onepassingnight | Second Journey

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Second Journey :: The Role

"Contacts. Stand by."

The Master Chief knew there were probably more than a hundred of them -- Motion sensors were off the scale. He wanted to see them for himself, though; his years made that lesson clear: 'Machines break. Eyes don't'.

The Spartans that composed his team for the moment covered his sides, each of them with varying patience inside their MJOLNIR suits of armor. Someone had once commented that they looked like Greek war gods in the armor... But his Spartans were far more effective and ruthless than Homer's gods had ever been.

He snaked the fiber-optic probe up and over the three-meter-high stone ridge. When it was in place, the Master Chief linked it to his helmet's HUD. On the other side he saw a valley with eroded rock walls and a river meandering through it... And camped along the banks were hundreds of Grunts, Jackals, Brutes, and Elites, with a handful of pairs of Hunters around the camp.

The Master Chief detached the optics cable, and took a step back from the rock wall. He passed the tactical information along his companions over a secure COM channel. Like him, encased in battle armor easily weighting half a ton. All armed with energy shields protecting them from the plasma, enough speed not to be even noticed in the seconds they all ran exposed on the field, and enough strength to toss even the biggest Hunter among them.

"Are the mines set?"

This is what being a Spartan is like. When two of them against a almost a thousand of them are poor odds for their enemies.

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The Elite slashes horizontally, but the Spartan ducks, twists its' arm to uselessness, and stabs it with its' own weapon.

His attention immediately turns to the ape-like monsters that towered even Spartans, and was fighting against his companion -- He tosses the plasma blade towards SPARTAN-031 to cut through the beast like soft meat. As Ami terminates the dying creature, he distracts the Brutes seeking to harm her--

He jolts to his side as a cannon's round of plasma glasses the dirt next to him. The Brutes roar and burn before dying.

The Master Chief looks at the sky. Seven Banshees arrive in formation.

"I think not."

... His visor looks at the wreckage of a tank-like Covenant vehicle overturned around an elevation. The Banshees are flying low, as well, turning around from a kilometer away as they prepare for another bombing run. He could either rob them of an AA Wraith that could still be operational, steal a Fuel Rod cannon, use one of the mines...

"How high can you jump?"

Or see if Ami likes crazy.

Her visor turns towards the Master Chief. What kind of question is that at a time like this? But she assumes he has his reasons for asking it. There's a certain amount of trust built up between them by now, surely.

"High enough to take down my prey!" she answers proudly and, because this is hardly helpful from a tactical standpoint, she adds a specific, "Six meters."

It leaves room for error. While not normally modest about her abilities these days, she has no intention of compromising their victory by giving a faulty account of herself.

Her focus turns to the approaching aircraft, and the Master Chief's intentions start to dawn on her. Is he planning to challenge them directly?

Sounds pretty good!

Edited 2012-07-13 12:33 (UTC)

"We'll do higher... I can throw you."

He bolts towards the elevation. The Squadron of banshees had just turned around, and were preparing for another assault run. From their current distance, their shots would be easily dodged by the pair of Spartans.

They are getting closer. Their shots are turning more accurate. They're speeding in fast.

The Master Chief bolts up to the hill, screeches to a halt, and turns to Ami... Ready to throw her.

Edited 2012-07-14 10:20 (UTC)

Is he serious? He certainly seems serious. Is he crazy? Well, she's been called that before, too. Her visor dips as she nods. They can do this. She prepares to jump the very moment he throws her, to utilize the full momentum of his strength.

She's quick and agile anyway, even for a Spartan. They can definitely make this plan work.

The banshees come close. Ami runs forward towards him.

Time slows down to a crawl in his eyes. Molten dirt, alien vehicles, and plasma rounds drag themselves with effort in front of him. Every step of his companion as she moves prepares him to help her on, synchronizing with everything around him -- being one with the entire battlefield.

SPARTAN-031 moves forward to him, and the Master Chief sets both hands for her to leap on from, superhuman strength with gifted armor allowing them to lift ten times their own weight.

