Ch 2

The trip up the grav-lift took all of fifteen seconds; the room they entered was empty, one by one the Marines came up followed by the Chief. Almost as soon as they were all up, a nearby door opened revealing three Elites backing into the room shooting at something in the hallway. The Elites didn’t seem to notice the Humans that were occupying the room they had entered and instead kept shooting erratically into the air. Schaeffer noticed loud buzzing noise and saw a swarm of what looked like at least a dozen dull-green beetles, which were swarming into the room.

The Master Chief reacted first, his enhanced reflexes giving him an edge over the Marines, throwing a plasma grenade into the doorway, killing an Elite and a good portion of their insectoid attackers. The Marines opened up on the swarm, killing off three more under their combined fire. The Elites, at first were confused at how nearly all of their attackers had been killed and probably never knew since they were killed by the Marine’s Carbine fire. The Chief picked off the remaining Drones and they made their way into the hallway.

Once the door opened carnage and destruction greeted them. An Elite in white armor was sprawled over one of the hologram pedestal, his Energy Sword lying a few inches away from his limp arms. The Chief dropped his grenade launcher and picked up the sword, swinging it a few times to get a feel for it. The Marines, who had never seen anything like the Energy Sword, gazed at it for a few seconds before Col. Schaeffer, who was standing near the Sword, snapped “I know I’m quite a sight, do your lookin’ later. Almost immediately the Marines broke from their trance and started moving down the hallway, taking cover behind the small pillars that rose from the floor every five or so feet. When they got near the end of the hallway they heard the door open up and two Elites wearing strange ceremonial armor stepped into the room exchanging fire with a pair of Brutes and trio of Drones. The Marines once again opened fire on the Brutes, one of the Brutes falling to the ground punctured in two-dozen places by carbine shots and falling on an Elite, immobilizing him. The Chief using his newfound sword lunged at an Elite, nearly slicing him in half and then stabbed the very surprised Brute in the chest. The trio of Drones had mad short work of the trapped Elite, even it’s energy shield wasn’t able to withstand the attack of all three Drones while immobilized, fortunately for the Marines that meant that all they had to do was pick off the Drones, which they did quite effectively at this point.

“Covies attackin’ Covies? What the Hell’s goin’ on here?" a nearby Marine asked. Almost immediately they heard a strange voice come from nowhere fill the entire room, the voice was strangely calming and wizened, Schaeffer found it almost impossible not to listen. “The Elites have failed to protect the Prophets, and in so doing have put all our lives at risk. Let no warrior forget his oath, thou faith will keep us safe, once we find the path.” Further on down the hallway the voice returned, “The Brutes have asked for your allegiance, and you will give it.” Schaeffer could detect anger with the last part of the announcement confirming, along with the fighting he had seen so far, that the violence was not an isolated event.

After battling through another hallway a door lead into another room, Schaeffer heard a loud boom and saw the Master Chief’s shields flicker and fade in response to a thick burst of green energy. “Oh crap!” yelled the Marine next to him and Schaeffer yelled out in panic “Marines, fall back!” luckily there was a wall in between them and their attackers, otherwise they would have all been dead judging by the way a glancing shot had taken out the Chief’s shields. The Marines ducked by the wall and opened fire with their carbines on the aliens and saw for the first time their opponents; two massive beings, almost as tall as an Elite and even more armored, carried huge metal shields in one hand while the other seemed to be some sort of weapon. The Marines opened fire en masse on the closest monstrosity but it didn’t seem to affect the beast, the Marine next to Schaeffer yelled “Grenade!” and in response to the warning they all ducked back behind the wall. After hearing a muffled thump Schaeffer snuck a peek at what had become of the alien, what he saw next shocked him; it shrugged off the blast with almost no damage to itself other than a few splatters of orange liquid, Good God! Schaeffer thought to himself, we might as well be fighting a friggin tank! Then something caught Schaeffer’s attention, in between the armor plates he saw an orange glowing mass. That must be it’s weak spot, “Marines fire in between the armor, at the orange flesh”. Sure enough, as the shots struck home the monster started to slow and after taking almost six clips of ammunition, the alien died, orange fluid trickling from its body over armor that was ruptured in at least two-dozen places. The Marines saw that the Chief had already dispatched the other monster and heading towards the door a Marine next to him asked “What were those things Chief?” without turning his head they heard the Spartan’s external speakers emit a single word, “Hunters.”

