(-(-(—[]Red Jsarez[]—)-)-)
A little girl. . . . An Abomination. . . . A vengeful widow. . . . A direction. . . . A missing comrade. . . . A struggling sire. . . . A Demon. . . .
There was a void. An empty, swelling pit of moisture and hot, saturated mist; an organic encompassing, clouded by the formerly mentioned elements. Perhaps it was a shell of my former self. I was missing something that wasn't anything other than foreign. The Gravemind. We conversed; he expelled the universe as something more than what Humanity could apprehend. It was all gone. It was all belittled. I was me.
Yes, It's me, I thought delicately. I ran the trim of my fingers over the stubble shading my pale face. Green eyes; perfect rigid bone composition and tissue formation.
My fingers shifted from my face. I watched, in the bathroom mirror, as they automatically circled around to the back of my head. Taken by a sudden influx of anxiety, I withdrew my hand.
My body, I reminded myself. My life. No one can change it. I ran the same hand over the bristles of my shaved head until my fingers ran along the imperishable scarring crossing my occipital. There were two. One from the Gravemind's penetration of my head and forceful tissue consolidation; the other being a surgical scar from where the doctors separated me and my sister, Courtney Jsarez, at birth.
The scars were rugged and coarse from where the skin had healed over. The scar from the Gravemind was a slit of no size lesser than my ring-finger's extent. The one, which was correlative with Courtney, ran diagonally across my skull. It began behind my left ear and ended above my right eyebrow.
Feeling my scars provided a means of dissipation. Slight tingles ravaged my nerves when there was skin-to-skin contact with the tissue. The tissue was vulnerable to mild damage if handling fell past the right criteria set by the physicians. They told me to avoid any motion of touching the Gravemind's scar if at all possible. They produced an ointment to aid with soothing any skin irritation, but it did nothing in the way to quell my private disobedience. Curiosity killed the cat, I thought grimly. I killed cats.
The sound of my quarter's doors hissing apart made every ounce of my hair stand stiff. The doctors stated that instinctual reactions to abrupt motions or sounds was perfectly typical of cases surrounding similar circumstances of mine.
My perceptions were wild with unfavorable conflictions, but after a prolonged, tense moment had passed, I calmed down. I left my quarter's bathroom and entered the main compartment. All that inhabited the room was a personal terminal, a single-sized slab for sleeping on, and a shelf adjacent to the side of the bed, leaning against the right circumference wall. There was also an old class digital calendar on the wall, above my bed. 10:43, 19th of September, 2555, I read intramurally as my eyes worked their way to the room's access door.
Steam arose from the door's framework and pressure emission seams. A small man stood in the doorway. He wore a typical Office of Naval Intelligence civilian relations uniform, minus the black jacket. He wasn't exhausting his signature tinted glass's durability, and the rough stubble that layered his face a fortnight pass was non-existent.
Earth's sun rises in the East and sets in the West. A direction, I realized one of the puzzle pieces. That was for another time; my attention span didn't reach its maximum limit today. I delayed the rushing urge to snap a courteous attention posture, and settled with mildly saluting Jarance West. "Sir," I said lifelessly—but there was an inch thick layer of respect, allowing manners to continue its relevancy.
The Naval Intelligence agent flashed a smile and gestured for me to be at ease. He may have been ONI, but he had a heart I regarded as commendable. He knew from experience that intimidation strategies provided no sincere solace for either the victim or the inquisitor. I knew this because he was the first to interrogate me after the UNSC Infinity discovered me and the crew of the Charon-Class Light Frigate, the UNSC Kryptonite.
"Are you preparing to go?" West asked, rubbing the lid of his left eye. His sleep hours were direful. A guilty conscious, perhaps. The right to therapy for regret was left by the door when Naval Intelligence procured him.
I motioned to my near-empty rucksack that laid against the slab that accommodated me for sleep. "I am going." My voice was now monotonic, and my face didn't hold any diversity between blank paper.
"Well, I'm not here to say goodbye." West sat himself down on the rear of my bed. He rested his hands on his knees and exhaled a large enough mouthful of air to instigate my assertions that his words wouldn't be favorable. "I'm here to warn you about Section II and their game."
