Ithilin's Epics

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Warning to minors! This epic contains explicit language and violence!

Halo:
The Nemesis

Prologue

Awake…
…
Cary out your programming…
…
Awake…
…
Clean it all, you must clean it all!
Unghh….
AWAKE!
Light flooded in, bright light, it was almost blinding. Ancient machinery whirred on and ran its tasks as if it were new. Artificial lighting came on…making it even brighter. Computers sorted through code and carried out their programming. The pod unlatched and the foils opened up. Two gleaming legs stepped out. The clawed feet dug into the slightly transparent floor. The being sat up, it’s single optic flickering on. With on hand it reached into the side of the pod’s compartment and pulled out an energy shredder and a large clamp. The clamp fit into place on his left fist and his right trigger finger locked into the shredder.
Then with an odd metallic voice that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere it started to speak.
“Computer, why have I been awakened?”
“Please submit voice code” the computer responded.
“Voice code: 2991, screen name, Vigilant Scrap,”
“Acknowledged,” the computer processed the data. “Theta, Installation 017 has been compromised by alien entities, they could potentially break into unauthorized sectors, your assistance is required,”
“What of the oracle of this installation?” 2991 pondered.
“The oracle has been captured, but the index remains safe,”
“Sentinel count,”
“37 on the northern half of the ring, 84 on the southern half,”
“Diagnostics on the ring,”
“Rotation stability is at 82%, one of the main drives to activate the ring is down as well, unknown life signs are detected all over the ring,”
“How many life signs are we talking about?”
“An estimated five million, most of them armed,”
2991’s independent thoughts fought back at his core programming. A task such as this would be suicide, but his programming forced him to uphold it, he was supposed to take out the unknowns a certain way, but he wouldn’t risk that, he had to do this his way for once.
“Override core programming,”
“Access denied, you must have completed your assigned task,”
“Slag the task, override core programming, pass code 093417,”
“Acknowledged,”
No, he was going to do things his way for once, not the way the overly cautious creators of his would have done it. It would be his way or no way…

Chapter 1 - The Beginning


“Tell me where we stand,” the fleet commander Canuck said standing in the temporary command centre they had built inside the Halo’s control room.
“Approximately one million heretics still reside on the planet, as far as we can tell numerous groups are spread all over the ring and have retreated far underground, right now they’re resorting to strike missions,” an elite replied.
“This isn’t good, the prophets trusted me too take full control over Theta because its location was so far away from normal human space, it would be harder to compromise, what’re our options?”
“Your army surrounds the ring, and is ready for an attack, we have infiltrated and reside in most of the Forerunner buildings and structures, we’re ready for an attack, and you still have half the fleet of ships up in the air,”
“So we do,”
“You could do a full frontal assault to flush out the remaining traitors but it could prove costly, especially if the ring is booby trapped from below,”
“Not just yet, take me to the oracle,” Three honour guard Elites primed their beam rifles and escorted Canuck out of the control room and down the pyramidal structure to his own personal phantom flyer. They boarded the craft and almost immediately Canuck was knocked on the ground by something warm and pebbly.
“Hehe, you’ve returned Master Canuck, I was starting to get lonely!” the grunt servant known as Gunther squealed and yelped. The honour guard dragged the eager grunt off of their commander and aimed their rifles at him.
“Nobody is to touch the supreme fleet commander,” the honour guard growled at the grunt.
“Heh, I’m sorry, eh eh, I just get excited real easily!” the grunt bounced around.
“Why do I keep him around…” Canuck muttered.
“Ah, so you’ve made it Canuck,” his second in command chuckled, an elite named Scythe.
“Is the council ready to be gathered?”
“Yes Commander, they are,” the phantom warmed and blasted off to another structure not far from the control room, a large military base the covenant had built while on Theta. As Canuck, Scythe, Gunther and the honour guard stepped off the phantom and into the base gates an idea came to Canuck’s mind.
“Perhaps we could glass the ring, think of it, one million heretics and a couple hundred sentinels, vaporized and non of our men lost,”
“Are you mad!” Scythe raved. “The prophets would kill all of us!”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right,”
“I don’t know how you got your position, you can be so stupid at times,”
“Yes, but it was that barbaric ingenuity that got me here,” Canuck laughed.
“Ugh…”
The party trudged through security and walked to the innermost chamber. The guards outside raised their hands.
“The grunt is not permitted to enter, he’ll be taken to the feeding nipple,” The two honour guard brutes growled.
“Very well, but my guards stay, if you can’t allow that then I’ll just have to report you to your superiors, the base commander perhaps?” for a moment fear shone in the brutes’ eyes but then it faded out.
“Please enter, Commander,” Gunther walked off with one of the brutes. The honour guards fell in line with others guarding the perimeter, Canuck and Scythe took their seats at a large oval shaped table. The only light in the room was a dull red lamp from above. Also at the table sat two Elites, on in charge of space, the other ground ops both donning black armour, an old grunt in yellow, the base commander (a brute), the three jackal leaders, a scarred up drone, and a large hunter who had lost his partner in battle.
“I supreme fleet commander Canuck now call this meeting to order,” Canuck said nodding to each individual.
“What is your bidding commander?” the space ops leader asked.
“You are to form a defensive perimeter around the ring worlds local space, anything coming in without the proper codes is to be vaporized, anything leaving without the proper codes will also share the same fate,”
“You sound very…. collected,” the drone buzzed. “But do you have a plan yet to deal with the one something million heretics swarming about under our very feet?”
“I’m…working on it Razalous,” Canuck glared.
“Hehehe, of course commander,”
“Still my men will also need a plan if we come under attack like so many other bases have lately,” the brute chimed in.
“You are to do as you are told, and nothing more, do you understand, brute?” Canuck snarled at the chief’s insolence.
“Yes sir,” the brute glared back.
“Face it, we all know that the Elites at the head of this fleet are prejudicially against certain groups in their control, and there’s nothing we can do about it except take it,” one of the three jackals hissed.
“Yes, one third of your ground troops is made up of our kind and you treat us worse than grunts,”
“The Trikard clan has decided that we bring sssuch a harsssh ssubject up for a reasson, we fear we will be the first oness to fight while your elite warriors stay at home,” the final jackal said.
“While I acknowledge we have our differences generals, we do not have time for this, and if I have one more outburst from any of you about racism and complaints about lack of orders I’ll send you to the Prophets for proper judgement,” Canuck snapped. “Now we’re here to decide what exactly we’re going to do about this scourge and we need all your co-operation,”
“Listen to the elite he speaks the truth, we must be decisive, the heretics think much before they strike and we must do the same,” the yellow grunt said in a raspy voice.
“Your whining is worse than having listen to a human,” the hunter shuffled a little. “First we send in a strike team to learn some information and do some damage, then we have hundreds of them go right after they find something, we’ll flood the underground and in the meantime look for the index and anything else of use, and destroy any sentinels in the way,”
Everybody stared at the Hunter, he had just summed up a good plan in seconds.
“Your plan is accepted Garthok, Brute, you have your orders start to organize your men, Trikard clan, spread your jackals evenly to the rest of the army and have sniping groups around the base, same for the grunts, brutes and hunters, ground ops general, prepare the army,” Canuck sent out his orders.
“What of the oracle?” Razalous asked.
“Bring me the oracle,” Canuck ordered the honour guard head. The honour guard reached over to the table and pressed a button. A circle of light shone on the centre of the table and a small cage of electricity floated down. Inside sat the oracle 3514 Wary Servo.
“Why must you persist in keeping me contained!” Servo whined.
“You know why, the index is missing and you don’t know where it is, it isn’t in the library, the control room, the map room, it’s not anywhere, but you can help us find it,”
“Humph, if their was a need to seek out the index I would look for a potential reclaimer, but there is no need, and non of you are suitable for the task because you cannot be trusted with it,”
“Hmm, well I have another problem, theirs a group of our races known as the heretics can you locate their base, it should be teeming with life signs underground,”
“Scanning….I’m sorry my scanners cannot search that far, and the cage is providing interference,”
“Grr, you piece of scrap!” Canuck swore. “This meeting is adjourned!”
The council members left their separate ways, but little did they know they were all being watched.
Suddenly a large mechanical being landed in front of Canuck’s way.
“Ohh, no Commander he’s not the scrap…I AM!” the being yelled grabbing Canuck with his clamp and whirling him at the wall. His optic sending laser fire throughout the room and his energy shredder filling the honour guards with holes.
“We’re doing this my way!” it said blasting a hole in the ceiling. Sentinels poured into the base, setting it ablaze with golden light.
Canuck faded in and out of consciousness, sentinels everywhere…a large mech storming through the chamber, his guards on the ground with three foot holes gouged through their bodies, fire’s erupting everywhere, sirens and screams…then it all went black.
To Be Continued...