After the battle between the Hunters the Marines heard another announcement from the same voice that they had heard earlier. “The Brute’s have asked for your allegiance, and you will give it. Hmmm, sounds like our alien friends are getting a little antsy, Schaeffer thought to himself, oh well what do I care maybe if they fight each other we’ll be able to get out of here alive. They came to a large open arboretum, there were two platforms, the Marines were on the one side and the other platform was on the opposite side. There was a path leading down to the lower level of the arboretum, about thirty-feet below the platforms. The Arboretum was filled with strange trees and quiet a few brawling Covenant. Glancing down, Schaeffer saw a pair of Hunters and a group of Elites battling a patrol of Brutes. The sky was filled with flashing plasma as a swarm of Drones engaged a pair of Elites wearing jetpacks. The Private next to Schaeffer who was holding a Covenant Beam Rifle drew a bead on one of the Brutes and prepared to fire. Schaeffer quickly knocked the gun out of the way and said “Wait Garcia, lets see how this turns out”, the Private lowered his weapon and crouched down next to Schaeffer.

The Marines were amazed at the ferocity of the battle taking place below them, The Brutes fired at the Elites with their super-charged Plasma Rifles, the bright red lasers burning an Elite right in the chest and causing another to duck behind a boulder, his shields flickering. The Hunters on the other hand took aim with their cannons and blasted the Brute line, Schaeffer saw a Brute disappear from a direct hit and another Brute lost an arm to the powerful energy beam. The battle in the sky was raging even more than the one on the ground, green and blue light flashed back and forth, illuminating shadowy silhouettes crisscrossing through the tangled mess of light. Suddenly one of the silhouettes started to fall towards the earth, Schaeffer saw the glinting of the armor and humanoid body and knew it belonged to one of the Elites. Not even a second later it’s falling body was joined by a pair of Drone bodies, which fell onto the platform with a splat about four feet away from the Marines.

Below, the Brutes charged the Hunters; the Hunter’s fire felled two of Brutes before they reached them but at least five Brutes made it. The Hunters, with all of their armor and strength didn’t stand a chance against the Brutes, a Hunter swung his shield up shattering a Brute’s skull but in doing this he left himself wide open for a second Brute to charge him, a clenched fist tore right through the soft orange flesh in-between the Hunter’s armor plates and out the other side killing it instantly. Meanwhile the Elite who had taken cover behind the rock opened fire on the Brutes who were attacking the remaining Hunter; precise shots slammed a Brute’s helmet off and punched into it’s brain, killing it instantly, unfortunately the Elite didn’t see the Brute behind him with a Brute shot, the alien sliced the Elite in the back, overloading his shields, ripping through his armor, and severing his spinal cord. The remaining Hunter backed into a corner opening fire with its huge cannon at the Brutes, the remaining Brutes, caught up in their frenzied bloodlust, ignored the fire and all charged. A Brute disappeared under the withering cannon fire, while another was slammed halfway across the arboretum by the Hunter’s shield but the last Brute pounded relentlessly on the Hunter’s armor, denting it in at least a dozen places, orange blood splattered everywhere as the Hunter tried to shake the rampaging Brute off him to no avail. A second later the Hunter was dead, reduced to a mass of dented armor and oozing orange matter, the Brute stood in the center of the mess, fur matted with sticky orange blood.

With the Arial battle almost over and the ground battle concluded the Marines set to work, Pvt. Garcia brought his weapon to bear on the surviving Brute and suddenly the Brute’s head was gone and his body fell to the ground alongside the Hunter’s remains. The Master Chief and the other Marines made short work of the remaining air combatants, sniping them one by one. The Marines made their way down to the arboretum and to the opposite platform with little difficulty, checking the bodies for ammunition and grenades as they went. Upon reaching the other platform they walked up to the doorway and Pvt. Garcia ran right into a Brute. With both of them equally surprised it took a second for either of them to react, the Brute was a millisecond faster, bringing his Bruteshot up towards Garcia, who was fumbling for his weapon, and fired point-blank into the Private’s chest plate, sending him flying. Schaeffer, the Chief and the other Marines, seeing that Garcia was no longer in their field of fire, instinctively fired at the Brute, dozens of wounds ripping into its body. They ran over to where Garcia lay but Schaeffer knew that it was futile, the way the grenade hit him would be too much for his armor. Sure enough when they found Garcia he was dead, the grenade had absolutely torn him open to the extent that Schaeffer had to look away for fear that he would throw up. The Chief; bending over to remove Garcia’s dog tags, motioned that they had to keep moving, as much as Schaeffer hated leaving Garcia’s body he knew that the Chief was right and he quickly relayed this to the remaining Marines.