Not Easily Broken
Twenty-seven red dots… twenty-seven targets… twenty-seven obstacles he could not allow to stand. The inevitability of this conclusion came to him on the thirty-third day on this world, month unknown, year uncertain. It was commendable, in his eyes, that he had restrained this bloody path for so long, an unusual tactic given his record. It was, to be honest, more his lack of knowledge than any pacifistic nature, that had initially stayed his wrath. But the pestering harassment of those red dots that pursued him so unceasingly was a grievance he could no longer stand, an irritant upon his vision that he planned to efficiently and violently rectify.
He elected well, the location where he would make his stand. A large tor, speckled with boulders that would make for good cover and even better concealment. The edifice of rock that became his chosen bulwark, was the best positioned and best suited for the grim task ahead of him. A quick search of his ammunition stores was performed as he crouched into position, three magazines, six shells, and nine rounds, three grenades of human origin, and a fourth of alien technology.
He concluded judiciously that this battle would not stay a long distance affair. The blame for his depleted ammunition could be laid upon events previous, what he was certain would become invaluable footage once he reestablished contact with JSOC, for now however, he found himself in a position that was… suboptimal.
Nevertheless he was prepared for such eventualities.
He would not die, not without a fight.
His location picked, his arsenal readied, and his resolve reaffirmed, all that was left, was to wait.
The anticipation of combat was a deep-rooted and familiar sensation. Where most men would find their nerves racked and their will tested, he felt something of a longing for the increase in his heart rate, the sudden perspiration and the rush of endorphins as he anticipated the onset of an engagement. It was a reminder of his mortality, and the only moment where he could honestly feel at least the tiniest notion that he was alive.
It was not deceptive to say, that in some small way, he lived for this, to be pitted against an adversary, to fight to survive. The aggression was in his blood, a byproduct of his vocation and his very existence. He lived for nothing else but the volatility of war. This was not a surprise, not to him or his brothers and sisters. Like they, he had been raised this way for a reason, the desperation of mankind made manifest. But they had not been the answer of salvation.
Only the substitute.
His grip tightened on his rifle, the creak of the metal sharpening his focus back to present and far more immediate concerns. Those that hunted him could not be taken so halfheartedly. If they possessed the determination to chase their prey for a month, trekking through rough, hostile terrain and yet still able to endure his relentless pace, then they were not to be underestimated.
A look to his motion tracker was followed by the instinctive, if slight clenching of his jaw, as the meters counted down.
The wait was in silence.
1200 meters… 900 meters… 600 meters… 300 meters… The initial approach of the hostile contacts lasted perhaps a full hour, the twenty six dots approaching in a sedate, organized advance of two separate columns of thirteen. This in itself was valuable information. His adversaries were not only trained, but patient, functioning in two individual units that had been, judging from their speed, able to determine that their prey had gone to ground. He could most likely expect squad level tactics and a coordinated assault covered by overlapping lanes of supportive fire as they closed in on his position.
Difficult, but not insurmountable, he decided as he rearranged his position accordingly and placed his gaze upon the tree line, down below at the foot of the rock covered hilltop.
A further ten minutes later and at 190 meters he had his first look at his pursuers. They were not unfamiliar, at least to what he had seen on this planet thus far. The stark white armor had been replaced by a drab mix of dark greens and light browns, more suited to the local arboreal environment than the barren tundra he had found himself in on his first day stranded upon this world, but the resemblance to the soldiers he encountered in his first half-conscious, concussion addled firefight was undeniable.
His somewhat cohesive theory seemed that much more plausible as he deliberated on this development. Clearly the assault at Site Epsilon and the ensuing battle through the ruins, had deeper ramifications then he had first realized.
Insurrectionists then… though none like he had fought before. This particular cell seemed far more organized, less para, more military. If they had been able to track him this far and for this long, then they were certainly military trained and from what he had seen before he left the sight of the first conflict, their gear was nearly on par with modern UNSC battle dress. If they could act so openly then his assumption of the inexistence of UNSC authority on this world must also be correct.
He took this news grimly, as he realized his efforts to return to allied space would be a significant challenge. Nevertheless, such concerns were not prevalent to his current situation. First he would need to eliminate the clear and present danger ahead of him. As ready as he would ever be, he sighted in on his first target and squeezed the trigger just as the hostile squad began to exit the tree line.
