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The Spartan Wars by Random 14-Year-Old
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The Spartan Wars: Neutral Bomb - Episode I
Date: 4 February 2005, 5:58 AM
THE SPARTAN WARS: Neutral Bomb
1155 hours, February 1, 2651 (Military Calendar) Swan Song system, aboard civilian-class vessel Disney, above surface of Omega Halo
Colonel Edward Hayden proudly surveyed his Spartans, who had just been transported to the surface of Omega Halo. The giant window in front of him was wide enough so that he could see the entire gulch, a.k.a. Blood Gulch. No matter what it was called, it was the training ground for the most powerful soldiers the Human race had to offer.
"Are you sure you want to continue these exercises?" Doctor William Anders interrupted Hayden's thoughts. "The Spartans hate it and the UNSC will find out sooner or—"
"These exercises will continue until I say stop," Hayden said sternly. "The Covenant hit us hard and nearly wiped us out. Do you want that to happen again? Do you want to be attacked by another alien race, without a thing to defend us?"
Anders started to argue back, but stopped and walked away from the window. Hayden returned to deep thought. His grandfather had fought and died in the final battle with the Covenant, right here in this area of space. But where had the "amazing" Spartans been during that battle, the ones that supposedly "could not die?" The Covenant came so close to activating the rings, but the UNSC managed to fight back and destroy the alien race before that happened. And it was done without the Spartans. Hayden was determined to train hundreds more Spartans, just to make sure that the Human race would have a fighting chance next time around. And his flawless training program was just about to begin hundreds of meters below him.
1200 hours, February 1, 2651 (Military Calendar) Swan Song system, Spartan training battlefield, Omega Halo surface
Maxwell-3392 clicked on his helmet and booted up the systems in his MJOLNIR Mark-13 armored suit. His HUD (Heads-Up Display) snapped to life, and a treasure trove of data appeared on the inside of his visor. It wasn't mathematical or logistical data, but instead a collection of tactical advantages useful in the midst of battle. A motion sensor, ammo supply, and shield status were all clearly displayed by the transparent LCD screen that sat in front of Max's eyes. But then again, technically they weren't advantages, because his enemies all had the same resources.
Each of Max's enemies was suited and equipped the same way as him, and the only thing that differentiated them from one another was the unique person under all the armor. There were ten warriors in the battle that was about to begin, and all of them were Spartans. Max sighed. Great warriors were going to die on this battlefield today, and for what? All Spartans had to go through decades of training, only to be forced to take the risk of dying in a final battle that isn't even necessary! Colonel Hayden called it "survival of the fittest." Max called it suicide.
"Can everyone hear me?" Anthony-1127 asked through the COM link, which was specialized for constant communication between teammates and named TeamChat. There were five members total on Max's team, and the same for the opposition. Their goal was to retrieve the single bomb set in the distant field, move it to the enemy base, and plant it there.
"Loud and clear, Tony," Max replied, and the others said the same. Suddenly the Disney lit up in the sky, and let out a buzz that rang through the air. Steam excreted out of its underside, and a tiny dot was shot downward toward Blood Gulch. The dot became a small spherical object that impacted the center field, and dust was propelled into the air.
"Well, let's get to work," a Spartan groaned. Max didn't bother to check the corner of his HUD to see who had spoken; his mind was set on retrieving that bomb as quickly and painlessly as possible.
Max hurried to the Covenant Ghost, got in, and started it up. Lights glowed at the sides and he floated off the ground smoothly. Ever since the Covenant had been defeated almost a hundred years ago, a lot of their technology and vehicles had been put to good use by the UNSC. Despite the fact that Max had been using Covenant junk during training for years, he still hated the horrible shade of purple on everything. Couldn't the UNSC at least paint the equipment gray or something?
He smashed on the boost accelerator, and he zoomed off into the hilly landscape. Just as he was about to step out and grab the bomb, another Ghost flew in from over a hill and began to drill plasma into Max.
"Burn!" the opposing driver squealed. "Buuurrrrrrnnnnn!!!" Apparently there were some Spartans that actually enjoyed this torturous training exercise.
