HAYLO: The Parody From Hell

by Ridley the Violator

The Chief and his erotic lover Cortana must confront both the Covenant and a gang of very obnoxious original characters. More importantly, they confront the Chief's dark past and his even darker future. But is there an ever darker threat still lurking in the darkness of space? Please kill me!

4. 4

Chapter Four: The Butt

Dawn was just breaking on Halo as the Masturbator in Chief, Whortana, White Hoe Or-he-o, Sgt. Surgeagent Jawnsan, and Captain Jacob Keyes flew back to the human resistance's impromptu base, which had been set up somewhere between the second and third chapter by Helljumper Officer Major Silverfish and his 'beautiful' assistant Corporal McKay.

Butte. It is generally agreed upon in the scientific community that some jokes shouldn't be belabored.

"There are about two hundred Marines stationed on the Butte," said Cortana. "That's about half of the human survivors we had when we first landed."

"How did they all die?" asked Keyes, sucking thoughtfully on his dentures after each sentence.

"The Chief saved them."

"I am the hero of humanity!" The Chief tore his gaze away from Oreo's rack to puff out his chest and strike a manly superman pose, whilst sitting down. It was unimpressive.

"Hark, that is just dandy." Keyes chewed on his phallic pipe. "Cortana, when we get to The Butte I want a manifest of all the Marines' and Helljumpers' races, sexual orientations, and religions." He looked out the window as he gently steered the dropship with his gnarled hands. "I'm going to dishonorably discharge so hard tonight."

"And where, exactly, are you going to send the people you fire?" asked Cortana. "It's not like we're on Earth…or Reach."

"REMEMBER REACH!"

"Damn," said Sgt. Johnson, pulling off his massive Sony headphones to look at her. Tupac blared at top volume from the headset. "Son, I can barely hear Twopack."

"Serves you right," said the Chief. "That's the devil's music!"

Keyes nodded in satisfaction from the driver's seat. "Atta boy, Chief. Atta boy."

Everybody ignored him. "So, Cortana," said Oreo. "Why is the base called The Butte?"

"Because it's on a butte." Cortana waited thirty seconds for the Chief's retarded interpretation to burst forth.

"Gross. Why would anyone want to live there?"

She was ready. "A butte, not a butt."

"What's the difference?"

"Take a knee, motherfucker," said Johnson, patting the SPARTAN on the shoulder. "And open they ear up. A 'butte' be a geographical feature. A 'butt' are something you take shits out of."

"Oooh! Now I know!"

"And knowing is half the battle!" said Johnson. Then he threw up Westside.

Oreo glared at him. "Johnson…"

"Step off, hoe!" Johnson's hand drifted down to his custom gold plated Magnum. "You don't want to get ventilated, do ya?"

Oreo rolled her eyes. "Who are you, Al Capone? Do you even know any African American English? They teach classes for it at some universities, you know."

"Settle down back there," barked Keyes. "Let that charming indigenous negro have his fun!"

Sgt. Johnson smirked at Oreo. But slowly his expression turned to one of abject horror and outrage as he realized what Keyes had just said.

"I'll radio the Major," said Cortana. She opened a private channel to the Butt on the Chief's radio.

"This is Cortana reporting in; we've retrieved Captain Keyes and are heading back to the nest. Patch us in to Major Silverfish, ASAP. Do not shoot down this dropship."

"This is Major Silva," said the sexually ambiguous voice of Major Silva over the line. "That you, Cortana?"

"Yes. That me. We've recovered Captain Keyes."

"So the mission was a success." Silva's voice was oddly disappointed. "Hmm. Were there any casualties?"

"Let me put it this way," said Cortana. "Four of us didn't die."

"Excellent! That's better than the SPARTAN's survival rate ever since Reach. Hey Cortana, did I ever mention how much I fucking hate SPARTANS?"

You could almost hear Cortana smile. "No sir. Tell me all about it."

The Chief opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Silva.

"Thanks, I will. Those fucking SPARTANS! They're nothing more than a pack of rabid military dogs that the brass raised to eat their bullshit! They wanted to replace good, hard working Marines with ass sniffing hounds who would follow their orders in that shiny bullshit armor. Good soldiers are made of pure grit and nerves of steel and sheer gumption, not wires and steroids and lots of training!"

"Sir, the Chief is listening—"

"AND ANOTHER THING!" screamed Silva. "When those fucking Covies glassed Reach I could have shaken their god damn hands—at least now we can finish this god damn fight without those fucking inhuman freaks of nature. They don't even fuck, Cortana! They were grown in tubes. What the hell is the point of defending humanity if we're going to destroy what makes us human in the first place! I will not rest, I will not lay down and die, until I live to witness the death of every single SPARTAN ever manufactured. I will never, ever use one of those murdering, psychopathic freaks to do anything even if it meant the death of the entire human race! And this 'Master Chief' asshole, oh, I'll tell you what Cortana if that isn't the gayest fucking name I've ever heard. Who gave this son of a bitch rank!? Who gave him life? If I had a time machine I would go back in time and smother his mother fucking mother in a septic tank, if he even has a mother fucking mother! I cannot believe that Keyes expects us to rely on him to deal with this Halo situation. As if normal, flesh and blood humans have to bow and bend for some shit milkshake chugging cyborg blood-hound that can't even remember the name of his own mother fucking father! Master Chief! What an asshole! What a name for faggots! When I meet this Master Chief I'm going to kick his ass up and down the Butte until his ass leaks out his butt!"

