"Two-Sierra zero-zero-seven's Augmentation procedures will commence in thirty minutes. Is there anything you wish to point out before we start, Miss Sunfield?"
"Yes, I am rather curious about the process of the surgery. All the SPARTAN-II augmentations are included, aren't they?"
"Yes ma'am, they are."
"How are you so certain that the subject will survive the surgery at this age?"
"Three reasons ma'am. First: we have achieved some key developments on the area of bio-augmentations. The wash-out rate is lower than ten percent. Second: seven's a tough bastard. Third: the higher-ops from Section Seven are doing everything they can to increase their success rate."
"I see. Be careful and wish him luck."
Conversation between Mental health Specialist Jennifer Sunfield and anonymous chief scientist member.
~0~
Near unidentified city
Of course. He should have known that it wasn't going to be as easy as he had thought.
The large city where the Spartan had stolen the black gem was likely a capital city. That meant that whoever was in control of the city, was also in control over the rest of the country. That was how medieval settings usually worked.
Which meant that the entire country was going to know about his incursion sooner or later.
Not that he was certain of the fact that these people actually lived in medieval settings. They had a biological weapon strong enough to turn two women into warriors with the strength and durability of a Spartan –and a regeneration rivalled by none. There had been people firing projectiles at the Pelican all over the city, yet he had also seen hundreds of soldiers wielding crossbows, bow and arrows and all kinds of swords and spears. Those weapons generally didn't cause any harm to UNSC grade material.
There was more going on in this place than met the eye.
However, as much as the Spartan wanted to meet up with his allies and investigate properly, he had still run into a snag. He had managed to flee the city with his price and head to the south, but his current environment was teeming with hills and trees.
It was also teeming with soldiers. They wore the same red tunics as the men he had encountered in the capital city and they were all armed with broadswords and bows –barring the occasional crossbow, halberd and axe. Every now and then, a current of air lifted their tunics every now and then, revealing either leather body-armour or simple chain mail shirts.
They were much less armoured than the average Insurrectionist or Covenant warrior and those never stood a chance in close-combat with a Spartan. Even when he was unarmed and wounded, he could still take out up to four Elites.
Even better: although these soldiers superior numbers with their one-hundred and fifty men, they were scattered across the hills in their search for him.
The super-soldier had crouched down next to a large tree, halfway down the first hill. He could see at least four other hills he could move to, as well as enough trees and bushes to use as cover to avoid detection. However, these men posed virtually no threat to him and if he let them stay on him, they might call for reinforcements
Besides; who knew if the same enhanced warriors were a part of these groups?
He could use some information on his current whereabouts as well.
The large group underneath him split up and ten soldiers moved to the left, while seven stayed their ground. He could see a few individuals with black cloaks spread throughout the group –those were the same type of hostiles that had attacked the Pelican.
His number one priority was taking them out. Possibly without alerting anyone.
He started making his way down the hill, trying to reach the closest group of soldiers without anyone spotting him. Nobody was looking at him, he had caught them all by surprise. He was as silent as the dead; never making a sound and never betraying his presence to his enemies.
Which made it all the more frustrating when one of the cloaked figures screamed "He's here!" and every single soldier jumped at the call.
The Spartan frowned; what had given his position?
He wrapped his arms around the head of the first soldier and wrenched, breaking his neck and killing him instantly. Before the body could even slump to the ground, the Spartan dashed forwards to engage the other men in his group.
He grabbed the soldier closest to him by the back of his head and punched him right above the lumbar vertebrae, breaking his back. When the man fell through his knees, the super-soldier robbed him of his sword and broke his neck too. At that point, the screaming of the cloaked figure had called the attention of the rest of the men.
With the broadsword in one hand, he cleaved through the remaining five soldiers, killing them by decapitating them or by stabbing them through the chest. The piece of iron was worthless when compared to his other weapons, but he couldn't afford wasting ammo every time he got himself in a conflict.
