With a low roar of the blades, our ride descended into the clearing. Blake was standing next to a still prone Spartan, who wasn't moving.

"Shite." I muttered, hopping out of the vehicle. "Apple, could you give me a bit of enhanced strength for a moment? This sumbitch weighs about half a ton, if I remember correctly." She nodded and her horn flared a sickly green. A moment later, I felt nigh-impossible strength flowing through my body, causing me to breath deeply and let out a sigh.

"Thanks." I smiled a bit and scooped up the Spartan, broken armour and all, like he was a paperweight. Major was actually impressed with how easily I lifted him up. "Let's get the hell out of here." To puncuate my point, a pack of timberwolves started howling rather close to our position.

"Yeah, we're bugging out." Steele muttered, knowing for a damn fact that those things won't stay down if killed. They just get worse.

Halfway back to Ponyville, the Spartan woke up.

"Hey Beck." Major said as he sat up rather quickly, grabbing his right thigh for his magnum. Apple handed it back to me and I held it out to him.

"Sorry, but we had to use it for an animal." I shrugged. "You weren't using it at the time, so I didn't think you'd mind that much." He slowly nodded, before looking around.

"Where are we?" He asked.

"Over a stretch of forest called the Everfree." I answered. "Much, much more dangerous than the rest of the continent."

"Did you find Marisa?" Beck questioned. I sighed, rubbing my forehead.

"...Why don't you tell me what happened before the ship crashed?" I avoided the question for the moment.

Beck nodded and opened his mouth, having moved his helmet away.

Cap walked through the hallways of the Hell's Angel, his ship, to meet up with Omega Team, his fireteam, to head to the planet below for a small party before they go off to the front line.

As he walked, Cap thought about what had recently happened over the past couple months. His team's XO and one of his oldest friends, Marisa, confessed to him that she had a crush on him, he told her he felt the same about her, ever since then they've gotten to know each other a lot better then when they were friends. The other team members now also have a love life in or out of the battlefield, it seemed as though everything was finally looking up for the team, after the hell they went through though the Human-Covenant War and on Requiem... but even with how it seemed like things looked up, Cap couldn't shake off the slightest feeling that in any moment something will go wrong. He tried all he might, trying to make it go away by knowing nothing would happen, it just stayed, so he decided to ignore the feeling.

Cap kept walking until he reached the hangar bay, entering, he looked around to see Omega team doing various things. Brain, the team's heavy specialist, was talking with his sister, and the team's medic, Mercia. Mark, the team's sniper, was talking with Korey, the team's CQC Specialist. Cap then noticed Marisa sitting on top of a crate, staring out into space. Walking over, he asked "Hey, Marisa, what were you thinking about?"

"Oh, nothing much, just thinking about the past couple months... sure has been great for all of us, hasn't it?" Marisa said to him in response. "

Yeah, it's certainly been great, a lot better then how it was back during the war..." Cap said, grimacing at the thought of the horrors he had saw during the war. As soon as he said that, the worst possible thing happened...

It is returning through the dark...

"SIR! Slipspace signatures, hundreds of them! multiple Storm Armored Cruisers and Light Cruisers confirmed within them!" Julie, the ship's A.I. said, causing Cap to look out of the hanger and see a massive fleet of covenant ships come out of slipspace.

Captain you have met your mark

"Dear god..." was all Cap could say as an armor cruiser flew near them, and unleashed it's firepower, shaking the ship, before it sent out it's invasion forces. "Julie, I want all of our marines to head to the biggest possible area the enemy could deploy at, we're not letting them pass that area, and contact High Command, we need help." Cap said, rushing with his team to get to the armory.

Your song is ending so don't cry

Reaching the armory, Cap and Omega Team grabbed their gear and ran to the main hangar bay. They arrived in a couple of minutes, they entered in and saw that there was a massacre. There were mostly marine bodies scattered about, Cap even walked in and watched a member of the ODST fireteam Trident, Drake, get executed by an Elite Zealot holding two energy sword, shortly after that the Zealot looked at Cap and charged him.

When you hear him knock four times...

Cap pulled out his pistol and combat knife to combat the zealot, as it charged him and tried stabbing him, Cap quickly brought the knife up and blocked the energy sword, before he kicked the elite back and fired a few rounds from his pistol causing the Elite's shields to flicker out. The elite then swung at Cap's abdomen, cutting the armor and leaving a plasma burn deep enough to have Cap start bleeding.

Then Cap quickly returned the favor and stabbed the elite's stomach and firing a round of his gun into the beast's skull, looking from the fight, Cap saw that Omega Team won't be able to defeat this threat.

"Sir, you and Marisa need to get out of here, we'll hold them off!" Brian said, firing off a machine gun turret into the waves of enemies.

"But, you'll die-" Cap said, but was cut off by Brian.

"It doesn't matter if I live, you two are the 2nd and 3rd Spartans with the most experience that's still alive, they'll need you more than us. JUST GO!"