"HEY!" shouted the Chief on the radio. "Don't call me 'Master Chief' OKAY?"

"Oh." Silva coughed quietly. "Uh, sorry, Chief."

"It's quite all right. Please continue."

"Well, okay, because you're just the man I wanted to talk to. Cortana, can you give us a minute?"

"Um…okay." Cortana gave them a private channel.

"So…Chief, is it?" asked Silva in a not unfriendly tone.

"Yes, thank you."

"Right. I may have a use for you, son. What the army needs are more soldiers like you."

"Yes," said the Chef. "Because the other ones are dead."

"…Right. I guess you have Captain Keyes aboard, huh? You know, before you rescued Keyes I was in charge of this operation. The whole thing. What do you think of that?"

The Chief shrugged. "I don't. Think, that is."

"Okay. Let me put it this way. If Keyes were to say, disappear, I would become a very powerful man. And very powerful men owe their very powerful friends a lot of money. And power. You dig, Chief?"

"What is a man," said the Chief archly. "Nothing but a miserable pile of secrets."

The radio was silent for a long, long time.

"Okay. I can tell subtlety isn't going to work. Let me put it to you straight: Chief, I want you to kill Captain Keyes."

"Kill Keyes!" exploded the Chief. Thankfully his helmet sealed in all sound when the microphone was off. Also, Keyes was deaf anyways. "I could never do that. He's my—he's like a father to me! A very, very old and disgusting father who says strange things sometimes!"

"So what? I killed my father," said Silva casually. "Everyone does it. It's what all the cool kids are doing, Chief."

"SHIT," said the Chief in obvious distress. "I do have to be cool." He thought about it. "You know, on the other hand, you did call the Spartans a bunch of ass eating rabid dogs and fantasized about drowning my mother in shit. How about instead of me killing Keyes for you, you go fuck yourself in hell?"

He hung up.

On the Butte, Major Silva slammed his fist down onto the old radio he had been using and turned to a mysterious shadowy figure in Helljumper armor.

"Hey, Corporal McKay," he said. "Do we have some sort of anti-air gun around here?"

Back on the drop ship Cortana congratulated the Chief. "That was pretty ballsy. I'm actually kind of impressed that you were able to remember what Silva said a whole minute after he had said it."

"Maybe my brain is getting better," suggested the Spartan.

"Maybe. Here, let's give it a test. I'll say a word and you tell me the first thing that comes to mind."

"Okay."

"Here we go." Cortana began the program. "Fire."

"Firestarter," said the Chief. "My favorite song, and Steven King novel."

"That's enough for now," said Cortana. "Possibly forever."

When they landed they were greeted by Corporal McKay and a squad of her ODST, or Orbital Drop Schlock Tooters. Also known as Helljumpers, or assholes for short. These guys are different than the Marines, by the way; they have a clearly defined ethnicity. Skinhead. They variously sneered and leered at the Chief and his crew of misfits and at the Covenant drop ship they had commandeered.

"McKay! Oh my god, you're alive!" The Chief made no move to even go near her. "This is incredible. I'm so happy."

Corporal McKay lifted her chin at him, green eyes glittering.

"You're not mad about me leaving you to die, are you?" asked the Chief.

She made no move to respond.

"Right?"

McKay's lip twitched.

"Whoa, look out, there's a Covenant cyber-spy mosquito—I've got it!" the Chief made to smack her ass.

"None of that shit!" McKay sent an armored knee into his stomach, which the Chief didn't feel at all. "Boys," she said, jerking her head at the Chief, Oreo, Johnson, and Keyes. "Full cavity searches, all around."

One of the Helljumpers leered at Oreo as the entire group paled.

"This is ridiculous," piped up Cortana on the radio. "You can't just go around sticking your hands into people's asses—who do you think you are, Mendoza?"

McKay smirked. "Major Silva's orders." She turned and patted one of the Helljumpers on the shoulder. "Make sure the Chief's is nice and…thorough," she whispered into his ear. Then she walked away, letting the horrible gang rape commence.

The Helljumpers slowly circled in on the crew, donning rubber gloves and grinning evilly. The Chief stepped forwards. "Wait…if I promise to cooperate, will you spare the others?"

Everyone stared at him.

"Um, Chief," whispered Cortana. "That's not going to work; this isn't a gay Lord of the Rings fan fiction where Aragorn gets molested by orcs in exchange for sparing the Hobbits from the untender caresses of the orcs."

"Oh, I read that one too," said Oreo. "So hot."

"I can't read," said the Chief.

