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vgdivision(Disclaimer: The original concept of the PPC belongs to Jay and Acacia. “halo: forgotten but not lost” (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2685454/1/halo_forgotten_but_not_lost) was originally written by spartanmasterchief. Halo and all associated characters belong to Bungie. Xericka and Gremlin belong to me. The following contains explicit language, explicit imagery, and bad science. It also contains spoilers for the video game Halo 3 and the novel Halo: Ghosts of Onyx.)
”How does that even work?” Gremlin said. “You should dead right now! I mean, I’m not a scientist or anything, but I’m pretty sure that’s how hearts go.”
Xericka leaned back in her chair and rubbed the bridge of her nose. This argument had been going on for fifteen minutes. They had not even finished their introductions. “I am certain that the creators of Kingdom Hearts were relying on metaphoric license,” she wearily replied. “We do not literally lack hearts, just as emotions are not literally created in the heart. Nobodies in all likelihood possess a physiological structure similar to humans; we simply lack the ability to feel emotions.”
“But you can show emotions?”
“In order to fool outsiders into believing that we are normal. Some fans—” she laid as much disdain upon that word as she could. “—believe that we are doing so in order to fool ourselves as well. The Organization is not nearly that deluded.”
The black-haired agent sniggered. “Yeah, right. One of your guys is a moon-obsessed sociopath!”
“Most of the Organization, then. Perhaps we could talk more about you,” Xericka quickly added in an attempt to change the subject. Reflecting on the more confusing aspects of her home continuum’s canon made her feel uncomfortable about her place in the universe.
Gremlin shrugged. “Nothing much to say. Ran with a street gang, pulled a few jobs, fell into – what did they call it?” Her brow furrowed in thought. “A plot hole! That’s what it was. Ended up fleeing for my life from some psycho Mary Sue do-gooder.”
“You were a criminal?”
“I was an expert,” she replied sharply, “who was regularly called upon to do things outside of the law.”
“I see. What attracted you to the field of… being an on-call expert?”
Gremlin propped her feet up on Xericka’s spotless desk. The Nobody twitched, but only for a moment. “I was bored. Didn’t want to spend the rest of my life doing whatever my parents told me to do. And now look at me!” A pleased expression settled on her face. “I’m some sorta reality-hopping literary vigilante with a video game character for a partner! I’m living the dream – well, if I’d ever dreamed of stuff like this.”
BEEEEEEEEEEEP
Gremlin swung around and raised one hand at the console. A fraction of a second later, the machine spewed out a fountain of sparks. The alarm sputtered and died.
There was a rather uncomfortable silence. “I’m guess I wasn’t supposed to do that,” Gremlin finally said.
“You are very astute.” Xericka strode over to the console and waved away some of the smoke leaking from the machine. “This does not look good. You will probably not be making friends with anyone in the Department of Sufficiently Advanced Technology.”
Gremlin nervously looked away from her partner. “It was a force of habit! I’ve got this thing about alarms, you see.”
“Then you are probably not going to do well here.”
“Hang on a sec. It’s not as bad as it seems. I got this.” Gremlin touched the console and closed her eyes. It sparked again before sputtering back to life.
HOOOOOOOOONK
“Honk.”
“Oops! Must’ve crossed a wire somewhere. One more jolt oughta do it!”
“No!” the Nobody said before Gremlin could do anything else. “The console is operational and so will suffice for our purposes. The specific noise it makes is irrelevant.” She tapped a button, which cut the honking and brought up the mission.
Gremlin stopped sulking and began reading over her partner’s shoulder. “Halo?” She shivered. “Ugh, this isn’t between Master Chief and the Arbiter, is it?”
“Thankfully not, although both are present in the story. It appears to be between Master Chief and two female Spartans.”
“Ha! Only the best for Master Chief!”
Xericka made a mental note to bring along some earplugs as well.
* * *
Gremlin gave their new surroundings a critical look. Blank grey and white corridors stretched as far as the eye could see, punctuated only by equally blank doors and the occasional ceiling light. “Where are we?”
“According to the text, the Undefeated Honor,” Xericka replied. “The ship must be an original creation, as it is not mentioned in any official canon.” Alarms suddenly went off. The Nobody quickly grabbed her partner’s arm to prevent a repeat of what happened in the RC. “Remain calm. It is simply the story beginning.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel calmer?”