The bark of his assault rifle was the only warning the enemy received before their point man's helmet caved inwards. The lead insurgent's head snapped back from the force of the high velocity round, spraying the one behind him with a mist of liquefied grey matter. The soldier's attempt to cry out an alarm was muffled by the proceeding bullet that cut through her larynx.
Both bodies dropped before the squad finally reacted.
Numerous loud and vicarious expletives filled the air as the remaining infantrymen threw themselves into the closest available cover. Only to panic when they heard several metallic objects clatter down the slope. Four jumped out of cover to escape the ensuing chaos, but were cut down by a concise, accurate burst of gunfire.
A trio of rapid detonations tore across the hill side, showering everything in scorched dirt, heated rock, and razor sharp shrapnel, claiming further tallies against the opposition. Looking down upon the destruction with a partially satisfied grunt, he slipped back into cover as a fusillade of multicolored bullets spat through the smoke of upturned dirt and debris. He weathered the barrage silently, studying his motion tracker and planning while he waited for the inevitable pause of a reload.
Silence fell a moment later, broken by the scattered announcements he had expected, and it was at that moment that he burst from cover. He took off down the slope, his visor flicking as it switched modes, bathing his vision in dark greys and bright whites. His rifle snapped between the targets lit up by infrared, the weapon thundering in bursts as he scythed down hostiles one at a time. More voices were raised in confusion and fear as he advanced. Half blinded by the smoke left in the wake of the explosions, and continuously put off balance by his relentless aggression, his adversaries put up a halfhearted resistance at best.
His shoulder jerked back as he was struck from the side by a panicked volley to his left, but that proved only a minor nuisance as his shields flickered and the bar at the top of his HUD dropped four percent. Zeroing in on the first of the opposition to land a solid blow, he rewarded the man with a four round burst into his sternum.
His shields fell a further thirty percent as the remaining insurgents rallied and laid down a withering torrent of ammunition in the four seconds he was exposed before rolling behind a rock. He did not feel impressed. It was not difficult to land a target that stood nearly three meters in height.
What did incite his curiosity however, were the effects the attack had upon his armor. He glanced down in abject bewilderment, at the flicker of flames that licked at his shields, and the haze of frost lingering around his legs.
That… was definitely something new.
He could have believed the explanation for the fire, incendiary ammunition, while not common, was not unheard of. However, the existence of specialized cryogenic ammo was something beyond current UNSC, and therefor human, development.
Before he could give the concept any more thought, his motion tracker alerted him that the enemy was making a push. The remaining red dots on his radar approached from multiple directions and at running speed. Their intent to overwhelm him was not lost to the soldier, who quickly put away his rifle and equipped his knife and sidearm. Leaping from behind cover, he took a moment to survey his surroundings, eight in front, one on either side, and three more circling to get behind him. No doubt they thought to entrap and bring him down. The plan was well concocted and would have worked against any soldier.
Unfortunately for them, they had miscalculated.
He was not a soldier.
He was a spartan.
His shields flared as he took incoming fire from every direction, but he was able to endure the storm of metal as he charged forwards with a growl, crossing the forty foot span between him and his first target in less than four seconds.
The spartan could not see the expression of the first man to fall to his blade, not behind that bizarre half-helm, but he could at least see the insurgent's mouth open wide in a gasp as he inserted his blade in-between the man's fourth and fifth rib, plunging the foot long serrated edge into his heart.
Forty five percent.
His shields dropped in another hefty increment as he felt the butt of a rifle crack against his back. The spartan turned about, noticed the upraised rifle held in the arms of a woman belting profanities at him, and delivered a crushing elbow into her neck. A head rolled off its shoulders as he cut through flesh with the sheer force of the impact, and he grabbed the headless corpse, pulling it to his chest to absorb the lion's share of the gunfire directed at him.
Combat knife still buried in the torso of his first victim, the spartan lifted the body and added it to his organic barricade, pushing through the hail of ammunition being thrown at him. Sighting the next soldier on his list, he dropped the second corpse, pressed his greave against the first, and kicked it into the next closest insurrectionist. The man screamed as he was thrown back by the bullet riddled husk of his comrade, but his suffering was assuaged as the spartan fired his handgun and put a round through his skull. The magnum's magazine was emptied thereafter, eight bullets finding homes in eight heads as he methodically scythed down his attackers one by one.
His pistol emptied and smoking, the spartan returned it to his thigh as he turned to face the last insurgents. His shields, having reached the cusp of breaking, recharged in a crackling haze of golden energy.