Max strafed in the Ghost from side to side, but the enemy plasma fire was nonetheless tearing apart his ride. The wings on the vehicle melted and tore off. Max knew he was going to lose, so he reverted to a different strategy. He punched the accelerator and boosted the Ghost past the enemy. Then he quickly spun back around and continued firing at the confused enemy Ghost. A small explosion detonated on the left of the enemy vehicle. Bingo! Max had hit the plasma engine. The Ghost exploded into pieces, and the enemy's body was thrown to the ground, dead. Max got out of his own Ghost and examined the carnage it had gone through. Bits of charred metal littered the ground, and purple sparks spewed from his Ghost, which wouldn't be safe to drive anymore.
Max heard the ominous revving of wheels, the indicator that a Warthog was near. Strangely, he heard the sound from both sides of him. Without warning, two Warthogs charged into the area, one that was friendly, and one that was not. Each gunner began firing immediately into the opposite vehicle, and Max watched in awe as both Warthogs spun donuts and did other maneuvers to try and dodge incoming fire. Before he knew it, Max saw one of the cars lose a wheel, spin out of control, and explode in a fiery inferno. Three red X's appeared on Max's HUD, notifying him that his teammates were dead.
The surviving Warthog spun to face Max, and terror pulsed through the lone Spartan. He thought quickly and reached down for the bomb—but his eyes caught something else. Max noticed a convenient rocket launcher sitting right next to the bomb. He quickly grabbed the heavy weapon, heaved it on his shoulder, and took aim at the enemy vehicle.
"Rocket, comin' to yah!" Max yelled, and locked on to the Warthog. The rocket's tracking ability would seek and destroy the enemy without fail—
"Maxwell, I forbid you to fire that weapon!" someone said on the COM link. According to Max's HUD, it was Anthony, who was sniping from the rocky outcrops.
"Pardon? I have a lock! The Warthog is as good as fried!" Max replied tensely. The enemy vehicle was circling the area, and Max had to spin to keep the rocket launcher locked on.
"I don't care if you have a lock or a Valentine gift! You will not fire that weapon! We need that Warthog to transport the bomb!"
The Hog suddenly started charging straight towards Max, and the enemy gunner started unloading lead into his shields. "Tony!" Max cried desperately. "Are you going to snipe that gunner or not? He's killing me...!" It was true. The bullets pinged and weakened Max's shields, and in seconds his speakers were blaring that all-too-familiar alarm that indicated his shields were dead.
"I'll snipe him..."
"Hurry up!" Max said impatiently. There was nowhere to take cover and let his shields regenerate. If Tony didn't snipe that gunner soon and Max didn't fire the rocket launcher, he would be roast meat in no time. Suddenly a message flashed across Max's HUD: Anthony-1127 sniped by Louis-1337. "Aw, crap..." Bullets tore through Max's flesh, and he couldn't summon the energy to pull the trigger on the rocket launcher as he dropped dead to the ground.
Max respawned on the other side of the gulch, back at Blue Base. He looked down at his body, which was completely free of scars, burns, or scratches. He sighed in relief. There was at least one thing good about Colonel Hayden; he listened to feedback. The Spartans had been begging for a long time for death simulations, instead of having good warriors die for real in training. Now, all of the Spartans would return to their base after death, saving lives, yet making the training exercise considerably longer.
"You said you would snipe the gunner," Max growled at Tony as they stood silently in the base with the rest of the team.
"Well, I didn't expect to be sniped myself, alright?" Tony defended himself. "I was wearing goddamn camouflage!"
Max fell quiet and looked down into the basement of the base. Empty. "Uh, I didn't know someone took the banshee—" He noticed that all five members of the team were inside the base— "Damn it!" A hurtful realization hit Max—Blue Team was completely out of resources. Red Team had stolen their Banshee, destroyed their Hog and Ghost, taken the rocket launcher, and to top it all off, those Red bastards had a dangerous sniper lurking around.
"Flex those muscles, boys," Tony ordered. "We're in for one hell of a difficult fight."
Louis-1337 rolled his fingers from side to side as he rested his head on his trusty sniper rifle. Now that his team had the rocket launcher, a Hog, and two Banshees circling the sky like vultures, arming the bomb at Blue Base would prove to be a walk in the park. Louis aimed his rifle precisely into Blue Base and prepared for an easy win...
To be continued...
