Chapter 3

"Freeze!" came a voice from behind. Donut stopped and slowly turned around, and was greeted with the business end of a rifle.

"Hey! Why the hell were you shooting at me? You could have hit me, dick!" yelled Donut. It was the asshole from the store, he remembered. Did he seriously just sprint across the canyon to yell at me again?

"Can it! Don't try to play stupid with me, Sarge. I know who you are, we've been spying on you for 3 weeks now."

"I just got here two hours ago, and I'm not a sergeant, I'm a private," Donut responded defiantly.

"Wait a minute you're not the sergeant!"

"Yeah, that's what I just said."

"Well then how the hell did you manage to steal our flag?" he asked, obviously confused.

"Steal? I have no idea what the hell you're talking about…"

"THREE!" shouted a previously unheard voice. At that moment two people appeared seemingly out of nowhere, covered with some kind of black stuff. This was getting to be a bit more than the rookie could handle on his first day.

"Oh shit, Donut's surrounded," said Grif, pushing the gas pedal to the floorboard.

"How many are there?" asked Simmons from the gunner position.

"Three, and it looks like one of them has an assault rifle," he replied. This did not look good. "Once we clear this hill, cover me. I'm gonna try to get Donut out of there."

"That just means shoot everything that isn't you or the rookie, right?" Simmons asked excitedly. He had been dying to fire the turret ever since they got it.

"Yeah, here we go!" The jeep hit the last bump and flew through the air right into the fray. Simmons had the mounted turret spun up before the jeep skid to a halt.

"Rookie! What happened?" asked Grif as he jumped out of the warthog.

"You know what? I honestly have no idea what's going on. I think everyone in this canyon is absolutely insane," said Donut. He was shaken up pretty badly; no amount of training can prepare you for a firefight on you first day of assignment.

"How did you get their flag?"

"I don't know, II just asked for it,"

"Wait, that worked?" asked Grif incredulously.

"I guess, is it not supposed to?"

"We never thought to try that," said Grif. "Either way, just get the flag back to our base, I'll explain everything there,"

I'm not going anywhere until someone tells me what's going…"

"There's no time to explain Rookie!" Grif interrupted, "Just get the flag back to base, I promise I'll explain everything there,"

"Fine!" said Donut in defeat. He picked the flag back up and started running.

"Back to our base dumbass!" yelled Grif.

"I knew that, I just gotta turn around, that's all," Donut mumbled as he corrected himself.

After making sure the rookie was heading in the right direction, Grif turned back to Simmons. At first he thought he was firing at random boulders up in the cliffs, until he heard screaming coming from them. Good, they're pinned down, he thought in relief. Things are going a hell of a lot more smoothly than I thought they would. Then he realized that the Blues were near a trail they could escape by. Then he realized that the entire time he talked to Simmons and had a complete train of thought, Simmons hadn't let off the trigger for even a moment, and they were probably low on ammo.

"Simmons!"

…no response.

"SIMMONS!" Grif yelled at the top of his lungs. Reluctantly, Simmons climbed down from the warthog. "Man, that thing is loud," commented Grif.

"What?" asked/screamed Simmons.

"Come on, let's sneak around behind them," said Grif. The last thing he wanted was them getting away. As much as he hated actually doing things, he hated being stationed in a boxed canyon even more.

"Okay!" yelled Simmons.

"Pipe down!" Grif hissed. "We can't let them know we're coming,"

Donut couldn't believe the day he was having. Within 3 hours of being on post he had been yelled at, accused of stealing, shot at, and to top it off, he was completely lost again.

"How the hell are you supposed to navigate a canyon filled with nothing but rocks and dirt?" he thought out loud. "I need to get to higher ground to figure out where I am." Luckily, there was a trail nearby leading into the cliffs. Finally, he thought, now I can see where I'm going.

Once up top, he searched for a landmark amidst the barren plains. Strangely, below the cliffs to his left he saw Grif running towards the jeep, which was abandoned. Then the jeep exploded.

"Son of a bitch!" he screamed.