The two men looked upon the towering colossus of metal that had butchered his way through two squads of their finest special forces, and showered it in bullets till their rifles emptied.
The spartan stepped through the barrage, intercepted the drawn knife of the first of the last men, and punched his fist through his armor and out the back of his torso. The guerilla fighter fell back, gurgling on the blood filling his throat as he collapsed. His compatriot lunged forward, melee weapon drawn and a rictus of hate written on his face.
The spartan let the blow land, the knife's blade snapping against nearly a foot of solid titanium and reverse engineered alien technology. As a courtesy he did not let the man suffer, grabbing the comparatively dwarfish insurgent by the chin, the spartan swiftly wrung his neck with the audible shatter of vertebrae.
He stepped away to watch the corpse as it bowed, sinking to the dirt in a heap of severed nerves. And after taking a moment, he lifted his calculative gaze to survey the battleground. Twenty-seven soldiers, put down in less than five minutes.
Not his best record, but certainly not his worst.
One less insurrectionist patrol to stand in his way, and with that he could press onwards without interruption.
The spartan allowed himself a few minutes of leeway to secure the site and police weapons and ammunition, a luxury he did not have the first time he emerged in that frost speckled forest. Among the bodies he found a few days' worth of MREs, a number of rifles in relatively pristine condition, numerous magazines for them, and oddly enough, a broadsword lying next to the corpse of an unusually dressed soldier torn apart by the blast from his grenades. He was confused to see such an archaic weapon amidst what was obviously advanced equipment, but figured the man must have been an officer of some kind, or perhaps some manner of enthusiast. In the end he paid it little mind, grabbing the blade and securing it to his back amidst his rifle, shotgun, and the other firearms he had acquired. It was a little on the substantial side for a portable arsenal, but considering his position, he figured he'd need the extra firepower.
On the way out, he grabbed an assortment of peculiarly colored cylinders he could only assume were grenades, attaching them to his waist as he journeyed back into the forest. Eventually he reasoned he'd find a settlement of some kind, whether or not it had a spaceport however, was up for debate. So far he had not seen the indomitable tower of metal and human ingenuity found on most colonies, but he figured that perhaps the planet was not large enough or sufficiently economically valuable to establish a space elevator.
Either way, he would find a way back.
Spartan B170 did not give up easily.
"General… we've lost contact with both squads… and Specialist Stark." The communications operator looked up from his station, his expression halfway between unbelieving dread and abject shock. Not five minutes after they reported making contact under fire, they were silenced. And judging from the operator's sudden paleness, their broadcasts before the end were entirely unpleasant.
Showing his disbelief, while unprofessional, was something General Ironwood allowed to pass without remark. After all, he as well was in a state of lesser astonishment. Twenty-six of his finest soldiers, and one of his best specialists… gone. A month spent hunting an unknown hostile contact that had slaughtered their way through an entire unit stationed on Vale's borders, and they had nothing but failure to show for it. What had already been an insulting blow upon Atlas' credibility to protect its allies, would no doubt be made worse when the news eventually found out that their retaliatory efforts had been repulsed so utterly.
But that did not rank high up on Ironwood's concerns. Right now he wanted to know what could evade a task force for more than a month through wild terrain crawling with Grimm, and then so utterly crush the best he had to offer.
"Damn politics." He growled to himself, his remaining hand of flesh and bone clenched tight as he suppressed his frustration. If it wasn't for Valian council fearmongering, he could have done this properly, with knights, airships, and armored support. Now, twenty-seven people were dead, and all of Remnant would blame this on altesian incompetence.
The damage to intercountry relations would not be insignificant, not to mention the loss of faith in Atlas superiority.
What a clusterfuck of a situation, and so close to the Vytal Festival…
People were going to lose their careers over this. After all, someone would have to be blamed for this disaster, and it wouldn't be the right ones.
It never is.
"General?"
Ironwood curbed his rising anger under professional stoicism as he turned to his communications operator. Now was exactly not the time for emotional interference. "Contact The Valiant, I want our fallen soldiers found and brought back home, with full honors." Damn whatever the council would say about airships and political borders, those men and women deserved that much.
"Of course, Sir."
Glaring out the bridge window of his personal flagship, the altesian general set his thoughts on determining who, or what, could have done this.
However this might end, Atlas would have retribution.