"We'll do the one with the saggy tits first," said one of the Helljumpers. Oreo's face paled with either rage or fear, but Keyes stepped forwards with an indignant expression on his face. "Now now, soldier—I may be old but by Jove my pectorals are as firm and rippling as ever. You won't find any lipid under these nips."

"Sorry sir," said the Helljumper sarcastically, his scarred lip curling, even though Keyes's rank was so high above his that he could have literally ordered him out of existence in a heartbeat. That's just how tough Helljumpers are. And by tough, I mean fucking stupid assholes. Never-the-less Keyes turned around and bent over, easily pulling down his own pants to reveal his sagging adult diaper and pale muscle-less legs. A strange smell wafted from the diaper.

"Why don't you take care of me first, young man?" asked Keyes over his shoulder. "And make it snappy on the double!"

The Helljumpers all laughed amongst themselves, scuffling to avoid going first. Finally one was pushed forwards. The Helljumper wrinkled his scarred nose and bent forwards to gingerly undo Keyes's large safety pin.

"Smells like dead fish down here," he complained.

"Just do it, Ronny," growled one of the others. The Chief watched, pained as the humiliation of his father figure began.

"All right all right." Ronny popped the pin and pulled down the diaper.

His face melted instantaneously. The now headless body was blown back and smashed into the tightly packed group of Helljumpers, and the violent crash destroyed any chance they had of escape and survival. The smell washed over them, emanating in an expanding cone of death incarnate from Keyes's ass. Hair turned gray. Flesh melted. Armor corroded. Blood boiled.

"Noooooo!" One Helljumper rose from the death sludge the squad had become, a shambling mass of flesh and of bone and clumps of hair, his armor melting like molasses down his body. One half skeletal hand extended in shuddering agony towards the brown puckered focal point of the hell-stench. As he reached in futile rage, the very tips of his finger bones caught fire and burned down to the knuckle like matches. Then his entire body exploded.

The Chief and friends were safe behind the deadly behind, so they could only look on in horror as the troopers were reduced to steaming pile of filth, then to a liquid, and then to a vapor which rose into the air and wafted away on Halo's whispering wind.

"Whoops. Sorry about that boys, I guess I'm a bit gassy today." Keyes pulled up his diaper and neatly re-clamped his safety pin. He turned. All that was left of the Helljumpers was a scarred patch of earth. "Faith and Begorrah! Where did those fine young men go!?"

Nobody could even speak for their awe.

Later, the Chief was getting settled in his temporary quarters before the briefing for the next mission. Everyone had been given separate rooms after McKay had come back to find out what all the screaming had been about. They had had to put Keyes into quarantine before the up-coming debriefing with Major Silva. Thankfully, it would not be a literal debriefing, though Keyes's quarantine was certainly literal. And yes, I do know what literal means.

The Chief settled into a large easy chair as Cortana's holographic image literally appeared on the holo-table next to him. As it turned out he was sitting in a holo-chair as well, so he fell on his ass and had to find a new one.

"Up for a little R&R?" Cortana asked in a smoky voice. "Just give the word and I'll have someone bring over a car battery."

"That's a great idea." The Chief began to remove his armor, but not his helmet. "But I think a shower and some sleep would do me nicely."

"Oh, fine. I guess I'll just go monitor the shower cams."

"Knock yourself out."

The Chief was in only his helmet and Scooby Doo boxers now. He went over to the wash basin that the Marines had somehow installed and then took a bird bath with the sink. Normally a bird bath consists of using tap water to clean oneself. For the Chief, however, it's more along the lines of climbing into the sink and shitting yourself. Finally, the Chief lay down on the rock solid cheap as shit air mattress and curled into a fetal ball to begin the sleep cycle. He was still wearing his helmet.

He found himself in a ghostly, mist filled room. It looked strangely like the old dormitory where he had been taken as a child, woken one morning by a cattle prod shoved into his eyes.

"Chief. Chieeef!"

A figure arose from the mist. It was the strange jerking off, run-over-by-a-car alien from before. The alien looked disheveled and beaten, limbs wrapped in bandages, legs fitted into bracers. It was leaning on a crutch.

"Nice underpants," it said. "I dig Scooby Doo."

The Chief looked down at his massive voluminous boxers. "Thanks—but flattery will get you nowhere."

"I'm just calling them like I see them."

"So am I going to start having dreams about you now that you're dead?" asked the Chief. "I swear, you seem so familiar. But not in a good way."

"I'm not dead," said the Elite. "And this is my dream."

"Bullshit," said the Chief. "You think I'd appear in my boxers in someone else's dream?"

Suddenly, the door behind them shook and rattled. The Chief jumped and spun around. The door was old, decrepit, and dirty, and someone was banging on it as if they really wanted to get inside.

"What's that!" The Chief turned, but the Elite was gone. Then the door cracked as whatever was behind it began to push harder.

"No!" The Chief raised his hands in front of his visor as the door flew open. "NO!"

For the briefest moment, a lithe female silhouette was framed in the doorway.