"You're liable to talk about them, here, with me?" I asked dubiously, crossing my arms.
"I brought the reprisal of you not knowing to the last minute up to Osman's attention." West folded his hands in his lap and locked eyes with me. "She gave me the go-ahead. She is solicitous of you; your interests are on her agenda whether you'll allow that fact to be pertinent or not."
My best interests? My best interests are only of care to her due to the gain I could offer, I thought. I twirled my pointer around for him to proceed, adding, "Go on," as an excess benefit to the gesture. Too much emphasis was better than no emphasis, and I needed him to know that I was in charge of where this conversation went.
West took a deep breath; it was more of a way to express that his feelings were similar to those I would get after he began. "Section II released a statement to every media outlet planet-side. You're celebrities. I feel that congratulations would be inappropriate."
"Morale bolstering is my calling." Osman's face appeared in my head, and I smashed it in. Admiral Serin Osman, the Command-in-Chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence. . . . "Excluding me, the UNSC Kryptonite had a crew of four hundred and sixty-six personnel of all UNSC factions." I tilted my brow at West who returned a peculiar look; his eyes told a story I would never hear. "Thirty-eight managed to preserve themselves from one hell into this one. And yet, it's safe to assume that the populace are crying triumphantly that not all missing heroes are dead."
"Only the informationally astute even attempt to see past Section II's blurred barrier of propaganda," West said. "There used to be a time when social media and interconnected communications wasn't monotized by officials."
I pointed to my rucksack by his feet. "Can you walk and talk?"
West pushed himself from the rear of my bed, grabbed my rucksack, and tossed it to me. I caught it as it entered my arm-span. West said, "I apologize, but I've got to attend a review committee in five."
"Do you believe my report?" I asked, slinging my rucksack over my shoulder.
"I do. If I didn't, there's the recounting from doctor Hallas Day that's adding up the info, fashioning everything into a pile of paperwork some poor sod will have to file," West said.
Just Hallas Day? I wondered conservatively, inspecting all possible explanations and uncovering one immediately. "Not Campbell Joyce as well?" I questioned in role with my thoughts; I cocked my head for him to continue and prompt him that I wasn't departing from the room without a stimulation of my curiosity.
He provided a reply to my inquiry with a suspecting visage. Ultimately relenting, he said, "The police arrested Joyce for assaulting a lady. Compensation's been paid, and he will be discharged later today. No charges will be situated, thankfully—though he'll lose his occupation and credibility. Unless he accepts a spick-and-span identification, but he seems persistent in declining any offers."
"Rational motive for the assault?"
"By his account, the lady abused the Marine Corps' sacrifice in the war." West toyed with his upper lip. "I don't hold him to any to a lesser extent in esteem. That woman got what she deserved. I just regret that her kids had to witness it—something like that doesn't disappear from the mind. Funny how the worst memories are the ones that stick with you to the highest state."
"For me, they're more of a shaping point," I said. "The Human brain. Or the universe—which is more complicated?"
"The one that eludes our control," West told me. He was not trying to be philosophical; he believed his words like how he would believe me if I told him I trusted him. But wouldn't lie.
"They both escape Humanity's iron hold." I eyed the door. "And if you would excuse me, I've got to escape an iron hold, myself."
Before I reach the doorway, West moved in front of me. "I didn't come here to say goodbye. But I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't dynamical. You're an impressive person, Red. Too impressive."
"And you're generic," I replied, holding my hand out for him to shake. He didn't hesitate in clasping his hand in mine; his fingers coiled around my palm like a snake. "Generic in a good way. ONI would only improve with more of your type of class."
"I'll relay that to Osman." West smiled and backed out of my way, motioning to the door. I gave him one last nod before exiting into the corridor and following it down to the elevator. I'm not going to be an idol, I assured myself as I entered the elevator and set in on a waypoint to the orbital facility's hanger bay.
The Gravemind wouldn't have mentioned West in some prefigurative linguistic string if he weren't to become an issue down the long track embodying the name "life". More perplexing was the Gravemind's ability to forebode future occurrences associated with me.