It was four days before the spartan finally decided to cut back on his pace and take a few moments to rest, setting himself up underneath a small copse of trees for a few hours until inevitably resuming his travels. His objective, locate any sign of greater human habitation on this world.
B170, while unexhausted, decided to remain prudent considering the indeterminable nature of his future. There was no telling how long he would be forced to stay upon this colony, or the force strength of the insurrectionist presence whose existence he had violently established in his last gunfight.
In addition, he was uncertain as to how much time he had bought for himself, or how furious the inevitable reprisal would be. Even then he was not so much worried about conflict, as he was in figuring out how long he could stretch his current supplies. Had he been a degree more… discreet, he may have been able to recover more than what he had from the two units of innies. Bearing in mind that he had not taken that into account, he was lucky to have scrounged enough food and ammo to stay mission capable for… perhaps two weeks if he was judicious with the utilization of his confiscated provisions and ammunition.
B170, a frown adorning his stern expression, disconnected the seals on his helmet and set it down on his thigh. He paused, for the briefest of moments, to feel the cool evening breeze as it caressed his cheek, and his frown shifted, by the slightest of margins, into the fleeting phantom of a smile. He recalled his home, an unassuming colony on the edge of humanity's frontier. Insofar as his memory could recollect, it had not been much to look at initially, a fairly recent establishment for colonial occupation, no more than a handful of larger settlements scattered across acres of as of yet milled forestland. Despite its relatively primitive trappings, the largely Germanic population had arrived to something of a curiosity. Climate perfectly suited for human habitation, with a percentage of oceans to landmass that made even Earth First supremacists envious, New Serenity was well on its way to garden world certification. Most had likened it to a new Arcadia, and the future had looked bright for the colonists that resided there.
At least, until March 5th, 2540, when a single Covenant supercarrier jumped in system and engaged the entirety of the 12th patrol fleet.
What had taken humanity decades to build, they glassed in hours.
The spartan's jaw tightened, and the ghostly smile vanished as he banished the memory and the phantom scent of crystalized sand, focusing instead on searching the provisions he had taken from the insurrectionist hunting party, welcoming the mindless distraction the task provided.
Despite his role as a spartan-III, there was at least one unifying factor that connected him to the rest of his un-augmented brethren. There were few members of humanity that had not lost something to the inexhaustible march of the Covenant war machine, and most of those people resided deep in the heart of the core systems. Like most, his loss was reflected in the heart and soul of the human race, no more special than anyone else that lived and breathed and fought for survival. Yet he was luckier than the average individual, in that he had been given training and equipment that did not just offer him a chance at vengeance, but the rare opportunity to hurt the enemy far more deeply than they had him. There were not many who could boast such a privilege.
B170 glanced at the packaged meal he had selected from within the small rucksack he carried on his shoulder. MENU 8 SHREDDED BARBEQUE BEEF stood out in large, blocky letters, though the spartan was skeptical as to how truthful a promise that was. As he skimmed the description and readied to tear the seal, he was given pause at the lettering printed upon the bottom.
ATLAS GOVERNMENT PROPERTY
COMMERCIAL RESALE IS UNLAWFUL
"Atlas…" B170 whispered to himself, his tone curious as he absorbed this most recent revelation. The ache in his stomach faded from his attention, and the original purpose of the meal was forgotten as the spartan began to question.
He'd foraged off insurrectionist supplies before on numerous occasions. The insurrection was a rebellion by every meaning of the word, and a poorly led one at that. They did not have access to manufactories. They did not build their own ships or weapons. They could not even feed the misguided civilians that flocked to their banner. The very food in the bellies of their warriors was provisioned by the UNSC's unwilling benefaction, stolen from critical supply vessels traveling to the Covenant theatre and doled out to the scattered cells littering human space like pockets of tenacious vermin. The rebellion may have been born out of good intention, a desperate bid to secure social change and freedom from oppression. But there was nothing admirable about their cause. They were less than filth, a virulent plague that suckled from a struggling humanity, more roving bandits than soldiers.
He knew them as parasites.
B170 contemplated the ramifications this simple meal packet represented in a ponderous silence. Either the insurrection was becoming centralized, what was a deeply concerning hypothesis, or this was the revelation of something far more sinister.