The Chief awoke soaked in sweat. He shot up from the bed with the sheets tangled around his legs. His breathing eased to normality and he dropped back down, but as he did so the back of his head smashed into the wall. He flailed his arms to disentangle himself from the sheets while rubbing his sore head, but these actions caused him to fall sideways off the bed and onto his elbows and knees. He screamed in pain, then hopped upright while still wrapped in the sheets only to smash his knees against the end table. He growled in rage again and lunged forwards, wrapping his teeth around the handle of his discarded combat knife. He methodically cut the sheets to tatters around him with his mouth-knife until they fell away.

The Chief ran his hands through the air on top of his helmet. "Cortana, I just had the craziest dream about you molesting me. You haven't been molesting my brain in my sleep, have you?"

"I did no such thing!" exclaimed Cortana.

"Yeah, right. Like I would believe you anyways."

"Bitch, when I decide to molest you, you will fucking know it."

The door bell rang.

"Someone's at the door!" The Chief dropped the knife and it pierced his toe. Irritated, he wrenched the blade free and threw it across the room where it embedded itself in the wall, straight through the mandatory portrait of Major Silva that every room was outfitted with. He stomped over to the door without bothering to get dressed. "Someone's going to be on the wrong end of my morning wood." The Chief opened the door.

It was Corporal McKay. She had traded in her armor for simple fatigues. She had buzz cut of orange hair, and her green eyes gleamed. She had green eyes and was a woman. Embarrassed, the Chief looked down at his current state of undress and his aforementioned massive morning wood. Well, comparatively massive.

To a spider's clitoris.

"Have a good nap?" asked McKay icily. "I'm surprised you can sleep so well with the lives of so many men on your conscience."

"You wouldn't be alive to accuse me like that if they'd had a chance to use grenades," the Chief shot back.

McKay looked miffed. "I was talking about my Helljumpers getting killed by farts-you know as well as I that they haven't been allowed to use frags since Hiroshima."

"Oh. Actually, it was Keyes who killed your Helljumpers. I had absolutely nothing to do with it."

"So you say." She looked down at his underwear. "Hm. So that's what you're so desperate to stick in that Oreo slut, huh?"

The Chief glared at her. "Not likely. I hate everyone." With that he closed the door in her face.

"Anything to win an argument, huh?" asked Cortana as the Chief put his armor back on.

"The best bluffs have some element of truth to them." He went back to the door and opened it when he was fully dressed. McKay was still there, looking sour.

"I forgot," she said. "The reason I came down was to escort you to Major Silva's office. He'd like another word with you." The Chief stared at her for a long, long time.

"Who are you?"

McKay ignored that. "Come with me."

"Fine." The Chief followed her as she marched down the corridor. The walls were lined with pictures of a man with silver hair in a silver suit, and they passed by several small shrines with busts of the same man erected amongst fields of candles. A few Helljumpers were praying at these shrines.

"…What's going on here?" asked the Chief.

"Just follow me," said McKay flatly.

In one hallway they found that a few ODSTs had actually managed to defeat and capture a single Covenant grunt. Not only that, but they had also assigned it to clean the floors.

The Chief pointed. "Wow, an entire grunt. You ODSTs really are bad ass." McKay glared at him. The Chief noticed that they had also put a dog collar on the alien and were forcing it to wear a panty hose on its head. "That's some pretty brutal treatment," he amended in hushed tones.

"We have a zero tolerance policy for terrorists," said McKay. She eyed him. "And dangerous, unstable persons."

"Good thing there aren't any of those around here," said the Chief. "Right, Tyler?"

McKay shook her head and marched on. Soon they came across a group of ODSTs crowded around a single Marine. The scarred soldiers were laughing and shooting the shit with the lower-ranked soldier, who seemed to be the center of attention.

The Chief peered through the forest of heads. "No way—is that who I think it is?"

"One 'Private Mendoza'." McKay nodded. "We found him in a dingy motel room surrounded by Covenant recording equipment and covered in rainbow of strange fluids. My ODST boys managed to plug him up. He's pretty popular around The Butte."

"I'll bet," said the Chief.

McKay glared at him still more, then turned about face and continued on the rest of the way to Major Silva's office. They found it guarded by a very tough and scarred Helljumper.

"Corporal McKay presenting Master Chief Petty Officer for the Major," said McKay sharply, saluting.

The Helljumper returned her salute, a cigarette dangling from his lips. "What kind of name is Master Chief Petty Officer?" he asked, sneering.

The Chief looked impassively down at him. "If you call me Master Chief again I'll skin you and then wear your skin."

The Helljumper took his cigarette and put it out on the Chief's armored chest. "Wear this," he said.

"Good one." The Chief patted the comparatively much smaller man on the top of the head. "I didn't know gerbils could be so funny." He continued on into the office, McKay shutting the door behind him. A few seconds later blood began too ooze from under the crack of the door. McKay blinked at it.

The Chief found himself staring at the back of Major Silva's silver haired head. The Major was wearing a well-tailored silver suit. He used his feet to spin his big silver executive power chair around to face the Chief.

"Ah, Master Chief Petty Officer John 117 SPARTAN Mk. II." Silva stroked his white beard. "Did you have a good rest?"

