//------------------------------// // Chapter 16, A new friend // Story: Walking the plains of Equestria... As a Spartan? // by Brother Uriel //------------------------------// I grunt in pain and as luck would have it I wasn’t hit in some vital organ or something, thank God, though it still hurt like a bitch. I look at the bolt in my side and grab onto it, wincing at the pain, before I tore it out of me. Feeling the blood trickle down my side as I proceed to stand, trying to ignore it and the wave of nausea that had risen over me. I also try to ignore the the vomit trying to come up from my stomach. I gulp before I make it down the last of the stairs and onto the floor of the Forerunner facility, shaking my head as my comm comes on with Serenity's voice. “Kent?! Are you alright!?” I wave a hand and take a breath of air through my helmet, which feels overwhelmingly confining at the moment. “Fine, I’m fine I just need… To sit down.” Maybe more like lay back and sleep, I really am starting to have second thoughts on this whole Spartan lifestyle. “You sound like you’re in a lot more pain then you’re letting on.” I shake my head before I start my march down the hall. “Tell the ponies in the armory to leave please, I want to be left alone” I say as pain from moving so rapidly causes me to wince. “Two of them are staying, remember?” I pause and sigh as this memory hits me, Vapor and Luna… Vapor I'm willing but Luna? She's gonna be missed… Damnit. I shake my head in frustration, “Just tell them to meet me in the control room, I don't want to deal with this right now.” “The medical bay might be a good option for you right now.” “I'd head there if I didn't feel like shit and knew where it was… Because my memory isn't the best.” I reply. She sighs, “Just continue down the hall” I do just that, walking down the hall silently as I head for the med bay, more or less just done with being shot at, I mean, I was only shot once, but this really sucks just having to be wounded so easily and this pain… I hate pain, pain makes me angry and want to beat the shit out of who dealt it to me. Shaking my head I continue until I make it to another door, to which it slides open and I walk into the familiar medbay, wait… fuck, I’ve already been here and forgot I was. Me being a total dumbass aside. I walk over to the table Serenity had me on from before, and I pop a squat on it and lay back, as robotic arms come down from the ceiling. It's not all that much of a surprise, this place has lots of technology and robotic arms from the ceiling seem mild in this case. Though they do have that… thing where their detached in some places and seem to be held by some invisible force as they fly down to me. Once to me, they stop and just sit there before all but two leave, one with a syringe and the other with a small tube. The one with the syringe, I hate needles by the way, comes down and jabs my arm, injecting whatever it has, making me cringe in the process, but it leaves and the other one goes to where I was hit and a foam like substance covers it, both leaving back to the ceiling as I sit up and hop off of the table. I stretch and sigh, feeling better now that the pains gone, and I exit the medbay. And to bump into the last thing I actually expected to see, a monitor. It’s eye is yellow and it glows yellow as well, and I widen my eyes as it flies back a tad, watching me as I do it, before it starts to spin around me, doing this a few times before stopping in front of me again after seeming to have scanned me. “Hello! I am Monitor 351 of this world's main facility, you seem to have an unknown and powerful A.I. with you, please do refrain harming any and all systems my creators made.” Its voice is a cheery womans voice, making it just seem happy to talk. I nod, “Understood, we won’t hurt any of the technology and just… use it like it was intended to.” You gotta show respect to these guys, they pack a punch, even killing Johnson! That dude was a total badass! Surviving the flood and the destruction of the Halo ring, it's crazy he was only a human… though they do say he could shoot lasers from his eyes but I’m not sure if that one was true or not. The Monitor stares at me before it looks around, seeming to be… lost… weird. “Are you… alright?” It turns to me and snaps out of its stupor. “Yes yes, sorry I am just… Lost.” So I was right, “Why’s that? “I seem to have… blanks in my databanks.” Oh? Wonder what that does to its concern? “So do you, like, remember anything?” “No” “Really? Well, I mean, could hang with me if you want.” This is when Serenity butts into this through my helmet, “Kent, this isn’t some normal Monitor.” “Pardon?” “I said nothing” Replies the Monitor, but I wave it away and listen to Serenity. “It, well, to be more human, she, seems to be something new, the records show nothing of a monitor of any facility here, and her databanks can’t be missing, she's a Monitor.” “Meaning?” “She should have everything about her creators but she doesn’t.” I get  a tad confused by this, “But she just-” “Kent, she isn’t right, something's off about her, all this is odd to even me.” Odd… My A.I. is confused… Is that good or bad? I sigh before I speak up again, “So… 351… Any other names you go by?” She looks at me and just stares… creepy. “I do not, no… Should I?” I simply shrug, “I mean… Better then numbers honestly.” “You offered something to me, what was it? Hang out with you? What does that mean?” Oh lord this should make this ride even better to go on, Mr. Bones has his work cut out for him. “Yeah, just follow me around I guess… better than floating around aimlessly.” She floats there before she nods, “Okay! I’ll follow you around” I nod and turn and start for the control room again, 351 right behind me as I walk.  This day just gets better and better.