I do not own Halo or anything Halo related.
An explosion. A shout. Screaming all around them. This wasn't a Covenant attack or a human bombing. This was the Flood, Gravemind's buffet. Master Chief and the Arbiter were in the centre of operations when the attack started. Limping, the Spartan used what was left of the desk to see if anyone has survived the impact of what ever landed on the roof of the building. Pieces of concrete from the ceiling fell to the floor and cracked, making a haze of dust on the ground.
The most of the humans were dead. With the exception of two marines, the main operatives were dead. A few of the Elites survived, one being the Arbiter. He shook his head, and flexed his manibles to test the damage. One was bruised, but nothing else. One eye was swollen shut and bleeding, but the other worked fine. The Elite looked at Master Chief. The Sparten's visor had cracked, he could make out an eye, and his armour had chips. Other than that, Master Chief looked fine.
There was a silence before Master Chief gave an order to evacuate the building, to try and get as many survivours out as possible. Only there were no survivours. The Flood had taken care of that for them. Room by room, floor by floor, fighting armies of the Flood and infected team mates, crew, and operatives. The marines that survived the impact of the roof did not survive the many floors, neither did the Elites. It was down to just the Arbiter and Master Chief again.
Shaking off a Flood spore, the Arbiter growled at an unusual silence. They were regrouping. Master Chief leaned against a door frame, reloading his assault rifle with bullets from his fallen comrades. A shaky sigh left him as he shifted his weight onto his bad leg to test it. No, he would not be sprinting anytime soon. He hoped he wouldn't see his fallen allies anytime soon. He watched as the Arbiter leant down and started collecting chips from the dead Elites armour. Curious, he limped over, which caught the Arbiter's attention.
"You are hurt?" He asked, his voice lower than usual. He hid the chips in a subspace pocket, and went to do the task of barricading the door they just came through. It was obvious he was angry at the deaths of his companions, Master Chief could understand that. But it was obvious neither wanted to talk about the deaths, so the Spartan answered. "Yeah, but no more than usual. Hows your eye? It's bleeding pretty bad."
The Elite chuckled, shaking his head before finishing the barricade with a desk, leaning against it. His mandibles clicked together in thought as he watched the Master Chief for any hint that he was being sarcastic. Even now it's hard to think of them as brothers in battle, but the Master Chief is making an effort, and so should he. "No more than usual." He said, and gained a chuckle from the Spartan.
Their bonding was just short by the sound of scurrying down the hall. Both guns were up and pointing, the sound of an energy sword powering up made the scurrying sounds stop. Giving each other a sideways glance, the two hurried down the hall, but were stopped by an incoming transmission. It was one of the engineers in the meeting that Master Chief thought dead. He must have been acting. A huge gash across his cheek made the Spartan inwardly wince, it was infected already.
"M-Master Chief... there's... a bomb, on the first floor. It will... destroy this entire building... We... we were..." Heavy gasps replaced words as the engineer struggled desperately to remain in control of himself. The Arbiter looked to Master Chief, hearing the transmission through the Spartan's broken visor. The Chief motioned to Arbiter to check the hallway. He asked the engineer to explain as simply as he could. "We... were going to bomb a covenant ship, but... but... it's needed now more than ever... blow this building up, Chief..." The transmission froze, then shut itself off. The Spartan hung his head for a moment, before looking up.
He rejoined the Arbiter, who nodded his condolences and both carefully and stealthily crept to the second floor stairwell. They were met with resistance, but with the two working together they quickly mowed down the Flood. Finally, they reached the reception of the building, which was so full of life an hour ago. How quickly things change. Master Chief quickly found the bomb, and started to arm it when he heard the Arbiter shout from across the hall. He finished the bomb and limped as fast as he could to the Elite's position. Just when he was going to ask him what was wrong, he saw it.
An infected Brute, holding a limp Arbiter by the neck.
Everything seemed to move slowly now. Master Chief's visor took a dangerous looking red tinted colour. Suddenly the infected Brute was much closer, and his mouth was spitting out blue blood, mixed with the sickening green colour of the Flood spores. He looked down and saw his rifle embedded in the Brute's stomach. It was still firing. He couldn't bring his finger to release the trigger. In a quick move, raised and threw the Brute overhead and into a wall, dropping the empty rifle and picking up the Arbiter's energy sword, rushing the Brute and quickly piercing it's stomache again and again. Finally, in a last act of rage, he decaptitated the infected Brute's head and watched the body slump to the floor, twitching now and again.
A hand on his shoulder made him spin around and pin who ever it was against the wall, the sword already in place to pierce skin if need. To his confusion and relief, it was the Arbiter, who looked shocked but regained some composure and touched the Spartan's wrist holding the energy sword to lower it. Master Chief dropped the sword and near collapsed on Arbiter due to the pain in his leg, and the exhaustion from his outburst. Arbiter caught him and swung an arm over the Spartan's shoulders.
Together, the both jogged out of the building before it exploded, the ripple of the explosion knocking them both against the wall. The Elite shook his head, looking over to Master Chief, who was attempting to get to his feet using the wall. The Arbiter got to his feet, his head spinning from the collision with the wall. He collapsed a meter away from the Spartan, who joined him on the ground in a few seconds, the pain in his leg was excructiating.
Breathing heavily, the Arbiter lifted his head, a sense of hopelessness in his working eye. Master Chief tilted his head, looking at him sideways. "It's finished, isn't it? We are the last hope, yet we are so weak. We cannot even handle a mear explosion. How are we to defeat the Prophets, the Flood, any enemy like this? How can we shut down Halo?" The Arbiter almost choked on his words, trying to shake his head free of those words. He hated them as soon as the came from his mouth.
Master Chief gazed at him for a moment, before weakly shifting to crawl on his hands and knees, laying down beside the Elite. The Arbiter, confused by this, looked down at the Spartan, whose eyes were looking up at the sky. He rolled onto his back as well, looking at Master Chief, then at the sky. He couldn't see what the Spartan was getting at. "Demon...?"
"See all those stars?" His hand lifted to point at the many stars in the sky, though clouded by the smoke of the exploded building, "All those could be potential worlds. Potential worlds that could be wasted by the Prophets, the Flood, by Halo. You really want that on your conscious when you're dying wishing you were better? Or do you want to die with me in probably the worst way to try to stop all those things from happening?"
The Arbiter stared at the Spartan, then looked up at the stars. He was dumbfounded. For a human of so little words, when the Demon spoke, he may has well have painted a picture. In his moment of realization, the Elite grunted, sitting upright and forcing the Spartan to as well. Master Chief let out his own grunt, but cocked his head, looking at the Elite through the crack in his visor. Clicking his mandibles, the Arbiter looked back at the sky, then to the Spartan, nodding his head.
Gloved fingers found the Elite's, entwining his own. The Spartan gave the hand a comforting squeeze and stood up, using the wall as a crutch. The Arbiter shook himself out of the daze, looking at Master Chief in brief confusion and shock, before wrapping an arm around the Spartan's waist.
Sending a transmission to Lord Hood, both Spartan and Elite limped to the rendezvous point at the end of the street.
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