in a handful of Dust"

There was dust. Dark particles danced through the air obscuring the midday sun. Perhaps to a few, that might have given some relief from the scorching heat, but to Lance Corporeal William Johnston, it was simply cover for the enemy. At the present moment, he was retreating, hopefully in the right direction. Separated from his unit, he blundered through the thick smog. At any moment, he might just collide with a member of the Covenant or trip over a sleeping Grunt. (No matter how unlikely that might seem, it has happened before). Perhaps he was surrounded by Elites; perhaps he was alone. No light pierced through the dust. Moving his stiff leather boots, he shuffled across the ground uncertainly. It's not the time to be worried, he thought. A bit too late. Either I'm right or wrong. Judging by my karma, I'm probably wrong.

If Johnston was fighting against humans, smoke might have been to his advantage. He would not be able to see the enemy but the enemy would not be able to see him. However, Jackal's eyes could see through the thickest smog. That was one reason why they were stationed as snipers. One could be aiming at him right now…

His boots made clacking noises on the ground; the glassy ground. That might have been a bit odd as he was outdoors. Out, in the open, without cover. However, once a part of a planet was glassed, the ground might as well be a mirror. This planet was fortunate. The Covenant had not finished glassing. They were methodical and thorough but for unknown reasons, they had stopped halfway. Communications had been down for some time and news was never reliable to begin with. William suspected something had happened in space that he had missed.

"Death at ten paces"

Walking along the mirror like ground, dust swirled around him. It rose up in the air, blanking out his vision soundly. Dust and darkness. The dust never agitated his already dry and sore eyes, it 

only added to his confusion. After he walked about ten paces without dying, or seeing any purple lancing beams, he was confident there were no snipers. The marine hesitated for a moment. His sense of direction was completely messed up in this smoke. Pausing briefly, he made a decision and pitched a few flash grenades, evenly distributing them around him. He cleared the smoke enough to see glimpses of the sun. Finally, the dust cleared fully and all he saw was glass.

The grenades might have killed him. Had there been any enemies around him, he would be nothing more than a quivering heap of flesh. Perhaps he would be glowing green from all the plasma radiation. Maybe they wouldn't waste any gun energy on him. They might just crush him underfoot like they did to Robert… A lone marine stranded from his base could just be the target of the controversial (especially to those who are the 'ball') Covenant recreational sports that really needed the visit from an ethical community. However, if he had never used the grenades, he might never have known he was walking the wrong way: to the enemy camps. That was practically suicide, not even an option.

His presumptions of any hidden Elites or other members of the Covenant were wrong as he could now see. Endless glass stretching for miles was all he could see; until he saw a spot of green, perhaps ten miles away. It was the direction of his base.

All over the glassed city, where the previous battle was was covered in bodies. Some were new; they were turned inside out. Body organs were on the wrong side of the body. Intestines were exposed to light and reminded Johnston of spaghetti. Twisty, noodles… Twisted and mangled remains haunted him in his dreams. They had died after the glassing during the battle. However, others were charred, bones twisted into horrific images. He recognized that some of the cadavers were Grunts. Too wounded to move away from the glassing when the time came, they had died a fiery painful death. Or perhaps, he mused. A quick death. Less than a second before their foreheads melted into their eyes and their stomachs melted to- He shook his head. His mind was wandering as minds so often do when alone on a battlefield.



Unlike most marines, he could summon a slight sadness for the Grunts that had burned. Were they as religiously bound as the Elites? Were they really religious fanatics? Or were they forced into battle? Wars were so much more different and logical in the past when humans fought each other over land. The foot soldiers, the ones that suffered in the trenches for their countries, could feel pity for the opposing side. They were all pawns in politics. Just the generals' way of taking land. However, most, if not all, sentiments were banished when the other side was bombing your trench and you were quivering so much that you might just piss your pants. Such emotion did not even exist in in their war against the Covenant. Each bloody Elite might as well be a bloody general. They did not even want your land. There was no reasonable purpose to this bloody idiotic war. Each Elite hated you to your very atoms and each one was such a religious zealot bastard that they killed you because their leaders asked them to. Asked them! It was not so much of an order. They were doing it of their own free will. And their objective? It was not really to steal planets from the UNSC was it? It was to exterminate all humans. Johnston gritted his teeth. Extermination. He understood the logic in conquering but 'Exterminate?'

