Author's Note: The new and improved! Please enjoy the properly edited version of this chapter.

2220 Hours, March 31, 2535 (Military Calendar) /

Delphi Noctem System, Big River Valley, Planet Daedalus

Camp Green River

There was an old proverb that claimed each person had within them two wolves – one evil, one good.

In lieu of wolves, Fred had long since recognized that there were two voices inside of him.

The first voice was his own. It was the voice through which he thought, planned, and reasoned with himself. It was witty, sarcastic, and had a propensity to suggest he solve problems through the liberal application of explosives.

The other voice was one he held in reserve. It was the voice of Chief Mendez – the trainer from his youth, and the closest thing he had to a father. It was stern, logical, commanding. It was the voice his thoughts took whenever the impulse to do something stupid started to get a little too strong.

Over the past several days, Mendez's voice had become his near-constant companion.

Standing beside him, Kelly crossed her arms over her chest, her right arm lightly brushing against his as she did so. Packed into Halsey's cramped office as they were, it was difficult for anyone to move without bumping into one another. At least that's what Mendez's voice told him.

The imagined DI then shouted at him for failing to focus during a mission debriefing.

Not for the first time over the past several days, Fred wondered if he was losing his mind. The Covenant had breached Camp Green River, he and the rest of the team were out of armor, and they had no indication of how the battle in space fared.

All that, and he couldn't drag his mind away from the way Kelly had accidentally bumped into him because they were packed like sardines into a room too small for a group half their size to fit comfortably.

The scientist's appropriated lab wasn't exactly the ideal place to hold a debriefing of five Spartans, but it turned out to be the most logical rendezvous point. For their invisible enemy to choose to slip within their walls instead of staging a frontal assault meant that it was likely searching for something.

And, he considered as his eyes were drawn back to the peculiar rock resting behind Linda on the desk, there was little doubt as to what that might be.

"We're doing this by the book," John said, his tone heavy. "Grid search patterns. We cover every inch of this compound. Doctor Halsey has divided the base into quadrants - Blue Four and I will take the first and second, splitting the northern half of the base. Blue Two and Three will take the third and fourth quadrants to the south. Blue Five, I want you here with the doctor."

Will visibly bristled, glaring around the small lab. Fred didn't blame him. He'd have hated to be saddled with babysitting duty too. When Will's gaze landed on the artifact, though, his posture quickly smoothed out and he simply nodded.

Fred came back to his senses – again – just in time to hear Will ask, "Why are we still out of armor? We don't know what we're up against here."

John nodded in agreement but said, "No time to gear up. The longer the Covenant are within this facility the greater the risk we face."

Fred had to agree with his assessment of the importance of acting quickly, but he also couldn't help but feel exposed outside of his armor. The MJOLNIR undersuit would only provide them with some protection from ballistic rounds and blades – neither of which the Covenant employed.

Halsey stepped into view, toting five bags over her shoulders and an assortment of small earbuds in one hand. "These are for communicating with each other," she said, handing out the earbuds. "They will transmit anywhere within the compound, and I will be tracking your progress from here.

"Within the satchels are tacpads loaded with the base's floorplan and breakdowns of Covenant weaponry." She looked each Spartan in the eye as she distributed the items. She paused at John, observing him almost fondly. "Be careful," she said, her voice nearly faltering. "I – we can't afford to lose anyone today."

John took the satchel from the doctor, allowing his hand to reassuringly bump against hers as he did so. "Don't worry ma'am. I'll keep them safe."

What? Fred thought. Though he liked to think she cared for them, Halsey had never been one to show concern for the Spartans. She preferred the air of professional distance. Furthermore, John wasn't exactly the comforting type.

As he fit his earbud into place, Fred shot a questioning look at Kelly to confirm he wasn't the only one who thought the interaction uncharacteristic. His teammate returned his glance with raised eyebrows, confusion as evident in her eyes as he knew it was in his own.

As he continued looking at her, trying in vain to come up with an excuse for the prolonged eye contact, he had to wonder if there wasn't something rotting in the air ducts around Camp Green River. Perhaps they were all under the effects of some hallucinogenic plant. Strangely enough, that information would have come as a comfort to him.

He snapped his attention forward as John turned to the rest of the team.

"Watch each other's backs," he said. "Dismissed."

The team offered a uniform salute to their leader before filing out the door and splitting in three – Will posting himself at the door to Halsey's office, John and Linda turning North, Kelly and Fred turning South.