“You make an excellent point.”
The chief was currently inspecting his equipment when the ships alarm went off he and the other Spartans, what was left of them that is had been on the Undefeated Honor mopping up the covenant for a few months now.
“There wasn’t one part of that sentence I liked,” Gremlin said. “ ‘Specially the bit about other Spartans.”
“Indeed. The Author-wraith must be particularly strong to warp the timeline in such a drastic way. Other Spartans helping to mop up the Covenant, indeed.”
The arbiter informed the chief that the ship was detecting a brute controled destroyer and scans show that elites were being held in the brig.
“A little breaking in, breaking out?” Gremlin grinned and held up one hand. The lights above the agent’s heads began to flicker. “No problem.”
“Stop that,” Xericka said sharply. “There is no sense in drawing unwanted attention by causing power outages throughout the ship. Besides, we are here to exorcise the chief. Nothing else.” Her partner sighed and lowered her hand as Master Chief asked Cortana to bring down the other ship’s defenses.
"Okay Spartans you know the situation Linda-058 and Kelly-087 meet me in armory A-3. Frederic-104 and William-043 head to hanger C-6 and prep our Longsword for take-off."
“Hmm.” Xericka raised her left hand and touched a seemingly innocuous point on her wrist. A bright orange hologram appeared, wrapped around her forearm.
Gremlin’s eyes grew wide. “Sweeeeet.”
“It’s an omni-tool from the Mass Effect continuum,” Xericka explained as she shifted various pieces of the hologram with her free hand. “DoSAT picked up a few for experimentation purposes. Please do not touch it.” She swung her arm away from Gremlin’s curious fingers.
“How’d you get one?”
“I can be very persuasive.” There was a quick pause. “I did not intend the interpretation of which you are currently thinking. Extract your mind from the gutter and remove that smirk from your face.”
“What are you doing, anyway?”
“Researching the other Spartans mentioned in the text.” A scrolling window popped out of the omni-tool. “It appears that all four are canonical characters, but they are not supposed to be here. Linda, Kelly, and Fredric should be trapped in the Onyx Dyson sphere. William was killed by a Hunter during the battle of Onyx.” The orange light construct faded as Xericka lowered her arm.
“If I’m recalling the canon correctly,” Gremlin said, “nothing should be able to escape a Dyson sphere.”
“You underestimate the reality-altering power of badfic.”
“You know, you’d give Darth Vader a run for his money in a ‘creepy people with black clothing’ contest.”
“I shall choose to accept that as a compliment.” Xericka pulled a remote activator out of her coat and began activating it. “The following battle has little connection with the actual lemon part of the story. I am skipping us ahead to the infirmary scene, where the three concerned Spartans are recuperating.”
“Sounds good. What do we do with this thing?”
“What thi—gah!” Xericka recoiled as her partner shoved a mini-Hunter into her face.
“I think its name is ‘Lindia,’ ” Gremlin said. “What’s the matter? You scared or something?”
“No. I just did not expect to suddenly see a Hunter several inches from my nose.”
“Wruugh!” Lindia added.
* * *
When John came to he way stuck is a gel like gloop. That and the fact that the top part of his armour was gone.
“Uh…” Gremlin tilted her head. “Why is he covered in Jell-O? Did you skip us too far ahead?”
“I do not believe so,” Xericka replied in a bewildered tone.“There is such a thing as medigel, but I have never heard it being used in such a manner.”
A few minutes later Linda and Kelly both emerged from the muck also missing their top armor.
“Oh! It’s fan service gel!” Gremlin nodded. Lindia wriggled uncomfortably in the agent’s arms at the sight of three half-clad Spartans. “Glad to see the UNSC finally found a use for that stuff.”
Xericka permitted herself a small shudder. “I am quite thankful we do not have fan service gel at Headquarters. Agent Luxury would have a field day.”
“I heard stories about her from the trainers. Well, not so much stories as threats. ‘If you screw up, the Flowers will give you to Lux’ and that sort of thing.” She waggled her fingers like someone telling a rather lame ghost story.
The Nobody shrugged. “The stories are not entirely untrue.”
The black-haired Slasher grinned knowingly. “So you’ve got firsthand experience then? I didn’t think you swung at all, let alone that way.”
“That is not what I meant. Cease that line of thought this instant.”