When an alien species hated you that much, you just couldn't feel sorry for them as you felt sorry for the opposing side in World War I. Such a long way back. We, humans, can never evolve to understand that war is wrong. But this should not be our war. For once, we didn't start it.

Each mere foot soldier, perhaps even the civilians (if there were any) just seemed to have a personal vendetta against you. Not to your leaders, but you (and your leaders, come to think of it, because they are the same species as you. At least Johnston hoped that the orders he was carrying out on this god forsaken planet were given to him by humans and not some brainless gorillas. Most marines sometimes felt that their leaders were brainless gorillas. The sergeant was though… definitely…)

The very leaders of the Covenant did have a grudge against you. No politics. Just mindless genocide. No wonder we don't have any empathy towards them, Will thought.



He had been walking for ten miles. His fear of snipers hidden in buildings was banished. There were no buildings in this desolate glass field. If you could call it a field. His foot finally hit still living ground and that was when he heard it. A whimper. Somebody was unsurprisingly injured. He looked around. The hot sun created stark shadows on the ground yet he could not find the source of the sound. The whimper sounded again and he reached for his gun. The cry of pain was not human.

The sound sounded off. It was too rough and high to be a human's whimper or the whimper of an animal that was indigenous to this planet. Unless the human had been smoking cigarettes since childbirth and was currently sucking in vast amounts of helium. Gears in his brain whirred slowly. He was dizzy, and just wanted to get back to base. If the whimper was not human, so it had to be Covenant.

The cry was too low to belong to a Grunt. He could have left and doubtless the Covenant member would have died but Johnston's nature was not very resourceful. He wandered towards a ditch where he supposed the sound had to be coming from. The whine sounded like it belonged to an Elite but he had never heard an Elite whine even when in pain. Elites just roared a lot and sometimes spewed harsh alien words when dealing with an injury. He moved closer to the ditch and the Elite sounded like it was sobbing now; a warbled voice whimpering.

They are the enemy.

Not they, the bloodthirsty ones.

They are all the same.

No.

He slid down the trench. There was an Elite, bare of armour, curled up and crying. At least William assumed it was. He was not an expert on the body language of alien species. However, he saw one distinguishing feature that explained why an honour bound; religious fanatic bastard was 

acting so uncharacteristically weak. The Elite was very unexpectedly, young. Lance Corporeal Johnston did not know why he was so surprised. Elites had to have gone through childhood, right?

William had fought countless Elites. The one curled up was nothing like the warriors he had faced. Its muscles were not as developed and its body was thin, almost lanky; disproportioned (for an Elite). It was also not very tall. Perhaps about 6 ft. Johnston had just found a child. An injured one as well. And for some reason, the Elite was on a planet, probably very far away from the Covenant home world. It wore no armour so it was obviously not part of the military. The Covenant did not recruit youngsters… William decided it had to be a stowaway. A child too young to join the military but eager to spill some human blood for some perverted religious ceremony made by those religious zealot bastards.

Though that was what William thought, his character did not allow him to leave an unprotected child in a battle zone. A mere child, not responsible for its species' actions. Yet it was a stowaway, wanting to spill humans—our and my—blood. His mind screamed in protest as he applied bio-foam to the more serious of wounds and taped them up. As he tended to the Elite's wounds, he began to think. That child is a civilian. Perhaps one that did not agree to the war?

Every human soldier seemed to have an inbred hatred of any Covenant. Johnston was no exception. Yet, against all instincts, he picked up the quivering child and continued back to base.

Lance Corporeal William Johnston had principles; strong ones. No mere Elite Child who had never laid a claw on a human should die for the genocide its species had committed. Will was an idealist. Not exactly the ideal personality for a soldier. Idealists are after all the most stubborn fools and make irrational decisions.

Only a foolish fool of a fool would so foolishly seek to save the foolish child of a foolishly foolish enemy who foolishly enjoys hanging fools up by their foolish entrails.

I am that fool.



A/N I thank you; all of you for reading the last full stop of the last sentence of the last paragraph. Remember to review on your way out!