1 – WHERE FUSION COILS COME FROM

"…And that's the secret to faster than light travel," a fusion coil finished telling his son, a slightly smaller fusion coil, as together they watched the setting of the sun. "It really is that simple."

"Wow, that's so awesome!" the child coil agreed enthusiastically.

From the field at the bottom of the canyon where they sat, both of them could see the sun set in the eastern part of the sky through spacing between the walls of a high plateau. They both admired the view in silence for some minutes.

Eventually, the child coil broke the silence. "Daddy?" he asked.

"Yes, son?" the adult coil responded.

"Where do fusion coils come from?"

The adult coil thought for a moment, as it was a rather complicated question. "Well, son, that is a very long story." He took a deep breath, which, as he was a fusion coil, made him glow slightly brighter for a time. Once his luminosity had returned to normal, he began:

"It all started when one of the fusion coil colony worlds, Reach, was destroyed by fearsome aliens called the plasma batteries. One ship, the Coil of Autumn, escaped by executing a random jump into the depths of space. They arrived randomly at a giant ring called a Halo. Their ship was attacked by the plasma batteries and The Coil of Autumn crashed on the ring shortly afterwards. To make a long story short, a really powerful fusion coil called the Fusion Chief, after realizing that Halo was a weapon that could obliterate the galaxy, detonated the Coil of Autumn and destroyed the ring – after escaping in a fighter, of course!"

"Why did the Fusion Chief destroy the ring instead of using it?" the child coil asked.

"The ring was controlled by an entity called 343 Guilty Nuclear Explosion. Shortly after meeting the Fusion Chief, they discovered that they had a few too many differences and 343 Guilty Nuclear Explosion tried to exterminate the Fusion Chief and detonate Halo prematurely. The Fusion Chief had no choice but to destroy the ring, or the galaxy would have been obliterated."

The child coil was almost sparking with interest now. "What happened next?"

"After the Fusion Chief returned to Earth and got a medal for the events at Halo, Earth was attacked by a very large fleet of plasma battery battle cruisers. The Fusion Chief discovered that a plasma battery leader, the Battery of Regret, was on the capitol ship and soon after the Battery of Regret tried to escape. The Fusion Chief and some friends, in the frigate In Fusion Clad, jumped after him in pursuit. They arrived at another Halo."

"Another Halo? Wooooow!" the child coil shouted.

The adult coil continued:

"The Fusion Chief landed on the new Halo and found the location of the Battery of Regret in the center of a giant lake. And then the Battery of Regret exploded for no apparent reason. Or maybe it was because the Fusion Chief punched him. And the Fusion Chief was abducted by a giant blob of fat called the Grave Core, which was the hive mind for another race of aliens collectively known as the Mortal Coil.

While all of this was going on, a plasma battery called the R Biter, because he hated the letter R, became dissatisfied with the way that the leading batteries were handling their foreign policy and decided to lead a rebellion against the powers that were. Skipping a few chapters, he then stopped the second Halo ring from firing and saved all sentient life in the galaxy.

The Fusion Chief was teleported onto the plasma battery city High Voltage just as it was taken over by the Mortal Coil. The Chief stowed away on board an ancient ship along with the Battery of Truth, who let him stay on more of less just for the hell of it and because he had more important things to deal with than one Fusion Coil, as it escaped to Earth. The Chief left the ship before it landed, and then turned into an asteroid and landed in eastern Africa where he woke up as the Chief again, and then, with the help of the R Biter, helped retake Earth from the plasma batteries."

"Is that the end?" the child coils asked.

"No. The last part of the story is that the Chief traveled to a structure called the Park that controlled all seven of Halo and used it to blow up the galaxy because he was pissed off and then fusion coils in all colors that were orange fell from the sky and started an interplanetary civilization."

The child coil mulled this information around in his equivalent to a head for a while. "So then, is that really where we all came from?"

"Yeahhhhhh…no."

"Oh."

"Yeah, I just made that story up last night. Good, though, isn't it?"

"Well, where do we come from, then?"

"Honestly…I have no freaking idea! I really don't."

"Hmm," the child coil mumbled in thought. "You really have no clue?"

"Not in the slightest," the adult coil responded. "We seem to just appear out of thin air most of the time."

"What about those bipedal things with visors?"

"What, you mean humans?"

"Yeah."

"I think they get here on starships or something like that. Appearing for no apparent reason seems to be limited only to our species."

"Yeah, well, I'd like to see one of those homen things-"

"Human," his father corrected.

"Right. I'd like to see one of those human things just appear out of thin air sometime. It would serve them right, for blowing us up all the time."

"Yeah, that would be worth seeing, wouldn't it?"

