Getting Back
Disclaimer: I don't own Halo, only the characters that I make up.
Jonno lay on the carpet and turned over.
"Yeah…" he said. "I'm just gonna save this, and turn it off, and then we can go and look for Alex."
"Whatever," Andrew said, and the others nodded in agreement.
"Okay."
The ODST soldiers greeted Alex and the Master Chief with a nod, and the Sergeant reported to the Chief.
"Sir, we got hit hard, landed on the beach, blasted some of the bastards, and then met up with you. What's your story?"
Alex was disgusted at the man's attitude towards the 'Chief', but had read the Halo novels, and knew that all Helljumpers disliked the Master Chief, for some strange reason.
The Master Chief didn't answer, but instead just disappeared into thin air, leaving no trace as to where, and how, he went.
"What the-?" one of the marines was bewildered, and staggered back. Even Hawkins cocked an eyebrow.
Alex held his breath, knowing that Jonno had turned off the Xbox.
While he was still in it.
Suddenly, the marines began to disappear, one by one, and when Hawkins' time came, he looked at Alex.
"What's happeni-?!"
He disappeared, and his yelp echoed in the quite hallway. Alex turned and ran for the end of the hall, and he skidded to a stop outside, looking out over the beach that he saw.
He watched as hundreds of Covenant soldiers all over the beach just vanished, and he imagined that this was happening all over the game, on every single level.
This was bad.
Really bad.
His 2 SMG's that were in his hands disappeared, and then he felt for his Battle rifle, but it was also gone. Alex suddenly felt that sucking sensation, and he opened his mouth to yell, but he was already gone by then.
Wham!
Alex landed on a table outside some sort of restaurant, and he gasped.
He was back.
He leapt into the air and screamed with joy, and then he looked around.
Everyone, at every table, was staring at him, and he gulped, and then looked down.
He was naked.
People covered their eyes, and someone screamed, and that was when he leapt off the table and ran – down the street, under many watching eyes. He skidded to a stop at the front of a store, and then ran inside. He passed people that were surprised to see a naked boy running down the aisles. On the way he grabbed a shirt, a pair of jeans, and ran into one of the changing rooms – it was a clothes store.
Alex came back out 30 seconds later wearing the clothes, and he selected a pair of socks and shoes, put them on, and then tripped over.
Whack!
"Ow!"
He yelled in pain, and looked at the shoulder that he had landed on – it was the shoulder that had been shot by Andrew during Lockout, and the 3 bullet wounds had opened back up. Blood began flowing onto the carpet, but he didn't feel any further pain – if this wound had been transmitted through the game to the real world, than what else came through?
Shit.
The marines. And the Covenant.
He stood back up and ran, out of the store, out of the mall, avoiding peoples eyes as they passed, looked at him, and then the trail of blood following him.
'Folomee 'Montominee's feet hit the ground, and he remained roaring at the green Demon, but then realised that it had disappeared.
They all had.
He looked down – there were 3 holes, oozing with blood, in his stomach, and he knew that he had to get them treated when he somehow returned to the CP. He was in some sort of narrow alley, and he looked out towards the exit, approaching it.
He seemed to be in another one of 'Earth's' city's.
Tall buildings filled the view of the blue sky, and only a few clouds were in the air. Human vehicles drove dangerously close to 'Folomee, but he didn't react; he just kept on 'grinning' to himself – he could get promoted for the idea's that were forming in his brain.
He slowly sank back into the alleyway.
When the time came, he would contact anybody that of higher rank and authority, and then they could carry out his plan – annihilating a single human city in at least 2 days.
1 hour – and a train ride involving a lot of snooping around behind ticket officer's backs – later, Alex was just approaching his front door, when he stopped.
He couldn't come through the front door; he had last been standing in the backyard.
He crept around the back, making sure that nobody saw him coming through.
"Oi, Alex!"
He froze, slowly turning to see Jonno standing there with a questioning look on his face.
"Where the hell have you been, man? We've been looking all over for you!"
Before Alex could answer, Harry came around the corner.
"Man, you should've seen Andrew's face when that bot 'pwned' him. That was awesome." He didn't even register the fact that Alex had been gone for some time, and he continued to talk about the 'bot that killed Andrew' and how the party was going to be awesome.
Alex felt light-headed, and he put his hand to his head.
"What's the time?" he asked, going inside, stepping into the lounge room and sitting down.
Jonno consulted his watch.
"The hell if I know – my watch is broken."
Kiel walked into the room, followed by Andrew.
"Andrew," Jonno said. "What's the time?"
Andrew pulled his iPod from his pocket and examined it.
"5 o'clock." He said.
"You've been missing everything!" Kiel exclaimed.
"Andrew kept on getting killed by a bot in the game, and he started having something resembling a spasm on the floor."
Alex froze.
"What kind of spasm?" he asked.
Kiel shrugged.
"Meh. He just started rolling around on the floor screaming and holding his arm."
"It's all gone now." Andrew said.
Alex hesitated before asking the next question.
"What did it feel like?"
Andrew thought for a moment, suspicious of Alex and his questions about his little 'shenanigan' earlier.
"It felt really hot – yet really cold at the same time. Either way, it burned."
Alex could see him wincing when he though about it.
"Where have you been?"
He realised that they were all crowding around him, and he started to tell them the story of what happened, when his Mum came in.
"Honey," she said. "I just got a call from work, and they said that the party was moved to Monday, at 9:00am. So I'll write you all a note."
Alex started to reply as mum was walking away, but Kiel shouted:
"What's that on your shoulder?"
Alex started to feel immense pain again, and he looked at his shoulder, where blood was seeping through the black shirt, staining it.
How the hell am I gonna get out of this? He thought.
"Uh…. I fell over, and I landed on a shard of glass."
There was silence.
"Bull." Harry said, laughing.
"Let's see that."
Andrew lifted up Alex's sleeve, but there was only a smudge of dark red where all the blood from the wound was gathering, and sliding down his arm. Jonno coughed and turned away, but the others didn't – they were trying to see the actual wound underneath the blood.
"Tell you what," Andrew said, dropping the shirt. "Let's just forget about this arvo – it's been strange – and we'll focus on what we're gonna do tonight; hedge jumping."
"Dude, what the fuck is that?" Kiel asked.
"You run towards a hedge, and you jump into it!"
"Awesome," said Harry. "When are we going? What time?"
Alex's mind wasn't on the 'activities' for later; why had this wound appeared, and not any of the others that had been done – like the wounds from when he had nearly died during his crash on the In Amber Clad.
He forgot about it – for now – and finished the conversation.
"We are doing all the radical things tonight – at eleven o'clock."
A/N: This chapter has taken ages for me, because I haven't been in the mood lately, and every time I go to sit down and do it I get back up and do something else. So sorry if you were waiting for that and the next chapter is just going to be them doing kickass stuff like (of course) hedge jumping, knock and runs and egging, and more – all at night! So I hope you look forward to that. And then the ultimate twist comes in. But if you haven't figured out what it is by now then you should probably see a psychologist. Sorry if this is too long, or too short.
Please review when you are done.