Tonight's episode…
"Brown Town"
New Mombasa. The largest city in future-Kenya. It is an economic cosmopolitan capstone, and one of the brownest places on Earth. In 2028, professional architect Jonathan Seagal and local mayor Akachi Akua met at a bar and discovered their mutual love of the color brown over drinks. Upon their second meeting they devised a city-wide plan of 'Brownification,' using their government contacts to offer special tax breaks to businesses and building owners if they would allow Jonathen Seagal's company, Brown Solutions, to modify the facades of their buildings. Special 'brownilation' chemicals were applied to the windows of all buildings. In addition, 'brownish stone color' paint was spread all over the modern architecture. Light fixtures were replaced with brown fixtures, and asphalt was paved over with a special mix of cement and ochre. As a final touch, special ambient light sources were inserted in unassuming locations throughout every room, street, and plaza of New Mombasa. The lights were tinted brown in order to create a sense of impermeable brownness so that all colors took on a brown tint. Their work done, they then planted a bunch of trees.
But all that changed the day the Covenant rolled into town.
It was less than twenty four hours from the Covenant fleet's arrival to their landing on Earth. It was actually two hours. The MAC cannon defense grid was designed to take on hundreds of Covenant cruisers at a time—it was an impenetrable web, co-authored by Earth's mightiest minds. And it would have worked. Except for one, tiny, unexpected flaw, which was that it was a piece of shit.
The following will be written in the style of a Halo licensed novel.
Tartass Vacuumee, Fleet Master and Commander of the Anodyne Probation, observed several still shots of New Mombasa taken from the helmets of some of his best men. His personal cabin boy and assistant, Urinal, sidled up obsequiously to his master.
"Take a look at this, Urinal," said Vacumee, indicating the buildings in the shot. "For bad old no good heretics, the humans have fine taste in architecture and colors, and I admire their choice of ambient lighting." He pounded one fist into an open palm. "Let's blow it up!"
"But what about the Ark, master?" sniffled Urinal, snot dripping from his nose and eyes simultaneously. "The Prophet of Regret would…regret us to death if we were to destroy the Ark inadvertently."
"Not to worry." Vaccumee ruffled Urinal's greasy mop of hair. "We'll blow the humans up slowly, one building at a time."
And then pieces of the Ubiquitous Periphrasis sliced through their shields and hull and vaporized everyone on the bridge.
The following will be written in the style of a half a dozen year old crack fan fiction that nobody reads anymore and that has less relevance to the Halo canon than Halo 5.
Anyways, the Covenant rolled into town and killed everyone. But luckily enough, the bodies of the hundreds of thousands of dead civilians all evaporated just in time for the Chief and his friends to fly their enormous ship through the atmosphere of the Earth, probably setting off a bunch of explosions and setting fire the ozone layer as they did so.
The Chief, Oreo, Johnson, Miranda, and just them had all piled into the front of The Bareback to watch as the jutting brown pillars of Mombasa drifted by beneath their ship in mock placidity. Cortana was picking up something garbled over the Covenant battle net, and it wasn't just Diablo 3's servers.
"It's a message," she said, suddenly. "It's just one word. 'Regret. Regret. Regret.'"
"Those are three words," said the Chief.
Johnson smiled smugly. "'Dear humans,'" he mocked, "'we regret being alien bastards. We regret being honkey ass bitches. We regret being on the down low.'" He flipped off the huge Covenant ship that was tea bagging out of the brown clouds to the east, looming over the city. The Mombasa local government had authorized a 'brown cloud' aerosol spray initiative not two months ago. Sadly, Akachi Akua had died weeks before he could have seen it, respectfully buried by his beloved family in a pile of dirt that was colored an icy healthy, earthy grey.
"'Regret' is the name of one of their religious leaders cum generals, Sergeant," said Cortana. "It seems that he's gone on ahead and landed his forces on Earth without the support of the rest of the fleet. That ship there is his capital ship, The Exhorted Calumny."
Miranda nodded grimly. "Before we can deal with that, we need to support our boys on the ground. We can't let the Covenant get a foot hold in a place as important as Monbasso."
"Mombasa," said Oreo.
"Thanks, bitch." Miranda turned to the Chief before Oreo could object. "Chief, I need you. To take a Pelican down to the city and rendezvous with Johnson's squad."