The Spartan Wars: Neutral Bomb - Episode II
Date: 16 February 2005, 7:13 AM
THE SPARTAN WARS: Neutral Bomb - Episode II
1215 hours, February 1, 2651 (Military Calendar) Swan Song system, Spartan training battlefield, Omega Halo surface
During their constant and torturous training in earlier years, the Spartans were thoroughly educated about the historic conflicts with the alien alliance known as the Covenant. A hostile band of advanced races, the Covenant annihilated most human-inhabited planets with ease. Every once in a while, a heroic leader such as the famed Cole or Keyes would win a battle in favor of mankind—a minor battle, that is. However, the human race still had hope at that point, because a small army of super-soldiers codenamed SPARTAN-IIs had the ability to wipe out an entire wave of Covenant enemies without worry. They were the pinnacle of strength within the infantry squadron, and they were mankind's best shot at winning the disastrous war.
So, naturally, it was to the shock and surprise of the UNSC when all of the Spartans died. As the Covenant invaded Earth, the beloved home of the human race, the number of Spartans had dwindled from dozens to a mere five. In addition, one was even kidnapped by the creator of the SPARTAN program, and is still listed as MIA a century later. Three more Spartans were killed soon after, leaving John-117, the Master Chief, the greatest hero humankind ever knew. But not even he could survive much longer, and the human race was left without a savior. Although the details of the death of the Master Chief are vague and unspecific, it was apparent that the remaining collection of Inner Colonies in 2554 did not have a Spartan to protect them as the Covenant made their assault. The question of how John-117 died could only be answered by the deepest sections of ONI, and it was a secret very few would ever know, not even the new Spartans.
Yet, even considering that mankind's last hope had disappeared, Lady Luck smiled on the men and women of Earth. The alliance within the Covenant was falling apart, as some individuals gathered and broke away from traditional belief, and therefore were deemed Heretics. Others went on a more ambitious route and attempted to take leadership away from the Prophets. All of this internal conflict, which originated from a disagreement about the core religion, resulted in the disintegration of the Covenant hierarchy. While the alien alliance had once been strong and sturdy, it now crumbled and fell apart as if the glue holding it together was wearing off. So, in a final, desperate attempt to defeat the weakened Covenant, the UNSC launched an offensive so determined that it managed to snap the very foundation of the enemy. And so the war was won.
Or, at least, that was what most of the human race thought. Although the Covenant had essentially been defeated, Colonel Edward Hayden seemed to think otherwise. According to his lectures, a new alien race just as threatening as the Covenant could pop up at any time and start attacking, so mankind had to be ready with a fresh batch of Spartans to deal with it. And not only did he prepare his Spartan-IIIs for warfare, but he also went so far as to make them battle each other. Sure, some Spartans loved to shoot up their comrades as if it was a game, but for most of the crew, including Max, it was a training exercise that was easily loathed and hated. Max had some good friends that trained alongside him as Spartans, and there was one individual that he even had a slight crush on...
But because of this absurd training exercise, Max was forced to throw all compassion for his friends out the window. Even though Hayden seemed to have tweaked the exercise so that the Spartans didn't actually die in combat, Max still despised the idea of pulling the trigger with the gun pointed at his friends. But he had to. Hayden had warned that "the loser of the battle will be punished," and Max wasn't sure if that meant the losing team altogether or the worst Spartan overall. He decided that he would just do his best to pull in victory for his team, which meant stealing the bomb from Red Team and planting it at their base.
And that, as Max mused to himself glumly, seemed next to impossible. He could hear the ominous whirring of the enemy Banshees as they circled Blue Base, scouring the area for any fool stupid enough to go outside. Someone on Max's team could try and hijack one of the flyers, but anyone brave enough to do so would get their head sniped off before even entering the cockpit of the vehicle.
"We don't have a prayer," Max mumbled, half talking to his team, half talking to himself. "We don't stand a chance—we won't even touch th—"
"Shut up," Evan-2315 interrupted. "Just shut up! We know the odds are against us, but you complaining like that is just making it worse..." Max didn't reply.
"Shouting at each other won't solve anything, either," Tony added. He, Evan, and Max were standing quietly inside Blue Base, staring at the gravity lift that an enemy could ride up on at any second. "I've sent Billy and Bob up to the top of the base to evaluate the situation," Tony continued. "Hopefully they won't die at the wrath of the sniper, and if we're really lucky, one will grab our own sniper rifle and the other will hijack a Banshee for us."
