Like Ashes to the Wind
Location: Unknown
Time: Unknown
Date: Unknown
He woke with a start to the sound of distant voices, muffles of sound that he couldn't quite comprehend. He heard at least two of them, though there were possibly three. It was hard to tell by pitch on some alone. He tried glancing around himself curiously but, just like last time, his head refused to move. Instead he was restricted to just his eyes.
Just like last time, he couldn't see anything. But now he could tell that there was a color. He saw white and silver before him, and maybe a shadow moving beyond it. Maybe it was just a figment of his imagination, maybe it was the person, or thing, that was making the noise. They were beyond some sort of veil. There was a shine to it, light going through it like a sort of foggy glass. It wasn't bright, that much he could tell, because when he closed his eyes he could just see darkness, no light bright enough to make his eye lids glow red. So at least if he got through it he wouldn't be immediately blind. That or the foggy glass was just that thick.
The voices beyond the glass quieted down, an eerie silence replacing it. Part of him wanted them to come back, to get him out of whatever sort of purgatory he was currently inhabiting. This mind-numbing nothingness was really getting to him. He didn't know why, but he had a vague recollection of another voice, even voices, with him at all times. He didn't know what those voices were, what they were doing, why they were there. He didn't know if they were ever real. Maybe he's insane? Or had once been insane? No, that couldn't be right, an insane person doesn't realize they're insane, at least that's what he read somewhere.
The muffled noises came back, but this time with more urgency, a sense of pressure that he couldn't quite identify. He raised an eyebrow in curiosity. What could've caused the sudden change in tone compared to last time? Scratch that, how long has it even been since the voices left? Had it been a few seconds, a few minutes? Hours? Days? It was impossible to tell the passage of time wherever the hell he was.
On second thought, why should it even matter? He was still no closer to escaping this place, this prison, than the first time he heard the voices. Maybe he should go back to figuring out who he is instead.
Alright, he couldn't figure out a name for himself, that was a given. Perhaps he should choose to think about a memory of something. He clearly remembered being someone important, at least at one point. He was in charge of a very important goal, someone who needed to collect something, or some things. Like pieces of something. He didn't recall what they were for, only that they would achieve a very important goal. That was something at least.
He did know, somehow, that he had gained some pieces before and had felt… different. Powerful, even. Like an energy had coursed through his veins and gave him renewed strength and a sense of purpose. Maybe if he ever got out of this strange purgatory he'd go looking for them again. Not like he had anything else to do.
His eyes darted up as he heard a metallic clang reverberate in front of his face. Now that was curious. What could have made that noise? Was it the sound of the method of his rescue from this nothingness, or just a one-off? He didn't know, but he was eager to find out.
Location: Praetor System
Time: 1700 Hours
Date: June 19, 2557
When Tucker finally woke up, his vision was nothing but white and grey beyond his helmet. It puzzled him. He could've sworn he had just fallen from orbit, just barely escaping a HAVOK nuke. The thought alone struck home. He'd escaped a nuke and did it the way Spartans during the Great War had when reentering atmosphere: without a ship, pod, or anything of the sort. It felt awesome. Now, he wondered, where had he landed?
He craned his head and looked around, but found he couldn't move it far. Maybe he'd gone blind from the flash of the explosion. That was a thing, right? He always thought he'd go blind one day, but from some sort of STD he picked up from banging a hot chick, not from an explosion as bright as the sun.
He flexed each individual finger, reaffirming himself that they were still there and that he wasn't in some sort of haze. Well, he could feel them, so that was a good sign. He tried to move his limbs, but there was a weight on them, not particularly heavy, but bulky, like a fat person or a particularly firm pillow. All he had was his visor and vitals to look at. His Heads-Up Display indicated that he still had his sword on him and that he hadn't sustained any worrying injuries, but his motion sensor was failing to boot up. He couldn't tell if there was anyone around him. His external sensors could tell him, however, that it was five degrees Fahrenheit outside his armor. That meant he was most likely buried under a snow bank.
He made a second attempt at shifting the snow off of him, and was met with the same level of resistance. So instead he sighed and laid where he was. He hoped he hadn't landed too far from the others. He clearly remembered not making it back into Four-Seven-Niner's pelican before being violently thrust away by the force of the explosion.
He was just about ready to call it quits and take a nap when he heard rustling above him. Suddenly his helmet radio blared to life. "Hey trooper, you alive down there?"
