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 Atar will eat your family in a stew of Sangheili victory and human defeat. Enjoy the show.

The Sangheili 800 Squad

Chapter 15: Older Wounds

February, 2550 (Human Calendar)

1732 Hours

Heretic Chasm

"What actually happened between you and Repora?" Miara asked Utarz as he tried to get comfortable.

Utarz sighed angrily. "I told you that I don't wanna talk about it, alright? So let's stop talking about it."

"You always want to talk."

"No, I always want to piss someone off. There's a difference."

Miara growled. "Just tell me anyway."

"What do you care?" Utarz demanded. "I thought you hated me."

"I've been asking you the same question for about a year about Tracer." Miara replied. "You haven't been giving me a reason for that, so I won't be giving you a reason for this."

"Bitch." Utarz muttered under his breath.

"Alright, fine!" Miara snapped. "I care because I want to know what caused my brother to fall so far from grace that he's gone straight through hell!"

"I'm sorry, what?" Utarz asked, sitting up. "How have I 'fallen from grace'?"

"Oh, where to begin?! You're lazy, dishonourable, you have no idea how to fight and you're rude to everyone you meet!"

"I…"

"You try to take control of my life and shape it to you stupid ideals…!"

"Hey!" Utarz said loudly. "You may be seeing the BS meter when I say this, but I have had your best interests in heart for a long time now!"

Miara stared at him. "…My best interests."

"Yeah."

"Bullshit."

"Why do you think I push you away, huh? I don't want you to end up like me. Being a dick is the only way."

Miara glared at him. "What do you mean?"

"Remember when we were kids? You wanted to do everything with me. I had to be a dick to you, otherwise… well, we wouldn't have ended up much different from each other."

Miara stared at him. "…Do you have music going on in your head when you say stupid stuff like that?"

"Yeah, I've got a whole freaking concerto." Utarz said sarcastically, lying back down. "They're playing several hopeful theme songs."

"You could've, I don't know, not have been a dick?" Miara suggested. "That would've gotten rid of the issue."

"Yeah, no. That was my life choice."

"Why?"

"Does it matter?" Utarz demanded.

"Quite frankly?" Miara said. "Yes. So tell me."

Utarz mumbled something incoherently. Then he sat up straight and sighed dejectedly. "Fine." He looked at her. "Did dad ever tell you anything about Repora?"

"No." She blinked. "I wasn't aware that dad knew Repora."

"He didn't. At least… not face to face."

"Elaborate."

"What? What does that even mean?"

"Explain."

"Oh. Well…" He looked around carefully, as if he expected to see Repora come out of the walls. "You see, Repora used to part of a wealthy family in our Keep."

"Uh… he was? What's last name?"

"Herno."

"…Never heard of them."

"You wouldn't have." Utarz scratched his head. "Repora's dad had an… issue with one of Dad's policies. And you know what they do when that happens."

"They tried to have Dad assassinated." Miara said, realising what that meant. "And they failed."

"Yeah. So Repora's dad got killed by ours, and then his family was kicked out."

"Ouch."

"It gets worse." Utarz said grimly. "They didn't have any relatives that they could live with. They wandered about the local desert for a while… and then they sorta… starved."

"Starved?" Miara wasn't sure she wanted to listen to this anymore.

"…Yeah. Repora… had his mom and two sisters… so…"

"And they died?"

"One by one. Until Repora was left."

Putting two and two together, Miara nodded. "That's why he's a lunatic. It also explains why he killed politicians."

"Yup."

"…How do you know this?"

"He told me."

"Repora told you." Miara said in disbelief.

"…When I was a kid… around the time you thought that trying to eat wooden swords was a good idea…"

"Wait, so I was a toddler then?"

"Yeah. I was training with Dad with some practice dummies… it was going well and I was shaping up…"

"Then?"

"Then the training court exploded." Utarz said.

Miara looked at Utarz. "Uh… how old is Repora?"

"About my age."

"So… he managed to blow up the whole court… when you were both kids."

"Yup."

"How come I don't remember this?"

"Uh… think you were somewhere with mom." Utarz shrugged. "I dunno. Anyway, he found me and would've probably shot my face off if Dad hadn't intervened. He called the cops and took off Repora."

"And?"

