Happy Thanksgiving, guys :-) [b][u]Thanksgiving at Gravemind's House[/b][/u] Gravemind stared hungrily at the large Thanksgiving meal of dead Marines, Grunts, and pumpkin pie spread before him. Spotting a rotting Spartan's corpse in the pile, he loudly growled, "Tonight, we dine in Hell!" and immediately burst out into peals of deep laughter at his witty movie reference. As the rumbling vibrations of his voice died down, Gravemind looked proudly around the large chamber for approval of his joke. But he received nothing but blank stares from the various Flood types standing around the room. A Combat Form swayed shakily and gave an uneasy cough to break the silence. Gravemind sighed and scratched at his thirty-first tentacle. He was noticing that the more he grew, the more he itched. Coincidentally, just as Gravemind was thinking about the various annoying side effects of his tremendous growth spurt, another one of his tentacles accidentally brushed against a Carrier Form, who immediately fell over and exploded, spraying several dozen Infection Forms all over the meal. "No! Not on the food!" shouted Gravemind, as the Infection Forms joyfully bounced around the room ignoring him. Sure enough, after several seconds, one of the Infection Forms popped as it misjudged the height necessary to hop over the large spikes on a dead Hunter's back. Gravemind closed his eyes because he couldn't bear to watch what he knew was about to happen, but the staccato noises around the room confirmed that several more Infection Forms were also bursting, spraying their disgusting Flood goo all over the carefully prepared meal. When one popped, they all popped. Why did they [i]do[/i] that? As a couple of slow-moving Pure Form tanks gently shuffled the remaining Carrier Forms out of the room to avoid further incident, Gravemind sighed and flipped on the TV. Might as well check out the Lions game while his minions were cleaning up the mess. As the game came on, Gravemind threw up his tentacles in frustration. Detroit was losing AGAIN. Over 600 years, and those silly fools still hadn't figured out how to win a game on Thanksgiving day, save the occasional lucky break. A nearby Combat Form chuckled, knowing that it was only a few minutes of gameplay away from winning its bet with Gravemind and already excited about playing with the Scarab Gun that Gravemind had put up as a wager. Gravemind gave a stern look at the Combat Form that was intended to frighten it into shutting up, but the easily-distracted Combat Form was no longer paying attention, as it had begun chasing a large beetle around the room. "Huh Huh Huh!!!" the Combat Form squealed with glee as it caught the beetle. "Awwwww ughhhh," it said as the beetle squirmed out of the Combat Form's grimy hands and darted into a small hole in the wall. Gravemind rolled his eyes and reflected on the Flood. These guys were his family, and he loved them, despite their stupidity and their quirky.....OUCH! Gravemind snapped back to reality as several darts hit him in the forehead. Looking around, Gravemind quickly spotted the culprits: two Ranged Pure Forms, attached high up on the wall of the chamber, guiltily averted their eyes in shame. They had been firing their darts at the butts of the rather stupid Combat Forms and laughing as the Combat Forms hilariously ran around the room in confusion and pain. But in jostling for a better position to nail one of them, the Ranged Pure Forms had aimed badly and interrupted Gravemind from his reverie. "No dinner for you!" Gravemind roared at the two scoundrels, who dropped off the wall, hung their heads in remorse, and slowly left the room, balefully looking back over their shoulders at the meal that they were about to miss. Too bad for them, Gravemind thought, though he didn't feel [i]too[/i] guilty because he knew that they would likely trick a Combat Form into bringing some food out to them later. By now the meal had been cleaned off again and Gravemind was ready to eat. Ah yes, Gravemind thought, as he brought both a large pumpkin pie in one tentacle and a dead grunt in another up to his mouth at the same time. Thanksgiving is definitely my favorite holiday. Just then, the large beetle reemerged from the crack in the wall. The Combat Form immediately began to chase it again. Unfortunately, as the beetle once again escaped to safety, the Combat Form disturbed a large crowd of sleeping Infection Forms, who had eaten a ton of turkey and were now sleeping off the tryptophan. As the Infection Forms began to swarm all over the food yet again, Gravemind's yell of frustration could be heard throughout High Charity. "NOOOOOOOO!!!"