My eyes cracked open, my lips widening in a yawn as our escape pod was lurched to the side. I looked around drowsily, seeing Fallen and Cro, accompanied by Lilith. All was well. I looked out of the very restricting window, seeing that the escape pod was being hauled into a pelican's bay. Just beyond I could see another identical pod also being towed in.
"We're being pulled in, prepare to disembark." said Sarah over comms, all of the pod's occupants releasing the handles on the walls and checking their equipment.
"Sam, Lilith is attempting to reach you over private comms." said Sarah to me only.
"Patch her through." I said groggily, yawning once more.
"Hey." said Lilith, as the channel opened up.
"Hey, what is it?" I asked, trying my best to not sound annoyed through my tired voice.
"Thank you for saving me-" she paused, "again."
I turned my head to face her, "What do you mean again?" I asked.
Lilith removed her helmet, a smile plastered on her face. I immediately recognized her. She was the same marine we'd saved on my first mission. I tried to take in all of this information at once, my brain slowly grasping what was going on. It must have been a while since I'd spoken, because Lilith looked into my visor with worry.
"Ardent? You ok?" she asked quietly.
I came out of my thoughts, "Yeah, yeah… Oh, and don't thank me, it's her and Meteor you'd need to be thanking." I said, gesturing to Fallen.
She turned around, hearing my voice in which I'd forgotten was not on comms anymore.
"Thank me for what?" she asked, seeing Lilith's face at the same time.
"How?..." she said, studying her every detail, her every move.
"All thanks to you." Lilith said, slipping her helmet back on.
Me and Fallen exchanged a glance of confusion before the pod's door was pried open, a marine with a prybar looking dead into Crow's faceplate, several armed marines just behind him, lowering their rifles at the sight of the SPARTAN. The marine stepped back as Crow's fingers wrapped around the pod's doorcase and squeezed, denting the metal. He pulled the door inwards, curling it open enough for him to step through. When he stepped through he ducked down at least half a foot before he cleared the casing. Fallen followed him out, then me, and Lilith. I let Lilith prop herself against me, her Gravity hammer and sniper still mounted to her back. I helped her limp/hop to a seat in the pelican before a marine medic began doing all he could. Which wasn't much for the absence of a breach in the armor. I turned back to the small group of marines, their legs just now stopping themselves from clacking against each other. I addressed them with a nod before turning back to the front of the pelican. I walked into the cockpit, in between the two pilots, and stared at the infinity's hangar get slowly closer as we went to land.
After getting off of the pelican and boarding Infinity once more, we all went to get our armor off. We went through the relatively simple process before walking back out, the lot of us headed for the courtyard area. Once we reached the large open complex of Infinity, we sat and talked for a while, leaned up against walls, sitting on stray crates, or just standing. After about 15 minutes we heard a call from the other side of the room.
"Hey, Crimson!" came a male's yell.
I turned my head to see fireteam Majestic walking towards us. I shoved off the wall and went to meet the group, my fireteam falling in place behind me.
"What's up Majestic?" I asked.
"Nothing, but I see you're doing pretty good, for almost getting two of your squad killed on your first mission that is." he said with a smile.
I twitched my lip up in a half snarl before a hand landed on his shoulder.
"DeMarco, come one man, not cool." said another member of the fireteam.
"I'll do what I want Madsen." spat DeMarco, shrugging his hand off.
"What do you want." I hissed as Madsen retreated, shaking his head.
"For you to stop making us look bad" he said, "your shitty missions affect the way the rest of Infinity views all of us SPARTANs."
"Well I'm sorry for doing my job." I said through gritted teeth, neither of the fireteams wanting to say anything to the leaders.
"Well I'm sorry that you were ever transferred here." said DeMarco.
I chuckled a bit, "Well I'm here now, what are you going to do about it?" I asked, a smile playing across my lips.
"Well the question is, what are you going to do about it. Matter of fact, why did they even make you leader? You're a girl for christ's sake!" he said with a chuckle, receiving a snarl from each of the girl's in either fireteam, "And who's this new chick? Another one for you to go and get killed? Why don't you just off yourself now, it'll save us a few casualties." he said, pushing on my chest.
I staggered back a bit and bit my tongue, trying to hold back, "DeMarco, don't push me."
"DeMarco, stop this, now. None of us wanted a part of this." said another one of the Majestic SPARTANs.
He shoved the other one out of his way, "Shut up Thorne, I'll deal with you later." he said walking forward.
"And if I push you, what'll you do about it?" he said with a large hint of hostility in his voice.