I didn't know the Gravemind—but I felt like he was a part of me. Without him, there was the dangerous and eerie sense that I was missing an organ. There was still Courtney's presence . . . I wrapped my mind around the possibility that science could end the psychological union that existed between us. I already asked about the alters—and Human science never failed to disappoint me. The six of them weren't leaving, and the likelihood of more originating to combat my mind's struggling instability wasn't all out of the equation. I need to be careful, I thought. The triggers are known—avoiding them should be flexible.
The elevator's descent lasted no more than a minute. The facility was old, and the ONI AI fragment that was monitoring me, Black-Box, had weaned me off the sentiment that this facility wasn't innocuous; it was known to try to kill its inhabitants.
I exited into the bay. It held a remarkable difference to contemporary UNSC bays with their implemented holographical applications. This bay had a blast door as an alternative, and emergency stations, for when the monolithic concrete and antimonial alloy doors split horizontally ajar, weren't a lacking ingredient.
A shuttle of an unknown design laid inactive in the middle of the bay's deck. Four SPARTANs stood tall and mighty off the ship's prow, as if they were awaiting the examination from God. SPARTANs hold no religion beliefs, I told myself. No true SPARTAN lets God guide their hands.
My Mark IV system was obsolete by 2555 stocks. While lying in a bed in the rehabilitation division, I requested an elaborate list of the complete Variants of Gen-II and their idiosyncratic systematized elements—just a hobby to pass the time.
One SPARTAN adorned a red and green RAIDER Variant. I recalled him being the SPARTAN escort Courtney got to the private debriefing by Osman. I still had a clutch on particular, minor representations that Gravemind left with me. The memory of Derek Johns and Courtney's concise words with each other isolated themselves from the minor. So, if it were major over minor, its existence shouldn't be. I took it as a message.
The other three SPARTANs wore something other than Gen-II; I had not the conceivable print in hand, so I didn't know what Variants they were wearing, or even what generation the armor instrumentation was.
I did know that these three weren't SPARTAN-IVs. Only one feasible alternative persisted out of all the others projecting themselves clearly as a blue sky.
098 rushed in on the calling and pushed me back into the darkest depths of my subconscious mind. My vision was narrowed down to a mere proportion of what 098 saw. I didn't panic; I would resume bodily function just as soon as 098 realized that his mentality wouldn't abide by the affirmative interpersonal situation.
098 migrated over to the four. I felt my vision getting denser with each step 098 took; my perceptive cognizance failing. It is still my body, I reminded myself to smooth over the rigid patterns of anxiety.
Stopping in front of the four, 098 let my rucksack slide off my shoulder and onto the deck before craning my arm up to a salute.
Kelly-087, Fred-104, and Linda-058 all returned the salute in what I found to be the most representative demonstration of coincidence and prime preciseness in the UNSC. After they had fallen to ease, they all removed their helmets. Steam rose from the pressure vents around the helmet's rims, and the three of them brought their helmets down to rest by their hips.
098 realized that this wasn't his domain; they were preparing to talk on levels 098 felt uncomfortable with, so he retreated—not by choice, evidently. 098 was alert to being an alternative personality, and he wasn't thrilled with the concept sticking into him like a sword.
As anticipated, I returned to control. My change of posture told that it was me to Blue Team. They knew of my Dissociative Identity Disorder. Their eyes told of their knowledge. In that respect, there was a mix suggestion that the gleam of their irises held some enmity towards a darker factor of the recent eight years and before. They had similarly read the account, and they had self-contradictory ideas over what they interpreted.
Kelly was the first to approach after handing her helmet to Fred. She got within an arm's radius of me before stopping and looking me over. The vellication of her facial muscles gave denotation to curiosity. Her eyes studied me with a vigor for answers—answers to anything at all that might be interrelated with the past eight years.
I didn't view her analysis favorably. Not now. I wouldn't bully her off. Kelly was a sister to me as much as Courtney was. Rather, I rerouted myself to a playful maneuver and settled my pointer and ring finger horizontally over her lips.
