Through the eyes of the Parasite
By G-Veronica B.O.W.
Note
This is one of my main fanfiction projects. I hope you like it, because after reading about people's suggestions I'm going to make a story of the Flood, which I hope all of you will like. Please read, review, and enjoy the story of the Flood.
Ch. 1
The spawn of evil
Location: Installation 01
The grunt moved silently through the abandoned laboratory. It kept its needler in hand with its shaking finger resting on the trigger. The whole room was so quiet. The circular shape of it, the gray colored floor and walls, which gave the room a gloomy atmosphere. There were four inclines at four points in the room; each one led up to a door, which led to another area. The center of the room was a round black hole with four consoles surrounding it at its north, south, east, and west sides.
The grunt knew each installation held its own dark secrets. Each halo they explored contained an all-powerful parasitic life form known as the Flood, the only enemy the covenant feared.
There was a quick and sudden flash of energy illuminating from the room. The grunt immediately threw his hands up in the air and dashed towards the door before he realized there was nothing to fear. He turned around and noticed a column of energy constantly flashing every three seconds. It was holding up a cube-like object in mid-air, which spun slowly in circles.
"That's odd?" The grunt said scratching his head and walking towards the column of energy.
The grunt breathed in a quick breath of methane from the tank on his back as he examined the electronic panels surrounding the pillar of energy. The grunt began to wonder if the object being held in mid-air was something that would become useful to the brutes he was still serving. He thought of the pride, the respect they'd give him, this object could possibly be a sacred icon the hierarchs were looking for. The grunt giggled to himself excitedly as he thought of the rewards the hierarchs would shower him with.
"Oh yes!" The grunt said rubbing his hands together.
The grunt examined the panel and noticed it was lined with several holographic buttons, each one of them possibly controlling the column of energy. The grunt scratched his head and tapped one of the buttons; the center of the room slowly began to spin as the outside part of the room stayed still.
"AH!" The grunt cried as the column of energy began to quicken its pace, "not good!"
The grunt held onto the panel noticing the cube-shaped object was rising higher to the ceiling. It came closer and closer to four metallic machines, which all pointed inward.
"Uh-oh," the grunt wondered if he was doing something bad, "better press something else!"
The grunt quickly hit another button and the outside of the room began spinning in the opposite direction of the center of the room. The column of energy was now constantly pushing the cube-like object up until finally it reached the ceiling and was caught by the metallic hands.
"NO!" The grunt cried hitting random buttons on the panel, "I'll be killed if anything happens to the icon!"
A hovering platform suddenly emerged from the hole the column of energy was emitting from and began floating within the column of energy. The metallic hands covered the glass-like cube with steel bars, which crossed all over the cube and lowered it onto the floating platform. The column of energy finally shut down, the room stopped spinning, and the hovering platform descended to the hole in the floor. A circular steel-like expansion emerged from the side of the platform making it big enough to seal the hole in the floor.
The grunt sighed and wiped the sweat away from his rough black forehead. He moved around the panel and began walking towards the cube dragging his feet with his arms hanging down.
"What a relief," the grunt said approaching the platform and picking up the cube, "I almost thought it would break! These forerunners sure have strange ways of doing things."
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Foolish creature was what the parasite thought as it felt its container being lifted up.
The parasite was practically blind, its only sense of sight were the three barb-like tentacles, which allowed it to detect movement. It was completely unaware of what kind of being was holding its container. The parasite knew either the being had taken it for a reason, or was unaware of what kind of deadly fate awaited it.
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The grunt suddenly heard blaring loud sirens echoing throughout the room. The sirens emitted a red light, which gave the dark gray colored room a bright red. Several sentinel guards emerged from holes in the wall, which were constantly spawning the robotic creatures. The robots turned towards the grunt slowly hovering towards it.
"An enemy!" The grunt gasped throwing the cube up in the air and running for the door.
The cube landed on the ground with a loud crash and shattered sending a flurry of broken glass sprawling across the room. Quickly and quietly the parasite scuttled across the floor seeking cover from the attacking enemies. The sentinels launched straight beams of heat at the grunt as it tried launching several needles at the robot guards.
