Wassup? It's me, SpartaLazor, with yet another story that I'm posting before I originally planned to. The reason that this is up now is because I'm just feeling a little tired of writing for the same characters for so long. A Chord of Three and A Trainer's Blood Flows Within, I just needed to escape from those for a little while and write this. Also, this is up earlier just to see how well it is recepted.
So, happy reading. I hope you like it!
Also, new poll on my bio! It's for even moar stories!
The world was hell.
Buildings lay in ruins, with the skeletons of cars collecting rust clogging the broken roads. Dead bodies of Marines lay around in the streets, killed by the hardlight weapons of their enemies. Almost all forms of electrical power were offline.
Large, robotic creatures roamed the ruined city, careful to sidestep the boiling hot magma. A different variant of the robots flew around with the larger ones, prepared to give them aid should a battle break out. Smaller, dog-like creature climbed the side of the buildings, getting a better view of their surroundings, hunting for any survivors.
This was the aftermath of the New Pheonix incident. When the Master Chief's plan to destroy the Didact's ship failed, over nine-tenths of Earth had been composed before the Infinity got a lucky shot, hitting the ships power supply, and then UNSC starships had unleashed a wave of nukes upon it.
Just after that happened, Prometheans suddenly began teleporting onto all of the OPDs and starships. The entire fleet was massacred. Earth's communications to the other colonies was cut, leaving any surviving UNSC forces trapped in hell.
There were only three more human-controlled territories on Earth; New York City, London, and Bejing. Everything else was property of the millions of Prometheans. Survivors would almost always die on their way to the UNSC territory, and only one in a thousand would ever actually make it.
Two figures were prone on the roof of a six-story tower, well above the Promethean Knight's sight. "You take the big bastard," one said to the other. "I'll take the flying bastard."
The second figured nodded, lining up the shot on his beam rifle. "We shall do it on the count of three."
"Copy." There was the quiet sound as the first figure pulled the bolt on her SRS back gentlely. She propped it up on the edge of the building, aiming down at the Watcher as it lazily floated around. The crosshairs came to rest on its head. "On three."
"One. Two. Three."
The sharp crack of the SRS silenced the sound of the beam rifle. The Watcher exploded into pieces as the round tore its head off. The Knight recoiled from the particle beam, and jerked around to find its assaultants, only to be nailed by another beam. It's body disentigrated into a shower of orange sparks.
"Nice shot, human," Getu complimented, as he stood up. He swung his rifle onto his back and pulled off his Covenant carbine. "Clean hit."
"Your's weren't that bad yourself," Michelle added, pulling the bolt to eject the spent round. "We should get moving. Those Crawlers will be back to see what all the noise was." She jumped off the edge of the building, and Getu followed.
Normally, this would be suicidal. But since the Prometheans had been fortifying their captured city, there was a pile of concrete slabs, salvaged from various parts of the city, under them, reaching up to the top of the building and it conviently provided access to the ground if you navigated it carefully.
"How far have we come?" Getu asked, staring out into the distance. "We started in that forest."
Michelle shrugged, gracefully landing on an angle block of concrete. "I dunno. Like a couple of miles?"
The two of them were in an Human-Sangheili peace talk when this whole thing started. Of the seventy humans and fifty elites, only ten were left alive. Those had been evacuated by Falcon, and included Them Vadum and Admiral Hood. The rest had been left, just as billions of humans had been left on colonies falling to the Covenant.
Scrowling, Michelle pictured the two sitting back in recliners on a distant planet, drinking martinis. Lucky for them, they were off planet. Sighing, she kicked a bent piece of rebar poking out from a slab of concrete. "From my estimates, since we're on foot, it'll be a month before we hit New York," she told her Sangheili companion. "That is, unless a Falcon comes and gets us."
"Yes, but what would be the odds of that?" Getu replied, as he jumped from a piece of bent steel beam on the third floor directly to the ground. His shields flared up, but they held and absorbed most of the impact.
Michelle jabbed the butt of her rifle in between two pieces of concrete, and used it to help keep her balance as she walked down a sharply angled peice. "Very slim," she admitted, "But I'm hopeful. Anything can happen."
"Indeed," Getu agreed, holding his hand out to her as she slowly manuvered through the giant heap of cracked cement. Michelle yanked her rifle from the pieces when she got to the nice flat slab. Reaching down, she grabbed Getu's hand, and he helped her to the ground.
Swapping her SRS for her DMR, Michelle wordlessly took the lead. Getu followed, tensely gripping his weapon. The two silentley walked along the broken sidewalk of a once busy street, each feeling the morbid loss of the city.
