The Halo Universe belongs to Microsoft Studios and 343 Industries. But these characters are my own creation and cannot be used without my permission. If you do use them without my permission, then Tank will demolish your house personally before ripping you apart piece by piece. Enjoy the show.

The Sangheili 800 Squad

Chapter 10: Mostly Character Development

February, 2552 (Human Calendar)

1034 Hours

Frozen Forest

The sun had long ago set before Utarz decided to start complaining.

Unfortunately, Zen was right behind him, so he had to listen to every single word that came out of Utarz's mandibles.

He found himself on the verge of growling whenever Utarz said something like, "Are we there yet?" or, "How long is this going to take?" or his personal favourite, "Is anyone even paying attention to me?"

Deciding to back off to avoid losing it, Zen walked up to the Wraith, pushing past Utarz in the process.

"Hey!" Utarz complained. "Watch it!"

Ignoring him, Zen continued up to the Wraith and looked up at it. "Hey Tracer, you got a sec?"

"I've got a few hundred, yeah." Tracer confirmed. "Why?"

"I need to make some conversation so I can't hear Utarz." Zen replied.

"Perfectly understandable." Miara said from the gun turret.

"Alright." Tracer poked his head up from the Wraith. "Hey Miara, would you mind driving the Wraith for a while?"

"I don't know how to drive a Wraith." Miara replied.

"You'll be fine." Tracer said, climbing out. "Just push the forward pedal down and make sure that you don't turn to the side. Look at the compass every now and then to make sure that we're heading north."

"…Okay…" Miara said uncertainly, climbing into the driver's pit.

The Wraith was immobile for a moment before moving forward again.

"There we go." Tracer said satisfactorily. He looked at Zen. "Right. So what do you want to talk about?"

Zen shrugged. "Anything would be better than Utarz's infernal complaining."

"How about families?" Tracer suggested.

Zen refrained himself from wincing. He had been trying not to think about his family since he arrived in the 800 Squad. But it was either that, or listening to Utarz. "I suppose."

"Okay. So, do you have any siblings?"

"Two." Zen sighed. "Both of them are younger than me. When I was a child, I would refer to them as the spawn of the devil."

"That bad?"

"Yeah."

"Male or female?"

"I've got a sister and a brother." Zen replied. "My brother's currently waiting for approval to join the army."

"And your parents?"

Oh, joy. "They're both pretty militaristic. My father was in the military for fifty years before he retired."

Tracer chuckled. "Atar's almost reached that point."

"Yeah… What about your parents?"

"Eh… they're not really militaristic… that said, they're not pacifists either."

"Ever in the army?"

"My father was for about thirty-five years… certainly wasn't by choice, though."

"Any siblings?"

"No."

A thought struck Zen. "Say… how did your parents react to your placement in the 800 Squad?"

"Well… my mother start lying about my placement and my father tried to see if there had been some mistake… but in the end, they were accepting of my decision."

Tracer regretted the words he said almost immediately.

Zen nodded, not really accepting what he said. Once it sunk in though, he spun around to look at him. "Your decision?!"

Tracer looked around to see if anyone had heard him. Once he saw that no-one had, he turned to Zen and hissed, "Never tell anyone that I said that."

"Hold on, hold on," Zen whispered. "What do you mean, 'your decision'?"

Tracer refused to answer.

Before Zen could press on, Atar called, "Company, HALT!"

"What?" Utarz asked blankly.

"Stop moving."

"Oh."

Miara stopped the Wraith and poked her head out. "Something up?"

"Negatory!" Atar replied. "As you all have noticed, it has grown to be night. We will set up camp here and wait for tomorrow night."

"That'd work for me." Repora said happily. "I've been getting tired with all this walking."

"Wait, so we're sleeping out in the open?" Utarz complained. "It's freezing!"

"Do you have a warm place in mind?" Atar growled. "If not, then you sleep out here."

Utarz climbed off of his Ghost, grumbling in annoyance.

Miara climbed out of the Wraith and turned to Tracer. "Hey, Tracer? Why does this thing have eight pedals if it can only go in four directions?"

Tracer sighed. "Power, forwards, left, right, brake, backwards, boost and emergency eject."