Chapter 2 - Golden Showers


Scrap swung his head down as he plowed into the hallway. The sentinels swarmed out of the council room and surrounded him. Almost immediately the hallway was full of Brutes and Elites. 2991 laughed and fired the shredder. With six shots he had taken out a company of brutes, no need to waste ammo, just vaporize the weak points. The sentinels made short work of everything else they filled the hallway like a swarm of huge bugs, it was kind of crowded so they had to spread out. But when the fired in unison an enemy had 2 seconds tops before they were a pile of ash. Another squad of Elites ran from behind them, the leader wielding a plasma sword immediately started chopping up the sentinels. They kicked on their shields and fired at him. But the sentinels who made they kill were the first to go to the rest of the squads beam rifles. Scrap turned to face the remains of the squad and fired his charged shredder. The blast had enough energy stored up to slice all three of them to pieces in one shot. The group made their way around the corner firing at all who stood in their way. Into a large six story square room full of balconies. Covenant fired down and up on them from all levels. The sentinels now had enough room to strike and spread out. All six levels swarmed with the golden light from their lasers. Vigilant Scrap surged towards a charging brute. His thick parasteel frame slammed into the fleshy brute and sent the ape backwards. It was shocked that something could share its strength. But Scrap wasn’t, he grabbed the brute with his clamp and squeezed until blood started popping out of the beasts strained veins. Another group of Elites and jackals started firing at him from behind. He turned and used the brute as a shield. The now dead beast was good for something after all. He took it’s grenades and through them into his clamp, priming them all he through the handful at the squad sending their singed bodies flying off the balcony. Now the drones were in on it. Flying with the sentinels, they were faster and made more shots, but their wings were very flammable. Scrap opened the laser lens on his optic and shot ten clear shots into the brains of the drones. The concentrated laser was like that of a sentinel but increased in power ten fold. Scrap jumped from sentinel to sentinel now firing his shredder and optic at covenant along the way until he was on the top level. Here, grunts donning fuel rods and plasma grenades poured out. Scrap was covered in plasma grenades but he only laughed. His shields pulsed to life and vaporized the grenades. Then he made short work of the grunts, stomping on them throwing them off the balcony, and gathering their grenades. He prepared them all to blow and tossed them down to the next level, the sentinels on that level flew up to his position before the entire area was covered in white light. Scrap then grabbed three of the grunts fuel rods and jammed them into his clamp. His strong fingers inside the clamp grabbed onto the triggers and he went into the hallway outside. Anything that came in his path met the fuel rods head on. When he was done with them he used them crush the skulls of a squad of jackals. But he had finally made it to the security room. Wires came out of his wrists and intertwined with the computer reprogramming it and shutting down all systems. All the doors were locked, and couldn’t be opened with any amount of hacking or codes. Then he started cutting the ventilation in hallways and rooms where covenant were trapped. With the base sealed up tight, and atmosphere running out for any who were trapped or not, the base would be his soon, but he had no need. He armed the base to self-destruct all the weaponry in its subbasement, which would be enough to level the base for good. He walked out to the six-story room and jumped back down to the level of the council. He shredded a hole through the door to the council room and freed the oracle Wary Servo.
“WHAT! This is absolutely unacceptable! The protector of this installation has to be released! WHY!”
“Shut it Servo, I just got a bunch of sentinels scrapped to get in here and save your rusty exhaust now we’re leaving, teleport me and all the sentinels out, now!” He said putting the laser aim on the oracle.
“You wouldn’t dare!”
Scrap set the setting to the lowest amount possible, a spot on Servo’s shell started to melt and smoke.
“This is against your coding!”
“Overriding,”
“Gah…fine,” and the group teleported out.
“Canuck! Canuck!” the ranger called out….A RANGER!? Canuck thought.
Canuck sprang to his feet and looked at the destruction around him. “Why are you here ranger?”
“I’m not a ranger, I’m being forced to wear this because we’re running low on atmosphere, we have to evacuate the base, everything's locked down, and it’s set to blow, here put this on,” The elite handed him a ranger armour helmet and Canuck popped off his own and watched it clatter to the floor. He bent over and grabbed some of the dead honour guards grenades and two beam rifles.
“Come on, holes are being plowed through the base in all directions, as far as I know, the rest of the council and your servant are aboard your phantom, that’s our destination,”
“What about everybody else?” Canuck asked stepping over a brute body.
“If they make it out alive, good for them, if not, then they’re vaporized, like we’ll be if we don’t hurry up,” the two ran around the hallway corner and went through a maintenance shaft. They blasted open a wall, only to fall right out into the snowy area outside the base. The ranger armoured elite primed his jetpack and swooped down to catch Canuck. “
“What’s with the missing wall?” Canuck asked.
“The sentinels blew it out before teleporting away, oh yeah, the oracle was freed,”
What! Canuck thought to himself. What was that thing…
The ranger flew to the deck of the phantom and the two boarded everybody, including some survivors were aboard.
“Launch this craft, head for the control room and drop me and Scythe off, then take everybody else where they want to go, except the survivors take them to the closest base,” Canuck said unlatching the ranger helmet.
“We thought you wouldn’t make it,” Scythe said relieved.
“Things are not as they seem on Theta,” Garthok nodded.
“Pity…” Razalous buzzed.
The phantom landed then took off. Once inside his quarters Canuck sent out the attack plan to his ground forces general.
“Do as Garthok said, but as for this first squad, I want it to be all brutes, the best, let them do some damage before they die,”
The ground ops general grinned. “Yes sir,”
Then Canuck contacted his lead scientists and told them to start investigating the mysterious mechanoid who had levelled the entire military base. He would figure out what that thing was, and once he knew, he would turn it to slag.
Admiral Abrath looked at the displays on the bridge of his ship Godsrage. The Godsrage was a UNSC flag ship with four prowler escorts and two C class fighters, overall it was a small fleet. Earth defence communications had sent them out just when they figured out the Covenant were headed for Earth and they were just now arriving.
They had lost contact with Earth months ago when they flew past the reaches of explored space. Onboard the Godsrage were a small company of marines, three pelicans, six long swords, a full crew for maintenance, and the Spartan Fred. Fred and the other Spartans had gone on to unknown projects upon arriving on earth, they were after all, one man armies. One thing the ship lacked was a good AI, the best thing they had was a copy of one named Rizak, but it wasn’t even a ‘smart’ AI, all it could do was run subprograms and make sure everything was OK. The admiral sighed, then stared at the monitor when it let out an alarm. They were in the midst of a Covenant fleet! He looked closer at the monitor, something large, like an asteroid, but not, and the Covenant seemed to be forming a perimeter around it.
“Ensign Jones!” He yelled out to one of the techs on board.
“Sir, yes sir,” Ensign George A. Jones gulped.
“Figure out what that thing is-“
“No need,” the Spartan Fred said walking in. “It’s simple, that’s what you’ve come to known as a Halo,”
More alarms went off, one of the techs yelled out.
“Sir, our prowlers have all been shot down, but none of the enemy ships seem to have fired,”
“Figure out what it was, on the double!”
“Sir, the commander of one of the fighters wants to speak to you,”
“Patch him through,”
An image came up on the viewscreen, the commander of the fighter held a pistol in his hand and was shooting away from the camera, shouts could be heard in the background and the picture was turning fuzzy.
“We-----boarded----Covenant----some kind of-----stealth ship----GAHH!” A white light whizzed pass the screen and it went blank.
“Arm all the guns and raise the shields, have the marines on board, and any available hands ready to fight, that means you Spartan!”
“Sir,” Fred saluted and trudged out.
“Status,” the Admiral asked George.
“Both fighters have been terminated,”
“Ah crap, warm the mac gun, and turn us so the gas giant next us’ gravity whirls us behind the fleet towards the ring world, full power to thrusters, warm the mac gun, they won’t fire on their precious halo.
“Sir, it’ll be hard to pull off-“
“Just do it soldier!”
The ship creaked and the Admiral watched it move with surprising speed for a ship it’s size. He had thrown the Covenant off guard. Their ships seemed confused. Two ships tried to fire but the rest of the fleet vaporized them for firing near the halo.
“Fire the mac gun, and all torpedoes at targets alpha through Zulu, release the nuke to the ones on starboard side!”
“Aye sir!”
The mac shot out and a covenant ship blew to pieces, the rest of the torpedoes crippled the remaining ships on the front side and the nuke blew out the ones behind the bridge.
“Mac charging, all other weapons depleted,”
“Warning! Sir, the lifepod bays have been destroyed, every lifepod is scrapped, and signs show we’re being boarded!”
“Head for the ring world, that desert canyon area, NOW!” the admiral, yelled pointing at a large crack in the halo’s artificial surface.
Keyes pulled this off with nobody on bored, how hard can it be.
“Three confirmed stealth fighters have attached themselves, entering Halo’s atmosphere in 5…”
“Let’s hope this bird can take the hit!”
The Godsrage had out-maneuvered the covenant fleet and was no headed on a course to land on Halo.
“Sir is this the best course of action?” one of the techs asked.
“We can’t fight all those covenant ships, we can’t eject in lifepods, we can’t land on a gas giant, and we’re not going to die, so yes, this is the best course of action, now get back to work corporal!”
“Sir!”
The ship’s hull started to warm as the medium class vessel rocketed towards the desert area on the Halo. Meanwhile, the Covenant boarding parties were getting their welcome home party.
Sgt. Avery Joseph emptied a clip out of his battle rifle into a charging elite. The monster howled in pain and dropped dead. 20 lifepods had been vaporized and three covenant stealth pods had gone through the holes where those pods used to be. The marines and navy crew was having a hard time keeping them at bay.
“Fall back to the weapons locker!” the sergeant yelled out tossing a frag at an oncoming convoy of grunts and jackals. Their bodies flew everywhere, but more filled their place.
“Hold your positions!” the voice of the Spartan Fred yelled out. The sergeant turned to see a warthog being manned by the Spartan plowing through the wide hallway. The marines made way for the hog and the Covenant started firing, until it was to late. Fred hopped out just before the hog hit the wall. An elite tried to charge him but he jumped grabbed the Elites neck with his legs, sending it to the ground, neck broken.
“We’ve got to advance on the enemy, try to drive them back where they came from,” Fred told the Sgt.
“Well, we’re a little short handed,” the sergeant motioned to the marines in the hallway. “We’ve had to outfit some of the naval personnel with our equipment, so they stand a fighting chance, but they’re not enough.
“Have someone man the gun on that hog, if any Covenant come around either way I want them dealt with, the rest of you are with me,” Fred continued down the hall and turned the corner. He pulled out his battle rifle and crept up the wall very slowly, he peered around the next bend to see a group of Covenant standing guard on their ship. Fred motioned for the marines to come forward, he pulled the pin on a frag and tossed it around the corner, the marines followed suit. One of the black grunts had just enough time to shout.
“Grenade!” before the whole room filled with thunder. Fred and the marines charged around the corner and gunned down the covenant. They now faced where the Covenant ship had boarded.
“We’re taking this ship for a ride, I’ll take half your men, the rest of you are needed on the other side of the ship,”
“Yes sir,” the sergeant saluted and took half his squad back where they came.
“Okay, now which one of you has flying experience?” Fred asked.
“Oh, I do!” a pale faced man wearing a jumpsuit with battle armour over it. “I’ve flown Pelicans and longswords before,”
“Who are you?” Fred asked.
“Ensign George A. Jones at your service sir,” the man saluted.
“…Right, can you fly this thing?”
“Sure,”
“Alright then, marines, navy, board this craft and mop up any covenant u find, they’ll probably be using Jackal’s for pilots, and we might run into some Elites and Drones,” the marines poured into the craft and gunned down the remaining forces and took control of the ship.
“This is SPARTAN Fred, we have successfully taken control of one of the Covenant boarding craft, we are detaching now,” the ship unlatched and flew over the Godsrage towards where it’s sister had boarded.
“Fire plasma torpedoes, take out that craft!” Fred ordered. George searched for the right button and punched in the codes. The plasma torpedoes surged out and the enemy craft disappeared in a bright flash.
“Alright, lets go for the next one!”
“Not enough time, sir, we’re already to far into Halo’s atmosphere, the gravity is sucking us in,” the Ensign pointed at the ring.
“Alright then, everybody buckle down, the Godsrage is going to crash on Halo, and we’re going to have to land separately,”
“Sir, we might have another problem!” a marine pointed out the window. Five covenant Seraphs swarmed around them, plasma turrets warmed.
“Everybody hang on, take out those seraphs!” Fred yelled. Three of the Seraphs exploded before they fired, the stealth ship took the blows head on and spiralled towards the surface of the Halo.

Chapter 3 - Enter the Heretics


Howler raised his plasma sword and ignited it. His apprentice, Crosshatch, followed suit. The two circled each other in the small room, twirling their blades and staring each other down. Then Crosshatch charged, he jumped forward and sliced his blade just millimetres from Howler’s face. Howler laughed, he didn’t even have to move. Instead he sidestepped and through a punch into thin air. Seconds later Howler’s armoured fist crashed into Crosshatch’s helmet, sending the elite tumbling to the ground. But Crosshatch wasn’t done. He stood his ground and whirled his blade down towards Howler’s knees. Howler blocked the sword with his own, then kicked Crosshatch in the gut. Crosshatch drew back, and circled around. His blade narrowly sliced Howler’s shoulder armour. Howler just grinned and grabbed the sword-wielding wrist of his apprentice and threw his apprentice to the ground. Crosshatch crashed into the floor but before he could recover this time Howler was there, plasma sword sizzling next to Crosshatch’s neck armour.
“You are to reckless apprentice, your strokes lack form, and you rush into an attack, you must predict how your opponent will respond to your move in order to gain a vantage point,” Howler sighed. “But you have greatly improved from when you first started, that I commend you on,”
“Master, how can I anticipate anything if you don’t even move until after I’ve tried to attack you, I can’t read your mind,” Crosshatch said with anger.
“Yes apprentice, you might not be able to read my mind, but you will have to put yourself in my place, if I leave my left flank open to attack while thrusting with my right, how would you respond?”
“I would…dodge the thrust and aim into your left flank…?”
“Yes apprentice, good job, now you must be able to utilize such thinking in the battlefield, the Forerunner's help you if you come up against the Covenant swordsman Scythe,”
“The Covenant, we have to stop them here and now, in order to assure that our way of thinking can endure,” Crosshatch clenched his teeth.
“Your time will come apprentice, until then we have work to do,” Howler said flipping his sword off and stowing it away. The two walked out of the small room they had been using as a training arena and out through some tunnels into a large room full of heretic grunts and elites scrambling to and fro. Even the scarcely seen heretic hunters could be seen here. They donned green brown armour much like their covenant counterparts. Two large spikes jutted out of their shoulders with the traditional heretic lighting on them. Their helmets were nice and smooth except for two spikes jutting forward on either side.
Howler walked over to a group of elites conversing in a circle around a set of computers they had brought with them.
“What of the Covenant?” Howler asked.
“They’ve sent a strike force, they’ll be here in two standard hours, they're loaded up with at least ten wraiths, a squad of ten ghosts, five spectres, and six banshee flyers, the rest are being carried in on two Phantoms.
“Our forces and booby traps alone can handle that, especially if they run into sentinels along the way,”
“They don’t know where our exact location is, but they know where some our outposts are, and they are set on following the trail to our main base with their scanners,”
“We can handle them,”
“I left out something…” the heretic looked anxious.
“What?”
Some random grunt broke through the elites and yelped.
“There’s a Scarab tank headed our way! Now do something about it Howler!” the grunt squealed then ran back into the crowd. Howler gaped and turned to the other elites.
“A Scarab!?!” Howler shouted.
“Yes general, we don’t know if we can hold out, if they that thing hit’s our main base, we’re dead,”
“Then we’ll have to plan, lay the traps out on the outposts and be done with it,”
“Sir,” the elites went to work, it was going to be a long day.
The brute general viewed the canyon they were about to enter through his monocle. Ruckus knew the heretic scum was just on the other side of the large gouge in the desert terrain. But he had to move his squad through. The Banshees circled around, phantoms hovered in mid air, and the rest of the vehicles hummed just off the ground, except the massive Scarab, which towered over everything else about to enter the canyon. All awaiting the signal to go into the canyon. He grabbed his particle beam rifle and shot it into the air. The beam lanced through the dusty area and gave the brute convoy the clearance to pursue. He and his honour guard hopped into their spectre and went off after the convoy.
The two elite ambushers were the first in the heretics line of traps. They donned particle beam rifles and fuel rods, not to mention their invisibility cloaking devices. They creeped out of the crack in the canyon and kneeled down, with their particle beams ready they got a lead on two of the ghost pilots and sent them tumbling of their machines. The two ghosts went head on until they rammed into the rock face of the right wall of the canyon and exploded into fiery balls. The rest of the brutes were wearing thick helmets and would be hard to snipe. The other ghosts circled around and kept moving so as not to be sniped. The spectres and wraiths hummed in next circling their cannons looking for the hidden heretics. The heretic snipers aimed at the drivers of the spectres and then whoever else entered the machines. The Covenant now knew where the fire was coming from. Six banshees circled down and flew down the side of the left face where they were hiding. They all hovered in mid air and let loose their plasma cannons and fuel rods. One of the elites noticed the ground beneath them had been cracked by a fuel rod, and the sizzling plasma was causing it to crack, they were going to fall. The two elites pulled out their fuel rods and let loose at the Banshee’s. Green blobs flew through the air and struck down two banshees. The rest missed, and managed to take out a Wraith. Then the floor gave way and the two elites flew down the canyon wall. Their badly mangled bodies striking the ground with a sickening thud.
The convoy continued forward, they avoided more snipers, by using the Scarab to clean out any cracks big enough to house an elite. By the time they were done clearing out the gaps in a certain area, melted rock was dripping all over the side of the canyon. They ran into fake landslides, and a couple of shades. Even a squad of banshee pilots. But they were no match for the massive Scarab tank and its convoy.
“Sir, we’ve reached the target, we have made it through the canyon,” a brute reported to General Ruckus.
“Very well, proceed as planned, hold the scarab back and flush them out. The ghosts sped off into the large tunnel in the ground at the end of the canyon. Then the spectres and wraiths, and finally the banshees. The phantoms landed and ejected all their troops. The foot soldiers stormed into the tunnel, armed with a wide array of weapons. Next the Scarab moved slightly towards the tunnel and aimed towards the hole of the tunnel. As soon as the survivors from the squad came back, it would fill the tunnel network with white hot plasma, killing anything inside.
But little did the brute army know the driver of the Scarab just so happened to be an elite squad sent by non other than Commander Scythe himself.
When general ruckus and his honour guard sped into the tunnel, the scarab pilot gave them thirty minutes to let the battle ensue. Then he aimed the cannon at the phantom fighters and sent one crashing to the ground. The other took off and circled around, confused between firing and retreating. The elite crew sent the other phantom crashing to the ground. Then the Scarab released an odd fluid out of its cannon, the fluid would allow the plasma to stay hot and fall throughout the tunnels. Finally the cannon started to warm and fired off the tons of super heated plasma into the tunnels of Theta Halo.