A blast of heat seared across the grunt's face spilling its blue colored blood across the floor. The grunt clutched its face and cried out in agony as another blast of heat struck its chest. The heat incinerated the grunt's armor and burnt a hole within its flesh. The grunt fell backwards as the sentinels sent one last beam of heat across the grunt's face. Quickly the sentinels retreated back into their spawn points as the parasite lashed out its barbed tentacles searching for the grunt.
The parasite searched for a few seconds making sure everything was clear. It sensed no sentinels in the room, and just barely noticed the severely injured grunt's body lying on the floor. It quickly moved across the floor lashing out its tentacles excitedly ready to take over its new host.
It leaped across the room and landed on the grunt's chest. It wasn't surprised that the creature's body was covered in armor, but suddenly realized the grunt's chest had been penetrated exposing its seared flesh.
The grunt immediately cried out in pain as the parasite burrowed its tentacles into its chest and began to take over.
"NO!" The grunt cried feeling the parasite at work, "NO!"
The grunt's cry echoed throughout the laboratory, but there was none to hear him, he was lost now, a victim of the Flood.
Location: Installation 01
Time passed: 2 hours
"I have lost all communication with that grunt," the brute said working at the communication's device on his wrist, "what could have happened to him?"
"Who knows what," another brute replied with a shrug, "maybe he got scared and fled."
Samarox and Delpha, the two of them were brothers, both surpassing the rank of honor guard brutes. They were assigned to explore Installation 01 to retrieve a sacred icon vital to the plans of the hierarchs. They were warned of the possibility of the installation being flood infested, but Samarox and Delpha were both skilled warriors having fought the Flood in many battles.
Samarox had white fur, being clean, smooth, and neat. His body armor was light being both a silver and gold color, but only covered certain places of his body such as his arms and legs. He had a much stronger resistance to weaponry than his brother did and did not use an energy shield. Two brown straps crossed his chest with plasma and fragment grenades attached. His weapons were two brute plasma rifles holstered at his hips, and a brute shot, which was strapped to the back of his belt around his waist. Samarox favored hand to hand combat, and never hesitated to beat his opponents to death with his fists.
Delpha had a light blue colored fur, both wild and mangy, but clean. He wore a black helmet, which covered his head, but came down, close to his mouth showing off his sharp dangerous fangs. His armor was red and black glowing vividly similar to an honor guard's armor, it covered most of his body and was capable of producing a powerful energy shield, which was quite rare for a brute to be equipped with. He had two deadly bloodstained blades attached to his gauntlets; both blades were similar to the bayonets found on brute shots. His weapon was a covenant carbine, which he carried with him all the time and a fuel rod cannon, which was strapped on by a belt to his back. Overall Delpha preferred heavy weapons, but used the covenant carbine whenever he was a long distance away from his opponents and his deadly wrist blades whenever he was close to an enemy.
The two brutes commanded various creatures from the drones, which patrolled the sky to the many shield-equipped jackals that were used more frequently to protect the brutes.
Samarox suddenly lifted his snout into the air and caught a foul stench; it was close and smelt similar to that of a grunt's rotting flesh. Samarox peered over at his brother who had also caught the stench and cast Samarox a strange look.
"There is something unfamiliar about it," Delpha said sniffing the air, "it smells of grunt and something else."
Samarox recognized the smell just as his brother did, and he noticed the rest of the brutes with him looked very concerned. They seemed worried, shaky, and scared. That's when it suddenly dawned on Samarox that the smell was of the Flood.
"Delpha," Samarox gasped turning to his brother.
"I know," Delpha replied placing one of his hands on his brother's shoulders, "we must dispose of the grunt quickly before our lives are put in danger."
The jackals were already activating their wrist shields and hiding behind several pillars on the balcony. The whole balcony was mounted high up in the air lined with several tall pillars, ledges, which led up to a large circular door, and various spawn points for drones.
"What shall we do leader?" One of the nearby brutes asked Samarox.
"Hide," Samarox said, "we will lure the parasite out, you strike it from behind!"
The rest of the brutes began to hide behind the pillars along with the jackals. They held their weapons tight to their chest while peering around at the corner waiting for the parasite to reveal itself.
"It's near," Delpha said readying his carbine.
