A/N: Hey, sorry for the wait everybody. Credete's computer crapped out on him :( Let's all hope that it fixes itself (its on a loop and he can't access anything) and that no data has been erased. His college life has been hectic and hard on him, so hopefully it'll get better after finals!
I'm to blame for the lateness too of course. Well first of all I haven't really been writing a lot, but I still have about 15k saved up and ready to be edited. Thankfully I've started editing the third and fourth, but I still have to make it... crazier. You'll understand later. Another thing is that I've been grounded. Mostly for bad grades, but going over to a friend's house was icing on the cake. Oh well, it was fun and worth it. Hmm... which reminds me to make hot cross buns and lemon poppy seed muffins for next Tuesday when we get back to school... oh yeah, grounded on Spring Break? Good job self. So proud of you. I think this happened before somewhere. Anyways, been dealing with that crush deal, getting a lot of advice and anti-support from my friend and my sister (you know, advice on just letting him go. Trying!) and homework (which I still have to do... hehe). Anyways, my life has been hectic, but not as mad as Credete's, so don't hate on him. He's awesome.
So anyways, hopefully this chapter doesn't suck. This was the bad chapter towards the end because I needed a transition into the... newer mood styled writing. Wish me luck on editing the insane parts! :D Love you guys, thank you to those who haven't forgotten about me and this story.
PS: Chapter is unedited. I say screw it... and instantly regret it. Ugh. :)
Gray eyes flickered open, the ground running vertical. Confused at this, she slowly moved, wincing at the ache in her muscles. She must've passed out again, realizing with a sigh. Clenching her eyes shut tight, the dull pain looming in the back of her mind came back. The symptoms of the aftereffects of the augmentations were still there, even after all the years of 'recovery.'
The aches and pains were normal to her, barely becoming a problem, but no matter how many she had got she could not get used to the headaches. Her emotional pains felt physical, the headaches varied on the pain scale, and she experienced the occasional attack on her nervous system.
She picked herself up from the ground, windblown dust falling away from the green armor. Wiping the helmet's shielding, she looked around, finding an image of what looked like a city on the horizon. She couldn't have been out for more than a few hours. Elbows tucked in, digging into the dirt, she looked behind her over the green shoulder. The highway was a little ways away, the cars looking like dried out ladybugs.
The buzzing in summer air, crawling all over fingers, being passed from one to another. Smiling faces.
She blinked before the Spartan began to pick herself up. Must've been one of her infamous attacks. They had started when she had began her rehabilitation, and took a break when she started some soft training, such as walking and even light jogging on days when she felt special. They had started up again a year ago, and had been growing worse ever since.
At times when she was stressed she would find that a feeling in a body part would be lost, only to come back a few minutes later like nothing happened. It was equivalent to an arm or a leg falling asleep and then having it be painful to move it- what was it called again- a charley horse? But completely blacking out was uncommon, and that was the first one she had within two weeks. Maybe it had built up; maybe she had been out here for too long.
Once her boots leveled with the ground, the world spun shortly after standing. A glove to her helmet, the motion did not help without the physical contact. When the dizziness lazily passed, she opened the air readings, and was glad when she got the results.
The air decompressing within the confinements of the helmet, she pulled the piece of armor off. Hot and humid air immediately attacked her senses, but it was a small relief from the stuffiness the helmet brought to her. Her nose wrinkled, she had forgotten to check the wind patterns before she unmasked herself. The wind was blowing from the city, and even after the time passed from whatever attack had been made here, the smell of burning flesh still clung. A lot of people had to have died on this planet for the smell to still be here, or the poisonous gases left were just preserving the scent.
She opened a pack on her utility belt held by magnetic force to her thigh, and dug out the first thing her gloved hand got its grip around. She grimaced when she saw the cheesy "Meow-licious!" label. During the first week of desperate scavenging, she had made a little pact to eat the first can she had pulled out. She had always wished it would be the canned bread, which always seemed to evade the groping hand. Handling the cat food, she grimaced. It had to be sometime. Out of curiosity, she grabbed what would've been her second choice and cursed. Damn you canned bread. It mocks.
