Destroying the Ozone
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Cannon MW2 Characters or MW2 itself. What I do own is Fox other Original Characters (OC's) and the plot for this story.
The second she arrived back on base she found herself in a mighty awkward situation. "So Fox, how about it?" Meat insisted while Royce hunted down the Ozone. For some reason Meat had to ask the woman if she'd run and endurance challenge against Ozone and with her arm in a brace she knew she didn't have the bite to deny antagonizer. She knew that he knew too, which was why he was smirking at her glare. "You know you want to." He chirped leaning closer to her, the position he had put her in reminded her of those old high school movies where the boy would lean over the girl he was going to ask out.
"Get out of my space lad." She finally growled, only causing his smirk to intensify. Luckily someone was looking down at her from above, a familiar balaclava masked crusader walked into the room. "Ghost help buddy?" In a way she was pleading, hoping, and even praying that he would set aside the fact that she had disobeyed a direct order on the previous mission and help his fellow brother- er sister. She couldn't say her hopes were given up when the man glanced at them –or so she thought and left the room out of her direct view. "Fuck you too, Ghost!" Her eyes were now set on the snickering Canadian, Fox let out another growl before slamming her knee as hard as she could in his groin, obviously catching the Canadian off guard and sending him into all sorts of pain. "That will just have to do for now. Next time I say get out of my bubble, do it. Consider this a warning." Content Fox brought down her shades and walked past both Ozone and Royce, "Some other time?"
"Fine with me." Ozone smiled back, "Just tell me when in advance."
"So you can get stab yourself with some steroids?" The three laughed before she headed off lifting a hand up and actually replying to the comment, "Don't think for a second I'm afraid of destroying you, Ozone. See you two around." She was making her way back to her room, she had just gotten back from her first mission with the one four one—and she had to admit it was more tiring than she thought it would be. She was hoping that perhaps the other snipers would have been out; they were great friends but she knew that friends was not something you should have while in this type of business. Friends meant you had attachments and in any field even somewhat related to the one she was in, it was best to not have any sort of attached strings. For emotional purposes.
"What's your name squirt?" A twenty one year old Fox asked her new spotter, not wanting to seem like a complete and total dick or threat to the kid. He was new and she was in need of one for quite some time now, she had been on her own for a couple months. Sniping school only grew even more complicated and harder to complete as the years went by and the United States got involved in more and more wars in need of the position. Looking over the built kid, Fox couldn't help but wonder what the hell he was doing becoming a sniper and not some sort of insanely buffed out Special Forces prick.
"Specialist David Allen, Sergeant." Fox set his hand down from the salute and brought it to shake her right hand.
"No need kid, you are now my right hand man, my brother, consider us family now." She didn't need to look back at his face the lack of words told her everything. Sure there was some necessity for some sort of formalities, but Fox didn't feel like it was her duty to go out and make the kids life a miserable hell. Whatever they had taught him at these 'new and improved' sniping institutes had nothing to do with how things we were really run down on the ground. Every sniper had his or her own way to make sense of things, they had their own way of insuring the safety of their man, of making logic of the retarded wars congress was throwing them in. "Get used to the informalities when it comes to me, sure keep them around for the sergeants who have sticks shoved so far up their asses it's not funny; but as far as I am concerned there is no need to be formal when your speaking to me. If I was so anal about the frivolous shit I would be one bored S.O.B. out on missions." The last comment seemed to have lightened the air more so than she had intended, the Specialist let out a chuckle. "There ya go, loosen up and we will get along just fine."
Waking up Fox couldn't hold back the smile that was reaching from ear to ear on her face; without a doubt she missed the kid but with memories like that she couldn't help but feel as a little better. Swinging her legs around to hang off the side of the bed Fox brought both her arms out and stretched, earning her the sound of her back popping. She then looked over to the red digits on the clock that was given to her on the first day as a 'home settling gift' or something, "Three 'o eight, huh?" Forcing herself out of bed Fox looked down at her clothing, "I doubt anyone will be out at this hour, which means I am perfectly fine how I am to run a couple of miles." She was dressed in 'easy to slip on' clothes, with all the trouble she had getting the BDU shorts off she was in no rush to throw on something tight.
After throwing on some snicker she made her way down the dimly lit room, the walk there was slightly chilly. The red head now wished she had thrown on some slacks complemented with a short sleeved shirt instead of keeping on the short beach shorts and tank top she had put on hours ago. Rubbing her arms she quickened her pace knowing the run would quickly warm her up, as she turned down the hall that fed into the gym her the Master Sergeant tilted her head to the left slightly as the halls echoed with the sound of weights being lifted and dropped continuously. The walk didn't take but maybe five minutes at most, she couldn't name anyone that would be in the gym at this time at the top of her head.