By the time the first group of soldiers had been dispatched of, the rest realized that their ranks had been infiltrated and they promptly moved to engage.
It didn't help them. The Spartan rampaging in their midst was simply too fast for them to pin down. He dashed through the enemy lines, dealing death blows left and right with his sword, fist and legs. Every time his body connected with someone, it spelled death. His sword flashed through the air like a silver blur, moving as fast as the Spartan wielding it and his unarmed blows rivalled the speed of his stolen broadsword, killing with pure blunt force trauma.
The soldiers might as well have been naked and unarmed before him. As the Spartan tore through the enemy lines, killing twenty-three men in one minute, he reached the first cloaked figure.
The Spartan was in the middle of twisting around to dodge the blade of a spear, placing his left shoulder in the direction of his target. He then brought his sword-arm to bear, dragging it through the air in an upwards arc, slicing at the figure from below.
But when the bladed edge of the sword impacted on the man's abdomen, he felt an unusual resistance. It was only there for a split-second, but it was noticeable enough. It was as if the sword had to sink through a thick layer of metal before suddenly plummeting through it, burying itself deep inside of the man's body.
A garbled cry escaped the cloaked figure's mouth as the broadsword cleaved through his body vertically, splitting his chest in half.
As the cloaked man fell to the ground, the Spartan felt an unusual vibration running through the pouch where he contained the gem.
He gave the phenomenon no thought though, as more soldiers poured in through the hills and made their way towards him. They seemed absolutely terrified of him, yet they still chose to press the attack. Their CO had to be a very disciplined man.
He discarded the broadsword, noticing that its edge was already ragged and worn. Those things weren't made to be used by someone with his strength; which was a good thing. If the equipment for the soldiers on this world was meant for normal humans, those red-haired abominations couldn't be very common.
He pulled his combat knife out, wielding it horizontally with his right hand. The razor-sharp blade was aimed towards the group of advancing men, the edge of the knife pointing outwards. Actions taken with his knife usually ranged from prying through armour, slicing through iron-hard muscles and deflecting melee strikes from Elites and Brutes. It wouldn't fail him.
The Spartan didn't wait for the fifty or so males to surround him, but instead chose to go on the offensive himself. There were two cloaked figures spread throughout the ranks of the fifty men and both of them were currently raising their hands to signal the men to attack.
Strange outfit for army leaders though.
Time had slowed down since he had openly engaged the men and they moved as if they were suspended in honey; bringing their limbs to bear with a slowness that made it possible for him to kill them all within seconds. He was just too fast for these men –as he sprinted towards them, crossing the remaining ten meters within a second or two, they only managed to fire off a dozen arrows. Three of them impacted on his armour, but bounced off the shield harmlessly.
They only drained ten percent of his shielding.
And then he was right on top of the army. He punched the first man in his face, sending him tumbling into the arms of the men behind him, all of which fell to the ground in a heap. The Spartan's momentum had been enough to send them all flying, but some of them weren't dead yet.
The seven men he struck in the next two seconds, hitting them in the chest, side of head with well-placed jabs, hooks and uppercuts however, had no hopes of surviving. Every now and then he would feel the same strange resistance blocking his punch and on two occasions, what should have been a killing blow merely pushed a man backwards.
They are protected by some field, he thought, adapting his fighting style to match. When he fought Grunts and humans, all he needed to kill them was one quick punch to the chest- or head-region. When he had to dispatch a group of them in close-combat, he generally killed his targets with single strikes, allowing him to jump back and forth between the individuals that made up the bulk of the force to allow for quicker kills. When fighting Elites and Brutes in close-combat, however, that strategy didn't work. Soldiers had to adapt to their foes and that was exactly what the Spartan did to engage the strange shielded enemies. He slashed at one with his knife, noticed that he didn't cut through the carotid arteries like he had planned and stepped in to reengage the enemy. He grabbed the man's face and pushed it backwards, exposing the throat for a follow-up strike. He then brought his knife down and this time, he was rewarded with a small eruption of blood.