Two red X's appeared on Max's HUD at the locations where Billy and Bob were just sniped.
"Hmph," Tony grunted. "So much for that plan."
Suddenly Max heard the revving wheels of a Warthog outside Blue Base, and then two red dots bleeped onto his motion sensor. The opposition was making its move, now that the base was guarded by only three warriors.
"They're coming in..." Max whispered. He could almost hear the enemy footsteps growing closer and closer...
"No shit, Sherlock!" Evan impulsively yelled. "Of course they're coming—" Without warning, a Jackhammer rocket surged into the base from the sunroof above and impacted Evan with such destructive force that it disintegrated his body into smithereens.
"Quick, evacuate the base!" Tony cried, and both Blue Spartans lunged for a wall and rolled behind a corner. Defending the base from the bomb was their primary objective, but the rocket-wielding asshole up top was just too strong of an adversary to fight against. Max and Tony ran out the front entrance of the base and hurried around to the adjacent side, where they began to run up the ramp to the top of the base. Maybe the rocketeer was still up there, looking down through the sunroof for more victims.
"Wait—" Max stopped. "Billy and Bob just respawned, and Evan is about to, so—"
"No, we can't wait for them. By the time our teammates arrive to back us up, the bomb will have already been planted," Tony argued. It was true; Billy, Bob, and Evan were all spawning way out in the field, and despite the super quick speed of the Spartans, there was no way they could get to the base in time. Max and Tony had to stop the intruders alone.
"Okay, it's arming..." a voice whispered from within the base. Max grew stressed and alarmed as he ran up the ramp to the roof of the base—but something in his HUD caught his eye. A red dot was moving on his motion tracker—and it was behind him and Tony. One of the Reds must have exited their Banshee! Max spun around to face down the ramp. Just as Tony started climbing up, a Red started creeping up behind him.
"Tony! Behind you! No!" Max cried, but Tony didn't turn around fast enough, and the Red whacked the butt of his gun into Tony's spinal cord, killing Max's comrade instantaneously.
The SPARTAN-IIIs were indeed trained to use guns to their fullest potential, but they also learned how hand-to-hand combat could be incredibly useful in some dire situations. Max realized that this was one of those situations.
Max dove down the ramp and tackled the enemy's legs, and both combatants stumbled to the ground in an anxious power struggle. The Red tossed his gun in the air and muttered, "You want a fistfight? You got one." On the contrary, Max had no plan to use punches, as that would take much too long, and the bomb was still arming. Instead, Max jumped to his feet as nimbly as he could, arched his right leg backward, and kicked the Red as hard as he possibly could. His foot impacted the enemy's back, and the Red instantly died the same way Tony had.
There was no time to think about anything else as Max sprinted up the ramp to the top of Blue Base. He didn't care about the Red sniper hiding somewhere else in the gulch. He didn't care about the remaining enemy Banshee still circling the skies. The only word flashing across Max's mind was bomb. As fast as he could manage, Max shot down through the sunroof and landed right in the middle of his base. He whipped out the Magnum pistol attached to his waist and immediately began firing on the Red that was frantically programming the bomb for detonation. But there was another Red, and he had been waiting for Max the entire time. Max, preoccupied with the bomber, was a sitting duck for the asshole with the rocket launcher. Whether he had been blasted by a rocket or shredded by an SMG, Max never knew.
Damn moron... Louis thought to himself as he watched his teammate fly playfully through the sky in a Banshee. While the rest of Red team was intent on getting the bomb armed, Stacey-3099 seemed to have taken it for granted that her team was going to win, and that she could leisurely skip across the sky in her fun little Banshee.
Louis turned his attention back to Blue Base, and used the 10x scope to spy on a Blue that had just kicked a Red to death. Louis couldn't believe his eyes. One of his teammates had just died from a swift kick in the back! No matter. The bomb was almost detonated anyway. As much as Louis was tempted to drill a sniper bullet into that Blue's head, he knew he needed to save precious ammo. So, he simply watched as the Blue dropped down into his base, hoping in vain that he could stop the bomb from being armed. As expected, Louis's teammates subdued the pesky Blue, and Louis smiled, because victory had been clenched for the Red Team. He was just about to lay his sniper rifle down and pat himself on the back when something extraordinary happened.
