I'm back and full of confidence, since my last attempt at a story sucked.
Prologue
I woke up the moment they started yelling at each other. Giant monkeys lay outside the boundaries of the glass tube, growling and shouting curses at each other and physically hitting their brethren when approached with a fowl comment. I didn't know what they were saying, their voices muffled by the glass surrounding my encased body.
Attempting to hear them better, I scooted closer to the smooth glass. I lay my ear-hole over the clear, fragile substance.
"-then they tracked the position in the next sequence. I was in the group, and I managed to survive. I ran here, so that they wouldn't track me to our position. Then I realized they had drones positioned over the next camp. Then the next. All the camps were destroyed, drones placed in them." The Brute Officer took a grasp of breath to continue the story. He seemed rather calm, yet exhausted.
He pointed to a little metal casing on his leg, which protruded from his thigh. It beeped softly. "They shot me with their tool, of which I have no idea how it-"
"You incompetent fool! Has your little brain yet figured out what it is?"
"No, but-"
"It was rhetorical, fool! The tracking device has led to our position!" The bigger ape creature, clad in golden armor, screamed at the Brute Officer. His expression was horrifically fierce. He bared his teeth.
His hand stretched around the Brute officer's neck, and and spoke in a menacing tone. "May you not join the path for your mistake, for you are unworthy of the path." With such unimaginable force, the Brute Chieftain flung the poor Officer across the room.
He slammed into the wall, rather close to the tube I was in. The brute's corpse went limp, and a trail of crimson blood etched it's way through the glyphs on the old silver wall.
"I am taking all but the minors to help guard the artifact. The minors shall clean up this mess and protect this room." He spoke in a calmer, yet commanding, tone. "Lest the artifact not land in the Sangheili's hands, the Great Journey will only be farther from the Covenants clutches."
I pulled my head from the glass, as my brain nagged me with unanswerable questions.
Many things he said puzzled me. What was the Great Journey? The Covenant? Which Artifact do they mean? The only thing I recognized out of the whole conversation was the name of the species I came from.
Most of the brutes left the room, while a few stayed behind. They shared conversations. Told stories about their pack. Even examined their weapons to see if they were calibrated.
As they did their activities, I looked around the room curiously. I recognized it from before I was imprisoned in the tube. Sleek gray walls covered in glyph I vaguely remembered. The other purple equipment was new, probably brought in by these creatures that now reside here.
A single word floated at the edge of my mind, echoing through my thoughts, haunting me even while I was in this moment of curiosity. Forerunner. I had no idea what the word meant, nor anything else. Could all this, where I was, be Forerunner?
I probably shouldn't bother with it. Maybe these apes didn't know I was here, trapped in a glass tube.
I attempted to scream to the brutes, but no word came out. My throat strained and squeezed. Not a whisper.
The only thing I did was wait, and wait. I could hear the conversations now. The brutes laughed at each other, having a good time. They seemed like nothing but good spirited, hearty barbarians. Except when I looked into their eyes, the way they talked, and there physical movements, those seemed like lies. Something in them spoke pure hatred, but for something.
Something like me.
First, they were smiling, than they were frowning really hard. They were staring at the door that the chieftain had left a while ago. They pulled up their weapons and aimed it a the door.
The door, of course, was sealed tight. But it wouldn't be for long, My conscience spoke to me. It was a voice I didn't recognize. Well, I didn't have the spirit to say anything about it now.
Out of nowhere, a bright amount of sparks appeared in the crack of the door. It slid down the opening slowly. When it reached the bottom, it fizzled out.
There was a long second. The brutes shifted their positions steadily. The grips around their alien rifles tightened.
Blam!
The door pieces flew across they room, followed by a shock-wave and lots of smoke. Then hell poured out of the door. Colorful bolts of plasma and flashing swords whizzed through the air.
The brutes fired back into the opening. Screams of pain came from both sides.
Then, there was silence. The smoke cleared, and in the middle of a pile of burning brute corpses, stood a group of unknown beings.
Tall and athletic, with gray skin and four mandibles on every warrior. They looked like me, how I would see myself in the reflection of the glass tube, except without the colorful, striking armor.
"Search the room thoroughly. Feedback from our Luminary showed the artifact around this position." The tallest, golden armored one ordered. He deactivated his sword and inspected the room, along with others whom he seemed to command.
One of the Sangheili walked towards the glass tube I was imprisoned in. He seemed to sniff the air, looking grudgingly at the glass. He cocked his head sideways, and bent down at the tube. He turned on his light, placed on his shoulder, which blinded me, causing me to have a moment of blindness.
His voice spoke up, or actually, SHE. "Commander, I think I've found something." The calm, feminine words soothed my ears, like I had never heard such pleasure before.
The golden elite approached me and the female. "Step aside, Resa. Let me have a look at it." He stuck his face down to look in to the tube. Why, it's mere child! He looked at me quizzically, then a his mandibles curled into a smile. "Find a way to pull the young boy out."
The elites rushed to find a control panel to the tube. Luckily, they did, and they typed a series of codes intothe panel.
I looked around to see the glass move upward, disappearing from view. A putrid, burning smell entered my nostrils. I coughed at the bitterness.
The female reached her hands down and plucked me up from the tube. She was a lot larger than me, and could easily fit me in one hand. She then looked at the commander expectantly.
"Fine, we can keep him." He said in his commanding deep voice. He pulled me from her warm arms. "We will deliver you to the ship little one. For now, I shall just name you, for you appear to be orphaned." He seemed to run a list of Ideas through his head. His eyes widened when he got the perfect name. "I shall name you Ki Nomad'ee, after my family's ancestor." The female and male looked at me like I was something new and special.
A loud boom broke the calm, happy silence. "Sir, Brutes are coming in from dropships. Reports say they have skirmishers as well." One of the minors chimed in.
"Resa, carry the child to the ship. I will stay behind and search for the artifact."
She protested. "I do not want to leave you."
"No, but I want the young's life to be safe." He gave her a hug, then kissed her on the cheek. "May honor protect you and the child's life."
She attempted to utter words, but she only turned around. She ran for the door, carrying me in her arms. I felt like I had been some new, precious toy being carried by a little girl. I was snug in her warm, rather skyscraper arms.
She ran down hallway after hallway, and glyphs whizzed by. The whole place was like a maze. The journey seemed to take forever.
Finally, we approached a gargantuan door. She reached one of her hand onto the holographic door pane, and pressed a bright, glowing circle.
The ground shook as the tall silver doorways moved aside. What was outside it was surprising and scary.
Smoke clouds drifted overhead, corpses lay about. Thunder and bright flashes flew from one end of the canyon to the other.
Across a large platform, dropships were landed, but warming up for taking off. Resa ran to one of the dropships. The phantom still had it's hatch open. She hopped inside, just as the door closed.
An Elite Major Domo was standing inside looking at her quizzically. "Where is the rest of your group?"
"They stayed behind to look for the artifact," she said, her voice dropping in fatigue and sorrow. She and I shared the same feeling. They weren't going to make it if they stayed any longer.
"The ship's Luminary detected the artifact coming towards this location at a fast pace a few minutes ago. But I wasn't carrying the artifact, and the group wasn't right behind me. She seemed puzzled. Unless-" Both the female and the questioning Elite looked at me worried.
"Contact the group, tell them that we already have our 'Artifact'," the Major Domo screamed to the communications officer that set next to the pilot of the Phantom.
The Major then looked back at Resa and I. "Well, I guess we have one special child here, don't we?"