After having killed fourteen men by means of precision melee strikes and knife-techniques, he reached the next cloaked figure. The man seemed to be chanting prayers, but that wouldn't serve him any good.
He dispatched of the man in the same execution manner as he had used before, but then he felt…something… at the base of his skull, swimming around near his mind. It wasn't the same sensation that warned him of an impending sniper-shot or ambush. This was something else…annoying and somewhat painful
His shielding dropped twenty percent all of a sudden.
Gunfire? But he hadn't felt anything, so it had to be fire of some sorts. Except that the internal temperature of his suit hadn't changed one bit…so what had happened?
A group of five men screamed in terror and threw their weapons down, surrendering to him and screaming something about a monster.
He ignored their attempts to get his attention and moved on to the second cloaked man, killing another seventeen soldiers with his adapted fighting style before he reached that man.
The figure extended both of his palms and a green light exploded from his hands, cascading through the air like an earthquake would tear the ground apart. He did not recognize it as a plasma discharge, neither was it the firing of a human weapon.
These humans were strange. He ducked underneath the double-handed strike and felt something hot race over his head, which did raise the internal temperature a few degrees. He struck at the man's midriff, sending him crashing into the side of a hill. Without waiting to see if the man had really been killed or not, he jumped after him and landed on all fours on the strange man's body, burying his knife up to the hilt into the man's jugular vein.
And that was the end of the cloaked figures in the armed group. After a fight that had taken him six minutes and fourteen seconds, he had eliminated over eighty man and the three people leading them. He still had all his ammo and at least two groups of a dozen men had run, deserting their unit to get to safety.
He wasn't done. He couldn't track and kill those men that had decided to run, as it would cost him too much time. However, he still had a group of fifty men to dispatch of and from the looks of it, they were eager to fight him too. The brief lull in the fighting was enough for the men to spot him and one of them, whom he quickly identified as the leader by his outfit, started to yell at him.
"Oi! You swine-bellied tick! Why don't you take your fancy breadknife and ram it up your-"
The Spartan threw his knife at the cussing man and hit him right between the eyes. Before anyone could react to the death, the super-soldier charged closed in on the group and pulled the large combat knife out again, swiping it around to impale the next man.
By the point both the commander and the other soldier were dead, the army started to descent into chaos. They simply lost their cohesion as many a man simply stood and watched or screamed and ran away while the Spartan mercilessly cut down everyone in his way, cutting down the red-clad soldiers with their own weapons when his knife wasn't quick enough.
He grabbed the arm of a crossbow wielding man, slammed his knife into his neck and aimed the wooden weapon at a man running away. Then, he pulled the trigger and sent a metal bolt soaring through the air, ripping through the fleeing man's chain mail with ease.
He withdrew his knife and wiped it on the red tunic of a nearby corpse, not wanting to ruin the sheath that was attached to his chestplate with bits of gore. Then, he grabbed a halberd and flung it at a group of three sword-wielding men, killing two of them and wounding the third.
The Spartan lost himself to the instincts of his body, descending deep into the gray state of his training, where there were no decisions made on the conscious level. He fought for minutes at an end, moving faster than normal human eyes could possibly follow. He weaved back and forth between the dozens of soldiers, delivering lethal blows with every bladed weapon he could pry from the hands of his fallen foes. He jumped back and forth, alternating between breaking necks with his hands and skewering his enemies with stolen weapons. Swords seldom ever came close to touching him and on the rare occasion that a soldier was capable of striking at him, the blade merely bounced off of his shields and he retaliated with deadly force.
His vision had adopted the traits that made it easier for him to kill his enemies. Details were sharper, colours were both brighter as duller and the already slow movements of the jerky soldiers were even slower as his adrenaline-fueled body ran amok through their lines.
He sliced the head off of the nearest soldier and then grabbed his ally, lifting him up in the air by his throat.
Before he could squeeze and kill the man, he noticed that it was silent. Dead silent. His motion tracker didn't indicate any targets; it was empty.
