Halo Squad

Chapter 12

Two hours later, when it was night time back on earth, in England, where they were from, Lavinia gently shook Dominic awake. "Thanks Dom. I honestly love that you always just come for me whenever I get like this" "Aw Vi, how many times do I have to tell you, I'm just doing my job as your very own Dominic" "Well, either way, thanks. I'm kinda hungry now, you have any food?". Dominic laughed "Come", he stood up, took her by the hand and led her out of her bedroom and into the dining room. All nine bean bags were still there, but only two still had dining utensils in front of them, which Dominic took as meaning the others had gone to bed. Lavinia sat down on the purple one, while Dominic sat on the black one. He then realised that the bean bags were coloured according to their squad's favourite colours. Green for Tamsin, grey for Japeth, red for Emilia, light blue for Gemma and dark blue for Gava. There was an orange one for Baby, and he assumed the yellow one was for Anna. He found it somewhat strange that such a negative person would like such a happy colour, he personally had despised it since the Minions movie.

He then reached forward and picked up the music selector for the speakers. He considered giving it to Lavinia, then realised there was no point, as he knew exactly what she'd put on. He opened Spotify, and checked the settings. He was delighted to see that it was Spotify premium, as he hated adverts. He went to search, and typed in 'the neighbourhood'. He opened the profile for The Neighbourhood, set it to play on shuffle, and picked up his plate. "How do we get our food?" asked Lavinia, and Dominic shrugged "Maybe we just think about whatever we want and it appears". Dominic focused on his favourite food, and moments later it was on his plate. He saw a cheese pizza appear on Lavinia's plate, gave a little laugh, then picked up his fork and started eating his Jollof Rice.

Lavinia looked over at Dominic and laughed to herself. He had always loved his Nigerian food better than anything else, except maybe the super pizza they had created together on their anniversary. It had about 20 different toppings, and she couldn't even remember half of them. They had been together for 2 years and 4 months now, and she couldn't even imagine leaving him for anyone. In no way was he perfect, she could admit to herself, but neither was she. He accepted her for her flaws, depression and all, and that was all she needed. She'd had boyfriends and friends previously that had acted like they cared, but abandoned her when she really needed them. They were still young, she knew, but she couldn't help thinking about their future together every now and then. She truly loved him, and she knew that he loved her too. Lavinia's thoughts were interrupted by a sound she knew all too well, the sound of one of Dominic's favourite songs, one they loved to sing together. "Just got cheated on, no it's not my day" Lavinia started singing along with him.

As the song came to an end, Lavinia picked up a slice of pizza, to find that it somehow was still hot. The two of them finished their food, as the music continued. The two of them picked up their goblets and summoned mango juice simultaneously. "Dom" "Yeah?" "Can we sleep in here tonight? With the bean bags?" "Course Vi" he smiled "I'll go get your sleeping pills. They should have come up with you, your clothes did" "Okay". About a minute later Dominic returned, bottle of Ambien in his hand. Lavinia took two 10mg pills, and swallowed them with some water she caused to appear in her goblet. They both knew it'd take about half an hour to put her to sleep, so they spent that last 30 minutes just chatting. Once Lavinia was asleep, Dominic also went to sleep, spooning her.

The next morning the whole team was woken up by a loud air-horn blast from Remiel "Wake up, Halo Squad! Time to get stuff done!". Not a morning person, Dominic slowly raised up groggily, finding that Lavinia had already left him, presumably to shower and change. He figured he might as well do the same, and dragged his feet across the floor as he walked to the room labelled 'Dominic'. An hour later, they were all assembled in the training sector, in the lobby of the center. "Mornin' Remi, what's first?" asked Gava, perky as ever, "Morning Gava, first thing on the list for today is," Remiel checked a digital list on his halo "Uniforms and code names". There were general sounds of excitement coming from the teenagers. "Come with me, team!" Remiel led them to the combat room, where nine silver orbs lay down on the ground. "Walk in front of an orb, each of you". All of them approached an orb and waited for something to happen.

The orbs all shot up and scanned the angels with widespread red lasers. Each orb whirred for a second, then projected a uniform on each of them, which resembled Katniss Everdeen's outfit from the Mockingjay movie, but in pure white. Each outfit had a small silver logo on the left chest. The logo was a pair of extended wings, with a halo just above the centre. "Woah! These are bloody cool" exclaimed Dominic, and the others all nodded in agreement. The projections from the machine then fizzled into existence, until they all wore the lightly armored uniform. "Wait, where are our regular clothes? The ones we were just wearing" queried Gemma, "They're back in your rooms" replied Remiel. "These are cool and all, but they don't seem very appropriate for training. Can we have like training kit too? For when we're here?" asked Dominic, "Of course you can, how would you like to design it yourself?" "Hell yeah! Okay guys, I'm thinking like those slim, non-baggy tracksuit bottoms in light grey, with a plain black t-shirt and white bomber jackets. The bomber jackets have our codename on the front, and on the back they have the logo in massive. We can have the logo in our favourite colour. Who designed that logo by the way?".

Baby grinned "I did! I think it's pretty cool", and everyone voiced their agreement. "So if everyone is cool with Dominic's idea, tap your orb and it'll appear on you" Remiel told them. Everyone tapped their orbs and were quickly dressed in the Halo Squad training kit. "Wait, I have another idea. Put 'Halo Squad on the back of the jackets as well" Lavinia said. They all tapped their orbs again and the words Halo and Squad appeared above and below the logo. "These jackets are so nice, I love them!" squealed Lavinia, but Dominic's mind was already elsewhere "Time for our codenames!". Remiel was clearly on the same page as Dominic, as he told them "I'm on the same page as Dominic. Having a code name is important for angels, it protects your real identity from your enemies, who would gladly hurt your family to get to you. Remiel isn't even my real name" "Really? What is it?!" asked Tamsin, "If I told you that, I'd have to kill you" "Really?" "No, my name's Remiel, stupid. I was never a human, my only family is Gabriel" "Really?!" "Yeah, he's my brother".

"Um guys, can we get back to the codenames?" Dominic said, impatiently, "Yeah course" chuckled Remiel. The orbs all projected a holographic keyboard, which each team member entered their chosen names, after varying lengths of thinking times. "So, what did you guys all pick?" asked Dominic. The other eight turned towards him, then all tapped their silver orbs. Baby's jacket said 'Zelda', which Dominic understood. She had always loved Princess, saying that she was "Pretty but a hidden badass". He quickly realise that he understood most of their codenames; Emilia chose 'Red', her favourite colour, Tamsin chose 'Rey', after her favourite female movie character, Gava chose 'Angelito', 'Angel' in spanish, Gemma chose 'Z', because her middle name was Zoey and although it wasn't quite as cool as the others, Lavinia had chosen 'Lavender' after her favourite flower. However, the remaining two he didn't understand. Anna had chosen 'Nyx', after the greek goddess of night, but he didn't quite understand why. He'd make a point to ask her later, in case it was a long explanation.

Japeth's codename, he could ask about now, because he knew that Japeth wouldn't talk for a long time. "Jay, why is your codename 'Cast'?" "Ah well, last night I decided to take up archery as my main angel weapon, and 'Cast' means the ability of the bow to shoot an arrow quickly and cleanly. It also means the distance that the bow can shoot" "Nice. I like it" "What's yours? You haven't put it on your jacket yet". Dominic laughed, then stepped in front of them all. His orb floated over to him, and he announced "It's called dramatic effect" then he pressed his orb on the top. His jacket flashed and rippled for a second, then the word 'Halo' appeared on the left chest part of his jacket.