#odst-reaper

He figured people looked at them like they were an oddity. And in a sense, they almost were.  So many of their Corps had dropped out, jumped ship as soon as the IV Program came along, without any care or concern for the fact that the UNSCDF still needed her ODSTs. Spartans - IIs, IIIs, and IVs - all had their uses, but few were quite so suited for the task of dropping in hard and disappearing, running covert ops and precision missions without being detected, as ODSTs. Particularly when one considered the costs.  Reaper stepped around the knot of IVs crowding the way into the firing range, casting them an unimpressed glance as he moved to take a seat and begin assembling his rifle from it's usual place, stored away safely in it's case. Reaper was a proud man, an old-fashioned ODST as he liked to say, and when the chance had arisen to purchase his rifle, he'd taken it, buying the pretty thing out of his own salary and painting her stock, altering her parts just so to make her his and his alone.  He'd named her Memento Mori.  He expertly assembled every component of his rifle, before moving to grab a few of the preloaded clips of ammunition provided by the range staff.

"They revoke my bitchy drag queen license if I don't."

You know I love you, right? My brother from another mother, all that jazz? But damn, you are one uneducated bastard..." 

Also made a blog for the commander I keep referencing in these posts by Reaper, for Cpt. Lazarus Cayde. You can find it here but there ain't much there yet. 

"Move! Your! Ass! Fii!"  Funny how it always seemed to come down to this. First wave to hit planetside was almost always the last to leave it.  Reaper vaulted over the remains of what used to be a wall, before something blasted the structure to pieces, as he cast a glance back over his shoulder for his fellow sniper, whom he'd outpaced for a short while now. The glance back was a mistake, as his foot caught on an errant piece of concrete debris and he was sent sprawling, rifle flying from his hands to skid several feet away as he faceplanted onto the ground hard. His mouth met the inside of his helmet with a bone-jarring clack, and for a moment there was a bright bloom of pain and the taste of his own blood in his mouth- - Before gloved hands seized him around the shoulders, hauled him back up to his feet and back to wide-eyed alertness, and he snapped his head to the side to see Adrian, just as weary and worse for wear as he was. Reaper depolarized his visor for a moment, gesturing to himself as if to ask how bad it was, and the other sniper did the same, looking at him grimly before replying "It's okay, you're fine! Let's move!"  He swept up his rifle as they broke into a run again, two experienced old ODSTs who didn't have the sense to leave the Corps yet, the brains between the two of them to stop the suicidal-adrenaline-junkie shenanigans. Running dead-set and focused for their bird, the last Pelican off planet in their area, whose waypoint shone like salvation in their VISR displays.  "Where th' fuck are you two!?" Their CO's voice thundered in their ears, as they rounded the last street corner to see the Pelican dead ahead of them, a straight shot through streets long since cleared of any Covenant stragglers that had elected to die in the holy fires of glassing.  "Comin, hold that fuckin bird!" Reaper replied, noticing the specks of blood from his torn lip as they hit his visor.  "Hurry it up, damnitt! Th' Covies are in position, they're firin' any sec- the fuck you doin', pilot!?"  "Aww fook me!" Adrian roared, as they both watched the dust kick up by the engines firing up. Neither man wasted a moment, heads lowered as they broke into a sprint for all they were worth, summoning up whatever last dregs of energy they had left after the drop to make it to the bird that slowly began rising off the ground, higher-  "Jump, goddamnit!"  Neither man hesitated, leaping forward with arms outraised and outstretched to grab hold of the edges of the Pelican's ramp before the strong hands of their unit mates took hold, doing the work of hauling them into the Pelican proper. Damien didn't move for a few minutes once aboard, panting heavily as Fii flopped beside him coughing, his throat rendered dry by exhaustion and adrenaline.  "Get us th' fuck outta here, Pilot!" Cayde shouted, and Damien managed to push himself up onto his elbows long enough to, before the ramp was fully taken up, see the brightening of the clouds in the distance that heralded the first wave of the glassing fleet. "You two shit fer brains ever get that far ahead of th' rest of the unit again, I swear to God!"  Too tired to argue or sass, all the two snipers could do was laugh.