He recognized the voice instantly despite having only two interactions with her and the fact that there was still a giant question mark as to what she was in the dynamic that was the Reds and Blues. "Yeah, I'm here," was all he said in response. He heard shuffling above him and the crunch of ice and snow. Little by little the weight on his body was lifted and he found he was able to push himself up to a sitting positon.
After a minute or so the snow finally came away from his face, removed by a cyan gauntlet. Agent Carolina's helmet came into view, her Rogue helmet looking down on him with a disapproving glare. If it weren't for the fact he'd seen what she already looked like, he'd have recoiled a little in fear. As it stood, he just looked up at her impassively.
"Hey baby," he said, one of his signature smiles forming on his lips. "Did ya miss me?"
Carolina scoffed in disgust. "As if." She halted her previous task and stood up. "Looks like you can get up yourself with that attitude." The Freelancer turned and began walking away.
"Hey, wait!" Not wanting to be left behind, he scrambled to his feet, the remaining snow sliding off his armor. He strode up to her, making sure he still had his sword on him as he did so. It was mag-locked to his thigh. He had absolutely no idea where his DMR went though. Must fallen off him when he landed.
He looked over at Carolina and saw that she had a leg perched on a rock, one of her fingers pressed to the side of her helmet. "UNSC All or Nothing, this is Agent Carolina. We have crashed on the surface of Praetor and are seeking immediate extraction. Over." There was a pregnant pause before she continued. "UNSC All or Nothing, please respond." The Freelancer audibly sighed at the lack of response. "Damn it, comms are down."
Meanwhile Tucker looked around the area where he fell for his second weapon. His sword was good and all that, but he really needed a ranged weapon if he was going to be of use anytime soon.
"Looking for something?"
Tucker whipped around to face Carolina. "Yeah, have you seen my…" His words died in his throat as his answer laid before him, on Carolina's back next to the Gravity Hammer. "Hey, baby, you found it, cool. Can I have my DMR back?" She seemed to bristle for a second.
"Call me 'baby' one more time, and your friends will never be able to find your body in these mountains," she threatened.
"Okay, okay," he raised his hands defensively, "no more 'baby', got it." He paused for half a second, judging his next words carefully. "How about 'sweet-cheeks'?" She shot him another warning glare and that was answer enough for him. Even with his sword he wasn't confident he could take her on, and he'd rather not lose his only ally in the foreseeable future. Speaking of allies…
"Where's everyone else?" he pondered.
"At least a dozen or so kilometers north of here. I don't know exactly how far, though," she answered, taking his DMR of her back and handing it back to him. He took it gratefully. "Could take a couple of days to get to them though."
"Why do you say that?"
Carolina gave him another supposedly annoyed glare. "Do you see where we are right now?" She gestured to the area around them. Now that Tucker thought about it, he hadn't really looked at the surrounding land.
They had crashed in the side of a mountain, with snow-covered cliffs and evergreen vegetation. From the cliff they had situated themselves on he could see an entire range of similar-looking mountains. The valleys were filled with green pine tree forests. And there was snow and ice covering just about everything. It gave off a sort of untouched serenity to it. It was quite beautiful. It was also isolated.
"Ohhh, I see what you mean," he realized. "Well, might as well get going then if we're going to make it to them before dying of thirst or something stupid."
"Agreed," she drawled. Without another word, she began walking down the cliff, taking a gentle slope that would lead them to the valley floor and, eventually, the next mountain. He hoped the range wasn't that fucking big, or he'd never hear the end of it. He had a strong feeling the Freelancer was going to have a hard-on for radio silence and all that other non-fun bullshit. Heh-heh, hard-on. Bow-chicka-bow-wow.
He really hoped Church, Tex, and the others were faring better than he was.
"Put that fire out before we lose the internal motherboard, now!"
"Jesus, I'm doing the best I can, lady!"
"Well, do better! That equipment still has valuable data in it!"
Tex tuned out the bickering going on between Four-Seven-Niner and Grif, making yet another attempt to raise both Church and the All or Nothing. So far she had been met with static. Sighing in frustration, she turned back to the heap that was their pelican.
