Master Chief breathed deeply as he dropped his MA5B which was still smoking, and approached a flood combat form that had an MA5B lodged inside its ruptured chest cavity.
As John bent down to retrieve the gun, there was a clattering sound behind him. Alerted, he rapidly drew his handgun and spun around.
The ancient Forerunner hallway was dotted with pillars and filled with the blood and numerous corpses of both flood and Covenant, none of which were alive: the SPARTAN had made sure of that, having killed them all.
John stood aiming his handgun down the hallway for some time before he turned back around to yank the MA5B out of the flood form. He inspected the weapon to make sure it was still functional, then proceeded forward down the hallway, turning down a passage.
A blurry figure stood behind one of the pillars in the long hallway the SPARTAN was in moments ago. The body of the being slowly materialized to reveal an elite armed with an energy sword. The large split-jawed alien withdrew from his cover behind one of the pillars and uttered a curse at the air.
He had an excellent opportunity to end the life of the human warrior in this hallway, having been within striking distance of the demon. The elite adjusted his gaze down to his left and violently jabbed his sword into the dead human flood form that lay next to him on the ground.
The miserable creature had surprised the elite, who barely managed to silence the being before the human had noticed the disturbance.
Slowly, the alien warrior adjusted his posture and turned to make his way towards the mangled body of a flood form, an infected sangheili. Hesitating only a moment to utter a huff of discontent at the sight of one his own, the elite retrieved his dead comrade's plasma rifle, to replace his own depleted plasma rifle, then stood up and walked down the hallway after the human.
Master Chief approached the massive door at the end of the passage, which opened to reveal blinding light, and wind which blew snow through the doorway; he was back outside. John's heightened vision instantly adjusted to the glare, and he walked through the doorway.
He recognized the area as the skybridge he walked on days earlier.
Dammit I am only this far!?
I am afraid so, Cortana communicated with John directly through the neural pathways of his brain, and unless you want to risk jumping acro–
Wait.
John immediately noticed that there was fighting on the bridge, and ran to cover behind the support towers for the bridge directly in front of him.
Just by the sounds alone, John could tell it was Covenant fighting flood. Good, so they would be both be distracted. Casually, John moved his MA5B behind his back, and the gun immediately stuck to the magnetized contacts on the back of his armor. He drew his graphene knife and held it in front of him.
Cortana, I need you to–
Be the eyes in the back of your head? You got it.
Master Chief shook his head. I think we're getting the hang of this split-consciousness concept.
I agree, you haven't died yet. I'd say that this has been successful so far.
The lone SPARTAN took a deep breath then spun around his cover. His eyes quickly darted from left to right. A jackal, an elite, and two elite flood forms. The flood creatures were firing plasma pistols, and advancing towards the elite, with the jackal and the elite both firing on the creatures. The Covenant had their backs to John.
The jackal was rapidly backpedaling from the creatures' advance, unfortunately, it was doing so right in front of John.
Effortlessly, John quickly dispatched the jackal by closing to the back of the creature, pulling its head back, and slashing its throat with his knife. The graphene knife smoothly cut through the alien's flesh, and blood gushed out from the wound. He shoved the rapidly hemorrhaging creature aside, and faced forward.
The elite obviously had not encountered the flood yet, and was attempting to kill the creatures by shooting them with precise single shots from his plasma rifle.
Once the elite realized the creatures were still standing, the warrior fired more rapidly, and succeeded in killing one of the beings, and shot off the arm of the other being holding the plasma pistol. Truly an inexperienced soldier, the elite overheated his plasma rifle, and was forced to drop the weapon. The surviving flood creature closed and began to barrage the warrior with strikes from its long arm. The alien's shields already critically low from absorbing the plasma shots, the elite's shields failed, and John ran forward.
As expected, the elite instantly heard the SPARTAN dash towards him, but only managed to shove the flood creature away, bend his legs, and take a mighty, low swing with his left arm in an attempt to hit him.
The attack was imprecise, and the elite greatly lowered his upper body for the swing, which allowed John to nimbly side-step the attack, and thrust his knife up into the elite's throat. The warrior froze in place as the blood spurted from the wound and quickly began to trickle down the blade. John yanked the blade out as he saw the flood creature running at him, whirled around, and held the knife out in front of him.
The flood creature ran into the blade, and John quickly drew his hand gun and shot the creature point blank in the center of its chest. The creature died, and John pulled his knife out.
Both the bodies of the flood form and the elite both hit the surface of the bridge at the same time.
Rocket!
John whipped his head around to his right. He saw the propellent for the rocket ignite as it left the barrel of the launcher, and his reaction was immediate.
Cortana! I need–
Done.
His cognitive processes and reaction time heightened to a great extent, John nimbly dodged the rocket by leaning his body out of the way of the path of the projectile. He did this mere fractions of a second before the projectile hit him, an impossible feat made possible.
The rocket sailed through the air past John, and off the skybridge.
Master Chief turned towards the flood creature that held the UNSC portable rocket launcher in its deformed hand, and shot the creature's arms off with a few rapid shots from his handgun.
The launcher clattered to the ground, and the flood creature raced towards John, who held again held knife out in front of him, and again the flood form collided with the blade as it ran towards John. The blade pierced the small organism that resided in the diaphragm of the creature, and the wound killed the being instantly.
John twisted his knife then yanked it out of the being, which fell lifeless to the floor. Still in combat mode, he quickly looked around. John stood panting rapidly, with the snow drifting through the air.
He took a step forward, but moved sideways instead and nearly fell over as a sudden, violent headache overwhelmed John and forced him to his knees.
"AHH! Dear God what is that pain!?" Master Chief dropped his weapons and held his hands to his helmet.
"Chief, I just told your brain to move your body faster than it can on its own. Your brain is trying to process what happened."
John blinked several times, and shook his head. He had never felt more useless than how he felt right now. His entire body was drained of energy.
"Let's not do that again." John spoke after a long moment of silence and pain.
He rose to one knee.
SWORD!