I have a lot of thoughts on season 19 but I at first absolutely hated the fact that everything after 13 is/was retconned and “isn’t canon” and is just a simulation
But then I realized that that also means that Mark fucking Temple isn’t out there killing freelancers and all the bros are chilling.
AND ILLINOIS IS OUT THERE ENJOYING HIS LITTLE RED BOAT AND SIPPING ON BEER DAMN IT
Words: “I wrote this in 2019 unaware of the horrors awaiting me (2020-present)” (2,652)
“Wait you’re – you’re seriously going to just leave her here?” One of the sim troopers asked, jerky movements even more obvious up close. He sounded familiar.
“Her recovery beacon is active, another Agent will find her,”
“Yeah, but you guys are all dicks, and if the Meta comes back –”
“He’ll find that she has no AI and no equipment to take.”
“Listen I get that you two have some sort of personal bullshit to work through but dude, that’s harsh.”
“She shot me in the back. Literally.”
“I shot Church in the front! With a tank. It was an accident.” The big one added enthusiastically, shying away as the other sim trooper glowered behind his visor at him. Washington waved his hands, mounting his mongoose.
“I don’t even – no, we don’t have time for this, another Agent is probably on their way to pick her up, and we need to catch the Meta while he’s still vulnerable. We’re leaving. Now.” The engine of his vehicle roared to life as he turned it down the road, waiting for the other two.
The big one wandered toward the other mongoose, the glow of Delta talking to him gentle in the afternoon sun. The light blue one – Church – he hesitated, watching her sink down next to the wall in the puddle of her own blood.
“Uh, there’s medkits and stuff in the base. I never used them so, uh, they should still be there.” He muttered awkwardly, shuffling back towards the mongoose.
“Thanks…” South breathed, watching the three soldiers speed off back down the road. When the dust settled from their speedy retreat from the base, she cried.
Relief. Guilt. Fear. Grief.
South stopped crying. Wash was right. Her recovery beacon was still active, and another agent would be there soon. Probably Illinois. No time to feel the emotions that flooded every fiber of her being.
South found the medkits in the base – dusty but usable – and did her best with the injured leg. Her shaking hands made stitches difficult, but the hemostatic bandages stopped the worst of the bleeding. The pain was manageable, physically speaking, but in her mindset, it was best to take some painkillers before the adrenaline wore out.
She made her way to the control room of the base. There had to be a manifest log of vehicles. Maybe she could take a warthog –
Her fingers brushed an empty AI slot, and tears started anew. How had she let herself get so attached to him? Not so long ago she hated those stupid AI programs. Not so long ago she willingly signed over her brother’s life for a chance to get a stupid AI program.
But he was gone. Not forever, and not entirely, but the Delta she knew was gone. The one that made bad jokes and sarcastic calculations. He had been erased. Broken back into the mold he was supposed to fit. Would Wash notice? Would he care if he did?
What was she going to tell Theta?
She heard the footsteps approach the door. And that was the last thing she heard.
---
South woke with a start, mind hazy and vision unfocused in the dim lights of the control room. Her ears were ringing, a nauseating headache throbbing from her right temple. She tried to cradle her head in her hands, only to find she was securely manacled to a rusted pipe along the wall as the chain of the cuffs rattled.
“Where is it?” Illinois’ voice echoed softly, garbled by South’s dehydrated and pain riddled brain.
“What?” She spluttered, twisting her hands to test the cuffs. They were solid, the pipe they wound around creaking. South winced as Illinois stepped into her narrow field of vision, crouching to her level.
“Where’s the Delta AI fragment?” His voice was smooth and calm. South let her still dim vision flicker around the control room. The Freelancer had neatly piled the armor she had discarded haphazardly in her limping trail to the control room. A gentle hand steered her gaze back to Illinois’ expressionless visor. “Focus, South. I know your armor is empty.”
Her armor was empty, and Theta was with her, a gentle pulse of warmth from her neural implant.
“Sync up,” She thought, leaning back from Illinois’ touch to hide the gentle glow of the AI slot.
“South, you don’t need to –”
“Wash,” She murmured, leaning her head back against the wall and closing her eyes. Theta’s data stream flooded her thoughts and invaded her memories, soaking every synapse in anxiety and grief. South choked out a sob with a smile, hoping Illinois couldn’t tell the source in her delirium. “Wash beat you to the punch. Him and Delta are probably halfway to Command by now.”
“No, Wash is –” Illinois shook his head as he stood, disbelief radiating from behind his helmet. He pressed his hand to his comms, voice quiet as he stepped away. “Command, come in…”
“Delta’s –”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“His choice. Not mine.”