The pelican came down hard in the side of a mountain, its controls still scrambled from the nuke's shockwave. Four had barely been able to wrest control back just as they were about to crash. As it stood, that alone may have been the only reason they all emerged unscathed. Sure, she and the Simulation troopers would've probably made it given the enhanced energy shields they all now have, but Four-Seven-Niner certainly wouldn't have. Good thing too, 'cause it'd have been a shame if she was killed this early on.
The lack of a signal was worrying. Even with just their helmet comms they should still have been able to contact ships out to a relatively far distance from the planet's surface. The fact the All or Nothing hadn't responded meant only one of two things: that either there was something blocking their signal like a radio jammer, or it had been destroyed. Neither thought was particularly comforting, but the former was slightly better. At least that one meant they still had a ride out of here and that Wash was alive as well.
Despite not having interacted with him much during the Project's heyday, she knew he was a good kid at heart, always with the best intentions in mind. Or at least that's the way he had been. The fall must've changed him a lot more drastically than she thought. He seemed stiff, professional, almost cold, a distant echo of what he used to be. Or maybe that was because of Epsilon being implanted into his brain. It was hard to tell. Maybe it was both.
What really worried her the most, however, was that Church hadn't made it back into the pelican with them before the nuke detonated. She felt nervous, anxious even, at him not being there with her. The feeling was just so foreign to her. She was Agent Texas. She was tough, strong, brutal; she wasn't anxious. The last time she'd felt this way was years ago, when she had been Beta, a similar yet different person than who she was, who she wanted to be.
She didn't want to be another Beta, another shadow of a dead woman, someone who was intermittently bound by some secret oath to the Alpha, someone who was supposed to protect Church yet ultimately seemed to fail time and time again. Maybe that's what was causing the stress, the anxiety: the fear of failing like Beta, of reliving that nightmare of a past life.
Or maybe it's because another good thing she had was being taken from her. She didn't count that many things as being good to her, very few things ever really brought her joy or satisfaction.
Her time in Blood Gulch was one of them, just watching a bunch of idiots perform some outlandish stunts and a few ill-conceived plans. It was amusing. And, eventually, it became endearing.
Another was Agent York. He was a good guy to be around, even through the wittiness and foxlike charm that made her roll her eyes and want to punch him half the time. He had helped her get to Church the first time, had betrayed the organization he'd worked for to help someone he barely knew, simply because it was the right thing to do.
The last, and most recent one, was Church himself. When she first came into being, she knew nothing about him other than she was supposed to protect him, be strong and mean, and be his girlfriend. But she wanted more, to find out more about who she was.
And she'd found it.
Over the years since that day she'd nearly been trapped by the Meta and Wash inside the very same containment unit Epsilon had first been stuck in, she'd slowly been able to find pieces of who she had been. Through various sources, from old files dug up from the Project's archives to official UNSC documents, she was able to find out who she was and who she'd been based on. She had been Agent Texas, the best Freelancer there ever was, a fierce fighter and an amazing Agent.
But before that she'd been a shadow of the one named Allison, the Director's lover and, if the records were true, his wife. She'd been a soldier, a Marine, during the Human-Covenant War and had died during one of the earliest engagement in the prolonged conflict. She wasn't anything particularly special to the UNSC. But she had been everything to Director Leonard Church.
When he began his work on Artificial Intelligence and Project Freelancer, his wife's file had been immediately redacted, a result of partaking in the opening battles of the war. He couldn't figure out a way to get access to those record, but she could. Being part of a Special Operations unit had its perks, after all.
She'd ultimately found that she didn't want to be like this woman. She didn't want to retread the groundwork of the thing she was supposed to be, to be someone else. Tex didn't want to be a shadow. She wanted to be her own person.
Tex thought the best way to be that person was by trying to separate herself from Church. Easier said than done when they had both been AI and she had been programmed to follow him around and protect him like a guard dog. Honestly, she had wanted to break away from him, but there was always a sort of subtle presence in the back of her mind that kept pushing her back to him. Must've been part of her inner framework, of the ones and zeroes that made up her conscious.
But when the time came, when they were able to transfer their consciousness' into physical human bodies, not just waste away from rampancy in androids that could parody them, she did her damnedest to try to get away from him. She actually tried seeking relationships that weren't with him. And they were refreshing…
… at first. She soon found that, after a while, it got harder to connect with them on a personal level. She found that, much to her chagrin, they weren't like Leonard. They didn't rage incessantly whenever she did something reckless or she pushed their buttons like he did; they didn't show begrudging nods of gratitude when she helped them; they didn't show any amount of wittiness or humor he showed. She couldn't believe she actually missed him.