Understanding Brian, Cap contacted Marisa on comms "Marisa, we need to get out of here." Marisa nodded and ran with Cap as they exited the main hangar to try and find a safe Exac point, they heard the screams of death from Brian and the others and looked behind them to see if covenant were coming to capture them, to find them not there, they quickly wondered why, and they looked outside to see the cruiser charging it's beam to shoot down the ship, they knew they ran out of time before they even started looking. "So this is it, then, we're done..." Cap said, pulling his helmet off with one arm and letting that arm hang.

"I guess it is..." Marisa said, pulling off her helmet and looking at it, before looking up at Cap, fear in her eyes, she said, "I don't want to go."

"Me too, Marisa." Cap said before they both kissed passionately, as the ship creaked and began to fall apart before a white light covers the whole ship, making both Cap and Marisa black out.

Just one more thing before you fall

Cap woke up to see him and Marisa. Panicking inside, he grabbed his helmet and put it on his head quickly, and glided over to Marisa and tried putting her helmet on her, but just as it was about to go on her head, they crashed and Cap blacked out once again.

You'll be getting your reward

Waking up once again, Cap looked around and saw Marisa bleeding out, blood dripping off of the back of her skull, staining her short black hair, her staring up at the sky with her helmet rolled off a few feet behind her.

Rushing over, Cap looked over Marisa's wounds, worried about her. "Marisa, it's going to be okay, we survived the Hell's Angel being destroyed, we can get out of this." Cap said, trying to calm himself down and give Marisa some hope.

"I don't think I'll make it..." Marisa said, life slowly starting to drain from her eyes.

" Don't say that, now come on, let's get you on your feet." Cap said, trying to lift Marisa up, and have Marisa stay on her feet with his support, but to no avail, Marisa's life draining quicker and quicker from her eyes.

"I never wanted to go like this, not this time..." Marisa never finished her sentence as the last of her life drained from her eyes. Cap was devastated... the person he cared about the most in his life, gone. Cap looked into Marisa's lifeless eyes, then looked up, not noticing the other humans that had arrived, and let out a scream of sadness and rage loud enough to shake the nearby mountain, sending flocks of birds into the air, after doing that, Cap cried over Marisa body, before noticing his wounds and he fainted from blood loss...

The Captain is dying, the Captain is dying

"Jesus..." I looked at Beck, who was staring out of the side. As I watched, the chest piece to his armour fell off and crashed on something a hundred feet below us.

"Major, I want you to keep an eye on him." I muttered to the ODST, who nodded. 'What I find real disturbing was that we didn't find Marisa's body anywhere. And that we stumbled across him after he collapsed.' I thought.

"Where's her body?" Beck asked.

"You were the only one." Doc sighed. "The general actually looked for her himself, but we couldn't find her." He didn't reply, just stared down at the ground.

"We'll make a grave for her. Then another for the rest of the crew." I said aloud.

"...Alright..." He mumbled, pulling his helmet off and dropping it.

"We'll also need to make you new armour." I leaned forward. "Considering that you're a Spartan-IV, it'll look different than ODST armour." I was pretty much talking to myself at this point. "Spartan-IV armour for sure, but you get to pick what it looks like, along with the helmet." I felt Apple shift on my head, before feeling a slight tug in my mind.

I pretty much lost my feeling of empathy at that point. I don't want her to feel bad about eating my emotions, so I've never told her how it effects me.

Sure, I don't become an emotionless husk like Shining was, but I do lose my sense of empathy, but I cover it up because I can lie my ass off about it. Sometimes, even AJ can't tell if I'm lying.

But Granny can always tell. Old people intuition.

It was a quiet, relatively uneventful morning. Which was unsettling in itself.

"Hey, you see anything out there?" Markus questioned, causing me to look out the passenger window of the Humvee.

"Just trash piles and buildings." I grunted, looking back at him. "The tip did say that the IED was down here though." Bill nodded and slipped out of the turret.

"I'll grab the 'bot." He said, leaving the safety of the vehicle and going 'round back. I slipped out at the same time as Markus and helped Bill set up the robot.

"Who's controlling it this time?" I asked, checking the bulky controller.

"I might as well." Markus offered, nudging me to the side. "Got the thing ready?"

"As ready as it'll ever be." Bill replied, causing me to help get the thing onto the ground. I picked my carbine back up and looked around the street, wary of insurgent snipers. After a moment, the thing was on its way down the street, while Bill started preparing blocks of C-4. "This'll show them that if they put bombs in their streets, we'll fucking blow up the street."

"Damn skippy. Sick of these things, man." Markus chuckled. "Hoping to get transferred over to Reserves after this tour." I simply shook my head. Weekend warriors went through the same shit in basic, but I had less respect for them than those who were active.

"Switching to working with the dogs, myself." I answered. "Or try my hand at SEALs."

"You gonna wash out during Hell Week, I'm almost certain." Bill chuckled. "Mr. sleep for eighteen hours while off duty."

"Only after those damn patrols." I shot back. "The rest of the time it's you who sleeps in for everything."

