I do not own Halo. I was in a white environment, and from what I can tell there is nothing anywhere, but me. I looked down at myself; I was dressed in full battle gear. I looked around again and said, "Anyone?" Then I woke up. I was sitting propped up against a tree. At first I could not move, and I was just able to look around. I could see my gun near me, but the rifles end was bent, it was no good. I slowly rotated my head to the left, as if I were just getting used to controlling my body. To my left lie the driver of the warthog, almost soup inside his armor. He looked ready for burial. My head flopped down on my left side limp and I had to struggle to look to the right. On my right was a group of Marines from my squad. I then looked at the sky. One of the moons was out, its glow lit up the surface of our planet. I stared at it for a minute or two. It had been a long time since the last full moon. Suddenly a dark outline slid across it slowly like a serpent and reminded me of why we were here. I saw a Covenant mothership and knew that I would probably die in combat over the next three or four days. Nonetheless I was lucky too; I cannot say that any of my friends made it out alive or anyone from my whole squad for that matter. I guess that this is what happens to all the planets the Covenant take over. A Marine turned in my direction and saw that I was moving, a good sign apparently. "Come on, one's up" he said. Moving was becoming easier now, "Yeah, one's moving, get over here" I could hear the clanking of armor as someone came to tend to me. He clicked on a small flashlight that field surgeons always carried. "Hello" he said with a very greeting voice as his hand emotionlessly grabbed my chin, "How are you doing today?" "Guess" I replied, with lots of sarcasm in my voice while he forcefully rotated my head about, that is not to say that I wasn't cooperating or anything, just that he moved my head in the fashion you may a doll or other inanimate figure. "Hmmmm..." He accurately shined the flashlight in both of my eyes and my ears, and with only an instant glimpse was able to determine that nothing was wrong. He said, "You should be fine" and then looked onward to another Marine, who must have called him. By the way he acted you could tell that he was a field surgeon. He did not seem to have emotions any more, all of them left limp from the many years of combat he must have seen. War can do that to a man, many times a person will be recruited as a carefree person that thinks that when they join the army they will be an over glorified Zealot for the Human cause. Instead they are like a new arrival to hell. They show up, and on the first battle as I did. They would all sit in the dropships talking on and on about how they were going to show those Covenant monsters what they were made of. The Veterans of a fight or two would sit on their own, thinking, solemnly remembering all the dead, and remembering the living, he knew that he was staring at those who would die in the next skirmish. The first battle would bring the Zealot-like men a jolt of almost electrifying horror as it began. They will be gunning down the enemy when a wayward grenade or a fusion mortar will blast their friend and leave a crater where he was once standing. Pieces of him may be later recovered, but nothing can ever repair the damage mentally caused by battles. This field surgeon had probably had a few men die in his lap. "Hey man, surprised to see you!" I hear a familiar voice. I stood up and turned around to see Skip limp toward me. I looked at him; he was looking ok everywhere except one leg, which had a makeshift splint and a large splotch of blood, still drying. He also had a considerably large dent in his armor that extended all the way across his breastplate, looking somewhat like the continent we were on and reminding me of my failure. He had a bloodstained bandage on, as I could see from the bump on the side of his knee and a hole on the back of his knee. "Skip, you look like you have seen better days!" I said Sitting down with his wounded leg extended he began to mumble something under his breath, probably better I didn't hear anyway, but after that he gestured for me to sit near to him and he placed his right hand on his chest plates dent, he probably had a huge bruise underneath it. "Yeah, I escaped in one of the APC's." he said, almost proud of his escape, "I got to the driver seat of one and loaded it with as many guys as I could before I left, but I could still only get about 5. I was sitting in the cabin when the canopy exploded inward. I thought I was ok until I looked down at my leg. It was bleeding a lot since a shard of glass, and bullets were now ricocheting around the cabin. I ducked and pushed as hard as I could on the gas. I couldn't see or anything, all that I knew was happening was that we were being hit with a ton of gunfire, the whole craft was overheating at times since of the plasma gunfire, but as you can assume, we made it." "You make my escape sound easy, we just drove right through, and later we got hit by a mine and blew up," I said, actually serious. "Looks like we are gonna die soon," I said, hoping that he would say I was wrong. "Yeah, we probably will, but with about 50 of them each!" he said, gaining enthusiasm as he went along, "If I need to I will