**Hello, all! I wanted to write about something that I've been thinking about for some time. I'm so curious about the scars on Noble teams' faces (Kat's will be addressed in Reaching Out). Jorge's is one of the most notable (and one of the most bad-ass) so I decided to write a little fic about how he got it. It's kind of short, but it addresses how the war is starting to take a toll on Jorge, and the entire team. As always, please read and review! *KISS* :-)
"All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am.
So many stories of where I've been.
And how I got to where I am..."
The team was set to clear a comm center so that the UNSC specialists could come in and retrieve the data stored there and keep it from Covenant hands. It was a fairly easy mission, since only a small covenant retrieval team was sent in. Jorge had one more hall and data server room to clear out. He marched down the hall, shooting down the grunts and jackals. He entered the server room and engaged a bunch of grunts.
Three of them fell almost instantly.
"You're so fragile!" Jorge said with a laugh.
There were three more, which he engaged. However, his heavy gun was suddenly ripped from his hands and tossed aside. Jorge whirled around and saw vaguely transparent arms throwing his gun across the room. Jorge grabbed his sidearm and shot in front of him, causing the camouflaged Elite's armor to glow and spark. The Elite came out of camouflage and began to shoot at him. The grunts started shooting at him as well. Jorge ducked behind a server and shot the grunts. However, his pistol was now spent, so he tossed it aside.
He heard the Elite approaching him. When he saw him around the corner from his peripheral vision, he whirled around scuffled with the Elite. He managed to knock the Elite's plasma rifle from his hands. The elite, however, became enraged and whirled around and landed a kick right into Jorge's face, knocking his helmet off and causing it to fling off and roll away. Jorge lunged forward and punched the Elite in the face. It stumbled back before jumping forward and landing another kick into Jorge's stomach. Jorge jabbed it in the face with his left hand before landing another huge punch with his right fist. The elite tried to punch him back, but Jorge grabbed his hand and punched him in the face again.
"C'mon, split-jaw," Jorge sneered, "I could do this all day!"
The elite took an odd stance, with its hand on his hip. Suddenly he lunged forward, and bared a small dagger that missed Jorge's stomach by inches as Jorge hopped back. Jorge leaned in and punched it again.
The Elite stumbled back and yelled. He suddenly ran backwards and ducked behind a corner.
"Aw, c'mon! Don't run!" Jorge yelled as he followed the elite.
The elite sprang forward suddenly in his camouflage. Jorge wasn't able to see the elite until the last second, so Jorge was only able to get partially out of the way of the Elite's quick, backhanded wrist flick. The dagger grazed his right eye, burning intensely painful and hot down his forehead, across his eyebrow and half-way down his cheek. Jorge growled in pain as blood poured into his eye, causing him to have distorted, grotesque crimson vision in that eye. The elite laughed maniacally and bared its teeth to Jorge.
"That's it," Jorge growled before jumping towards the Elite. It went to stab him in the chest, but Jorge caught the Elite's hand in his own left hand. He wrapped his right arm around the Elite's head and yanked him down into a headlock, exposing its neck. He rolled his wrist and managed to wrestle the dagger from the Elite. He then pulled the dagger upwards and looked down at the Elite writhing in his arm.
"Május bűneitek ítélje meg a pokolba" Jorge growled before driving the dagger into the Elite. It writhed a little, so Jorge twisted the dagger with a slow and deep rotation of his wrist, scooping the dagger into the Elite's flesh and causing blood to pour out onto Jorge's gloved hand and causing the Elite to gargle and choke repulsively.
When the Elite was completely motionless, Jorge carelessly dropped the Elite onto the floor, its own dagger still in its neck.
"Only fitting that the tool you've used to take the lives of humans should be the one that takes your own life," Jorge noted to the dead Elite.
Jorge looked around for his helmet, but had a hard time through his distorted, bloodied view. Suddenly he heard muffled voices, and assumed it was his helmet. He followed the sound and saw his discarded helmet lying lazily under a desk. He grabbed it and heard Carter's frantic, muffled voice.
"JORGE! NOBLE FIVE, COME IN! We need to get out before the Covvies bring friends." Carter ordered.
"Here, sir. Ran into some resistance. On my way out to you, sir." Jorge said as he shoved his helmet on over his bloodied face. He grabbed his gun from the opposite side of the room and ran out. The rest of the team was waiting by the falcons.
"About time, Five," Thom said.
