There was a peculiar, delightful feeling after a debriefing. It gave everyone a voice, gave them all a sense of purpose. It gave everyone a way to get things off their chest. It also gave Palmer an excuse to chew us all to pieces.

"So you endangered your entire team- both of your teams- on the single hunch that A: The Prometheans hadn't killed them, B: That the signs you found were your teams, and C: That your teams were in condition to make the escape?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying Commander." I responded with a lilt of annoyance.

She was of course asking these questions again to try and make me realize how stupid I had been. But no matter what she said, I would not feel guilty for going back for quite frankly, I was still overjoyed at my team being back.

Palmer's eyes bored into my own, and when she finally broke away, I was left with a sense of being read. I decided I didn't like that feeling. Palmer's eyes had moved on, though, and I was spared as she began drilling DeMarco and Thorne. They looked to be faring nearly as well as I was.

I looked over to them and shook my head before taking a breath and setting my face straight, "Commander Palmer, permission to visit Dragon in the infirmary? I am obliged to be with him right now."

Palmer eyed me suspiciously, she could probably see that it was only an excuse to leave, but I really did need to go talk to him. After a moment more she sighed and nodded, gesturing for me to leave. I took the leave, saluting before turning on a heel and striding out of the room. I found myself in the infirmary once more, Dragon now towering over me whilst still in armor. I chuckled when he turned and gave a heart smile chuckling.

"Chief! You have come to see me have you not?" he said.

I smiled and stood by his bed, "That's right. So what's going on?" I asked.

He gestured to his stump, "They are giving me new arm! A strong arm they say."

I wasn't surprised to hear he'd be getting a prosthetic, which, speak of the devil, was just carted in. The slim, female nurse looked at him and I, questioning "Nikolas Hall."

"That is me." he said, eyeing the metal prosthetic almost greedily.

She chuckled and began to unclasp his chestplate, letting it fall to the ground with a resounding thud. She looked over the stub of his arm which had been stitched up quite nicely by the on board doctors. The metal of the arm glinted in the infirmary's lights, the complex web of wiring and mechanics covered by a solid titanium alloy. She seemed satisfied and hummed to herself before taking a cord from the arm and plugging it into a small port on the back of Nik's head, his neural implants. He didn't seem phased or hurt by this so I didn't much concern myself with this, but when the petite woman hefted the arm up to his shoulder and it latched itself on, metal arms grabbing onto his shoulder, he gasped.

A wave of concern washed over me, but when he began flexing his hand and moving his arm about he yelled with joy, "It feels like I have my arm back!" he exclaimed with a smile.

The nurse smiled back and left without only a chuckle. He spent a good three minutes just flexing his hand picking up objects. He began telling me how he could feel as if they were his real fingers, as if his arm was never gone. His fun was interrupted when an engineer walked in and ushered him out to another room, one which I had no access to. It was understandable of course.

I turned and left the infirmary, walking through the enormous ship, taking a couple of minutes just to get to the war games. The team had agreed to a practice tournament during the debrief, and we were going to practice. We wouldn't be able to properly practice until we had our man back so this was just a crash course in essence. We didn't know what to expect from the war games so we left our A.I. in charge of working out the best training course they could.

The walk to the war games was a long one, located near the bottom of Infinity. My legs were more than well equipped for the journey, but it was more taxing on my mind to be left alone with my thoughts. I saw flashbacks of that day and the warthog wreckage, only days ago when I lost my team, what seemed so long ago when I lost my mom, my dad. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, relieved beyond belief when I bumped into Shikoba in the halls. The gentle giant was walking the halls to the games as well, albeit much slower. He seemed lost in thought as well. I could see part of his back behind his grey tank top, the wings of a crow branching off onto wither shoulder in an enormous proportion.

"Hey, Shikoba." I called out.

He turned and saw me, immediately upturning his lips into a smile. I smiled back, eyeing the dreamcatcher around his neck, "Samantha, ho are you?" he asked.

We didn't talk much, but he was very kind, the most we talked was tactics and on the battlefield. He called me Samantha, which I disliked, but I brushed it off for the towering man. He was no 117 but he was pretty damn close.

"I'm alright." I said, though it must not have been convincing, because he looked at me with searching eyes, a small smile still on his weathered, tanned face.

"I believe there is more to it than that Ardent. Tell me, what troubles you?" Dammit, he was good.

I sighed, I would have to tell him now or he would try and diagnose me himself, "I don't feel like I'm the right person to lead this team. I mean, look what's happened to you guys ever since I've started leading."

He gave off a chuckle and motioned me to walk with him. I obliged as he began to speak, "Do you mean the time we successfully retrieved a SPARTAN from a covenant corvette or the other time, when you saved us from a promethean construct?"

"See that's just it, you wouldn't have been in that situation if not for me."

"That's where you are wrong. You do not give yourself enough credit Ardent, it was our destiny to end up there, there was nothing you could have done that would have led us away from there. And it is your destiny to lead this team. You are doing a well enough job as of now, after all, you committed treason and they did nothing more than signed us up for a competition."

Everything he said was true, and there was no way I could argue with him, he was too damn good at this. I felt a smile creep back onto my face and I shook my head with a chuckle, "Thank you, Crow. You really are amazing you know that?"

He chuckled and sighed, "You are very welcome Ardent, I'm here anytime."

It had been longer than I though apparently because as soon as I looked ahead we were stepping into the war games. Everyone was suiting up in their training armor, nowhere near as heavy and only compatible with the war games simulators, me and Crow walked over to ours respectively and suited up as well. Each of us latching up the clasps on the back of the the carbon fiber armor for each other. We each stepped into a pod, turned around, and let the simulator suck us in.

Right after all of the taunting and smack-talk that your ears could handle that is.