The pair moved silently down the corridor, communicating through a series of hand gestures and head tilts. They cleared rooms as they passed, though it was highly unlikely the intruder had already managed to make their way so far into the facility. Fred was keenly aware of the sound of his breathing, as well as the presence of his teammate beside him. He scowled in an attempt to maintain focus.

They paused when they eventually reached the juncture where the corridor forked in two directions. Kelly would investigate the left, whereas Fred would take the right.

"Stay on comms," Fred said, peering down his designated corridor. "I'm never going to let you live it down if you do something stupid and get yourself killed out here."

"Please," Kelly responded with a roll of her eyes, "if anything, you're the one we need to worry about. Stupid is more your forte."

Fred tried to come up with a witty retort, but his mind was captivated with the movement of Kelly's lips as she goaded him. The way the corners of her mouth turned upward in a teasing smirk, the way her head bobbed as she spoke when she was feeling anxious . . .

Mendez interrupted his thought process with a stern One-zero-four!

Fred clicked his mouth shut, realizing with some embarrassment that it had fallen open a few centimeters. "50 credits say I find him first," he offered with a half-smile.

Kelly regarded him with a strange expression before shaking her head. "50?" she asked, doing a once-over of her M90, "you've got to dream bigger than that."

"Fine," he answered. "Loser buys drinks."

Kelly offered a quiet laugh before bobbing her head up and down. "You're on."

Fred smiled in return. The bets were nothing more than a bluff, a way to pass the time – Spartans had no use for credits, and none of them had ever "gone for drinks" in their lives. But the empty bet at least kept things interesting.

Without another word, Fred spun on his heel and began pacing his way through the southwestern quadrant of the compound. He swept his rifle back and forth constantly, pausing to clear each doorway he crossed and to peer around any corner he needed to travel down.

With some distance from the others, he was able to finally focus on the mission. It was a pleasant relief. He didn't know how to deal with whatever had seemingly infected his squad since their arrival at Camp Green River, but danger Fred could handle. Combat against opponents technologically, physically, and numerically superior he could handle. Accomplishing missions against impossible odds he could handle.

He suddenly paused mid-step. There was something wrong. Without thinking, the Spartan spun in a half-circle and raised his assault rifle to his shoulder.

Just as he completed his turn, the weapon's barrel was struck from the side with enough force to knock it out of his left hand and to send his right arm out wide. He could see no enemy, but the air before his face wavered like the air over black asphalt on a hot day.

In a fraction of a second, he came to several conclusions. First, he was facing an opponent using active camouflage – that meant an Elite. And an invisible Elite meant big trouble for a single unarmored soldier, Spartan or no.

"Contact!" he shouted to his team. Rather than attempt to bring the rifle back into a firing position, Fred released it, dropped his shoulder, and drove forward in a tackle. He collided with an invisible mass mere centimeters away from him, wrapped his arms around a large torso and drove it to the ground.

As they collided with the floor, an invisible elbow struck the middle of his back with enough force to drive the air from his lungs. A following swipe to the left side of his head knocked his earwig from its place.

The Spartan wrenched his right arm from beneath his opponent and in a flash retrieved his sidearm from the holster on his leg. He jammed the pistol into what might have been the Elite's ribcage and fired.

With a flash, both the shields and camouflage were overloaded by the round's kinetic energy. An Elite adorned in an ornate set of deep maroon armor materialized beneath him just in time for him to feel it land a kick on his side strong enough to knock the Spartan from atop itself and skidding across the ground.

Fred scrambled to his feet and raised his pistol, only to see the Elite similarly posed with its own sidearm. The Spartan pulled the trigger, simultaneously diving to one side to avoid the plasma rounds sailing toward him. He landed in a roll, turning back to the Elite just in time to see an armed plasma grenade land on the ground between them.

With an angry grunt the Spartan launched bolted to his feet and ran.

In spite of his considerably enhanced speed, the explosive's concussive force threw him to the ground and the radioactive heat wave prickled blisters along his back. He landed facedown with enough force to blacken his vision.

He lay still long enough to gulp in several breaths of air, allowing time for his mind and vision to clear. He rolled to his feet and cautiously returned to the scene of the fight.

A few meters away, a three-meter diameter section of hallway had been vaporized. In its place was a smoking, charred mess of duracrete and electronics. Fred investigated the area slowly but found no evidence of the intruder. He did, however, stumble upon the loose earbud lying on the ground, having somehow been knocked out beside his rifle.

He reinserted the piece just in time to hear John's voice, "Report, Blue Two!"

