AN: I'm moving it to when he reaches the village, because for fuck's sake, this shit has gone on long enough. And he'll reach the village before the rest of the fireteam; it'll become clear in due time as to why. Or I could just be making a fast travel joke. Who knows? (No, it seriously has some relevance in the plot.)

Also, whoever reviewed 'need more', you made my freaking day. xD

On another note, I AM SO, SO, SO SORRY for not updating in the past few months; I was busy with school and my other stories. Reviewing helps motivate me to write the chapters faster, though! :D

SPARTAN-A206

CODENAME: DORADO

LEADER OF FIRETEAM WHISP

I finally reached the village. The houses were all made of wood with roofs made of some sort of leaf or organic material that I couldn't tell. They were all built on platforms due to the marshy ground, and some were even two stories high with scaffolding-like support beams holding up stretches of lumber catwalks for the residents to walk on. It honestly looked like the textbook definition of a medieval/Scandinavian village.

Oddly, I had never found the traveler that had given me his valuables. Maybe he ran off beyond the village because of fear? Maybe a separate band of the Brass Bears had chased him and then killed him, taking him off the road. I immediately crossed the former out, since he had nothing of value that the group would seem to want. All his gold was on me, and the only things I could think of that he had on was the dagger he had sheathe, his backpack, and clothes. Nothing especially precious.

I shook my head, focusing my thoughts. I would set aside the resources the traveler had for if I found him again, but now I had to focus on the task at hand; finding some sort of explanation for the place I'm in.

As I walked into the stone arch forming the gates of the town (also catching the stares of the guards on patrol), I head a woman, most likely elderly from her voice, shouting "A dragon! I saw a dragon!"

At least I hadn't been having some hallucination, and knew that the dragon I had been fighting was real. I spotted the woman relatively quickly. She was standing on the deck of a house pressed up against the stone wall protecting the village. I had moved silently, so she didn't notice me yet. A man, much younger than her, walked out. "Mother, any more of this, and any of the village that still doesn't believe your insane, will swiftly change their minds," the man tried hushing her.

"I know what I saw! A dragon flew over the mountains!" she retorted, staring daggers at her now named son. "Mother, I to-" the man's sentence was cut short as his jaw dropped, and I knew that he had caught sight of me. I stepped out into the open and the view of both. The man's eyes were flooded with emotion; fear, curiosity, fear again, and then confusion. Funnily enough, fear prevailed, and the man grabbed his mother by the shoulders stiffly, guiding her back into the home. I snorted behind my faceplate, amused by the reaction of the resident.

"No funny business," a guard came up to me and told me. It sounded as if the words were forced, though, as if the guard was so scared that a simple flick of my finger would send him running for the hills. I simply stared down at the armored man, making him wilt under my gaze. "Affirmative," I responded as casually as a SPARTAN-III could get. The guard merely nodded, likely not trusting his mouth to form words, and shuffled off, holding his battle-axe in a white-knuckled grip. I chuckled slightly, carrying on.

The residents of the towns all seemed to react in one of three ways: fear, and sometimes guiding their loved ones away, curiosity as even I would admit that my armor would seem practically alien to the medieval-type people, and just flat out surprise. More than once, they just froze, and someone had to slap them in the back for them to continue breathing. It must look strange to them, with all the lights, smooth metals, and odd-looking weapons that I carried.

A shady-looking young woman walked up to me, a smirk plastered onto her face. "Where'd you get something like that, and how much does it cost?" she asked, placing a hand on her hips. I sensed that this was not someone I'd want to rub elbows with, so I tried the brutal honesty approach. "More than you can afford," I grunted in response. These things cost as much as a small starship, billions of credits; and there was no way she owned that type of money, let alone currency.

She frowned. "I said I wanted it, so how much does it cost?" she said, her voice loosing its seductive edge it had before and was replaced by frustration. "I already told you; much more than you can afford, and you won't find anything close to it… in this area," I stumbled over my words for a second, not knowing what to say. Was I on a rogue planet, an alternate dimension, or was this all some kind of hallucination or dream I was having due to an injury I can't remember? She noticed this halt in the words, grinning as if I had explicitly told her the measurements and materials needed for it. "Ah, so nowhere near here. I'm pretty well travelled, so try me," she smirked loftily. I decided to be even more brutally honest.

"Nowhere in this planet," I replied, my voice filled with a tone of finality. Anger flared through her eyes, as she unsheathed a green-ish sword and pointed it at me. "I want that armor, and I will have it. So, you will either tell me where to get a set, or you will hand over your armor," she muttered, her voice dark and filled with scorn. "Listen, kid. I don't think you know who you're messing with," I grunted, unimpressed. As a SPARTAN, I never underestimated an enemy, but she was threatening a SPARTAN-III fully armed and armored. So she was practically asking for a few broking bones.

She growled in rage as she thrusted the sword at me. She didn't catch me off guard, though, as in the blink of an eye, I had grabbed her arm and wrenched the sword out of her grip, bringing it to her neck, then sliding in behind her. In a matter of seconds, we had gone from being a few feet apart to me being directly behind her with full control of whether she would live or die. "Now do you know who you're messing with?" I asked, my voice cold and monotone. She stared back at me, anger and fear fighting in her eyes. All she could see, though, was her own reflection in the glass of my faceplate.

"Alright, alright! I didn't even want the damn armor!" she grunted, holding her hands up. "Good," I said curtly, shoving her onto the dirt path with little caution of her safety. "At least give me my damn sword," she growled, staring up at me. Now that she was out of the blade's reach of her throat, she had become rude again. I nodded, throwing her sword at her. For a split second, her face paled as she thought the sword would puncture her cranium, but when it was going to supposedly hit her head it merely grazed the side of her face, barely touching a hair. "Pitiful," I grunted, noting that a few brave souls had gathered around.

