York slumped down onto a bench and dropped his SMG on the floor beside him. "Man, what a day," he said to himself. It had been hard enough when he wasn't able to use his preferred loadout, the Updated battle rifle and the shotgun, but he also took a nasty shot to his leg from a plasma pistol.
The new type of training was where officials took captured grunts and placed them against Spartans, with medical crew and assistance making sure nothing went wrong. But in this instance, York had had to use the SMG and an un-scoped magnum. When it IS scoped, the magnum ranks very high on York's favorite weapons, but not today.
"Something wrong?" asked Zara, his A.I.
"Just had a bad day," replied York. "Need a little CQC practice." When York was upset, fighting another Spartan rather than a grunt seemed to make him feel better - which was rather odd.
"You sound...angry, York." Zara's voice suggested inquisition.
"Yeah...I'm not really happy with actually fighting the Covenant for practice. I liked the old system. But the way we do things here changes every day..."
It soothed York to hear his AI's voice again. Since the drill began an hour ago, Zara was instructed to not assist York in any way, resulting in much more challenging practice. But York was absolutely done with fighting grunts, so he pulled his helmet off and looked around for some friendly competition...