"…Ah."

Buzzsaw had decided to turn the cloaking off until he ran into trouble.

However, he was having difficulty running into trouble.

In fact, there seemed to be no-one around at this time of night.

"Well, this is just great." Buzzsaw muttered. "How am I supposed to find a ravine in this darkness?"

This wasn't the first time Buzzsaw had been given a task that had eventually became near impossible to do. He had been given a few and he had since become sick of them.

This was part of the reason why he and Iro didn't get along well. He always wanted him to do tasks that he just assumed would get completed on time. And when they didn't get completed on time, then Iro would get cranky.

What infuriated Buzzsaw, really, was how this was how Grunts were treated universally. They were seen as slave labour, not as actual living, breathing creatures! Why should the Grunts do all the work around here?

The more he thought about this, the angrier he got. It's time that his race should really shine! Time that the Sangheili stop abusing them! Time that-

Buzzsaw's foot fell through empty air.

With a yell, Buzzsaw toppled off what seemed to be a cliff that had appeared out of nowhere. He found himself falling over and over, with the ground coming up fast.

In a desperate attempt to save himself, he activated his saw and shoved it into the side of the cliff. He knew this would blunt the blade, but he really didn't care at this point.

Eventually, his fall slowed down with him safely touching the ground. He breathed a sigh of relief and looked around.

About twenty metres in front of him was another cliff face.

Buzzsaw looked around. He had fallen into a ravine.

Convenient. Buzzsaw thought. I wonder if there's an easy way down…

Completely forgetting about the injustices he was fuming about a minute ago, Buzzsaw walked along the edge of the ravine. He found a bunch of caves, shallow and perfect for putting prisoners in. He also noticed that the ground rose steadily upwards.

In fact, it rose upwards until he was back on ground level.

Buzzsaw chuckled. And here I was thinking that this was getting impossible.

"Shouldn't Buzzsaw be back by now?" Iro asked Tank, impatience seeping into his mind.

"Is dark." Tank said, looking up at the sky. "Buzzsaw might be lost."

"I wouldn't doubt it." Iro muttered. "It's either that or he's run away."

Tank looked at Iro. "Buzzsaw wouldn't run."

"Oh, yes he would." Iro replied. "Trust me, I understand Grunts. Back when I worked for the Covenant, my entire platoon of Grunts deserted my out of fear. They're a cowardly race."

Tank would've sighed, or rolled his eyes if he could. He had heard this story from Iro dozens of times. So had Buzzsaw and Gears, but no-one really complained about it. They couldn't change his mind, so they didn't bother arguing with him.

This was one of the few things that Tank didn't like about Iro. He didn't know how to let go of grudges. He remembered ever wrong that was done against him without apology. He couldn't let go of the past.

That said, Tank couldn't really speak. After all, his bond brother…

Tank shook his head. Best not to dwell on the past.

"So have you thought of plan to get artefact off planet?" Tank asked.

"No." Iro admitted. "We can't get the ship down here, so that means that we have to rely on Gears."

"What can Gears do?" Tank asked.

"I don't know. We'll let him figure that out."

"Great plan." A sarcastic voice snarked from nowhere.

Iro sighed. "Buzzsaw, reveal yourself."

Buzzsaw materialised out of thin air. "Why? I thought you didn't like looking at me."

"Did you find a place or not?" Iro demanded.

"Yup." Buzzsaw said.

"How typi- wait, you did?"

"Yeah. Follow me." Buzzsaw said.

And they did follow him. Buzzsaw seemed to know which way to go, so they followed him until they reached the gigantic crack in the planet.

"Excellent." Iro said satisfactorily.

"So where will we put prisoner?" Tank asked.

"We'll have to get down there to find out. Buzzsaw, is there a safe way down?"

"Over there." Buzzsaw pointed to an incline that lead down to the bottom.

Iro slid down the incline, with Buzzsaw and Tank following him. Iro looked at the many caves and said, "We could hold a whole platoon down here."

"So, when we've put the prisoner down here, how do we stop him from getting out?" Buzzsaw asked.

Iro looked around. He then pointed to a wall. "Tank, do you think you can make a slab from that wall?"

