Disclaimer: Halo is property of Bungie and 343 industries. All OC's belong to me

Nitrous's Perspective

"...I'll have to cover your ass because you won't be able to." And just like that Ryan marched down towards the op center in a hurry. I decided to disregard his threat and I opened his side table and ransacked through it until I found the one thing I never suspected to find. I found his secrets, I found his lifelong pain. There in my hand I held a picture of two boys around the age of 13 sitting beside each other, one of them appeared to be older. The younger one resembled Ryan himself. The picture had a caption written under it. 'Michael & Ryan, 2549' It suddenly occurred to me that when we were all taken he lost more than his parents he lost his brother, everyone else's siblings were recovered alongside them but not his. I threw all of his belonging back into the nightstand and crawled back up onto my bunk hoping that when he returns he won't notice any misplacement. I heard his unsteady footsteps coming back towards the room then they stopped just outside the door, CRASH! I jumped off the bunk and onto the floor to see what the commotion was all about but to my amazement I saw a horribly injured Spartan lying outside the door. Everyone from the surrounding rooms we all standing outside with questioned looks on their faces all wondering the same thing. "What the hell happened to him?" one of the Spartans said. I examined his armour to see if I recognized him. He was wearing E.O.D specialist armour that had been customized to be light blue with black stripes. His IDN stated him to be a Spartan named Callum Downey from Shameless Team. He had blood dripping from his nano-suit near the back of his torso plate it was located awfully close to his spine. "He's been shot in the back!" another Spartan announced. "No, he hasn't!" I stated as I examined the area closer. "It looks as if he was beat with a blunt object." I reassuringly announced. I turned him over to see if he sustained any injuries from the front and to my relief he hadn't. Just then Ryan walked around the corner with the device he went to retrieve; he made his way through the crowd of Marines and Spartans and saw Callum and I on the ground. He threw the device to the ground which ended up breaking it and then he ran towards us. "Have there been any injuries to him?" he asked. "Yes he has sustained injuries on his back near his spinal cord." I stated. "Go get the disassembler!" he shouted. I got up and ran into the dorm grabbed my device and tossed it to him. He caught it then started to take apart his chest plate. "Get a gurney down here stat!" he shouted at a marine. The marine then took off towards the medical bay. "He's broken a rib, whoever hit him they did it intentionally and he didn't see it coming." Ryan said as he finished removing Callum's armour. The marine returned with two medical officers and a gurney. "Sir, how's he doing?" the marine asked worriedly. "Marine, get down to the forward command deck. I think the Commander would like to know about this, don't worry about him he's in good hands now."Ryan said to the marine as he carried Callum over to the gurney. The marine nodded then departed yet again.

I rushed down to the medical bay a little later to find out how Callum was holding up but had to wait outside the room because he had to undergo surgery. Apparently when he got hit it damaged the nerves in and around that section of his spine. The surgery didn't take long though, the medics knew what they were doing however they said that he would take some time to fully recover from the injury but he is awake. I walked into the room and stood beside Ryan who was taking care of Callum. "How's he holding up?" I asked. "Well, he should still be able to compete in tomorrow's match but I wouldn't recommend it. Other than that he should be fine."Ryan responded. "Whenever I find that SOB that did this I going to knock them on their ass show them their place."Ryan murmured then stood up. Just then Callum faintly pointed towards his armour in the corner. "Letter ...from ...Command" he said then fell back asleep. I walked over to his suit and opened up some of the compartments but there wasn't any letter on the armour. "The letter is on the table over there, I obtained it while looking for any reason he might have gotten jumped for. It's addressed to you." Ryan said while pointing towards the table. I walked towards the table and opened the letter to read it.

UNSC COMMAND

Pvt. 1st class Kyle Rayburn,

It has come to my attention that change among the team's rosters has occurred regarding the team transfer of Pvt. Maverick to Spartan Team Claymore. This transfer has created slight complications within the teams leaving Spartan Team Shameless with a disadvantage. Therefore you have also been transferred from Spartan Team Claymore to Spartan Team Shameless. You have been chosen to be transferred into Fire team 1 and are to be paired alongside Pvt. Ryan during field operations. This change takes effect immediately.

Sincerely,

Captain Caussnik of Frigate Serenity

O.C

I felt my heart stop then plummet towards the ground as the thought came to my head. "Oh god, I have to deal with Ryan out on the field." He shot me a stunned look as if I had just burst into flames. "What is it?"He asked. I tossed him the letter and watched as he read it over. I saw the same thought pass through his mind; he glared up at me with a look of depression passing across his face then turned his attention towards Callum. "I thought this was the worst news I'd receive all day but I guess I was wrong." He stated with slight disbelief. He then got up and left the room. I looked over at Callum and he was sound asleep it appeared to me that these were no longer drills that we are doing. These are the warm-ups before the game the rest before the fight, people will die if I make mistakes and I can't let it happen. I decided to give Callum the rest he needed and to go get some sleep for tomorrows match. I headed back down the hallway towards my room. Everyone looked at me with concern; they were terrified because they realized the same thing I realized. They realized that they're in the "big leagues" now that they aren't as invincible as they thought they were. I continued down the hallways until I got to my room I noticed that Ryan had already gotten to the room and was taking off his armour to customize it. "I hope you're not modifying your armour already you still got to teach me how to use these things" I said sarcastically. "No I'm just adding a little colour and a few minor tweaks to the HUD mainframe and I upgraded the motion sensor to... um well it's not done yet." He replied while tinkering with his helmet. A spark shot out of his helmet and ricocheted off a nearby wall. He puzzlingly looked into his helmet as if he completely destroyed it. "Well looks like I downgraded the motion sensor to, well broken." He said as he stopped tinkering with it and set it aside. I sat down and watched him work on his gear with amusement. After a while I tried to fall asleep but I couldn't because Ryan had all of his shit on my bunk. "Hey why don't you claim the bottom bunk and I get the top one?" I asked him. "Sure whatever I don't care." He replied while drawing sketches for his armour detailing. I climbed up to the top bunk and started to climb up to my bunk and lie down to sleep I never decided to remove my armour because I didn't want to end up like Callum. Poor Callum he never saw it coming, oh well I should probably get some rest in I thought to myself and my armour powered down as I closed my eyes.