-Reach fell. There was no stopping it. The Covenant were ruthless, unforgiving, and vast in numbers. It didn't matter how much firepower was brought in because at the end of it all, there was only one way things were going to end. Reach would fall. It was inevitable.-
_oOo_
A few places on Reach weren't glassed yet. Their war-torn ruins would only paint the invasion's events for a short amount of time, however, as the Covenant super-carriers loomed above Reach's skies, moments away from turning the rest of the planet to glass. Fallen soldiers, weapons, vehicles, and buildings would all melt into a burning landscape as soon as those ships flew overhead.
Noble Six knew that. All she could do was wait with bated breath for a cremation by the hands of the Covenant, if she didn't get hunted by the clean-up teams first. They always came right before a glassing... but why? They were already going to kill everything in the area, there was no need for a team to go in and do that themselves. It was unnecessary, a gross misallocation of valuable resources. They were risking the loss of troops for stupid reasons.
Noble Six pulled her rifle up and shouldered it. Whatever the method of death, she was going to bite the dust soon. At least she would die fighting a bunch of Covies. Six wouldn't have it any other way.
Covie drop ships touched down and started unloading troops to investigate. However, the sand storm was putting them at a disadvantage. Six's worn down, sand-covered armor barely stuck out in her surroundings and gave her the upper hand, leaving her completely unnoticed by her opposing forces. She kept low and moved into the closest building. A few bodies resided in the dark corners, each one dawning bloodied UNSC armor. Poor bastards. Unfortunately, Noble Six didn't have any time to give them a proper burial. She continued on and stealthily moved from building to building.
After a few moments of sneaking around, the banter of Elites and Grunts grew loud enough to hear above the storm. At this point, Six had two options. She could either remain silent and unseen only to be glassed in the end... or she could go out in a firefight, and bring down a bunch of E.T. bastards with her.
With a deep breath, the lone spartan reached around her collar. Five dog-tags on their chains fell into her hands, each one from the lost members of Noble Team. George died thinking he had just saved the planet. Kat lost her head, the only good thing about her. Carter went down with the ship... And Emile. He died fighting off Zealots armed with energy swords. How ironic to think his affinity for sharp objects would come to be the death of him.
And then the last set of dog tags: Her own. In her eyes, she was already gone. This was simply her dying echo, something to remind the Covenant of their demons. After this fight, those dog tags would take place among the rest of Noble Team's, only to be glassed and forgotten. After taking one last look at the retrieved tags, Six shoved them back into their place and unsheathed her combat knife. Her motion sensor was picking up three pings on the other side of the wall. Probably an Elite and two Grunts.
Leaping through the doorway, Six locked eyes on a shield jackal and two grunts. Easy targets. She leaped on the jackal and crushed it with its own shield, then proceeded to stab the knife into one of the grunt's domes. Like a hot knife through butter, the blade sliced right through the little bastard's brain. The remaining grunt whimpered in fear and began to run away. It screamed bloody murder before its neck was forced further than it could handle, snapping and disconnecting.
Six cursed to herself as the nearby forces were alerted to her presence. There was no turning back now. But yet... her heart felt heavy. Why was she feeling dread? She faced death every day, and every day she beat it off her doorstep. Six should be used to it... But this time? Death wasn't leaving her.
After shouldering her DMR again, Six stood up and took notice of the forces to her west. Mostly jackals and grunts, but there were a few elites walking around. She aimed her scope at the closes minor elite and fired multiple times. The first shot ricocheted off and alerted him, but the other bullets came swiftly and eventually broke through both the shields and the head. One elite down. Noble Six then turned her attention to the other troops and picked them off one by one.
However, more troops were closing in fast. They were sending in less grunts and more jackals, then less jackals and more elites. Before she knew it, entire squads of elites were hunting her down. Six swore as a plasma shot burned right through the front of her visor. Any closer and she'd be missing half a brain. Her HUD started bugging out and she couldn't see the ammo-counter. It didn't matter though, she knew how much ammo she had. Soon enough, another shot dug into her helmet and took out her motion tracker. All that was left was her shield levels.