Grabbing a combat knife with a twisted face, she popped open her lunch with a gag. Did this stuff ever go bad?
A hand went to the abdomen armor, but it was more out of habit than a helpful movement. Behind the golden mask was a green face with gray eyes staring out of its shell dully. Damn you Meow-licious.
To tell the truth the taste wasn't that bad, reminded her of chunky mashed potatoes that was three months expired and had strange blue fuzz growing on it… Surprisingly she had eaten that once on a dare, and even more surprisingly it didn't taste that bad compared to the hairy lunch lady's casseroles. One thing about being 'retrieved' was that she didn't have to put up with watching her wipe her nose with her hand and then wondering if that was only to scare the kids or not. Of course, that was a couple of decades ago, but it still manages to bother her.
But now the cat food felt like spoiled tuna (what did the label on the can say? She couldn't remember if it was chicken or liver… or chicken liver), and now it was trying to swim back up stream (she admits that was lame). The gurgling of her stomach was audible to her even without her sensitive hearing (guess we did get some superpowers after all, didn't we Jimmy?).
A half hour after eating and finishing off a water bottle; Meow-licious. That stuff worked fast. Now she knew what not to feed a cat, if she ever got one. Didn't she have a cat when she was little? Mr. Fluffykins or something. Mean little bastard. Never mind about the cat idea, they can eat the trash.
Meanwhile, as her stomach speaks to her, she had been walking towards the shape of the city. So far it had only grown a bit, but with her pace and long strides she managed to cut about a mile off from the distance. Now she could make out the shapes of the skyscrapers, and even caught sight of one that looked like a monster had grabbed it and torn it in half. Well weirder things had happened.
The dust coiled up from the ground, wrapping around her covered calves. A particular cloud of dust made her eyes narrow, things slowly ticking in her mind. Of all the time she had been here, not once had she seen a cloud of dust that high, nonetheless feel the wind blow. The smell of decay had reached her a half hour before, even though she was at least ten miles away from the city. The dust is windblown, but… She stopped, head snapping up.
Of all the time she had been here, not once did the wind blow. Something else had to be creating the airflow.
As if on cue, a soft whirl reached the external audio receptors. She spun on her heel, looking up towards the clouds. Of all the time she had been here, the sun had not shown for very long, the overhanging clouds promised nothing but acid rain that never showed. Now that it had brought something new, the bad feeling in her gut said that it was nothing to look forward to. Did the bug-eyed man get hold of a ship?
A shadow appeared in the clouds, growing in size and shade. In a silent explosion the nose of a purple giant burst through the clouds, the floating acid water whispering on the metal hulls in their passing. Black dots in pools of gray expanded, the being detached from the brain that screamed run. Her feet moved on their own— entranced with the picture being painted before her, walking towards her future destruction. Then the neurons in her brain started connecting, and she snapped out of the stupor. Her mind started accessing the situation in the matter of seconds, enough for half of the ship to appear. It reminded her of some form of alien cobra hood.
She was out in the open without a weapon, she had no cover, and it was miles away from a city. Can she do it?
Immediately she turned tail and ran.
That something she was trying to figure out earlier? Yeah, she found it. But now the question was what did she find? Or rather, what found her?
It wasn't long before she was given the answer of if it was a good something or a bad one. Two minutes after she started sprinting the strange airy whirl sound had changed, sped up somehow, and the ground behind her was pelted with alien bullets. A stray few hit the ground around her, and she caught the sight of globs of light, leaving glowing grains of sand in its wake from the holes they melted in. Whatever found her was pissed. And she didn't even know what she had done! Maybe it was those pesky scientists…. Oh bug-man, how she hated thee.
The dust from the alien engines had rose up, swirling faster and faster around the area as the ship neared the ground, the bullets and 'pops' came faster and faster, the distance between them closing in. But with her enhanced agility, running at 45 km/h, the city was coming up quick. Just not quick enough.