"But Johnson's right here. Can't we go down together?" The Chief turned, but Johnson was not in fact right there.
"Later, nigooogs!" came the Sergeant's voice from the open bay of a Pelican drop ship as it flew past the view port.
Oreo's jaw dropped. "Wow! That was fast."
"He's slick," agreed the Chief.
"No time to admire Johnson," said Cortana. "Your Pelican is waiting for you in the loading bay, Chief."
"I'll go with him," said Oreo firmly.
Miranda shrugged. "Whatever. No one cares."
"Affirmative." Cortana's bitch voice was back in full swing. "You two can meet the Pelican's pilot, too. His name's Tad."
"Tad?" The Chief scratched his helmet. "I swear that name is familiar."
Oreo looked amazed and happy. "Tad! I don't believe it. Chief, Tad was our pilot back on Halo!"
"Oh, right!" The Chief said cheerfully. "That guy. He was such a…a guy. I liked him. And his seventeen brothers who all died."
Cortana cleared her throat. "Well, Tad died too. I was actually joking. He died, and he's never coming back."
Oreo shook her head in disgust. "That's cold, Cortana."
"Well, I was named after a sword, you know," said the AI.
The Chief rolled his eyes. "Oh, here we go again. Tell me more about the sword and the shield and the past and the future why don't you?"
"I wasn't quoting," said Cortana tartly. "I was just saying."
"No one cares." Oreo grabbed Chief by the hand and led him out of the cockpit.
They departed in a Pelican a few moments later. The pilot, as they discovered, was a fairly normal man with no distinguishing characteristics named John. He spoke in a deep Irish American accent and had brown hair and brown eyes, and he had obviously trained in flight school a lot. He neither had a girl waiting for him at home nor two kids he couldn't wait to get back to, and he wasn't planning on retiring any time soon. He had never smoked once in his life, and he was completely free of old war wounds. His parents and extended family were alive and well on other worlds and no one in his life had been touched by the tragedies of war, so he had no desire either for vengeance or justice.
But he did have AIDS.
The Pelican touched down in a bombed out playground a few minutes later. The wind it made rustled the trees of Akachi's legacy, and the lights on the chassis illuminated the sun-baked brown streets and alleys of New Mombasa still further. The Chief and Oreo slid out of the bay doors and checked their weapons while a handful of other Marines also disembarked around them. Oreo waved towards the front of the Pelican.
"Bye, John. Thanks for, um, having us. Bye!"
John waved absent mindedly and the Pelican took off again, leaving the squad alone.
"That was so awkward," said the Chief.
"What do you mean?" asked Oreo with faked confusion.
"The whole flight," said the Chief as they took the alley-stairs together, heading towards Brownyard, the most popular spot in town. "The whole flight I was just thinking 'please don't bleed or ejaculate on me, please don't bleed or ejaculate on me, please don't bleed or ejaculate on me."
"Chief!" exclaimed Oreo.
"Well, it's true. Don't tell me you weren't thinking it too."
"I wasn't!"
"Huh." At the end of the stairs, the Chief readied his rifle and peeked around the corner. Behind his back he made several quick hand signals to Oreo. She leaned closer to him with a look of confusion on her face.
"What does that mean, Chief?"
"What does what mean?" The Chief idly scanned Brownyard plaza. There were a few orange grunts and blue elites standing around jerking off, but nothing unusual. Although it was strange to see the Covenant on Earth; he had gotten used to fighting them on Halo. Also he had never been to Earth.
"The hand signals, Chief," said Oreo. "I don't understand them. Is that Spartan code, or something?"
"No," said the Chief. "I was just making them up as I went along."
"Well how do you expect me to—"
The Chief leaned around the corner and fired off three rounds. Because he had waited for just the right moment, all three bullets bored directly through the ear of the first blue elite, the consecutive heads of all three grunts, and then into the mouth of the second blue elite. Five small spurts of purple and blue piddled into the air before the aliens collapsed, leaving Brownyard Plaza devoid of all hostile life.
Oreo whistled. "Not bad, Chief. Did Cortana help you pull that one off?"