Chapter 4 - The Tunnels Below

Howler and the retreating heretics fired a massive envoy of plasma and energy needles at the oncoming brute forces. They were already down two levels below in the underground complexes constructed by the long extinct forerunners. The brutes had charged in with an array of firepower and vehicles. The Wraiths got stuck about half a level down and the heretic grunts loaded them up with plasma grenades, before they too were shot down by the very wraiths they were trying to destroy.
Elite swordsmen charged the brutes. Jumping in the air, twirling and slicing. Stabbing the beasts. Sticking them with plasma grenades and running for it. But the brutes just continued to surge forward. Their banshee fliers circled above the large tunnel firing their fuel rods and swooping low to plow into heretic warriors. The elites waited till they dropped down, then boarded the craft and used them against the brutes. The ghosts too were boarded, or blown to smithereens by sniping their gas tanks. Sending their charred drivers into the air several feet away.
Charging grunts and elites overran the spectres and filled up with heretics, the craft spun around taking out brutes with their firepower and boost attacks. Many of the boarded craft however were blown up by the brutes, or re-boarded.
Howler clashed with the brute general Ruckus, his plasma sword meeting the general’s brute shot’s rusty blade. The gun was large and the brute could only pull of defensive moves at the moment. Howler had him on the run. Then his apprentice, who had just disembowelled two of the generals honour guard, lunged at the brute taking aim at his neck. The brute turned around and grabbed Crosshatch, squeezing his neck with his muscular arm.
“You will fall to your knee elite, or watch your friend die,” the brute laughed. Howler swore, Crosshatch had got himself into another mess. But the two had trained for situations such as this. Howler bowed and flipped off his sword. The brute laughed and pursued to choke Crosshatch. Crosshatch only grinned and flipped his blade off, then turned it towards the brutes bulging chest and re-ignited it. The blade cut right into the brute upon re-ignition, The general backed off, but the sword was still jammed into his heart. Howler lunged up and decapitated the general. His bloody head rolling on the ground.
Three more brutes charged them, sending grenades their way. They jumped into the air and barrelled towards the brutes. Swords slicing through the air, the brutes dropped to the ground.
Meanwhile the battle still wasn’t going well. The remaining vehicles were all but trashed but were still being used for firepower. The grunts tossed grenades at the vehicles while the elites tried to kill their pilots. And the few hunters in the room surged through the brute numbers. The brute shot grenades bouncing off their hard plating and back into the brute masses. They rammed their shields into their guts. Launched their fuel rods, sending dozens of brutes into the air, and sliced their pinned opponents to pieces with their razor sharp spines. But the hunters were hopelessly outnumbered, they killed one brute and three more charged at them. They retreated back to the entrance to the next sub-level with the other remaining heretics.
The brutes, now noticing their general was dead started berserking, even killing some of their own in the process. They charged forward, killing those heretic stragglers and anybody who happened to be lying on the ground.
The heretics ran into the giant elevator that would take them to the third level and the brutes stampeded forward. Many of their number being shot down. The final count of the brute army was twenty three by the time they got to the elevator.
Then an elite heretic noticed something. Some kind of fluid flowed down the tunnel with extreme smoothness, almost like oil. The stuff flooded down into the room, suffocating anything that had survived the brute charge on the ground. Five feet of the stuff filled the room, and then the elevator. Then they heard the noise and started to feel the heat.
“HIT THAT LIFT NOW!” Howler yelled. An elite punched the button and the lift slowly started then swiftly descended through the rock. Three brutes had managed to make it onto the lift and were quickly killed, some even jumped off the ledge after the lift but never made it to the ground alive.
Now the fluid was falling down the lift like rain. The other brutes back in the second level started to feel the searing pain, then the plasma came, flooding the room and incinerating all in its path. The brutes never stood a chance.
The plasma started mixing with the fluid, and replaced it in the rain. The heretics on the lift had to shield themselves with their armour. Then a grunt’s tank pierced, the methane gas superheated on contact and exploded, killing at least ten heretics in the process. The hunters and elites immediately started to help shield the grunts, but not before three more exploded. When they finally reached the bottom the plasma was starting to pour, they ran into the third level, allowing the dead bodies of brutes and heretics to be vaporized.
“Apparently, whoever lit that plasma chain wanted rid of us and the brutes,” an elite pointed out.
“True but now we must relocate, we haven’t gone down this far below much, and don’t know much about this part of Theta,” Howler warned.
“Commander Howler, I’m getting a transmission from the main platoon!” a grunt yelled out,”
“Patch them through to my channel,” Howler ordered. The channel was full of static but the elite voice on the other side was still legible.
“This is a message to all our brothers on Theta Halo, the heretic leader has been killed, I repeat the heretic leader has been killed, if you are receiving this message, it means the heretics have officially been disbanded, and a civil war has broken out within the Covenant, almost all of us were slaughtered at the hands of the brutes, but many died with honour fighting one of our own, known as the Arbiter, we urge you to use caution, the Covenant may not welcome you back, but the elites need help to defeat the brutes and their allies, it is your choice, but I---“ the channel went dead.
“That explains it, if the civil war has begun, that would be why the brutes were sent to their deaths…at the hands of the covenant elites…” Crosshatch said.
“And their supreme commander, Canuck,” Howler clenched his teeth. “Move out, we’re headed to the surface, some other way, Canuck will have no use for us against the brutes, and we can’t hope to fight off either army so we have to get off this ring alive, but that doesn’t mean we cant do some damage first,”
A loud shudder shook the tunnel, undisturbed dust from centuries of calm filled the room. Several more crashes shook the tunnel before one big crash echoed out.
“Sounds like a ship crashed,” a heretic said.
“Unlikely a Covenant one,” another replied.
“Maybe the ships are fighting too?”
“It doesn’t matter, if that ship can fly, or if it has a phantom on board, we’re going up their, now get ready to haul heretics,” the heretics packed off and headed through the tunnel. It was hours before the found another way up. They were now on top of the canyon in a desert area. Dust and fire filled the landscape, metal scrap and slagged plating could be found all over. The heretics looked up at the crashed ship, but it wasn’t Covenant, it was non other than their past enemies, the humans.
“Humans!” Crosshatch exclaimed.
“Yes, and look, a Covenant boarding craft attached to it, lets investigate,” Howler motioned at the ship.
The heretic army marched forward and managed to make it into the Covenant boarding craft.
“Everything’s pretty much intact,” an elite tech said sitting at the controls. Wiping Jackal blood off the main view screen.
Their other search party sent to search the human ship also returned to their temporary base camp, with fifty humans in tow.
“We killed all who would not live through their injuries, and any who tried to resist,” an elite motioned at the fifty something humans, all donning various types of battle armour, jump-suits and uniforms. Howler approached the one that claimed to be their leader, Admiral Abrath.
“I am Commander Howler, of the Heretic alliance,” Howler introduced himself.
“I don’t care what you are, your still the same old Covenant scum,” the Admiral scowled. Howler sighed.
“We are all that’s left of our pact, our main body has been disbanded and or slaughtered and we’re all that’s left, we are fighting the Covenant for our very way of life, just as you are, we are willing to let you live, and allow yourselves to be armed if you promise to side with us,”
The admiral thought about for a moment and looked at his men, all of whom seemed very weary.
“Fine, but just until we make it off this ring, can that ship make a slipspace jump?”
“Unfortunately…no,” Howler sighed. “We’ll need to find another ride, but we can use this ship to get one,”
Howler glanced at the sky and noticed white beams lancing back and forth, he pulled out his monocle and saw a Covenant stealth ship much like his duking it out with two Seraphs.
“That must be our men!” the Admiral gleamed.
“Some of your kind are on that ship?” Howler glanced.
“Yes they boarded it but didn’t have enough time to make it back onto the Godsrage successfully before we got to far into the atmosphere,”
“Load up that ship with all the supplies you got from the ship, arm the humans, we’re going for a ride,” Howler ordered.
Everybody loaded up the ship and made themselves as comfortable as possible. The humans didn’t seem to trust the heretics and preferred to keep to themselves. The ships engines glowed a hot blue and revved to life, the black sleek ship detached it’s boarding claws and took off from the charred Godsrage and sped off towards the ongoing dogfight, now a fleet of banshees had joined the game, whether these ships were piloted by Covenant on the brute or elite side Howler didn’t know.
2991 finished killing the elite crew on the Scarab. He turned it around and started around the canyon, focusing on the Covenant boarding craft which was about to go into an ongoing dogfight. Vigilant Scrap laughed an odd laugh that sounded like rusty metal grinding on itself. He aimed the cannon of the large spider like vehicle and fired. The energy beam of overheated plasma lanced out into the desert air and hit its target head on.

Chapter 5 - Splintered Trusts

The Scarab’s main energy beam shot through the air, vaporizing the atmosphere in it’s path. It lanced out and clipped the curved wing of the new comer stealth ship and took went on to hit a Seraph head on. The stealth ship belched smoke into the sky and started a curved descent towards the sand below. Scrap adjusted the aim on the scarab and fired. This time however, the remaining stealth ship kicked in it’s stealth drive and the sleek black craft disappeared from all the scanners. The remaining Covenant craft seemed to be doing battle with themselves. The banshees were attacking the remaining seraph. The seraph got two good shots on the fleet before it too went down.
By now the other stealth ship had crashed, Scrap took no notice, if anything survived the crash he’d deal with it later. The Scarab warmed and blew the rest of the banshee fleet into oblivion.
“Scythe, status report!” Commander Canuck growled staring at the array of view screens at the command post.
“The Brutes were sent into tunnel and we did successfully release the Scarab upon our enemies, but then we lost contact with that craft,” Scythe glanced at his commander. “The civil war has broken out all over the Covenant armada, ships being taken over by one side or the other then doing battle with each other, only half your fleet survived, vaporizing all the hijacked ships,”
“What of the council members and Gunther who were on my phantom?”
“We sent out seraph escorts but brute ships have been buzzing all over the ring, we’ve also lost contact with that ship and the escorts, but we have five confirmed kills on the brute attackers,”
Canuck swore, he hoped that Garthok, Yargon, Gunther, and his space force general were all formidable opponents, but what of Razalous, the base leader and the Trikard clan? Had they managed to hijack the ship and kill the other council members, and his servant Gunther?
“Send out a search party, what of the human ship?” Canuck asked.
“It crashed not far from where the heretics and brutes were slaughtered, the boarded stealth ship came in with two of our seraphs in tow, both are MIA, the remaining stealth ship was confirmed to be in the air but shot down before we lost contact, presumably the Scarab had been boarded and a fleet of brute banshees attacked,”
“More mysteries…as for the rest of the front on the ring?”
“We’re fighting on land and the air but only time will tell,”
Canuck sighed. “Fine, has our guest arrived yet?”
“Yes, he’s not the patient type, upon arrival he went out and sniped a party of brutes and jackals,”
“It’s rare to find any of his kind anymore, the prophets usually have them hunted down and killed,”
“Very well,” Canuck motioned to his honour guard. “Let him in,”
The heretic pilot tried to pull the stealth ship up as much as possible before they were pulverized into the ground. One of the wings had been removed, along with an engine, scores of hot plasma had poured into the side, killing three heretic grunts. Now the goal was to put out the fire before they got to close to the ground.
“Quit trying to put out the flames and brace yourselves for impact!” Howler yelled out.
Everybody held onto whatever jutted out the ship’s smooth walls. They went down farther and farther, like a rock dropped of a cliff, nothing could help it now.
The ship slammed into the sandy soil, automatically suffocating the flames, but sending people and heretics flailing all over the ship.
When it was all over heretic did a body count, three humans and six elites and grunts had died in the crash. Howler motioned for everyone to be quiet. Then it was loud enough for everybody to hear, the mechanical workings of the legs of a Scarab craft. But their was another noise, engines of a stealth ship, but their engines weren't running…
Howler went out to the open side of the ship to see the Scarab tank lumbering towards them. Then another stealth ship came out of nowhere and sent plasma torpedoes straight into it’s hull. Howler got a good glimpse at a figure abandoning the craft before it erupted into a fireball. Wreckage, soil, rocks, body parts, and slag rained down on the landscape. The other stealth ship landed softly and a group of armed humans ran out, led by some odd green armour-donning figure. The thing looked like a walking tank. It walked over to Howler, battle rifle aimed right at his head.
“Where are the survivors, what did you do with them?” the figure asked. Howler raised a clawed fist and pointed at the other stealth ship.
“You will find your comrades, both human, and heretic on that ship,”
“We’ll not ally with the likes of you,” the thing sneered.
“Your Admiral says otherwise,” Howler laughed. The other marines and navy poured into the ship, weapons aimed they tried to figure out what was going on. After Admiral Abrath explained the heretic’s situation, only then did the armoured human known as Fred comply, without much sentiment.
“So now what sir?” George asked.
“We salvage whatever we can from this ship and load up the other one, then we’re headed for the Covenant command post,” Howler pointed north, wondering what had become of whatever was driving the Scarab. “Our plan is to strike them fast and hard, board small slipspace capable ship and get as far away from here as possible,”
The new coming humans seemed reluctant about the plan but decided to help anyway. So with that the heretics and humans relocated onto the new stealth ship and blasted off. Unknowingly their mystery had his claws dug into the permasteel hull between the two rear engines and was letting them take him just where he wanted to go.
The ship rocketed into the sky and sped off towards the Covenant command post.
3514 continued his subroutines around the library, making sure all the systems and doors were working, and that the flood were well contained inside their ancient cages inside the structure that branched out into the lower tunnels of Theta Halo.
3514 had never been far past the second layer of the honeycombed network, mostly because he had no need too. When an alert came to 3514’s attention he went to investigate. To his astonishment, the right wall of the library was slowly being melted open, he ordered the sentinels and guardians in the library to g out and attack their enemies that tried to purge their ancient halls.
The sentinels and two armed guardians hovered out into tubes and poured out onto their attackers, they consisted mostly of insectoid creatures, vicious slender bodied bipeds, and big hulking creatures covered in fur. The protectors opened fire, killing a few before they were nothing more than piles of molten slag on the frozen tundra.
The brute general yelled out to his troops, all carrying many kinds of weapons and large vehicles, including three Scarabs.
“Open fire, throw anything you can at that wall, we will enter there one way or another!”
Brute shots, fuel rods, wraith and scarab cannons, plasma turrets, grenades, plasma fire, beam lances, and anything else they could scrounge up poured all over the wall, until finally there was nothing left than a huge melted hole. The brutes, drones, vehicles (any who could fit), and jackals poured into the library.
“We will find the index first, and with it, we will control Theta, for the glory of our races, we will kill those elites and their allies!” the brute general yelled out, as his forces invaded the large building.
Wary Servo could only let out an anxiety full laugh, those fools, they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into.
Canuck looked the mercenary up and down. He was tall for an elite, his armour adding at least two more feet to his height. He seemed content yet uncomfortable at the same time. His armour had battle scars all over it, and Canuck noticed a holster with some sort of modified carbine in it. The merc also donned a small plasma dagger, probably used to take his enemies’ heads.
“So…Hades, do we have a deal,” Canuck said.
Hades clicked his jaws. “You refuel my ship, give me another year’s worth of supplies, and don’t let the prophets know where I go from here, and I kill a rampant droid for you?” Hades laughed. “Piece of cake,”
The Brute alliance was on a hasty retreat, but is inevitable. They had released their doom upon themselves. Servo just watched from the maintenance shafts as trillions of flood spores filled the atmosphere while infection forms poured out by the millions. Brutes, Drones and Jackals fell left and right as the small balloon like organisms launched themselves at their new hosts. Tentacles wrapping around while a needle like pincer gouged itself into the body, slowly mutating and taking over the body. And the spores would be breathed in, causing infection to spread throughout the body, so even those who escaped were captured.
It was just a matter of time now, the flood destroyed more and more shafts, and soon they’d be freed all over the ring.
It was just a matter of time…