“No.” Theta repeated, voice softened by a whimper, South feeling his presence recoil as he peered into her memories. “No, no, not him, not now, no, no nononono…”
“Theta, I need you to focus right now,” South’s own thoughts were a swirling mess of pain and confusion. “I need you to jump to the control terminal. You know what Delta’s plan was for Illinois.”
“I – I can’t, I’m not, I…” There was a stuttered in his presence, and South’s mind burned with fear that he was overstressing her neural implant. “I…I’ll try,”
“Thank you,” South let out a shuddering sigh, headache worsening as she tried to focus on Illinois’ whispered conversation and ignore the hum of her neural implant. She couldn’t worry about whether or not he actually knew how to jump – she could only trust him.
From the sounds of it, Command had known. Had picked up the half alive Recovery Agent and healed him. But they had kept it quiet, quiet enough that even Illinois hadn’t known. But there was a murmur of dissent, a whisper of orders that made Illinois stiffen his stance and square his shoulders away from South.
Maybe Wash wasn’t halfway to Command. Maybe he really was trying to kill the Meta, once and for all. That made him a traitor, assuming Command wasn’t sending him to complete the deed. Mission level zero.
Still didn’t understand why the random, weird sim troopers were there.
There was deep sigh from Illinois, the Freelancer looking between where South was cuffed and her armor. Right. She was mission level zero too.
“You know if you don’t have the balls like Wash you can just wait a few more hours.” She huffed, adjusting her injured leg, a small pool of blood pooling below. Maybe she hadn’t done such a great job on those stiches.
“You don’t die easily, I’ll give you that South,” He forced a chuckle, hand slowly going to his pistol. “Command wants this done right.”
“Yeah, I figured.” South tensed her arms, getting a solid grip on the pipe she was cuffed too. “Can I ask you something? Seeing as I’ll be dead in a bit, one way or another.”
“Sure,”
“What’s next?” South couldn’t conceal the grim smile set across her face. “I’ve been running all this time just trying to go home. Or at least to see if there’s still a home to go back to. You got anyone left to share that cushy retirement plan with?”
“No,” He said, pistol removed from its holster and raise to South’s face. Behind him, the AI port of the control terminal flickered violet, the screen buzzing with static.
“Yeah. Kinda figured.” She leaned forward; the muzzle of the gun cool against her burning skin. “Make it quick,”
The room filled with a cacophony of sound and light, the projection cameras casting half shadows of smoke and fire across the control room. Below the screech of tires and pop of snapping bones, there were screams. Dozens and dozens of voices sobbing and begging and pleading.
South had to take a breath to settle herself, Theta’s projection disorienting even to her as the realistic shattered glass scattered across the rubble. She had time, a few second at least as Illinois froze, pistol falling from his shaking hand as his head swiveled to take in the holographic horror surrounding him.
The still screeching audio covered the sound of South using what little strength she had left to wrench the rusted pipe from the wall, the metal cracking as she spun around to face the better armed and healthier Recovery Agent.
His gun was still on the ground, and his back was to her. His heavy armored form was crouched over a projection, but he didn’t seem to notice the way the strands of light deconstructed in his shadow. Through the chaos, South might’ve heard a sob.
But she swallowed down her regret and her hesitation, and the pipe connected solidly with the back of his helmet. Illinois fell over, unconscious, just as the projection cameras began to smoke from strain and Theta’s tiny form hovered by the AI port.
“You got him!” The cheer in the voice dissolved when South too dropped to her knees, body shaking from the effort she exerted. “Are you okay?”
“Nah,” South breathed, exhaustion burrowing into her bones. “I just, I just need a little…a little rest…” She winced as Theta jumped to her neural implant, his steady presence keeping her eyes open and granting some relief to the burn of ripped stiches and the ache of old bruises.
“Let’s get him cuffed to something that won’t break and ditch his armor and weapons.” Theta’s voice was soft despite syncing up, an intentional choice on his part to not irritate the splitting headache he could now keenly feel. “Then we can get you some water.”
“Good idea,” South breathed aloud, crawling back to her hands and knees. “Good idea…”
---
South stole one last look at Illinois through the CCTV cameras, his form small and crumpled, stripped of that shining blue armor and cuffed to a barrack bunk. She had left him a ration pack and traded the whiskey in his flask for water, but that didn’t make her feel better about leaving him there after what she and Theta had done.
It was for survival. He was going to kill her. He was. Otherwise, South would never be able to wash that dark spot from her conscience.
Theta felt the same, a soft murmur of horror wresting with a breath of relief. They were safe, for the first time in a long time from at least one threat. Both of them were safe. But not all of them. South flinched as the AI fragment jumped to the control terminal, her hands shaking as she lifted a cup of cool water to her lips. Had water always tasted this sweet?
“What’s up little buddy?” Her voice was hoarse, but she forced a smile in his direction.