"Who cares?" The Chief marched out into the center of the plaza just in time for Johnson's Pelican to fly overhead. The Sergeant waved from behind an enormous mounted chain gun hanging out of the back of the drop ship, and his voice soon crackled over the radio.
"Chief! I've got multiple buggers flying towards yo posish, nignog! Ready they asses up!"
"What's a bugger?" asked the Chief.
Oreo flushed. "It's…uh, it means—"
"Anal sex," said Cortana. "But in this case, I'm pretty sure Johnson was talking about a swarm of Covenant drones. Though it is strange how he told you to 'ready their asses.' I'm not sure what he was going for there."
The Chief shrugged. "That's part of Johnson's ethnic charm."
Oreo eyed him tiredly. "That's one way to put it. Like, the worst way." She patted her SMG. "Get set, Chief, I think I hear those drones."
She was right; a brown cloud of insectile parts soon rose up from behind the brown buildings of New Mombasa, glowing points of plasma pistol light well dispersed amongst their fluttering forms. The cloud bulged and turned like a giant amoeba when it spotted the Chief and Oreo. There must have been a dozen drones or more swooping straight towards them with yellow-green eyes made lambent by hatred.
After they were all dead, the Chief and Oreo reloaded their weapons and proceeded on. But soon enough they found their way blocked by a large set of steel doors that looked to have been clumsily bolted over a concrete archway, which would in happier times have led to one of the bustling brown back streets of New Mombasa. Now it was sealed by a foot of steel.
"Earth is a lot browner than I thought it would be," said the Chief.
Oreo sighed in relief. "You noticed that too? I thought it was just me. What about you, Cortana?"
"Oh, sure. And I know all about how this happened. It's actually a really interesting story."
"Why not," mused the Chief. "It looks like we're going to be standing in front of this steel barricade staring at it for no reason for a few minutes so we might as well listen to something to pass the time."
Oreo stared at him.
"Fantastic." Cortana began the storied tale. "New Mombasa is largest city in Kenya. It's quite the shindig, but it's also one of the brownest places on Earth. A while back, two twink assholes met at a singles bar and hooked up. Turns out they were both real sickos. They thought it would be a great idea to cover the whole city in shit, but they had to settle for spray paint. They fucked up all the buildings, the lights, and the streets too. Everything's brown as hell, now."
"Thank God Johnson isn't on the radio," said Oreo.
The Chief stared at the unmoving barricade in amazement. "I don't believe you, Cortana. I don't believe that that is the whole truth."
Cortana sounded reluctant. "Well…I suppose not. They did plant some trees."
"And were the trees brown?"
Oreo interrupted them. "Chief, why are we staring at this barricade? Aren't we supposed to be helping the marines clear out the Covenant?"
"Hush." The Chief placed a matte-black armored finger over her lips without looking at her. "All in good time."
Oreo gently removed his finger, but not literally. "This is getting weird. Weirder than usual, I mean. Are you drugging him again, Cortana?"
"Not at this exact moment in time."
"Something is coming," said the Chief softly. "Something big."
"Uh…" Oreo looked at him, then around at the silent yard. "…um. What is it, then?"
He glanced at her facelessly. "Not it. Them."
Somehow, Cortana cleared her throat. "You used the singular pronoun 'something,' which always substitutes for a singular noun. If you're going to make a creepy prediction you should at least be accurate. Also, I thought I was the one who was going to go crazy this time. What gives."
The Chief sniffed. "You guys should take me more seriously. I am the hero of humanity after all you know and this is my second grand greatest adventure, and that means means I should be awesome and super good at everything. I read a book about books once so I know it's true so don't even try to argue."
"Oh, Christ." Oreo screwed up her eyes. "You know I always hate to admit it, but Cortana's right. This is getting really annoying. We've been standing here for five whole minutes and nothing's happened." She threw up her hands in exasperation, but not literally. "Why are we even standing in front of this, anyways? What the hell could possible get through a solid foot of steel—"
Two enormous blue and grey and orange Covenant hunters burst through the foot of steel, their twin giant shields slamming through first in a cloud of shrapnel, soon followed by their lumbering, hulk-like bodies. The barricade of steel shuddered and fell away on either side as the hunters caught sight of the Chief and Oreo. Their fuel rod cannons began to glow in unison as angry gurgling noises emanated from the orange biomasses that filled their armor.