Kelly brushed my digits aside. She gave me a concluding gaze over ahead of clutching her arms around me. Linda and Fred were unsurprised by her embrace. Kelly didn't have the capacity most SPARTANs did in desisting from conveying any emotions. I should have expected this, I thought piercingly, rolling my eyes and wrapping my arms around Kelly's back. I wasn't angry at Kelly's gesture; I was irritated with my ignorance towards the potentiality that stared at me.
"The last thing any of us expected was to receive word of the recovery of the Kryptonite, Sierra-098 with it," Fred said, his vocalization unintentionally frigid, as was his face's aspects. "You haven't changed a day."
"Not on the outside," I said hollowly, softly pushing Kelly from me. She understood, and returned to the line with Linda, Fred, and Johns. "If you've read the report—as I presume you have—you will be well aware that the inside is not identical to the outside. Distinguishing should be something you're good at, Fred."
"Do you care about our deceased comrades? Does them being dead set off anything in you?" Fred asked; he had a demeanor of possessing an unalterable resolve, and I understood that evading the answer wasn't possible.
"Yes. I care for them all. The dead. The missing. They won't stop being my siblings," I assured.
"Then whatever was in that report is tangential," Fred said. "We all have our little devils, sparkling in the back of our heads. Responding or ignoring counts on how you deal with situations reaching an emotive degree. But as long as you're a SPARTAN, what you've done, or what you plan to do, isn't demanding my involvement. . . . Unless your goals for the future go against the UNSC and UEG."
"Retiring doesn't demand," Linda said sedately. "You're lucky."
The first words I've heard from her in eight years, I thought, disappointed. "If I were to retire, I wouldn't be doing a thing against ONI's foremost interest," I said, sighing as I added, "but I'm not retiring."
Fred and Kelly looked at each other; Linda crossed her arms and cocked her head inquisitively, and Derek Johns uttered a groan of disapproval.
"That's not what we've heard—"
I put my hand up for Kelly to halt, and said with all the actuality in the macrocosm, "ONI doesn't know yet. Neither does my sister." I glared around the bay. My voice rose: "It'll stay that way."
"Why?" Linda asked. Her eyes troubled me. She was astonished; she was bewildered. She didn't personally find me a true SPARTAN.
"Because I like killing things," I said, my voice dead and cold—an intentionally crafted tactic to stress my motivation. "Covenant. . . . Humans would be a nice taste; I've only killed a few Humans, but retrospectively, I'm craving a renewal."
"Coming here was a bad idea," Fred remarked, glancing at the visibly disturbed Kelly by his side. "But Kelly wanted to say goodbye. We thought we would never see you again. But I see that you have gone from a machine into a monster."
"You prefer 098?" I asked. The corner of my upper articulator raised with a small smile.
"098 was a SPARTAN," Linda said. "Red is a tormented child who only spurred his psychogenic disturbance through fighting Halsey's efforts to make you Humanity's best."
"You're correct: I was a child. But presently, I'm appreciative to Halsey for fashioning me into the person I am today," I replied. "I'm not a monster—I don't have the impulse to kill people. I just enjoy taking the life of those who would endeavor in taking mine. Also those who don't deserve to live; people who are so self-centered that they would allow the torture of a kitten for their own benefit."
I looked at Johns. He moved uncomfortably as my eyes met his; he cocked his view away from mine, equal in the move one would do if they had something to conceal. I said, "Reporters. Pressure is theoretically applied to them, and profitable attainment becomes their only goal in life. There are correspondents flocking the port this shuttle will be docking in—that's why you're here, SPARTAN Johns, to guarantee a seamless connection between me and the press."
"I first thought you three were here to accompany me; to put on a demo for the public." My attention returned to Kelly, Linda, and Fred. "But it's clear-cut that you're here to see me only. You've been waiting for a time, I surmise. I'm sorry if I hurt any of you. I'm sorry if I wasted your time. But whether you agree or not, I will not return to a civilian living with my sister. I won't live a celebrity's life, fearing that I may lose control and end up slaughtering a harassing casual."
"John would be disappointed," Fred said. I gave up my tendency to want to know what John-117 thought of me a long time ago.