Two red X's suddenly appeared in his HUD where his teammates had just been standing in Blue Base, and an icon indicated that the bomb had been dropped on the ground. Had the bomb been detonated? Did it explode? No, no... Something else must have happened... Then, just as Louis began to panic, an unspeakable word echoed from the speaker within his helmet: Betrayal.
To be continued...
The Spartan Wars: Neutral Bomb - Episode III
Date: 25 February 2005, 3:11 AM
THE SPARTAN WARS: Neutral Bomb - Episode III
1225 hours, February 1, 2651 (Military Calendar) Swan Song system, Spartan training battlefield, Omega Halo surface
"This crap has gone on long enough," Felix-2416 growled as he stood motionless in the heart of Blue Base. He glared down at the carnage smoldering beneath his feet, and the lifeless bodies of his two comrades seemed to whisper in the wind. Felix tossed the rocket launcher to the side, kneeled down, and muttered quietly, "Sorry—I had to do it—" Not that anyone could hear him, but Felix knew he needed to express the guilt he had for the sin he had committed.
Just then, as Felix was about to angrily kick the spherical bomb lying on the ground, he felt his body trembling, out of his control. His muscles contracted and relaxed, and nausea flooded through his shaking body. Felix recognized these symptoms as those experienced prior to molecular teleportation, exactly what he had been hoping for. In a fraction of a second, Felix found himself transported via a controlled Slipspace rupture, and he was now standing in a large cryo storage room. Back aboard the Disney, Felix prepared to be scolded—
"No!" came a muffled voice from a nearby hallway. "I want him to tell me exactly why he took it upon himself to massacre his teammates!" Colonel Hayden and Dr. Anders rounded a corner and entered the room. Hayden, despite his easy-going nature, was suddenly hotheaded. Anders, on the other hand, was trying to calm the man down.
"I'll deal with this, sir, it's fine," Anders said, but the Colonel just ignored him. Hayden marched across the room straight to Felix.
"What do you think of my training program, Felix?" Hayden asked, narrowing his eyes. "Is it too hard? Too easy? What?"
Felix snapped off the safety clips on his helmet and swept it off his head, and his curly black hair sprung off in every direction. His only answer to Hayden's question was a nonchalant shrug.
"Nothing's wrong with my program?" Hayden continued, not realizing how one-sided the conversation was. "So, tell me, Felix, what in the world would drive you to slaughter your comrades, just as they were about to arm the bomb and win the conflict in favor of your team?"
"I'm sorry...I don't know what came over me," Felix replied with regret. He restrained himself from looking away from Hayden's piercing eyes.
"We've had problems like this with you in the past," Hayden scolded. "So whatever it was that 'came over you,' I don't want it to happen again. If it does then I might have to boot you permanently from the SPARTAN-III program." The Colonel turned around and headed back towards the hallway he came from, shuffling his feet ever so quickly.
Felix turned his attention to Anders, who had been waiting patiently on the sidelines. "That could've gone better," Felix muttered as he tore off his gloves. The MJOLNIR suit was designed to comfort the Spartan's skin as much as possible, but there just wasn't anything like fresh air from the outside.
"Put those back on. Your helmet, too," Anders instructed. When Felix looked up with a puzzled expression, the doctor explained, "You're going back into battle. The project is finished."
Felix suddenly felt anxious with anticipation. For weeks, Felix and Anders had been working secretly on an experimental substance that would grant someone mysterious powers. During a training battle with the other Spartans, Felix would do something so horrible, such as betraying his teammates, that Hayden would be forced to eject him from the battle and teleport him up to the Disney. While the other Spartans were still in the heat of battle and Hayden was watching them from the Disney's control room, Felix and Anders would work in private on an experiment like no other. Today, Felix realized, the experiment would reach its conclusion.
The Spartan followed Anders to Cryotube #58, where the doctor entered a secret code into the keypad attached to the tube. Lights blinked and flashed on the cryotube, and with a muffled click of the system, the tube started sliding upward toward the ceiling. What lay hidden beneath the tube was the powerful secret that Felix and Anders had kept for weeks.
"Ah, the fruit of our hard work..." Anders said proudly. He reached down and picked up a titanium-glass vial. "I've tweaked the formula a bit so that your body can digest it easier." The doctor swirled the vial and opened it. A bitter smell emanated from the substance that Anders held in his hands, and Felix almost wanted to delay having to drink it.