"While we were waiting… Repora told be all this. He said that because of what Dad did to his family, he'll hunt me down and kill me."

"So…"

"So Repora is basically Dad's fault is what I'm saying." Utarz said bluntly. "My behaviour is like my personal 'fuck you' to Dad."

"That's it?" Miara asked. "Utarz, Dad didn't know what was going to happen. You can't predict… Repora."

"I know… but still." Utarz grumbled. "The only reason I stopped resisting the army joining was to get away from the constant death threats, and even then Repora followed me."

Miara said nothing. So did Utarz.

Meanwhile, Tank moved his head away from the wall and thought about what he just heard.

"So… something that Utarz's family did to Repora." Iro mused to himself. "That'll do nicely."

"Don't we want to actually know what his family did first?" Buzzsaw asked. "You know, to avoid making us look like idiots?"

"Relax." Iro said. "All we have to do is pretend that we know what we're talking about. Then, we can use that to our advantage."

"Yeah, but how? We don't know what happened! We'll just make ourselves look like morons!"

"It's our best shot." Iro said defensively. "As far as I know, the other two don't exactly have unstable pasts."

"Once again, we won't know what the fuck we're talking about!" Buzzsaw complained. "We need to at least get a sense of what happened!"

Iro threw his hands into the air. "So what's your genius plan?!"

"I dunno, have Tank eavesdrop or something?! Because what we have right now sucks. Big time."

"Why would Utarz just openly talk about something that he refused to talk to Tank about under pressure?!" Iro argued.

"How do you know it was under pressure?"

"Deductive reasoning."

"So guesswork."

"Oh, shut up."

"Oh yeah, I haven't heard that one before." Buzzsaw said sarcastically. "No, it's not like you never want to listen to what I have to say. It's not like you always tell me to shut up and scout ahead invisibly like a good little soldier."

"Buzzsaw…" Iro groaned. He knew what was coming and didn't want to listen to it.

"You just treat me with soooo much respect that it makes the Prophet's relationship with the Great Journey look like an abusive same-sex relationship!"

"Buzzsaw."

"I mean, it's not like us Grunts have to do all the work, is it?! We just have to sit to the side and let you Sangheili do everything for us!"

Iro sighed, trying to block the ranting out of his head.

"It's such a good thing that we don't live in a backwards society where the people at the top make the people at the bottom win all their little victories for them without getting any credit at all!"

"As I recall," Iro said. "Sangheili started treating you better after your race rebelled."

"…Touché."

"I'll think of something." Iro said. "Trust me."

Beep, beep, beep

Iro turned on his radio. "Yes?"

"Iro." Tank said on the other side. "Tank has information for you."

Atar hadn't slept in the past two days. He had taken to slowing down whenever he started getting bleary-eyed, then hitting his head on a nearby tree to jolt himself back into alertness. It was an exercise that wasn't going well.

But it was paying off, though. He had reached the base ahead of time.

He slowed down a lot in order to avoid falling off of the cliff, but then he found that there wasn't actually a way to take the Ghost down to the base that didn't end in more brain damage. So he abandoned the Ghost and climbed down to the base using only his hands and willpower.

Eventually, he reached the bottom. He turned around and looked at the purple mass.

"Good to be back." Atar said satisfactorily. "Now, to the radio room."

Atar ran into the base and to his room. It took a bit, but he got there in time. He turned on the radio and did his best not to sound to tired.

"This is General Atar of the Sangheili 800 Squad!" He said to the blank screen. "Come in command! Do you read me?"

"Yeah man, I read you." A lazy voice replied. "What's up, groovy man?"

Atar groaned. "Right. You."

The Jackal on the screen cocked his head to one side. "What'd you mean, man?"

"Never mind." Atar muttered. "I just forgot how much I hated you."

"Oh, that's cool man. What'cha need?"

For you to stop taking drugs. "I need backup. We've lost two of our soldiers and we need a replacement!"

"For both of your groovy dudes?"

"No. Just one."

"Alright. Give me a few seconds, man." The Jackal got up from his chair and walked off for a minute.

A few minutes passed. Atar was getting impatient.

Finally, the Jackal moved back into view. "Okay man, the boss has figured something out."

"Excellent! When is the soldier going to get here?"

"Well, I'll jump on one of your space ships…"

Atar double blinked. "Wait, what?"