Peering around the corner the American was slightly shocked to find the XO in the gym doing bench presses, now what the hell? At first her eyes were set on the one arm she could see instantly with him facing the same way as the hall she wasn't surprised to not see him stop and ask what it was she was doing out at the wee hours in the morning, hell he hadn't seen her yet. As her gaze moved upward the hazel eyed American brought a hand to her mouth, his balaclava mast was lifted up to his nose; giving her perfect view of his defined facial features and his short cut facial hair. One of her goals before she passed was to steal the XO's mask and finally see what was under it, rumor ran around that only the Captain knew what he actually looked like… and Meat had bet she wouldn't ever be able to pull the stunt off- not being one to turn down a dare the female latched onto the idea and shook on it. I am sure that this doesn't really count, she smirked before leaning back on the inside part of the hallway out of his sight. Now I have to make this seem as natural as possible. What to do…
The devious little Fox didn't have to think too long before a thought hit her. Smirking the female took a couple steps back away from the entrance and casually untied her shoe leaving the shoelaces hanging out of the sneakers. Stepping back some more the female brought her gaze down to the laces and focused on them, making her way toward the entrance of the gym Fox seemingly casually tripped into the room gaining Ghost's attention and snapping him out of whatever trance he was in. "What the hell?" Fox now on the floor face down rolled over onto her back and rubbed her now possibly reinjured arm. Shit, how the hell did I forget about this? Knowing the pain would subside eventually the woman sat upright and glanced over at the XO who was casually setting his pistol down on the bench press next to him. "It's you." Oh can't you feel the love?
"You has a name, twit." Fox growled as she took her time in retying her shoelaces, silence followed until she finished that task and brought herself back up on her feet before speaking up once more her casted arm now on her waist. "What the hell are you doing at this hour?" Now that she was looking directly at the man she noted his mask was brought back down and looked how it did on any other occasion.
"What anyone else sitting on a bench press would do in a gym." The Lieutenant replied before asking her a quick question back. "You?" Tempting as it is to say 'what anyone else who had just tripped into a room would be doing.' I think I would rather avoid an unnerving heated argument.
"Alright Captain Charisma," The Sergeant grumbled before making her way toward the treadmill, "I'm going to go for a little run." With that said she got up onto the machine before placing her feet on the nonmoving plastic ends, choosing to only run at 3mph for now on the second level of incline she threw whatever worries she had behind her the second she stepped onto the now running machine.
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Ghost
Returning back to his bench presses the second the other was running Simon couldn't help but watch the Sergeant, it didn't help that she was only maybe fifteen yards or so directly in front of him either. It was still too soon to be able to tell if this was some sort of normal routine she did every morning, from what he understood Shepherd had picked her up while she was out on one of her morning jogs. The FNG still had a cloud of mystery around her, there was so much that everyone didn't know about her which annoyed him to no end. The only thing that could possibly annoy him any more would be if something like this was routine and he would have to share his heaven with the woman who didn't follow orders and put herself in more danger than necessary.
Initially when she had fallen into the room –on her bad arm need he add- he was genuinely concerned about the woman. Any worries that he did have for her were instantly shot out the door the second she opened her mouth and asked him the most retarded question she could have asked. The only thing that seemed to come out of this whole situation was the whole fact that she didn't seem to be in a talk-a-tive mood while she ran. Maybe, just maybe if that one item didn't change he could manage to deal with the daily encounters they would have at this time in the morning.
Pulling his arms to his core Ghost finished another of the many reps he had put in for the day already; his shaded blue eyes were still on the woman. He had come out here due another one of the annoying dreams he had; since there was no desirable woman around to allow him to relieve himself the XO threw on a shirt and made his way to the gym. It was his little sanctuary that was now being invaded by a cunning little fox. "Ghost?" Fox questioned, giving her a curt nod she continued while still running. "Don't think that for one minute I am opening up or confining in you, but…" Sending her another nod the female continued, "How long does amnesia last?" The room stayed quiet –aside of her rhythmic footsteps- for a good minute before he replied with a light shrug as he continued with his presses.
"A couple minutes to a couple years I would figure. Why?" Snapping her head to face him Ghost was surprised to find a genuine light smile on her features; it wasn't like any of the other sneaky smirks or devious grins that he had seen play on her features in the past couple days but it still reminded him of a fox.
"Curiosity I s'pose." After adding her own quick shrug she went on to facing the wall as she continued her jog. Content with the silence he went back to his reps and the room died down once more of any conversation for another half hour. "Thanks."