strangle one to death with my bare hands, see, us GI's know how to take care of business, I don't know how you will go on without a sniping tower. Plus your rifle is all busted up, you will need some training." "Isn't it just point and click?" I replied, not knowing quite how to use an Assault Rifle but knowing how to use sarcasm. "ha ha ha" he said slowly making sure that each one was the best he could do at striking up guilt in me, "Very funny you coward, if you weren't such a wuss you would be out on the front lines like us. But instead you stand out of the line of fire and shoot things that can't even see you." I was not feeling guilty at all. "I guess you are right, you also need to know about the grenades and when to pull the pin and when not to, don't worry, I think I've got it." I said, at first jokingly, the realizing that we were in a serious situation, seriously. "Alright head to the armory tent, and grab yourself a gun, you might need it" I looked down again, my pistol was missing, but I still had the combat knife. "okay, I'll go get a gun from the armory, where is that again?" I asked "Right over there" he said pointing over to an area past a LAAG covered in camouflage netting. "There huh" I said as I stood up and then helped Skip to his feet. After that I was on my way to the Armory making sure that I did not get lost on the way there. Along the way I was looking for familiar faces, a sign that they had made it out alive. At the armory the tents door, or rather flap was open, and before entering I said Hello to see if anyone was in. No response came so I moved into the tent. It was dark, like the APC we were in a while back. Also not helping the lighting condition was the fact that the sun was just setting. I felt my way to the center of the tent and found what I was looking for, a light. I bopped it and it flickered on. The ten was surprisingly dust considering it was just there for about 2 hours. Gross might just be the condition that tents are always in, a constant state of filthiness and darkness. This was the first thing I actually missed about our original base. I dug through a few boxes of guns, and produced a pistol after a little searching. I held it in my hands questioning whether it was worth taking. I decided not, and grabbed a machine gun instead, setting the pistol out on a nearby table to save it for later use maybe. A marine walked in with this odd look on his face. I had never seen it before, it was not normal, his mouth was trembling, and his hands, both of which were bandaged from the burns they suffered also shook violently. He reached for the pistol that I had set down on the nearby table. Realizing I was watching him he said, "Are you using this gun" his voice sounded somewhat evil, almost reptilian with a slight hiss at the end of his words. "Nope", I said, with almost no hesitation whatsoever, and he slid the gun off the table and into his had. He pulled back the top of the gun to reveal that the gun still had some ammo in it he carefully eyed it out, scanning the gun from the front to the back. I was watching, still confused as he set off the safety and left the dusty damp tent to go to the outside. Suddenly a scream came from outside, and I quickly peeked my head out the door of the tent to see what was going on. "I can't take this anymore!" one Marine yelled, I noticed that he had a pistol in his hand pointed at his own head, the one that I had just let him have "You all wanna sit around and wait for the Covenant to kill you go ahead! I can't take this!" Another Marine, the one he was staring at seemed very sure of himself., he must have been the one trying to console him to do otherwise "Don't do it" he said calmly, "We need every man we can get now, and you know that, do it for your friends" "There is nothing I can do for them" He yelled back, "They are all dead or missing!" "Do it for us then. Put down the gun" replied the still calm Man. "Too late" The Marine replied as he pulled the trigger. The ensuing bang made all the birds fly from their trees in large packs, reminding us that we had just lost one of our pack, and someone who may have been able to save us from later doom. "Do you think that the Covenant heard that?" I asked with no one in particular, then after saying that regretting it, since I realized that I must sound very greedy. "Yes" Came a stern voice from somewhere behind me, I shifted my eyes from the now emotionally broken Marine that had tried to console him to this new person. "I think that they heard," he said, a little more secure now. He was a huge man, probably 7 feet tall and 300 pounds, and if he were to die it may take us a full day to dig his grave. He was not particularly fat, just very bulky and muscular, the type of form most men would want to have. "How do you know that?" I asked, still wondering if he knew it or just thought it. "I can hear a Banshee, wait, two Banshees." "What?" yelled a third voice franticly, "Are you sure?" "I have good hearing," he said "Yeah right!" I said, I was planning on just thinking it, but I was ok with saying it too, "No one can hear that good, they must be a few kilometers away!" He dropped a small radar unit from his hand attempting to grab it, instead fumbling it to the ground. "Uh, no, I do have good hearing, really." He picked up the beeping thing