"…and I'll be there tomorrow. What's up man? You don't look that well."

"Hold on. You'll be coming down?"

"Yeah, man. The boss said that I could be the replacement soldier. Something about getting rid of something nasty."

"WHAT?!" Atar shouted.

"Yeah. So I'll come up tomorrow, K, man? Sweet." The Jackal hung up.

Atar's eye twitched. "Him… recruit… ARRG!"

Atar threw his arms into the air and stormed to his bed. He requested reinforcements in order to increase their odds of success, not decrease them. What could a Jackal, a radio officer at that, possibly do to help them?!

Atar looked at his bed and sighed. No sense worrying about it now. He'd deal with it in the morning. Right now, he needed some serious rest.

On that thought, he plonked onto his bed and passed out instantly.

Repora couldn't sleep. Usually, he had no problems with sleeping, especially at night, after he'd done a lot of shit.

Unfortunately, Heaven and Hell were having a massive argument, and it's hard to rest when you've got two voices in your head shouting at each other.

"He must take up vengeance!" Hell snarled. "He must destroy the ones that betrayed him, the ones that he called 'friend'!"

"Forgiveness is rightness!" Heaven bellowed. "Is it not written in the Bible, 'You shall forgive someone seventeen times, then seventeen times over'? Or something to that effect, anyway."

"You read the Bible?" Hell said incredulously. "It's not even our religion!"

"It teaches us valuable lessons!" Heaven shouted back. "It tells us exactly how to deal with people like you!"

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"You know what it means!"

"Hey, both of you shut up!" Repora snapped, finally having had enough.

Heaven and Hell went quiet.

Repora looked around, making sure that he didn't wake any of the others up. Then he whispered, "I can't sleep when you two are shouting, alright? I need to focus in order to relax."

"I'm just saying that we must take revenge!" Hell insisted. "Heaven is just too short-sighted to…!"

"Short-sighted? Me?!" Heaven spluttered. "I'll have you know that I can see a lot more than you can!"

"Yeah, that's nice." Repora muttered. "Look, if you don't let me sleep, then I'll go to a psychiatrist, alright?"

That shut them up.

Satisfied, Repora continued. "Listen. We sorted out this whole head thing, alright? You guys keep to yourselves unless I say otherwise. We talked about this!"

"What gives you that right?" Hell asked.

"It's my head." Repora replied bluntly. "You guys are just guests that I can kick out at any time."

"Actually, we represent your subconscious." Heaven said. "We're stuck in your mind. You can't kick us out."

"Do you want to tempt fate?" Hell demanded.

"I can become sane any time I want." Repora said. "So unless you two want to…"

Snap

"WHUH." Repora suddenly sprang up, Fuel Rod gun on shoulder. He turned towards the source of the noise. "Helllllllllllo?"

Nothing.

"Are you an animal?" Repora whispered quietly. "Are you gonna be part of our next stew?"

"We don't have a cook." Heaven pointed out.

"Oh yeah." Repora said. "Well… should I follow the noise?"

"…May as well." Heaven said. "It might be a threat."

"Yes! Follow it!" Hell cackled. "Then, once we've found it, we'll kill it and strip its flesh off its bones!"

"…That's not what I meant." Heaven replied.

"Who cares?" Repora asked, walking into the forest. "We'll kill it anyway, might as well make it interesting."

As he walked through the forest, Repora noticed that there was a trail of broken sticks and twigs that led in a linear direction. He knew that the smart thing to do would be to wake the others, but he wanted to have all the fun to himself.

Heaven knew that this was probably a trap. But Hell urged Repora to go forward. Repora had never before picked a more inconvenient time to listen to Hell.

Finally, he reached a clearing with several broken twigs. Standing in front of a tree was none other than Iro.

"Repora." He said calmly.

"Asshole!" Repora replied cheerfully. "Where's the midget?"

Buzzsaw materialised, annoyed. "I have a name."

"To me, you're Midget." Repora replied. He turned to Iro. "And you are Asshole!"

"Charming." Iro said drily.

"So, what do you want to tell me before you die?" Repora asked quizzically, absentmindedly loading his Fuel Rod gun.

"We want to convince you to not kill us." Iro replied. "And kill someone else."

