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Do Spartans Dream of Ossified Sheep?
Posted By: Crushed Acorn<ummetal1@hotmail.com>
Date: 13 September 2003, 7:47 AM
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Location: On some planet, somewhere in a solar system, on the set of some kind of movie
Year: Of the Dark Cow, basically it's the future, some time before Halo
"And...action!"
Silence fell. A large camera gleamed at him from several feet away and bright lights streamed from every location. Several technicians were positioned nearby, and the remaining crew gazed idly in his direction, as if expecting him to react.
The Master Chief was puzzled by the sudden attention and the fact that he had no idea where this was or how he got here. Was it some kind of an alien battlefield or Covenant vessel, or was he just crazy, like Chief Mendez after eating the cafeteria food on Reach? So he broke the silence and spoke, "Well, what are you all standing about for? Man your weapons soldiers, there's a war to fight!" Or at least he thought there was, ever since he'd been alive there had been a war to fight.
They just gawked back at him, almost piercing him with their blatant, unbending eyeballs. Some stares were filled with words, those questioning his sanity.
Had he time-warped into some kind of an alternate reality? No, it wasn't possible. They had cured stuff like that centuries ago, or at least he thought they did. Maybe it was some kind of amnesia. Furthermore, these people acted as if he had been here all along. Then how could he remember where he had been two seconds ago? He remembered he had been in bed, trying to catch some sleep. Then, is he simply dreaming? He tried words again, "Do you not realize that you will all die!" he pleaded, but to no avail. These people didn't seem to respond to words; like the marines he was forced to fight alongside. He had to get their attention through breaking bones and various body parts. Were these people zombies? Or maybe they had just finished their augmentation processes, he thought.
After several more seconds of silence and utter stagnancy, an attractive woman with purple hair who also happened to be the director/camera operator approached him impatiently.
"Listen up," she said, "You get your act together, start focusing your strangely divided attention on the lines in front of you, and forget about this imaginary battlefield...or we'll find you a permanent replacement - the director of Terminator 18: My Brother is a Teenage Killing Machine from the Future is giving away all of his used cyborgs to the public. Oh, don't worry, it is always easy turning human machines into actors...Keanu Reeves had no problem stepping up."
"Cortana?" the Master Chief asked. Her face was harsh, but also seemed to contain real human tissue, "Cortana, you look...human."
"Have the flash-camera close-ups scrambled your brain? Yes, I am human, and an intolerant one at that. Now, are we going to get this shot today?"
"What? Have you located enemy forces nearby?"
"Enemy forces?" She looked confused, very confused. "Okay...that's it. I guess I wasn't clear enough the first time..."
"No...you're still opaque."
She gave another confused look in response, this one much less inviting, then continued, "You specifically told me at dinner last week that you were interested in this part because you've always wanted to play an evil, sadistic clown..."
"What?"
"...And well, I figured the sequel to the classic Stephen King's It would pose the perfect opportunity for you to complete that one special mission in your life...copyright permission was hardly even a factor."
"Cortana...that's it! We have to complete the mission...or a mission...only I don't know what the mission is exactly so we'll have to make something up. The UNSC usually isn't too strict about that."
Another puzzled look, and then a response, "Have you completely lost it? Or is this some kind of an act to get out of the part? I know it is a bit overdone; maybe I'll tell them to take a good inch off your makeup. No, that's stretching it, and trust me, you need the makeup. Okay...maybe I'll go with my instincts on this one; you're trying to hint at the fact that you need a break, although subtlety seems light-years away and you have the most absurd way of cluing me in. I can only muster a makeup break, though, so a makeup break is what you will get." She turned around and paced back to her chair, "Okay everyone, makeup break, take five. Makeup team, get to work on him, I saw a spot above the left eyebrow that is in dire need of some repair...and more hair people, he needs more hair! And get another Stephen King clone in here; I can't remember how the sequel ends! And the street, make sure he looks both ways!"
The next ten seconds were the most humiliating of the Chief's career, yet strangely ironic at the same time, he thought. He was being dressed up to resemble his worst enemy; the dreaded Covenant, albeit a very strange one at that, a species he hadn't even heard of - called a Sadistic Clown...and did the Covenant really have red, puffy hair? He couldn't remember for the life of him. He did remember one Grunt on Jericho VII who set himself on fire to avoid a severe pummeling from him; the fire looked like hair, was that the one?