Samarox smelled the stench getting closer and closer until finally the large door at the end of the balcony opened up. A rush of green fog slowly began to fill the room shading a round fleshy creature, which walked on two legs. The grunt had become a carrier for parasites, and now it was Samarox and Delpha's responsibility to kill it before the parasites could find hosts.
"Get ready brother," Samarox said drawing his brute plasma rifles, "we will make this quick!"
The carrier form stumbled out of the gas cloud, which was protecting it and began searching the area with tentacle-like whips. The features of the grunt were still visible in the carrier form. Its arms had been reduced to stubs, its legs were shaking trying to hold up the gelatinous body it could hardly support, and its head was seen cocked backwards, but nearly absorbed into the carrier form's body.
Its body jiggled with each step it took as it neared closer and closer to the ledge. It suddenly stopped with its probe-like tentacles scanning the environment. The creature's tentacles pointed directly at Samarox and Delpha and the creature took its first step off the ledge. The creature fell on its face; the impact was just strong enough to cause its fleshy body to explode. The sac tore open releasing a green gas into the room along with nine parasites.
"ATTACK!" Delpha roared pointing his finger at the various infection forms, which were dashing across the floor wildly in different directions.
Delpha and Samarox were shocked by how powerful and persistent the infectious forms were. Their presence alerted the sentinels, which quickly emerged from their holes taking aim at the various creatures suitable to become flood hosts.
Samarox began firing at the sentinels. Several red blasts of plasma struck the sentinels and knocked them out of the sky. The robots exploded upon impact with the ground injuring several jackals and brutes. Delpha took aim with his covenant carbine and took them out easily with his great accuracy. The rest of Samarox and Delpha's squad was firing their weapons as well. Blasts of plasma and grenades launched through the air repelling off of walls or tearing through the sentinels with ease.
"This is nuts brother," Delpha said, "where are the parasites?"
In the heat of the battle Samarox realized the parasites were gone. The creatures may have been quickly exterminated, or they were waiting to defeat the remaining troops after they finished off the sentinels.
Delpha was suddenly struck in the chest by a beam of heat, but quickly recovered for his shield had taken the damage.
"This is becoming ridiculous!" Samarox snarled, "take out the sentinel's spawn points!"
Their command had fallen on deaf ears. The brutes and the jackals were too preoccupied with the sentinels that Samarox and Delpha were forced to do the job themselves. Samarox began running by the left wall and Delpha the other. Samarox removed a plasma grenade from his belt and attached it to one of the spawn points, and Delpha copied.
"We must retreat!" Delpha said as a menacing shadow loomed over them from behind, "we don't have enough troops to take on these things!"
Samarox noticed the dark shadow he was caught within and turned around to face a massive sentinel, but it was equipped with shields and looked much different than the other floating sentinels.
"An enforcer!" Samarox gasped raising his weapons at the beast, "you are right brother. Even I know that you cannot defeat the enforcers from the front. We have no room to move around."
Delpha and Samarox turned back towards the sentinels. They gasped in awe; their forces had been decimated by the large amounts of sentinels.
"This is Samarox," Samarox spoke into his communicator as the enforcer prepared to fire, "evacuate immediately! We are still on the balcony. Our forces have been decimated. EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!"
The enforcer launched a flurry of glowing red spikes at Samarox and Delpha, but the two brutes quickly leaped out of the way as the spikes pierced the balcony's surface. The enforcer began launching missiles at Samarox and Delpha as the two were standing up, but the two brutes began running for the door as the missiles exploded in powerful bursts of fire behind them.
There was a sudden cease-fire as Samarox and Delpha heard the sound of plasma cannons close to the edge of the balcony. They turned around to see the enforcer's body being ripped apart by the explosive power of the plasma cannons.
"Good timing," Delpha sighed as he began walking towards the phantom, "they did good."
Quickly Delpha and Samarox entered the ship, but the parasites they thought were dead began emerging from their hiding places to take over the severely injured creatures.
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Pathetic creatures the parasite laughed in its mind as it gently crawled upon the body of a wounded brute.
The rest of the parasites began digging their barbed tentacles into the jackals and brutes slowly burrowing into their chests and taking over.
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Chapter 1 completed. It took me a while, but as you can now see I am constructing new variations of the flood. Please read and review.