"You don't want to find out." I said, trying with all my power not to knee this man in his nuts as hard as physically possible.
He raised his arm to push me again but I was ready this time. I grabbed his right arm in my left, pulling him to me, in the same motion bringing my elbow to his ribcage. He let a breath escape his lips before I repositioned my elbow to jolt upwards into his armpit. He gasped in pain as I let go of his arm and pushed him over. He scrambled to his feet, taking an arcing swing at my head. I sidestepped, narrowly avoiding the heavy hit.
I felt a sting of pain on my left cheek before feeling my right cheek connect with metal. He had kicked me in the head, sending me tumbling to the floor. I pushed myself up, waving off Crow's attempts to help me.
"You guys stay out of this, this is personal now." I said, spitting on the ground in front of me.
I raised my fists at DeMarco, who in turn went to throw another punch. I dodged this one too, elbowing him in the back before turning to face him again. He stumbled forwards before regaining his balance and turning back to me. He growled, his lip twitching upwards. He stepped to me and tried to plant a foot in my chest. I caught his foot, sliding back with it before raising his leg and pushing forward. He fell to the ground once more, his leg still in my hand as I pushed it up to his chest, falling to the ground with him. He maneuvered his other leg to bend his knee over neck, pushing my head to the ground. He rolled over, putting a hand on my back and another on the one hand that wasn't caught under my body.
"Give up Ardent, you're done." he said with a chuckle.
I pushed up with the hand under my chest, lifting me up just enough to get a leg up, I pushed myself up with a knee, DeMarco allowing me to come up just enough to knee me in the stomach. I rolled over clutching at my stomach as I gasped for air. When I gained my breath again I went to stand, receiving a fist to the face for my efforts. I fell again.
Instead of going to stand up this time, I put my legs around either of his, scissoring his legs from underneath him. As he fell I scrambled to my feet, regaining my equilibrium. I was too busy catching my own breath to stop DeMarco from getting up as her rushed me again. I grabbed a bunch thrown at my stomach and tisted before throwing my own. He caught my hand as well. We were locked. I threw a knee and he blocked, I kicked he blocked and vice versa. I refused to let go of his hand and him mine as we fought for dominance. I started to slide backwards, his size advantage working against me. I pulled his hand upwards and let it cross under my other arm, each of our arms crossed over the other. I bent each elbow and pulled him closer before knocking my forehead against his nose. I heard a satisfying crack as he stumbled backwards holding his nose.
I breathed heavily as he removed hand and looked at the blood covered fingers.
"Why you little…" he stepped towards me.
I didn't know if I had much fight left in me, the lockup took a lot out. But I could see he was tired too. When he rared back I was too slow to dodge him. His fist connected with my jaw, sending me spiraling to the floor. I pushed myself up on feeble arms, blood spilling across the corner of my lip. I saw DeMarco on my left side. He raised his leg to kick me but the kick never came. I heard a thud and a yell from DeMarco, followed by several more poundings. I was helped to my feet by Madsen. Meteor was on my side in seconds, helping me to find a place to sit. He wiped my mouth clean and looked at my side and stomach. I could see though, just past his face, Thorne pounding the ever-living crap out of DeMarco. When Meteor left for even a moment, Jasmine was there, looking me over, seeing for herself the extent of the damage.
According to Meteor I had a few broken ribs, a bunch of bruises and a busted lip but other than that I was fine. But according to Thorne he made sure DeMarco was in much worse shape. We shared a chuckle before I thanked him.
"Anytime. By the way, everything he said, I don't know where that came from. Just DeMarco being DeMarco. But personally, I think you're doing great." he said, his voice sincere,
"Thanks, but why did you help me?" I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.
"Because I have wanted a good reason to hit him since we met." he said with a smile.
"Hey Thorne, come help me haul this corpse off will you?" said another Majestic team member.
"Be right there Hoya." he said over his shoulder before turning back to me.
He smiled and I smiled back. He placed his hand on my shoulder for a moment before going to haul DeMarco off to the infirmary.
I looked at Jasmine, "Guess I need to go to the infirmary too huh?" I asked.
"Yeah, I would think, come on I'll help you." she said moving forward.
"You gonna carry me?" I asked with a chuckle.
"Fat chance Samantha, now get up so I can help your stupid self." she said, a small smile appearing.
"Sam, never Samantha." I corrected before obliging.
"That's why I called you Samantha." she said, placing my arm over her shoulder and her own arm around my hips.
Every step hurt like hell, but with Jasmine to help, it wasn't too bad.