“Hey, I don’t judge! I’ll sometimes cross the fence myself, when the mood takes me.” Gremlin gave her partner a conspiratorial nudge. “Is she a natural blonde?”
“I shall attach a plasma grenade to your skull before firing you and that thing out of the nearest airlock.”
The agents lapsed into silence – well, a silence punctuated by Gremlin’s repeated snickering and Lindia’s occasional grunts, anyway – as the three Spartans went into separate alcoves to try and clean themselves up.
Master Chief turned back towards the knobs andbegan turning them at , mist seemed to sprayed out of the walls.
Xericka grabbed Gremlin by the shoulder and pulled her away from the mist. “I believe that coming into contact with that substance would not be recommendable,” she said.
“You don’t have to tell me. I come from a continuum where anything that comes in mist form will screw you up something royal.”
At first, he had forced himself to relax however, when he got this strange feeling in him he knew something wasn't right. Looking around, the Chief's expression grew more alarmed by the second. The tingly feeling was growing inside of him.
Gremlin sputtered out a laugh. “Master Chief’s a big boy now!” she said. “He’s so grown up! Soon he’ll be wanting to talk to girls, and he’ll get hair in weird places, and OW OW OW OKAY ENOUGH.” She glowered as she rubbed her ear where Xericka had pinched it.
Beforethe hormones took over the Chief his soldier instincts kicked in.
“The biology presented in this badfic is logically unsound,” Xericka remarked. “That sentence seems to suggest that people are slaves to their hormones. There is always personal choice involved in situations such as these.”
“So… I think, therefore I am horny?” Gremlin looked at her partner’s impassive face before adjusting a non-existent necktie. “Yeesh. Tough crowd.”
Master Chief, in something of a panic now, dashed towards where Linda and Kelly had gone to clean up. The two Bad Slashers followed in his wake, now thankfully (in Xericka’s opinion, anyway) silent. They arrived just in time to see the Chief gawking at his two comrades in arms making out with each other.
The two stayed lip-locked for a few moments. Kelly started running her fingers through Linda's blood red hair as they kissed. Linda did likewise, playing with Kelly's blue streaked hair.
Gremlin grimaced. “That description sounded a little Sue-like to me,” she said. “With the odd hair colors, and all. Does the omni-tool have a CAD in it?”
“No. When I inquired as to why not, I received an incomplete and hesitant answer. There were veiled references made to skin melting off, so I did not press the issue.” The Nobody reached into her coat and pulled out a rather battered CAD, which she then pointed at the frenching Spartans.
beep [Kelly-087. Human. SPARTAN-II. 89.3% OOC.]
beep [Linda-058. Human. SPARTAN-II. 98.0% OOC. WARNING BREACH IMMINENT WARNI--]
The CAD gave a rather anemic electronic squeal before going dead. Xericka sighed as she tucked it back into her coat.
“I could probably fix that thing,” Gremlin said.
“Yes, in the same manner as the console,” Xericka replied. “I would prefer to consult a professional regarding the maintenance of my assigned devices.”
“Whatever.” Gremlin returned her attention to the two female Spartans, who had now added groping to their retinue of bi-curious tricks. “I’m just saying, I could fix it and I’m right here.”
“Thank you but no.”
John tried to stay calm but the thought of what he just saw made him faint.
“The brave and heroic Master Chief!” Gremlin rolled her eyes while making a dismissive ‘tcha!’ noise. “So he can take the Flood, no problem, but two women making out cause him to go all blue screen?”
A small smile flashed briefly on Xericka’s face. “Perhaps all of his blood was redirected from one head to the other.”
“Hey, you do have a sense of humor! Poor thing must be bored as hell, you never let it out to play.”
Upon hearing his name called out, John bolted upright, however Kelly who had been leaning over him met lips with him and for a minute their lips locked and they just sat there.
Xericka’s brow wrinkled in thought. “How very odd. Such a maneuver performed in real life would more likely result in a painful collision of skulls rather than a kiss. Even if their necks were at precisely the correct angle, they would still run the risk of chipping a tooth.”
“Physics have no chance when sex is involved! Neither does punctuation, by the look of that sentence.”
"Actually John, Linda and I are both bi and as for the mist, I talked to the Arbiter about the mist, it is a hormone solution that has given us our sex drive back"
“What?” Xericka said in a stupified tone.