The Chief gritted his teeth. "Until you sent this dike to bitch me awake."

McKay's eyes flashed but she remained silent.

Silva smirked coldly. "I'm happy…" his face twitched imperceptibly "that Keyes was able to arrive intact. I can't say the same for McKay's squad of ODSTs, though; since we're all breathing in the few particles that remain of them right now, thanks to our good old Captain Keyes."

The Chief made as if to sniff the air. "I thought I smelled a bunch of limp-dick poser assholes."

Silva waved a hand. "Have you given any more thought to my offer?"

"No."

"I see," said Silva coolly. "You would make yourself out as a man of principle, then?"

"No, I just don't remember what your offer was."

Cortana hissed in his ear. "He offered you money in exchange for assassinating Keyes."

"Very amusing," said Silva unamused-ly. "I can't say I'm happy with your decision not to kill a superior officer, but I suppose I can't blame you for being an ass sniffing shit eating inhuman blood hound, can I?"

"Oh, I don't know," said the Chief. "I'm getting pretty open to the idea of killing a superior officer right now."

"Be that as it may," said Silva sharply, "I called you here to rant at you about how useless and shitty SPARTANS are."

"Can I get the abridged version? I'm in no mood for some long, drawn out, obnoxious reliteration."

"That's not a word," said Cortana.

"Then maybe you shouldn't have come into my office," retorted Silva.

"You ordered me in here," said the Chief.

Silva waved a hand again. "Be that as it may, you're a mutant freak. Are you familiar with a man named Charles Darwin, Chief?"

"Well, we're friends, but not besties."

"He invented the theory of natural selection: that those species not strong enough to survive would eventually die out. Survival of the fittest."

"Actually no," said Cortana. "It's that those genes and mutations that most helped their bearer survive long enough to reproduce in its environment would proliferate. That's why things like incredibly weak slugs or human beings exist, regardless of 'strength.' But I suppose the difference is lost on a dumb fucking Nazi like you." Silva pretended he hadn't heard her. Cortana went into the database and dishonorably discharged him from the UNSC, ensuring that if they ever got back to Earth he would be executed for unlawfully being in command.

"The SPARTANs died out, Chief," said Silva in a self-satisfied tone. "You're the last of dying breed. You, like the others, are a freak. A failed experiment."

"Nope," said the Chief.

The world zoomed in on Silva's silver but also gender ambiguous face. "The Spartans are a bad joke, Chief. Freaks. An experiment to see if men and women could be turned into shitty robot blood hound dogs. They failed. You failed. Why, you never even knew your father. And you called yourself a man, and they called you soldiers. They failed. You're not even worth the money the brass put into you, nor the time they spent to raise you. You weren't raised to manhood. You weren't taught how to hold courage in your heart or how to love a woman. You were manufactured. Made to kill, assembled like a gun. You are not human. You are less than human, less than a gun or the bullet that the hammer sparks. An iron insect with a day long life span. Humanity does not need you. This mission does not need you. For all the metal, sweat, and money running in your veins, you are already a corpse."

"At least I can actually throw grenades," said the Chief.

Silva blinked. "YOU SON OF A BITCH!" He jumped up, a pistol appearing in his hand. McKay rushed forwards and held him back.

"No sir! Calm down! It's not worth it!"

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" A round exploded against the ceiling. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MANY MEN WE'VE LOST TO FRIENDLY GRENADES!? I'LL COURT MARSHAL YOU FOR THIS, CHIEF! THERE WON'T BE A RANK OR FILE FUCKED DEAD IN THE ROAD ON SOME BACKWARDS PLANET FAR AWAY ENOUGH FROM ME! I'LL MAKE YOU FORGET THE DAY YOU PUT THAT FUCKING HELMET ON!"

"Good talk," said the Chief, and left. Then he slipped on the pile of blood and guts that had been the short Helljumper guard. He shook the blood off his hands. "God damn it, who left their bloody remains here!?"

Elsewhere in the Butte a series of character vignettes were occurring.

Sergeant Sgt. Johnson wrapped his sweaty ebony fingers around the 120 pound dumbbell, his exotic non Caucasian muscles flexing tightly as his foot thick biceps strained with effort. He curled until his large knuckles brushed against the front of his sweat stained dark green t-shirt. Then he let his arm uncurl to the gym floor as if he had all the time in the world. His muscles strained with tension and he gritted his large white teeth, sweat dripping from the bridge of his nose as he finally completed the rep. Then he did it again a thousand more times.

"Pretty impressive," said a deep voice from behind him. Johnson whirled. It was a tall, muscular black man with a shaved head and tribal tattoos on various parts of his body. Johnson looked him up and down.

"Well goddamn, I didn't know there were any otha' niggas in this crib. You run with the Crips or the mother fucking Bloods?"

"I don't know. I'm a Helljumper, and a human male. What does that make me?" The man held out his hand. "The name's Kit. Kit Fisto."

Johnson eyed him suspiciously.

"Okay, then." Kit took his hand back.

The pearly whites of Johnson's eyes widened, and so did his pupils. "So you think you too fiiine to speak the jive the way you were born, nigga? Is that what this shit is?"