Chapter 6 - Pressure Point


The stealth ship silently rushed across the surface of the ring world. The landscape had sense gone from desert to marsh, and now frozen tundra. Covenant craft and outposts as well as occupied forerunner structures could be seen down on the ground. But something seemed wrong. Instead of a few guards or scouts on the landscape, there were battles raging between the fractured Covenant forces.
“We’re coming up on our LZ,” George said motioning to his co-pilot elite to bring the ship around.
“Ok everybody, we’re going to land several meters away from the main Covenant base, while George and a few heretics stay on the ship to back us up if we need help,” Admiral Abrath pointed out the window at a large pyramidal structure.
“We have to be quick and strong, if we’re lucky, we can sneak in without being noticed, or a battle will be raging,” Howler said.
Everybody got situated as the ship made a steep descent and plowed into the snow. Humans and Heretics seemed to appear out nowhere from the invisible ship. They checked their weapons and body armour and headed out. They made it all the way to the first ramp when four hunters and two sabre elites charged them from around the corner. The hunters revved up their fuel rods, eager for bloodshed, while the elites stood their guard, swords gleaming. Crosshatch and Howler ignited their sabres and charged the two covenant elites. They parried blows for a few moments before both elites were quickly beheaded. As for the hunters, their heretic counter parts had rushed them and used their spines to cut up their covenant cousins necks before they could get clear shot. Ultimately causing them their deaths.
The group made their way up the next to levels with ease, only running into a banshee and a grunt patrol. When they made it to the final level six shades manned by shielded elites, four more hunters, and a squad of twenty elites were waiting for them. The elites charged into battle, heretics and humans coming after them. Crosshatch and Howler had trouble using their swords in such close quarters so decided to use their sidearm pistols. The heretic hunters plowed through to the covenant hunters. One jumped over his partner and landed with a loud clang on top of a covenant hunter. The rest were blown away by fuel rods. The grunts and humans tossed scores of grenades over at the shades, sending them and their gunners rocketing off the sides of the structure. Fred used a combo of melee attacks and head shots to gun down the elites. As soon as the battle started it was over. The squad ran into the main gate, battling more and more forces as they made their way across the hallway. Honour guard, and regular elites filled the final section of hallway, both sides took heavy losses before they finally made their way through. They burst into the control room. The small circular platform in the room was no longer all that made up the floor. Permasteal had been laid down, as well as computers, view-screens and equipment. Covenant and human snipers killed the remaining honour guard and soon only three were left in the room. A black and grey elite, a red and white one, and a dark purple and black one.
“Commander Canuck,” Howler grinned.
“General Howler, oh and I see you’ve made some friends,” Canuck looked over the various heretics and humans.
“Fancy running into you, I figured you’d be in your quarters, or at command post, but no you’re meeting with a mercenary in the control room,” Howler grinned at the laughing purple elite. “But if you need his help, it must mean you can’t get the job done yourself,”
“You ungrateful little-“ Scythe started.
“No, wait, let them pass, we have bigger problems to deal with,” Canuck sighed. “You’re dismissed Hades,”
The Heretics were jaws dropped. Why was the commander letting them pass?
“No time for questions, lets move,” The group rushed into another hallway that had been made by the Covenant, they ran out into an expansive hangar room, from the looks of it a Covenant ship had been docked to the control room and now lay on the mountain ridge.
They were immediately charged by Covenant forces, before they group could direction from their leaders they had to run through and kill their enemies.
“We’re going for that small scout ship,” Howler pointed at triangle shaped ship, it was slightly larger than a phantom but had a slipspace generator and weapons, perfect.
The group boarded three lifts and went down to the service area, killing what grunts and elite stood in their way. They boarded the craft and allowed it’s free floating engineers to stay aboard, in case if they needed repairs.
The ship blasted out of the hangar bay, but was immediately met by a squad of banshees. But before the screaming hover crafts could even scratch the scout’s shields they were blown out of they sky by an invisible force. The stealth ship manned by George and some Heretics circled the 'shees faster and faster, causing their pilots to get confused. When they finally stopped they rammed the crafts out the sky.
“Idiot,” Admiral Abrath sighed. The stealth ship came under the belly of the twice as large scout and flew into its small docking bay. They had done it, relatively fast as well, something didn’t seem right, as usual.
“It was way to easy,” Crosshatch thought out loud.
“You’re right, if Canuck was willing to let us escape in one of his ships alive, he could be risking death by the Prophets when the war is over,” Howler pointed out. The scout started to speed out of the ring’s atmosphere.
They had barely made it to the Covenant fleet when three flagships jumped out nowhere. Seraphs and boarding craft swarmed out, Canuck’s fleet and the flagships exchanged blows but it was a one sided battle.
“We can’t go into that mess,” Sergeant Joseph pointed out.
“You’re right, pilot, pull this craft around, we’re going back to the ring for now,” dismay showed on the group’s faces, they were so close.
“This is why Canuck let us go! He knew the Brute flagships were coming, they’d vaporize anything in their path!” Crosshatch exclaimed. Howler could only nod in agreement.
The craft swung back down into the ring’s atmosphere, only to start taking fire from an unknown source.
“We got Seraphs, five of them on radar, and two Scarabs on the ground,” a pilot yelled out.
“Evasive maneuvers!” but it was to late they were hit and were going down, they were past the clouds and could now see they’re attackers. Brute forces surrounded a small flat building next to a huge tunnel. They seemed to be retreating into the tunnel.
“Everybody into the stealth-ship!” Admiral Abrath yelled. The myriad of bipeds flowed back into their stealth ship and jumped out of the downed Scout. Then the ship wouldn’t eject.
“What now!” Howler swore.
“The gate’s jammed we can’t get it open!” a human yelled out. The ship slammed into the tunnel sending everybody rocking back and forth.
“On average, how many times do we get shot down in a week?” Crosshatch asked.
“Shut-up and abandon ship,” Howler scowled. The Heretics and Humans ran out of the emergency maintenance shaft and into the swampy area. Brutes, Drones, Jackals and Vehicles ran into the tunnel. Firing behind themselves at something on the other side of the mist. Then they saw it. Brutes, their fur all gone, exposing their brown skin. Altered beyond medical repair. Organs showing, muscles twisted, bones jutted out, their heads hung off to the side, and large feelers sprouted of their necks. Long tentacles waved out of their fingers. Jackals, on spindly legs, their body were bloated at least four times normal size with two large cords jutting out of their gory bodies. Drones with tentacles sprouting everywhere, brown and tan fleshy bits jutting out from between their scaly plates, and yet somehow their wings still functioned. And small balloon shaped creatures with tentacles and some sort of razor sharp spine jutting out from under them jumped up and down. Firing their host’s weapons the Flood came surged in for a full frontal attack. They manned Wraiths, Scarabs, ghosts, and banshees, running over stragglers and shooting down the rest.
“What the hell are those!” Admiral Abrath yelled out.
“Those sir, are the flood,” Fred said with calm in his voice.
Hades walked solemnly over the dead bodies of Canuck’s killed protectors. He kicked in his jetpack and blasted off towards his small ship. He walked inside and knocked open the hangar door. He jumped into his heavily modified ghost. All of the plating had been removed and the front redesign to make it a much longer and heavily shielded craft. He kicked in the boost and punched the acceleration out into Theta’s atmosphere. He hadn’t made it five feet before he bolted out of the ghost, seconds before an energy shredder sliced through the cockpit.
He pulled out his beam rifle and aimed at the top of his ship. He shot the top solar panel down to reveal his target. 2991, the bipedal protector of Theta Halo.
The thing laughed. “Well, well, well, it seems I’ve finally met an equal match,”
Hades checked his ammo. “Have at it then,” he said smugly, not even looking up at the metallic being. 2991 opened his laser lens and lunged off the ship right at Hades.
“So my intel was correct, the Brutes did have reinforcements,” Scythe sighed staring at the screen, fresh honour guard had filled the room, and forces the outside of the structure.
“Yes, now we have very few ships left, I want triple security on them,” Canuck turned his head. “What’s that noise?”
“What noise?” Scythe said.
“Quiet! That, that noise!” now Scythe could here it, gurgling noises, and metal being scratched. Scythe jumped back a hole had been ripped through the Permasteel and the combat forms poured out. More and more holes appeared, flood jumping out of them.
“Pull back to the ship!” Canuck yelled slicing a flood in half with his sword while Scythe pumped plasma into another from his rifle.
“Theirs to many, they got the exits blocked!” They were now forced out the front door of the structure, more and more combat, carrier and infection forms charged the Covenant forces.
“Then we’ll just have to fight!”

PART 2-

Chapter 7 - Conflict With A Side O’ Sugar


2991 lunged off the craft at Hades, his laser lens folding out and firing a large pulsating blast of golden energy. Hades sidestepped and pulled out his rifle. A small opening in the thick ice steamed where had once stood. Scrap continued to send blast after blast while Hades tried to bide his time for a good shot.
The laser was a powerful weapon but unfortunately for 2991 it left him temporarily blinded because the same port in which his optic sensor viewed the world became his deadly laser. His strategy wasn’t working so he closed the lens and armed his shredder. But it was too late.
Hades sent an overcharged blast from the rifle into one of Scrap’s knees, barely missing him he bent his knees and hurled himself upward, firing off shredder rounds at the incredibly fast alien. Hades only grinned and kicked in his jetpack. He rammed the droid at full speed sending him tumbling down to Theta. 2991 began flipping himself to slow his fall and landed on his legs. Hades sniped three quick shots but Scrap was faster.
A thought suddenly came to Hades’ mind, why was this lone droid, the one he was sent to seek and destroy taking him on personally…unless, if it was a diversion. He looked back at his ship and nanoseconds later it erupted into a fireball and the Wreckage sank beneath the ice.
Hades turned around to see that Scrap was gone the only sign of him was a chip off his scarred knee plate. He walked over to the small piece of metal and put it in his belt, it would be useful later.
Hades had been on many Halos when he was associated with the Covenant and several times without. He knew the key he needed lied in the structure known as the library, he kicked in his jetpack and started a long flight to the next closest Covenant outpost. Elite or not he was going to get a ride.
Yargon, Gunther, General Claws and the hulking Garthok sat in their cell, the other crew of the Phantom included the two pilots, five gunners, six honour guards, and the elite donning Ranger armour sat in the cell opposite of Canuck’s finest. For some reason the crew had been drugged but kept alive while the council and Gunther were allowed to stay awake. Yargon was the most displeased. While Gunther seemed eager as always. General Claws had been stripped of his armour and lay naked except for a loincloth. Meanwhile Garthok had all his armour removed and his hive like body could be seen, four unique organisms all criss-crossed together into a very odd looking figure, was chained against the wall. He still, throughout all that, seemed content with their capture.
“It was going to happen sooner or later, the Brute generals and admirals, Razalous and the hive, and the heads of the Trikard clan, they’ve all had it in for us,” Garthok sighed.
“This is absurd! How long do you think it took for me to even be recognized above the rest of the cannon fodder my race makes up! And to think I’ll die at the hands of those I sit with every meeting,”
“Stuff it,” General Claws snapped.
“I have superiority here, General, so you will obey my orders,”
“Garthok is the same rank as you on a different field, and I don’t take orders from Grunts,” Claws sneered.
“Bold General, bold indeed,”
“I just wanna know when we’re gonna eat hehe!” Gunther yelped.
Three brutes and two Jackals walked into the room, armed with brute shots and beam plasma rifles the quintuplet walked in, they almost seemed hypnotized, they didn’t even regard the prisoners when they walked in, instead they took their posts and opened the opposite door. In walked Razalous and the Brute Colonel Scrapper who was in charge of the trashed base.
“Colonel,” Yargon acknowledged the smiling beast. Razalous hovered just above the ground.
“What you take your orders from a buzzing brittle six limb?” Claws laughed at the Colonel. “I thought the brutes were in charge of their alliance not the Drones,” Razalous buzzed in a fiery spite.
“Foolish elite, we could have killed you by now, but we decided to use you as hostages, you must have figured that out,”
“Of course,” Garthok grunted. “But what are the terms might I ask?”
“There unconditional surrender,” Razalous grinned.
“Drones are so stupid…” Claws sighed.
“Watch your tone filthy elite,” Razalous spat at the cage. “When the civil war is over, only the loyal races will reside with the Covenant, while the races of traitors and criminals will be executed on a mass scale,”
“Is that your master plan?” Claws laughed. “If so, why not just kill us now?”
“You may get your wish after all general, wait and see,” Razalous grinned and buzzed out of the room.
Canuck swung his plasma sword, left, right, up, down, behind his flank, flipping and flapping through the air, green puss flying everywhere. Flood forms charged him, whipping his shields with their hard as steel tentacles, or firing their hosts weapons. Plasma and grenades filled the air. The honour guard pulled out their beam rifles burning three-inch wide holes in the combat forms. Carriers exploded left and right, sending Covenant and flood flying through the air. Plasma swords were nothing but white blurs and no matter how many flood forms fell more and more came back. Now a banshee swooped in, at first it appeared to be charging the buzzing flood drones, but no it too had fallen to the flood. The flood pilot swooped in, pouring plasma from it’s cannons on the Covenant forces. Then launched its fuel rod.
The green bomb flew down and killed a hunter, grunts and elites in shades gunned down the 'shee, sending it burning into the flood armada.
The shades now took aim at the flood forms advancing on them, burning the drones, and melting the brutes and jackals to pools of bubbling foam.
With a final slice from Canuck’s stained blade the battle seemed over, for now.
“To the ship, call everyone to the ship, we’re leaving this place,” Canuck yelled out, noticing a small fireball blossoming off in the distance where Hades had parked his ship.
“We can’t fight those things!” a marine yelled out, several others nodded.
“We have no choice, we must prevent their spread, and we obviously can’t march on with the brutes,”
“What do your advisors say Admiral?” Howler asked.
“Bring me sergeants Joseph and Hayman and the Spartan,” Admiral Abrath called out. The three walked up to Abrath and Howler, and saluted.
“What can we manage?” Abrath asked.
“At the odds of how many of those there is and how many of us there are…” Joseph started.
“Ah screw odds, just gimme a damned rocket launcher and I’ll blow the holy heck out of those freaks,” Hayman piped.
“Do I know you?” Fred asked looking the Sergeant up and down.
“Hmm, everybody does say I look like the late Michael Jordan, but I have a fourth cousin the service, Johnson’s his name, everybody says I looks like em,” Hayman rolled on. “Now are we going to kick some ass or what?”
“Excuse me?” Abrath glared.
“You heard me, lets charge ‘em!”
“He out ranks me,” Fred waved. “Do what he says,”
So the humans and heretics armed themselves and charged what was left of the floods oncoming, the brutes had sense disappeared into the large tunnel.
Crosshatch and Howler sliced flood forms to bits, while snipers stood back blew carriers to bits. Human and Heretic forces charged the flood forms, their firepower quickly cutting down the oncoming group.
“Come and get some you stupid puss heads!” Hayman whooped firing of a heretic fuel rod. “Damn straight you tentacled sobs!”
The flood were cut down fast, and the battle seemed to have ended. But just then more flood forms came out of the mist, this time there were more, and not just ones from the brute sides, bodies of all kinds of Covenant had been oddly mutated into freakish and hellish nightmares. The odds were to great now, they had to retreat.
“Into the tunnel!” Howler yelled making sure everybody made it.
The surviving brute forces that had survived the revival and freeing of the flood went as far as they could, but the tunnels were full of flood forms, guardians, and sentinels. They were dropping left and right, the vehicles had to be abandoned because of space issues.
They were going far deeper than anybody had for millions of years. Fear shone on their faces, they had no idea where they were going, but for some reason the metal tunnels from the library marsh had turned to rock and now metal again. Lights suddenly blinked on, mysteriously expecting their arrival. A huge structure stood before them, carved out of the rock. The brute forces settled in, for some reason the flood had stopped following them this deep. General Ruckus sighed, he was tired from running and fighting. Little did he know something else was waiting for him within their new sanctuary…

