A/N: Wow. I'm gone for this long, and this is all the other authors were able to come up with? You're lucky I love you guys. Who else gives you this amount of sauce so frequently, for free?

There's gotta be a balance. Some writers go for quantity and end up with a thousand little unfinished tales you couldn't really classify as stories, some no longer than a single chapter. Others go for quality and put all their chips into a single tale. Of course, that's an even deadlier trap.

These types might have an even bigger issue in not knowing how to end the story or even understanding that stories, even series, have a beginning, middle, and end. Each stage must be given the reverence it deserves. So you've got an author with one story containing literally over a hundred chapters and still going strong. Then when they start something new it's like JK Rowling and her Fantastic Beasts series. A spinoff that doesn't really compare to the unreasonably massive titan that came before it.

Me myself, I know it's not only fun to mix things up, it's healthy. Some one shots here, some to-be-continueds over there, some series, a trilogy or two, a spinoff tale, etc. Don't be afraid to try out these different methods. They're all great.

Although it took a bit longer, Officer Jones was glad he'd decided to take the stairs. The enemy wouldn't hear him coming this time. In fact, the elite and the jackal patrolling with it had no clue he was there. It was just a matter of separating them like he did with the brute and the drone. This would be interesting.

He'd used his last concussion grenade. The final charge in his stun gun was spent as well. All Jones had left in his personal inventory was his flashlight, his knightstick, a single pair of handcuffs, and some industrial strength zip ties. His standard issue sidearm, a magnum pistol, was still in his locker back at the station. He never brought it with him into the field.

His reasons were twofold. For one, he felt that firearms made people stupid. Why become a sleuth when you could just point your gun and bark orders. If Jones depended primarily on the pistol rather than his mind, the streets of New Mombasa would have claimed his life ages before the Covenant showed up. The current state of the station was a testament to that; there were far less officers now than when he joined their ranks fresh out of the academy.

The second reason was as simple as life and death. Threats only worked on humans. Jones knew that only an idiot would pull a gun on an aliean without the intent to kill. Elites and jackals have energy shields. Drones have hardened exoskeletons. Brutes wear power armor. Even grunts could rely on their numbers: if you killed one, chances are you would have to kill at least one more. Not only would a pistol fail to end encounters with Covenant soldiers, it might actually make things worse. Gun were too loud for the kind of work Jones did anyways.

In Jones's opinion, grunts were the most dangerous covies to deal with. Far too unpredictable. He never knew if they would run away screaming or arm a pair of plasma grenades and run straight at him. This was why he took them down first, at the same time, as quickly as possible. What he wouldn't give to have that concussion grenade now.

Scarce equipment or not, Jones had a job to do. With a silent count of five, he dashed from the open stairwell door across a corridor and into one of the shadowy cubicles. He'd no sooner arrived at his destination than he heard the jackal squawk quizzically. Jones risked a peek over the cubicle wall. From the shadows, he could see the jackal ducked down behind its gauntlet shield, aiming a plasma pistol in his direction. The elite that stood beside the suspicious creature was looking back and forth between the jackal and where Jones was.

So much for them not knowing.