Gremlin’s expression was that of almost total awe. “Wow. Two deus sex machinas in one sentence. I didn’t even think that was possible! I thought the universe would collapse in on itself first or something! That’s gotta be hitting all new levels of pathetic reasons for sex.” She brought her hand up to her temple in a casual salute. “Kudos to this author-wraith, man.”
“I… what? That… I do not… what?”
“Xericka?” Gremlin snapped her fingers in front of the Nobody’s unresponsive eyes. “Hello, anybody home? Crap.” She reached into her jacket and pulled out a hip flask, which she held out in front of her partner’s face. “Here. A little Bleepka oughta take care of that last sentence.”
Xericka took the flask as if a trance. She took two large swigs before handing it back to Gremlin. “Thank you, Gremlin.” She hesitated. “That was very forward-thinking of you, to bring Bleepka on a mission.”
“Never go out in the field without it, that’s what my trainer said.” The black-haired Slasher took a gulp from the flask herself before returning it to her jacket pocket. “I’d prefer something a little less harsh on the sinuses, myself. Has anyone made a Bleeprin-Irish Cream hybrid?”
“I do not believe so.”
“Hmm. Well, something to look into for the future.” She looked over at the three Spartans, who were all now violating the laws of physics in a rather sweaty way. “How are we taking care of these guys? I don’t know about you, but I don’t really feel like taking a Spartan head on.”
“It should not be a problem,” Xericka replied. She reached into her coat and pulled out a copy of Halo 3, which she tossed to her partner. “The author-wraith appears to have weakened their canonical skills considerably. We should be able to get the drop on them provided we move quickly.”
“If you say so.” Gremlin experimentally waved the keep case, a slight expression of doubt on her face. “Little warning, first. If I get torn apart by super-soldiers, I am so going to haunt you.”
“That is fair. I shall handle the two female Spartans. You take the Chief.” The Nobody held up her hands, a Halo novel in either one. “Go!”
Due to their being 'preoccupied,' the Spartans never saw the attack coming. They suddenly found themselves being battered with blunt objects wielded by black-clad teenagers.
“I cast you out, porn without plot!” Xericka shouted as she clubbed Linda with a copy of The Fall of Reach. “I cast you out, deus sex machina! In the name of Bungie, I command you to leave these characters!”
The super-soldiers began to thrash about as the author-wraith seeped from them. It gibbered at the agents noiselessly before vanishing into the ether.
“Huh!” Gremlin said. “That was not as hard as I thought it was gonna be.” She looked at the cracked and damaged case in her hand. “Think I got a little too excited, though.”
A hand caught Xericka’s ankle in a vise-like grip. She looked down into Linda’s slightly unfocused gaze. “What the hell…” she said.
“Everything will be explained if you look right here,” the Nobody said as she held up a neuralyzer.
FLASH
“Linda-058 and Kelly-087, you are currently both trapped within the Onyx Dyson sphere,” she went on as the three Spartans took on equally blank looks. “You both are having extremely vivid dreams, but will discount them as stress upon awakening. John-117, you are currently in cryogenic stasis aboard the rear half of the Forward into Dawn. You are also having a vivid dream.”
The three Spartans nodded as they vanished due to the canon reasserting itself. The ship around the two agents shuddered before taking on a much more realistic appearance.
“I think that did it,” Gremlin said.
“Indeed. Any other errors in canon will correct themselves now that the author-wraith is gone. The Arbiter will be relocated and William will return to being not alive.” Xericka opened up a portal back to the RC. The two Slashers stepped back into headquarters and sealed the Haloverse behind them. “I shall go and drop the dead CAD off at DoSAT, as well as report on the operation of the omni-tool.”
Gremlin set Lindia on the floor before returning to the chair she’d been slouching in before. The mini-Hunter sniffed the air before scrambling beneath the console. “How did you come into possession of that thing, anyway?” the black-haired agent asked. “You might as well tell me. I’m not gonna stop bothering you about it.”
“I bartered for it. The tech allowed me the use of the omni-tool provided I gave him an autographed photo of Roxas.”
“An autographed photo of a canon character?” Gremlin shot the Nobody a sly grin. “That’s against the rules, isn’t it?”
Xericka shrugged. “The omni-tool would have improved my job performance, so I did what I felt was necessary. The Flowers did not need to know.”
