Later that day

The underground base's hospital was a large rectangular room with silver walls and a dark silver floor and ceiling. It had two large entrances, one on the right wall and one on the left, both of which opened automatically to allow people to enter or exit. Along the walls were single beds, about thirty along both walls, some taken, others not, with state of the art equipment beside them.

About four of the beds were taken by marines and two by taskforce soldiers. Marcus was among those two, sitting on his bed that was on the left wall near the door at the left end of the room. His nose had turned a little red from where he had received a punch on the nose by a holographic form of an Elite during the training session earlier on. After being taken out of the training area, he was brought here and a medic gave him a bone repairing serum to fix his broken nose, which pained him terribly for the first few minutes after he was given it until it finally ended. The medic warned him, however, not to rub his nose too hard or fall over and hit it again for the next few hours, or the serum would continue repairing it whilst it was moving and his nose might look like it had been pushed to one side when it was finished being repaired.

Marcus turned his head to look over at the other taskforce soldier sitting on a bed about four further down from his. The soldier, called Sam, looked like he had the crap beaten out of him. His face was covered with bruise marks and cuts, one of his hands hurt every time he moved it and he had a black eye. Also, his leg was broken. Apparently, from what the medic had told him when Marcus asked what had happened to the taskforce soldier, was that he had been fighting a holographic Elite in the training session the day before and he had been beaten to a pulp. Marcus had been told by the medic he one of the lucky ones to survive a fight with an Elite as those who had tried, both in training and in real life combat, had been beaten to a pulp. He had also heard that Eve was the only taskforce soldier to have won a fight against a holographic Elite and, like Marcus, only sustain minor injuries.

The door to the hospital room opened and a familiar face walked in, beaming at him, and he smiled. It was Anya.

"How are you, Marcus?" she asked as she walked over to his bed.

"Fine," he replied sarcastically, but in a mocking manner. "My nose is broken and it still hurts, but only a little,"

Anya laughed. "Alright, don't get sarcastic," she said to him.

Marcus smirked. "Sorry,"

"It's okay,"

She sat down beside him. "I heard what happened to you from Amy," she said. Marcus looked at her, confused, so Anya added: "One of the women that was with your group in the training room,"

"Oh," Marcus got what she meant.

"Ooooooh!" the two looked behind them to see Sam move his arm, the one that hurt every time he moved it, under his covers. Anya grimaced at him.

"What happened to him?" she asked Marcus.

"The medic who treated me told me that he had to fight a holo Elite as well and, as you can see, he got the crap beaten out of him,"

Anya nodded in understanding and looked back at Sam and sighed at seeing him. She felt sorry for him having to go through that pain, but she was glad she was not the one who had fought an Elite. She had been lucky the other day when, after Eve had fought a holo-Elite, she had been given a holo-Jackal to fight. The creature had scratched her on the arm, making small cut with It's sharp claws, but that was about the worst she had got and she had managed to defeat the creature when she managed to pin the creature to the floor and twist It's arms behind It's back. She had received a round of applause for that as it was, as Avery put it, "an amazing take down of a Jackal in hand to hand combat," and she was proud she had done so, though it had scared her a little as it showed her a glimpse of the combat she was to be thrown into when the taskforce went on It's first mission and that she would actually be killing other beings, something she had never done before, but she reminded herself that they were trying to kill her and her race and, even though she did not fear death, she wanted to live, and besides it would be them or her.

Marcus sniffed and touched his nose but withdraw his hand quickly as a sharp pain flared out from the point where his fingers had touched it. Anya giggled at seeing him do this.

"You're not supposed to touch it," she told him.

"I know," he replied. "But my nose is beginning to itch a little,"

"I'm not scratching it for you,"

Marcus rolled his eyes and looked back down the room as the door at the other end of the hospital room opened up. A young medic with blonde hair, the one who had treated Marcus earlier on, came walking down towards him. He was not very happy when he saw Anya sitting on Marcus' bed.

"Hey, c'mon. No visitors!" he told Anya.

She sighed and faced Marcus. "I'll see you later," she said and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, which surprised him, before she got up and walked out of the room.

Marcus felt his cheek burn when she had kissed him and, when she had left, which he was left smiling dreamily after her, he blushed a little. Wow! That felt…amazing! He really like Anya, but he liked her more than just a friend. He loved her, but he had not told her how she felt about him. He would have to soon as he could not stand keeping it from her much longer.

Unfortunately, he was soon woken up out of his daydream when the medic walked over to him, which he was not very happy about.

"Alright, man. Quit your daydreaming and let check your nose," he said.

Sighing in annoyance, Marcus moved his face towards the medic who set about examining his nose with a small circular device, a bone scanner used to check for any breaks or dislocations or any other damages to bones, this being a quicker and easier way of X-rays, he had in his hand.