Author note: sorry I did not intend for this chapter to be so short; thank you to all that have reviewed as well as read this work in progress.
Enjoy!
Chaos rang throughout the streets, cries of terror and war echoed across the city.
Artemis looked around in confusion as she was dragged behind the blonde COG Baird.
"Come on! Hurry up!" Baird called out over the noise of chaos and terror, and turned down another street. "Shit!" he hissed when he spotted a horde of Locusts beginning to swarm out of an emergence hole that had just sprung up at the opposite end of the rubble filled street.
Upon seeing the danger ahead Artemis quickly pulled out a pistol and held it firmly in her small hands.
"You think that's gonna do anything?" he questioned dryly, eyeing the pistol in her hand.
"I'm not exactly a soldier as you are, and Control doesn't exactly give us heavy artillery." she retorted with a glare.
Baird was about to rebuke to her comment when a loud crack echoed out.
Artemis felt a sudden breeze go past the right side of her face and heard and eerie howling rush past her ear. Snipers; she had just come within a hairs width of having her brains blown out.
"Ah, fuck!" Baird hissed and grabbed the woman standing next to forcefully by the wrist and pulled her forward again.
Ahead of them he saw a rusted, broken down car and made a run for it, pulling Artemis along behind him. Once in the cover of the abandoned vehicle the blonde soldier hurriedly pulled out his sniper rifle, loaded in a round and cocked it. With a grunt he sprang up and anchored the rifle against the steel frame of the car door and peered through the scope, aiming at the exposed head of a Locust Cyclops. His finger tensed and pushed down on the trigger; he watched in disgusted pride as the Locust's head exploded in a mess of brain tissue and flesh. He watched the body slump forward, blood still spouting from the neck of the decapitated body, and he grimaced slightly before moving on to the next target.
An eerie screech suddenly filled the air, Baird cussed in annoyance and saw the hunched over, disfigured forms of a swarm of Wretches now charging towards them.
"Fuck!" he cursed and was about to switch weapons to take on the new threat when he heard a shot ring out from beside him, followed by a few more and he saw one of the Wretches fall. He glanced to his right and saw Artemis crouched down peering around the front of the car, pistol at the ready.
"Not exactly a marksman." he comment after it took her four more shots just to bring down another Wretch,
She scoffed and fumbled with her weapon in an attempt to reload it.
"Take the goddamned help; I'm not a soldier, but it appears that you need all the help you can get!" she hissed managing to finally reload her pistol.
Baird was slightly perturbed at the outburst but quickly went back to picking off the Locust horde.
Around twenty minutes later the horde seemed to be retreating and Baird stood up for his position behind the stranded car and watched in confusion. It puzzled him, the Locust never retreated, it wasn't their nature…but at least it got them out of his hair for the time being. Sighing in mild frustration he turned to see Artemis standing up, loading her last round into her pistol before dusting herself off. Her light grey eyes suddenly shifted upwards and he found himself gazing into the deep pools of stormy grey.
"It's not polite to stare." she chided with a glare.
"I wasn't staring, I was just making sure the Locust didn't cause to much damage…Jeez." he replied rolling his eyes.
"Such a gentleman…" she muttered.
There was an awkward pause in which Baird took the chance and stole a secretive glance back at the woman beside him, whom appeared to be in deep thought. He noticed how pale her skin was, not deathly pale, but pale none the less; a few strands of her blonde hair that had been previously pulled back into a neat bun had found their way out of their bindings and now fell around her face messily.
After a few more moments her was about to look away knowing that he might get caught staring again when he noticed something he hadn't before; a pair of pale pink scars marring her soft face. The first lay on the crest of her left eyebrow, cutting through the fine hairs of her brow, barely reaching three quarters of an inch. The second fell upon the left, scarring both her upper and lower lip, marring the slightly cracked pale pink flesh.
As he pondered the reasons for these minute but noticeable scars he made the mistake of letting his guard down.
"What the hell is your problem?" Artemis growled at him catching his stare.
He was slightly surprised but quickly recovered.
"What the hell is yours?" he spat back.
The blonde female opened her mouth to say something in return when Baird's comm. link crackled.
"What?!" he hissed into the link.
"Fuck, who shoved a stick up your ass?" Marcus' voice replied in annoyance.
"Never mind…What'd ya want?" Baird questioned trying to remain level headed, or at least sound like it.
"We need to get to the Rig's on the double…"
"Affirmative…" the blonde replied and closed the link.
Looking over to the Control transferee he sighed tiredly.
"Come on…lets go." he said and began walking down the street, stepping around the bloodied bodies of Locust, Wretches and the occasional debris.
Artemis rolled her eyes and followed after him.
The walk through the battle scarred streets of Jacinto remained fairly quiet with neither Baird nor Artemis attempting to carry on a conversation with one another. They weren't exactly on good terms with each other after all, but none the less Artemis was grateful to the COG soldier walking a few paces ahead of her. Of course she would never admit to it for it would, as she suspected would lead to an inflation of his already largely inflated ego; thus with this conclusion she sided with remaining silently grateful.
Not too far in the distance she could hear the Chairman giving a rousing speech to the soldiers about to go into battle and she could hear the cheering. She knew this meant that she and Baird would be parting ways soon, though she had a feeling that this would be the last she would be hearing from him…after all she might just have to save his sorry hide someday, but in truth she doubted that.
The COG soldier suddenly cleared his throat, catching the Corporal's attention, though they continued to walk towards their destination.
"Listen, I'm only gonna say this once…Thanks, I guess for the help back there…even though you shot like fuckin' shit…" he said gruffly not bothering to even look at her.
"You're welcome…thanks for saving my ass…" she replied slightly surprised on what she had just heard him say.
"Yeah…just don't look into it to much…you said you could take care of yourself."
Artemis nodded though she knew he could see it, she suspected that he knew she understood.
After that the walk continued on its previous course of silence until Baird spoke up once more.
"This is where we part ways." he said, still not bothering to look at her.
"Guess so…" she replied and heard the rumble of the Derricks and Centaurs moving out of the city on their way to war.
Without another word they parted ways, Baird heading towards the war machines and Artemis towards the square where the members of Control were and where Prescott was delivering his speech.
...The war had begun…