Once the metal boot reaches his hands, he throws her over a dozen of meters in the air, and watches...

The Covenant pilot yells a curse as soon as a Spartan hits it. And struggles with half a ton of metal weighting it down.

Though they may be brutal, there's a certain effortless grace to the movements of the Spartans, too. Almost all in the same motion, Ami lands, gains access to the inside of the craft, ends the life of the pilot who screamed his own death warning, and lets the corpse fall to the ground far below. The banshee becomes hers.

The craft wavers uncertainly under her control, but she brings it to heel quickly enough to be confident of its usefulness. "I have it," she tells the Master Chief briefly, and she lets herself be grimly pleased by the thought of the squadron's reactions to the sudden betrayal of one of its ships.

"Now that it's mine, shall we let loose?" As if everything up until now has been holding back, play, and now she wants to show her true ability.

Just as soon as Ami takes over the Banshee, John resumes his assault on the forces on the ground. He doesn't show surprise when he sees a Covenant Elite smash against the ground, nor when the Banshees scatted when one of their own starts tearing through them with ease.

He covers her. An Anti-Air Wraith desperately fires away against the rogue Banshee, instead only causing further confusion as nobody really knows which one is it -- nor of the Spartan that is still on the ground.

The Master Chief bolts towards it, jumps into the deck of the tank-like machine -- and brutally bashes, bends, and cracks open the cockpit to reveal a frightened Elite.

He leaves him a grenade, before jumping back, letting the machine explode in a mist of plasma... And seeing two massive hulks descend from the lift.

Hunters.

"Want me to take them?"

Crushing them with a destroyed wraith, or melting them with plasma. Either way, those Hunters are dead.

"Go ahead!" comes back the response. "It's only fair." As if they're discussing nothing more serious than dividing up turns playing a video game, rather than who'll end two lives.

To someone who knows her, as John knows Ami, it sends another message: The Hunters don't matter to her at all. She has no personal grudge here, she's fighting them simply because they are the enemy. Spartan-031 has learned these are the easiest battles, with no regrets.

Before long, though, the others have identified the renegade ship. They organize to rid themselves of the viper in their midst, and their target careens dizzily to the ground. There is no sympathy for any partner who might be mourning her loss. They aren't pleased to have sacrificed a ship, but at least this will stop its deadly progress.

They realize their mistake when two more go down after they've eliminated what they only now recognize must have been their comrade. Well, they'd wanted a witch. And Ami can be as cunning as any witch that ever existed.

Edited 2012-07-19 11:53 (UTC)

He looks up. Ami must have used something to mess with their targeting systems, and it got them quite a lot of time, too. By the time they spot her, two banshees had been taken down already... And from within that cabin, comes a Spartan in light blue armor to tear them through.

Banshees, AA Batteries, and higher-ranking enemies had all been neutralized. It was all going well. All that was left is getting rid of the stragglers that remained. Without any solid forces to guide them, they had fallen into disarray. They could commence the second phase soon enough.

He calmly shoots a Brute that had laid wounded on the ground.

"We done here?"

Done? She wasn't particularly pleased to stop before absolute victory, or leaving even a single enemy still alive. She had been trained to be very thorough, and to make a doctor's eyes blind to the outcries of the wounded and hurting if they were on the opposite side.

In the end, their objective was enough. After only a moment's hesitation, Ami nodded, unseen, and replied over the COM link. "I'm ready."

For his part, it is not his job to make things suffer. He is there to win battles, whatever it took, and all to save his companions. For now, they were finished.

"Mission accomplished, Captain." He reported over the uplink. "Enemy neutralized."

"Excellent news." Captain Le Blanc's voice sounded over the comm channel. He sighed and added, "But we're pulling you out, Spartans."

"We're just getting started."

"Well, it's a different story up here. Move out for pickup ASAP."

He wordlessly ends the link... He stares at the massive ship above them, before walking back towards a descending dropship in the distance.

Not even being a Spartan could completely cure her tendency to question orders at this point. Ami turns to her partner.