Kit's eyes narrowed. "I don't follow."

"You fucking oreo!" rasped Johnson. "I bet yo' mom smoked white dicks everyday, and they nuts dribbled down and got absorbed into yo' bald ass brain case mother fucker!"

Kit pushed Johnson, hard, almost knocking him off his bench. "My mother was a saint!"

The Sergeant stood up and raised an eyebrow, flexing his gigantic muscles. "Bitch…don't be playing with me. You know what I think?"

. "Oh, yeah, why don't you lay it on me? I'm dying to hear what you think."

"I don't think you're black or white," said Johnson. "No brother would ever play at this shit!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I think you…are a Covenant!"

DUN DUN DUN

"That's retarded." Kit Fisto turned to go, picking up his gym bag. "Go fuck yourself, Johnson."

"Yeah, that's right!" Johnson made what he thought was an ebonic hand gesture at Kit's back. "Keep on running mother fucker."

He turned back to his 120 lb. But then suddenly Johnson stopped, his nostrils flaring. He stood up straight. "But how…did you know my name?"

Kit Fisto stopped dead in his tracks half-way across the gym, duffle bag in one hand. He turned his head slowly, his yellow eyes glittering.

"Why, there's a very simple, logical explanation for that, Sergeant Sg.t Johnson. You see, I-DIE FILTHY HUMAN!"

With that he threw the duffle bag straight at Johnson's head. As it soared it opened from the inside and three Spec-Ops grunts burst out. Each of them held two plasma rifles in either hand. They opened fire.

"Oh shit!" Johnson dove for cover. The plasma melted his workout equipment. Johnson scooped up his own gym bag and rolled away as the Grunts landed in a spear head formation. They turned to track Johnson as he ran for the showers.

Fisto tore off his own face. "Surprise, fool." Beneath was the face of a dark skinned Spec-Ops Elite! The fake black flesh writhed, splitting apart to let the real black alien free. The Spec Ops Elite activated his plasma sword and pointed it at Johnson's retreating form. "I've got to give a human credit where it's due, though—none of you have been able to see through my disguises before." He started walking towards Johnson.

Johnson bowed his head as the streams of plasma projectiles began to creep ever closer to his feet. He reached with both hands into his bag, turned, and pushed off fully into mid air! The bag fell away to reveal a pair of mother fucking gats!

The Elite dove for cover as the bulletz ripped the shit out of the gym. The Grunts were shredded to a bloody pulp, and Johnson swept the guns in a sideways arc around him as he unloaded their mags. He aimed for where he had last seen the Elite enter cover, but the alien spy seemed to have cloaked.

"Damn." Johnson put the gats back in the trunk of his Escalade. The Elite was long gone. The black Sergeant looked up at the paisley pale yellow light fixtures of the gym, then turned on the spot as if he was watching a helicopter fly over head.

"Shit," he said gravely to nobody in particular, "just got real."

Wow, it's just like The Wire! Let's see what everyone else is doing, shall we?

Oreo was practicing in a makeshift shooting range. The paper cutout silhouettes that the ODSTs had been using were all perforated with bullet holes in the thighs, biceps, and left shoulders. There were no head shots. Mendoza was also practicing. His weapon of choice was a gun that had vaguely phallic qualities.

Oreo aimed the giant sniper rifle down the range and popped off a single shot. It tore an entire stacked row of targets in half in a cloud of shredded paper.

"Not bad girl friend," said Mendoza gaily. He squeezed off a couple of 'rounds' from his phallic gun. They all landed squarely on the crotch-areas of the cutouts.

"Yeah. Um…not so bad yourself, there."

"Thanks," simpered Mendoza. "I like to keep my priorities bent."

"Don't you mean straight?" asked Oreo.

He looked at her in confusion. "No."

"Wow. Just wow," said Oreo. She continued to practice. At that moment a large group of Helljumpers entered the range, talking and joking and obviously drunk. Oreo kept an eye on them as she continued to practice, but by the time she had finished her clip the group had surrounded her and Mendoza. She had a bad feeling about this.

"Weeell lookie what we have here boys," said the biggest of the scarred four, leering at her. "Looks like we got a young tender soldier all alone here at the range."

Oreo's fists bunched. She opened her mouth to speak, but another Helljumper interrupted her.

"Haw haw! They're just lookin for the right meat!" He grabbed his crotch enthusiastically.

Oreo's finger twitched towards the butt of her pistol.

"We should show 'em what real men can do," said another.

She flicked the safety off of her pistol.

"Yeah," said the leader, reaching out with a groping hand. Oreo tensed as the man reached past her and grabbed Mendoza by the collar. He drew the Mexican Marine into a deep, extremely erotic and scarred kiss. Oreo's jaw dropped as the other ODST circled Mendoza and began pulling at their pants. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

"I think that's my cue to go." She ran for the door, only to collide with another Helljumper as he entered the room. Oreo clutched his shoulder. "Oh thank god! You've gotta stop this! It's illegal, we'll all get discharged."