It was Saturday meaning there was no morning training that he would have to run, giving Ghost too much spare time for his liking. After the Gym scene that had played earlier the very same morning Fox and he went on with their own workouts, Fox left ten minutes till breakfast and he himself five minutes after. The next eventful thing that occurred happened during breakfast in the rec room, he had just walked into the room with the Captain at his side and Meat was knocked out by the sledge hammer that Fox carried around on her arm. He hadn't had any idea what had caused the scene, but just knowing Meat and Fox's personality he knew that the man had said something to piss her off.
Now it was lunch hour and Soap had asked him to check on the two of them when they hadn't arrived for food, quite uncommon since the both of them seemed to enjoy inhaling anything edible that was given to them. He obviously rebutted the idea but after maybe a minute or two of silence the Lieutenant sat up and left knowing there was no changing the Captain mind.
The Infirmary was one of the few locations on the base that most one four one members seem to try and avoid like the plague, yet Fox seemed to have made it her second home injured or not. "I told you the son-ova-bitch is fine, now let me go dammit." From the sounds of things the Vixen was quite vexed in his mind. Sure the female was not a pleasure to be around –at least not to him- but rarely did he ever hear her ordering someone around that who wasn't Meat. He couldn't make out what the other medic was telling her but he could tell by the shadows that poured out of the opening of the curtain and onto the floor that she didn't like what he was saying. "If the prick wasn't such an instigator we wouldn't have had this problem. The buggers fractured, no shit I know."
Moving the curtain out of his way Ghost was amused by the scene before him; both medics were looking at the X-rays that were hanging up on the lighted screen. "We need to make sure it isn't just a hairline." Fox quickly cut him off,
"Hairline fracture or not twit, I am going to have to keep the damn thing in a cast. And I am not about to stop correcting Meat when he steps out of line dammit. We don't need to check shit- give me a week and everything will be back to normal." Fox stood up and it wasn't until then that it dawned upon him she was in one of the aprons they gave you; quickly Ghost averted his eyes from her open back to the picture she was pointing at. "This is a hairline Specialist, if the damn thing was broken I don't think I would have walked here as quietly as I had, or hit the ass as lightly as I did. Now quit over investigating everything because I am a female and let me get some grub."
The two spun around facing him, his silent appearance didn't seem to have had any effect on the female while the young man seemed slightly startled. "Captain is looking for ya." Whatever had made him throw the woman the life raft he didn't know, all he did know was that the female took hold of it without so much as a second thought.
"Now whether you like it or not I am leaving." With that the two of them made their way out of the infirmary and out into the halls. "The hell does Soap want with me?" She finally asked after five or so minutes as they neared the rec room.
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Fox
In a sense she was expecting an answer from the masked man before they entered the dining area, there had to have been some reason for the Captain to send Ghost instead of someone like Royce or Ozone. "He isn't," Ghost finally replied as they entered the rec room before heading away from her and toward the Captain, who only sent her a quick nod before turning around. To say that Fox was confused would be the understatement of the year, the female was downright perplexed but before she could muster up any idea as to what the hell had happened she found herself surrounded by no one other than Royce and Ozone themselves.
"Everything check out?" Royce asked seeming somewhat worried over the female, smirking the woman threw her arms up behind her head.
"If you are asking if Meat is okay, well he will be waking up sooner or later. If you were asking if I knocked out Johnson- no." Before she could add onto her smart ass remark Ozone cut in.
"Later today?" For some reason the two of them seemed to be synched up to one another, all this morning the two of them would flip subjects at the drop of a dime –completely confusing anyone who was listening to them- and the both of them never seemed to not know what the other was asking. Royce had explained to Meat it was an American thing seconds before Meat gave his thoughts of the matter.
"Sounds fine to me, before or after food?" Fox replied her smirk deepening.
"Before, I don't feel like upchucking my food. Just a good jog sound fine?" Fox nodded as the three of them made their way back to the table, now she had something to look forward to. Which was good, not having anything to do would drive her insane when she was on R&R time away from the Rangers and Airborne- which happened maybe for a month every ten months. To think that she would find herself with nothing to do every weekend was seriously beginning to worry her.
"I can't believe the moron said what he did." Royce spoke up as Fox rested her head on her free fingers. "I mean the guy can be stupid, but I always believed he knew where the line was drawn." Fox shrugged seemingly uncaring about the whole situation, "Can't say I blame ya for whacking him as hard as you had."
"I wish I had hit him harder, my arm is still just fractured."