But his chest was heaving, his blood burning. Not killing the soldier took an immense amount of willpower, a conscious decision forced on his part.
He repressed the urge to kill him too and took a few deep breaths, calming himself. That was the biggest problem with Spartan Operators. Sometimes, they lost themselves in the fight, and nobody could tell them why.
This was such a fight. He had been lucky to regain control over himself, as he would have killed the one person who could give him some Intel on what the hell was going on. Sloppy. Very sloppy.
The man was blubbering incoherently, unable to form complete sentences.
"Who are you people!" Demanded the Spartan, not caring for his prisoner's state of mind.
"P-please! Oh by the gods d-don't kill me! Oh god p-please!"
"Who are you?"
"I…I…I…am a swords-man in the i-imperial a-a-army…serving y-your majesty t-the King G-Galbatorix"
They served a king? "Where are we? What is this place?"
"T-the B-Broddring Empire of A-A-Alagaesia, our land. P-please d-demon, s-spare me!"
An empire ruled by a king. The UNSC had been attacked by an empire…and he was stuck in the middle of it. "Where are we now?"
"S-south of U-Uru'baen…"
The Spartan sighed. This was a mess; if he had just robbed the capital of an empire, before slaughtering the force that had been sent to deal with him, it would be worse than being stuck behind rebel lines.
And then there was the case of those strange, superpowered humans. "Who were those cloaked men?" He asked the captured soldier, gesturing to the mangled form of the black-garbed hostile.
"I-Imperial s-spellcasters s-sir!" The man told him. "P-please s-spare me sir!"
Spellcasters…right.
The Spartan lowered the body of the imperial soldier, grabbed him with both hands and snapped his neck. The lifeless body slammed to the floor and he sighed in frustration.
Spellcasters? Seriously? Magic? Not likely.
He let his gaze run over the many dozens of bodies and he concluded that it would be better to avoid these patrols altogether. If he left a trail of destruction everywhere he went, what was the point in trying to get away?
The Spartan oriented himself towards the south and kept moving, still ignoring the faint trembling in his pouch. The miles faded away underneath his steady march and the hours crept by, signaled only by his steady breathing and the rhythmic pounding of his heavy boots against the ground. The sun slowly descended, shrouding the land in more and more darkness until it finally disappeared altogether.
By that time, the Spartan reaches something resembling cover; a forest.
He didn't know how much distance he had covered since moving away from the capital. For eight hours he had moved and the average Spartan could easily reach more than fifty miles in eight hours…so he had crossed about fifty miles in that day alone.
During those movements, he had run into enemy patrols at least six times. He had evaded those soldiers on all but one occasion, during which he had ambushed a group of eight horse riders. He had left one soldier alive for a while, interrogating him to learn more.
Apparently, the continent where the UNSC had landed was called Alagaesia. He had learnt of the King, Galbatorix, fighting a war against a group of rebels called the Varden. But once the soldier had started to talk about elves in the forest of Du Weldenvarden and dwarves in the Beor Mountains, he had killed him.
But it was curious…very much so. This was a medieval setting and the soldiers couldn't have been communicating with each other over such distances. No radios, for starters. The men hadn't been looking for him when he ambushed them, so they couldn't have known about him. And when a heavily armoured, blood-smeared figure asked you for details, you didn't answer him with a sarcastic joke. No, both soldiers he had interrogated had been terrified, yet both of them had given him a similar answer. Magic.
Which didn't exist. But he had seen the methods those strange men had used when trying to kill him –the almost invisible strikes that had hit him and drained his shielding. There was someone behind all of this; someone who had brainwashed these people into thinking they were medieval, while at the same time messing with their bodies to allow for superhuman abilities. And if he were to guess, that person was named "Galbatorix", as that man was the king.
Chemical augmentations? Hallucination-inducing gas? Who knew. Anyway, it wouldn't do him any good to keep on guessing about these things. It was obvious that these rebels had been testing with drugs…and he knew all too well what that could do to a normal human population. He didn't want to experience it again.