Almost immediately the muscles in her legs were straining to keep up, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Even with keeping in some form of shape, the sudden jump of being years of mildly crippled to full on sprinting had exhausted her muscles faster than they should have. It was not for the first time that she had cursed her body.
Up ahead about a half mile a dropship had touched down onto the dusty floor, making a cloak of it to cake onto her HUD. The firing had stopped, but she couldn't look around to see where it was. She was forced to slow down, last thing she'd want was to run into the enemy's ship and be caught off guard. The humming noise grew louder, sounding as if on top of her. Stopping, adrenaline pumping throughout her system, she hastily rubbed at her HUD.
The dust around her cleared, and when she managed to smear the dust away, she was granted with the sight of monsters in front of her. Of course, the dust film disoriented some of the shapes, but she could see that their ship had left and they were now standing around, the little ones as disoriented as her, while one of the larger ones' head turned, its black eyes staring straight at her. In one moment, all hell broke loose.
The large one roared, the bird ones squawked, and the little ones screamed. She ran, a scream meeting her ears before she bolted. Could this day get any worse?
Her head screamed at her to turn around, to fight back. Instead she was running away like a new recruit on his first day of action. But she didn't have a gun, and she didn't know her enemies. Both were a disadvantage, she knew, and yet her instincts persisted. They told her to grab a rock, a stick, her arm- something and neutralize the threat.
The day had started out normal, waking up in the last place she had scavenged in and continued on; a random muscle attack here and a blackout there. But mid-day was when a strange noise met her audio sensors, her empty gut knew that the barren planet would once be full of life again. The feeling was not joyful, but ominous.
When the sounds of jet engines filled the air, too airy to be of human kind, she had immediately started looking for shelter. But somehow they knew where she was, they knew where she was going. They had tracked her down and opened fire, intent on killing the lone Spartan. She had screamed into the radio, asking politely what the hell was going on and if this was all a bloody trick after all. When a bolt of energy streaked passed her head, the little hairs on her neck rising, she knew that this wasn't a trick. It was not a bloody simulation.
She sprinted across the dry earth, dust picking up after each footfall. The thunder made by alien guns and feet of all sizes boomed, bright flaming balls of greens and blues streaking past the soldier. The city grew in its size as she neared it, passing the boundaries of the outskirts. Screams of alien engines flew overhead, big and little purple ships flying high in the sky. Just when she thought she'd be safe in the confinements of the tall buildings acting as her safe house, a shriek pricked at her ears, the sensitive drums trembling as eyes flicked up to what looked to be an alien fighter jet. Her stomach lurched as a green fiery ball of plasma shot out of the cannon and aimed straight at her.
Lunging forward, the earth behind her exploded, the asphalt smoldering and glowing green. Metal groaned as it scraped against dirtied pavement, the soles of her boots meeting the ground again as they supported her weight. Bewildered, she almost didn't catch that it was coming around for another attack.
She dodged to the side, plasma bullets heating the ground of where she once was, only for her to look up in the face of a beast.
Two halves of a jaw lined on either side of its face, piercing black eyes staring down at her with untold hate. Fangs were attached to the meaty sausages, teeth as sharp as knives on the underside where lighter flesh was. Its skin was brown and of leather, seeing many suns and withstanding immense amounts of heat. Its alien armor was gold, shining with pride in the cloudy light. It had no ears nor no nose, and when it snarled at her she saw that the sausages would spread apart, revealing that it had no bottom to its mouth. It growled low in its chest, gray eyes in the Spartan's head stretched wide.
Not fast enough, the beast's claws raked against her shoulder, the metal squealing, and she wasn't curious as to how much it would hurt if it had been bare flesh instead of raw metal. She rolled away, her shoulder sparking. Even in the time of calm panic, she could still have the sense of irritation about the greater damage to her family symbol. She sprang to her feet, sparks flicking in the corner of her eye as she took off down the street. She ducked in and out of buildings and alleyways, trying to evade her pursuers. She could hear their ragged pants, the squeaks from the little ones, and the crashes made from debris underfoot.