Then something occurred to him, canned soup, he hadn't had canned soup in a long time; wait, no, that wasn't it. No, it was the current mission that needed to be addressed. It was beginning to make sense, and he immediately applauded the strange people applying layers upon layers of war-paint to his face, "Smart-thinking, sir, I can infiltrate the Covenant base sporting this clever disguise."
"I see you're a comedian as well," said one of the makeup artists.
"No. I am a UNSC soldier." The artists chuckled with laughter in response.
"Maybe you should be the screenwriter for this soon-to-be sci-fi flop...instead of that Cortanya," said one artist.
"The designer?" another questioned.
"Yes, poor horror writing peaked with the sixteenth installment to the Alien series back in the twenty-third century, which shouldn't have happened, but did. Miss Blueberry over there apparently didn't get the memo," an artist spoke, "Bottom line is nothing could save this film, not even the digitally animated Morgan Freeman...although more eye-shadow couldn't hurt this film."
"When do I get my gun?" the Master Chief asked. He had asked that numerous times at the Reach Military Academy when he had been a child, but the officers would usually just knock him unconscious giving him amnesia for several days. Those officers, he chuckled to himself, always taking the easy way out.
One of the artists immediately supplied the answer to his question, "No silly, you don't get a gun; you use your razor-sharp, steel-enforced teeth to tear through the delicate flesh of the children, after, of course, coaxing them down into your rat-infested sewer-type lair. How does that sound?"
"Will I get to fight Covenant?" The Master Chief hadn't really followed anything the artist had said, but figured anything was worth fighting the Covenant for.
There was a pause, and then a response, "...No, unless Cortanya changes the script, which would be very wise."
Well, the mission was highly unorthodox, the Chief thought, and without the grasp of any known protocol. So, he made his decision deliberately and with little hesitation, "...I'll do it." After all, this seemed much more promising than any other mission he'd been on.
Although everything up to this point had been pretty bizarre, nothing could prepare the Chief for what happened next. As best as he could describe it, everything around him began disintegrating in a whirlwind of heavenly fibers. In fact, he was disintegrating as well. Slowly, the world around him collapsed, and when it finished he found himself in a dark room with nothing but the stir of shadows. Indeed, he was back in his room; his own, his precious room. He had just been dreaming. What a strange dream that had been, he thought. Furthermore, why had everything disappeared like food in a blender? The grounds for which his mind had chosen that kind of departure from fairyland remained elusive. The grounds for which his mind had him to partake in an unorthodox mission, where he was required to dress up as a Sadistic Clown, was also equally elusive. He yawned. Then he yawned again. He remembered he yawned a lot on missions, they just provided little challenge for him. It was the same pattern all the time; take down the Elite's shield with a fully charged plasma bolt and then crush his skull. He sometimes would take down his own ship just to give the enemy better odds. What he needed was a new challenge; say, a huge ring-world where its inhabitants were infectious spores that were able to penetrate human minds and make them into bloodthirsty monsters capable of vast carnage. But that was just wishful thinking on his part. Just then, sleep took over him once again and dream world returned for a second visit.
Location: Dream #2; some battlefield, it's unimportant really
Year: same as before
The night was humid. The night was moist. The night was wet. The Master Chief couldn't decide which one he preferred more, but at the moment there was a war going on and he found himself in the midst of a very large battle.
"Incoming!" shouted a marine. The Master Chief lunged forward as the ground rattled from the explosion at his exposed flank. The Chief's armor sizzled but he remained calm.
The Master Chief charged forward knowing that he should devise some plan of attack. The Master Chief couldn't find any Covenant threats about. The motion sensor radar showed no enemies nearby, only capturing the positions of friendly allies, which formed a smiley face of yellow dots. Inadvertent smiley face formation from him and his marine allies was lucky, but the so-named 'Bubba Fett smiley-face formation' was highly unsuccessful on the battlefield; as were the Bubba Fett's II and III and of course the Bubba Fett smiley face formation deluxe IV with eyebrow and beard incorporation, not to mention, the Carrigan-Harding hypercube of death formation, which was a total failure due to there being a fourth dimension requirement, and a tear in space-time needed to be conjured up before...the Master Chief returned back to reality and realized he had veered terribly off-course. In fact, he was lost. Where was that AI when he needed her? He had just began calculating his new coordinates when he heard the sound of an injured marine...or was it a cunning Grunt trying to play the part of a wounded soldier? He wasn't always sure and found himself occasionally attacking both when on the battlefield.