and slid it into his pocket. Suddenly all eyes focused away from him, his extraordinary power stripped, "Alright", the frantic Marine said, whom I then realized was our Commander "Man the guns, looks like we have a fight on our hands, let's set the table, firing on my Jacob!" People started moving about quickly to man the guns and move the supplies to the APC's as quickly as they could, I seemed to be the only one with no idea what to do, so I grabbed a crate of guns. I slid a hand underneath two of its sides and tried to lift it. I got it about a foot off the ground before it fell back down, kicking up dust as it landed less than a foot from where it had started. I again slid a hand underneath it and then the second and tried to lift it again, this time I did okay, and I stumbled my way to the APC. I set it down and went back to the supply tent, inside it a group of 10 or so Marines were all busy loading their guns and fumbling around with the safeties. I, joining in unhooked my neck strap and slid the gun onto the empty crate in front of me. I had not realized it until now, but I was sitting next to Skip. He said something under his breath as I held the gun out and set it on the table, and then said "not so hot now are yaw, can even load the gun." "I can too, just watch me" I picked up the gun. Holding it in one hand I grabbed a clip of ammo from a pocket in my uniform. I looked at it looking for directions. I could not find any so I began to try to rip the bag open, but no matter how hard I pulled or where I could not get it to rip, the precious contents just out of reach of my strength. Skip was sitting watching in something like awe, as I began to gnaw on the ammo bag attempting to get it open. "You know that you are supposed to clip that, right?" he said. I sat still for a little while, "oh..." I looked in my pocket and there was a set of tiny scissors, something that I had not known of before today, which surprised me being that, I was a veteran by now. I easily clipped it open. Sliding the contents out of the bag I looked again for directions, or at least an arrow or something. This time I was in luck, it had an arrow that says 'Insert to feed here' ; I stared at the gun looking for a slot to insert the ammo and quickly located it on the bottom of my gun. After that I flipped off the safety and rushed outside, ready to burst with self-achievement despite the fact that what I had done was nothing close to extraordinary. I had just managed to complete a simple task, but I guess that it is my body's way of telling me I would better like it, because I might have to do it a lot over this next few days. I wiggled my fingers one by one along the rubber grip; I loved the feel of a gun in my hands, knowing that I have the power to bring my enemies to their knees, or to defeat even the most powerful of enemies. "FIRE!!!" yelled the commander, his booming voice second to the loud percussive blast of the flak cannons which fired on his command, leaving a black trail as the balls arched off towards their destination. The Banshees swooped in toward our clearing leaving behind the glowing white trail that the do. As soon as they got within one mile of range flak explosions began to appear as black clouds in the sky, their loud pop a signal of death and destruction. I was fine as long as I was on the other side of the line of fire. I think all humans would agree with me on this, not even the rights activists care enough to complain about our foul treatment of them. One of the Banshees took a direct hit from the flack ball, which did not explode on impact, but rather bounced of the wing snapping one of the supports to the engine. The ball spun to the ground, where an explosion later ensued. The engine began to smoke and the pitch and yaw mechanisms spiraled to the ground, a wing began to smoke as it spiraled down to the ground the rest of the plane soon following. When it hit there was a huge fireball, and a slim hope of the pilot surviving. The second made it past the flack and into LRM (Long Range Missiles) range as well as chain gun range. A SAM (Surface to Air) mobile missile launcher was sitting atop the shoulder of the large Russian man as he carefully tried to get a heat signature of the Banshee to lock on to, something that was becoming harder to do every second. The chain gun began to fire a nonstop volley of gunfire towards the incoming aircraft, but because of the considerable lag between him aiming at the object and the bullets arriving at their target. He braced his legs and watched the twin reticule center on his target one by one. Suddenly the end of his SAM exploded outward and the missile was sent on a collision course with the remaining Banshee. We could see the Banshee swoop by low and yells filled the camp. "He's mine!" "Shoot em down!" Similar comments filled the camp and for a second the Marines voices overpowered the chain gun. The plane whipped by the camp and I covered my eyes as the wind it left in a trail behind it whipped my face and kick up dust from the ground. As it flew away tracer shots from the LAG began to strike it, punching holes in the fragile panels on the side, making something almost like Swiss cheese out of the back of it. The Elite inside it screamed and a small amount of purple blood dropped from the bottom, he was hit. It