She remembered actively arguing and fighting with herself about what she should do about those lingering feelings towards him. They were… jumbled, confused. It had been hard to think about. For once in her life, a decision of what to do didn't come easy to her like it usually did. Should she try leaving him, forge her own path, as a true Freelancer? Maybe the strange feelings would go away in time. She had a hunch they wouldn't have, though. Should she reluctantly stay with him, hovering over him but not try to get attached? That had worked in the past, hadn't it? Now that she'd thought about it, maybe that plan never worked as well as she'd wanted it to. She'd just been good at lying to herself about that.
Weeks went by, months, possibly even a year, as she struggled with the decision, keeping Church just out of sight and out of mind while she did so. She remembered him getting frustrated at Tex distancing herself from him. She could also tell that he was struggling with something similar, maybe the exact same thing as her.
Finally, she relented. She was going to do what she believed was the only way forward. She was going to try fixing her relationship with him.
So, in spite of her original goal, she went back. She made it her goal, her mission, to reconnect with Church. Which was easier said than done considering just how great they were at being open to each other about their feelings. But she had to try. She owed herself that much. She wouldn't fall into the same traps that Allison did with the Director, get caught up in all the indecisive bullshit that made up the backbone of their relationship.
Now, finally, after spending all that time, all those years poring through article after article of relationship guides on the internet, trying to grasp what she needed to do, and spending all that energy rebuilding the foundations of their relationship, it had been yanked away just like that. That fucking nuke just had to go off before Church could reach safety, just after she had told Leonard how much he meant to her. She'd spoken those three words, the three words that made up the second-hardest phrase for her to speak. Now she was stranded with no way of knowing where either of them were. Hell, she didn't even know if he was alive. And that thought scared her more anything else.
She quickly shoved those thoughts to the back of her mind. Worrying about Church wasn't going to help anyone right now.
Tex turned back to the Reds and Blues, getting a brief assessment of their status. Grif was busy spraying a fire extinguisher over some internal components in the pelican while simultaneously getting chewed out by Niner. Simmons looked like he was typing away at a datapad he'd gotten his hands on earlier, no doubt siphoning through the data chip she'd given him from their excursion on the platform. Sarge, Lopez, and Donut had been busy pulling out whatever spare equipment they could find from their dropship, with the Red leader going over inventory and probably coming up with another of his ridiculously convoluted plans. And Caboose had been helping with the process, but he seemed kinda… distracted. Probably also had something to do with Church. She guessed he was worried about the status of his best friend. You're not the only one, bud.
"Don't spray it like that! You'll damage the internal systems!" the pilot continued to rant at Red team's designated driver and, as of late, secondary mechanic.
"I've done this a thousand time before, lady!" Grif fired back, unable to take the complaints and insults being constantly tossed his way. "These aren't those old Model Eighteens that you're probably referring to! The new gel in the Model Nineteens can save put the fire out and save the system without damaging the electronics!"
"Yeah, but there's still a fifteen percent chance it'll still get damaged. And that's not a chance I'm willing to take!"
"Four, give it a rest," Tex called out to them, attempting to avoid the urge to rub her temples in frustration. Man, their bickering could really give her a headache, and that was saying something considering who their company was at the moment. "Let him do his job. He knows what he's doing."
The Freelancer pilot turned to glare at her. Or at least she assumed Four-Seven-Niner was glaring at her. It was hard to tell with the helmet on. "I've been piloting this ship for over fourteen years. I know what I'm talking about, more than him anyway."
"Hey!" Grif exclaimed in offense. "I know how to handle and maintain just about every vehicle in the UNSC motorpool too! And I don't think you're as up to date with me on proper maintenance procedures!"
"Oh, you wanna bet?!"
Tex sighed in defeat as the two continued on with their bickering. Somehow, this was on par, maybe even worse, than Grif and Simmons's banter. She looked over at the maroon Simulation trooper and could tell he was slightly disconcerted as well.
"Alright, Simmons," she asked, "what've you got?"
"Not much," he replied, still scrolling through the datapad, undoubtedly searching for whatever useful information he could find. "From what I can gather, there's only two places of importance on this entire planet: a complex where the Insurrectionist leaders can meet up and discuss whatever they need to, and a relay nexus that also acts as the hub for a global jamming system."