Then the radio crackled. "Yo nignogs! This is Sergeant "Akachi" Johnson—there are two big ass hunters headed your way pronto! Get crackin'!"
The Chief had already stepped in front of Oreo when the doors blew, so he was ready to deal with what came next; two blasts of green energy shot from the hunters' cannons and burst against his shields, completely draining them!
"Damn." The Chief flinched, covering his visor with one hand: it was the first time he had lost his shields since his armor upgrade. Hopefully they would recharge faster, as Gunny Gunderson Guns had promised.
The radio went off again. "Yo, this is Johnson! No need to thank me for the heads up or anything, I'm just doing my part for my brothers and sisters. One love!"
The Chief grabbed Oreo around the waist and sprinted for cove, more radioactive green blasts hot on their heels. They dove behind a large brown potted tree just in time to avoid being turned into human Hotpockets.
"Thanks, Chief. That was a close one." Oreo peered out from behind cover and took a few pot shots at the hunters. However, they weren't really pot shots because the hunters had already covered their sensitive parts with their large shields.
"Oh, sure," came Johnson's garbled voice over the radio. "Thank Super Whitey for a brother's hard time. That ain't ever happened before."
The Chief checked his motion radar to see what the hunters were doing; much as he had expected, they were standing in one place doing nothing. Wait! No, they were splitting up to flush him and Oreo out of cover from both sides. The crossfire would be deadly…
"Oreo." He turned to her. "Do you trust me?"
Oreo wiped a sweaty lock of coal black hair out of her face, glancing at him sidelong as she began to reload her SMG. "That depends on your definition of 'trust.'"
The Chief scoffed. "What do I look like, a dictionary?"
"Trust," began Cortana. "The belief that someone is reliable, good, moral, or honest."
Oreo raised an eyebrow.
"I am pretty honest," said the Chief. The hunters were getting closer.
"That's true," said Oreo. "That one thing about you is true. That one thing, only."
The two hunters stopped on either side of the tree and exchanged gurgles of triumph. Oreo gasped in surprise and horror as the aliens' fuel rod cannons began to glow once more, both aimed squarely at the humans.
The Chief tapped Oreo on the shoulder. "Hey, if I said I wanted your body now, would you hold it against me?" And then he grabbed her by the waist, pulled her to him, and leapt high into the air. Beneath his boots the hunters only had time to burble once in shock before their radioactive streams collided into one another, blasting straight through the abdomens of each. In the next moment, just as the Chief's boots hit the deck once more, the charred husks of both hunters collapsed hollowly to the ground with a cacophonous bang.
The Chief let go of Oreo, who shakily tottered away to go throw up into a tree bed.
"Nice job, Chief," said Cortana.
He smiled modestly. "Thanks."
"You could have just shot them or punched them like you usually do, though."
"Well I wanted to jump."
Lieutenant Oreo tottered unsteadily up to him, wiping the corner of her mouth. "Chief…that…that was amazing."
…I should put that one in the story summary, shouldn't I?
"I had no idea you could jump that high," she continued in awed tones. "And I had no idea it would make me puke like that. That was horrible, actually."
"Please don't breath on me," said the Chief.
Soon enough Cercil was able to sneak away. The plan had occurred to him to cut the station's stabilizing cables and kill everyone aboard—but of course Fisto and Half-Jaw would try to stop him if he did this in front of them, so there was no way he could bring them along to watch and shit in their mouths as they died. It was a good thing he had his amazing stealth camouflage or he would never have been able to get away from them.
"Oops, out of camouflage batteries again," said Cercil as he materialized sitting on a local toilet in front of a heretic elite who was about to urinate.
The heretic blinked down at him. "You were…you were just going to sit there?"
"Maybe," said Cercil, as he raised his needler. "But you'll never know for sure."
Leaving the restroom and cutting through the station's local honeymoon lingerie shop, Cercil was astonished to come across a hanger bay full of dead heretic bodies; it looked as if a sharp weapon of some kind had dispatched every one of the corpses. The cuts were deep and perfectly straight—whoever had done this was more an artist than a warrior, although they were obviously a warrior who was more a weapon than a man—or a woman for that matter, who knows, gender is a social construct.