"Just?" Ozone asked obviously confused and concerned about her response, "I was under the impression you enjoyed going out on missions." Fox shrugged, she did that was no lie it was just about the only thing that didn't involve her being bored for hours of the day.
"Yeah, honestly I did enjoy the first mission and enjoyed all the ones I went on back with airborne and the rangers." She smirked to herself before continuing on, "It's just this Fox isn't too good at keeping comments to herself. Along with her opinions of the mission she is being sent on, as my other Commanding Officers. I am sure they would agree."
"Ah, not seeing eye to eye with the general, are ya?" Ozone managed before taking a long drink of his alcohol. "Can't say you will really get used to it, more like you tend to expect the worse-case scenario any and every time you hear the word 'mission and Intel' in the same sentence."
"Pssht. I wouldn't doubt; I don't know who the hell gave him his ranks. I just cannot trust the idiot, and he is only giving me more reason not to as the day goes by." The red head flipped her hair out of her face as she finished her comment; Royce just sat back and listened to the Americans voice their comments about their general.
"Good to know that you caught on to the generals habits. But like Ozone said, gal. You just get used to it." She could only take another swig of her drink at her friend's remark. I don't think you should get used to going on bull shit suicidal missions. She thought before placing her half full drink down on the table and standing.
"I'm going to rest, if you guys aren't sent on any more missions today and are here then I shall take you." She poked Ozone in the chest, "Up on your offer. And if you are gone, just know that I will be lying on my bed making out creatures fighting each other to the death on the plain ceiling." The two men chuckled as she turned to leave, on her way out of the room the woman noted that both Ghost and Soap were sitting at the bar.
Exiting the room her hazel eyes scanned the empty walls as she made her way to her room, which was on the opposite of both the captains and lieutenants. Opening her door and entering the room as silently as she could she shut the door behind her, not bothering to lock it before lazily making it to her bed. She hadn't noticed how tired she was until she dropped like dead weight onto the comfortable bed and passed out.
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Soap
After eating lunch both Soap and Ghost made their way outside for a drag, nothing unusual there the two of them continued their conversation on the members of the one four one. It was here where Soap was informed of the FNG's sudden appearance in the weight room early in the morning. There wasn't anything wrong with the information, in her papers it had been mentioned that she took strolls before sunrise and enjoyed watching the sun rise while doing so. What did bother him was the question that she had asked Ghost, "I don't believe it was just a question out of mere curiosity like she claims John."
He glanced over at Simon as he let out a long drag, "Why not? Perhaps she has a family member or close friend er comrade suffering from it. Perhaps a sibling? There are many explanations Ghost." Simon groaned slightly as he let out a drag before dropping the cigarette on the ground and stomping it out.
"There is something off about this one John. There is just too much blackened out on her papers." He watched as Simon leaned back on the building, "I shouldn't have to remind about how insistent Shepherd is on sending her on another mission even with her current injury." Now that one even he couldn't deny, even when he had informed Shepherd about her injury he had been quite adamant on attempting to get her out into the field. "Do you want to hear what I think?" He shrugged as he let out another drag.
"Shoot."
"She knows something that he doesn't want her to know." Soap set his arm down telling Ghost he had his full attention, "She is the one who has amnesia and knows something that Shepherd doesn't want her to- he pulled her out of the Rangers in order to get rid of her." Bringing the cigarette back up John found himself swimming in his own thoughts as Ghost continued on. "I know you are the last person who wants to hear this John, but this is too much like Lynx." He casually glanced over at Simon a brow arched. After a moment of silence he decided to go against what his mind told him not to ask.
"How so?" Lynx and himself were close for as long as he could remember, ever since she had arrived in the one four one anyone could tell that the two of them had some sort of connection, Shepherd included. The only person she wrote directly to, aside from Shepherd, was himself and he knew a lot of things that most people weren't allowed to know. Of course this relationship blossomed after he lost Price but if anything it was merely just a friendship sort of relationship, though any and every one would insist otherwise…Simon included.
"That is for another day," With that Simon made his way back into the building leaving him with his own thoughts. Makarov, he wasn't sure how but he knew by what little information she would let leak that Lynx sure as hell thought that he was planning something big, before said big thing happened. She had also been the one to warn him about Shepherd, like Fox and Price she didn't trust the General what so ever and it seemed that the longer she stayed away the more that mistrust grew. He merely believed it was because she was not around nearly as much as the rest of the one four one members were, Shepherd was not sunshine and daisies but he was manageable – so long as you were around long enough to get to know how he works.
The Captain let out one final drag before stomping his cigarette out as well, with one final look at afternoon skies he made his way back into the building unsure of what he was going to do with the rest of his day- or his jumbled thoughts.