“Of course not.” Gremlin propped her feet up on Xericka’s desk again. “You are not nearly the stick in the mud I first thought you were. I think we’re gonna get along just fine, you and me.”
“I am overjoyed to hear that,” Xericka deadpanned as she left the RC.
”How does that even work?” Gremlin said. “You should dead right now! I mean, I’m not a scientist or anything, but I’m pretty sure that’s how hearts go.”
Xericka leaned back in her chair and rubbed the bridge of her nose. This argument had been going on for fifteen minutes. They had not even finished their introductions. “I am certain that the creators of Kingdom Hearts were relying on metaphoric license,” she wearily replied. “We do not literally lack hearts, just as emotions are not literally created in the heart. Nobodies in all likelihood possess a physiological structure similar to humans; we simply lack the ability to feel emotions.”
“But you can show emotions?”
“In order to fool outsiders into believing that we are normal. Some fans—” she laid as much disdain upon that word as she could. “—believe that we are doing so in order to fool ourselves as well. The Organization is not nearly that deluded.”
The black-haired agent sniggered. “Yeah, right. One of your guys is a moon-obsessed sociopath!”
“Most of the Organization, then. Perhaps we could talk more about you,” Xericka quickly added in an attempt to change the subject. Reflecting on the more confusing aspects of her home continuum’s canon made her feel uncomfortable about her place in the universe.
Gremlin shrugged. “Nothing much to say. Ran with a street gang, pulled a few jobs, fell into – what did they call it?” Her brow furrowed in thought. “A plot hole! That’s what it was. Ended up fleeing for my life from some psycho Mary Sue do-gooder.”
“You were a criminal?”
“I was an expert,” she replied sharply, “who was regularly called upon to do things outside of the law.”
“I see. What attracted you to the field of… being an on-call expert?”
Gremlin propped her feet up on Xericka’s spotless desk. The Nobody twitched, but only for a moment. “I was bored. Didn’t want to spend the rest of my life doing whatever my parents told me to do. And now look at me!” A pleased expression settled on her face. “I’m some sorta reality-hopping literary vigilante with a video game character for a partner! I’m living the dream – well, if I’d ever dreamed of stuff like this.”
BEEEEEEEEEEEP
Gremlin swung around and raised one hand at the console. A fraction of a second later, the machine spewed out a fountain of sparks. The alarm sputtered and died.
There was a rather uncomfortable silence. “I’m guess I wasn’t supposed to do that,” Gremlin finally said.
“You are very astute.” Xericka strode over to the console and waved away some of the smoke leaking from the machine. “This does not look good. You will probably not be making friends with anyone in the Department of Sufficiently Advanced Technology.”
Gremlin nervously looked away from her partner. “It was a force of habit! I’ve got this thing about alarms, you see.”
“Then you are probably not going to do well here.”
“Hang on a sec. It’s not as bad as it seems. I got this.” Gremlin touched the console and closed her eyes. It sparked again before sputtering back to life.
HOOOOOOOOONK
“Honk.”
“Oops! Must’ve crossed a wire somewhere. One more jolt oughta do it!”
“No!” the Nobody said before Gremlin could do anything else. “The console is operational and so will suffice for our purposes. The specific noise it makes is irrelevant.” She tapped a button, which cut the honking and brought up the mission.
Gremlin stopped sulking and began reading over her partner’s shoulder. “Halo?” She shivered. “Ugh, this isn’t between Master Chief and the Arbiter, is it?”
“Thankfully not, although both are present in the story. It appears to be between Master Chief and two female Spartans.”
“Ha! Only the best for Master Chief!”
Xericka made a mental note to bring along some earplugs as well.
Gremlin gave their new surroundings a critical look. Blank grey and white corridors stretched as far as the eye could see, punctuated only by equally blank doors and the occasional ceiling light. “Where are we?”
“According to the text, the Undefeated Honor,” Xericka replied. “The ship must be an original creation, as it is not mentioned in any official canon.” Alarms suddenly went off. The Nobody quickly grabbed her partner’s arm to prevent a repeat of what happened in the RC. “Remain calm. It is simply the story beginning.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel calmer?”
“You make an excellent point.”
The chief was currently inspecting his equipment when the ships alarm went off he and the other Spartans, what was left of them that is had been on the Undefeated Honor mopping up the covenant for a few months now.