Eventually the noise started to be put behind her, the whirl of the searching aircraft whistling farther away, and she couldn't hold up the armor's weight anymore. It sunk and clanged against a stone wall, debris falling away and brushing across the scuffed green paint.
She wheezed, the breath coming in with shaky movements before being forced out with grunts and whistles. Her glove went to her chassis, gripping fruitlessly at her chest. Before the augmentations she believed that she'd be alright, that small sense of denial in the back of her mind giving her false confidence. She believed that the operation would go smoothly, be a success, and she'd go on with the rest of her life with her family. Upon waking up on the operation table, she could never had been so wrong.
Ribs broken and chest cavity showing, the images swam in front of her eyes as doctors and scientists worked, determined in their task of making the perfect soldiers. She had looked down, groggily and in pain, but the sight of her own organs and the beating of the muscle in her chest could not register. It wouldn't until the end of the week, were the initial shock of the operation finally took its toll.
Their results had been kept away from them, they who were in a smaller room than the rest. She couldn't move her head, all the power in her athletic body had been sapped by what she claimed to be strong antibiotics and painkillers. After looking at her clipboard she knew that it wasn't the case; that she had been partially, if not permanently, paralyzed and her muscles wouldn't be able to function properly for months to come if at all.
She didn't remember seeing anybody besides the doctors above her, or the scientists checking her vitals and monitoring her progress, most of the time she only saw the too white ceiling of the too strong smelling sterile room. She could hear her brothers and sisters converse quietly, as if pained themselves. She realized that they too had gone through the torture, and wanted desperately to find if they couldn't move as well. The breathing tube shoved down her throat prevented any noise from being omitted, and she could only wait in the familiar sounds of her family.
Their voices, though raw and pained, brought her comfort. They were alive and well, they would survive. But when the ones in lab coats came in and started wheeling her away, drugging her further to prevent trouble, she could feel the panic bubbling beneath her paralyzed features.
Where were they taking her?
What will happen to her brothers? Are they alright?
Answer me! What is wrong with me?
She felt herself being put into an elevator, the humming of the machine brought no comfort as the sterile smell lessened, the lights growing dimmer. Slipping into the ectasy of slumber, the panic hid.
She had woken up of what it felt like a little after, and for months the scientists and physical therapists worked on getting her motor skills working again. Unused, her muscles naturally protested. More pain.
Months after the reaquired ability to move and talk and the beginnings of walking, they had transported the Spartan to another facility on a different planet. She had trained like she had before the augmentation, regaining her athletic structure and strength, all the while monitoring every moment of it. She didn't hate it, but she didn't like it either. She couldn't remember the transport, just hearing a scientist grumble to himself about the conditions of the new facility.
She wanted to see her family, but whenever she asked about them the workers would change the subject or ignore the question altogether. It wasn't until she was injured again that they sent her to be examined in this medical tube and wake up years later.
Her chest felt like the day on the operation table, split open with her ribs all broken, pointed skyward for all to see her guts and glory. The pain was strong enough in the memory to feel real, but she knew it was just that; a memory.
Her helmet tilted back, she was so tired. But here was not the place to rest. She had to find sufficient shelter, perhaps food and water that was nearby in order for her to survive. It was the most basic of training, and it was something she could not ignore. Biting back a wince, she hefted herself up onto her feet. Trumping forward, she peered out the broken window, the glass dull from the constant windblown sand pelting against the shards during the original attack. Looking to the vacant streets, the absence of movement was reassuring and unnerving.
She slinked over to the door, turned the knob, and felt the object slip through her fingers. With a hollow ring, she tensed every muscle in her body, ears straining for the slightest of sounds. The half knob rolled along the dusty floor, she silently counted to thirty. Hearing nothing, she pressed on the door, the hinges squeaking softly. Another ten seconds. Pealing herself from the wall she walked through the door, looking up and down the street as she did so. Nothing. Turning, she walked the streets, and couldn't help but feel the ominous feeling grow.
