Agent Arizona: The War of Chorus

All or Nothing

Zone closes his eyes as he spreads his red aura around the ship. Everything fades to black. Zone opens his eyes and sees nothing but white. He blinks a few times before standing up and looking around. He's standing in nothing but a large white area. 

"Hello?" 

"Hey Rex." Zone freezes. He slowly turns around and is shocked to see who's behind him. A man around his thirties with brown hair and green eyes wearing Spartan V armor and grinning. 

"V-Victor?" Zone says getting watery-eyed. 

"Long time no see." Zone wraps his arms around Victor as he chuckles and embraces the crying Freelancer. "Come on man, you're tougher than this." 

Zone lets go and rubs the tears out of his eyes. Victor smiles and puts his hands on Zone's shoulders. 

"Vic, I'm so sorry man. It's my fault, if I'd only seen that Elite you wouldn't of-" 

"Hey! That wasn't your fault Rex. You need to let it go, that was never your fault. Neither of us could've predicted what came next after taking out those Wraiths. And look at you now, you've got a new team, a girl, and you're fighting to save a planet." 

"Only from the rest our team! Vic I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I'll be able to kill Gates and Ortez. I mean I know I beat them before, but now I don't if I'll have the strength to do it." 

Victor laughs making Zone raise an eyebrow. "That's another thing you need to understand Rex. Even with your newly acquired 'powers' you need to realize you're not invincible, you're not a soldier, you're just a man doing the right thing. That's all there is to it. Rex when we joined the UNSC and became marines, we didn't do it to be heroes, we did it to help other survive. To have a better chance at a life without fear and destruction. Exactly like what you're doing now on Chorus. Helping them to have a chance." 

Zone looks down at his hand and curls his fingers into a fist. He smirks and looks back up at Victor and nods with determination. 

Victor nods back at him before letting go of his shoulders and backing away, disappearing. Zone then heard Victor's voice say, "You've done good Rex. You've done good." 

Zone reopens his eyes and sees the Blood Gulch Crew and Xi standing over him. 

"Zone?" Carolina says worried. 

"If I ever make another shield like that, please knock me out. Gives me one heck of a headache." Zone groans standing up. 

"HE'S ALIVE!" Caboose shouts hugging him. 

"You okay, dude?" Tucker asks. 

Zone breaks free from Caboose's iron grasp. "Yeah...yeah, I'm good. Uh...uh where are we?" 

Carolina leads Zone outside where they see they're all settling at Crash Site Bravo. Feds and Rebels are all either working on vehicles or sulking. 

"There's more taking shelter inside the ship, but most of us are just scattered around the planet." Carolina explains. "I'm worried about Kimball. No matter what we say, the Feds seem to think she just let Doyle die. She's hardly said a word since we landed." 

"What happened?" Zone says stunned. 

Wash walks up behind them. "The mercenaries escaped. In a few hours this will all be over, one way or another." 

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

At the jungle temple, Felix activates his newly acquired sword.

"Oh, I will never get tired of that." Felix says laughing.