Heya there person that is reading this, name's Blacksmith 99. I had two stories published here in like years ago, but please do not check them, I literally wrote them as a true amateur (not that I'm a pro now lmao). I should clarify that I'm brazilian, that means english ain't my first language, so forgive me for any mispellings and/or non-existent expressions. That's all, thanks!
-CHAPTER ONE: LOST SOULS
"Jesus...where the hell am I?"
A blinding light would be the first thing to meet Sergeant Kevin's foggy eyes. The sound of a bottle rolling through the room and an harmonical knocking on the door was enough to wake the old man up. His eyes slowly started to take notice of his environment, that however was immediately met with a massive headache. Things looked pretty clean where he was at. Too clean. White room, white bed, bright lights and a closed white door? That wasn't a room. Kevin found himself in a containment cell. The previously harmonical knocking quickly turned into a rushed and aggressive banging on the door followed by multiple "Sergeant, are you in there?".
Of course I'm here. Where else would I be, dumbass? Kevin thought as he quickly tried to make his way towards the door, only to trip on the constantly rolling bottle of bourbon. For a second, he flew in the air, before having the back of his head meet the cold and white floor with a giant UNSC symbol on it. Before the pain could even come, the door opened. There was a Marine in there, wearing his helmet and holding an assault rifle. Kevin's pain wasn't just physical, but the embarassment of having what seems to be a Cadet seeing him in such a position.
"Are you alright?" The cadet dropped his gun to aid the fallen sergeant. Using both his hands to help getting the old man back on his feet, the marine couldn't help but to feel bad for the other guy. Kevin was in a bad shape. His eyes were red-ish, his now growing hair was graying as well, his eye bags were as dark as they could possibly be and he clearly looked like he couldn't even take a step without falling to his knees. Once the sergeant was up, he leaned onto the cadet and did his best to keep himself together while they left the room, only to meet a greyish hallway.
"Why the hell was I in a containment cell, cadet?" Kevin said with a raspy voice that mirrored his current state of body and mind.
"You...don't remember?" The cadet replied with some hints of shock, he'd think that despite what led to the sergeant's actions, he'd at least remember it. The bottle of bourbon rolling on the floor told a lot about the 'why' of that.
"If I remembered I wouldn't be asking, would I?" The sergeant's snarky reply was enough to show how pissed off he was. The headache, the general unease, embarassment and the lack of knowledge as to why he was in a cell were enough factors to trigger that time bomb.
"We...found you in the cafeteria once we left Reach's orbit. You were drinking...a lot. More than you should've. Didn't take long before you punched Butch in the face."
"Butch? Who the hell is Butch?" Kevin replied with a hint of anger
"Ellie Butch. She's a corporal. Long story short, she tried to take the booze from your hands and you punched her in return. She knocked you out cold right afterwards and they took you to this containment cell until you were healthy enough to at least apologize. Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to actually wait until you're past this hungover phase of yours. We understand why it happened and she doesn't want you to be punished for your actions, so consider yourself lucky. Now, I'm taking you to the cafeteria, we've assigned you a new squad."
Kevin halted as he heard that last word coming from the cadet's mouth. For a single moment, all that headache and dizziness disappeared. The sergeant's look was cold, pretty much dead. The marine was surprised with the sudden re-coordination of his movements. No longer leaning on the cadet, Kevin did his best to stay on his feet to make his point.
"I left this clear to Keyes, I'm not being assigned a new squad."
"Sergeant, with all due respect, we're in the middle of nowhere and we're being followed by two Covenant ships. We're not really in the moment of picking what we'd like to do." The cadet clearly had enough of Kevin's attitude. Why don't I get to punch his face too?, a thought that constantly echoed through his head as he sighed and waited to hear the sergeant continue to act like an idiot.
"Can you read that thing written on your chest, pal? It reads 'cadet'. Do you know what's written on mine? It reads 'sergeant' with an 'e'. That means I'll be barking you orders, not the other way around. So this is how it's gonna go: you're gonna leave me alone, head straight for the first wall corner you see, put a dunce hat on and count to one thousand." Kevin wasn't going to stand down and simply obey the cadet's orders, so he did what any grown up man would do. His regulation cut barely moved as he started pointing his finger and trying to seem menacing, despite only being 5'7". Behind all that douchebaggery, stood a sincere request to not be put into another squad. The old age was starting to hit him, he never left the sergeant ranking after he turned 38, even though he is currently standing at 47 years old. Only nine years. He can't wait to have his retirement already.