“There wasn’t one part of that sentence I liked,” Gremlin said. “ ‘Specially the bit about other Spartans.”
“Indeed. The Author-wraith must be particularly strong to warp the timeline in such a drastic way. Other Spartans helping to mop up the Covenant, indeed.”
The arbiter informed the chief that the ship was detecting a brute controled destroyer and scans show that elites were being held in the brig.
“A little breaking in, breaking out?” Gremlin grinned and held up one hand. The lights above the agent’s heads began to flicker. “No problem.”
“Stop that,” Xericka said sharply. “There is no sense in drawing unwanted attention by causing power outages throughout the ship. Besides, we are here to exorcise the chief. Nothing else.” Her partner sighed and lowered her hand as Master Chief asked Cortana to bring down the other ship’s defenses.
"Okay Spartans you know the situation Linda-058 and Kelly-087 meet me in armory A-3. Frederic-104 and William-043 head to hanger C-6 and prep our Longsword for take-off."
“Hmm.” Xericka raised her left hand and touched a seemingly innocuous point on her wrist. A bright orange hologram appeared, wrapped around her forearm.
Gremlin’s eyes grew wide. “Sweeeeet.”
“It’s an omni-tool from the Mass Effect continuum,” Xericka explained as she shifted various pieces of the hologram with her free hand. “DoSAT picked up a few for experimentation purposes. Please do not touch it.” She swung her arm away from Gremlin’s curious fingers.
“How’d you get one?”
“I can be very persuasive.” There was a quick pause. “I did not intend the interpretation of which you are currently thinking. Extract your mind from the gutter and remove that smirk from your face.”
“What are you doing, anyway?”
“Researching the other Spartans mentioned in the text.” A scrolling window popped out of the omni-tool. “It appears that all four are canonical characters, but they are not supposed to be here. Linda, Kelly, and Fredric should be trapped in the Onyx Dyson sphere. William was killed by a Hunter during the battle of Onyx.” The orange light construct faded as Xericka lowered her arm.
“If I’m recalling the canon correctly,” Gremlin said, “nothing should be able to escape a Dyson sphere.”
“You underestimate the reality-altering power of badfic.”
“You know, you’d give Darth Vader a run for his money in a ‘creepy people with black clothing’ contest.”
“I shall choose to accept that as a compliment.” Xericka pulled a remote activator out of her coat and began activating it. “The following battle has little connection with the actual lemon part of the story. I am skipping us ahead to the infirmary scene, where the three concerned Spartans are recuperating.”
“Sounds good. What do we do with this thing?”
“What thi—gah!” Xericka recoiled as her partner shoved a mini-Hunter into her face.
“I think its name is ‘Lindia,’ ” Gremlin said. “What’s the matter? You scared or something?”
“No. I just did not expect to suddenly see a Hunter several inches from my nose.”
“Wruugh!” Lindia added.
When John came to he way stuck is a gel like gloop. That and the fact that the top part of his armour was gone.
“Uh…” Gremlin tilted her head. “Why is he covered in Jell-O? Did you skip us too far ahead?”
“I do not believe so,” Xericka replied in a bewildered tone.“There is such a thing as medigel, but I have never heard it being used in such a manner.”
A few minutes later Linda and Kelly both emerged from the muck also missing their top armor.
“Oh! It’s fan service gel!” Gremlin nodded. Lindia wriggled uncomfortably in the agent’s arms at the sight of three half-clad Spartans. “Glad to see the UNSC finally found a use for that stuff.”
Xericka permitted herself a small shudder. “I am quite thankful we do not have fan service gel at Headquarters. Agent Luxury would have a field day.”
“I heard stories about her from the trainers. Well, not so much stories as threats. ‘If you screw up, the Flowers will give you to Lux’ and that sort of thing.” She waggled her fingers like someone telling a rather lame ghost story.
The Nobody shrugged. “The stories are not entirely untrue.”
The black-haired Slasher grinned knowingly. “So you’ve got firsthand experience then? I didn’t think you swung at all, let alone that way.”
“That is not what I meant. Cease that line of thought this instant.”
“Hey, I don’t judge! I’ll sometimes cross the fence myself, when the mood takes me.” Gremlin gave her partner a conspiratorial nudge. “Is she a natural blonde?”
“I shall attach a plasma grenade to your skull before firing you and that thing out of the nearest airlock.”