It turned out to be human, disappointedly. The marine was lying helpless with roughly half of him intact. The marine tried to say something in a gurgling accent about there being bio-foam or something in his back pocket, but the Spartan had little time to listen to a marine make a pitiful attempt at words and was quick to put him out of his misery by snapping his neck with a quick jerk. With that dark deed accomplished the Master Chief continued on his way, but stopped suddenly when he heard those same moans again from behind him. Apparently, the injured marine was still alive. Using his sharp deductive reasoning skills, the Chief was able to piece together that he hadn't twisted with proper force. Marines were quite strong for physically inferior humans, he thought, he was just used to civilians and cocky generals, but he didn't have time to go back and finish the job so he continued forward.
When he reached the main action again he realized to his astonishment that the marines fighting were actually Spartans instead. What a relief, he thought. He was doubly surprised after approaching one lone Spartan that it was a marine after all. He was in disguise courtesy of a dense cardboard outer covering painted in a shimmering emerald green to mimic the MJOLNIR armor's distinctive flare.
"It's the UNSC's answer to the need for more intimidation on the battlefield," said the confident marine, "And look, they gave us extra bio-foam to make up for our shoddy and poorly manufactured outer protection. Want some?"
"I don't need it...you false impression of an actual warrior."
"Huh?"
"Oh...nothing."
"Seriously, take it. I've got an excessive amount of the stuff."
"No. You keep it...you are low on the survival list and high on the casualty list."
"Please, it's much too overbearing."
"Get away from me...you freak!"
"You must take it! Relieve me of this burden...oh...what's this?" The marine had inadvertently wandered into a pool of murky water, and ferocious suds began to erupt from the dark abyss. The Chief backed carefully away as the marine became engulfed in a thick fury of expanding bio-foam. "Help me!" The voice pleaded and then became ever so faint as the cloudy sea swallowed its victim whole. The Chief wouldn't stick around for this and moved on until he came upon an open plain where Covenant forces were gathering.
"Ah, a rendezvous point...perfect." The Chief decided on a surprise attack, one which would bring them in close contact with whatever it was he had to fight them with. He waited for the right moment, propelled himself into the air, and landed in the center of a congregation of Elite commanders.
With lightning-fast reflexes he pulled out his instrument of death and began tearing them to shreds...only much less drastically...in fact, he was dealing hardly any damage. The bullets were actually lobby red balls. No, the splattering effect was still there; they were actually juicy red tomatoes. The Elites found this to be a highly laughable moment, and spilled their guts out on the floor. Amidst their brutal laughs they also found time in between breaths to call him names...like "Turdhead" and "Cake-eater"...and...and then he awoke.
He stared blankly into the darkness of his room. A few more seconds passed.
" 'Turdhead' and 'Cake-eater'?" After resolving that it was just another weird dream and that in some respects he was both of those things he returned to sleep...
Location: Dream #3; aboard a Covenant vessel (MC on a guided tour, literally)
Year: just make something up
"Hello and welcome to Covenant tours," said a voice in front of him, "The gods have deemed me worthy to be your guide and give you this 'coveted' tour." The others in the tour laughed at the bad pun that the Chief didn't find at all funny.
"Well, it's a good thing you weren't 'willed' to give this tour or you probably would have been destroyed," said the Chief timidly. He got a blank stare from the guide in response, and one chuckle from the back, though he didn't know from whom.
The guide continued, "This vessel is among thousands pillaged...engineered from scratch. We are currently in one of the hundreds of rooms on the ship. The prophets deemed this room holy, so we mustn't stay long."
The Master Chief quickly pieced together his current situation and realized in horror and partial disbelief that he was indeed on a Covenant vessel. Only he didn't have to fight his way through, he was part of a guided tour. The other tour members and the guide were all of various alien species he had never before encountered. He figured he would have to await the release of Bungie's highly anticipated Halo 2 before the mystery guests were revealed.
"Why is this room holy?" The Master Chief asked. There was a pause.
"All of the rooms are holy, silly." The tour group laughed in unison. "Let's move on."
The Chief realized that his voice had changed. In fact, it wasn't even him in the flesh. He was one of them. Was this a dream as well or did this perceived predicament suddenly become the biggest opportunity to infiltrate a Covenant cruiser he had ever stumbled upon. He had one more question, though, "When will we get to see the control deck?" He almost kicked himself for not being more careful; he mustn't sound so obvious. He tried it again, "I mean, when can will see the place where I could take control of this ship and blow you all to hell...shoot...I mean, may we see the most holy thing by comparison of holiness on this ship?"
"No," said the guide.