"Jorge would be, as well," Linda added. And that hit me harder. Yes—Jorge-052 was the big brother SPARTAN. His size set up an atmosphere of security. John may have been the leader, but Jorge was the guardian. Once, he stood against Senior Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez when he chastised me; he risked his reputation among the SPARTANs to protect me.
He would detest my disposition, I gradually realized. "Jorge is dead," I said. "The dead can't determine my actions and choices—neither can the living, for all that much that they once could. If he were here to smack me across the head himself, I might have reconsidered."
"I can smack you over the head if you want," Kelly offered.
I smiled. Kelly was never without a tenuous witty mindset. "He has a strength you don't," I told Kelly. "You just wouldn't be able to knock any sense into me."
"Can we go, sir?" Linda suddenly asked Fred. I tried to meet her eyes, but she turned them at every angle to escape mine. I knew without a need for validation that Linda wasn't comfortable around me; suffice to say, I was no brother to her.
"Yes," Fred replied before saying to me, "Perhaps we can work, one day, conjointly. But if that was to happen, you need to keep to your roots. You're a SPARTAN before a monster."
"And you're a soldier before a machine," I added to that. I didn't mind sounding cheesy in certain instances, particularly when those instances held verity. "Give Mendez my regards. . . .Unless he's not here for other reasons."
Fred didn't response. He herded Kelly and Linda into the elevator behind me. Kelly stole a glimpse at me as she passed; she wanted more time with me.
They're a team, I recited to myself, turning to follow them with my eyes. I watched them mutely enter the elevator. I gave Fred one last nod as the doors hissed together. He didn't return the nod before he, Linda and Kelly disappeared from my life. At that moment, I knew I would never see them again.
Ten minutes later, I was seated securely in the shuttle's passenger bay with Derek Johns standing diametric to my seat. The SPARTAN-IV was too large and clunky for any seating space. He had to resort to standing during our travel from the ONI orbital facility to Sydney, the Commonwealth of Australia, and the home to HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6—the UNSC's headquarters.
The passenger bay wasn't spacious; thirty passengers was the maximum load. I couldn't resolve if that fell into the good or bad line. Bad thing was that it wasn't big or aureate, so it wasn't for prominent UNSC personnel. The good thing was that I felt comfortable being encompassed by my surroundings. Being enclosed gave me a clear view to survey any angle I could get attacked from, and allowed me to funnel my basic cognitive process to the escapes if something ill-suited occurred.
"I felt inadequate back there," Johns said. I knew it would be but only minutes before he raised a conversation with me. I didn't like it.
"Good. Continue to remember who's the real SPARTANs," I said compressively. Now was one of those moments where my discernment reached a higher point than my logic. I should have, at the very least, endorsed his orientation towards SPARTANs and his statue.
"I apologize," I said when Johns didn't say another word. "And I'm thankful you're not excessively assertive."
Johns groaned in reply. Being an insignificant response, he said, "I'm not a SPARTAN by choice; I don't even agree on the Branch's origins, let alone its developing formula."
"You're not a SPARTAN by choice?" I asked. He could be lying. With his helmet on, I couldn't see any quality of speaking the truth in his eyes, so I needed his phonation to supersede that lacking.
"No," he affirmed. He was telling the truth. That, or his voice was masked by deceit. But why, if the latter was indeed the resolving factor?
"No," I repeated to myself. Then, impelled by my ever eager thirst for elaborations to preceding words, I asked, "What's tying you down?"
"Take a guess. I can't go further than offer you three chances and give you hints to if they're right," Johns said.
Three guesses. . . . The bay's broadcasting speakers crackled to life, and a flow of words accompanied by static emitted to an echo throughout the bay: "We're three minutes off of setting down. Commence initial procedures." The air that escaped with my next expiration was more heated; I thought BB was the one coming through the speakers, not the pilot.
"ONI," I said after I instituted the fact, that the pilot was done drowning out all sound.
"Fire hot," Johns replied. "That's all I can say. Admiral Osman doesn't trust you, and my reasons for being a SPARTAN-wannabe are confidential—Tier One."