"Chief? What's this about?" There's little to do but follow him as he starts walking, but the question and the stern voice suggest something doesn't sit right with her.

He turns his head. It was all part of something far too common of his world.

"Covenant Fleet's moving in."

He doesn't say that the fleet covering them got defeated. In this war, for all the victories Spartans achieved on the ground, it was something to be expected.

As the Pelican hovers near them, John steps in, and offers Ami a hand before the ship rises along with the Spartans, closing the hatch... and slowly revealing the skeletons of ships of the UNSC, drifting helplessly in space.

She hesitates. She understands a strategic retreat; she'd be a fool and a poor soldier if she didn't. But she hasn't seen the signs of defeat, or just how bad it is. If the Covenant is moving in, they're going the wrong direction to meet them in battle.

In the end, she gives John her hand anyway, swallowing whatever protest she might want to make until she learns more. Then she sees it: the bones and tattered remnants of what should have been their fleet. It's a sobering sight, even for her. She takes it in silently.

It's frustrating. They'd fought, and fought well- and now, for what?

There will be other places to fight.

He tells that to himself, at least. For all the places they've fought and won, the situation in space was always dire. Three human ships were needed to stand up against a single Covenant ship. It did not bode well.

Once the Pelican reaches the hangar to open its' rear hatch, Ami will not only see, but feel how conversations within crewmen end the second the suits of armor appear. In a mixture of awe, fear, and terror -- they looked just as alien as the enemies they destroyed.

The Master Chief attempts to show no reaction. He only accompanies Ami to the bridge.

It's a feeling in the air that some part of Ami knows very well. It's the same hush that often follows Kunzite as he moves among politicians and dignitaries, or lower-ranked soldiers. It's the same hush that greets Mercury if she acts on his behalf; those who receive his messenger can never immediately be sure if her presence is intended as an honor, or to bring a quick and sometimes cold end to a dispute.

Pretending not to notice it, she follows the Master Chief. She keeps her head and her pride high.

Other places to fight, he says. This is still giving ground. It won't be that easy to take back.

With the Spartans' augmented senses, they were all able to hear the mutters they thought would pass unheard by them. Whispers they thought would be lost to everyone. Hushed conversations on how the Spartans were not actually human, and how eerie it is for someone to kill so easily -- not just by firepower, but by how they don't even blink with the act. Even amidst some conversations of awe and admiration, others fear them more than anything.

Eventually, they reach the bridge. Coated in alien blood, the Master Chief immediately salutes, ignoring the looks of crewmen. They weren't used to seeing a Spartan in full MJOLNIR armor up close -- Most line troops had never seen a Spartan. Perhaps to them, the pair looked as alien as the Covenant.

"Sir. Reporting as ordered."

The view screens showed stars and Jericho VII's four silver moons. At extreme range, a small constellation of stars drifted closer. The Captain waved them closer as he stared at that cluster of stars -- The rest of the battle group.

"It's happening again."

Years ago, before everything, she would have called herself human. She didn't know otherwise. Even when she became a senshi, she would have said she was Mama's daughter - she still does say that - and that she was born human, despite the unusual power she possesses.

Now, Ami is entirely untroubled by the label of inhuman. After all, whether as a soldier or a Spartan... she's better. She continues to ignore the whispers, as she's always done throughout her life ('snobby princess' 'only cares about studying' 'doesn't have any friends'), and pays attention to the situation in front of them instead.

Here, Ami is uncharacteristically quiet, content to watch and observe and learn, or perhaps still not ready to put her own reaction into words. The fall of a world, after all, is exactly what she has thrown away everything to prevent.

"In that case, what now?"

They're not going to leave it like this, surely?

The Master Chief's solid stance only breaks to look at his fellow Spartan. She was already familiar with destroyed worlds. But it wasn't until this moment when he saw it.

"Permission to stay on the bridge." He asks. "Sir... We need to see this."

The Captain hung his head.