Tank nodded and walked towards it.

"So, we seal him in with a rock, huh?" Buzzsaw said.

"Yes. Of course, we'll need to make it so that she can breathe, but also so that she can't get out."

"Uh… huh…" Buzzsaw took note of a certain word in Iro's sentence. "So we're taking the female?"

"Yes."

"Alright, who's gonna take her?"

"I will."

Buzzsaw raised what could be an eyebrow. "You? Kidnapping? Doesn't that require stealth?"

"Yes, so what?"

A loud smash sounded a bit behind Iro. "Well, it's just that I have a cloaking device. Not some active camo unit, a properly working invisibility machine. I would be a much better choice to kidnap her."

"Really. And why do you think that?"

"What do you mean? I just said…"

Iro sighed. "Buzzsaw, you are much smaller than a Sangheili. She would easily overpower you."

"Hey, I overpowered that blue guy, thank you very much!"

Tank walked up to them and said bluntly, "Utarz is idiot."

"Yeah, but according to you, the female is the blue guy's sister. And you know what they say, the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree."

"Only reason she didn't beat Tank was because her weapon didn't work." Tank replied.

"Okay, what's her weapon?"

"Flamethrower."

"…Okay, Iro?" Buzzsaw said weakly. "You can take her."

Iro rolled his eyes and looked at Tank. "I take it you've made a slab?"

Tank nodded and pointed to a large boulder to the side.

"Good. Buzzsaw, if you could shave a few parts off…"

Buzzsaw extended his saw and showed the dented blade. "No-can-do. I need to sharpen this thing before I use it again."

"Fine. Tank, could you make the boulder a bit of an oval shape?"

Tank nodded.

Miara sat down and looked at her flamethrower.

Stupid piece of crap. She thought bitterly. If it had worked, we would've beaten Tank.

She looked into the nozzle. It looked okay. No blockages or anything. She flicked a switch. The pilot light was working fine. She aimed away from herself and pulled the trigger.

This seemed to be where she was having the problem. Instead of a red-orange stream of fire coming out, nothing was happening. Which meant something must be wrong with the trigger.

Miara reached to dismantle it, but stopped when she realised that she didn't have her tool kit with her.

"Great." Miara grumbled. This is why I'm in the 800 Squad. Can't even fix a human weapon without my tool kit.

She looked up. Everyone was sleeping at the moment. Utarz had done so in his Ghost while Tracer had fallen asleep in his Wraith. Atar had gone to sleep on the ground (which no-one could really understand), Zen had found some leaves to sleep on and Repora was…

…sleeping on a mattress.

Where the hell did he get a mattress?!

Shaking that thought out of her head, Miara put away the flamethrower and climbed into a log. Deciding to sleep for the night, Miara closed her eyes and forced herself to slip into a sleep-induced coma.

In what seemed like five seconds later, Atar was shouting at them. "GET UPS, TROOPS!"

Miara groaned and opened her eyes. "Already?"

"It's 4 am Miara." Atar said, roughly shaking her. "I let you lot sleep in an hour."

Tracer sighed, getting out of the Wraith and walking over to Zen. He gently nudged him with his foot. "Come on. Up you get."

Zen forced himself up. "What time is it?"

"4 am."

"Atar let us sleep in?"

"Get up, numb-nuts!" Atar snapped, smashing Utarz's head against his Ghost.

"OW!" Utarz woke up immediately. "What the hell?!"

"I told you to wake up!" Atar snarled, walking over to Repora. "We're leaving."

Utarz rubbed his head. "I think I preferred it when you just yelled into the intercom every morning."

Before Atar could say or do anything, Repora sprang up and chirped, "Good morning everybody! Let's go find an artefact and save the world!"

And then he ran off into the woods.

Ten seconds later, he came back and asked, "Uh… where's the artefact again?"

Within a few minutes, they had gone back to the positions they were in yesterday, with Tracer ploughing through the trees in his Wraith and everyone else tailing behind.

Utarz hovered up to Miara. "Oi, sis."

"Don't call me that." Miara said coldly.

"Fine. Miara. Can we talk?"

"I've told you time and time again-!"

"Not about Tracer! About your flamethrower."

