Stained (Red vs Blue)

Memories Consume Us

Before The Storm

She looked at me wide eyed. The daunting fear of the man who now called himself the Creator loomed over my mind. I could have sworn his file read K.I.A... But how?

"Neva? Who? Who is he?" She said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, and walking to me. I was still running over and over in my head, to dazed to speak. It couldn't be him. Could it? Could it really be him? "Neva, we can't do anything if you don't tell us. Who is he?" She asked, putting a calm hand on my shoulder.

I struggled for words. How? How could it be him? I continued running over every detail I could remember. Iowa put both hands on my shoulders and shook me a little. "Can you tell me?" She asked. "W-we're connected to him. We can trace him back to our roots. He's an echo in our thoughts. He continues to ride with us," I said, piecing the puzzle together.

"You aren't making since, Neva. Who is he?" She asked again, a bit more urgent. "He is him. We couldn't forget him if we tried," I paused, and stared straight at her, our eye's locking.

"Our old Mentor," I said, but it came out closer to a whisper.

She looked shocked, but recovered, piecing the pieces together in her mind. "That's why he named Tracer Echo and Ryder like that. He was giving us the pieces to the puzzle, and he expected us to remember. Do you recognize any of the others? Tracer? Echo? Ryder?" Iowa asked.

I thought about it, and slowly nodded. "We were the 121st division. Joshua Krev, other wise known as Tracer. And Jonathan Farrel, known as Echo. I'm betting Ryder was another person working for our division in the shadows," I said. Iowa just nodded. I got to my feet, still milling over the details I just uncovered.

"Neva? Are you okay?" Iowa asked. I was still shocked from the sudden realization. "But it can't be? Can it? His f-file read killed in action. Can it be him?" I said, barely more than a whisper. Iowa touched my shoulder. And we both recited a common saying amongst UNSC personnel, "Spartans never die. They're just missing in action,"

I was just staring blankly at the door. He trained us since we first became Spartans. Back then, we didn't know our own strength, our speed, our reflexes. We didn't know how to be a Spartan. He took the five of us -Tracer, Echo, Oregon, Iowa, and myself- under his wing. He trained us. We never were allowed a break, a sick day. It was day after day of intinsive training that left us basically collapsing on the floor at lights out every night.

But that's what made us who we are.

He created five incredibly talented Spartans out of a group of kids that probably wouldn't have gotten as far as they did without him. He made us the perfect weapons for the UNSC. "I wonder if he did all that just to take us over the edge, and follow him to the Insurrection side. What if he did? Would we have ever gotten to meet C-O? Michigan? Would we ever see Alaska again?

Would I have been jailed?

Would we be who we were if he stayed with us back then?

One day, he didn't show up for a morning training session with all of us. We figured that he was sick, and didn't really take notice. We just sparred against each other, being one of the most violent groups in the UNSC. But when we didn't see him for nearly two months, you can be sure that we noticed.

We reported his absence to Command. They went out looking for him, and never found him. They changed his file from reading "M.I.A. " to "K.I.A." But that's when Joshua and Jonathan disappeared from our small dorms. We searched for them constantly, thinking that they were testing our skills. There wasn't a trace of them.

Eventually, the subject was dropped, but we could still hear the whispers. They called us several names, whispered behind our backs, thinking we couldn't hear their words. But they couldn't be more wrong. We heard every word, every insult, every theory, and every blame. They blamed us for the loss of a respected Mentor, and two well versed Spartans. Every word felt like a knife just found it's way into my heart.