Well, good news: school is pretty much over. At the of writing this sentence, I have only one test left for the year. Will this mean that I'll update faster?

No comment.

ANYWAY. Time for some action! I've found it surprising that I've written six chapters for this story and only the first had combat in it. Yeah, all of what, like two lines or something? Well, I think it's about time to remedy that.

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While more than two months of cryo-sleep certainly had made his body a bit sluggish, the Chief quickly found out that he was more than able to join in on the aerial battle before him.

And, as much as he wouldn't like to admit it, he relished in it.

It probably wasn't healthy for him, mentally or physically, to be enjoying putting his life on the line again, but he didn't really care. He had gone over two months without firing a weapon, and damn it felt good.

His first target-a blue dragon who was making its way into the battle- had seen the rocket coming at him, and while it was smart enough to realize that the object was dangerous, it was clearly not smart enough to realize that the rocket had heat-seeking capabilities.

The Chief had to admit that while those things were big, he really didn't expect it to hold anywhere near as much blood as the amount that went flying in every direction. The 102 millimeter shaped charge had clearly done its job, and then some. Not that he was complaining, of course. He quickly took aim at another target.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeeeeeee...

Clear tone.

The Chief fired, and another of the beasts was hurled to the ground. Evidently, both sides had begun to realize that the giant explosions weren't coming from one of their own, though they didn't appear to know exactly who was responsible. The Chief almost found himself disappointed by that; he would've been glad to get some hostile attention if it meant that the blues wold focus on him and not the reds. His decided objective was to protect-or at least not shoot- the red ones, after all. Not that big of a deal, though- their lack of attention gave him the time to load another dual tube of rockets into the launcher.

He quickly noticed another dragon, although this one seemed different from the rest; it was larger, and it seemed to have some kind of odd field surrounding it.

"You notice that? It looks like some kind of barrier to me." Cortana said, doing her best to assist him-she couldn't do much in the way of cyberwarfare in the current situation. The Chief gave a barely noticeable nod before bringing the launcher up and locking on. By that point, several of the red dragons had noticed the big one as well, and were flying towards it. Taking this as a sign that it was of a higher rank than the others, the Chief fired.

It took the rocket less than two seconds to get to its target. Despite the fact that the barrier had evidently been destroyed, the dragon behind it didn't seem to have wounds with the degree of severity that the Chief had anticipated. It even managed to stay flying for a second or so, but it dropped to the ground a few seconds later. Whether that was from the rocket finishing it off or the red dragons attacking it, the Chief didn't know.

"Chief! Left!" Cortana yelled into his ear just as he noticed a large red dot moving towards him on his motion sensor. He quickly looked in that direction just as a blue dragon swooped down towards him. By this time, it was too close for the Chief to fire the remaining rocket in the launcher without possibly blowing himself up along with his target. Knowing this, he quickly rolled forwards. The dragon missed him, but just barely; if he had waited for half a second longer, he probably would've been in the thing's mouth. He made a mental note to increase the range on his motion sensor.

Not to let the opportunity go to waste, the Chief quickly lined up with the dragon, who was now turning around for a second attempt. He knew that he wasn't going to have enough time for a lock on, but if his target was just going to blindly charge at him like it did last time, he wouldn't need one. The dragon opened its jaws just as it lined up with the Chief before letting out what would've been an ear-splitting roar, had the Spartan's helmet's systems not reduced the noise to a tolerable level. Even so, it was still quite loud-however, its roar was cut short from the HEAT rocket that detonated in the thing's open mouth. While the shock wave forced the Chief to take a step back, it wasn't enough to knock the half-ton Spartan over.

He reloaded, then scanned around for another target. He quickly found one-this one was a bit bigger than any of the others he'd seen so far, and like the other large one, it had the strange barrier-like effect surrounding it. Despite the fact that the beast was staring right at the Chief, it wasn't making any movements to attack him, but the Chief didn't really blame the thing. Seeing the remains of its fallen comrade smoldering at the super-soldier's feet must've looked damn intimidating. The Chief had no doubt that the effect was intensified when he swiveled the rocket launcher up to the thing.

Clearly, it was, since when the dragon roared, all of its brethren attempted to withdraw from the battle and retreat. Of course, their efforts were hampered by the attacks of the reds, who clearly weren't receptive to the idea of letting the offending party leave without a fight. Despite this, some of the blues-the large one, among them- were able to escape. The Chief didn't know if that was due to the blues being faster or the reds not wanting to go too far away by chasing them.

He lowered the rocket launcher and watched as Korialstrasz and Alexastrasza- damn, he thought, these people have long names-landed on the top of the tower and started at him. Had he not been through so much in his life, he may have felt intimidated by the two giant beasts on either side of him. Even so, he had to admit that he did feel quite...uncomfortable. Nevertheless, he focused his gaze on the larger one, Alexastrasza.

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The Queen had to admit, while she had experienced a lot of things in her long life, watching a mortal- a tiny, usually inconsequential creature- bring down four fully grown blue drakes while applying almost no effort at all certainly was not one of them. She was the guardian of all life, but she couldn't deny the fact that she was impressed.

She was quite eager to figure out exactly what the odd weapon the soldier used was. It certainly wasn't anything she had seen before. And of course, where he had come from. He said that he'd answer more questions once he arrived at the temple, and now that he was here, she was-

"Well, are you going to say something, or should we go?" The voice, although it came from the soldier, surely wasn't his. It was feminine, and while its words had a little uncertainty in them, they lacked the subtle hostility of the man's.

Then, to the her surprise, a strange blue glow appeared over the armored soldier's shoulder. To her even greater surprise, the glow quickly took the shape of a person. A woman, as the Queen's hawk-like eyes were quickly able to recognize. The oddest part, however, was the woman's lack of clothes. In place of this, strange symbols washed over her form from head to toe. The man-turned his head to look at the woman.

"Really?"

His voice, though appearing deadpan, had a faint trace of humor in it.

"Well, I figured that you sure as hell aren't going to sit here and talk." The woman said.

Well, this was going to be interesting.

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Okay, I know it's short, and stupid, and other derogatory terms that begin with the letter S, but I just wanted to get this one out kind of as an apology for not updating quickly. I hope you enjoyed it; I actually enjoyed writing it quite a bit. More than DIALOGUE and BORING STUFF, that's for sure. Action FTW.

Well, anyway, see you guys!