"Very well, Spartans. After all you've been through to save Jericho Seven, we owe you that. We're only thirty million kilometers out-system, though. Not half as far as I'd like to be." He turned to face the Chief. "We'll stay to watch... But if those bastards so much as twitch in our direction, we're jumping the hell out of here."

The Spartan slowly nodded.

"Thank you, sir."

The ship's engines rumbled, and moved off. The Master Chief rose an arm to get Ami forward.

Three dozen Covenant ships -- big ones, destroyers, and cruisers -- winked into view in the system. They were sleek, looking more like sharks than starcraft. Their lateral lines brightened with plasma -- then discharged and rained fire upon Jericho VII.

The planet's lakes, rivers, and oceans vaporized. By tomorrow, the atmosphere would boil away, too. Fields and forests were glassy smooth and glowing red-hot patches. Where there had once been a paradise, only hell remained.

John continued to watch. He stood for as long, not moving a muscle.

John earns a quick look, a movement of Ami's helmet before she turns to face whatever he's trying to show her.

This is different. This is not the searing white light of the ginzuishou, nor is it the blunt unmaking of Metalia, that carry everything into nothing. It is most like the explosive, unstable power of the malefic black crystal, turning the land it touches to death, a monolith to kill an entire planet.

And seeing it, and standing beside the Master Chief, she sees something else that will stay with her upon awaking: that humans, lacking power, have put their ingenuity into creating the Spartan project, the Mjolnir, and weapons capable of standing up to the force of other beings. Perhaps it is true that their short lives and hardships drive them on to great achievements. Perhaps they have always struggled to become better than they are. Perhaps she will understand them better.

Perhaps.

It doesn't require any effort to keep an impassive face behind her visor. No one looking could see it anyway. Even her stiff posture seems normal, here. Her head dips in a nod, mostly to herself as she steels herself to see the end. Finally, she turns back to her companion - comrade.

"I don't want to see this again," she says simply. It shouldn't happen again, is more nearly what she means.

Edited 2012-08-08 13:45 (UTC)

John says nothing. He understands the meaning behind Ami's words. After his was, no human ever wanted to see this again. There had been years of this -- the vast network of human colonies whittled down to a handful of strongholds by a merciless, implacable enemy. The Spartans had killed the enemy on the ground -- shot them, stabbed them, and broken them with their own two hands.

The problem was, the Spartans couldn't take their fight into space. Every minor victory on the ground turned into a major defeat in orbit.

For all the brilliance humanity had, for its' victory against the Covenant, and for the creation of the Spartan Projects -and with it the power to stand even against gods-, it was a reality all too common among many worlds. Without anything to stop them, soon there would be no more colonies, no human settlements -- and nowhere left to run.

He motions Ami to walk out of the bridge. They had seen enough.

"Make ready to jump clear of the system."

The Captain ordered.

A part of her has to wonder what truly drives humans to keep going against such odds. Pride? Stubbornness? Or the simple knowledge that there is no other option, because any other option is true defeat?

It's unthinkable to wait placidly for the end.

At John's signal, and once the order is given by the captain, Ami simply walks from the bridge shortly after her companion. Something, even here and even like this, tells her this is more personal, more striking, to him. She hesitates at first, but then a hand moves to rest on his shoulder. A wordless presence.

It was personal. He was promised to become the savior of the human race, but this was something he had seen to often. Reports of fleets annihilated followed by a searing of the planet's atmosphere. Mendez once told him long ago that a third option with fighting against an overpowering force was surrendering -- an option he quickly admitted was not for the likes of him nor of the Spartans.

Especially so against the Covenant. Especially so with what happened to Reach.

The Master Chief stops walking. Every Spartan motion inside of armor is deliberate. Intentional. His head turns to look at her as they exit the bridge, understanding the motion.

There are no motions of his armor. But that he stopped for her is the proof that he understands.

And thanks her for it.

The ship's engines rumbled, and the ship moved off.

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Second Journey :: The Role

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going with the heights you suggested. XD

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the jump out of the system might be a good wake-up stop point?

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