Halo: Into the Howling Dark V

Kyanna wandered the halls of the Darkstar II, having never seen it before she walked aimlessly. She refused to acknowledge anyone who tried to talk with her, and kept moving, seemingly without purpose. Her whole life was being flashed through her head. She imagined what it had been like when she crashed on the island of Sotuv Keep, when the Sangheili first took her in. She remembered what it had been like being trained from a young age, how it all started and lead up to Kyanna being a masochist. The multiple daily beatings until she would fight back, but she was a weak child who didn’t believe she could ever do it, anything she tried to do to fight back the Sangheili wouldn’t even feel. She remembered when she first started enjoying the pain, she had been covered in bruises, and nearly broken, her whole body ached for it to end. But she sat there laughing through the pain and tears, at first it stopped them from beating her, but then it only got worse. Once she finally felt she was strong enough, that the pain wouldn’t stop her, she waited for her mother who had been her trainer, to come, then jumped at her, jumping onto her chest and punching her in the eye repeatedly until another trainer came and ripped Kyanna off, both had a happy look in their eyes, even though Qeeana had been rubbing her left eye. it meant they were making progress. She remembered everything about her old life, growing up in the keep, learning everything she knew from them until she would meet daylight. Kyanna kept wandering through the ship, she saw an airlock and stared out the window of it, thinking about walking in and letting the vacuum of space consume her. She cried more as she kept walking, she had finally come to a break room of sorts, she stood there alone, resting her helmet against the glass of a large window as she cried herself blind. Her life was gone, all those memories meaningless, she no longer existed to her mother, to her brothers and sisters, and she never did exist. Now she was a stranger, a hollow shell claiming to be a person, who just wanted to end her own life. She regretted not doing it when she was supposed to, back when she would have kept her honor and been someone, now it was too late, she had nothing, and she was nothing.

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Leo finished on frame for Athena. It was about the size of an ODST in height.
“So now begins the wiring… and after that the armor plating.” Athena said popping up on a data pad.
“Ya. It’ll just be downscaled version of the wiring of the last one.” He answered as he transferred a majority of it. “After I finish this I may take a long break… I need to spend some time with Kyanna whenever Kel lets me know it’ll be okay to talk to her.” He said to Athena.
“If you have this done before then. I can fix your armor up.” Athena said.
“Sounds good to me.” He answered as he kept working.

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Hannah received a letter and opened it “well…I can’t go to the party without a gift…” she ran into her room and searched through her belongings.

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As she was walking and arrived at the door to their room. Catina thought in her mind so Hermes could hear her.
My recurring nightmares might not seem so bad compared to the waking world right now. But I’ll have a third option to focus on. Catina thought. Find a way to improve my armor, to increase my speed and agility while wearing it. I will just forget I asked for Leo’s help.

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“Why?” Hermes asked her.

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I had been thinking about it for awhile, since Gen 2 Armor exists. And getting caught in a gravity beam, then my torso gashed really sold me on the idea of being able to move faster. Catina thought.

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“And you don’t want Leo’s help?” He asked her.

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I do. But I’m worried that could further cause trouble, since he is seeing Kyanna.

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“That makes sense.” Hermes sighed. “Just ask if he can send you some type of blueprint.”

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I’ll be sure to do that in the near future. Catina replied, as she thought about a way to open the door while she carried Aries.

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“Let’s go!” Joanna said to Blake. “Food!”

Tom smiled when Kaitlynn arrived. “You’re early. Awesome. We’re gonna hide and jump out when the guest of honor arrives.” Tom said. “Let’s make it happen, gentlemen!” Tom said to his foxtrot assistants.

“Yes, mom. I like this dress.” Mary said. “Am I wearing this to bed?”

“It’s an invitation to Sarah’s kid’s party. Can we go?” Aries asked Cat.

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Catina thought for a moment. “Yes. Yes we can. I’ll do my best to appear to be happy, for Mary’s sake. But what could we give her as a gift on such short notice?”

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“How did you fare here?” Sovekus asked to break the silence.

"I tried to train… " Scarlett answered. She looked to the wall, seeming to go far away “The sound of the footsteps… the railgun”

“I know you can beat this, you are strong.” Sovekus said reassuringly.

Scarlett’s hands formed into fists “I feel so useless like this”

“You have never been useless.” Sovekus corrected “Without you Daylight would have been killed by that thing and without you they don’t have a chance of stopping ir.”

“I can’t”

The brute shook his head “On our first mission you told me why you fought. Do you remember what you said to me?”

“Things have changed” Scarlett said, her words empty and cold.

“Have they? You told me you fought for a better future for this galaxy. You told me you would keep fighting until this galaxy could find a way to coexist.” Sovekus said, a fire lit in his voice. He turned to look at Scarlett’s broken eyes “Under this conviction a Sangheili called me brother. Following your example a human forgave the aliens that slaughtered his family and learned how to treat them. Declared a traitor to the cause you have given everything to, without stopping to think you were willing to give everything to save Daylight.”

Scarlett began to sob. The brute moved to embrace her, wrapping a tree trunk like arm around her “You will beat this.”

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“U-uhhh… Hmm… I have some strawberry cheesecake kit kats.” Aries said.

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“Good thinking. Mary will like them I’m sure.” Catina said. “I guess I’ll go through my clean clothes, and pick out the most decent looking ones I have.”

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“Of course that’s why you wanna go.” He said. “I’ll meet you there…need to get out of my armor first.”

“Wait, wouldn’t that scare her?” Kaitlynn asked

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“No, you’ll put on pajamas when we come back.” Sarah smiled at Mary.

Leo finished the wiring on the frame. “Well that’s as much as I can do for now.”
“Looks good.” Athena said as he put all the parts away and changed his clothes
“Well let’s get going.” He said as he grabbed his data pad and walked out.

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Catina removed and put her weapons away, and got both copies of the hand held tool used to remove armor, that they kept in their room. Tossing one to Aries, and using the other on her Mjolnir.

“I’ll go without any weapons, and hope there will be Foxtrots on guard duty. I don’t see myself even having the will to fight, save for an enemy boarding party…and even then probably just to protect Mary.” Catina said.

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Aries gathered her kit kats. “Shipping was a real b*tch with these, I hope she likes them.” Aries said, gathering six from her stash. “Cat, I want to say this… You have a heart of gold.”

Grace wrapped up a gift, and so did Sky.

“I need my taxi.” Joanna whined.

“I was thinking along the lines of a surprise party. Here, we’ll put the presents up here.” Tom guided Kaitlynn.

Mary shrugged her shoulders at that. Her dress was very pretty, and she wouldn’t complain.

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Hannah tore her room apart looking for a gift to find Mary “great, after I just cleaned up to…”

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