All of a sudden, an inter-dimensional portal opened up directly over the two coils. As they stared in awe, four green colored humans fell out of it. The coils barely had time to realize that they were in danger when the Greens impacted them, and they both exploded under the combined weight of four suits of Spartan armor.


The sun had not yet risen in the west when bagpipes started playing. Out of the entrance to the Yellow Base in Sector 18-Alpha stepped Patton, his reflective golden armor flecked with starlight as it refracted off of his armor's surface. Following him was Amber, who made sure that the pace of her steps matched exactly with those of her boss out of professionalism, and so that she wouldn't accidentally run into him. After Amber came Clair, who was humming in tune with the bagpipes, and taking to chance to scan the sky. And finally came Ryan, minus his helmet, who Patton had ordered to play the bagpipes. He actually had no real experience playing them, and so his notes were only rarely on key, more often than not barely played at all.

Before they had stepped outside, Patton had described his bag-piping skills as "chaotic but good enough for now" which, when translated, meant "You suck balls, but we're only gonna be doing this once, so I really don't care that much." Which was fine with Ryan, because he was extremely tired, having gotten only a few hours of sleep last night and none the night before, and having to deal with his boss's attitude was the last thing he needed right now.

Patton stopped the procession once they had gotten thirty meters from the entrance structure. Ryan stopped playing, thinking that his part was over, but as soon as he did his boss motioned for him to continue. Instead Ryan took the pipe from his mouth and asked: "Do we really need to do this? I really don't like standing here without a helmet..." He squinted, his brown eyes attempting to pierce the darkness around him without his helmet's light amplification system.

Patton snorted and then said: "Yes. They were courageous people, and, despite being Green, they bravely fought alongside us. We must give them a proper funeral. That, and I just like a good breath of fresh air in the morning."

"Certainly makes me feel better." Clair added. "And there's a lot of medical info that backs it up..."

Ryan let out a complaining sigh. "But I don't like bagpipes. I've never liked that kind of music…if you can even call it that. Hell, I've never even seen bagpipes before today! Where the crap did you get this pair?"

"Hobar?"

` "Yes?"

"How to say this…"

"Go on."

"I want you to shut up."

"Oh."

"You have the eulogy memorized?" Amber asked the commander.

Patton nodded. He walked up to the top of a nearby hill and took a deep breath. "We gather here today to mourn the passing of four of our greatest enemies-"

"I still don't understand why," Ryan rudely interrupted under his breath.

Amber and Clair shushed him forcefully. The weapons specialist crossed his arms and looked back at Patton, glowering.

The Yellow Commander continued: "And so we have all come here to honor the memory of those who would be heroes, except for the fact that they were technically our enemies, which is kind of disappointing, but fuck it, we're doing it anyways because we really don't have much of anything else to do. Firstly there was that loud crazy person named Kenny, whose mighty strength made up for more than his tiny, tiny brain. Then there was Skope, who was kind of a jerk, but seemed like a good friend of Amber's. Then there was that chick named Jess who I didn't really know, but I'm still kind of sad about her being dead just for the hell of it. She seemed nice, if a little dim. I'm sure she and Hobar would have been good friends. And finally, there was the strangest of them all, their medic Nome Achentat... Achentatensomething… LondonFranceParis…I think…wait, here we go...shit, I still don't know how to say that...ah, fuck it, I'll just call him the Medic. Anyways, last but not least there was the Medic, and boy was he one weird son of a bi-"

"Aren't we supposed to be honoring them?" Clair reminded. "I think that usually entails saying nice things about them. Not that I'm complaining, of course," she added quickly as Patton looked over his shoulder at her.

Patton sighed and shrugged. "Fine, I'll just wrap this up quick." He took in another breath. "They shall be missed, if not by us then by somebody…we should hope. Well, come to think of it, yeah, I guess we'll miss them. I mean, who else do we have to kill now other then the Blues?"

"Well, at least we've got LOTS of them!" Ryan put in, happy to have a subject other than bagpipes to talk about.

"Shut up, Hobar!" Patton ordered.

"Where do you go when you die?" Amber asked. "I mean, I know all that religious stuff, but still..."

Patton shrugged his shoulders. "Fuck if I know!"

"Well, wherever the Greens are, I'm sure they'll have lots of Blues to kill," said Clair. "That poor army has had so many casualties that the afterlife must be packed with them by now!"

"A heaven where all you do is kill Blues?" Ryan shouted excitedly. "Now, that's the life!"

"Unless Lucy killed them all already..." Patton muttered quietly to himself.

"You say something, boss?" Ryan asked.

"No. Nothing important. And why did you stop playing the bagpipes! Keep going until I tell you to stop!"

"Yes, sir." Ryan grumbled, before raising the bagpipes again.