The Helljumper looked at the gay orgy just beginning. He grinned. "I'll get right on that." With that he skipped past her, undoing his belt buckle with obvious glee.

"Goddamn it, Mendoza," Oreo muttered under her breath. "What the hell is up with you? I mean…down low with you? Ugh, whatever."

She angrily opened the door and stormed out. This Butte was completely unprofessional. Not looking where she was going, she immediately ran into yet another Helljumper. Oreo stumbled backwards, cursing under her breath. She rounded on the man. "Oh, and I guess you're here for the gangbang too!?"

"No," said the Helljumper. "I'm here to kill you." It was an Elite, wearing a Helljumper's head on top of his helmet.

"How—it's you!" It was the Elite from the valley who had yelled at them, and who she had shot in the chest. But he was alive! Oreo jumped backwards, fumbling to pull her pistol out. The alien advanced on her, claws outstretched with a wicked grin on his face. The head fell off his helmet and rolled towards her. Oreo tripped over it and her large breasts bounced, one smashing into the alien's hand.

"Agh!" He reeled back, hand crushed and bleeding. "Cow SLUT!"

Oreo finally pulled out her pistol. In her other hand she held a radio, which she flipped on. "Alert! Alert!" she screamed while leveling the pistol. "Our Butte is under attack! Repeat, our Butte is under attack!"

"It is?" The strange Elite looked around, nursing his hand. "Hey, have you noticed that everything in the Covenant looks like a vagina?"

Oreo held her pistol with both hands. "Are you going to explain how you survived getting shot in the chest and run over by a car?"

"Funny you should ask, fanny pack. It's a really interesting story—" Oreo shot him in the face. He ducked, the bullet flying over his head and right in between the eyes of the Marine that had been about to sneak up on him. The Marine fell to the ground, dead, and the alien laughed. "Wow, nice shot. Let's add shooting to the list of things every woman ever is bad at."

"That's the last time you talk down to me!" Oreo unsheathed her combat knife and leapt forwards. Her combat knife cut slashed across his wrist as he lifted it in defense. The alien screamed. Bright purple blood sprayed out between his fingers where he tried to stem the flow.

Suddenly the door behind Oreo opened. It was Mendoza! He waddled out, legs bowed and pants stained, wiping something from the corner of his mouth. A crowd of very satisfied Helljumpers could be seen behind him in the shooting range, all unconscious and naked. Oreo's mouth gaped open. It wasn't the only thing gaping, because-okay never mind I can't do it.

The blue Elite cheered it when it saw Mendoza. "Aha! Finally, a fairy with some sense who can lisp common decency into this SACK OF TIT MEAT!"

"Whatever you say, girlfriend," said Mendoza. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out an apple-tini.

"Really, Mendoza?" asked Oreo. "An apple-tini?"

"And a time like this," said the Elite, punching her in the back of the head. Oreo fell to her hands and knees with a grunt of pain, her vision blurring. She watched as if through a wall of water as her opponent produced a plasma rifle and overcharged it, then aimed it at Mendoza.

"N-no!"

Mendoza eyed the pistol speculatively. "Is that plasma in your pistol, or are you just happy to see me?" The gun went off. All the skin exploded from Mendoza's body. Then his bones exploded, leaving the large quantities of man chowder he had ingested to splatter to the floor. Oreo wheezed in shock and rolled over on her back, the world spinning all around her as the Elite stepped on her chest. It aimed the pistol at her face. It tsked at her.

"Such a shameful waste of good breasts. Ah well. So long, Whoreo."

"STOP RIGHT THERE!" screamed a familiarly retarded voice. It was the Chief! He barreled down the hallway, green armor shining bright, and leapt into the air. Green and white lines of speed flickered behind him.

"Nooo!" The Elite whirled, bringing its pistol to bear. "I am not for the die, Chief! You will die!"

"HMPH!" said the Chief. He drew his fist back and green energy boiled around him. "SPARTAWN-PAAAAAUUUNCH!" His fist slammed into the alien's face and it exploded in a wave of simultaneously on fire and shattering debris. There was a deafening crack, then all was silent.

The Chief knelt lightly next to Oreo, who had watched all this with some amazement.

"You alright, Sakura?" he asked her.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Um…" the Chief scratched his head. "I mean…whatever your name is. Jeez, what just happened?"

"I don't know, Chief," said Cortana on his speakers. "But there's no time to figure it out. We have to go save Keyes before the aliens get to him. I'm monitoring the rest of the butte—the Marines have managed to not all die, and the Helljumpers have actually killed about one and a half Grunts! Keyes is still in his cabin, though." She took a deep breath. "By the way, I went ahead and ordered that car battery."

"What about Major Silva?" asked Oreo.

The Chief shrugged. "For all the metal, sweat, and money running through my veins I don't give a fuck."

"You took that, uh, little lecture he gave you pretty well," said Cortana. "That guy could give Hannibal lessons!"

"Thanks," said the Chief,

"I wasn't congratulating you. I would have preferred it if you'd cried. So I could record it, and then overlay that audio to my just recently recorded videos of Mendoza's gangbang and subsequent vaporization."

