He didn't remember why, when, or how he'd first gotten it in his head to listen to music while practicing his knife routines.Â
All he knew was that he enjoyed it.Â
Donning a wireless headset and queuing up the first in the lineup for his practice routine, Fred-104 stepped out onto the practice room floor, taking a moment to enjoy the fact that he was alone in this particular room on the combat deck as he rolled his shoulders once to stretch slightly as the first few beats of the song reached him. Clad in only his armor's bodysuit and the black BDU pants of his day-to-day kit, where most IIs would have felt most vulnerable he felt at ease.Â
Each long note that opened the song for the first few bars was a stretch, a slight warm up as he mapped out the circle in his mind's eye that composed the scope of his first routine, designed for multiple opponents from multiple angles. In his mind's eye, he could picture the timer of the combat deck's computer systems, creating and loading his hardlight opponents for the upcoming routine.Â
With that the countdown in his mind's eye hit zero, as his opponents sprang into existence, and his hands closed around his blades, drawing them as the first lunged in for the attack. Fred met the first head on, weaving around the lunging strike with ease as he gave a short, sharp kick to the hardlight enemy to send it sprawling even as the second made it's move, it's attack blocked by one of Fred's own blades as he whirled to dispatch it with his second knife. One down.Â
Divide and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence.
Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemies' resistance without having to fight.
The music was loud, it's beat resounding pleasantly in time with his heartbeat as he caught the faintest sound of his first and third opponents approaching, knowing that the fourth and fifth were en route. He spun his blades between his fingers, as his lips quirked in a slight half-smile and he shifted his weight from leg to leg waiting for them, unconsciously moving in time to the song. While on the battlefield he was stoic, still as a statue until the time to spring into action came, off the battlefield he was an eager, energetic dynamo waiting to be released.Â
If you know the enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the results of 100 battles.Â
Within range, he went on the offensive rather than the defensive this time, meeting his first and third head on. The hardlight opponents, run by combat deck AI, weren't expecting it, and it gave him the time he needed. A well aimed blade soared end over end, hit it's mark only seconds before his arm struck the other across the throat, clotheslining it. A quick dropkick to keep it down, and he turned the bounce of impact into a quick pivot in the air to turn, dropping into a crouch on landing to retrieve his thrown blade from the one he'd downed.Â
Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory.
For it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.
The opponent he'd downed with the strikes stirred just to his right as he watched the approach of the fourth and fifth, and absent-mindedly he brought his blade down into it's chest hard enough that the hardlight fractured away and the tip of his blade hit the floor.
"Step it up a notch, I'm getting bored here." He chuckled - hardlight opponents with human limitations were only so interesting. "Five second queue then start routine seven."Â
Speed is the essence of war.
Five seconds to finish one routine and begin the next with a clean slate. Fred-104 pushed off, sprinting the short distance between himself and the final two targets without a noticeable rise in his heartbeat, throwing himself into the air at the end to pivot mid-air over the heads of his two targets, sinking blades in as hard as he could into the tops of their heads and letting their defeated forms steady him as he brought his body over and stuck the landing, their shells remaining just long enough for him to regain his footing before they vanished.Â
"Routine seven, engaged."Â
Sangheili, strong and agile, armed with their long plasma blades, striding towards him at the outskirts of the ring, earned another tight smile and there it was, the tiny surge of excitement that made his heartbeat quicken and the blood rush through his veins so that he could hear it in his ears even over the music. There it was, that feeling that he'd missed so much these past several years.Â
Feeling alive.Â
"Come on, give me a challenge..."
The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemies not coming, but on our own readiness to receive our enemy.
As the music played, Fred-104 laughed as he engaged his only worthy adversaries.Â
The victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won; Whereas he who is destined for defeat, first fights then afterwards looks for victory.
Speed is the essence of war.
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At least the Infinity had a decent bar.Â
John-117 sighed, as he slid into a both near the back of fhe bar, rubbing at his temples wearily for a moment or two as he waited for one of the wait staff to approach him.Â
It was all a bit much of late, really. Requiem's destruction, one Spook dogging his heels, Ackerson's surprise little meeting with him, the myriad volatile and colorful melange of Spartans from all generations aboard the Infinity, and secrets everywhere he turned around.Â
He couldn't remember, really, the last time he'd so consistently been driven to the desire to drink, but the past few weeks had been hell. He certainly wasn't drinking enough to affect him, or even really harm him, more turning to it for comfort more than he was used to.Â
Drinking alone too often, though, had always held a certain undertone of addiction and weakness to him. So he'd figured why not try the bars he was always hearing about. It had to be worth something, right?
The waitress approached him, all smiling and flirtatious but untouchable all the same, not that it mattered. He murmured a polite reply to her chipper greeting.Â
"Bottle of Black Label and a rocks glass with whiskey stones if you have them, otherwise just the glass and the bottle. Open me a tab."Â
She nodded pleasantly, taking his card with her back up to the bar to fulfill his order as he settled back against the booth, closing his eyes for a moment.Â
It was hell, really, to be surrounded by so many people after what felt like an eternity alone. Even moreso to be surrounded by so many people who were attached to one another, their myriad relationships and dramas playing out all round him reminding him of what he'd lost and what had probably faded in the time he'd been gone.Â
Cortana, lost to him after the destruction of the Composer.Â
And Adrian Fii, whose number had changed in the span of five years, and whom the Chief just couldn't bring himself to reach out to. It was easier to hope and long in maybes than it was to risk having the last little bit of hope he had left to him destroyed by the revelation that Fii had moved on and that he was now just an unwelcome ghost from the past.Â
The waitress returned soon enough with his order, and he was a bit relieved that there weren't any whiskey stones after all.Â
