Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

Global 1

A line of armored military vehicles poured through the open gate to the UNSC's headquarters at fort Harmony. Overhead the sky was a deep blue green in the early morning dawn, while the street before the compound was lit in alternating beams of bright yellow light spilling from the headlights of passing Humvees. Floodlights inside the compound were on, waving back and forth over the tarmac as teams of men marched in groups towards their waiting vehicles.

The amount of firepower they brought with them would have been awe inspiring, but after years of warring on alien planets, Anin dueling circles, and literally overloading an energy core made out of his own soul to kill Cthulhu, Adam had to admit that the showing was less impressive than the average person might have thought it was.

Sitting in the bushes, across the street and not 100 meters away from all this, he couldn't help but smile to himself, "And to think all of this, just for little ol' me, how flattering."

"I aspire to your level of notoriety." Maverick whispered from the darkness. You would think someone as ghostly pale as er wouldn't be nearly as good at stealth as she was, but even so, staring into the darkness, he could just barely make out her outline against the black, and that was only because he knew she was there.

"Ok, so I know this might sound crazy, but hear me out." Ramirez began.

Adam could almost hear Maverick rolling her eyes.

He knew that the two of them had gone on a few dates in the past month or so, but he wasn't entirely sure if they were "dating" whatever they had still resembled more of an intense friendship than any kind of romantic relationship. Honestly, Adam had assumed that Maverick wasn't capable of producing romantic feelings, and so far that perception had not changed. Whatever relationship the two of them had it had only grown more companionably antagonistic and competitive over the intervening months.

"So if we manage to sneak in.... and you know do this thing.... And the president is in there, and he is an asshole probably working for Kazna. And you know since we are already there..... it would only be convenient-"

"We are not assassinating the president."

"But why not." The British isles had a lovely word to describe the type of tone Ramirez took: Winging. Wining like a kid who didn't understand why they couldn't go out for fast food when mom says there is 'food at home'.

"Because we are better than that."

"Are we though." Maverick said, shrugging once as he turned a disapproving expression on her.

Sunny shifted a few feet away from him, "You know this is suspiciously like when batman or superman refuses to kill a villain, puts them in Arkham, just for the villain to escape and kills even more people? And you wonder Maybe batman and Superman are inadvertently causing the death of hundreds of more people because they won't just kill the Joker."

"Did you just make a pop culture reference?" Adam asked, knowing the answer but quite stunned.

"So what if I did."

He grinned, "You are so hot right now."

Maverick groaned, "Oh get a room, you aren't even a comic nerd."

"That's where you're wrong! Superman was an alien from outer space, so if you think I wasn't all over that shit, then you would be incorrect., But back to my earlier point, we aren't going to kill him for the same reason batman and superman don't kill people because how is it our right the make that decision? As soon as we kill him we declare ourselves judge jury and executioner with the divine right to decide the fate of others. If we choose to do that we are no better than the people that we fight."