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Ghost
He had made his way into the mess hall for dinner and wasn't too surprised not finding John there, this was about the time he was briefed on missions that were to take place the following morning. What did slightly surprise the executive officer was the empty table where Meat, Royce, Ozone and Fox ate. He continued over to grab some food but stopped when he noticed that Johnson was not their either. Not liking the disappearance of the medic he set down the half-filled plate on a nearby table before glancing over the mess hall. Phoenix, Juggernaut, Sun, Ginger, and Anubis were all present meaning they had to have arrived from their mission sometime between lunch and now. Some were out of uniform while the others were not.
Just as he redirected his attention from the other one four one squad two bodies ran into the room, both heading straight for him. Ozone was the first to reach him, panting slightly Ghost was expecting to find Fox and Meat trailing behind. He had overheard the loud table earlier mention some sort of competition Meat had planned out before he was knocked into unconsciousness between Ozone and Fox. "Ghost. Where is Captain?" The urgency in his voice c caught him slightly off guard, Ozone was the calm one out of the group drunk or not. Before he could voice his own questions Royce was the next to speak up.
"I told you Shepherd called for him." Annoyed Simon found himself glaring behind the darkened lenses, unseen to the two men.
"What's going on?" Whether or not they didn't hear him he didn't know, what he did know was that his question was shoved to the side as the two of them continued talking.
"This was a complete waste of time Ozone."
"What did we have to lose? She is missing he should be informed no matter what."
"If Shepherd ordered her to do something even Fox knows better than to-." Tired of being ignored Ghost placed a hand on a shoulder of the two frantic comrades.
"What's going on?" This time his voice was more assertive and stern, from what he obtained from the two of them Fox was missing…possibly on Shepherds orders. "Where is Johnson?" Even Shepherd couldn't order men out without them being cleared, but he did have his ways of getting someone cleared well before they should be. This wouldn't be the first time he would have used his powers to get someone who shouldn't be out in the field out there.
"We went to go check on Fox," Ozone began only to have Royce cut him off.
"Meat had set up some sort of competition for these two, a race. They were to meet up before dinner so the two of us made our way down to her room." At that Ghost arched a brow; rarely did anyone other than Meat go down into the Officer's quarters for any reason.
"We saw that she wasn't there," Ozone interrupted sending an annoyed look over to Royce, "So we figured she would be in the bench room, with the treadmills being there, or maybe the basketball court or track field. She wasn't anywhere though. Since we were there when she whacked Meat into unconsciousness we figured she may be in there for some check-up or something." Ozone paused as he retracted his arms and crossed them, not amused by the situation unfolding. "Johnson wasn't there either. Meat was the only one in there, in all his unconsciousness glory. We got word from Anubis over there before he walked in that Captain was called into-"
"GHOST!" John stormed into the room interrupting Ozone from his explanation. He was expecting to find John fully geared and handing some sort of pack his way, instead the Scott stood at the door and motioned for him to join him. Glancing back over at Ozone and Royce Ghost merely nodded.
"I'll figure this out." He mumbled before making his way over to his friend, his plate of food completely forgotten on the table at this point. He was a couple steps away from him when John turned around and continued to march off; Ghost merely followed knowing he would speak when he felt it necessary.
Authors Note:
Well here is chapter three… again I find myself up at one in the morning not tired at all. AS much as I would love to work on the next chapter my alarm will be going off in three hours for me to get ready for my six am class. :P
Before I hit the hay I want to apologize for saying Soap was Russian, I don't know what got over me. o.o But no he is Scottish here as well, I will eventually go back and fix the errors (documents are no longer here on fanfic so that wont happen for a while.)
I have also tried to work on using more "he/she instead of Fox/Ghost" all the time. I am working on it, and now that I read it I do like how it sounds. So thank you for the review and comment about that .
A thousand thanks to the following for reviewing/subscribing:
crusherccme : Yay Alert and fave! love the feedback, hope this wasn't a let down.
Verity A : thanks for the memo, I would have completely missed it :D I enjoy reviews like the one you sent, sorry it took so long to update
CrimsonNightingale : Yay! Alert and fav. Author, I love you :DD
Kagirinai : Glad you liked Chapter two. Thanks for the update with Soap as well. I write these so late...I don't know how they sound as decent as they do. :D
I promise to work on my spelling you guys and verb usage. I graduated last June and college isn't quite teaching me what I would like to learn about writing, but one day. :D Feel free to tell me what you think I could work on, I do not mind constructive criticism. How am I to get better if I don't know what I'm doing wrong, no?
