Alright, here it is, with thanks to SmokeTinyTom for beta-ing. Some explanation on how this chapter came to be: I have read multiple of the type of "transported into another universe/galaxy/time/planet" crossovers, in fact I am writing one, but I noticed that in a lot of those stories the families, friends, hell even pets, of the people in the story are barely mentioned and a lot of times even neglected. I have set out right these wrongs and give some attention to those left behind.

But back to business; I would like to thank all the reviewers/followers/favoriters for taking their time to read Phantom Pain. Already is this story nearing 5000 hits and I just wish I could send you all a cookie. I won't of course, that would be hella expensive, but a man can hope right?

The amount of Americans reading is astounding and I am sorry for mostly using a metric system that makes sense (Just kidding) therefore: 1 feet is 30 centimetres, 1 mile is ~1.6 km and a yard is ~90 centimeters.

I've got another reference hidden in here. Well, if you've read RA it should be pretty damn obvious. Please tell me if ya found it!

Don't forget you can submit ideas to me and reviews help me improve on my writing and the story overall.

Enjoy

~Chapter 7~

3 weeks ago, Mars, Orbital docks
1243 hours local time

Gus couldn't believe it, after one year in the Marine corps he had been chosen to become a Helljumper. A Helljumper, the most badass soldiers of the UNSC, well except for SPARTANs maybe. Training had been brutal, and about 70 percent of the recruits hadn't made it.

He looked at his forearm to see the freshly tattooed image of the ODST logo; a SOEIV with a flaming skull and a scroll at the bottom that had four words written on it; Feet first into Hell.

He was wearing his all black ODST fatigues, a tight black t-shirt with 'ODST' written on it in big white lettering, a pair of black cargo pants and black combat boots. All in all a very intimidating sight that was all the more intimidating because of the reputation of Helljumpers being crazy bastards.

And now he was going on his first deployment as one of the Marine corps' elite soldiers aboard the Marathon II William of Orange.

He was shaken out of his thoughts when a blur of black hair almost tackled him in a hug. He chuckled an hugged his little sister back. "Hey Em."

His 16 year-old sister broke the hug, "Gus, we missed you sooo much! You're taller." She stated the last thing rather than asking it.

"yes, I got some small augmentations after- wait, we? Is mom here too?"

"Yes, of course!" she answered as if he had just said something really stupid, "She wouldn't let you go without saying goodbye."

"Of course, of course. Now where is she?"

A tall woman with long black hair, the same black as he and his sister had, turned the corner as if looking for someone and smiled when she saw her son and daughter.

"Mom," he hugged her too, "How are you?"

"I'm fine Gus, thank you. How are you?" she asked in return.

"Well, training was brutal, but I survived."

She showed a small smile and hugged her son again. After she let go, he turned to his sister and saw he holding hands an South-American looking boy her age who looked kind of nervous and he narrowed his steel grey eyes.

"Gus-" his mother tried to say something, but the newly trained ODST cut her off.

"Emily, who is that?" he said, not looking away from the boy.

"Bro, calm down, this is Rico, my boyfriend."

"And how long has he been your 'boyfriend'?" he asked while making air quotes at the word boyfriend.

She looked down at her feet and mumbled something. "What did you say?"

She spoke a bit louder now, "Two weeks after you left for training."

Gus raised an eyebrow and he suddenly changed from threatening to happy, "Well, good for you! Why didn't you tell me?"

"So you're okay with us dating then?" Rico asked.

"Oh hell no, but there's not that much I can do about it from space is there?" after he said that his mother and sister both looked visibly relieved and Rico looked like he was going to get down on his knees and send a thankyou prayer to whatever god(s) he believed in.

The intercom suddenly crackled to life, *The UNSC William of Orange will depart in 15 minutes, all personnel please sign in and board.*

"That's my flight, I'll miss you." he hugged his mother and his sister and then shook Rico's hand a little more firmly than necessary and bent forward so that only he could hear what he said, "If you hurt Emily I'll personally snap your wrist, understood?" the boy just nodded and visibly gulped. Gus patted him on the back with a smile, "But I'm sure that won't happen."

He took a step back and took in the family in front of him. His mother, his sister, his sister's boyfriend. Slowly he turned around and made his way over to the check-in.

Present

Gus looked at the picture in his hands. He, his mom, his sister and his dad when he was still alive, sitting on a comfortable couch with a lot of shredded wrapping paper around them and a Christmas tree in the back. He sighed, would he see them again? He was in a different galaxy now and he had no idea if they would be able to return.

"That your family?" a young ranger asked, he remembered his name, Will Barton, as he sat down next to the Helljumper.

Gus glanced at him, he couldn't be much older than him, perhaps 23- 24 years old. "Yeah, got any at home yourself?"

"No, I was raised as an orphan, joined the military as soon as I could. I have a few friends from the orphanage that are practically family, but nah, not really."

"Aren't you Oaken squad? I heard Sergeant O'Carric is a real hardass, they say he never smiles."

Will chuckled, "Yeah, but he's been sort of a mentor to me ever since I joined Oaken. If you get past all the insults and sarcasm, he's really a good man."

Gus was about to say something but was interrupted by a transmission from Miranda, "Hey Mir, what's up?" he could afford to be more lose around her, he'd actually befriended her in the weeks they had been stationed on the ship.

*Gus, can you explain to me why Ratha is sleeping in my cot?* she said with annoyance clear in her voice.

"Well, she was panicked after the whole commotion in the hangar, so I put on The Lion King and after a while she fell asleep."

*Alright, but why my bed?*

"You're the only one that wouldn't beat me up for it."

*Even Emma?*

"Especially Emma."