"Sir...first off, quit being a prick. Second thing, these are direct orders from Captain Keyes, so if you don't want to follow them, I'll be more than glad to use you as human shield against the Elites. But do you wannna hear something? I don't care anymore. If you want to stay, then just stay. Right now, I'm gonna go to the cafeteria, make myself a hot cup of coffee and shoot some aliens. You? You can piss off." The cadet didn't even wait for a reply, he simply turned his back and left. His tone made it clear he doesn't respect Kevin, and the latter was afraid that, after Reach, nobody would too. The next thing he did was retreat his pointing finger and use it to rub his eyes, get a less foggier view.
The sergeant didn't take a good loke at the cadet's name, the sleep in his eyes did keep him from seeing as clear as to even being able to tell who he was talking to. Now that the man left, Kevin was left all alone in that white empty corridor, one filled with doors to containment cells. He thought that an UNSC ship as the Pillar of Autumn he's in, would have something more greyish and not straight up white. A feeling of regret took over his body as he realized there was no way, he had to fill in the shoes of being the commander of a new team. He wasn't going to do it for Earth, but only for his family.
As he began to walk through the narrow corridors and large halls of the Pillar of Autumn, Sergeant Kevin was met with weird-looking gazes from others, but none were so embarassing as to the ones he faced at the cafeteria. The large space had pretty much half of the marines having their last meal before going to war, or in the case of his squad, waiting to be introduced to their new "leader". Once he stepped his shoes inside the massive room, everyone and everything stopped. All eyes were on him, some started small chatter between groups and other simply stared with weirdly at him. He didn't care, or at least he was pretty good at pretending he didn't. Out of all the groups inside the grey-looking crowded cafeteria, one did stand out. A group with 7 people, standing on one edge of an iron table and a single chair on the other edge, with multiple files with the UNSC tag over that very table. That's the new squad? Oh God. That was the only thing that ran through Kevin's head as he walked with his hands behind his back, trying to show some sort of self-confidence, despite clearly not walking properly due to his hangover state.
Once he got there, some inside the exotic group of 7 bursted out laughing, to be more precise, two did. A large man with shaved hair, but one that has small redhead colours, and eyes blue as the sea was one of the ones that were crying of laughter. The other one was a tall female, taller than anyone at that group, looking exactly the same as the large man, but she actually had a hair bun, making the redhead characteristics as clear as possible. Both were not only caucasian, as they were clearly brother and sister. Kevin didn't say anything about it, he simply sat on the chair and started talking to the team before reading the files out loud.
"I assume you freaks are my new squad...Delta squad it seems. Look, I'll be as clear as possible here, despite you folks technically being my responsibility, my only concern is for my own self-preservation. If any of you get in a nasty situation, I won't waste a single bullet to save your sorry asses. When I was all the way over there, stepping my first shoe inside this cafeteria, I thought you all seemed like incompetent freaks. Now that I am up close, I can tell you I don't think that anymore, I actually know that I'm right. One more thing before we get started, I will call you 'marines', 'squad', 'team', 'douchebags', but I'll never call any of you 'friends'. I don't want any of you going out calling me 'buddy' too, you will refer to me as either 'sergeant Kevin' or 'sarge'. Don't even dare to call me 'Kev'. That's all, any complaints?" Before anyone could rise their hands or speak up, Kevin himself intervened and replied to himself. "No? Good. Now, let's get started on the files, I'll try my best to make the worst of all your flaws and complaints. Let's see..." He grabbed the first file in the amount and opened it. "Taka...Takashi Noritake? What the hell, this seems like a cup noodles brand!"
Kevin looked up and saw to the far right an asian-looking guy. He had messy undercut over his head, it seemed to be inches away of the current military standard for hair size. He looked young, late 20s, not the youngest in the crew but certainly the second. His face seemed innocent to the sergeant, one that didn't go through any of the horrors of this war, despite being in Reach during its final days. Just by the weird grin on his face, Kevin knew that he was going to be the joker of the group, and in the sarge's dictionary, that meant trouble.
"Let me see...so, Takashi, you're good at unlocking doors, repairing mechanisms and you're a master at the art of pickpocketing. Oh, look at this, you have a criminal record too! I guess we're all surprised, aren't we Marines?" This comment made by Kevin was followed by a slight nod from some of the members of the crew, which was met with an outraged chuckle from Takashi.
"With all due respect, sergeant, how's your wife? Last time we met she was too busy doing something else to tell me how she was doing." Takashi replied, being met with the general laughter from the crew, specially from the large guy and his apparently twin sister.