He shook his head, banishing that line of thought. He should really keep moving and find the Pelican.
The Spartan stopped near a small river, his rifle at the ready. For several long moments, he held his position, scanning his surroundings for the contacts that his motion tracker was showing him. When a minute passed and he still didn't find anything, he relaxed again and continued on his way. The contacts were likely indigenous lifeforms. Birds, wild animals.
Besides; he had more pressing issues than soldiers who couldn't harm him. The last time he'd ahad any sustenance was roughly three hours before the Destroyer have arrived at 011's location. After that, they had spent at least two hours in slipspace before arriving at this planet. So it had been thirteen hours since he had last had something to drink and eat.
He could still go another forty hours, but now that he had water it would be a smart thing to use it.
He knelt down next to the river, brought his hands to his helmet, thought better of it and stood up again. It wasn't wise to take his helmet off, especially not in such a hostile environment. For all he knew, there could be someone with a sniper rifle aiming at him at that very moment.
…on the other hand, it was dark and he hadn't encountered any firearms at all. Furthermore, there wouldn't be someone with a sniper aiming at him; because he had made sure that he was alone in the forest.
He might as well take his time to see why he had gone through all this trouble. He opened the pouch containing the price and grabbed the jewel, being very careful not to damage it in the process.
The gem looked odd…weirdly shimmering, like a ripple in a calm pond while still appearing as smooth as the hull of a Covenant warship. It was as black as the night, yet seemed to glimmer faintly.
All of a sudden, the Spartan felt the overwhelming desire to touch the gem with his own skin. The feeling was so compelling, so persuasive that he was already reaching for his gauntlet when he snapped out of it.
He tightened his grip on the gem and gave it a thorough look. His HUD didn't signal any radiation warnings, neither could he discern anything else that might render it harmful. So what the hell had just happened?
He slowly ran a finger down the gem, seeing if anything happened. Perhaps it was a dangerous Forerunner crystal, or perhaps it-
The Spartan dropped the gem, which fell to the wet leaves on the ground..
It had moved.
The gem had shaken on its own. Was that the trembling he had felt? The gem shaking? What sort of artefact was this thing?
He grabbed his combat knife and slowly tried to scrape the surface with the point,
Nothing happened. He couldn't damage the outer shell of the gem with his high-grade knife. That couldn't be good. At one point during his life, he had managed to create a scrape at the surface of the shield of a Hunter
Shortly before said Hunter had pummeled his shielding down and knocked him through the wall of a building, but still. The fact that this gem was stronger than starship-grade alloy was…unnerving.
He grabbed the jewel and held it closer to his visor. The material didn't reflect his image at all…and was he imagining it, or did he hear soft…squealing noises?
No, he wasn't imaging it. He definitely heard it. Faint squeaking noises. Strange…this material was exhibiting some serious anomalous properties. He should-
The gemstone shook heavily on his outstretched palm, rocketing against his fingers.
He felt the need to tighten his grip and crush the jewel, but he was unable to. Something in his mind held him back. That same compulsion as before?
A line appeared on the surface of the black gem; it resembled a crack, running in one direction before suddenly breaking off to another one. Another crack appeared in the surface, then another.
Before he knew what was going on, the surfacing lines touched each other and formed a sloppy square. He was just about to try and take another attempt at scratching the surface when something surfaced from the shell.
He raised an eyebrow when he saw what had happened to the gem. It wasn't a stone at all; it was an egg. And it was hatching.
It raised the question of why this…Galbatorix… had been trying to defend the egg so thoroughly. There wasn't a being alive that could come up with a plan to stop a Spartan, but still. The king had been quite obvious in his desire to keep the egg safe.
Why?
The head that peeked out from underneath the shell looked awfully alien. It squiggled its way out of the shell with odd, unbalanced movements. It had a strange, angular body that was covered with black scales, as black as the egg had been, he realized. It possessed four limbs and a pair of wings, which spanned several times the size of its body. The wings were ridged with thin, bony fingers that extended from the wing's front edge, resembling talons. The tiny reptile –for it was undoubtedly a reptile- wasn't much longer than two feet, ranging from the tip of its triangular snout to the tip of its long, flexible tail.