Miranda grumbled a bit, *I'll get you back for this.*

"Of course you will." He cut the call and noticed Will looking at him with one arched eyebrow. "It's not like that." He quickly said.

"I'm sure it's not. I have to go to the war room for a debrief, cya." He said and walked away and Gus could see him lightly shaking his head in mock disapproval.

Gus rolled his eyes again. Dammit!

He decided to go to the gym, but before he could even set a single step out of the common room, Edward appeared in front of him.

"Dammit Ed! You scared the crap outta me."

The AI smiled, "Captain Hallsson has requested you to come to his office, it's about the girl."

"Alright, should I bring her with me?"

"That won't be necessary." The AI waited for the private to leave, "Any time before noon would suffice Swanson." Edward said as he noticed the private drift off into thought.

Gus didn't know if he had to salute the AI so he simply nodded before quickly making has way over to the captain's office.

After about seven minutes he made is to a door guarded by two marines baring the nameplate; [Captain Andrew M. Hallsson], and knocked.

"Come in." came the muffled reply from the inside of the office.

The door opened with an almost inaudible hiss and he entered the simply decorated room. Several bookshelves stood on one side and a few pictures hung from the walls. In the middle of the room stood a simple metal desk with several items on it, some more pictures, a few empty mugs, a stack of actual paper, Who even still uses that? ,and a small model of the Orange. At the desk sat his captain in a leather office chair and a beautiful view of the planet they were orbiting was visible through the window behind him.

Gus saluted and clicked his heels together, to which the captain saluted back half-heartedly. It was clear Hallsson was tired by the way he moved and the large bags under his eyes.

"Take a seat, will you. I'm too tired for fucking formalities." He motioned towards the other chair across from him and Gus sat down on the comfortable leather cushions.

"I've asked you to come here because I've talked with the Jedi on Naboo about whatshername and asked if he could take her to the Jedi temple."

The look of confusion on Gus' face must have been obvious, because Hallsson immediately explained it to him.

"Sooooo… what Ratha did in the hangar is called the Force and there is an entire order of warrior monks based around it? With all due respect sir, but how hard did you hit your head in the hangar?"

The captain sent a withering glare at the private who immediately shrunk away and apologised.

"We found it in the data from the invaders' ship and from the Planet's own databanks." He explained.

"Then what did he say?" Gus asked. "Sir."

Hallsson sighed and even had the decency to look a bit sad, "She's too old, they won't take her in."

"Then what do we do sir? She's got nowhere to go."

"She's lost her parents, I get that, but this is still a military ship and we can't have children running around here." Gus looked disappointed. "But. There is a danger in the force if she is not trained and, it pains me to say this, but if we're stuck here for long our own Jedi could come in very handy. I am willing to allow her on the ship on the condition that she is trained. I've already asked M'tar 'Vadum to teach her to fight with an energy sword and he accepted, albeit with a bit of reluctance."

The young private was stunned. Both because his captain would see her as a useful asset, as if she wasn't even human and because a Sangheili had accepted to teach a human. It had happened before, but not very often. The energy sword was still the most sacred of weapons of the Sangheili race.

"She trusts you, don't fuck it up private."

And with that Gus stood up, saluted and went to the common room. He could use a nice cold beer right now.

10 days later, Mars, New Paris
1923 hours local time.

Emily was laying on the couch watching a sitcom. She had no idea why she was watching it, it wasn't really funny at all, but it helped her not think about school and relax a little. She still had to think what to ask for her birthday. Maybe one of those retro phones? No, I just got a new one. A gun? Mom wouldn't allow it. Maybe Gus could by me one. New clothes. Yeah that'd work, you never have enough clothes. A trip to Disneyland on Earth? No, too expensive. I wonder what Gus would get me. Speaking off, I haven't had a video message from him in a while. Meh, he's probably just busy with secret government stuff. He said he would make it for my birthday though, only one more month.

She was ripped away from that train of thought by her mother asking her if she could turn on the news from the kitchen, so she quickly switched channels. The man was talking about some boring financial thingy and she didn't really pay attention.

She noticed her mother standing in the living room holding a pan filled with raw potatoes and her sparse interest was drawn in by the next item and she turned up the volume a bit.

"We have gotten news that around a week ago a task group consisting of two cruisers, one UNSC and one USC, has disappeared off the radar completely while investigating a moon on the frontier. It is unsure what happened and a UNSC-USC fleet has already secured the system. There are no signs of battle and nothing except huge amounts of radiation from an apparent slipspace jump has been found. Remote records show no indication that neither of the ships executed a command for a jump. We can only assume it was an accident and even though the location is highly classified the moon is already being called Bermuda by people on mass media. UNSC and USC officials wouldn't let lose any more information except for the names of the two missing cruisers and a list of those aboard said ships."

Emily had a strange feeling of dread in her stomach, like she knew what the anchor-man was going to say.

"The missing sips are the Battlecruiser Unbending Justice, captained by Kiyo' Mantakrea and the Marathon II-class heavy cruiser William of Orange, captained by Andrew Hallsson. This is what the government officials had to say…"

Emily zoned out. The William of Orange. That was the ship her brother was on. The brother that had always loved her, the one she played games with, the one who raised her after their dad died and their mom went into a depression, the mighty Helljumper who had been so excited when he told them the news of him being accepted for the ODSTs, the brother who had always protected her and even intimidated her boyfriends into buying her gifts. He was gone now. It was not certain what happened, but it was pretty clear what the UNSC had left unsaid when they gave out the list of names. 'Assume that they are dead.'

she looked at her mother who still stood stunned. She had dropped the pan as soon as the name of the ship was said.

Tell me if I should do more first-person POVs.

Hope you enjoyed and may the Chief be with you.