"I love Twinkies," said Cercil. "Too bad they went out of business or whatever."
He stood in the center of the hangar or hanger on a raised dais, beneath which was a storage area. The cavernous bay around him was full of shadows and half-walls, strange geometries and indecipherable shapes in the darkness; whoever had killed the heretics could still have been there with him. Watching with steely eyes.
"Ready or not, here I come," said Cercil as he took off his pants.
At that moment a silhouette of darkness dropped from the ceiling and landed before his eyes with the grace of a cat. Cercil gasped—it was a human! A human girl, perhaps seventeen or perhaps older than seventeen. In no particular order her skin was perfect and perfectly pale white, her hair was obsidian black, her eyes were a deep emerald green that spoke of ancient wiccan magicks, her body was obviously toned and powerful beneath the tight but modest leather slash latex slash advanced but lightweight alloy ensemble that looked suited to an advanced stealth fighter of some description. On her back was sheathed a ninja-style sword that looked sharp enough to cut through stone.
Cercil gasped again. "You must be the one who left the toilet seat up!"
"Very funny, Arbiter," said a lilting voice. The girl removed the black cloth mask wrapped over the bottom half of her face, revealing a wry smile and beautiful features that gave an elegant beauty to her age.
"I am not a child molester," said Cercil firmly.
She sniffed, the smile disappearing like a frightened gazelle. "I've been briefed about your…peculiarities, so don't try to pull anything on me."
"Oh. Then are you here…to kill me?" Cercil folded his arms over his chest like a hip-hop artist and spread his legs, looking dramatically off to the left.
"If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead," said the girl.
"That's terrifying."
She ignored him. "My name is Kestrel. I'm Half-Jaw's advanced infiltration team—what's left of it, anyways." She sighed. "The others elites who were with me, BJ and HJ, they didn't make it."
Cercil grinned. "Do you know what BJ stands for?"
"Blow job?" Kestrel sassed.
"No. Jail Bait." Cercil pointed a finger at her and cocked his thumb back—or at least he tried to, since Elites don't have thumbs. Or rather they have two thumbs. Right? God, it's been years since I even played Halo, why am I writing this shit anyways?
Kestrel lifted her chin. "So you're another one of those, huh? I thought the Prophet's chosen would be different, but I see your just another soldier who thinks women belong at home in the kitchen. Well, I can fight as well as any man…and I can prove it, if you'd like to see for yourself." She smiled cockily. "If you want to try your luck."
"So much sass," said Cercil. "You could open a root beer factory."
Kestrel's face went red. "I've was trained by Half-Jaw my whole life for missions like these. What have you even done? Well?"
"Hold on, you're serious about Half-Jaw training you? I thought you were fucking with me. I mean, isn't there a war happening on humans?" Cercil tapped his two chins. "Hm. Yeah, I could have sworn there was some sort of genocide on humans going on."
A lock of black hair fell into Kestrel's face. "Sometimes the most dangerous weapons…are taken from the enemy." She looked away wisely from him.
"Yeah, but what about you?"
"I was talking about me. Because…" she looked away dramatically, again "I am a weapon."
"Does that mean I get to shoot you?" Cercil produced his needler with a hopeful expression. "Get it? Shoot you. There's a double meaning—"
Kestrel shook her head in sadness. "Yet again I encounter Covenant who judge me based on my race, based on my past. Arbiter—surely you can understand…can't you see I only want to belong?"
"I know, but it's so weird that you're even here," said Cercil. "It reminds me of the other time a sexah goffick gurl appeared, back on Halo, if anyone still remembers that shit. Things didn't end well, let me tell you."
Kestrel looked interested. "What happened? Did it involve unrequited love?"
"Well, there was a lot of rape."
"That's horrible!"
"Yep. She just wouldn't take no for an answer."
The girl looked relieved. "Oh. You mean this woman you speak of was the one doing the raping? That's okay then—I thought I was going to have to kill you with my super secret butterfly rapist-killer kick."
"It's not a secret if you just told me about it," Cercil pointed out.
"No," said Kestrel, "You only know the name. If you'd actually seen the technique in action, I would have to kill you then too. I learned it in the super secret sisterhood of the Covenant, training alongside deadly female ninja elites who perform missions only the most highly trained women could possibly perform."
