A/N: Heyo, second chapter is here, quickly, and as promised, longer. Hope you guys enjoy the new instalment in this series. And also, im planning to make this a rather long story, just a heads up.

NOW, on with the story, enjoy. :D

Chapter 2:

-A Seed Was Planted-

-Unknown Location, Outside City…

oOo

Eden awoke as searing pain thumped through his skull, signalling he was still alive. He tried sitting up but immediately felt his ribs and head fight in protest from the sudden movement. He reached up and touched the back of his head and felt something sticky and slightly dry, pulling away to reveal dried blood.

With his vision still blurred from the blow to his head, he tried leaning against the wall to stand up, and felt his legs ready to buckle under his weight. Struggling to stand he tried calling for his squad mates.

"S-sarg?" Eden said.

Dead.

"Guys?"

Dead.

"Anyone?!"

Dead.

He looked around the cabin and saw the bodies of multiple marines, or what was left. Most had their body ripped away from the searing heat of plasma, making flesh slip from blackened bone. While others seemed to have died from the crash, apparent from the amounts of blood around and contorted limps. Seems he wasn't the only one who had his harness broken. Large portions of the pelican was broken or melted away, with some parts still crumbling and smoking.

Soft warning lights poking through from the cockpit told him the pelican still had some remaining cabin. Gathering his strength he pushed himself all the way up and made his way to the front, hoping to contact someone via radio. He's never really worked a radio, and he never bothered to listen during training. Frankly, how he even graduated from training, amazed him.

Sticking his head around the cockpit he noticed two things. 1. How bad cooked flesh smelt and 2. The slagging metal and sparking exposed wires hanging out of the surrounding frames and boards probably meant everything was broken, including the radio. So with his team dead, pelican destroyed, and no radio, he'd have to go out on foot to find a way to contact the rest of the UNSC, as he doubted the comms in his helmet we're powerful enough to contact anyone out further then a click.

Eden scavenged around the pelican for what he could, and found an assortment of goodies, 1 MA5 Assault rifle, as usual, 2 M6 magnums, and a simple med kit. There were a larger variety of weapons, but I didn't want to be slowed down, so he took a bit of extra ammo in favour, and headed outside.

He stopped at the opening and scanned the sky, it was already dark out, but he could faintly make out the zooming lights of banshees flying by. He waited till the sky was void of any lights and quickly went outside.

The pelican landed in forest and, thankfully, not too far from the city they were heading for. From this point he could make out the buildings there, along with several sections glowing a light orange.

'oh god it's on fire, how long have I been out for?' He thought

With that he started

oOo

The short trip quickly turned sour as covenant activity quickly picked up around the city, apparent from the multiple banshees and phantoms flying by. Eden was in almost full view when the first patrol shot over, making him scramble for cover under some trees.

'Fuck that was close! Great, more covenant in the city, exactly what I needed' He thought.

Almost immediately after, the sounds of plasma discharge and gunfire was heard in the distant, and the smell of fire filled the air.

'Shit there's someone still alive?, ok now I gotta move, fast!'

He was fairly close by now, and could see the state of the city. Sections of buildings were reduced to rubble, smoking holes littered the ground along with alien and human bodies, the latter being the dominant one. The smell of fire was much more prominent now, apparent from the buildings and vehicles that were set alight.

He was halfway through the city searching for who caused the gunfire before, and if there still alive. Immediately he was greeted with what sounded like a child screaming 'ohgod!' from a nearby anyway and something else that sounded like someone scratching metal mesh.

When he rounded the corner he spotted the dead bodies of grunts, and a, were they called Jockey's? the looked akin to a bird, except with teeth, long limps and reptilian eyes. He also barely saw what looked like a person in the corner, though he couldn't really get a chance since they opened fire on him almost immediately, and scrambled behind a dumpster

"WOAH WOAH STOP! HUMAN, PERSON, FRIENDLY FRIENDLY!" He shouted

He heard the gun clatter to the ground, along with a heavy sigh, he looked around and saw it was a women. She looked fairly young, probably only in her 20's, maybe even younger. She had long black hair that draped over her shoulders, as well as flawless skin. Well, aside from the bright blue and red blood across her clothes and face. Her clothes were in tatters and she looked exhausted.

"I'm so s-sorry, I didn't think a-anybody else, was even a-alive" she puffed out

She was breathing heavily, and was struggling to string out a sentence, she could barely even hold that gun. She leaned against the wall behind her and slid down to the ground, burying her head in her knees.

"Are you okay? What happened?" he said, getting up from behind the dumpster

"Yea….yea I'm fine, um, i don't know, one second everything was fine, we were preparing to be evacuated to the next city, and then the next, people were screaming, there was blood everywhere, and I saw, 'them'" she said as she pointed to the bodies.

"it happened so quickly, those soldiers didn't stand a chance, there was just so many. I grabbed a gun from one of the dead ones…..and hid here" he could tell this was getting to her, and she was getting upset, he didn't want to see her cry.

"Hey look its ok, your alive, we can still make it out of here as well" he said

She looked up at him, her cheeks already stained with tears, her blue eyes glistening from the light. She had bags under eyes, she must've been crying a lot beforehand.

"What's your name? you can call me Eden" he said in a soft tone, offering a hand to help her up, she took his armoured hand, and got her legs under her as she stood up.

"Thank you, my names Rosie"

oOo

A/N: And finally the companion to our protagonist is revealed, or will she be just a companion. I think youll find out soon enough in later chapters. And firstly I want to apologise for not making this chapter that much longer, I was having trouble thinking by the end of it and decided to end it here, but I promise as the chapters go on, they'll start to get longer, I assure you. But hope you enjoyed, and please remember to leave a review and a favourite, I would appreciate it so much.

Anyway see you next time, bye bye.

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