"I lost him," Fred answered, collecting his rifle. "Single Elite, active camo. He wasn't armed except for a plasma pistol and grenades." He glanced around the destruction left in the Elite's wake.

When the grenade erupted, Fred was on the far side of it relative to the center of the compound and – more importantly – Halsey's lab. "It's likely he is headed toward the lab," he continued, rising to his feet, "I'm going to pursue."

"Negative," John replied. "There's something in the electric room that needs your particular skillset."

Fred dropped his head in frustration, muttering a one-word challenge to the legitimacy of the Elite's parentage under his breath. "And which of my skillsets might that be?" he asked, fighting down the urge to forego orders and pursue the alien regardless.

"Not entirely sure," came the answer, this time from Kelly. "Looks like a bomb, though, and I thought you'd be interested in taking a look at it. That is," she added, a mischievous grin betraying itself in her voice, "as long as you're finished with your little playdate."

His curiosity was piqued. Frederic-104 was never one to shy away from a fight, but the promise of a live explosive was hard to turn down.

"Take care of it," John cut in. "Blue Four and I will back Blue Five up at the lab. Silence communications unless absolutely necessary."

With that, the comms fell silent once more.

With one more wistful look in the direction he assumed the Elite was travelling, Fred turned and raced toward the compound's electrical room. He was anxious to see Kelly's discovery. Though they had all trained extensively with every type of explosive known to mankind, Fred was pleased to say that of the members of Blue Team he was the most qualified to deal with it.

Kelly was waiting impatiently in the doorway when he arrived. She hurriedly gestured him toward her.

"What's the matter?" he asked Kelly with a grin as he stepped past her and ducked through the doorway. "Miss me?" She didn't respond except to roll her eyes and point out the purplish alien device adhered to one wall of the room.

He quickly stepped around the device to ensure it wasn't attached to any power lines that might prove vital – or lethal – within the facility before touching it. Assuring himself that the device was attached to nothing more than the wall that held it aloft, he slipped the combat knife from its sheath in his left boot, wedging the blade's point into a seam on the casing.

Kelly hovered over his shoulder, distracting him.

Eyes forward, Spartan! Mendez reprimanded him.

He popped the panel open and observed the contents within. It was a mess of wiring and circuitry that he was not qualified to understand, but he could at least recognize an explosive when he saw one.

"Get out of here," he said, reaching into his satchel for the tacpad. He also removed a set of wires that ended on one side in a port that linked to his pad and alligator clips on the other. Gingerly, he attached the clips to a set of wires within the alien casing.

"Someone's got to watch your back," Kelly answered without moving an inch. "This could just be bait for an ambush."

"Or it could be a bomb," he fired back. "Get your distance."

She didn't answer him. She didn't move either.

Fred rolled his eyes while the tacpad ran up a blueprint of the explosive's wiring. The software within his device began the process of scanning the bomb's systems and determining the best method for defusing it. Along the top of the screen a countdown timer flashed in bright red – just under three minutes.

"I only know the basic schematics on this thing," he said as his frustration with his teammate mounted. "If you don't move back then I'm liable to kill us both."

He felt Kelly's hand fall onto his shoulder. "I'm not leaving," she said resolutely. He turned enough to see her face and was met with a stubborn determination.

"Fine," he grumbled. "Then take this and tell me what to cut." He passed her the tacpad.

Kelly considered the tacpad for several seconds, chewing on her lower lip as the program ran its diagnostics. Though he was doing his best not to, Fred couldn't help but admire her mouth.

I've never seen such negligence, Mendez said. He wasn't even shouting anymore. He just sounded . . . disappointed. Which was somehow worse.

Fred trained his eyes on the wiring.

Kelly pointed out a wire, and Fred severed it. She waited for the pad to recalibrate itself, and then identified the next step. The pair spent several tense moments this way, removing one wire after another – the timer mercilessly ticking down toward zero.

Suddenly, Kelly's instructions faltered.

"Rabbit?" Fred asked, his knife poised to cut.

"It's stuck," she answered. "The pad says there are two options, but it can't determine which one to cut."

Fred felt the blood drain from his face. The software was still in its beta phase – it couldn't be expected to provide a full walkthrough on defusing an alien explosive. But he had still hoped it would.

"Show me," he said to his partner. She leaned closer to him to display the screen and helped him to pick out the two wires.

The clock at the top of the pad ticked down to thirty seconds.

"I guess we're playing this one by ear," he said, blowing air out of his mouth. He stared at the wires, hoping that one might somehow identify itself as his target.