"That's nice, but I'm afraid that my kill target slots are full." Repora replied sadly. "First there's you lot and then there's Utarz. And he's currently at the bottom, to be honest."

"We want you to kill Utarz, actually." Buzzsaw pointed out.

"Oh!" Repora said cheerfully. "Well… hm."

"Something wrong?" Iro asked.

"Well, it's just that Utarz might be essential to the storyline later on." Repora replied. "I'm afraid that if I kill him now, then I might cause some sort of time paradox… thing. Or am I just stupid?"

Ignoring what Repora just said, Iro replied, "But surely you want revenge for what his family did to you."

Repora laughed well naturedly, then said "What?"

"Well, it's just that your whole family died because of them." Iro said. "If I were you, I would track them down to the ends of the universe just to kill them."

Repora stared at Iro blankly.

"Oh, dear…" Heaven murmered.

Hell grinned. "This guy is speaking my language."

"…I don't know how you know about this," Repora said in a deadly tone. "But I'd advise you to not make me angry."

"Think about everything his family has done to you." Iro whispered. "Think about how long you've wanted revenge for them… and now you have that chance."

Repora stared at him.

Satisfied that he had Repora's attention, Iro continued. "Utarz is in a ravine that we have fashioned into a prison. If you leave your comrades, then we can give you the coordinates."

"You're trying to distract me."

"True. But on the other hand, there's Utarz. The one who must bear the blame for what happened. Take your pick."

Repora stared silently at the ground.

"Repora," Heaven said cautiously. "He's trying to manipulate you. Don't let him do that."

"Aw, so what if he is?" Hell questioned. "We can finally kill Utarz. No more orders, no more duties. Nothing stopping us from putting one in his head."

"But the mission…" Repora thought aloud.

"Look, remember all those times you cursed Utarz?" Hell asked. "You were hell bent on destroying him. Now look at you. It's become a past time more than anything else. What happened to revenge?"

"We must forgive him." Heaven said desperately. "It was not his fault!"

"True… but he's his father's only son. Killing him will punish them both. After all, they deserve nothing else."

Repora debated over it for a moment.

Then he looked up at Iro.

"So," Repora said. "Where's this ravine?"

SNORE

Utarz groaned. "I don't know how you sleep at night, with that thing going on out there."

"I do my best to ignore it." Miara replied.

Utarz turned over. That thing snored so loudly, you'd think that it was sound asleep. Utarz knew better though.

"I wonder if we could put a muffler in his mouth." Miara muttered. "Or whatever he has."

"That'd be nice." Utarz sighed.

"I mean, seriously. Who sleeps that deeply?"

"He doesn't." Utarz said. "When I first came here, I accidently shot my plasma rifle and it hit somewhere near him. Woke him right up."

"You did? Was that the crash that I heard?"

"No, that was him when he woke up."

"What?"

"Yeah, he spazzed out and hit the boulder."

"When he woke up."

"Yeah, that's what I just said."

Miara was silent for a moment.

Then she asked, "How loudly can you yell?"

Utarz looked at her. "What sort of question is-?" His eyes lit up. "Oh! You mean…"

"Yeah."

"Ah… right."

Utarz stood up and crept towards the boulder. He knew that it was broken. Another forceful smash would probably do it.

He moved to the entrance and, as loudly as he could, shouted "WAKE UP!"

Miara winced.

Utarz quickly backed up.

WHAM

The boulder suddenly developed several cracks.

Then it fell apart.

"Okay, RUN!" Miara shouted, running for the exit. Utarz quickly followed. When he exited the cave, he quickly looked around for his rifle. He saw in the middle of the ravine and ran towards it.

Tank had completely frozen in shock upon breaking the rock. Realising what he did and what was about to happen, he quickly fired a few shots at Utarz, who was about to get the gun.

"Shit!" Utarz leapt forward in an attempt to dodge the rounds. He landed on the Plasma Rifle and immediately picked it up.

"Come on!" Miara shouted. Tank turned to her.

"Over here, big guy!" Utarz shouted, shooting at him.

Utarz ran towards the ramp, shooting a few shots at Tank in order to distract him. Tank, in turn, covered himself with his shield and fired several shots at them both. They ignored them and dodged the explosive blasts to the best of their ability.

Tank desperately charged at them, but they were way too fast. They had soon ran up the ramp and into the forest.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this.

Potato.