Medieval setting…the Spartan thought and he knelt next to the reptilian creature. A dragon?
Did the people of Alagaesia worship these things? Why else would it be kept so secured? Even though it resembled a dragon, it had to be part of some indigenous race of crocodilians, but only…with wings…a Komodo dragon, a poisonous creature native to earth, perhaps?
He had no clue as to what the thing was, but it obviously wasn't avian. It had ridges of bony protrusions running down its spine, from the base of its skull to an absence on its shoulders, all the way to the end of its tail. No feathers at all.
It looked like a predator alright, white shining white talons and teeth. The Spartan kept perfectly still, having no clue what to do at that moment. He watched as the draconic creature slowly turned around and then focused on his visor, staring at him with its sharp, yellow eyes.
As soon as the creature looked him in his eyes, he felt something weird. Like…a ripple in his mind, similar to what he had felt before. Only it was stronger this time, overcoming the natural thoughts he had until only one desire remained in his head, like a feverish obsession.
The compulsion was back, stronger than before. It was almost like this creature somehow managed to send signals to his neural interface to cause such feelings.
Touch it
That was what the compulsion told him. It made him want to touch the creature, see what that would do. It was the most basic need he felt in his mind, just like he had felt the desire to touch the gem itself. It might be pheromones influencing him, as some animals used smells and other signals to lure their prey. It might still be the chemical suggestion, or airborne drugs
Even as the Spartan tried to rationalize why it was that a foreign force was dictating what he wanted to do, he moved to remove his right gauntlet.
The reptile stared at him with its sharp, penetrating eyes while he worked his gauntlet off. Eventually, he had bared his hand and placed his gauntlet on the ground.
The super-soldier frowned as he noticed the deep paleness of his skin, caused by years of encasement within his MJOLNIR. He liked being in his armour; it protected him against more than just physical damage. Within it, he was safe. Without it, he was naked.
He brought his hand down to the animal, ignoring its attempts to smell at his fingers. He touched the reptilian on its head –and immediately felt an extreme surge of activity prickling his hand, extending itself throughout his arm while overstimulating each and every nerve, vein and tendon in his limb. It wasn't very pleasant. A bright, white flash blinded his eyes and he sharply inhaled when he felt a burning sensation spread itself throughout his entire body. The intense coldness of it all was unlike anything he had felt before; it left a great emptiness behind in its wake, like he had just been chained up and sentenced to prison. The sensation was completely new to him and he instinctively jerked away, moving his leg backward to prevent himself from falling over.
The white flash disappeared, leaving blinded for a few more seconds before his eyes adapted to the dark environment once more. A brief shimmer flowed across the surface of his mind, quickly extending itself, extrapolating itself around his awareness.
The tiny reptile yelped all of a sudden, sinking through its clawed legs and falling into a small heap, where it stayed.
The contact on his mind pulled away, leaving alone in his head.
But something else was there now, a feverish trembling that quickly filled in the emptiness left behind by the brief contact. He exhaled and groaned when the sickening pulses hemorrhaged through his entire body, reaching towards his very core before they faded away from the outside.
The soldier checked his suit's internal temperature, made sure that he wasn't being surrounded and then took the time to search his hand for any wounds. He had been poisoned, that was the only possible explanation. Was the creature that venomous, to be able to affect him this soon?
But there wasn't anything on his hand that signaled skin-damage. What was there however, was a white and shimmering scar. It had the shape of a damaged opal…and it itched considerably. Only…it wasn't a scar. It didn't look natural, but it wasn't damage. It didn't feel wrong in any way, it…was just there.
He snatched his gauntlet off of the ground and slapped it on again, taking great care to enact the proper procedure and integrate it with the rest of his suit.