"Shut up, I'm trying not to blow this damn robot up." Markus muttered, stopping next to a garbage pile. After a tense moment of mild suspense, the arm on it lifted up a newspaper to reveal a bomb.

"Sheeeet." I whistled. "That's a big'un."

"Looks to be two hundred and fifty pounds." Bill rubbed his head. "Can't blow that one up, it'll take out the houses around it."

"Returning the 'bot." Markus said. "Bill, go ahead and start suiting up. Mark, help him." I was against the idea of making Bill go out and do it, but Markus was the Sergeant and I had to listen to him.

"Aye." I reluctantly said. As I helped Bill, I swore I saw a purple mist hover near the Humvee, but when I looked, there was nothing there.

"What?" Bill looked where I was.

"Thought I saw something." I muttered, reaching for my rifle. "I'm gonna go check it out. Cover me." I crept off while Bill picked his rifle up and aimed it down the street.

"You're clear!" Markus called out.

"Roger that." I mouthed, before putting my back against the brick wall to the building behind me. I peeked around the corner, staring down the alley the mist was coming from. "...Nothing." I said, jogging back to the others.

"Cover me, I'm going down there to defuse it." Bill said once he was suited up. Markus grabbed his rifle after ordering me onto the fifty.

"I got you covered, over." I said into the mic that was almost against my cheek.

"Roger that." He replied.

"What are you dreaming of?" A voice questioned me. I blinked and shook my head.

"Did you say something, sarg'nt?" I questioned, looking down at him.

"That's a negative, private." He replied. I shrugged my shoulders and turned my attention back to Bill. He had reached the IED and was kneeling next to it, pulling the wire cutters from their pouch.

"Or is this a memory?" There was that voice again.

"Sir, remind me to stay sober tonight. I think there's something in the beers." I groaned, rubbing at my eyes. "I'm hearing shit."

"I'll make sure your cup's filled with ghetto aid." He replied, before raising his rifle to his shoulders. "Possible contact at your 1 o'clock." I swiveled the M2 over and leaned forward, spotting someone peeking around the corner.

"Bill, you got someone behind you!" I called out as I got ready to fire. Even though I knew it was most likely an insurgent, we were in a civilian area and the standard ROE was still in effect. As he turned around, pulling an M9 from his hip holster, a shot rang out and he crumpled to the ground. "Goddammit!" I shouted as I pressed down on the button, letting loose .50BMG rounds downrange.

The first few bullets ripped into the body of the man, sending an arm tumbling away in a spurt of gore as the rest of him was turned to pulp.

"Fucking ambush!" Markus shouted over the crack of his rifle. "Get on the radio and alert HQ!" I nodded and slipped down, fumbling with the radio.

"This is Noble 2-1, anybody read me?!" I shouted, lowering my head as a bullet zinged by. "We're caught in an ambush! Over!"

"This is Zulu 1, where are you, over?" A voice replied after a few tense seconds.

"Sector 3, over!" I answered, picking my M1911 from the dashboard and firing off a few rounds to keep them away from me.

"Hold out for a few minutes, we're en route. Over and out." He cut off and I manned the .50 again.

"How long?!" Markus questioned, keeping up against the side of the vehicle.

"Around five minutes!" I shouted.

"Great!" He sarcastically shouted, before cursing. "RPG!" I swiveled to the incoming rocket and started firing, hoping to hit it before it blew my ass up. "Get down!"

"I ca-" I was cut off as it slammed into the door, exploding and sending me bouncing around in the turret. Markus was worse off, shrapnel slicing into the left side of his body and sending him to the ground. I only got a few shards of metal into my leg, causing me to growl in pain and fall down into the slightly burning Humvee.

As quickly as it began, the assault stopped. I stayed still, breathing shallowly as I tried not to move. A minute passed and I shakily kicked the ruined door off, getting out and falling to the ground as pain flared up in my leg.

"Fuck..." I hissed, crawling over to Markus and checking for a pulse. I knew it was futile as soon as I saw the metal shard sticking out of the left side of his head, but I did it out of reflex.

I looked down the street, before dragging myself to my feet and limping towards Bill. "You better be alive, asshole." I muttered, dragging my right leg slightly behind me.

He wasn't. I had started dragging him towards the vehicle as two Humvees turned the corner, going about fifty.

"What's the situation, Noble 2?" One of the grunts who spilled out of the vehicles questioned, the stripes on his arm indicating that he was in charge.

"Humvee's trashed and I'm the only survivor." I answered. "Don't step there sarg'nt, I don't know if the IED will blow up if someone steps on it." I added as I saw his foot about to touch the bomb. "We got ambushed before Corporal Legaski could defuse it."

"Wake."

I bolted straight up, shaking a bit and coated in sweat.

"Christ..." I muttered, looking down at the sleeping mare next to me. As I watched, she rolled over with a quiet snort and continued sleeping. "You're lucky you don't have memories like mine." I muttered, before slowly lowering myself back onto my back.

Fun fact, the Halo scene in here was written by the guy who submitted Beck as a character!