Tex's eyes lit up at the harkening news. Whether it was in hope or determination, she didn't know. "Tell me you have the location of that relay nexus."
He nodded. "I do, but it's about four days from here and we have to go through that." He nodded his head over the vast mountain ranges to the west.
Going through those ranges would be difficult and take time, something they didn't necessarily have. As far as she was concerned, they were still in hostile territory, with an unknown number of hostiles dotting the landscape. There were probably patrols and such scouring the land around them, searching for survivors and making sure they were dealt with.
"Okay," Tex surmised, "looks like we've got quite a bit of distance for now. Hopefully we can find some sort of transportation that can get us there faster. For now, though, we're stuck on foot." She looked at the Red leader. "Sarge, how do our stocks look?"
"Not the worst we've ever had, but not the best either," he answered. "We've got enough MREs for everyone to get two. Anything more will be a hassle to carry of this terrain. We also should have enough water in our suits to last the trip, assuming we all filled them before we landed."
"I didn't," Grif called out.
"Me neither," replied Lopez.
Simmons sputtered in exasperation. "Grif!"
"And why the hell didn't you fill your water tank, Private?" Sarge called out.
"I didn't think we'd be gone for that long!" the orange soldier protested.
Tex shook her head. "We'll deal with that later." She cocked her head towards Sarge. "How's our ammunition?"
"Well," he continued, "if we spread it out evenly, we've got about four magazines of Battle Rifle ammo for each of us, two magazines of magnum rounds per person, four assault rifle mags for Caboose, three frag grenades in total, two sticky grenades, about twenty four shotgun shells, and nine grenades for the Grif shot. Like I said, doable, but not the best."
"Assuming we don't run into any resistance," Donut concurred. "Unless we really conserve our shots, we'll won't make it past three or so smaller engagements or one big fight."
Tex nodded. "Then we'll have to rely on stealth until we can replenish." They were indeed extremely limited on rounds and would need to reserve them until absolutely necessary. That meant avoiding potentially useless fights. She knew it was something she could do, but that would be hard to deal with for someone like Sarge. Grif's lack of water was also bothersome. He'd end up being more of a hindrance than anything else if he was slowed or died of dehydration before they made it to the nexus.
"Alright then," she called out, getting everyone's attention. "We have our objective. Caboose, Sarge, Simmons, Lopez, and Donut, you're with me. We're going to hit that communications array and secure it. Hopefully we won't run into any hostiles on the way there."
"Four, you and Grif are going to stay here and try to get the pelican operational and airborne again. If you can get her fixed before we make it to the array, you can probably lend some fire support later. Any objections?" The group stood by silently, enough of an answer for her. "Alright, grab what you need. We move out in five."
As the rest of the former Sim troopers dispersed, Caboose came up to her. "Hey, uh, Tex?" he asked nervously.
Tex quirked an eyebrow. "Yeah, Caboose?"
"Do, uh, do you think Church is alright?"
Tex bristled at the mention of his name, a chill going down her spine. She didn't know how to answer him at first. Truth be told, she was terrified that Church had died on the way down. Now that she had come to terms with her feelings towards him, the loss of perhaps the biggest influence on her life shook her to the core more than she thought possible. She didn't want him to be dead, didn't want to believe he was dead, but the nagging thought, the fear, wouldn't go away.
She gave the Blue a look and could tell, just from body language alone, that he was feeling the same thing. Caboose had always had a very simple and straightforward mindset, equal parts admirable and infuriating. He'd always been direct in his thoughts, even if they were confusing at times. They were good as it made it easier to trust, a valuable trait that seemed harder and harder to come by. But they were also bad because it meant trying to explain something complex, like her feelings, was exponentially more complex. It was like trying to explain something to a pet or child.
Tex couldn't be mad at him for that, in the same way she couldn't be mad at Wash back before the incident with Epsilon. They were just too innocent for that, too idealistic and pure compared to the shit that surrounded them. She'd seen what had happened to the male Freelancer when he was finally able to grasp just how dirty and disgusting the world around him really was. In a sense, she didn't want Caboose to experience that same thing. She didn't want him to worry the same way she was worried. So instead of giving him her actual thoughts, she forced a smile and said, "Yeah, I'm sure he's doing just fine."
The second the armor lockdown had deactivated, Church jerked up with a start. His head ached and his limbs felt sore from the tension of landing from fucking orbit.
