A/N: Hey, remember me? No? Not suprised, really. Haven't gotten a single hit in a week. Whateves, I'm posting this, in the hopes that somebody (You know who you are, you awesome reviewer you) will read it.
So, here is Freshmeat. I am particularly proud of him.
The barrel they were all huddling around shown with a glow like the soul of a Jack-o-lantern, and the meager heat it gave off barely reached the shuddering gears inside their heavy armor. Human steam poured harshly out of the helmets most of them were wearing, the cold January air too brisk to have them off. They were all silent, listening to radio transmissions from their earpieces.
"How do they do it?" Asked one of the smaller gears in a quiet voice, the noise carrying through the helmets to the rest of the squad, not a peep coming out of the mouthpiece. His armor was spotless and the lancer on his back seemed to have come straight off the line. Private Freshmeat was the moniker he currently bore, but he was sure that it would change to something along the lines of "Corporal Dipshit" over the course of the month.
"Who, Delta squad?" Said a scarecrow in armor, tall and thin enough to get stuffed through a doggy-door. He had a sniper rifle across his knees, and his head was constantly swiveling, surveying the suroundings in a specialized helmet with wider goggles shaped like a visor.
"Yeah." Private Freshmeat said. "In oiling camp-"
A stocky gear with armor covered in bullet holes turned (quietly of course, some people still didn't believe that the Krill were gone forever) and hissed at the private. "Jesus Christ, Freshmeat, call it boot camp. You'll make the COG seem like a bunch of queers getting each other lubed up in preparation for the Locust-assfucking."
"in boot camp," Freshmeat hissed back irritably, "the first thing the sergeants drill into you is to never let your emotions take over. They tell you to think you're a machine. Don't feel, sense. Understand. React. Rage is not your master. The second you lose your cool, you lose your observation skills, and then the Locust will burrow up behind you when you're not looking and turn you into grub-food."
"Yeah, so?" asked the scarecrow.
"When I saw Delta going at the Locust, they were yelling and screaming, taking careless risks. Dom Santiago was running up to grubs and sawing them in half. Marcus Fenix popped up from behind cover and sprayed grubs with a shotgun. Cole Train took on entire squads of Locust by himself. It seems like these guys are testosterone filled risk-takers, not rational and cool machines."
The scarecrow pulled off his helmet, and a practically emaciated skull appeared, framed by limp blond hair. He attached his longshot to his back, then rummaged around in his helmet before finding a cigarette, lit it, and set his helmet on the ground.
"Tinydick," He whispered into his headpiece with a glance at the Private, and let out a dragons breath. "You have no idea what the war's about. You wanna know how Delta Get's Shit Done? You wanna know how they killed a giant worm from the inside?How they destroyed the Krill breeding grounds? How they killed RAAM?" He chuckled. "Let me give you a brief overview."
He took a deep drag, and resumed his diatrabe. "Delta's sergeant, Marcus Fenix, comes from a distinguished background. Rich parents, established (if minor at the start of the war) military career, and sentenced to prison for disobeying a dick-order. He has been in pretty much every major operation since the Pendulum wars.
"Dominic Santiago, commando since he was eighteen, Emergence war veteran. His wife and family are all dead, killed by the Locust. Been fighting for his family and himself the minute he dropped out of high school.
"Augustus Cole, AKA Cole Train, established body-crusher in his thrashball career. He dominated the circuits when they were still around, and ran circles around entire teams. Been fighting ever since he got the draft letter."
Scarecrow took another deep drag.
"How come these people can fight the war for decades and still be kicking ass?"
Tinydick was silent.
"It's because they are the war." Scarecrow said, waving his slowly shrinking ember. "They aren't humans. They aren't COG. They're Marcus, Dom, and Cole, fighting because they have nothing else. They don't know why they're not dead yet, so they go crazier and crazier with every near death experience, until getting eaten by giant worms becomes the norm. Killing massive Locust? Been there. Going to the center of the earth and capture Locust beasts and use them against the Horde? Hell, that's Saturday's. They produce the killing machine thought-process naturally, and that screaming and yelling that they do, those insane tactics, are the only things that keep them human."
They were silent, watching the fire in the barrel slowly eat up the timber they'd stuffed in it.
"Don't worry, kid." Said the hulk of a gear next to him. "The way the war is going, some idiot in High Command is gonna think it's a bright idea to have nuke everyone so that the locust can't fight us anymore, and you'll never have to see a grub again."
Tinydick sat dejected, and started seriously reconsidering his career choice.