There were posters advertising a circus, an antique car show, and a new pub clinging to the damp walls of fallen buildings. Benches were knocked to the side, telephone booths shattered and ruined. New Pheonix was no longer a beautiful city.
The worst part were the piles of ash and dust. That were once human beings.
Michelle let out a sigh as she crouched down and ran her gloved fingers through a pile of ash that had a child's teddy bear laying next to it. "From dust you shall come, and to dust you shall return," she muttered, rubbing the ash between her fingers.
Her brain somehow refused to admit that this was once a human. It bascially defied all she had been taught in school. But, no one really taught Forerunner Weaponry Systems in her high school. Hell, when it came to aliens in high school, her teachers simply refused the exsistance of them, claiming that they were just the UNSC's lies to cover up an Insurrection victory streak.
She silently laughed to herself, remembering how she somehow managed to believe that at one point in time. And now, roughly decade later, she was at a living, breathing, alien's side.
"We must hurry," Getu urged her, as she stood up from the pile. "Those Crawlers are on their way." An inhuman howl echoed through the silenced city, as if punctuating the Sangheili's sentence.
Giving a breif nod, Michelle lead the way. She peered around the corners of buildings to check for enemies, while Getu kept her back covered. They made it over three hundred yards without seeing a single Promethean.
"Something's wrong," Michelle noted, lowering her rifle as she observed an intersection, cars blocking the whole thing up. "There should be some of them. They practically infest this whole city."
"Perhaps they were called into an engagement," Getu suggested, eyes darting from place to place, searching for any sign of movement. "Maybe they're making another push for this New York."
Michelle shook her head. "From what I've heard, it's the most fortified place on Earth now. Some scientists even found a way to jam the Knights' teleportation." She paused, biting her lower lip as she thought of a plan. "I'm going to make a run for one of those cars," she informed Getu. "Keep me covered."
Nodding, Getu switched back to his beam rifle. "Which one?"
"That truck," she replied, pointing at a green 2534 Ford F150. "You can ride in the back since you won't fit in the cab."
"Great," Getu muttered. "Just go, and keep your head down."
Michelle made a mad dash for the truck, not heeding his words. She tossed her DMR through the open window, and tested the door handle. Fortunately, it was unlocked. She yanked it open, and brushed the pile of ash out of the driver's seat. Climbing in, she motioned for Getu to follow.
The alien bounded across the cracked asphalt road, and jumped into the back of the truck. "I'm ready when you're ready," he told her, as he adjusted his legs to get comfortable. It was hard, since his legs were at an odd angle, and the only postion he felt right in was crouching.
The engine sputtered to life, and Michelle floored it. She wanted to get out of this damn hell hole as fast as she could. Soon, they were roaring down the roads.
"Human, this will attract attention," Getu told her, stating the blatantly obvious. "The Prometheans will be able to find us."
"No matter," Michelle called over the engine. "We can out run them in this."
Getu sighed. She was always like this, thinking that they could do something but failing in that. He readied his Storm Rifle, knowing that this was going to end horribly.
Sure enough, the demonic screech of the Crawlers rang out, and the silver creatures ran out from behind a building, unleashing waves of hardlight into the truck. Getu took aim at one, and fired as they passed by it.
"That went to hell fast!" Michelle shouted, swerving to splatter a Crawler. "Hold on tight!"
The Sangheili was pumping plasma into the the Crawlers chasing them, who were doing a good job at keeping up. The truck had to be going at least seventy miles an hour, and here these Prometheans were just short of the tail gate.
Getu's shields flared as stray round of orange light stuck him. He recoiled slightly from each shot, but soon fired into the mob behind them, wiping out three with headshots.
The back windshield shattered as hardlight pierced it, narrowly missing the back of Michelle's head. "Oh shit!"
At first Getu thought that she was reffering to the near-miss. But as the truck executed a sharp turn, he caught a glimpse of the three Knights running at them, Incineration Cannons firing off shots.
They teleported, and appeared in front of the truck on its new path. "Hell," Michelle cursed. "Hold on to your hat!"
"Why do I need to..." Getu's voice trailed off as he realized that Michelle was accelerating. The Knights stood their ground, and fired off three shots from their cannons simutaneously. The red orbs detonated just under the front bumper of the truck, sending it into the air.
When it came down, it rolled over twice, and came to a complete stop. Unsure as to whether there were any survivors, the Knights began closing in on the wreck, with the Crawlers flanking them.