"Come on! Push, Grif!"

"I am pushing!" Dexter Grif grunted as he pushed the Warthog over the edge of the cliff. After getting kicked in his balls by Tex, getting talked by Sarge of all people into coming back into the fold, crash-landing and long the Pelican, then fighting the Meta and promptly getting their asses handed to them, Grif was just done. Project Freelancer, AIs screwing with them all, he joined into the fray to save Simmon's life, and Sarge's by extension, and put these assholes in there place. Right now, that first step is dealing with the scariest fucking mute in the galaxy, the Meta or Matthew or whatever the fuck his name was.

The fight was going about the way Grif had expected it to, until Sarge gave him the ultimate idea of the Warthog. Sarge had a toehook with lots of chinks in Meta's armor after likely years of fighting, Sarge constantly asking for his shotgun and a Warthog it was connected to. What more needs to be said?

The Warthog finally gave way, falling over the edge of the cliff. Behind Grif, he could hear the Meta scrapping across the ice trying to grab onto anything for support. Ha! Served that bastard…

Grif felt Meta's fist grip against his leg, pulling him over too. "Grif!" He heard Simmon's voice call out, lunging forward to reach out to him.

"Grab my hand. Help!" Grif shouted as he felt Simmons hold on.

"Damn, Grif! You're sweating hard!" Simmons said as his grip slackened.

"Don't let go!" Grif cried out. He didn't want to die, least of all on this hellscape called a planet. Simmons grip gave way and Grif fell. He heard his name called out as Grif fell down the cliffside. 'Wait, I got Meta's weapon!' Grif suudenly remembered, puling out the giant weapon that was the baby of a grenade launcher and a giant knife, sticking it into the ice. It held.

Grif let out a sigh of relief, looking down to the ground. He saw the Meta falling to the ice below before landing on it. "Jesus Christ, you had a lot of blood in you." Grif said, seeing the red splotch on the ice far below. Grif looked up to the cliffside, fuck it was high up. "Okay, Grif. Okay. What are you going to do?" He asked himself, his arms holding steady. He looked around him for anything that could provide him guidance. There, a cave! It was right in front of him. How good was his luck on his?

Grif grunted as he pulled himself closer along the launcher. Knife? Rifle? Knifle? What even was this thing anyways? Anyways, he reached the edge and lowered himself down, pulling the weapon from the ice. "Nice! You need a proper name now that you're with me." Grif said. "Let's see. Knifle sucks as a name. Annihilator? Oh, good name, so generic. The Prestwood?" Grif grimaced under his mask, the bruises from those coming back to him. Even UNSC basic training was easier than that sadistic bastard's ideas. "Definitely not. Grif shot." He looked back at the weapon. "Meh, that works. Good to meet you, Grif Shot. Let's go find the guys." Grif holstered the Grif Shot and walked down. He stopped in the middle. "How did you get down here?" It looked like one of the teleporters that was upstairs, even had the Project Freelancer name above it, but something about this one was strange. It seemed darker than the others, more sinister in nature. Meh, fuck it, Project Freelancer did weird shit all the time, this one ought to bring him back to the facility given how many teleporters are there to begin with. "Here goes nothing." Grif ran for the teleporter and jumped through.

"Whoa! What the fuck is this?" Grif asked. Instead of landing in the teleporter room, he found himself falling through a black tunnel. "Now I know how it feels to be a Mai Tai!" Grif shouted as he fell. The wind rushed so loudly even his helmet could hardly muffle it. It did pick on lots of screeches though. Grif was scared shitless of the Meta, Tex, basically anything to do with Project Freelancer but all the sounds his helmet picked up, something about them made Grif feel a new level of fear. "Keep still. They won't notice you." Grif muttered to himself and did so. None of the sounds came louder but were still notable. Shadows were seen in the tunnel. He could have sworn he was something that looked like a pterodactyl with four leathery wings eating bugs with tails like scorpions. "Okay, I'm going to get some sleep if I continue falling." Grif said.

At the moment, he landed. "Oooowww…" Grif moaned as he felt his back ache against the rocky floor. It was cool but it wasn't Sidewinder cold. Where the fuck did that transporter take him? Grif sat up, looking around. Sure enough, it wasn't Sidewinder at all. It looked more like a basement with old wooden steps going up. "Meh, what the hell?" Grif asked himself, walking up the stairs. At the top of the stairs was a trap door. Grif pressed on it. It wouldn't budge. "Fuck this." Grif unsheathed the Grif Shot, took several steps down the stairs and fired. The wood above them shattered, splinters flying everywhere. Grif climbed out of the stairs and looked around. "What the fuck?" He asked himself. He found himself in a giant shack. It looked like something out of a horror film, how destroyed everything was. It looked like something that would be seen in one of those period dramas his Dad used to watch before he died. Grif shook his head at those memories, focusing on what was at hand. On a night stand, there was a picture of a smoking hot black-haired women with red eyes wearing a wedding dress standing opposite to what looked like a dork with blonde hair in a ponytail. Something about the man irritated Grif to no end but he left the house regardless. The forests around were even more depressing than the cabin, if that was possible.

The sensors in Grif's helmet went off suddenly, loud growling coming his way. "You got to be fucking kidding." Grif looked up, pointing the Grif Shot in their direction. From the forests came… black bears? They looked like black bears but they had red eyes and white stuff all over them. Whatever, they were a threat and Grif just wanted to get some sleep. He let off several grenades in the direction of the bears. The white stuff seemed to be armor as the grenades just blew up without issue on them but the ones where he hit black, they died immediately. "Ha! Take this you stupid fucks! Yeah! Eat this!" Grif was shouting, walking towards them and watching them get blown to pieces. The dozens that were coming by left only one, some wolf-looking thing that towered over the rest of the corpses. Grif grinned under his helmet as he aimed the barrel. It clicked.

The wolf roared again and charged. "God damn it, I gotta put in work for this?" Grif asked and charged at the Grimm. He rolled under the beast's paw as it swiped at him, slicing its belly. The wolf staggered back. "Ha! Didn't like that, did you?" Grif taunted as he gave another slash at him. But the wolf was smarter than Grif wanted him to be, leaping back. Its leap shook the ground beneath Grif's feet, making him lose balance. It was a moment enough for the wolf to slash and hit him square in the chest. "Aaaahh!" Grif shouted as he crashed into the tree, toppling it under Grif's weight. "Alright. No more Mr. Nice Guy." Grif ran forward, snagging the nearby Grif Shot. The wolf seemed to learn its lesson, swiping lower and wider. Grif went wide, stabbing the tip of the blade into the wolf's foot. It howled in pain and Grif wasted no time ripping it out and stabbing it into the monster's arm. The weight combined with Grif's strength pulled the wolf to the ground. "Yippe kay yay, motherfucker." Grif stated, stabbing the pointy tip into the monster's eye. It let out a final whimper before dissolving same as the rest of them.

It dawned on Grif how hungry he actually was. "Alright, I need to balance my two great loves in this world. Food and sleep. Which will it be? Naw, fuck it. Sleep it is. Food is tomorrow's problem." Grif stumbled back to the shack, closing the door behind him and fell to the floor.

He was snoring by the time his face rested against the cold wood.