Chapter 8 - Salt In The Wounds

A Drone from Ruckus’ party buzzed around the seemingly ancient yet relatively new looking structure. He buzzed over to an odd triangular inlet in the wall and hovered around it, trying to figure out its purpose. With a sudden whoosh the inlet slid up, it was a door, leading to elsewhere in the structure, but the door had been oddly concealed compared to the rest of the usual Forerunner doors in the structure. The drone reported the new-found hall to Ruckus and the team gathered up and went through.
It was dark on the other side of the passageway. But seconds after the small troop entered dull lights flickered on. They followed the hallway to a long narrow staircase. At the bottom, machines of all kinds seemed brand new, but looked like they had hardly, if never, been used.. Conveyor belts that hadn’t moved for aeons, parts lay scattered across the room. A jackal bent over and picked up one of the parts. It was the lens to a sentinel beam. Further inspection showed the large room to be a small sentinel factory, Ruckus made a mental note to come back here and secure the factory for their own uses. His honour guard pointed at a small cube shaped object, glowing bright blue in the light. The guard reached to touch it when a bright pulse of electricity surged through his body. The guard’s body lay dead surrounded by an energy shield. Must’ve been prototypes for the reengineered covenants over-shield.
The group moved through the factory to a large dome shaped room, dull blue lights seemed like tiny specs on the ceiling while red lights provided sufficient lighting for the rest of the room. There was only one door left. It led to another hallway, which stopped at a circular shaped room. Electronics and wires buzzed all around. Sparks flew off some places, the room was very small, maybe large enough for a single brute to feel comfortable in. At the very centre was a pod with a viewscreen hung over the side. Characters flew over the screen, then Ruckus saw it. They had tripped a silent alarm. He was just about to leave when he noticed something behind the pod. He pushed the pod aside and made a path. The room was actually in the shape of a figure eight, and at the other end of the room sat five more pods, but these were different, they had large red x symbols painted over them. Ruckus leaned in to get a good look at what was inside.
Scrap heard the silent alarm that had been tripped in his quarters, no doubt the nosy aliens who had staged their war on the ring. He had been hiding in a crag on the rock face where the mercenary’s ship had been. He crawled out and used his claws to crawl up the wall and raced to the nearest tunnel. It might already be too late…
Hades finished off the remaining guards outside the gate to the base. Brute bodies lay everywhere, their fur matted with blood. Hades just picked up one of their limp hands and activated the gate through the hand sensor.
He strode through like he owned the place. Anybody who stood in his way met his beam rifle to the head. Soon security forces were coming in large groups, trying to stop this elite intruder. He knuckled a Jackal in the skull and bent a drone in two. For the final blow he would always flip over the hulking brutes and stab them in their spine with his plasma dagger.
Hades was looking for a hangar, but no dice. The only thing that caught his eye was a large door labelled “BRIG: NO ENTRANCE WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION”
“Screw authorization,” Hades huffed and cut a hole in the door. Two brutes and a jackal, easy. With six shots he had killed the guards, probably because the brutes were wearing armour.
Inside one cell was a naked elite, two grunts, and stripped hunter chained to the wall. On the other side was a group of elites, honour guard, a ranger, and otherwise. The yellow grunt looked up at him.
“Who the hell are you?!”
Hades clicked his jaws. “I could be your saviour, or maybe a passer-by, how do you see it?”
The grunt growled and sat back down, the other elites knew who this was but didn’t believe it.
“A merc,” one whispered.
“Surprised he still alive,” another murmured
“They call me Hades,” he said popping his knuckles and spitting on the dead Jackal’s body. “I was hired by Fleet commander Canuck to starve this ring from some asshole droid, heh, he got my ship and my speeder, so now I need a ride,” He turned quickly and growled at the yellow grunt. “Can you help me?” he almost laughed.
“Our phantom is still here, and I can show it to you, and the pilots are the only ones with the codes,” Yargon tried reasoning.
“So, I’ll just take you and the pilots, then blow you all to smithereens, or I free you all and lift you to the next elite base, we’ll just wait and see,” Hades said releasing the locks on the cage with his rifle then shooting the chains off of Garthok.
“Now suit up, you got a three minutes before I leave without you, then you’re on your own,”
Those who had survived the first conflict with the flood from the heretic/human band were lucky to survive the remaining battles, like the brutes they too were driven deeper and deeper into the Halo, and by chance so were Canuck and his crew, and once again the seeming invincible flood stopped when they neared the deepest level of the ring. And in a matter of minutes they were in the same structure that the brutes had entered. They were about to face off but a noise caught their ears.
“What the-“ Crosshatch started, the three groups ran into the structure and found brutes, drones and jackals, gored, choked, crushed, snapped like twigs.
“What could do this?” Fred asked.
“Whatever it is, it killed those stupid brutes slow and painfully…” Canuck knelt down to a compacted Jackal.
Both groups looked at the others wearily, but for some reason, their leaders had called a truce until they were safe on the surface. So for now, humans, heretics and covenant stood their ground warily, but together nun the less.
They went further into the large domed shape building and things were worse, the rest of the company had been shredded to bits and thrown into a corner.
“Flood?”
“No, they wouldn’t even come down here…”
“Forerunner tech?”
“No, non of the factories have been active, besides they stay in the top three or four levels only…”
“Hades?”
“No,” They were stumped but knew that if they stayed here much longer they’d die. Then they heard it, a metallic screeching. They turned towards the door leading to the next room, which they had yet to enter. Hayman fired off six shots and some light flared out of thin air. Then an image formed. It was Vigilant Scrap, his nee badly mangled, and covered with scorch marks and flood blood. He had been using a cloaking device.
“Scrap…” Canuck growled igniting his plasma sword. Instead of the usual slaughter and madness, Scrap seemed to sigh and lower his shoulders, Canuck sensed pity from the mechanoid. It just turned and ran into the next room, Canuck and Howler followed.
They watched Scrap burn his way through the mangled tech in the small room and make his way into a large circular room connected to his. In it were five red-crossed pods. Scrap grabbed his head and howled in agony.
“NO!” He screamed. “You stupid aliens released…released…. them!!!”
“Who are them?” Howler motioned at the pods.
“They are—ACK!” a loud whoosh let out and Scrap flew off into the darkness.

Chapter 9 - Questions And Answers

Hades kicked in the gear of the phantom and sped off, launching the two remaining plasma torpedoes inside the ship at the base, setting it ablaze with white light. Yargon would’ve felt more comfortable with the pilots or honour guard driving, but he didn’t want to loose his life, not after going this far. Garthok and Claws were suited up in their armour again, ready to fight. Gunther finished helping Garthok attach his fuel rod and scampered over to Hades.
“So you’re a merc, heh,” Gunther said out of breath. Hades only clicked his jaws and sped the craft up.
“Where are we going Hades?” Gunther huffed.
“It’s where I’m going…to claim my prize,” he only grinned and spoke no more.
Claws was busy giving orders to his small band of elites.
“From the reports I’ve heard, the flood has been released so be ready, I have no idea where this merc is going to take us but be ready,” he said making sure his needler was fully loaded. The others checked and rechecked their carbines and beam rifles, while Gunther and Yargon wielded plasma pistols.
They flew for a little while longer before slowing down and landing not far from the library.
“Why the heck did we land out here!” Yargon swore as the rain poured down on his pebbly skin.
“Hehe, I like the rain, reminds me of the misty swamps back home,” Gunther splashed in a puddle.
“I’m going,” Hades pointed at the tunnel bot far from where they stood. “Below, if u want to follow, so be it, but don’t get in my way, and oh, watch out for infection forms,” and then he was off, beam rifle blazing. “Yargon, Gunther, the ranger and half of the rest of the squad stay with the ship, the rest of you are with me and Garthok, we’ll be back shortly,” The small group headed out after the mysterious mercenary.
It took them a while but they finally made it to the small structure in the depths of Halo, Hades had been using some sort of tracking device using a piece of 2991’s armour. Outside floated Wary Servo.
“I would advise you to not enter there, but I have never been down this far, and I have no control down here, so do what you must,” His orange eye pulsing in the darkness. They ran into the structure and followed the brute forces bodies they could hear noises ahead. Up ahead they saw a large circle of light, but something blocked the way.
Canuck and Howler tried to reach out and grab Scrap before he was seemingly sucked away into the dark corners of the room, they could hear him screaming, odd, a droid screaming, but someone in pain non the less. Howler sighed, the two ignited their swords and rushed off.
“Scrap!” Canuck yelled out rushing in with Howler. They heard laughter now, five voices, not Covenant voices, more like human…
“SCRAP!” they heard the tearing of metal and saw part of his middle fly off at them. His eye was blazing now, the laser lens firing blind. The laughter increased, but the laser only stopped. When they finally found him, whatever had done this was gone, they were at least fifty meters away from where the red x pods lay.
They stared down his mangled body, it had scratches all over it, circuitry lay exposed, he was missing a leg, a foot, a hand, half of his body. One arm lay entirely wired open. His neck craned up at the two.
“Who did this to you!” Howler yelled.
“You must stop them…my creators, the traitors to their own race…the traitors to myself,” the light in his optic was fading.
“Scrap stay with us here!” Canuck beckoned, he noticed that his shredder was gone. Then he heard the hum of it warming up. “Get down!” he yelled knocking the heretic to the ground next to the scrap heap 2991. Two large energy bursts flew over where they once stood, they hit the wall off in the darkness and fizzled out.
Now lights were coming on in this room. Dull red lights. They could barely make out five silhouettes but they closed in on them, surrounded them. They were human! But not…
“By the prophets they’re Forerunners!” Howler exclaimed looking over the five, but something was seriously wrong with them.
“Not quite you beast,” the lead one purred, flexing her right arm. Three tentacles dangled and twitched from out of the forearm.
“They’ve been infected,” Canuck gaped.
“Save…yourselves…” 2991 beckoned.
“Shut-up you filthy piece of shit!” a male to the right of leader yelled stomping over and crushing Scrap’s head under his mutated feet.
“You should be mindless monsters by now…” Canuck looked them up and down, they seemed totally in control of their infected parts.
“Look at the hate in their eyes,” Howler said. “And look at what they did to their guardian, they already are,”
“Humph, the ones who locked us up turned our own droid against us,” another female spat at the shattered head and torso of Scrap.
“Shh, quiet Nalaka, I think they deserve an explanation,” the lead one smiled. “Before we kill them,”
The others laughed, but Canuck noticed one was missing, no two, he heard screams and plasma fire, he looked back at the light.
“SCYTHE!” he cried out.
“Quiet, let them battle,” the lead one said in a smooth voice flexing the arm and then letting it hang limp.
“We were once Forerunners, idealists, we wanted to go places, we were all very young, we wanted power over the elders but they ignored all our advances in a cure for the flood disease, so we decided if we couldn’t beat em, join em, we experimented with robotics for a while, resulting in the warrior droid and then with flood DNA, integrating it with ours, half of us died, but it worked, somehow, but the others were unconvinced and threw us into cryo so they could decide what to do with us. Only until later we escaped the first time and killed them all, the cryo plasma had killed the pursuing flood spoors but the mutated parts still existed, we were fine, but somehow they managed to throw us back in and here we are now, ready to take back what was always ours,” She grinned and tossed back her long hair. “My name is Aithne, this is Nakala and Cintaku, and our two friends over there are Vertas and Marriko.
“You bastards,” Canuck snarled.
“What you want to fight?” Aithne laughed. The two sliced their swords through the air, she only motioned for her companions to fight them.
The battle began, Canuck and Howler charged, flipping over the Forerunners and spinning their swords around in glowing beams. Cintaku used his feet to kick Howler of his feet then tried to stomp on him, while Nakala’s mutated chest gave her some kind of special heart allowing her to travel quickly around Canuck’s whirling blade.
Howler faked a slice to the left and undercut to the right into the side of Cintaku. He screamed in agony and tried to turn on his attacker but Howler had got three more cuts in. Cintaku had just enough time to look at his guts spewing before he closed his eyes and let the ever waiting blackness consume him.
Scythe on the other hand was having his own problems, these donned tentacled spines like hunters and went around whipping the three groups, they were also freakishly fast, but didn’t seem to smart, maybe it was because they were infected the most, either way he didn’t want to know. He also noticed their extreme likeness, twins perhaps? He aimed and poured plasma into one as it stopped to gore the last of the covenant hunters. Just then the human Hayman lunged at one of the twins slapping it with a rocket launcher then back stepping and pouring a missile into one of their chests. Guts went everywhere, the other one gaped and sped off with surprising speed.
“Everybody fall back to the domed room!” Scythe yelled out.
Marriko sped up to his leader, the one known as Aithne.
“My queen, Vertas is dead!” he sobbed.
“Quit your whining…” she stared at the two aliens fighting Nakala, she got hit after hit on them before they could even cut them.
“But my queen…”
“You impatient little ass, shut-up, she swung her tentacles around his neck and snapped it. Then she let them slither down his neck and burst his heart. He screamed then keeled over. “Pitiful thing,” she laughed and watched the pursuing battle.
Howler had developed a plan, he motioned for Canuck not to move, he backed away ten feet from his fellow swordsman and waited. Nakala came in for the punch on Canuck and Canuck swung around, Howler anticipated her move and ended up covered in her blood. One of her legs flew past him and he saw her fall. To the ground.
Aithne stared in astonishment, pity she thought, they never were as strong as her, Marriko and his twin were strong but dumb, and the others weren’t as strong but relied on skill and cunning. Something these advanced aliens had.
She backed away towards the light towards the retreating figures. Howler and Canuck followed and charged, they swiped their swords and missed, one got lucky but she caught the blade with her bare hands, then she started whipping them, they had to skip over the tentacles or they would take hits to the ankles, neck, eyes, and gut, it felting like being stabbed by a hundred needles. She pounced on Howler taking his blade and knocking him out.
She got up and whirled the blade, as a challenge to Canuck. The red and white elite charged. Aithne was fast, her sword wielding skills were even faster. The blade whipped around him, after a few short moments his armour was covered with gouges. He was limping now, but would not give up. She only laughed and slid her tentacles around his fallen body, she pulled him closer and closer.
“Very valiant of you, I commend that, but it’s a loosing battle, I can control flood forms with my wave lengths and have left four juggernaut to guard this end of the building nobody comes in or comes out,” she grinned. “It’s all over now, you’ll make a good flood form,” she laughed and picked his body up throwing his sword into the darkness. “Good-bye fight----fight----fight-er—,” she turned her head and dropped Canuck, who had fainted from lack of oxygen. She saw a small plasma blade cut into her spine.
She fell over, but somebody caught her.
“Easy now,” it was another of those aliens, donning purple and dark blue armour. He laid her body down gently and looked down with, was it pity, remorse, sympathy?
“Who-?”
“You killed my target, so you became the target, but I don’t assassinate females, it’s not right,” he stood up and pulled out a large slender gun, it warmed and started humming. “I’ll make it quick, I promise,"

Chapter 10 - The One You All Waited For But I Was Too Busy To Write But Here It Is Anyway Chapter (pretty catchy title eh?)