The agents lapsed into silence – well, a silence punctuated by Gremlin’s repeated snickering and Lindia’s occasional grunts, anyway – as the three Spartans went into separate alcoves to try and clean themselves up.
Master Chief turned back towards the knobs andbegan turning them at , mist seemed to sprayed out of the walls.
Xericka grabbed Gremlin by the shoulder and pulled her away from the mist. “I believe that coming into contact with that substance would not be recommendable,” she said.
“You don’t have to tell me. I come from a continuum where anything that comes in mist form will screw you up something royal.”
At first, he had forced himself to relax however, when he got this strange feeling in him he knew something wasn't right. Looking around, the Chief's expression grew more alarmed by the second. The tingly feeling was growing inside of him.
Gremlin sputtered out a laugh. “Master Chief’s a big boy now!” she said. “He’s so grown up! Soon he’ll be wanting to talk to girls, and he’ll get hair in weird places, and OW OW OW OKAY ENOUGH.” She glowered as she rubbed her ear where Xericka had pinched it.
Beforethe hormones took over the Chief his soldier instincts kicked in.
“The biology presented in this badfic is logically unsound,” Xericka remarked. “That sentence seems to suggest that people are slaves to their hormones. There is always personal choice involved in situations such as these.”
“So… I think, therefore I am horny?” Gremlin looked at her partner’s impassive face before adjusting a non-existent necktie. “Yeesh. Tough crowd.”
Master Chief, in something of a panic now, dashed towards where Linda and Kelly had gone to clean up. The two Bad Slashers followed in his wake, now thankfully (in Xericka’s opinion, anyway) silent. They arrived just in time to see the Chief gawking at his two comrades in arms making out with each other.
The two stayed lip-locked for a few moments. Kelly started running her fingers through Linda's blood red hair as they kissed. Linda did likewise, playing with Kelly's blue streaked hair.
Gremlin grimaced. “That description sounded a little Sue-like to me,” she said. “With the odd hair colors, and all. Does the omni-tool have a CAD in it?”
“No. When I inquired as to why not, I received an incomplete and hesitant answer. There were veiled references made to skin melting off, so I did not press the issue.” The Nobody reached into her coat and pulled out a rather battered CAD, which she then pointed at the frenching Spartans.
beep [Kelly-087. Human. SPARTAN-II. 89.3% OOC.]
beep [Linda-058. Human. SPARTAN-II. 98.0% OOC. WARNING BREACH IMMINENT WARNI--]
The CAD gave a rather anemic electronic squeal before going dead. Xericka sighed as she tucked it back into her coat.
“I could probably fix that thing,” Gremlin said.
“Yes, in the same manner as the console,” Xericka replied. “I would prefer to consult a professional regarding the maintenance of my assigned devices.”
“Whatever.” Gremlin returned her attention to the two female Spartans, who had now added groping to their retinue of bi-curious tricks. “I’m just saying, I could fix it and I’m right here.”
“Thank you but no.”
John tried to stay calm but the thought of what he just saw made him faint.
“The brave and heroic Master Chief!” Gremlin rolled her eyes while making a dismissive ‘tcha!’ noise. “So he can take the Flood, no problem, but two women making out cause him to go all blue screen?”
A small smile flashed briefly on Xericka’s face. “Perhaps all of his blood was redirected from one head to the other.”
“Hey, you do have a sense of humor! Poor thing must be bored as hell, you never let it out to play.”
Upon hearing his name called out, John bolted upright, however Kelly who had been leaning over him met lips with him and for a minute their lips locked and they just sat there.
Xericka’s brow wrinkled in thought. “How very odd. Such a maneuver performed in real life would more likely result in a painful collision of skulls rather than a kiss. Even if their necks were at precisely the correct angle, they would still run the risk of chipping a tooth.”
“Physics have no chance when sex is involved! Neither does punctuation, by the look of that sentence.”
"Actually John, Linda and I are both bi and as for the mist, I talked to the Arbiter about the mist, it is a hormone solution that has given us our sex drive back"
“What?” Xericka said in a stupified tone.
Gremlin’s expression was that of almost total awe. “Wow. Two deus sex machinas in one sentence. I didn’t even think that was possible! I thought the universe would collapse in on itself first or something! That’s gotta be hitting all new levels of pathetic reasons for sex.” She brought her hand up to her temple in a casual salute. “Kudos to this author-wraith, man.”