The spartan set down the unopened package, and in the same motion, reached to his side, drawing the blade he had taken from the corpse of that strange soldier. He studied the longsword, 50 inches of pristine metal and superb craftsmanship, something that had not been pressed into shape by an assembly line, but created by the hands of a legitimate tradesman. This was not a weapon forged in a gritty, makeshift workshop on a backwater colony world.
Laying the sword carefully at his side, he retrieved a rifle taken from the insurrectionist hunting party, studying both congruently with an increasingly perplexed eye. Delving further into this growing mystery, he extracted an unspent round from the magazine and cross-examined it with the UNSC ammunition Index. The time spent was a mere fraction of a passing moment as he browsed through the entire database in his head. The answer he came upon however, was a great deal slower on the uptake.
Unknown manufacturer, unregistered caliber… more than that the casing was pressed out of brass tinged a slight red, with a transparent bar running down the length of the body, the propellant within radiating an unusual, bright crimson. The bullet itself at the tip was an even darker red than the material of the cartridge, and the spartan's bafflement continued to escalate as he attempted to digest this series of unrelenting discoveries.
The soldiers set to hunt him, armored and armed with equipment comparable to UNSC quality standards, possessing coordinated, army level tactics and wielding divisive technology. There was any number of examples that came to his thoughts as he contemplated this strangest development. Unfamiliar ammunitions, foreign combat apparel… a sword, a weapon that had been discarded from traditional warfare for more than a thousand years, brought to prominence only by the arrival of the Covenant. And there was no man alive foolish enough to think they could possess the same survivability as a sangheili zealot.
The spartan was… confused.
What exactly was he dealing with here?
As B170 sat against the tree, contemplating the totality of his findings, something whispered across the peripherals of his thoughts, a foreign emotion that he had not experienced in little more than a decade. The sentiment was an unwelcomed source of discontent within the twisted snare of jumbled thought that had once been an immaculate bulwark of stalwart faith.
Doubt crafted itself an uninvited residence in his consciousness, the tinniest flicker of misgiving that susurrated treacherous ideals in his head.
This is not the work of the insurrection.
B170 banished the disloyal suggestion from his mind before it could settle in and take root, reaffirming his resolve with unrelenting dedication and a reminder of his purpose. There was no human power higher than the UNSC. There existed no human force unaffiliated that was not inherently mutinous. These findings were simply the result of stumbling across a well-organized and highly motivated insurrectionist cell.
He would not be seduced by wild theory and lunatic conspiracy.
A flashing light, the soft, pale blue flickering from within his removed helmet, stole his attention from his heavy thoughts, the steady rhythm of its flutter crushing through his pondering with all the subtly and grace of a scorpion MBT wading into a sea of Covenant infantry, alerting him to an unseen danger.
His motion tracker erupted into a silent scream of flashing color.
The spartan's reaction was swift.
B170 popped his knee up, bouncing his headpiece into the air, and as his helmet sailed upwards, he snatched it from its descent and donned it with an effortless, practiced efficiency. His naked vision was once again assailed by the numerous lights and notifications of his HUD's operating system, and he took only a moment to re-familiarize himself with the stream of constant data continuously scrolling across his visor, and more importantly, the circular radar at the leftmost corner of his vision.
Contact, twenty meters northwest.
His head snapped in that direction, even as he dropped the blade and secured both gauntlets around the unfamiliar rifle he had been examining. His armored digits tightened briefly upon the grip, and he felt his jaw tighten as the tracker target revealed itself.
Pale eyes widened in incredulity by the lowest of fractions as he watched the large creature step out from the scrub brush. Two burning coals of irradiant orange matching his stare as it revealed itself in its entirety. The towering monolith of a beast, its hide swathed in thick, matted fur darker than the blackest nights, and propelled by two massive digitigrade legs, appeared to pause upon noticing the bewildered soldier propped against the far tree, seeming to be as startled by the encounter as he was. Whatever expression it might have made was foiled by the encasement of bone around its muzzle, as bright and pure as illegal ivory, marred only by strange red markings.
B170 was at a loss.
He studied the creature, tried to rationalize what he was seeing, perhaps some peculiar local fauna or… well he could not think of what else this thing could be. It certainly was not included in the Covenant identification field catalogue. Though bipedal, he doubted its sapience, considering it lacked any visual apparel or tools.
Slowly, carefully, he rose from his seated posture, the vaguely wolf-like creature flicking an ear as it watched the armored figure move to stand. And upon noticing the nearly foot long claws sprouting from the tips of its fingers, he raised his rifle halfway into a defensive stance, ready to snap fire or throw himself into cover as the situation required. Alien species had the irritating habit of subverting expectations. And this particular beast already looked par the course. He had fought magelekgolo pairs that were smaller than this creature.