Yes, yes... Felix thought to himself. This stuff will make me invincible—I'll soon be Hayden's favorite Spartan!
The substance, which was discovered by Anders only months ago, was a strange element that could only be found from within Slipspace. Anders had been collecting data on the characteristics of Slipspace when he found a black, goopy substance sticking to the Disney hull immediately after a Slipspace jump. After some experimentation on rats, he found that the substance could grant organisms seemingly supernatural abilities. Anders wanted to test it on one of the Spartans, but Hayden would never approve of such dangerous risks put upon one of them. And so experimentation had to be done in secret.
And what Dr. Anders was about to do was indeed quite risky, as the qualities of this "Slipstuff," Anders's nickname for the substance, were unknown and possibly dangerous. But Felix would rule the day he could surpass his peers in combat, a dream that would achieve full respect from the grump named Edward Hayden. Felix also knew that Anders would also benefit from observing the effects of the Slipstuff, and the doctor could even become famous among UNSC leaders if he could discover a good use for it.
"I'm ready," Felix said flatly. He picked up his armored gloves and slipped them back on.
The doctor hesitated for a second as he studied the murky goop sloshing around in the vial. "If you don't feel this is right..." Anders trailed off.
"Give me the damn stuff!" Felix snapped, and stole the vial from the doctor's hands. Anders watched with a slightly worried expression as the Spartan slapped the end of the vial to his mouth and chugged down the entire batch of mysterious Slipstuff. Despite the chunky, sticky characteristics of the substance, it rushed down Felix's throat nice and smooth. The only taste it had was a vague bitterness that enveloped his tongue and seeped into his nostrils. "Send me back to the battlefield."
Max sprinted through the front door of Blue Base like a mad roadrunner, anxious to discover why the hell the bomb hadn't exploded by now. Not that it was a bad thing—this gave Blue Team a second chance to achieve victory—but never in all their ages of training had a team failed to detonate the bomb at such an opportune moment. Everyone from Blue Team had died defending the base, so how was the battle not over yet?
The whole squad of Blues—Max, Tony, Evan, Billy, and Bob—filed into the heart of their base to investigate.
"Well, there aren't any campers," Tony assured after searching every nook and cranny for Red survivors. But Max had other things on his mind besides petty campers. He was more interested in the portrait of carnage that lay at his feet. Of course, there were their own mangled bodies from when they previously died, but Max quickly noticed something out of context: A Red body.
"It's the bomber..." Evan murmured. Only a few feet away was the bomb itself, resting harmlessly on the metal-plated ground.
"Well, we've got the rockets back, too!" Bob cheered when he picked up the Jackhammer rocket launcher, but Tony quickly snatched the weapon from his hands.
"It's got only one rocket left. Strange. Didn't you get blown by a rocket, Evan?" The Blue nodded silently, embarrassed by his humiliating death. "And you too, Max?"
Max paused and tried to remember. "I'm not sure. It could have been a rocket or a standard SMG. It happened in such a flash, I had no idea what hit me."
"Either way," Tony continued, "there should be more rockets in this weapon. And look—" He pointed at the giant charred mark completely covering the area where the bomber would have been standing. "One of the Reds is a Benedict Arnold. Probably the same one as usual, too."
Max realized he was talking about Felix-2416, a rather famous figure among the other Spartans. Felix had become notorious for getting ejected from the training battles and sent up to the Disney as a sort of "time out." This often left his team at a disadvantage, so most of the Spartans had begun to despise him for his unreliability. Luckily, today it was Red team that had the disadvantage.
"Well, this shouldn't be too difficult to do now that Red is down a man," Tony claimed boldly. "Let's get our asses down to their base and arm this bomb!"
The five Blues hurried out of their base, but Billy halted them suddenly and pointed to the sky.
"Yes, Billy, that's the Disney, if you haven't noticed yet," Tony said as if he were talking to a baby.
Billy groaned and shouted, "Not that! Look!" Max strained his eyes to see, but eventually he saw it. An exit pod was leaving the Disney, heading straight for the gulch. It picked up speed and the Spartans soon realized its destination: Red Base.
"Don't tell me that's what I think it is," Evan grumbled. "—who I think it is."