Ruckus opened his eyes. Extreme pain shot through his body but an instant later in faded away. He tried to turn his neck or open his mouth but he had no control. He looked around with his eyes, seemingly the only thing beside his brain and his senses that were working.
Blood stained the room, but it didn’t all belong to his men. Then he remembered the pods…mutants, attacking them, then nothing. He looked down at his body, then he noticed the smell, the smell of burnt flesh and rotting guts. He noticed three large protruding feelers jutting out from his chest. He tried to get up but couldn’t. He felt something inside him, he looked at his body, he was totally mutated, he could feel it now, slowly straining up into his neck and into his mind. He fought for a while, heard some shouts and plasma blasts then everything went blank. General Ruckus relaxed and made his final journey.
Hades and the others arrived at the parked phantom. Flood forms pursued them from everywhere. Rain poured down on the swampy land. Everybody ran into the phantom and got comfortable for the long ride ahead. Hades watched as the humans and heretics were thoroughly searched and energy cuffed. He figured he had only a few short hours before they’d want rid of him too. Pity, he was beginning to like all this killing. The blood, the satisfaction of having only needed one shot. But still, for some reason his slaying of the Forerunner Aithne vexed him. He didn’t know quite why but he tried to put it in the back of his mind.
Canuck switched on the comm and searched the channels for any familiar signs. Channels once used by top elite officials were now being used by brutes, something was very wrong. He searched through the signals three times. All familiar elite signals were either offline or under brute control. Not good. Taratarus must’ve sent more reinforcements upon Razalous’ request.
“I can’t find any elite contacts, most of them are now being used by brutes the rest are offline,”
“Flood, it’s the damn flood, they’re everywhere,” Crosshatch swore.
“It can’t all be attributed to the flood, reinforcements have been sent, lots, the elite fleet is destroyed and all our bases are gone,”
“So we’re all that’s left then…” George sighed.
“Is this ship slipspace enabled?” Abrath asked. Canuck couldn’t take it anymore, the humans and heretics must have thought their chains were only protocol. He motioned at an honour guard.
“All prisoners are advised not to speak,” the head guard said pulling out a beam rifle and aiming at Abrath’s forehead.
“Take them to the brig,” Canuck waved away.
“Damn Covies!” he could hear Hayman swearing the whole way down trying to fight it. Canuck sat down and sighed, he rubbed some blood off of his armour and leaned back in the chair. Gunther waddled up to his master.
“Wha-what’s wrong Commander Canuck sir!” he asked, eager as always.
“Honestly Gunther, I don’t know what to do, we’re pinned, the ring is full of Forerunner tech, brute forces and the flood, not to mention the surrounding space, and all we have is phantom, some officials, a ship full of prisoners and some guards and soldiers, not to mention a merc who I don’t see hanging around much longer,”
Gunther sat down and picked at some dirt underneath his claws. “I’m sure there’s something the brutes want, more than they want you dead,” Gunther stared at the floor.
“…The index,” Hades smiled from behind Canuck’s seat. Canuck whirled around and faced the smiling merc.
“I’m willing to do one more job, IF, you keep your guys off of me, you have to guarantee that I get out of here,” Hades pulled out his dagger and flipped it between his fingers.
“Not even the brutes know where it is,” Canuck glared.
“On the contrary, Razalous is just leading them on, to assure his great victory, and of course Scrapper is going to want some credit,”
“You mean it was all a ploy? How do you know this?”
“Because it’s what I would’ve done,” Hades clicked is jaws.
The other elites started looking suspicious. He turned around and checked his scope attachments.
“Razalous has the index, he’s had it probably since a little while after you settled here, and he’ll use it, if he has too,”
“Not even Razalous is that dumb…” Scythe looked over his shoulder out the window.
“Try to contact the high order…” Canuck looked at the honour guard.
“But sir, we’ll be sitting ducks, they’ll know we’re here!”
“Do it soldier!” Canuck snarled.
“Sir,” the elite saluted and went to work with the phantom’s controls. It was going to be a long night.
Her eyes shot open with surprising speed. She looked around the blood stained room, no sign of any bodies, just the remains of 2991. Aithne rose retying her rags she called clothing. She reached down her back to find the cut in her spinal cord made by the elite known as Hades…how’d she know this…
She looked to her left and walked through the glittering and sparking room that was Scrap’s home. She walked out to the coliseum dome and looked for the bodies of her comrades. Now she felt it, she pulled a flood infection form out of her once opened wound, the gash closed instantly.
“Ah, so you came to comfort me,” she smiled and set the sputtering flood form on the ground. It flipped and flopped on it’s spindly tentacles towards a dark corner of the room. It had taken a while for her acute senses to return but she felt a much larger presence now. She strode on the cold parasteel floor towards the powerful force that beckoned her. He mutated eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. A large tentacle slithered out and grabbed her. She didn’t fight it, she was more curious as to what it was.
“Greetings, Aithne Rikalen of Q colony,” a huge flood form laughed. A Gravemind.
“What do you want from me great one?” she asked staring at the large impressive figure.
“Your friends contained knowledge, but the aliens known as the Covenant and Humans contained more useful, I allowed an infection form to heal your wounds while sending it through your synapses.
“So that’s how I knew…”
“..Who they were,” he pulled her in close. “Don’t ever try a stunt like that again, it could cost you your death, those aliens are at war, horrible outnumbered now, they’re forces were decimated by our kind and…those of whom you slaughtered first, the flood want off this ring, but this generation is reckless, keep them in line, I am not yet powerful enough,” another tentacle poked at the mass made up of many bodies, drone, brute, human, elite, hunter, jackal, Forerunner… “Go now Rikalen,” he put her gently on the ground,”
She bowed.
“I have no control over your actions but I can only hope you make the right choices,” the Gravemind sighed as she walked out the door.

Chapter 11 - Walking Dead


Aithne pressed her ear to the parasteel frame working of the phantom. The index…interesting… She flipped off the top of the and swung down onto one of the small maintenance walkways of the ship. Aithne closed her eyes and let her augmented arms do the work.
Before the flood augmentation, she’d experimented with another group, making the ultimate warrior, by the time she was done she had extendable plasma blades that shot out of the sides of her arms on the lower and upper part, in total she carried four deadly blades that nobody would know about until it was to late.
The blades swung upon with ease, a millennium of neglect aside. With three easy swipes the lock was slag and she stepped in quietly and calmly. She peered over the walkway at the deciding Covenant. The council members, Hades and Gunther discussed what they should do. Razalous had the index according to Hades, and he was just waiting and watching. Canuck just wanted a way off the damned ring.
She decided to head down one of the nearby shafts and down into the brig. She climbed down with ease and took care with knocking out the honour guard in the room. She looked at the small cage in which the prisoners were cramped, others were spread out in the small room, energy cuffed.
“It’s one of those Satan people again!” Hayman sneered trying to break free. Aithne tried to ignore the remark, but deep down it hurt, she didn’t know the meaning of the word but the message got by clear enough. She didn’t always want this. She had a soft side too…
“Can it Hayman, maybe she’s here to free us,” Joseph said looking at her with his blue eyes. George struggled with his chains but they only burned more.
“I just can’t get free!”
“It’s no use, Canuck’s men are the best,” Abrath sighed.
“You all are such pitiful creatures,” she laughed down at the humans and extended her plasma blades, holding one to Abrath’s neck and one to Hayman’s.
“Now, what Hades said when freeing the council members, I can kill you or save you,” she turned around staring at the disbelieving Heretics. She drew her blades in and laughed. Her tentacles wrapped around the neck of the guard and he started to choke, but she only withdrew. To the others, the Forerunner didn’t seem to know what decisions to make, good or evil. She opened the door and left.
Aithne continued down another walkway into a small armoury, inside was a large array of grenades, weapons, and armour. She sat down and got to work. She placed some elite armour on her forearms and chest and then her shins. She had to cut holes in the sides for her blades and melted the rest to mould to her body. Then she went to scrapping the helmet and making it fit her head, when she was done she bunched her almost waist length hair into the helmet and went on looking. Searching through the various parasteel cubbies she found the proper weaponry. Ditching the plasma swords she chose a plasma pistol and a clutch of plasma grenades as well as the carbine.
Going back the way she came, she silently stalked the still gathered group in the cockpit of the phantom. They were going to try and make contact…
Jumping quickly over the railing she landed on top of the dialling elite, knocking him out. She whirled around with fluid like movement. Her foot connected the jaws of one guard sending him to the ground. Front flipping over the two unconscious elites she pulled out the carbine and rammed it at Canuck’s helmet. One arm around his neck she started to look around the room, determining her situation. About a dozen armed guards had their aim on her. Canuck remained perfectly still, Gunther tried not to move but all he could manage was five seconds of stillness before yelping and falling over backwards. Scythe glared at her and drew his plasma rifle. Hades seemed indifferent and sat on one of the control panels looking out the window. Garthok huffed and heaved himself towards a wall. Yargon chose to try and hide behind his larger counterpart. Canuck slowly opened his mouth and started to speak.
“What is it you want great one?” he asked in a defeated sounding tone. Her eyes seemed to tear right through him.
“What you want, what all of you want,” She looked around the room one last time. “To survive,”
“Then why didn’t you let us contact the high order?”
“Theirs no telling if it’s been over taken by brutes either, or if they’ll intercept, it’s to big of a risk, “
“Then what do you suggest we do?” Canuck clenched his teeth.
“We fight our way out…”
“In this phantom? Pfft, we wouldn’t last more than five minutes,”
“The phantom is an asset, don’t think it’s all you have,” the other elites were now taking in the work she had done on the armour in what little time had passed between her supposed death and the present. “I’ll help, because face it, you need my help fighter,”
“The name is Supreme Commander Canuck,”
“Well commander,” she bowed while still keeping the gun aimed at his head. “Aithne at your service,”
Razalous buzzed into his room in a fit of anger.
“What do you mean they escaped?!”
“Just that commander,” a jackal saluted.
“Are you trying to beat me smart with me major?!” Razalous grabbed the sweaty jackal by the neck.
“No---ACK—no-no sir!”
Razalous dropped the jackal and it slumped to the floor. Razalous looked out the window of his currently landed cruiser. From up here he had a view of a large gulch, the iron oxide that the dust contained gave it an odd red colour.
“What of Ruckus’ group?”
“The last feed we got from them was cut short, they were being attacked and the line went dead, attacked by what…we don’t know,”
“Pity, but the sacrifice is worth the ultimate goal,” Razalous hovered over to a small silver ovaloid with a flick of his claws it opened with fluidness and revealed the index. “The Prophets will be pleased,” his multi faceted blue eyes gazed down on it’s glory. “Prepare a final strike team, Hades was working for Canuck, and Canuck fled to tunnels, they’ll be coming up, I want forces watching all the exits,”
“Sir,” the jackal saluted and left.
General Claws and General Talons, twins by birth, warriors by service, commanders of two different services of the Covenant, so many of their men died over the past few days. They couldn’t help but feel loss, and now this forerunner was trying to join the party? Canuck seemed to sense their frustration and gave them a reassuring glance. The two nodded to each other.
They’d keep their peace for now.

Chapter 12 - The Layout


General Ransack, a brute who had just recently been promoted due to the tragic loss of General Ruckus. Honestly he didn’t care, now he was in charge, he’d give the orders. Razalous had placed platoons at every tunnel entrance and exit, while sending Ransack and his small army to the library where the humans, heretics and Ruckus’ group was last seen.
Brute trudged forward, gunning down anything that moved. Trampling through the marsh towards, Ruckus ordered a halt. He could see the flood lights from the phantom. He signalled to the brutes to shut-up and surround the ship.
“Ready! AIM….”
Howler grinned and slid a small plasma blade from between his index fingers the blade lit up and sliced through his energy shackles. He immediately went to work freeing his comrades.
“How are we going to get off the ship?” Crosshatch asked.
“There’s an air duct that we can open and take to the stealth fighter,”
“Lets move out then,” Abrath pulled a pistol out of the pile of weapons that had been taken away from them. It was going to be a long night.
Aithne whirled around, something was very, very wrong. She immediately ordered a large mob of flood forms to surround the phantom. But her try was only met with conflict…then the guns started firing.
“We need to move now!” she yelled. Canuck gave her an odd stare. “Razalous’ men are here!”
“Guards! Get this bird off the ground!” Canuck ordered. Two pilots flipped into the controls and took off.
Several Brutes howled and aimed their shots at the phantom but the craft was to fast.
“Get out of their visual range then head west,” Canuck ordered. “We’re headed for a small outpost, won’t be to hard, a ship is laying idle there, a small scout, as far as I know only a few engineers are onboard at any given time,”
Ransack howled in agony as a flood combat form’s long spiny tentacles whipped across chest. He returned the favour with two brute shots, right into the flood forms guts. The flood forms were loosing but Canuck was still getting away. Then something else flew by in the night sky. A stealth ship! Laying down a plasma torpedo right at the centre of the battle.
The blast threw Ransack up in the air. He couldn’t see for all the dust and flame. He only landed about twenty feet away, very much alive, but the better part of his commandos had been vaporized or mutilated. Then the remaining flood forms resumed their attack, this time they had the advantage. Ransack raised his weapon and howled into the night. He was going to win.
Canuck and company set down about fifty meters away from the ship. Somehow the humans and heretics had escaped. The only clue to their leaving was a small plasma blade, with Howler’s named inscribed on the handle. The unconscious guards Aithne had knocked out blamed her, but the security feed said otherwise.
“Good riddance to, that one called Hayman was all talk…” Aithne muttered. She walked to the back of the small room and sat in the corner. The rest of the troops were in the armoury preparing for the assault. It was just her and Hades in the room. Hades had gotten up from his perch at the hood and had sat down in a control chair mingling with his enhanced beam rifle. He looked up at Aithne as she walked by.
“I know you’re not going to forgive me,” he said in a perfectly comfortable sounding voice.
Aithne glanced down at the elite “Where do you get that notion from?” she grinned.
“I killed you when you were down, nothing more, nothing less,”
“You’re a mercenary, you come and go and do what you please,” she said. “You were just doing your job, and now it’s not our job to fight Hades, it’s our responsibility to ourselves to get off this ring alive,”
She reached over to her shin armour and cracked it off, her leg was covered in dried blood, using one of her claws she cracked it and out slid a green crystal coloured slip.
“What the-“
“2991’s memory and personality, all stored in this chip, at least, the old version of him,” she walked up to the control console and slid the chip into a slot, somehow it fit.
The console immediately lit up, and the cold voice of Scrap started to speak, at first it was just static but it was in the tone of Scrap’s voice. Then it started making sense.
“…. Why have you brought me back online?”
“For our own gain of course,” Aithne said contentedly. “It’s good to speak with you again Scrap, without the others and without your rewiring from the council,”
Scrap paused. “Yes…it is…good,” as if he was still trying to identify with himself,”
“Scrap? When I contact you I need you to fly the ship in to our co-ordinates OK?”
“Yes…. that is doable,”
“Why is he so lost?” Hades asked.
“It’s only a small fragment of his true self, but just enough to get the job done,”
“Meh,” Hades left the room. Aithne sighed and re-latched on her shin armour.
Twenty minutes later the group was storming through the small covenant platoon, slaying brutes, drones and jackals, while making their way to the ship. Hades flipped his blade between his fingers seconds before a charging brute would’ve collided with him. He lunged in the air and stuck the blade right in the spine and kept going.
Aithne and Canuck fought back to back chopping Covenant to pieces while Scythe and Yargon pumped their enemies full of plasma. Garthok surged through the crowd knocking jackals off their feet and sending drones flying. While Gunther…well…lets just say he had some fun with those stickies.
Cornered in a small lean-to, five jackals hissed at Gunther, aiming their rifles at his large breathing tank.
“Die Grunt!”
“Well, I’d like to sometimes but not really today, cause I’d like to stay with master Canuck and help him, so see you later suckers!” he tossed a plasma grenade at the Jackals, ripped through the wall in the lean-to and tossed two more 'nades in. By the time he was done, it was raining Jackal blood.