"And why not?"
"...Because you didn't say the holy word."
"...And what is the holy word?"
"...Please."
"May I please see the holy control deck?"
"Why do you want to see the holy control deck?"
"...Because I am," the Chief fumbled for words, "Curious. I want to know more about what it is that you do here."
"We serve the leaders, silly."
"Well...the leaders sent me to do a surprise...I mean, holy inspection, and I want to see the holy control deck now." The Chief realized that a large fraction of their verbal vocabulary comprised of the word 'holy.'
"What is your name holy inspector?"
"It is...uh...Ramey...Rame...Ramis, it's Ramis."
"Who is your holy master, holy inspector?"
"It is...uh...Zool...Master Zool."
"...And where is your holy birthplace, holy inspector?"
"...Uh...planet Nibisco...of the holy realm."
"Let me scan your holy DNA for proof. Hmm..." The guide peered at a screen that materialized from thin air. "...Ah, yes. Here it is...Ramey-Rame-Ramis-Itsramis of holy Planet Nibisco under Master Zool. Okay, very good, you may proceed. Go down the hall and take a right. If you see the key to the universe you've gone too far, and if you see a purple blob, that is Jerry, our custodian. Stay away from him, he has been deemed unholy by seven holy courts. Okay, the rest of you, please follow me, we have much to see. Each room is more holy than the last."
"We have been waiting for you Ramey-Rame-Ramis-Itsramis of Nibisco," said the control deck captain, "The holy leaders told us you have much to inspect."
"Yes, indeed...if you please...I must inspect...inspect a self-destruct button...if you have one of course." There was a pause.
"But of course. We have one, middle of the floor just behind you. It's large and red, and says 'self-destruct' on it. You really can't miss it. I could teleport you to it if you'd like. The forerunners gave it to us...it's really neato."
"No, thank you. It's just a few feet away."
The Master Chief stood in front of it. There it was, his only chance. He must destroy them. This would be the easiest victory of his life.
"Turdhead," said the captain.
"What?" Suddenly, everything shifted back to reality and he was in his room again. The dream was officially over. The wake-up call was sounded from outside and he gathered his stuff for the day's merrymaking.
Before boarding the Pelican two marines named Booth and Oswald said something to him that sparked some thought.
"Hey big guy, catch any Z's last night amidst all that dreaming?" asked Oswald.
"Yes, thank you, I slept fine."
"Well, just don't let someone bug you with the new dream-altering device out...controlling one's dream to your will, and then observing them in action on a movie screen. It may wreck the participant's life, but we packed the whole place out last night observing someone who thought he was a...well, I don't have time to go into detail...so I guess we'll see you on the ground...turdhead." The Master Chief was taken back by that last remark, but he resolved to save all his energy for the battlefield.
Note: Due to unanticipated time constraints (that may or may not have been due to time or constraints), the author was forced to wrap things up in the following concise manner.
After his bout with a trio of terrible dreams for which nobody should ever have to endure, the Master Chief went on to do many great things, such as: saving the universe from destruction, saving the universe from hostile aliens, saving the universe from some kind of a flood or something, painting his room, obtaining his driver's license (on terrestrial vehicles carrying mass firearms only), killing two guys named Oswald and Booth, oh I am sorry, I meant they were casualties of war, the Chief wasn't even near them when they died, I swear, observing many movies of various people in their world of tampered dreams, crying periodically, because of missing a kill or something, fighting giant mosquitoes on a bug-infested planet, I'm sorry that never happens, fighting in a factory that sells giant lollypops (they're really good, trust me), raking leaves, inventing the pickled apple, gas prices are really high right now, lying under oath, delivering ice cream to starving nations on his hydrogen-powered and cherry-coated sleigh, taking the war to the Covenant home-world where he fights a spectacular battle that finally ends the human-covenant conflict for good and as a symbol of eternal peace between all races takes the hand of the Covenant home-world princess in holy matrimony, oh, I am sorry, I gave away something that I shouldn't have, oh well, it was your fault for reading this far.
Author's Note
Various ideas, quotes, bad grammar, names and/or things were taken or poorly referenced without permission from the following list of movies or books:
Part 1
It
Alien
Terminator
The Lord of The Rings
Halo
Part 2
Throw Mama From the Train
Star Wars
Screamers
Me, Myself, and Irene
Halo? (I can't remember if I used it there)
Part 3
Ghostbusters
Spaceballs
Halo
Can you find them all? If so, send to ummetal1@hotmail.com for a prize.
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