Miara glared at him suspiciously. "Why do you care about my flamethrower?"

"Well, it didn't work, right?"

"Right."

"And it caused you to get knocked out, right?"

"Uh, huh."

"Which means that you could've gotten killed."

"And you care because...?"

"Because… I just do, alright? You're my sister."

"In blood only." Miara said angrily. "My brother in both blood and soul would treat honour and battle seriously and not perform dishonourable acts like drinking all day long and fucking whores!"

"Hey! I resent that!" Utarz snapped. "I only drink for half the day."

"Even so! I refuse to be the sister of someone so dishonourable and disrespectful!"

"Oh, come on!" Utarz said angrily. "You make it sound so bad when it's really not!"

"It is! Your actions have brought shame upon our keep! You don't even deserve your name!"

By now, everyone else could hear their argument and were doing their best to act as if it wasn't happening. Atar, however, had heard enough.

He backed up to Miara and Utarz and growled, "Both of you shut up. If you want to have a family discussion, then take it somewhere private."

"Hey, how about-!" Utarz started angrily.

"Miara, I would like to have a discussion with you."

"Sure."

Atar turned to Utarz. "Buzz off."

Utarz grumbled, but boosted forward to annoy Tracer.

"Right." Atar said quietly. "As much as I hate it, I have to agree with Utarz with the first point."

Miara spluttered indignantly. Atar quickly continued. "If I had known that your primary weapon wasn't working, then I wouldn't have sent you out to fight Tank. You need to tell people these things, otherwise they can't help you."

"This is something that I want to fix myself." Miara mumbled.

"Regardless. You still need to tell someone when you're at a disadvantage so that they can help you."

Miara sighed. "I just… didn't want to be treated as someone who needed to be protected."

"Hm?"

Miara looked at Atar. "I was sent to this squad for my own protection. Just because I'm female. People see me as unfit for the military just because I'm a female."

Atar fidgeted uncomfortably. "Well… to be fair, you are the only female to join the military for about fourteen millennia."

"Still, I want to be treated as a soldier, not as some damsel in distress."

"That would be difficult."

"What do you mean?"

Atar sighed. "As you know, the Covenant's military force is mostly composed of the stronger sex. Most of these soldiers haven't seen a female in… well, years."

Miara decided that she didn't want to hear what Atar had to say.

"You're placed in this squad to make sure that no-one takes advantage of you. I'm not saying that other Sangheili would do such a thing, but…"

"Right." Miara said. "Not sure I wanted to know that."

"Well, it's the truth."

Miara looked at her teammates, feeling paranoid all of a sudden. "Would any of them do that?"

"Not really… Utarz probably would if you weren't his sibling."

Or if he was really desperate. Miara thought to herself.

"So you don't have to worry about anyone here stooping that low." Atar said.

"Good." A thought suddenly struck Miara. "Uh, on that note, uh… would having sex with a fellow soldier be illegal?"

Atar stared at her.

"Just a hypothetical question." Miara said quickly.

"…Right." Atar said, unconvinced. "Well… there's not really any law against male and female soldiers mating when on military premises… generally because it's never happened before. I'd expect that it'd be frowned upon, but it's not technically illegal."

"Alright." Miara said.

"So who is it?" Atar asked bluntly.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about sir."

"Bull."

"I'd… rather not say sir. Personal information."

"Well… I won't force you to disclose that information, but I will encourage you not to be secretive with that information."

"I don't follow you, sir."

"Basically, I don't want any secret relationships in my squad. A loving relationship in the squad is bad enough. But withholding it from everyone else just because you don't want them to judge you? That is just cowardice."

Atar turned and looked at Miara. "Don't forget that cowardice is unacceptable in this squad. If you're going to have a relationship with a fellow soldier, then don't make it a secret."

Atar then marched upwards to stop Tracer from jumping out of the Wraith and strangling Utarz.

Miara scratched the back of her head, uncomfortable. She wasn't sure why she started with that conversation with her general in the first place. But she did have to admit that he had a point.

She couldn't be a coward about this.

Author's notes

So, this is going rather well!

…In comparison to Marines and Elites.

Thanks for watching.

Potato.