is one thing to nail its plane, but the quite another to hit the elite within it. I was hoping for that to be a lethal hit and see it almost slow to a simple stop and explode, but it was a minor injury. A bullet might have hit a limb or some other non-vital limb, too bad. For him that is. I then realized that I too was firing. I could not help but notice that I had not meant too, it just sort of happened. The missile seeming very professional and deadly mimicked his every move in a deadly pursuit that would end only in bloodshed. It tried desperately to out maneuver it, but knew its days were numbered if it stuck with the Banshee so it bailed out and parachuted to the ground if you could call it that. The Covenant hardly have anything like a parachute, really just the equivalent of futile flapping and they usually take great wounds from falls even with the "parachute". The Elite was slowly coming down to land near a basin a mile or two from the campsite. Its Banshee, in a steep vertical climb exploded as the missile hit it. The fireball was of the magnitude of our Mobile HQ's demise, flaming pieces of the craft arched downward toward the cold hard ground below it, going at almost the same speed as the falling Elite. With my field binoculars I watched it as it fell; it was clutching one of its arms as it fell. It was not looking up, but soon a piece of the plane hit its back. It let out a howl that I could vaguely hear, as its parachute detached and it fell to the ground at just a slightly greater speed. An Elite could survive a fall from that height, something like 100 feet, so the Commander quickly assigned two teams for mop up duty. I was to go and investigate the living pilot with Skip. I do not know what good he would do with such an injury, but he was still there to help. We grabbed a locator and went on the hunt for our Elite buddy before his friends found him. After about an hour of hiking, dragging a communications cable we showed up in the woods near the waterfall, where we located the parachute that the Elite had used. Sitting next to it was his gun, meaning he was not too far. Skip got into a combat position on one knee with his rifle forward and gestured for me to move towards the waterfall. Following his orders I squat walked to the edge of the short drop off to the waterfall and peeked over the edge. I saw the Elite in the water rubbing a large wound on it's near to severed arm. I could see the mechanical augmentation in its arm. I used hand signals to get Skip in a little closer and I told him that I was going to take him out quietly. I also said to hold fire till the enemy knocks me out or kills me. I drew my knife. The Elite did not know I was there and I slinked away from the river to get ready to take him out. Once I was 20 feet away from the edge to the river I took off most of my armor and all of my ammo belts. I needed mobility in this fight, so that way I would have every advantage. I grabbed the knife so that the blade was pointed to stab him, not to cut him, I was going to kill him quick and quite, I was sure of it. If I was able to sink the knife into his brain stem I could quickly incapacitate him. I stood back up. Then I drew in a quick breath, remembered all the good things of my life and ran for the edge of the drop off. I sprung through the air yelling, right as the Elite turned around, startled and confused. By the time it turned around I was Half way to it, and it had no time to react. I landed on its head and grabbed on with my free hand. I drew back my right arm to stab him, but he threw me off of his head and into the river. He was holding me underwater by my neck, and I drew the knife back, to swing forward. It lodged itself somewhere in-between the two bones of the Elites forearm became stuck in its skeletal structure. Losing my knife I popped up out of the water with my fists drawn. When I was about 16 I was in a boxing tournament aboard the Legacy. Therefore, I had the upper hand as far as experience goes as well as prior damage. I had a cut on my neck from one of its claws, nothing too bad, while it had one arm almost gone and the other had a knife stuck in it. I was hopping around in the knee-deep water jabbing at its chest and arms, and dodging all of its blows when it suddenly lunged at me, I dove backwards in time to let it land without hitting me. While it was floating in the water momentarily I grabbed a hold of the knife and pulled toward me. The Elites face, which had been in the water suddenly shot upward, dislodging the knife and giving it back to me. It stood fully erect for a second, near to twice my height, and then it let out a ferocious howl that scared nearby birds out of their trees. With the knife again I jumped towards it, plunged the knife into its side below its diaphragm, and pulled it towards me again, leaving another gaping hole in the Elite. Now it stared at me, around it floating on the surface of the water a purple area, my knife and my fists covered in blood and it snarled towards me, moving its two mandibles while it did. I took this opportunity and kicked it in the shin region with an outward motion, and as it fell, I caught it by the neck. I smiled at it, and it closed its eyes as if it would bring safety to it, but it was already dead. I plunged the knife through its brain stem and let