A dazzling array of lights blinked into existence at the bottom of his vision, the thick undergrowth surrounding the animal now shimmering with movement in concurrence.
This… thing, whatever it was, had brought company.
B170 slowly withdrew from his semi-prone position and took a single step back in retreat, pressing his back firmly against the solidity of the tree towards his rear, securing for himself at least one venue he could not be assaulted from. The unfamiliar firearm in his gauntlets was weighed once more, the spartan working quickly to acquaint himself with the weapon. He would have preferred the MA37, but did not wish to risk making an untoward movement that might incite violence in the growing pack of lupine creatures that swelled from the darkness.
As the seconds ticked onwards in silence, the spartan grew more and more concerned, the combined mass of these wolven bipeds increasing from the initial visitor to a full twenty. However the ones that followed were smaller, if only by a few feet, and seemed to only have a sparse pattern of unusual plating that sprouted in patches across their unanimously dark furred hides.
The spartan frowned at his situation.
What was already difficult had now become… suboptimal.
There was a sensation inside him, something deep in his instincts, which told him that this would not end peacefully. But then again, when did such things ever? There was a pervading sense of inherent… wrongness about these animals. They were unalike any natural beast he had ever seen, and even the Covenant did not provoke within him the same instinctual aversion that coiled in his stomach as he looked upon these creatures.
Not that his supposition mattered in the seconds preceding his uneasy musing.
The first step in the devolution of events began as the lead beast in this pack stepped forward, its nose wrinkling as it inhaled deeply in his direction. The spartan watched as its muzzle quivered, opening to reveal a row of pearlescent fangs larger than most dinner knives, and throttled the trigger of the unfamiliar rifle.
The weapon's recoil was not insignificant. He felt the stock brush against his shoulder as the firearm erupted, spewing fiery bullets at his first target. His accuracy was impeccable, and though the spray pattern from the barrel was less precise than he had hoped, nearly a dozen rounds still struck true, smashing through the bizarre bony carapace of the creature's skull before pushing out the back of its head.
B170 did not waste time in savoring his success, and was simply relieved that whatever these things things were, they could be killed. The spartan swept his rifle from side to side, showering the entire huddle of beasts in incendiary ammunition till the receiver clicked dry. Only seconds had passed since he initially opened fire, but whatever kind of munition this weapon utilized, he was marginally impressed by its efficiency against relatively soft targets. The rounds bit deep, and the flames adhered easily to their dark fur, taking to the hairy pelt like a matchstick to gasoline.
He was not so much impressed, however, by how quickly these creatures adapted. The mass of wolf-like beasts leaped into action, seemingly in unison. Charging through the gunfire with zero reservation or care about their individual welfare. And suddenly B170 found himself harassed by more than a dozen flaming giant bipedal wolves. This was inherently unexpected, and caught the spartan momentarily out of position, as he had yet to attempt to create distance between himself and the hostiles.
He had fully anticipated that they would attempt to avoid the bullets, an instinct any rational being would most certainly possess. However, the suicidal carelessness depicted by these creatures was reflective of Covenant grunt swarming tactics, and similarly as effective.
The spartan grunted as the first beast collided with his torso, slamming him into the tree with enough pressure to force a shallow hiss from his lips. Unappreciative of the assault, he returned the gesture with a solid uppercut, his armored fist striking its chin so forcefully that its head disconnected from its spine and bounced off a tree limb up above. A fountain of blackish gore propelled from the severed flesh of its neck, and B170's shields flared as he was drenched in brackish fluid. The pitch colored wetness sprayed across his visor, obscuring his vision for precious seconds while his shields burned away at the liquid.
In his sudden blindness, claws racked violently across his neck. The energy barrier protecting his armor sputtered as the leaden paw hit with all the power of a dump truck. B170, his arms pressed tight against his chest under the weight of body of the first creature to die, found his movements constricted, and released the rifle before dropping to the floor. Throwing himself across the scattered camp items he had gathered previously, the spartan grabbed the first weapon that he could reach and turned his roll into a summersault, his gauntlet clasped tightly around the longsword.