Chapter 13-Unlucky Number!

Scrap’s core coasted the phantom straight into the hangar bay of the scout ship named the Empathy and Subsidization. The Scout boosted slightly and headed for the main Covenant base at the slowest speed the ship could go, otherwise, such high pressures on the hull outside of zero gravity could damage the ship. Gunther took Scrap’s chips to the main control console and plugged him in while Canuck and the others discussed their upcoming battle.
“Fast and swift, we go in fast and swift,” he kept saying looking out the window.
“Commander, the ship still needs to be put down farther away so it is not destroyed,” Scythe pointed out.
“Yes, yes,” Canuck waved very distractedly.
“Adjusting course now,” 2991s voice replied over the intercom. Hades clicked his jaws as he finished refuelling his jetpack, while the rest of the crew gathered their weapons and armour for one last stand.
General Claws and General Talons chose this time to approach their commander.
“Commander, you seem…. distracted…” Talons said.
“Yes, we would prefer you were on top of things,” Claws said.
“I am on top of things,” he was starting to become agitated.
“To tell you the truth, you seem very tired,” Talons almost Jackal like voice continued. “What remains of our men are ready but I suggest the rest of the council members do not entertain in this battle, especially Yargon, he could die and potentially we’d loose the trust of the grunts in the long run,”
“They don’t even know we’re alive,” Canuck walked over to the collection of footlockers they had removed from the phantom, he popped one open and started taking out his official combat gear.
A glowing set of gold armour and a blood stained blade, he hardly ever wore this but it would be official this time.
Canuck snapped off his armour and replaced it piece by piece covering his loin jumpsuit underneath.
“You need not worry about my performance in battle Generals,” he said brushing past the two. “Just be prepared to kick some ass,”
George kicked in the stealth engine of the craft and began the docking procedure, the craft latched onto the Empathy and magnetized to the hull, without Scrap even knowing…at least for the moment.
“When that craft touches down he board out to right behind them,” Specialist Nathaniel Drakken gave out the orders while the Sergeants, Fred, Abrath and Howler discussed their plan of attack.
Suddenly a cold familiar metallic voice came to life aboard the craft.
“Unfortunately that will not be happening, Commander Canuck has sent a company of guards to come and bring you to the bridge…all of you, please come with your own weapons, we wish you no harm,”
All Hayman could manage was “Awww shit!”
Canuck and Howler sat down at a table discussing.
“I had to detain you, you greatly outnumbered us and we could not completely trust you…any of you,”
“But now we both know we need each others help,” Howler complied.
“Agreed,”
“So what now?”
“All of our men are prepared we just wait for the fight…brother,” the two grasped each others right hand with an awkward firmness…a feeling of old times, and waited.
“What the hell!?” Hayman exclaimed. “Suddenly we’re all friends again!”
“Yeah I know, but those Covies can be weird sometimes,” George said.
“Heh, especially that weird lady with the armour!” Nathaniel laughed.
“Hey Hayman why don’t you go talk to her!” Joseph exclaimed.
“…you better shut-up…I ain’t talking to know crazy bitch with blades coming out of her arms!”
The marines continued their cajoling, they were getting a much needed rest that wouldn’t last long.
The ship touched down and Canuck’s posse moved out towards the structure. Almost at once a squad of banshees intercepted them. They went into hover mode well out of the groups range and began dropping fuel rod bombs.
“Here ya are!” Gunther laughed launching his own fuel rod at the banshees. The rods curved upwards and collided with one of the banshees sending it hurtling downwards, but not before self-destructing. The blast killed three of Canuck’s guards and sent everybody else backwards. Six more banshees came as reinforcements.
They had been found out already.
Scrap sent the phantom and stealth ship out using remote access. The two craft flew out of the hangar bay and pulverized all eleven banshees with plasma till they were nothing but smouldering slag.
The team pursued their goal, while the ships stayed behind for reinforcements.
Razalous’ ship was perched over the long red canyon. They passed a small Forerunner outpost with a blue insignia, and they could see another one in the distance. Jackal snipers took out several marines and heretics before moving onto the elites, but Hades had them covered. Brutes were all over the hill filled area now, in spectres or on foot. Hades boarded one of the spectres and started mowing down brutes. Canuck, Howler, Aithne, and Crosshatch sliced through brute bodies like hot knives through butter.
Four brutes closed in on Crosshatch, he stabbed the first one in the gut and connected a kick at the one opposite with his armoured foot. He spun around decapitating the other one but the fourth rushed him and sent him hurtling to the ground. The brute had his blade but it had no time to make the finishing blow. It slumped down with Howlers blade stuck between the ribs.
“You still need work apprentice,” he smiled and went back to work.
Hayman kneeled down behind several odd shaped bushes and sent all his rockets out at the brutes. Sending the apes flying or flipping Spectres end over end.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!”
George ran as fast as he could, two brutes were upon him, he dropped his last frag grenade at his feet and bolted. The two brutes screamed as they berserk towards the human. George counted three…two…one!
The brutes were sent hurtling upwards and landed in a heap right in front of him.
Nathan manned gun in one of the spectres and poured down plasma at the brutes. Fred kept watch with his duel magnums sending blood everywhere.
Slowly but surely they made it across, past another covenant outpost and into a tunnel at the end of the gulch. The tunnel led to a grav-lift into Razalous’ ship. After Hades was done slaying the guards the dwindling group went up the lift and onto the bridge of the ship. 

PART 3-

Chapter Fourteen- On a Typewriter-

The bridge was abandoned for the most part. There wasn’t much to be found except a few engineers and a couple of jackals guarding the outer doors. They were half dazed from standing to long and awoke with a start to the part of about a hundred some humans, heretics, and elite side covenant boarding into their ship. Crosshatch grinned as the entire group raised their weapons and fired at the few guards. They quickly called for help before falling to the ground in a bloody mess.
“We should search the brig,” Canuck pointed out.
“Yes in case of survivors,” Scythe nodded. The group made their way out of the abandoned bridge while half of them stayed with Scythe, including Yargon and Garthok.
They were making their way to the brig, running into nothing but small platoons of Brutes and Jackals. Once they found their way into the brig they didn’t find much, two brutes guarding the doors and a bunch of empty prison cells…except one.
Inside was an elite, relatively short for his race but still tall enough to compete with a human, rocking back and forth in his cell speaking to himself.
“Shut off those cells,” Canuck motioned to George. The lightwalls of the cells dimmed and went off the elite however, still seemed oblivious to his surroundings. Canuck had to smack him upside the head to get his attention.
“WHAT! …huh?” the elite stared up at the mob.
“Who are you? Identify yourself,” Canuck said in his commanding voice.
“Who are you…am I dreaming or something here, Elites, grunts, hunters, for the Forerunners sake we even got humans and heretics here…”
“I am Supreme Commander Canuck of the remaining elite forces on this ring, our goal is to escape alive,” Canuck pulled the elite to his feet and gave him a needler of a fallen Jackal. “How are you?”
“Commander Canuck…” the elite stared and suddenly broke off into a hasty explanation. “We-we thought You were dead, all of us, we saw the flood bodies, and-and then….”
“Easy now,” Canuck said putting his hand on the elite’s shoulder. “Now what happened?”
We-we tried to make it off the ring, brutes everywhere EVERYWHERE, and the flood…the pain, the death, my entire squadron, shot down before we even fired a shot…” the newcomer took a small canister out of his belt and injected it into his palm with a needle.
“He’s a narc,” Hayman rolled his eyes. “No wonder,”
“My seraph burned…but I survived, by heading for the ring, but I wasn’t home free yet, they took me prisoner…”
“And I’m guessing you’ve been here ever sense,” Canuck nodded taking the injection away from the elite.
The elite snarled and snatched it out of Canuck’s hand.
“My name is Captain Saddering of the Quasar Seraph division, sir,” he saluted, suddenly acting normal. “What can I do for you sir?” putting the injection back into his belt.
“Lets get back to the bridge, in our number we can take off with Razalous prisoner and kill any in our way,”
“NAW MAN!” Saddering shoved him back. “You can’t pull that, you know, they’ve got a plan, I’ve heard him before!”
“Are you sure it wasn’t just a side effect of the drug,” Hades said looking at the door. Saddering shot an angry glance at Hades and looked back at Canuck.
“You don’t how they work, dude, sir, whoever, you don’t know their minds!” he said pointing at his burnt helmet. Canuck stared at the elite and pulled out two injections from his belt’s first aid pocket.
“Come on then, we can give you a fresh supply Captain,” Canuck dangled the injections in front of Saddering's face.
“Whatever you say sir,” Canuck handed the last of the injections over to Saddering.
“Now lets get going,”
Suddenly a large siren went off and the door closed and locked. Razalous’ voice came on the intercom.
“It appears we have our last few enemies right where we want them,” Razalous laughed. “Here Commander Canuck, someone wants to speak to you…a comrade in arms so to speak,”
“My fellow rebels we have done it, Theta Halo is ours!” Scythes’ voice came over the loudspeaker. Claws and Talons pitched in too.
“We told you Canuck, we would prefer you were on…top of things, but no, now Scythe is on top and we’re with the what’s right for the Covenant.
“Yessssss,”
“Kill them…all available personnel, head for the brig and kill them,”
Razalous laughed as the intercom went down. Holding the index up in the window of the bridge, it’s colours reflecting and gleaming.
“Yes, the fragile alliance has finally come together…”
To be Continued…

Chapter 15- Feint or Heart

Canuck couldn't believe what he was hearing. His own men, his closest comrades...traitors to their race...he was dismayed and enraged.
"What do we do?" Gunther yelped with a feared look on his face.
"We fight..." Canuck said in a low voice opening his comm link.
"2991,"
"Yes Canuck..." the soft mechanical voice replied.
"NOW!"
"Yes Canuck..."
-------
Scythe didn't really agree with the reckless killing of all the elites who would not comply with the brute idealism. The ranger and honour guard were the first to go, along with a major and his squad. Only a few minors agreed to join the brute side. They were given up graded brute plasma pistol variants and told to stand guard over their elite commander. Scythe sent them off to guard the generals Claws and Talons until they could get proper honour guard training.
---
3542 looked on at the alien ship wondering what had become of probably the last existing individual of the creators. He turned his pulsing optic sensor away from the ensuing battle...he had work to do, finding a suitable reclaimer on the now battle scorn fortress world, containing the flood from spreading off the ring as well. Too many ships and too many bodies made for a bad combination. But those few reckless fools would have to do for now, considering the index was out of his protection and in its fate in their hands...
----
Ransack grinned and wiped the dried blood caked on his chin.
"Go in fast and swift," he motioned to the 30 brutes under his command. The door slid open and the brutes charged in. Taking down several human sentries. Before going down themselves... Ransack and the second platoon went in, this time he had more men.
"Kill them all!" he unloading his Brute shot into the large brig.
---
"Canuck..." Aithne looked at the tired leader who was slaying the brutes with his sword, which was running very low on energy. He only nodded.
"Do it,"
Ransack looked up moments before a large explosion sent mortar raining down on him. The hole had come over the brutes and not the elites...
Flood forms everything from carrier to juggernaught leapt out the hole, screeching and gurgling. Ransack was getting really sick of these things fighting for the enemy. He sliced them with his blade through them like rag-dolls against the walls, but like always, they returned from the dead, taking only so much torture till their host body was inanimate for good. He howled and tossed several plasma grenades at the advancing horde. Then he felt it...the burning...
He turned around to find a dagger stuck in his spine...a purple elite sneering and twisting it in. Ransack growled and berserked, lunging on the mercenary. Sending Hades crashing into the door. Now it was an all out battle. Canuck's renegade team, aided by the flood forms thrashing and being thrashed at by the brute forces. Jackals and drones came through the vents...at least the ones who escaped what flood were left up there...added to commotion.
Hades kicked in his jet pack and flew right past Ransack, causing the brute to do a double take and fall in his mid berserk. He looked down at his side to see blood gushing out, and fresh burns from the Hades' dagger.
"I'll kill you elite scum!" Ransack howled punching his fist into a flood form and watching the green gore spew out.
"Not today brute," he muttered not looking back, and flipped out his beam rifle, cutting down the drones and watching them fall in heaps on the ground, knocking everybody off guard. Hades took care to make sure they fell on the brutes.
"Send in the next platoon and call for another squad---" Ransack's transmission was cut off by a huge explosion that shook the ship. "What the?!"
"Frag out punks!" Hayman yelled tossing the grenade into a vent. Jackals kicked the cover open and leapt from their sniping point.
"When's he gonna get here..." Canuck stabbed another brute and finished the kill with a bloody smeared fist to the face.
"Sorry, I had to rid myself of several Seraphs but upon boarding the hangar bay I've taken complete control over the remaining craft..." Scrap's voice thrummed.
"Good job Scrap...now get into contact with 3541 I want all available sentinels and guardians here as well as himself, we need help,"
---
Nathan pumped shotgun shell after shell into his brute adversaries, barely missing their crazed attacks. But of course, he ran out of shells eventually. He pulled the trigger and nothing came out, and a brute charged.
"Aww crap..."
Fred jumped on top of the brutes head and almost snapped its neck. Another kick crushed its wind pipe and prying off the brutes helmet like liquid, he pumped dual magnums into the skull of the appealing.
"Take this," Fred said, handing a spare Battle Rifle and shotgun shells.
---
All at once the brutes stopped coming, they had done it.
"Scrap where are those sentinels?" Canuck demanded.
"Sorry but 3541 is ignoring all of my requests, he has more pressing things to use them for apparently..." the unemotional voice replied.
"Fine," Canuck closed the comm and motioned for the door. "Lets get out here," the flood forms all turned towards the the group and blocked the exit. "Aithne..." Canuck glanced over to the forerunner. But she had collapsed on the floor.
"It's just one thing after another with you guys isn't it?!" Saddering yelled at Abrath, eye twitching.
"Hades grab her, Howler, Crosshatch, lets go, everybody else cover us,"
The three elites bounded at the flood forms, blades flying everywhere, as the flood turned their attention to this threat, everybody else fired covering shots. But the flood shot back. A Juggernaught lanced its sharp ended tentacle limbs at George and Abrath. Spearing them, as they coughed and spewed blood the tentacles flipped them all around and threw them to the ground in a bloody mess. Hayman jumped between the things legs and fired up its crotch.
"Owned, I saw it I said it!" Hayman laughed. "Freaking owned!" the juggernaught's guts spewed and it fell over crushing several flood forms.
The conflict was over as soon as it had started. Whatever flood forms that were left on the ship had gone elsewhere.
---
The group ran towards the armoury.
"Howler I want your men to suit up in more fitting attire, what crude mechanisms you are using for survival are failing.
"But Canuck...we are heretics, you swore to the prophets to kill those such as us," Howler looked confused.
"The prophets know not what goes on besides what Razalous and Tartarus tell them, and they would not say that renegades still roamed the ring world freely,"
Howler took Canuck's notion to mind and finally decided he was right, donning the Zealot armour, and his men followed by suiting up in Major and Minor, the grunts quickly fit their new re-breathers on and placed the masks on.
The humans stayed in a corner, Fred holding Abrath's, George's and all of the other fallen marines dog-tags in his armoured palm. Hayman was pissed, Nathaniel was indifferent, Joseph was taken back as well, and the 8 odd some other marines just stared in silence, they were now more than anything. Survivors.
As the group moved out they were all knocked off balance...the ship was moving...