It didn't.

"Fifteen seconds," Kelly whispered, her voice beginning to betray worry.

Do something, Spartan! Mendez shouted in his ear.

With a grunt of frustration, Fred picked a wire at random. He isolated his target with the point of his blade, and in an instant he severed it with a quick swipe of the knife.

Simultaneously, he turned and pulled his teammate into a kneeling position, putting his body between her and the bomb. He pulled her head in close to his and felt her arms naturally wrap around him, waiting for the explosion.

After several moments, though, he slowly pulled back from the embrace – finding himself quite pleasantly surprised that he hadn't exploded. Simultaneously, he and Kelly looked at the tacpad dangling on the wall.

The words 5 SECONDS repeatedly flashed where the time had moments ago been inexorably ticking toward their deaths.

Kelly let out a single laugh, loudly exhaling the lungful of air that she subconsciously held within her. She pulled him in for another embrace before leaning back slightly to offer him a jubilant grin.

He tried not to – he really did. But no matter how hard he tried, Fred couldn't help but notice how beautiful she looked. Her eyes still wide from the adrenaline, her face framed by hair that had escaped her ponytail, and her smile shining like the sun. He justified a moment to take it all in.

His attention was also drawn to the fact that their faces were mere centimeters from one another. That made him want to do something he wasn't sure he had ever done before.

You're not a teenager, Mendez chided him. You're not going to kiss her.

Then her eyes flicked downward, and he could swear that she spent an instant studying his mouth before shifting her gaze away. The moment passed so quickly that if he weren't a Spartan he may not have noticed. But when her eyes shot back up to meet his, they looked at once guilty and unrepentantly excited.

Mendez's voice went silent just before their lips crashed together.

The Ossoona cursed himself. He had been too hasty – to enter the human compound; to recover the relic of the gods; to engage with the demon. Had he thought before he acted, he would have no doubt noticed the female outside the facility's walls as well as the male within without detection – he may well have eliminated one or both without issue.

As it was, he had done nothing but complicate his own mission.

'Karomee paused to breathe. Anger would not resolve this challenge. In fact, his anger was to blame for the challenge – the ire that had risen within him when the Minister informed him that his mission was now a simple retrieval of the holy relic was making him overstep. Causing him to make mistakes.

The desire to burn the demons' mongrel hides was strong within him. So strong that he had to remind himself with every beat of his hearts that his position was not to question. In a cruel twist of irony, it was that very desire that now risked the effective destruction of those selfsame demons and threatened his own. If he could not now tamp down upon his base urges, he would surely not survive the night.

The Ossoona stalked as silently as possible through the unfamiliar terrain of the human facility. He had raided his share of the heretics' military bases, but never come to understand their distasteful designs and layouts. He was searching the facility as quickly as stealth would allow, but his unfamiliarity with the layout hindered his mission.

Instead of trying to follow any logic of his own, the proud warrior allowed himself to follow his instincts. A pull, or perhaps a push, in one direction in particular. The Ossoona was a rational being, unused to allowing something so intangible as his impressions to drive his actions, but with little time and much ground to cover, he was willing to suspend his disbelief in the name of the mission.

As he traveled, his thoughts were drawn back to Major 'Nunamee, to his division . . . even to the Jiralhanae that had accompanied them to the surface. They had been proud warriors of the Covenant, every one. They deserved to be honored and avenged.

Their deaths would have been avoided if the artifact they discovered were not tainted by the presence of the human infidels, he was sure of it. The demons, and their ilk, were directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of his comrades.

Orders be cursed – the only way to properly avenge his brothers and to appease the gods would be to cleanse this planet of its human infestation. He would taste the blood of the demons himself, not leave their destruction to the hands of some shipboard weapons operator.

The Ossoona paused, shaking his head.

Such thoughts were uncharacteristic of him. To speak truly, he was not nearly so devout as some of his brethren. He did not know whether he would follow the Great Journey. Compared to many, he did not deserve it. Compared to more still, he did not have the faith to undertake such a transcendence as they preached. His conviction in war had always been driven by a loyalty to his keep, to his people. This rhetoric of devout religious fury was foreign to his mind.

But if the thoughts were not his, then to whom did they belong?

The Ossoona halted. The battle with the demon had frayed him – made him anxious. Energetic. Neither of which were the sign of a true warrior. It was pure luck that had driven him to the first demon.

With more luck, there would be at least one of the abominations in his path.

Silencing his mind, 'Karomee followed his feet.