"Sorry," Jorge said, "Ran into a damned Elite flanked by a bunch of stupid little bastard grunts and got into a little scuffle."
"Can't complain about taking out some Covenant," Carter said, patting him on the back, "But let's roll out."
Carter, Jorge and Jun got into one falcon and Kat, Emile and Thom got into another. Jorge looked over his shoulder in the falcon and saw the medkit attached to the wall. He grabbed it and put it on his lap before pulling off his helmet to address his wound.
When the helmet was completely removed, Carter and Jun both looked at him and gasped.
"HOLY shit, Jorge!" Carter said, "What the hell happened?"
"I told you I got into a scuffle," Jorge said with a shrug.
It was a horrifying sight to see. The blood was continuing to pour from the wound that stretched down from his hairline down to the middle of his cheek. However, the helmet on his head had smashed and painted the blood on the entire right side of his face and over his forehead.
"You didn't mention THAT!" Carter said, nodding towards his wound. Carter pulled off his helmet and knelt down in front of Jorge in the falcon.
"I got it, sir," Jorge said.
"Get outta here," Carter said, knocking Jorge's hands away and grabbing the medkit himself.
Carter first cleaned the blood off of Jorge's face. He then sprayed a little biofoam into the wound to hold it over.
"How's your vision? Can you see out of it?" Carter asked.
"Yes, it's fine," Jorge lied. He actually couldn't see out of it very well- it was very dark.
"Mmmhmm," Carter said. He put his right hand over Jorge's left eye.
"Can you see now?"
"Yes."
Suddenly Carter smacked Jorge on the right side of his head. Jorge didn't see it coming, but recoiled upon the impact.
"What was that for?" he asked.
"FOR LYING!" Carter said, "Jorge, this is serious! As soon as we land, go STRAIGHT to the hospital ward!"
"Yes, sir." Jorge muttered miserably.
"Leave it to Jorge to lie in order to fight another day," Jun said with an amused laugh.
However, Jorge looked somewhat miserable.
"Look, Jorge," Carter said, "Even if you lose vision in that eye, I'm sure it won't be a severe enough to discharge you from service."
When they landed Jorge went into the hospital ward. The surgeons repaired the wound as best as they could, but energy weapons tended to leave massive burn scars, so it would definitely be a noticeable scar. However, Jorge felt grateful because they were able to repair the damage to his eye to avoid blindness. The next day, Jorge emerged from the hospital ward and joined his team for breakfast.
"Quite the scar you got there, Jorge," Jun said.
Jorge hadn't even really bothered to look into a mirror. Instead he took a spoon and looked into it. Though slightly distorted, he could still clearly see that it was a large, long and raised scar running down his face. He ran his fingers over it and felt the raised, uneven skin.
"Chill out, big man," Thom said, noting Jorge's uneasy face, "It looks bad-ass."
"It LOOKS like I got stabbed by an alien en route to the fall of humanity," Jorge said miserably before looking down at his food.
The other Spartans fell silent. It was hard for them to see Jorge seem beaten down- he was always the spirit of the team- urging them onward and inspiring confidence in the entire team. When he was down, the team was down. Jun put his arm on Jorge's shoulder and looked at him.
"Don't worry, Jorge," Jun said, "Humanity will survive. I can tell."
"I hope you're right, Jun." Jorge said.
However, Jorge questioned whether Jun was right, or blindly optimistic. He solemnly guessed the latter. Jorge always tried to see the good of things, but it was growing increasingly hard to do so. He feared so deeply for Humanity's survival, and rued the days where insurrectionists were Humanity's only problem. The scar on his face meant he was only inches away from his death, which he didn't even lament:he would give his life a million times to ensure Humanity's survival- and wouldn't even think twice about it.
However, as Jorge sat there, staring at the branding he had received from the Covenant, he soon became rabidly and maniacally glad it was there. He was glad that it was so long and so deep, because he would never be able to hide it. Instead, he resolved to use it as his unconventional motivation- an aberrant muse for his future encounters with the Covenant monsters. He could understand that Humanity was losing, and maybe they would lose completely- maybe they wouldn't. However, Jorge promised himself that if they were falling and, perhaps, going to fall completely, he would kill every. single. Covenant. bastard that had the foolish audacity to cross his path. He wouldn't stop, even if they begged for mercy. Indeed, his gun would be his trumpet sounding the song of his conviction. From now until every covenant is wiped from the universe.