Chapter 16- Spliced

Razalous and Scythe heard it now...they were coming. But unfortunately for the infidels the ship had already launched.
The door exploded and in ran humans, grunts, hunters, and elites. No heretics, though, they must've bonded with the covenant forces.
The room was ablaze with fire power. Phantoms, Seraphs and Banshees dogfighting outside on the main viewscreen. The ships 2991 controlled took careful aim not to harm the ship itself.
Razalous foamed and fitted, clutching the index with an iron grasp, as he sped off into an ventilation duct.
---
"Scythe!" Canuck yelled over all the gunfire and explosions. "It's not too late to come back, why would you disgrace your ancestry!"
"It's far to late for either of us old friend," Scythe chucked his plasma rifle, Canuck caught it and clipped it on his belt. Scythe bent down and picked up a red Brute plasma rifle. "Its over..." and then the battle began.
---
Scythe charged and flipped over Canuck, pouring plasma onto Canuck's wrists. Canuck dropped his sword in agony.
Scythe strode over, two elite minors and a marine stepped in the way firing their rifles.
"Fools!" he tossed a plasma grenade and watched the human that it stuck to run suicidally, only to be captured by several drones, sacrificing themselves for Scythe's own well being. The two elites didn't even see the brutes berserking towards them. The first elite had his back shattered by a brute fist, then his armour peeled open and disembowelled, throwing his gory body across the room. The other elite managed to stick one of the brutes before it was literally set on fire by the stream of red plasma.
Scythe nodded and the brutes left.
"Now...commander..." he grinned with a certain finesse. "DIE!"
"HOLD UP SPLIT-LIP!" Scythe turned to see a rocket projectile headed right for him.
The great journey... was the last thing his brain thought...
"Here ya go commander," Hayman smiled and handed him is sword.
All around them all different species of life fell. He saw Howler and Crosshatch deflecting bolts from Claws and Talons. Only to watch their shots be deflected and their shields depleted, they too joined Scythe on his fate.
"Aithne!" Canuck yelled at the forerunner. "Get all of the flood on this ship off, on the double!"
Hades landed softly next to him in his custom armour.
"You have a message," his cold voice said handing him Scrap's AI chip.
Walking over to the bridge and plugging it in Scrap's miniature hologram appeared on the console.
"Canuck," he reported. "All remaining brutes, drones and jackals are being held prisoner but Razalous has escaped, and is headed for an escape pod,"
"Everybody else stay here, I'll handle this..." Canuck ran out of the room. Thrusting around hallways, jumping off ledges, and finally making it to the escape pods.
"Scrap?!" Canuck yelled out through the com-link, "Anybody?!"
No dice, his communications were being jammed by something. He searched the area, no trace of the drone. Then he heard a slight chatter and looked up. Razalous pounced on the elite, throwing him back towards the door.
"Poor, poor, Canuck, you walked right into your last trap," he laughed and then a serious look overcame his face. "Get him,"
Three honour guard brutes jumped out of nowhere and lunged towards Canuck.
---
Canuck sat up and ignited his blade. The centre brute landed straight on the sword and threw a big meaty fist at Canuck's face. The room was spinning, Razalous laughing, Brutes howling...closing in.
He couldn't die...now now...he pulled the sword out the brute and decapitated it, then disembowelled the second and amputated the thirds hands in three quick swipes. But the creature kept fighting. Using its bloody stumps as bludgeons. Canuck was still faster, but growing very, very tired. He bludgeoned the brute in the chin with his hooved foot and stabbed it in the crotch. The brute couldn't even look down, it's skull busted, it fell with a loud thud.
Razalous actually showed surprise on his face.
"It's over Razalous!" Canuck limped off the bodies of the brutes, blood dripping from his armour, his, the brutes, and all those who had been slain.
"..." Razalous was silent.
"You won't make it off this ship, you won't ever see the hive, not ever, you stupid damn bugger!" Canuck howled.
"Canuck, every great leader must have pity for the weak," Razalous started hovering again and his hind legs twitched like crazy. "Unfortunately my patience with you has run out," his hand legs passed two handle like objects to his first set of arms, and then another set to his legs which arched up now and acted like arms.
Canuck eyed the handles, then he realized. They were plasma swords!
The older more ruthless predecessor to the energy sword. Razalous must've known when he saw the look on Canuck's face. He raised his arms and legs ignited the four blades one by one by one by one.
'DIE INFIDEL!" Razalous hissed, zipping straight at Canuck, blades twirling in a beautiful but deadly light show. Canuck sidestepped and blocked two of the blades with his own. Razalous had surprising strength for a drone.
Razalous zipped backwards in a retreat and lashed out at Canuck again, uppercuts, side-cuts, down-cuts. Twirls and flips, dodging like lightning. The two were a good match, the best even, but there could be only one victor...

Chapter 17- Winding Down

The two continued their intense battle. Razalous seemed intent on making sure nothing was left of Canuck when he was through with him.
Canuck ducked and thrusted, but his manoeuvre was a costly mistake. Slipping on blood from the Brute Honour Guards he fell to the ground. Razalous took this chance and sliced off Canuck's right arm in one foul swoop of one of his blades.
"ARGH!!!" Canuck screamed in agony and collapsed, using the last of his strength he threw the his blade with his left hand full force and it sliced of Razalous' right hand, causing one of the plasma blades to drop, it's safety permanently disarming it.
"You fool!" he sputtered and charged Canuck.
Canuck rolled and grabbed one of the Brute's plasma rifles.
"You stupid insect, you never learn!" he howled and splattered Razalous' wings with plasma. His wings singed and brittle, could no longer allow him to stay in the air, the drone dropped, but landed swiftly on his feet. "Now who's faster?" Canuck grinned as he started to stand.
The two blades on Razalous' feet were released from his grasp, rendering them useless as well. Canuck charged the now helpless drone and grabbed his last good hand and twisted it. Razalous let a loud blood curdling screech. Canuck let go and threw a solid punch right at the drones face, sending him into the ground.
Canuck grabbed the last plasma sword, still being held onto tightly by the drones four fingered hand. Canuck ripped the fingers apart as he kept one foot on the bugs neck for balance. The old fighter was tired now, pushed past his limits he pointed the blade straight down, and as fell, he knew he would take a tyrant with him.
And the blade slid right through Razalous' battered body.... and it was finished...
---
Garthok and Yargon had made their way out of their cells by themselves. Heading for the escape pods...wondering why they had yet to be stopped by security forces.
They found Canuck, missing his right arm, and Razalous with a sword in his gut, still ignited it was burning Razalous's flesh.
But Razalous was not dead, his eyes twitched and mouth foamed.
"Garthok throw the drone out the airlock then help me get Canuck up, he needs help,"
The hunter leaned his leader against the wall, then threw Raz like a rag doll into the airlock and sealed it. The other end opened up and Razalous fell to the ground of Theta...
---
Canuck awoke minutes later.
"Cheating death once, been there done that, cheating it twice...that's just whoa..." Sadderings weathered face filled his vision.
"What the..." Canuck glanced down and saw that his right arm was missing.
"No time, we're being boarded, they came in through the escape pod silos and got the index, we were lucky enough to hold out here," Garthok helped him to his feet. Canuck knew what he had to do.
"Prepare me a Seraph," Canuck got up and grabbed the hilt of his sword laying beside him.
"But Canuck...a seraph is a two man craft!" Yargon exclaimed. "And you are in no condition to fly, let a lone walk..."
Canuck grimaced as the pain shot through his body, his ceremonial gold armour covered in red blood, his favourite colour. "There's no time...call everybody onto the bridge..."
----
The Trikard clan sat in their heavily guarded phantom, headed for the control room, where a great battle was on its way, covenant fighting off the flood in hopes for their current leaders to arrive and activate Theta, it was just a matter of time...
---
"Everybody...Theta must not be activated," Canuck sighed. "I will not ask anymore of you, my loyal men who have stayed with me all this time, but I will only ask for volunteers on this mission, our chance of success and survival is very limited, but we have no choice,"
Gunther stepped up. "Master Canuck, I would be honoured,"
Hades stepped up as well, knowing his probable fate he only stared at Canuck.
"Very well," Canuck said wearily. "You are all dismissed," he limped out with Gunther as everybody left.
"Hades wait!" Aithne yelled. She looked up at him and leaned in, locking their lips for a brief moment. She stepped back looking at him. Hades waited and then finally turned away.
"Goodbye..." he said tossing her his plasma dagger. "It wouldn't have worked out anyway..."
---
"Garthok give the humans a clear shot in the Seraph with the two ships we have, don't wait for us, and make sure they make a slipspace jump, they have no more to do with this," Canuck said over the comm.
"Yes commander," and Garthok signed off.
----
Their seraph set down, it provided cover fire for them, but their were only a few brute sentinels, but bodies of covenant, flood, and scrap from the sentinels laid everywhere. The three made their way to the fifth level, and charged in, taking down several brutes, mass chaos broke out, but the few surviving brutes were not a match for the trio. The Trikard clan were appalled.
Hades flipped out his beam rifle and vaporized the shoulder joint of the arm of the jackal that was holding the index. The index dropped and Gunther slid under the jackal and caught it.
Now more sentinels slid in through the ducts.
"The ring must be activated, there are several 1000 flood forms headed here!" 3541 beamed in the middle of the two groups of three.
"You've lost Elite filth! Face it!"
"Not if that Seraph I parked out front has anything to do with it!" Canuck ducked and sideswiped a group of Sentinels getting to close for comfort.
"A BOMB!" a brute yelled viciously, running through the hall towards the odd assembly.
"What?!" a Jackal hissed.
But the two elites and the grunt were gone, along with the index.
"What's left of the ship that was built into the mountain here has several escaped pods left," Canuck said. Then there was another explosion and 100s of flood forms poured in from all over.
"We'll never make it!" Gunther yelped. "If they don't get us, the bomb will!" he turned to Hades who was reloading his rifle and switching to a close range scope.
"You go, I'll face my fate he nodded at Canuck,"
"But Hades..." Canuck said.
"GO!" Hades yelled as the flood forms started running, they were closing in.
Gunther and Canuck watched him as they ran into the ships part of the structure. He watched till they could no longer see him for all the flood forms.
Now the place was erupting, another Seraph controlled by Scrap was firing plasma torpedoes down on the place.
Suddenly a violent explosion shook the whole place and slag and mortar rained down. When the dust and smoke cleared Gunther would that Canuck was being crushed, only the upper half of his body was not covered by rubble, he coughed and spit up blood.
"NO!" Gunther screamed trying to move the rubble but there was just to much, and he wasn't strong enough. He cursed himself for being so weak, he had failed Canuck!
"MASTER CANUCK!" Gunther cried. "Come on we can get you out of here, I've got to try!"
"No...my servant.... my comrade...my friend, there's no time left for me, and there will be non for you...GO!" Canuck handed him his unignited sword. "LET THOSE FILTHY PROPHETS KNOW WHAT HAPPENED HERE! THAT'S AN ORDER!" Gunther clutched the index, trying to hold back his fear and his tears, all he could do was run. Jumping over rubble, avoiding explosions. And barely missing death so many times. EH strapped into an escaped pod and blasted off the ring world and into the inferno of a battle taking place in space, extra elite forces had come...
Gunther docked with Scrap's last Seraph and the two flew into the receiving bay of the two conjoined brute ships they had stolen.
Gunther peered out the window, his gaze averted at the large explosions on the ground, shaking the ring, then the bomb went off, leaving an immense crater in the ring world. As the dust settled the gunfire and explosions had stopped on the ring, there was no more fighting, nothing more to do their, and no way to activate it.
"Scrap, when I leave crash the escaped pod into a brute ship..." he said tossing the index into the pod and leaving. He grabbed Canuck's sword and left for his fellow Covenant. The humans were long gone now, not that they mattered anymore anyway, they were still his enemies by the will of the Holy War that had been declared on them.
----
Gunther walked in, covered in blood and dust.
"Gunther you did it!" Yargon jumped.
"But where's Canuck and Hades?" Garthok asked.
Gunther only looked at the floor and held out the hilt of Canuck's sword. 

Thanks to-

• The Clan, Broken Man, Aithne, and all other readers
• Spuzzum for editing
• Innerrayg for the Halo kit