He reentered the melee with a savage sideswipe, the heavy blade effortlessly cleaving through the torso of the closest animal. And within the span of a second, pertaining retentions of the past were selectively chosen from his subconscious and drawn to the fore, and the heft of the archaic weapon in his hand grew intimately familiar.
The strange wolven beast flopped into neatly bisected halves as the spartan tucked the sword in close, repelling the clawed paw that slammed into his chest. In the same motion, B170 raised his left arm, catching the gaping maw of another creature with his bracer. Shields collapsed and fangs shattered as it clamped down on his armor to no effect, the pride of human metallurgy proving impervious to the jaw strength of a primitive animal.
With a vicious head-butt, B170 flung himself into a violent counteroffensive, crushing the skull of the animal that had tried to bite his arm off, and cuffing the next so hard with the flat of the blade that its neck swiveled and snapped, dropping the creature to the ground. Yet any gains he had made were swiftly overtaken as the creatures pressed in closer, climbing over their dead in a mindless desire to put an end to him.
The spartan, suppressing his surprise once more at their continuously unfeeling tenacity, curled both gauntlets around the hilt of the longsword and resolved to meet their callousness with unabashed ferocity.
Time became a meaningless construct in the battle that ensued, its passing unrecognized by the spartan as he cleaved and severed, punctured, and stabbed, smashed and crushed, massacring his way through the ostensibly growing numbers that emerged from the forest around him. The animals seemed like moths drawn to a flame, and as his bloodlust climbed, his composure waned. In the beginning it was irritation, their numbers did not appear to relent, and he grew ever exasperated at their apparent infinitude.
Yet as the body count grew and they showed no sign of abating, his irritability quickly awakened the boiling rage that dwelled at the precipice of his calm rationality. Sword strokes lost their finesse, and the strength behind his enormous strikes grew wild and untamed. A blow aimed to behead, would not only slice through a neck, but continue in a wide arc to cleave the tree and several others of its brethren behind it. A fist aimed at a skull, would plunge through a cranium and shatter the torso below. And as the spartan's rage inflamed, his efficiency eroded. No longer did he attack with the intent to swiftly and expediently eliminate targets. His assault was now aimed at causing hurt more than ending lives, a downwards spiral of professionalism that was slowly being subsumed by unreasonable hatred.
He was only brought out of his descent by two jarring factors.
B170, his sword buried in the gut of the third lupine monstrosity to bear an overlapping quilt of armored plating, took a step back to kick the beast off his blade, when he noticed something significant. He nearly paused in surprise, before blocking an attack coming from his left, swiftly releasing his blade from the insides of his first opponent, to cleave the second from shoulder to waist.
A dense black fog had raised during the battle, slowly at first, faint enough to be ignored over pressing concerns. But now it had thickened to a point of undeniable visibility. And as he stepped over the lifeless body of another lupine beast, the reason for its existence readily made itself apparent.
The corpses of the fallen were… disintegrating.
Struck insensate by the utterly unexpected peculiarity, the absolute impossibility of this revelation allowed his rationality to quickly reassert itself. And as his awareness returned so did his notice of detail, and with that, his uncertainty mounted.
The ink black miasma around him was born from the fading bodies of the slain, their sheer number creating a fog of diminishing particles as they receded into the ether. The corpses of the dead were quite literally vanishing before his eyes. And the blood, the thick blackish ooze that had covered his armor, no longer decorated the overlapping plates of his Mjolnir. The pristine, albeit scratched and dented sheets of titanium, were bereft of any trace of his adversaries.
The spartan dismissed the brief and irrational disappointment he felt at that realization, in favor of more pressing issues. Calm prudence became his ally, as the spartan effected a controlled withdrawal from the immediate combat zone, his longsword sweeping out only to eliminate any creature that drew too close. The lack of crucial information was enough for him to look for an escape. As ineffective and objectively harmless as these animals were to him, he could not ignore the facts. For whatever reason, their bodies did not adhere to any recognized natural rule of causality.
As far as he was aware of, he could be killing the same beasts over and over again, the wolf-like beings simply vanishing and reforming deeper in the forest. If that was the case, then there would be no victory here.
B170 swung his sword in a wide elliptical arc, the blade cleaving through the entire first row of unnatural abominations vying for his death. Using the brief respite this act purchased, he turned and holstered the weapon to his back, readying to sprint as far and as fast as he could away from this immediate vicinity. Whatever was happening, he could hypothesize on its ramification after he had created suitable distance between himself and these… things.