"You do not want to fight me," I told all of them, putting emphasis on 'not' and 'me'. "Uhm, y-yes s-sir!" one of them stuttered, satisfying me. "Now, have you seen a group of people wearing the same type of armor as me walk through here?" I asked, flexing my hands if somebody else decided to threaten me. "N-no," I heard someone reply. That's odd… they departed before me, so they should gave gotten here first. Maybe they took a different path? Or maybe got lost… it was confusing.

I glanced up to see the sky darkening, vibrant shades of red and orange were streaked across the sky. The view, I had to admit, was spectacular, as the village itself was situated on a sort of cliff that rose above the trees, so I had a clear view of the spectacle. I shook my head, knocking me out of my stupor. I looked around, quickly spotting a traditional-looking building with the word 'Grandroot Inn'. "There it is," I said, walking towards it. People were starting to disperse, even the stupid lady that had tried to threaten me.

The second I entered, I noticed that everyone in here hadn't heard what happened on the street, so it was like entering town all over again. People froze, others shied away from me, and others merely continued on as if nothing was out of the ordinary, which I found amusing. There was a fire in the middle, roasting what looked like chicken above it. I stepped over to what looked like the place where I could ask to get a room. The lady working the little desk just stared up at me, her face pale. I towered over her with a good two feet up my sleeve. "I would like a room," I said once she found her voice again.

"U-Uhm, sure! Room three; you'll f-find it by going up the s-stairs and on the right of the h-hallway…" she stammered. I nodded, heading up. I would search for my fireteam tomorrow. I am no use to them if I'm not at the top of my game.

SPARTAN-B401

CODENAME: BOLT

SNIPER OF FIRETEAM WHISP

There were up to six wolf-man-things circling around us, all of them with saliva dripping from their jaws and their wicked teeth bared. "What are these things?" I heard Circuit ask, her voice nothing but a whisper. "They look like… werewolves," Blast breathed over the COMMs. "Damn it; the werewolves found us!" one of the Stormcloaks shouted, confirming our thoughts. Abruptly, the largest one walked in front of us, its eyes a dimly glowing red. They reflected my faceplate in them; expressionless, stoic. It then snarled at us.

All of them charged.

In the first second, two of the Stormcloaks were trampled, brutally clawed at and their corpses smushed. The sickening, reverberating crunches and snapping of bone echoed through the trees. I instinctively fired my sniper rifle, dropping one. It tumbled to the ground, blood gushing from the newly-made hole in its head. One charged at a Stormcloak and managed to slash at the poor man successfully, blood, organic matter, and bone fragments showering the others. It let out an animalistic snarl as it tried taking a bite at me.

Thankfully, being a sniper also meant you had to be good at CQC, since our weaponry was focused on range. I swiftly snapped my sniper rifle onto my back, unsheathing the combat blade as one lumbered towards me. It howled, as if to intimidate me, and tried to body-slam me. I was quicker, though, as I grabbed its arm and used the momentum to swing out of its path, spinning the combat knife in my hand, then thrusting the metal blade deep into the creature's back. Blood instantly erupted from the puncture, staining my armor-plated gauntlet. It yowled in pain, then whipping its head at me, snapping its jaws, as if try to catch my head in its maw.

My hand snapped to the magnum pistol on my waist as I heard another agony-filled and death-induced shriek, my eyes glancing for half a second at a Stormcloak body convulsing on the dirt, their weapon on their chest. I did this for a fraction of a millisecond, my attention returning to the overgrown dog. It snarled at me, foolishly turning its front to me. I took this opportunity to kill it. "Say 'ahhh'!" I quipped, pulling the magnum up. It did something akin to a loud bark at me, filled with hatred. I then fired three rounds into its open mouth.

It dropped into the dirt, blood welling up in its mouth and dripping down into its fur, leaving rivers of red in the otherwise grey fur.

I couldn't pay attention to the now lifeless bag of fur for long, as I heard growling to my left. Instinctively, I rolled to the right, hearing slashing sounds exactly where I had been. I ended in a crouch, my pistol at the ready in my hand. I glanced at my left, seeing the bigger werewolf that seemed to have led the pack. I jolted up, turning to face the beast. It growled at my, its mouth opening wide.

Abruptly, a grenade flew in. Its head burst in bone, blood, and all manners of gore, a chunk of brain matter flying by my hand. It threw me back, landing on the stone-strewn path on my side, causing me to grunt in response. "Need a hand?" a voice asked above me. I recognized that voice! "Dorado – good to know you don't like missing the party," I joked, seeing the red-clad SPARTAN-III above me stick a hand out to help me up.

I took it, grinning behind my faceplate. He pulled me up to my feet, "What are these things?"

He then aimed his BR at one and stared firing, the bullets hitting its eyes and travelling through its head. "They're pissed off and deadly; that's all you got to know," I replied, grabbing my sniper rifle from my back, quickly lining up a shot and shooting one. It dropped dead, like the others before. "Only one left!" shouted Lily, reloading. She was speaking the truth, since there was now only one werewolf left standing. "I got this," Blast said calmly, ignoring that the SPARTAN-IV had run towards him. He held his gatling gun in his hands, the barrels spinning. A torrent of bullets flew from them, tearing into the beast like a knife through butter. Blood spurted everywhere as the rounds hit everywhere, making it seem more like an impromptu shower than anything else. It started stumbling drunkenly, and then stumbling over one of the bodies that were littered over the path, dropping backwards and dying midfall.

We had won.