The thought amazed him to no end. To be able to fall thousands of feet and not only survive, but walk away without any notable injury was a miracle. If he ever met the person who invented that feature for power armor, he'd shake their hand and owe them his life.
He looked around, getting a feeling for where he was. A rocky outcrop, some snow and ice, the edge of a cliff about thirty feet away. Beyond that was tundra and mountains. From the looks of it, he was dead set in the middle of one of the planet's vast mountain ranges. Fucking great.
He checked his Heads-Up Display for information and any abnormalities. So far the only thing it told him was that on the ass-end of cold and that the sun would be down in about two hours. That gave him very little time to look for shelter in preparation for nightfall.
That was another thing. Aside from the water reserve his suit naturally came with, he wasn't in anyway equipped for extensive field work. He didn't carry that much reserve ammo, any food rations, or basic necessities needed for him to camp out in the frigid cold. Yes, his armor could technically take care of him with its heaters and holding off the snow and cold, but it would still be good if he didn't tax the machine too much. He'd need to find food and a place to stay until he could figure out his next move.
The wind gushed and blew snow over his visor. It melted instantly under the heat. Damn, he hated the cold sometimes. He hated the snow. The only time it had made him even remotely happy was when he took Allison to his dad's cottage in the Appalachians during their winter break. Even then, the only thing that made the snow bearable was her.
Church sighed internally to himself. Those weren't his memories, not really. Just like the rest of the memories of his youth, they'd actually belonged to the Director. Knowing this frustrated him to no end. Those memories, they weren't really his. He couldn't claim ownership over them, couldn't take satisfaction in the fact that he'd experienced him, because of Director Leonard Church. He hated him all the more for that. His memories were a lie, just as Tex's were.
And yet, despite all the lies, all the shadows and falsehoods of his mind, there was still good in them. The Director hadn't always been a bad man. Sure, he was still a dick, but he hadn't been evil. He had goals, a dream to be a scientist in Artificial Intelligence, to get a house, get married, live a peaceful, happy life. He'd wanted to be normal. But the war had changed all of that.
Existing as he did gave him a new perspective, however. Seeing the things the Director had done, the people he hurt, he vowed to himself that he'd do him damnedest to not become a monster like him. He'd learn to be better. He had to. He owed that to everyone he cared about.
Being a younger version of the Director, he thought of this new life as a reset button, like a save point very far back in a video game. And it looked like Tex was willing to do the same, if her interactions with him lately were anything to go by.
He smiled under his helmet at the thought of it. For the first time in a long time, they both seemed to be actively trying to improve their relationship, make it more positive, than keep it all toxic and negative. It was a welcome change of pace. Knowing the both of them, it probably wouldn't stay that way. But if they put in some effort and actual tried talking to each other about their thoughts and feelings, maybe they could make it last this time. Maybe it could be a real, natural relationship, instead of preprogrammed jargon that it had started out as. He couldn't wait to see where it goes.
That is, if he lived long enough. He stared up to the horizon, scanning the area around him. The land had a certain beauty, like a painting. Just miles of untouched landscape, trees covered in snow, and majestic mountain ranges.
And that's when he saw it, a blip, a tiny light on the horizon. He had to make sure it was real and not just a reflection of the sun against the rocks. He took out the sniper rifle that had survived the fall with him and brought the scope to his eye. Church clicked the zoom button and it magnified.
The light was still very faint, and it definitely wasn't reflected light. Maybe it was a house or watchtower. It wouldn't matter if there were enemies inside. He could deal with them by himself, as long as there weren't more than half a dozen.
The Blue looked at the setting sun. He figured that he'd make it to the light just after nightfall if he was quick. Good thing too. He didn't want any enemies to notice his approach if he had to fight.
Checking his sniper rifle ammo and magnum one last time, he set off, bounding across the rocky slope`. He hoped Tex and the others were doing alright. He hoped he'd be able to see them again.
And there we go, another chapter out of the way. Thought it would be a good idea to keep it action-free this time and give some insight into Tucker, Church, and Tex's thoughts. I hope I did them justice or at least explained their thought processes a bit more thoroughly. And yes, at this rate, these chapters are probably coming out on a monthly to bi-monthly basis.
Be sure to favorite and review! Tell what you liked and didn't like! I'm always willing to accept feedback!