Oreo frowned at Cortana, or rather at the Chief. "I'm not surprised you two get along so well. Help me up, Chief?"

Elsewhere in the Butte, Keyes was at his personal computer. The room was dim, the door locked, and faint LED light flickered on the wall. Balled up tissues were scattered around the desktop next to smears of Lubriderm and empty Kleenex boxes. The aging Captain clicked frantically with one hand, his crusty mouse shedding layers of dried semen with every input. Keyes's pants were around his ankles, his gnarled boner protruding out from between his stick like thighs. He pumped away viscously as he stared at the screen. Suddenly he came, and his dick made a sound like a dry firing pistol. Gasping rapturously, Keyes slumped over the desk with his face on his sticky keyboard.

Slowly he regained control of himself and straightened up, gray eyes cold and face drawn. He opened his mouth.

"I know you're there," said Captain Jacob Keyes to the darkness.

Something stirred in the shadows behind him. A flash of gold armor.

"For how long?" replied a deep, warbling voice from the shadows.

"After about my fourth climax," said Keyes. "Honestly, son, you could have a said something, particularly before I started going to the dog websites."

A soft laugh drifted from the shadows and Commander Darren stepped out. In one hand he held a plasma pistol.

"We're not so different, you and I," he began, casually raising the gun to point at Keyes. "I mean, not that I'm a dog person. What I mean is that we are both leaders to our people. We have both sent thousands of men to die for our orders."

"Eh? What's that sonny?" croaked Keyes. "Speak up now?"

"We're not so different."

"You fart a shrimplet?" said Keyes confusedly.

"…no?"

"The difference between us," continued Keyes as if he had understood after all "is that you will go to any lengths to achieve your goals. I care about the lives of my men."

"Uh, not really," said Darren. "I actually care about my Elites a lot. Their lives matter to me, yours—"

Suddenly the door slammed open! It was Major Silva. He peeked his head in.

"Oh, hey guys." Darren and Keyes jumped. Silva's eyes lit up. "Oh, hello, Darren. Well…never mind. I'll just be going now." He ran away.

"GREAT CEASER'S GHOST!" Keyes dove for cover as Darren fired, hitting his computer. Sparks and smoke filled the room as Keyes scrambled behind his bed, his pants still off, wiry ass squirming in the pale light from the open door. Darren took careful aim at Keyes.

"Your destruction is the will of gods," he intoned. "And I are their instruments. Wait, shit, I messed that up-"

Suddenly the Chief tackled him from out of nowhere. Funnily enough, his tackle was launched from such a direction that he would have had to sneak into the room, edge around the computer, and walk right past both Keyes and Darren in order to set it up.

"Remember Reach!" hollered the Spartan as he wrestled the gun from Darren's hands.

"Agh! Filthy human heretic!" The gun went off, hitting the Chief full in the face. His shields flared, blinding everyone momentarily from the flash in the very dark room.

"God damn it!" Darren jumped up as the Chief rubbed at his visor. He sprinted towards the door.

"After him!" shouted Keyes. "He saw me log on to XXXFurryFriends dotcom! That is, he saw valuable military intelligence!"

"It's too late," said Cortana over the intercom. "He's long gone by now; I just detected a stealth ship taking off. My gaydar says there's at least one self-denying bromancer on board."

"How many Covieknats were there?" asked the Chief as he helped Keyes to his feet. "Were they all accounted for?"

Cortana checked the reports coming in. "It was a small task force of three Elites and three Grunts. Darren and someone named 'Kit Fisto' appear to have escaped, and of course you blew up the freak from the cliff side so he's dead, again. The strange thing is I have no idea how they knew where the Butte was."

At that moment Major Silva strolled casually into the room, again. "If you're done here, Commander Darren," he said, "It'd be best if you leave."

"Hi, Silva," said the Chief.

"Because," continued Major Silva without noticing anyone. "I told you where the butte was and gave you the access codes to the base so that you could assassinate Captain Keyes, that idiotic excuse for a military leader. Now I will be in charge again." Silva looked around at those assembled and his face fell.

The Chief cocked his head. "You okay there, buddy?"

"Uh…just talking to myself again," said the Major, sweating silver bullets. "How are you guys? Fight off that alien bastard okay?"

"I guess." The Chief looked suspiciously at Silva. "You know, I can't help but be a little suspicious of you. It's a bit strange that you would walk in just after Cortana said something about how it was strange that the Covenant knew where we were."

"Did you not just hear him confess?" asked Cortana.

"Hey now, Cortana," said the Chief, holding up a hand. "This is man's work here. You know all the greatest detectives were men!"

"This is a new low. I even have what he said on record here, let me just play it back—"

"Don't try to confuse my Grecian intelligence!" snapped the Chief. "My memory is perfect. In fact, it's so good that I can remember things that never happened."

Major Silva started to sidle out of the room. "I'll just be going, now."

"Yeah, fuck off." The Chief turned to Keyes. "Are you all right?"

Captain Keyes just stared at him. His eyes were glassy. "Who are you people?"