“I… what? That… I do not… what?”
“Xericka?” Gremlin snapped her fingers in front of the Nobody’s unresponsive eyes. “Hello, anybody home? Crap.” She reached into her jacket and pulled out a hip flask, which she held out in front of her partner’s face. “Here. A little Bleepka oughta take care of that last sentence.”
Xericka took the flask as if a trance. She took two large swigs before handing it back to Gremlin. “Thank you, Gremlin.” She hesitated. “That was very forward-thinking of you, to bring Bleepka on a mission.”
“Never go out in the field without it, that’s what my trainer said.” The black-haired Slasher took a gulp from the flask herself before returning it to her jacket pocket. “I’d prefer something a little less harsh on the sinuses, myself. Has anyone made a Bleeprin-Irish Cream hybrid?”
“I do not believe so.”
“Hmm. Well, something to look into for the future.” She looked over at the three Spartans, who were all now violating the laws of physics in a rather sweaty way. “How are we taking care of these guys? I don’t know about you, but I don’t really feel like taking a Spartan head on.”
“It should not be a problem,” Xericka replied. She reached into her coat and pulled out a copy of Halo 3, which she tossed to her partner. “The author-wraith appears to have weakened their canonical skills considerably. We should be able to get the drop on them provided we move quickly.”
“If you say so.” Gremlin experimentally waved the keep case, a slight expression of doubt on her face. “Little warning, first. If I get torn apart by super-soldiers, I am so going to haunt you.”
“That is fair. I shall handle the two female Spartans. You take the Chief.” The Nobody held up her hands, a Halo novel in either one. “Go!”
Due to their being 'preoccupied,' the Spartans never saw the attack coming. They suddenly found themselves being battered with blunt objects wielded by black-clad teenagers.
“I cast you out, porn without plot!” Xericka shouted as she clubbed Linda with a copy of The Fall of Reach. “I cast you out, deus sex machina! In the name of Bungie, I command you to leave these characters!”
The super-soldiers began to thrash about as the author-wraith seeped from them. It gibbered at the agents noiselessly before vanishing into the ether.
“Huh!” Gremlin said. “That was not as hard as I thought it was gonna be.” She looked at the cracked and damaged case in her hand. “Think I got a little too excited, though.”
A hand caught Xericka’s ankle in a vise-like grip. She looked down into Linda’s slightly unfocused gaze. “What the hell…” she said.
“Everything will be explained if you look right here,” the Nobody said as she held up a neuralyzer.
FLASH
“Linda-058 and Kelly-087, you are currently both trapped within the Onyx Dyson sphere,” she went on as the three Spartans took on equally blank looks. “You both are having extremely vivid dreams, but will discount them as stress upon awakening. John-117, you are currently in cryogenic stasis aboard the rear half of the Forward into Dawn. You are also having a vivid dream.”
The three Spartans nodded as they vanished due to the canon reasserting itself. The ship around the two agents shuddered before taking on a much more realistic appearance.
“I think that did it,” Gremlin said.
“Indeed. Any other errors in canon will correct themselves now that the author-wraith is gone. The Arbiter will be relocated and William will return to being not alive.” Xericka opened up a portal back to the RC. The two Slashers stepped back into headquarters and sealed the Haloverse behind them. “I shall go and drop the dead CAD off at DoSAT, as well as report on the operation of the omni-tool.”
Gremlin set Lindia on the floor before returning to the chair she’d been slouching in before. The mini-Hunter sniffed the air before scrambling beneath the console. “How did you come into possession of that thing, anyway?” the black-haired agent asked. “You might as well tell me. I’m not gonna stop bothering you about it.”
“I bartered for it. The tech allowed me the use of the omni-tool provided I gave him an autographed photo of Roxas.”
“An autographed photo of a canon character?” Gremlin shot the Nobody a sly grin. “That’s against the rules, isn’t it?”
Xericka shrugged. “The omni-tool would have improved my job performance, so I did what I felt was necessary. The Flowers did not need to know.”
“Of course not.” Gremlin propped her feet up on Xericka’s desk again. “You are not nearly the stick in the mud I first thought you were. I think we’re gonna get along just fine, you and me.”
“I am overjoyed to hear that,” Xericka deadpanned as she left the RC.