"Something tells me that you don't want discourse about it as much as Osman vies for you to keep your lips sealed." I brought my rucksack up from relaxing by my legs and laid it on my lap.
"Can you lend me that 'something'?" Johns asked, running an indefinite quantity of quick, external diagnosis scans over his armor's systems, "because it seems to have some good senses."
I tried to obscure a desperate smile. My muscles were pulling my lips up, but I held the line against any desisting in control. The Human body was magnificent and convoluted on a scale running symmetric with the universe's diverse algorithms.
Perception was the most furrow-inducing segment of the Human morphology—memory, smell, sight, hearing, reflexes and many more additive senses that may or may not be officially eligible to be called perspectives.
Shamefully, perception was alterable by third-parties. Humans had adapted to nature and had made nature adapt to their demands. Was there any other example more worthy than me? Every sense of mine had seen itself improved upon in every way. The Gravemind probably compelled me down this itinerary in some dark, shrouded form.
The incision of a scalpel or the drilling of a machine wasn't required to alter senses. The cold, shrill feeling of chemicals when they flooded your body also held no avail against the sound of a single person's voice.
This fact pissed me off. Once the shuttle landed on a platform and was locked down, and Johns had led me to the foggy airlock, I waited for the reporters. There were two floods. God's flood. And Humanity's flood. I couldn't make my mind up on deciding which one was bottom from second worst. The literal Flood I could kill. The reporters I couldn't kill until I got too pestered that Osman would see the rationality in a few dead people turning up with my fingerprints coating them.
"If you're not going to keep to a semi-public face, keep it clean," Johns advised me. The air was sticky with vapor, and I found it hard to breath. Standing quarantine protocols . . . from fifty years ago on an outer colony, my mind informed me. Vintage ship to go with a vintage asset.
"And keep a straight look no matter the question," Johns added in a commanding tone of voice. He didn't think himself superior; he was rightfully apprehensive about my reception to media attention. "Additionally, your name and ties are to be kept to yourself. To the public, you're Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-098. Red Jsarez is covered in black ink."
"That's going to be a problem if I was to retire," I said.
"But, by your words, you're not," Johns said, running his hand along the metal bulkhead; the metal was damp and reacted to his touch by removing its aerosol. "But if you were, I speculate that you would just get a new identification. You're mother's been referred to a mental institute, so her being wise to who you are won't matter—she'll be regarded as insane."
"If she remembers me," I said. I couldn't help but yield, and let my eyes slant to the floor. Johns was in front of me, so he didn't see. I didn't want anyone to see any of my emotions, not including Courtney.
"Don't fret over what you don't know," Johns told me as the air around us got denser; the cumulation of the quarantine routines was imminent.
"I'm not fretting." I returned my eyes to their central angle in concurrence with the clotted air being ventilated from the constrictive chamber. I coughed in protest to the ship's outdated quality. Sucking in a mouthful of air, I added to my recent words, "I don't care what happens to her."
"You don't mean that," Johns said as if he was stating a fact. People got facts and opinions intermingled, and it pissed me off.
"How can I care for someone I don't know?" I asked.
Johns didn't answer. Wise, I thought; I didn't want him investing any time in my family, and my life, and my ambitions. People often left their ambitions behind to better meet the demands' of their families. They subjected themselves to a nonproprietary job with a nonproprietary profit return for their time. They died, never extending their ambitions beyond supporting their family.
My ambition was to die killing thousands of inconsiderate dickheads. Courtney, my mother, my dead father—neither of the trio would have an opposite effect on my ambitions.
The oval doors of the airlocks exit opened. Tiny drifting synthetic drones inundated into the chamber as Johns hurried me out onto the landing platform. Dozens of drones and reporters encircled me. Numerous questions were being directed at me; I couldn't concentrate on any of their queries.
Johns retreated to the aft of me. By holding my shoulder, he led me down from the platform the rugged shuttle laid dormant on, and pushed me through the shouting assemblage. He directed me down a crowded flight of stairs and into the port's open terminal strip. Journalists and eager citizens funneled through the port's entranceway to get a glimpse of a fabled SPARTAN-II.