Wasting little time, he sprang into action, his heavy plated boots eating up meter after meter as he threw all the energy he had left, into disengaging.
The savage roar and immense paw that slammed into his chest and sent him hurtling across the forest, did much to dissuade his current course of action.
B170 could hear, more than feel, the sodden crack of broken tree branches as he was sent hurdling through the undergrowth. The initial strike, and proceeding propulsion into a varied a sort of arboreal pillars, disrupted his focus with the rapid impacts, and had seen to it that his shields were fried when he finally finished tumbling to the dirt.
The spartan rolled aside instantly, barely avoiding another overhead attack that might have put a considerable dent into his thoracic plate. Coming to a kneeling position with his longsword already retrieved and swinging towards this newest threat, he watched as the blade cut deep into the midsection of a towering ursine creature that must have had a good six feet on him.
The animal released a bellowing cry of pain, before its paw was sent backhanded across his helmet. The spartan's head whipped violently to the side, the ceramic ossification of his bone structure narrowly preventing his spine from shattering as he was once more sent flying.
Thankfully this interval was brief, and his flight was quickly arrested by the helpful solidity of a nearby tree. The tree itself however, was not so fortunate, and its existence as a cohesive log of wood was brought to an end as a fully armored spartan slammed into its trunk and reduced the once mighty arbor into kindling.
Now slightly above irritated, the spartan crouched low, dug his fingers into the dirt, and launched himself into the torso of this colossal bear. Of bone carapace and thick titanium battleplate, the victor was clear, and his shoulder caved the dense musculature of its chest. Furthermore, the hydraulically enhanced haymaker he catapulted into its chin, flowered its brain matter into the atmosphere of this insane world.
However there was to be no lull in this battle, and the next lupine monster was already crawling over the fading corpse of the great bear, intent on sinking its fangs into his throat. The spartan looked past the creature, to the pair of recently familiar abominations that emerged from the forest, each letting out an ursine-like growl before joining the relentless pack of wolven beasts that had not ceased in their hunt.
B170 sighed.
All was quiet, as it should be. The blissful blanket of night had finally descended upon his lauded institution. His students were, (hopefully), resting, and certainly not up to no good. Though he could personally think a few that might very well be causing problems for him once more, and at that very moment. But he set his concerns to the side, intent on enjoying this brief and far too rare chance at amity, an unusual ceasefire between himself and his task as headmaster.
Ozpin looked to the porcelain mug at his desk, and to the surprisingly and oh so wonderfully absent stack of papers usually reserved for haunting his peace of mind, and released a pleasant, decidedly relaxed sigh as he reached for his mug of decadent chocolate goodness.
Yes, truly things were turning out to be unusually quiet for a Monday.
The doors to his office blew open in a flurry of irritable blonde, and headmaster Ozpin sighed, returning his hands to a perfectly primed steeple on his desk.
He hated Mondays.
"Good evening, Glynda." He greeted his subordinate in a forcefully pleasant tone as he watched the whirlwind of feminine scholastic calamity disrupt the Zen of his work space. He winced in regret, when her hip slammed into his desk, and a faint dagger of despair plunged into his heart as his cup was knocked over, the delicious coco inside washing over his very expensive desk.
"What seems to be the rush?"
The woman glanced down to the headmaster, leveraging a rather serious glare at him past her silver rimmed glasses. "We have a problem."
Ozpin sighed. "I told Miss Rose that afterhours use of the facilities was strictly prohibited." He reached to his desk, past the spilled drink that was actively staining his very expensive desk, and readied to call the building maintenance supervisor for a late night call.
He paused when Glynda placed a firm hand on his scroll, and a slight tug of interest flickered inside him as he looked to the woman. "Not a code red then?"
"Worse." Was the reply of his most trusted faculty member, as she flipped her scroll and presented the screen to him, the images passing quickly and with considerable violence.
"Much worse."
AN:... Surprise! I went ahead and took a crack at an idea I previously mentioned. I hope it proves as interesting for you all as it is for me. I read a story a ways back, a halo and RWBY fic that was startlingly good, and since then I have had this tenacious desire to try my own hand at it. Needless to say, I'll probably throw a few chapters out for this real quick, before wandering back to some of my other works. And in that regard, there are some VERY big changes coming to my side of fanfiction pertaining to one of my stories in particular. So keep an eye out, I'll probably drop it soon. Until then, later.
Keep the Faith.