Of Guns and Gore

Extract and Lay back

The Slayer's head hurt as he tried to process what she had brought before him. He tried to think back to his first memory, but all he could find was him and the scourge of hell. Nothing more than rage and blood lay within his mind. Never had he aged, but never had he ever become what he was either. It was if he just had always been. It was wrong, like how one can tell when they are being watched. It made his stomach tighten.

"He also mentions that "the balance must be maintained, lest the light and dark be unbalanced." That's about the time when the other voice comes into play. It was like a song was being sung to me, but there were no words. I just understood. I gleaned a single sentence from it. "Then our champion must be outside the realm of both, waging a war he believes is his own."

Silence overcame both, and the landing of the ship went acutely unnoticed by the Slayer. The audio files played through his suit, one after the other. Each was just as D.O.T. had claimed. Never had he questioned his existence as a whole. There had never been time to think of how something like him came to serve anyone, or why he had started fighting hell. The guiding hands of higher beings had funneled him down the path he now walked. The motto of 'rip and tear' had been all he had needed for so long that it had become all he was good for. This deeply troubled the new sense of humanity that had awakened since arriving here. Revenge and anger were replaced with a clarity he had never known before.

He had thought Six foolish to allow himself to be manipulated by his higher ups, but at least Six had acknowledged that he had been used. The Slayer wasn't worthy to judge such a man, having been a pawn for however long his puppet show of a crusade had lasted. He was a fool. He didn't even know his own name, yet he claimed a title given to him as a substitute. The armor he wore wasn't his, his name wasn't his, not even the memories he had could be proven to be his. His heart felt heavy, and his breathing became quick and ragged as the truth closed in on him.

"I-I need a minute." D.O.T smiled apologetically, disappearing from view.

Marines came aboard, in awe of the Slayer's armor and size, yet were not seen by him. Each was clad in military green armor, and funneled down into the crew quarters of the ship. John himself passed, but he too went unnoticed, overshadowed by the crisis the Slayer.

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The ship had landed, and Six had the urge to reunite with solid ground. About the only thing holding him back was a combination of his training and the threat that D.O.T. may try to hit him with the ship if he tried to step off. It really didn't take John long to bring back the survivors anyway. Each marine had the most relieved look he'd ever seen, and eyed him up as they passed into the depths of the ship. Each one gave him a look that confirmed they knew he wasn't a normal human, and it seemed to brighten their expressions. Each one probably thought themselves forgotten, doomed to die to the seemingly endless Covenant that were sure to come for them. The sight of one Spartan would have been more than enough to raise moral significantly, but they saw three before them.

It was always amusing to see how most of the UNSC grunts revered Spartans as grand warriors, when it really couldn't be further from the truth. A single Elite minor had the strength to overpower a lone Spartan, it was how a Spartan conducted themselves that determined how long they would live. Having been part of a team, Six could say that the soldiers around them had felt like they were fighting beside an invincible group of super-soldiers. The coordinated attacks from the squad always left the enemy in disarray, and the mere sight of them had always brought a grin to the marines in the most dire situations. Yet, despite all the stigma, the squad had fallen one by one, until there was but one.

The sad truth was that humanity was merely fighting to postpone an inevitable outcome. Maybe not today, nor tomorrow, but one day the Earth would fall. Unless some miracle occurred, the war had already been lost. That didn't mean Six wouldn't fight tooth and nail to try and find that miracle.