Johns acted with a consummate aptitude in public relations, all the while not showing emotions to the drones bobbing by faceplate. He scanned the surrounding second-floor balconies, maintenance corridors breaking off of the terminal, and stair-flights. It took me a while to overcome the realization hurdle bound my way; just SPARTAN Derek Johns' escort wasn't efficient enough to defend me from this attention.
ONI was worried about assassination attempts, and I was the worm on the end of the hook. Courtney knew—that was why her closest friend, Colonel Lynda Keyes was shadowing us through the crowd; Major Tyler Hauver and Captain Dean White accompanied her.
Now I was alert, and that was dangerous. The first reporter who got too close to me would end up with a dashed cervix. I didn't care if I incidentally slaughtered a member of the press.
ONI should've explained this to me. I would've accepted an offer that might have involved killing someone. The stability of the operation would have been secure if they brought me in on it. But the risk of me refusing would demolish any chance to catch a potential assassin with his or her pants down. I couldn't care which sexuality it was. Doctor Catherine Halsey neutered me during my augmentation process.
We were closing in on the archway leading out of the florid ship port when it happened. Seven coated males incoming with a new batch of excited civilians pulled out pistols and submachine guns from their coats and jackets. They didn't open fire.
Johns acted fast and pushed in front of me; a blue hardlight shield materialized from his wrist and enveloped us, conjugating us in a three-sixty shield that reached above our heads' summit.
Thirteen more armed assailants came sprinting into the port's atrium. They only stopped to bring their firearms to aim at us, and they weren't alone. Next came three Jackals with another five Human attackers, each armed with various pistols and SMGs. This situation was getting interesting—it wasn't an exclusively Human-based hit. It could've just been Jackal mercenaries putting on a refugee performance to get on Earth, but Elites wouldn't resort to payment by Humans.
Bedecked in armor of Hesduros ethnical design, an Elite Zealot came up behind the reinforcements.
And that was it; I had to grin. The game is on!
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
So much for hoping to an end of writer blocks.
It's been a busy past week for me, but there's more to it. I had some trouble deciding how to start this chapter off and got stuck doing three pages worth of writing before scrapping it and beginning again.
I also have confidence problems in my writing which fuelled further scrapping. Stupidly enough, when writing this, I compared what I was writing to actual fictional literature works I have sitting on a self. This method was not smart; I constantly went back over things that were perfect the way they are, trying to make them more like they were in the books I read.
One day, I want to be a professional writer. I want to write something that will pique peoples' interests and garner the attention of Hollywood themselves. Too bad I will probably refuse any adaptation since Hollywood doesn't adapt to bring a story to life, but to max in on a book's success; just look at Fifty Shades of Grey. No offense to people who like the book. . . . God knows how far my readers expand their interests.
The point remains. I want to write expertly, and I'm trying to do it here for some damn reason. I still haven't got a good enough grasp of my skills to reference from other books. Add this to the fact that each author has his or her own writing style, and I'm taking this writing way too seriously. It's FanFiction—it's not going to be perfect, it's not going to be professional; this is a stepping stone for me, and I'll continue to learn as I go.
So, now if I focus less on listening to my inner protectionist and more on just keeping the story flowing, updates should hopefully not fall under pressure. Jeeze. I need to chillax. As long as the story's flowing good, I take in feedback, and I learn as I go, how professional my writing is doesn't matter as much as I'm making it.
By the way, I apologize for the cliffhanger. I also apologize for making overly long A/Ns that could pass as stories of their own.
Reviews are appreciated. If you have any questions, believe me, you're doing me a favor by asking, and I love answering questions. If you spot any typos, grammar errors, or canonical mistakes, please highlight them, and I'll patch them up.
Oh, this is overdo, but thanks go to Harbringer-of-script for following. Remember, OC rules still apply, but you need to leave a single review. Also, thanks go to Trusne, Fleightfire, Starart123, and The Constitutionalist for reviewing. Each chapter, I'll thank people who review. Every ten chapters from now on, I'll go over followers and list them out with thanks. This is just to further acknowledge my readers—no one has any problems, right?