its body fall to the bottom of the river. I climbed out of the water. "That was awesome man!" Skip said still lying with a very combat ready look to him. Aside from the smile he had across his face. I do not think that he thought that I would kill it, but it floating carcass begs to differ. "Thanks" I said, "But that is what we all need to do if we want to win this war. No who's tuff man?" "Yeah, let's take the body back to camp, we need to clean up this mess or a Covenant patrol might see it." "Sure." I was busy putting on my stuff when we heard some rumbling in the bushes like a person or two was coming. I grabbed my guns and scampered into the bushes, It could be the enemy. Skip and I watched from the bushes at the objects getting closer. One tango stepped into the clearing. "Alright, one Grunt, I can take it." I began to get up, ready to kill it too when Skip grabbed my shoulder. He nodded a no to me and pointed back to the bush. A menacing Elite. My heart sank. They knew that we were here, a dead body with blood all over. The Grunt was standing near to the cliff, and the Elite was walking over, talking to the Grunt, probably congratulating him on his find or shaming his fallen comrade whose limp body floated in the water. The Grunt was saying something about how that must be the downed pilot and how he was alive when he landed since his parachute is off, but I couldn't hear the rest, I was thinking up a way to beat them, with my knife. I watched them try to decide what to do and I spied a shield on the back of the Elite. I could not kill it with the knife. Then an Idea popped into my head, I got ready for a sprint. Suddenly I was off, no one could stop me, and I bolted into the Elite, giving him a powerful tackle with my shoulder. It turned around, hearing my approach. In the split second that it saw me before I rammed its back its expression was surprise then very quickly fear. The Elite flew thought the air as its shield activated, scalding me. I then turned to the Grunt with the knife drawn. Shaking it watched the Elite hit the water. The Elites shield activated frying it inside the water, and its gun began to spark and then melt to the Elites hand. The Elite was howling in pain and thrashing the water for a few seconds before it stopped moving and tipped over. Some electricity arched over the water, and the Grunt slowly turned around, staring at me. The Grunt yelled frantically "Not again!" and flailing its arms it began to run away. My entire left arm was bleeding, the Elites shield had scorched off a lot of the skin, and it hurt to move my arm to any extreme angle, like straight. The pain can only be described as unimaginable. The searing wound that I had in my arm felt as if it were still on fire and even through the clothes the electricity that is able to shred bullets caused major wounds to my flesh. I could only assume how bad it was being that I had no time to look at the source of my suffering. I was in new world of pain, and I was sure that I was running only on adrenaline from that point on, my mind already passed out with pain. The Grunt did not make it more than 20 feet before I had caught it and pinned it to the ground. This one I would savor. I threw the knife off to the side and brandished a new weapon, my fists. The Covenant has killed many of my friends, probably a dozen, more if the casualties of the last battle were high. I hit its jaw. It cried for help in a foreign tongue while I drew back my fist again punching it in the jaw again, this time shattering all the bones that were in it jaw area, and it now whimpered, not capable of talking. I stood up. It was still trying to escape, and it had nowhere to run, or as the case is crawl. I let it crawl away a little before walking up behind it and kicking in the side of its ribs. It tried again to crawl away, but again I kicked it. It never gave up, until its heart did. Its body was lying there, dead, and I was the one to blame (or reward). The adrenaline in my system began to deteriorate, and after a few minutes of standing there, breathing hard, I was able to walk back to the bush where Skip was. "Get a transport out here; I can't carry all these bodies." He just stared at me, probably scared of what I had done, but then, shakily he replied with a quick nod and moved to the radio while I carefully began to peel the scorched melted cloth off of my arm. "Delta base 6 do you copy?" A garbled reply came through, the static made the entire transmition barley understandable to me, but to Skip I guess static was a second language. I was now near to ready to peel the shirt off, giving up ion my original plan to slip it off as would be normal but to cut off the arm of it that was infringing upon my wound. "Delta base, requesting a Pelican escort" I was not opening my pocket searching for the ammo clip that I had in it. I found it pretty quickly, which was surprising being that I was hardly thinking, my mind numbed by the pain. I carefully slid the cloth off of my arm, taking care not to jar my wound, knowing that even the slight saltiness of my hand would cause me a pain that I would never hope to encounter. "There should be no need" the static cut in and out again "You can walk it out marine" "Not with 3 bodies' sir. Johnson's hurt pretty badly too, burns all up his left arm." "3?" he replied.