"Looks like our old pal, Felix, has rejoined the battle," Tony said. "I guess he'll have to experience his team getting wasted, after all."
Bob examined the spherical bomb in his hands and sighed. "Here, have this," he said to Billy, and gave his teammate the bomb. Then he turned to Tony. "Can I use the last rocket? I promise to use it wisely. I'll blow up that Banshee up there or something." The Blues looked at the enemy Banshee as it childishly spun barrel rolls in the air.
"As much as I can't wait to see that aircraft in smoldering fragments," Tony retorted, "I can't let you wield this rocket launcher, Bob. Nobody has forgotten the last time you had one of these in your hands."
Max recalled the event vividly in his mind...
Bob leaped off the platform and landed roughly on the landing below, the resting place of the valuable rocket launcher. He then rushed into the gravity lift and flew straight back to the dish at the center of Ascension.
Meanwhile, Max lay comfortably in the narrow cockpit of the Banshee as he held down the trigger of the right control stick in front of him. Plasma assaulted the enemies below, and they were forced to scatter and find cover. Max had them right where he wanted them—
"MAX! WATCH OUT!" Tony screamed into TeamChat. Out of pure instinct, Max immediately tapped some controls on the console surrounding the interior of the Banshee. The aircraft performed a perfect barrel roll, and Max breathed a sigh of relief when the rocket that had been tracking him veered off course and spiraled into the abyss beneath Ascension. He spun the Banshee around the face the enemy with the rocket launcher—Bob?! Max's own teammate was trying to annihilate him?!
"Bob! What the hell are you trying to do?!" Max yelled into the COM link.
"What am I trying to do?" Bob mocked. "What I'm trying to do is destroy an enemy vehicle. Duh!"
"That's me, you idiot!"
"No, it's not, Max. You're safely on the other side of the battlefield, of course. What I'm trying to kill is some bastard in a damn Banshee!"
Either Bob was not reading the icons on his HUD correctly or he was just retarded, but either way the guy was going to attempt to take down the Banshee Max was in. Another rocket blasted from the Bob's weapon and cut through the air, homing in on the Banshee. At just the right second, Max performed another barrel roll and narrowly evaded the dangerous rocket.
"God damn!" Bob groaned impatiently. "Just die already!"
Max could hear his other teammates screaming at Bob to halt his attack, but he completely ignored them. He let fire yet another rocket, but this time Max wasn't so lucky. It successfully impacted the Banshee in a fiery explosion, and in an instant Max's shields were absolutely depleted. The Banshee was still usable, but most of its systems were fully down or hardly working at all. The plasma cannons were offline, and the aircraft's engines were threatening to explode at any second.
Max used every scrap of energy the bird had left to boost it out of the area and to a different location on Ascension. But through the charred and shredded remains of the damaged Banshee Max could vaguely hear the muffled sound of another rocket behind him. As a final and last resort, Max slammed the EJECT button on the console. When nothing happened, he pushed up on the roof of the aircraft with all his strength and jumped out of the Banshee desperately. As he dropped safely to the ground, he saw the rocket impact the Banshee in midair, sending smoldering chunks of purple wreckage in every direction.
"Huh? Max?" a voice said warily from behind. "Oh, so it was you... Heh... Uh... Sorry..."
That had been the last time anyone let Bob touch a rocket launcher, and Tony wasn't about to hand over the weapon, not in a million years. He and the other Blues noticed the dust thrown up in the air near Red Base—obviously caused by the landing of the returning Spartan.
"I don't know why Felix decided to come back to the battle this time, but it's a big mistake on his part," Tony said, hefting the rocket launcher up on his shoulder. "He'll get to share in the pain of the rest of Red Team."
"The traitor has returned?" Louis growled when he saw the pod impact the ground just outside Red Base. Wait a second... Louis thought. His HUD normally displayed his teammates' status based on the information transmitted by their MJOLNIR suits, but something was wrong with Felix's icon. Instead of the normal black-star-on-a-white-background icon that displayed his location and status, it had been replaced by a generic grey box. Something is causing his suit to malfunction, Louis realized. He dearly wished to stay in place and continue to snipe the Blues, but whatever was wrong with Felix could have drastic effects on the entire Red Team. Louis tossed aside his precious sniper rifle and began sprinting back to Red Base.
To be continued...
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