“Wash has to be taking him with him to fight the Meta – he has to – I just need access to these Freelancer files…” He spoke quickly, the screen flickering through lines of blue and pink code too fast for South to read. The projection stalked back and forth across the terminal, violet bleeding red as access codes were denied and he ran against firewalls that wouldn’t yield.
“Theta,” South murmured, concern creasing her face. “Delta’s…gone,”
“No, he isn’t, you saw him. He was right there, and you just let them –” There was a flicker of orange in Theta’s projection that quickly extinguished itself. “And…and we can get him back.”
“No, Theta, you synced with me. You know he deleted his memories. His code.” She swallowed thickly; the water suddenly bitter as she took another sip. “That Delta isn’t our – your Delta anymore. He’s gone and there’s no getting him back.”
“Shut up, you don’t know that,”
“Theta,”
“Shut up!” The base reverberated with the sheer volume of the audio, South’s ears ringing as she curled away from the terminal with her head in her hands and tears in her eyes. As the feedback receded and Theta’s holographic form struggling to pull itself together, she took the opportunity to limp towards the doorway.
She needed a breath.
Theta had barely pulled himself together enough to stutter through the static of pain and grief and anger that fizzled throughout his code.
“South, come back, please, I’m sorry I – I didn’t mean to…to yell…please just,” Theta’s voice was a whisper, but South slowed her exit, swaying on unsteady feet. “I don’t want to be alone,”
She swallowed back the lump in her throat and blinked away tears, steadying herself on the doorframe.
“Me either buddy,” She croaked, a weak hand gesturing to her neural implant. “Grab the map to the pelican landing platform in the mountains and hop in, we’ve got a long ride out of here,”
---
“You’re bleeding a lot,”
“Go back into storage. The Meta could still be on our tails.”
“South, you’re still –”
“I know.” South grimaced, the painkillers and stims from her armor’s life support system blocking out the pain and sheer physical exhaustion that would have stopped a normal human.
“And when we get there, you –”
“Still have no idea what I’ll do or say.”
“And you don’t really care?”
“…” South stayed silent a moment; her thoughts stilled by the AI’s assumption. “I just want to go home. I just want to rest.” Now Theta stayed quiet, but there was a shiver through her mind, hardly a whisper.
“Me too.”
The mongoose thundered to a stop at the base of the mountain, the slope too steep to travel any further by vehicle.
“Free climb?”
“What else?”
“Be careful with your leg, the stitches are barely holding you together,”
“Hey, is that an insult to my sewing?”
“A little,”
South cracked a wry smile, swallowing back the pain as she pulled herself up the cliff, ignoring the alerts and warnings on her HUD. Theta responded to her annoyance, swiping the distractions from her vision but keeping the gentle reminder that she was in worse shape than she felt pressed against the back of her mind.
Hand over hand. Foot over foot.
Years ago, North would be beside her, keeping pace with her despite being a far better climber. They would race each other to the top of the cliff face dozens of times, their mother’s warnings waning to a sigh of defeat and prepared med kit when one of the twins inevitably fell. It was South, of course, and she fought the broken leg and cast for weeks before resigning to her temporary fate.
North never climbed without her.
He would have, in typically fashion, cited safety precautions that he shouldn’t climb alone. This was the second time South had climbed without him. For a dizzying moment, she stole a glance behind her, in that blind spot North always occupied following her fall, as though he could catch her if she fell again.
He wasn’t there, of course.
“South!” Theta squeaked, his presence reaching out to stabilize her as she swayed by one hand in the gales, stories above the ground. “It – it’s a nice…nice memory…but we need to focus,”
“Right…right,” South hissed aloud, breathless and beginning to feel the ache of her bones as she tried to regain her rhythm.
She barely realized she had reached the top, mind sluggish and clinging to the shreds of motivation Theta drove into her muscle memory. Even as she laid at the edge of the cliff, armor stained with a fresh gush of blood from her torn stitches, she barely felt his presence beg her to move, to stand up, to get help.
Everything felt far away and foggy, the pelicans roaring overhead and the face of a familiar UNSC soldier an intangible dream.
---
‘sup. Finally getting back into the swing of things (turns out being medicated for like. depression and adhd makes writing fun again). I’ve had this chapter for a while but didn’t want to post it unless I knew I had the motivation to follow through with the next Act - that’s right! - Intermission over! We’re officially headed to Act II of this babey! I’m uploading this fic to AO3 as well (feel free to check out my completed Carolina and Triplets fic there if that’s your jam). Shooting for a biweekly update schedule but I’ll keep y’all posted. Stay sexy my friends.
I actually drew this over a month ago but over a month ago I couldn’t tag things so that’s why I didn’t upload it until now.
Anyways, here’s Illinois, one of the freelancer best bois.