Six cursed to herself and backed away, taking cover underneath a pipeline. Soon enough, Elites with concussion rifles and energy swords crowded the surrounding buildings, closing in on Noble Six uncomfortably quick. Had she not picked up a Drop Shield off of one of the fallen Spartans, she would be long gone by now. She dropped the bubble shield to recover a little bit, then fell back away from the attacking forces. Another Elite armed with an energy sword charged her, and barely missed his mark as he was lit up with assault rifle fire.
As more and more Elites showed up, Six just growled in her throat. If they sent more, she'd just kill more of them. Until they stopped her from breathing, she was going to drain them of troops. Unfortunately, the Wraiths and Banshees patrolling the area turned their attention on her. Explosives rained down and put the pressure on her. She was able to dodge a few of their attempts, but the amount of pure fire from those banshees was too much. Six's shields dropped and left her exposed after a well placed fuel-rod shot from a banshee.
Only moments afterwards, a lucky shot from a needle rifle broke right through the side of her helmet, completely disabling whatever was left of the HUD. Six flung the helmet off her head, stumbling around enemy fire all while cursing to herself. On the ground next to a downed ONI security guard was an assault rifle, and its display showed a full clip in it.
One last push, come on... Come on!
Six grabbed at the rifle and shouldered it. Damn Elites were gonna get it now. She fired the rifle at an advancing Ultra until it collapsed to the ground with depleted shields. One down, a fuck-ton to go. A smart-ass behind her snuck up with an energy sword and tried to swing at her. However, she dodged and retaliated with an elbow to the face, reaching to the Magnum on her hip to finish the job. Two down, still a fuck-ton to go.
A barrage of plasma fire pulled Six's attention to an Elite about ten meters away. She only got a few shots off before another stream of blue fire hit her across the gut though. With two Elites advancing on both sides, Noble Six fired the assault rifle from her hip against one Elite, and fired the magnum on the other. Against all the odds, both Elites fell at the cost of Six's remaining ammo. With countless Covies closing in, things were looking hopeless. An Ultra knocked Six off of her feet. She went to kick it away, but her strength was fading fast. More Elites closed in, some of them Zealots. One tried to stab her, but she rolled to the side and elbowed the sword out of its hand.
It was only at this moment that Noble Six's heart began to weigh down on her. She didn't want to die.. and it had taken her countless years to realize that. She wanted to believe that she had come to terms with the fact that she wouldn't live through this... but she was never prepared. Just the view of so many Elites crowding around her scared her to death. She didn't want to go out like this. She didn't want to die.
The Ultra tried to pounce back on her, but Six socked the sucker right in its jaws again. Another stab attempt from a Zealot, one she could dodge and counter-attack. What she couldn't react to though, was an identical attack from the other side. The dual-pronged blades of an energy dagger pierced her wrist and pinned her to the ground.
Six screamed out in pain, her voice refusing to stay down. Regardless of her attempts to kick and punch them away, they overpowered her and pinned her limbs to the ground. Her arms wouldn't move, her legs locked to the floor... All she could do was look up at her executioners with disdain in hopes of hiding her fear.
She spat blood at the one who stabbed her right wrist. That Elite was her least favorite right now. However, none of the Elites pulled out any guns except for a single Zealot who stood above her with a sword at her throat. It didn't move it though...
Instead, the bastard studied Noble Six, as if deciding what to do with her. Then, in its native tongue, the Zealot sheathed its energy sword and barked a few orders at the Elites holding Six down. She tried pulling away, completely unsure as to what they were doing, then she realized. In her last effort, with all of her remaining strength, Six pulled against the Elites. She struggled as hard as she could, hopelessly trying to get away, but to no avail. These Elites... They weren't going to kill her. They had a better opportunity...
... An opportunity to interrogate her.