"I think we have one of those in the back," said Cercil, thumbing over his shoulder. "The ninjas, I mean. Her name's Kit Fisto and she's a bitch. Maybe you know her."
A loud crack rang throughout the room and his head shot up from a strong blow across his face. Kestrel was wiping blood off the back of her hand by the time the room stopped spinning for Cercil. He gasped; she had been so fast that he had not even seen her move! There was MORE to this GIRL than met the EYE.
"Was there a sthpider on my fathh?" He picked a bloody tooth out of his jaw and flicked it away. "Did you get it?"
She ignored his tough guy act. "Never use that word in my presence again, Arbiter."
"What word? Spider?"
Kestrel's eyes flashed. "No. The 'b-word.'"
Cercil frowned. "I'll say 'bagels' any time I want, and you can't stop me."
"Forget it..." Kestrel whirled dramatically from him and walked a few feet away, her silver eyes scanning the hangar bay. "Sit rep: I've cleared the area for us, as you can see."
Cercil kicked a dead body that had no head. "Who even uses a sword?"
"Regardless, since I'm here I might as well assist you in whatever it is Half-Jaw has sent you to do; my original mission was to scout ahead and clear a path, but I'm concerned you might not make it on your own."
"Is that how it is?" Cercil bared his teeth. "Oh, I get it. Very funny. I don't know why everyone is on my dick about the needler! It's not a bad weapon! I've killed plenty of grunts with it, anyways."
Kestrel stared at him in awe. "They say you were a Fleet Commander before your disgrace. But that can't possibly be true, can it?"
"It sure can. It was my grand strategies that defeated the humans on Halo."
"Halo exploded."
"Semantics," said Cercil dismissively.
"Oh, sure." Kestrel shrugged her shoulders. "What grand plan are you working on right now, oh great and glorious armada commander?"
"I don't respond well to sarcasm, so it's good that you're being serious about this." Cercil gestured around the hanger. "I'm actually looking for the cables that connect this half of the station to the rest."
Kestrel nodded in sudden understanding. "I get it—I heard on the radio that the Heretic Leader has hold up somewhere aboard behind a force field. What you're suggesting ought to flood him out, right?" There was a new found respect in her eyes.
"No," said Cercil. "I just wanted to kill everyone." He fiddled with his active camouflage controls, which seemed to be shorting out.
The respect disappeared from Kestrel's eyes like a frightened gazelle. "And you called me gothic."
"Yeah, I did," said Cercil. "And now I'm going to call me Darren, I mean Half-Job, and find out whether you're really on the up and up."
"Go ahead. I'm not afraid of you."
"That makes two of us." Cercil placed a finger over his embedded earpiece. "Hey, Half-Jaw, have you been listening to this shit?"
A high pitched, ostentatious voice that would not be out of place in a theatre production came over Cercil's radio. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Arbiter? You've been out of contact for half an hour and Tartarus is starting to get antsy."
"Then stick your tongue up his ass. I went to go cut the television cables, since you guys were all rubbing your nips over Heretic Leader's force field shield."
There was a short silence. "Cut the cables? Not a bad plan, Arbiter, if a bit suicidal. That way Heretic will definitely have to flee from whatever hole he's holed up in. He will surely come out so that we may kill him."
"He's not the only one who's going to come out soon."
"Good for you, Arbiter," came Kit Fisto's deadpan drawl crackling over the radio.
Crcil rolled his eyes. "Now I remember why I called you shit pinchers in the first place; we've just got hit by a class five perfect storm of Underworld vampire ninja spy T&A, and I want to know who's responsible for this."
"I don't know what you are talking about," said Half-Killer blandly.
Kit Fisto agreed. "I lost him at 'Underworld.'"
"Well, that obviously settles things." Cercil turned to the dark armored girl beside him. "Looks like you lost the game, Kestrel." He began to reach for his needler. "So, do you want it in your face or in your heart?"
Kestrel was about to open her mouth when the radio went off again.
"Wait—did I hear that right?" It was Half-Killer. "Hold your fire, Arbiter. Agent Kestrel's with us. Not that I was actually worried about you being able to beat her in combat; she was trained at the Covenant's super secret sisterhood of—"
Cercil punched the wall so hard that his entire hand broke.
