Location: Jun's office, Hydra Base, Mars
February 2nd, 2553
7:12am
"Morning, Celest!"
"Good morning, Lady Celestina!"
"Morning, boys!" The Head Trainer of the Spartan Branch greeted with the cheeriest of tones. "I'm here to see you, Jun. I have a proposal for you."
The second-in-charge sat down his data pad on his desk and leaned against his chair upon hearing that piece of news. "Well, of course I'll marry you."
By the time that sentence hit her, Celestina had already skipped over to his desk, hands on the chair opposite him. "Not that kind of proposal, Jun!"
"Oh," Jun was definitely a little abashed and hoped he could turn that around somehow. "Well... At least you know where I stand. For... future purposes, you know?"
She giggled amiably, finding this whole situation amusing. "For sure. At least we got that one out of the way!"
He returned her giggle with a chuckle of his own, before motioning her to take the seat opposite him. "Have a seat. Now, what can I do for my princess?"
"As Head Trainer, I'd like to think that I'm... allowed to make some changes to the training sequence."
"Not 'think', Celest. You are allowed to. You have some new ideas?"
"I do," She switched on her data pad she had been carrying and scrolled through the contents to find what she was looking for. "What you already have before I joined is good, you know. An obstacle course and game types like Slayer, Capture The Flag and King Of The Hill are essential to training. It's what we played as kids," She then glanced up from her data pad. "But I wanna turn it up a notch."
By now, he was highly curious as to what his other half had cooked up. "I'm listening."
"Now, I'm not the best at naming things. My mom was good at that, but work with me here," She found the appropriate file on her data pad and proceeded explain its contents. "In addition to the matches we already have, I have a few more. 'Oddball' - you have to locate a spherical object on the field and hold onto it for the longest period of time possible while the others attempt to take it from you and do the same. My intention for this game type is to train the recruits to be quick on their feet. 'Invasion Slayer' - a team of Spartans going against a team of Elites. This is where my need for an AI is going to come in to create holographic projections of the enemies. And lastly, 'Dominion' - two teams will try to capture bases on the field. A base that's captured and held for a certain time will fortify, activate turrets and shield doors and other base defenses. Fortified bases will be periodically resupplied with new vehicles and Ordnance Drops. Points are awarded accordingly and the team with the most points wins. Put them all together plus the ones we've already got and I call them 'War Games'."
"Remarkable..." Death whispered in awe, just enough for the two former Spartan-IIIs to hear.
Jun couldn't agree more. "Celest, you are a genius. I'm in love with all of these new game types you have!"
She hugged her data pad close to her and had her radiant smile on her face. "Thank you!"
"I knew you had more ideas in you after you made that tag team variant of King Of The Hill."
"Let us not forget the Warthog variant of Capture The Flag, Jun," Death added, slinging his scythe over his shoulder.
"Let's not," He said with a little nod to his AI. "Tell me, Death. Does Hydra have space for all these wonderful game types?"
For that question, the sage-green AI brought up a mini 3D layout of Hydra Base. "The Training Bay is large enough," He said, spinning the holographic projection of the training bay around and inspecting it from all angles. "I see no reason why we cannot construct the necessary fields for some of the said game types. Perhaps we can even have two of everything!"
"Then I don't see why we can't make all of these changes," Jun was more than satisfied with Death's answer. "Forget about having an AI just to create those holographic projections, Celest. I want you to have one assisting you always. After all, some of the IIs and IIIs leave for missions every now and then and I can't have you working without much help. I'll make sure that we get the funding for this. If I have to twist Musa's arm, I will."
"Take precaution, my little Spartan," Death wiggled an armored finger at his carrier. "As a former Spartan-II, Musa might just twist yours."
"He's right, you know." Celestina said.
"Hm," Jun pouted. "You've got a point there. Old man's got spunk."
"OHHHH, SHOTS FIRED!"
Location: Spartan Training Bay
February 19th, 2553
11:46pm
When Jun walked into the Spartan Training Bay as instructed by Celestina, he found her standing in the center of one of the empty fields, holding her two combat knives. The both of them were in combat pants and boots, while she was in a tank top and he in a super comfortable long-sleeved shirt. Still morbidly confused as to why she would have him come to the empty bay at such an odd hour, he decided to get some answers. "Well, I'm here as you wanted, Celest. What's going on? What's with the combat knives?"
