Life With Ares

NO QUARTER! NO MERCY!

The Machina descended carefully onto the landing field outside of the president's compound. Zirotan was colored a fleshy pink and radiating green due to the native plant life. Byntav architecture was sleek and silver, making for a horrible color contrast of pink, green, and metallic silver on the planet's surface. 

"Warning, atmosphere not breathable by all humans on board. Please, wear helmets." Machina warned as we landed. 

"No rest, huh? Another Monolith?"  

"Yep." I sighed internally at Ares, "You all rested up now?" I asked condescendingly. 

"Yes, actually. After THIS battle, we should be able to finally have a little talk. I see you're a soldier now, congrats." Ares chuckled a bit. 

"Yeah, decided I wanted to do something with my life other than talk to the voice in my head." I rolled my eyes. 

"I can feel when you roll your eyes, you know? Anyways, remember all that shit I said before about making the galaxy crawl? Forget it, I obviously can't lure you into giving me control that way. So I guess I have to tell you the truth." I could feel him shrug.

"Ah, so the arrogant asshole thing was an act?" 

"Oh, no. Now I'm just an arrogant asshole a little more willing to cooperate with you." 

 "What the fuck are you, Ares?" I sighed and shook my head. 

"I'll tell you later, but we're a team now. You want offense or defense?"

"What?" I was so confused, talking to myself in my head. 

"I'll take defense." I could feel Ares shrug, and just like that he stopped responding. 

"Mars," I felt Shiara bump my shoulder as I dressed in my UPIN battle armor. The blue star on the pectoral like the soldiers on the Law, "Or should I sat Pvt. Monroe now?" She smiled and playfully punched my shoulder. 

"Hey Shiara," I rolled my eyes with a smile. 

"I'm pretty excited to see what you learned in training. Are you going to combine it with your powers?" She asked, excitedly.

"Let me get the hang of one thing at a time, okay?" I felt a little overwhelmed and pressured. 

Yamato finally filed into the cargo bay where we all waited for him, we would soon be exiting the ship. 

"Alright people, we have six hours to prepare for the Dagoran fleet to arrive. This is going to be a fire fight like none other, if they stick with the pattern of the one we found on Furna, we shouldn't have to fear orbital bombardment, they don't want to damage the Monolith. President Xil'Taan managed to move the Monolith onto his compound, but his team experienced the Monolith increasing it's density and now won't move, we think that whatever is trapped inside realized it was being moved and not by Dagorans. The plan is to not let that thing break open. Dr. Dijin theorizes that it cannot break unless surrounded by a certain amount of Dagorans, so it is being heavily defended by Xil'Taan's best men. We will be assisting wherever we are needed, and right now that is the vanguard. We're some tough son of a bitches, and will help drastically. By the way, everyone, give Private Monroe here a pat on the back, this is his first official fight as a United Planet's Interstellar Navy Marine. Congrats, soldier." Yamato looked me in the eyes and nodded, "If things go too terribly south, we are retreating to the Machina for escape. Sound good?" 

"Yes sir," We echoed. 

"Operator," DeKalb spoke up.

"Yes, Lt?"