"Mention my wife again, Cadet, to see if I won't put a bullet in your brain and call it collateral damage. Trust me, tick me off again and I'll show you what I'm capable of." Kevin's attempt to sound serious and threatening actually had the rest of the crew burst in laughter, some going red from laughing so hard. Needless to say he had found himself embarassed, as if he not only had no control, they held not a single ouch of respect for him. In an attempt to divert their attention, he grabbed the next file, which was the larger one. That's because it was two in one, the twin brothers. The last name was not only familiar, but it was a true trigger to him.
"James and...Ellie Butch. So you were the one that knocked me out, huh? Now I get it why you two were laughing. I'm gonna be honest, that's what makes a good soldier. You were upfront on your actions and didn't hesitate, those are the skills of a true warrior." Kevin swallowed his pride for a second to acknowledge that he screwed up. He got out of his mind with the drinks and at least someone was there to stop him. That modium of respect immediately disappeared ashe looked over to James' files.
"While the sister is a top notch soldier, you, Private James, are a true dishonor. You've been sent to the military court four times?! Two for picking fights, one for illegal betting and one for directly disobeying direct orders from your superiors. The fact that you're still an UNSC member is shocking to me. Disobey my orders and I'll immediately demote you to civilian. You went from Corporal back to Private just because you wanted to play the tough guy, huh? Well, guess what, now you're getting orders from sergeant douchebag! And you have the audacity to include 'Tank' as your positive characteristic? Get out of here." Kevin said as James' countenance went from mildly amused to greatly angry. He even raised his hand to start yelling, but his sister immediately stopped him with a mere hand on his shoulder. An outraged nod was all that Kevin needed to see to move on to the next file. "Three gone, four to go! Actually...I'll just skim through the rest, it's not like any of you matter to me anyway."
The other four files were in order, the sergeant just wanted the most important informations and just get over with it. "Nina Hernandez...has shown proficiency in driving any UNSC or Covenant vehicle." He looked up to see a hispanic lady chewing gum she probably bought in secret. She was slim and not so tall, but no so short either. Her hair followed a darkish brown tone, but couldn't even live up to the sheer darkness of the colour of her eyes. She clearly didn't care for whatever the sarge was saying.
"Rahim Nero...current undefeated champion at Reach's bow and arrow world cup. Wow." Kevin looked up outraged by what he has seen so far to look to an older man, probably the oldest among them. He seemed to be in his late 30s, due to the lack of a haircut on his head. There were a few strands of hair pretty much floating over his forehead. His skin was dark and so were his eyes, he wasn't tall at all, but he was large, the biggest one in the room at that.
"Carlton Longman...failed ODST test and has no remarkable features whatsoever. That's harsh, huh?" Kevin already knew who that file was talking about the moment it said 'no remarkable skills'. The only skinny and white soldier among the crew stood out as he was pretty much a walking beacon. The blonde hair and blue eyes would've made him a model weren't for his cadaverous appearance.
"Last and most likely least too, we have Fiona Silverman...specialist in flora and fauna?!" The sarge's eyes were immediately drawn to the blonde lady with a ponytail. She has clear european aesthetics, except the blue eyes, which are brown in her case. She's been a private for a really short time, she joined in as soon as the Covenant invasion on Reach started. Kevin could see in her eyes the naiveté of not having to kill dozens of Covenant enemies and the horror of having to see whatever she saw on the planet they were in not so long ago.
"What the hell is this? A goddamn heist crew? I thought they'd at least give soldiers, but no... They gave me a crew to heist a bank. Am I forgetting any files? Is there a specialist at communication and a specialist at laser deactivation waiting for your name to be called?" Kevin was outraged with the crew that was given to him, a true step down from all he had gone through so far. They gave him a team that is as uninterested in acting as a squad as he is.
"Maybe this is your punishment. After all, you did end up hitting someone that you shouldn't have. Instead of just having you locked up in a cell, we prefered to do the right thing...we told Captain Keyes right away. He told us he'd make a team just for you." James Butch replied with a mocking tone, obviously trying to diminish the sarge's attempts at calling them all 'useless soldiers'.
Kevin's immediate thought was to clench his fists, he was ready for another go, even if he did get his ass kicked again. An alarm then triggered, one that had all the lights turn off for a second and only the red colour could be seen. All the other squads started moving immediately as they heard the alarm say the following
"Covenant ships approaching, physical contact will be made in T minus 20 minutes. Prepare for battle, this is not a drill, prepare for battle."
The rest of the crew, despite their own wishes to just stay sitting in the cafeteria enjoying their food, stood up and waited for orders to come. The sergeant couldn't help but to put on the helmet, at least he had something the privates and cadets don't have yet. He didn't waste a single second as the lights went back on but the alarm continued screaming at their ears.
"Let's move! Those Covenant douchebags aren't going to kill themselves. So, get tactical, marines!"