"It's very simple, sweetie," She had one of her mischievous smiles on. This was either going to be really fun or really terrifying. "You and I are gonna engage in a little one-on-one."
The mere mention of 'one-on-one' caused him to freeze. He attempted to regain his composure and find a way out of this. "At this hour? Jesus, Celest, there are better timings than this!"
"I needed the bay to be free so this is only rational timing possible. Now come on!" She extended out her left hand to offer him the combat knife with the dark green handle. "Grab it and let's dance."
She could very easily see the agitation on his face the moment she held out that knife to him. "A-actually, princess, I'm... a little tired. It's been a long day. Why don't we do this another time?"
"Oh," She brought both of the knives close to her chest, and her face said that she felt sorry for him. "My poor baby's tired?"
Anything to get the hell out of here. "Y-yes, Celest. Your poor baby's tired." His aim at a genuine smile was failing, but he hoped it could get him through this.
"You're sure it's not because you've lost your confidence in close quarters combat?"
Oh, what the shit. How the hell did she-? His mind started to run wild. However, he knew that there was only one explanation for Celestina's knowledge of that. So Jun took in a nice, deep breath and asked her, "Where's Death, Celest?"
She placed her hands on her hips, the knives still in her grips. "Why?"
"Because I'd like to strangle him with that dirty disgusting hooded robe of his and punch him square in his faceless face!"
Highly offended, the AI popped up next to his carrier in life-sized form, the sage-green fog he would usually appear with creating a circle around him to indicate his anger. "For YOUR information, Jun, my robes are not 'dirty and disgusting' and I am pretty sure I can drop you before you say 'princess'!"
"Oh, I'd like to see you try! You look like a grim reaper reject!"
"The grim reaper does not have a screech that can very well deafen people! Do you really want to take that chance?!"
"Bring it on, you little hooded-"
"LADIES!" They fell silent at Celestina's bellow. She raised her right hand with the combat knife that had the gray handle. "Am I going to have to cut a bitch? Jesus..."
Death turned his full back on Jun with a mighty huff. Jun did the same, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Yes, Jun. Death was the one who told me." Celestina added.
"Well, he should have kept his mouth shut." Jun murmured, refusing to catch a glimpse of the AI.
"Enormous tattooed baby..."
"Can it, Death!"
"Death doesn't have to keep his mouth shut, Mister Highest-Number-Of-Confirmed-Sniper-Kills-In-All-Of-Alpha," Celestina interjected, her voice tainted with sarcasm. "He had every right to tell me. Especially when it's YOU who should have told me in the first place!"
"I didn't think it was a big deal!"
"It is a big deal when you're afraid of doing something you're good at! It's an even bigger deal when you don't tell me about it!"
"What do you want me to say, Celest? That I'm sorry? Because I really am!" He pleaded.
"I wanna know why you'd keep something like this from me! Again." She complained, in reference to him not informing her about his issue with Sally's death 5 years ago.
"I didn't mean to, princess. Honestly. I really wanted to try and get past this but it was just too..." If there was one word to describe it, it would be, "Scary."
Her hazel eyes softened upon hearing that. "Scary?"
Jun wrapped his arms around himself as if to protect himself from the painful memories. She saw that dejection was all over his face. "You've seen the scars and burns the Covenant gave me, Celest. I've woken you up countless times due to the nightmares where I'm screaming and begging them to stop. It wasn't as if those alien bastards were poking me with a stick. You can't blame me if I don't want to do any close quarters combat."
She took a few steps towards him to close the gap between them a little. "Nobody's blaming you, sweetie. But you can't stay this way forever either. You're good at one-on-one! Emile taught us so much. Hell, even you didn't know that you had kickass moves like that! And you can get it all back, sweetie, if you just let Death and me help you."
"But Death's mad at me."
"Oh, I can NEVER stay mad at this face!" Death's merry voice rang through the empty bay. "Come here!" With that, he engulfed his carrier in a tight hug.
"Damn, Death!" Jun was taken by surprise by the sudden actions of his AI. "Never knew you gave killer hugs!"
"They are the best kind of hugs!"
Celestina rolled her eyes at the scene before her, though she was unable to contain her smile. "Get a room, you two!"
A/N: Yay for hugs from Death! XD I'd like to think that he turned out well in this chapter. So I hope you guys like it too! :)