After having donned the gauntlet again, the Spartan took another look at the dragon-thing. It was still lying on the floor, motionless. It was almost as if it had burned off all its energy in an attempt to chase him away.
He frowned, not understanding why he had ever taken his gauntlet off. Now that the compulsion was gone, it seemed even more foolish. He might have been poisoned through the skin contact with the animal, which was probably meant to serve as a biological weapon. But that didn't explain what he had felt against his mind…and it also didn't explain why the creature had almost looked like it had wanted him to touch it.
He should leave the creature behind and move on…he still had a long ways to go to reach the UNSC and he didn't have the time or patience to haul an obviously dangerous animal with him.
Looking down at the creature again, he noticed that it was kicking with its legs. Its mouth was hanging open in a silent scream and a small circle of smoke escaped its nostrils.
He froze when he saw the black smoke appear, immediately linking it with one word.
Dragon, he thought. It's a dragon.
But that was impossible. Dragon's didn't exist…and neither did magic. It was obvious, someone was trying to make a world reminiscent of a classic medieval story. It didn't explain how that person had possibly created something that was so realistically draconic, unless the people here had access to a lab and equipment to genetically alter certain organisms.
He sighed, realizing what needed to be done. He needed to ask someone for assistance…he needed to know about the viability of a dragon being real.
Unless…every Spartan had been educated in physics and biology. in the past. Was there a chance that on some planet, there had really been an evolutionary process resulting in dragons? Or had the Forerunners, in their ancient desire to meddle and experiment, creating them?
He needed more answers, and until he had them he couldn't judge. And this creature had obviously been important to his enemy. No, he couldn't kill it. He would take it with him and perhaps travel to the Varden, to see if they might offer him assistance. The enemy of his enemy and all that.
He scooped the little black dragon from the ground. The creature offered no resistance despite the fact that it had initially attempted to harm him.
With the small reptile in his arms, he started moving again. It didn't take him very long to exit the forest and travel towards the next place of interest. He had his eyes set on a small city south of the forest, one he had spotted when he had been standing on top of another, especially large hill. Only with the magnification on his visor set to the most extreme range did he see what was moving around the town.
More soldiers in red was what was moving around the town.
The Spartan started making his way down the slope, leaving the small forest far behind him. In the thirty minutes he had spent making his way from the place of hatching and the hill he was standing on at the moment, the little dragon had recovered and started to exhibit a frustrating amount of animal behaviour. It started to growl, twist and trash around in his arms, trying to escape his grasp.
"Easy," He told the thing, still not knowing why the creature had been able to force such major biological effects onto him. Every now and then something touched his mind, trying to break through…something that was on his mind. It was as if some external instinct was attempting to get through to him, telling him things.
Of course, such an experience could be explained by all kinds of things. Hallucinations brought upon by the might-be poison of the dragon…some other, external source that might be influencing his sanity in some way or the other.
But…he didn't really think it was anything like that. He had felt the "experience" only after the brief and explosive contact with the little animal, leading him to think that it might be the diminutive reptile that had sought contact with his mind.
It HAD been a sense of hunger that he had been feeling in the back of his mind…it could be explained as the creature somehow having tapped into his neural interface, sending him signals to allow him to understand what it wanted. That could easily explain it to be the apex predator on this world, referred by the primitive humans. The question was…just what did it want?
This whole thing was a bit strange. He knew that his own body was intimately linked with his suit; his thoughts were all converted into signals for the MJOLNIR to undertake. If he thought of a movement, the suit performed it. Things didn't just interfere with it, that just didn't happen. Whatever he was feeling had to be something exerted on his mind and his mind alone…or it was so incredibly powerful that it could interfere with his neural interface, in which case he was in really deep trouble. But…the sensations hadn't been as strong as to actually make him do anything. They were just there…like a dropship trying to enter a sealed Carrier.
The dragon crawled to the top of his helmet and curled its long, slender tail around his neck-seal. Had the creature not been so playful with its movements, he might thought of its actions as hostile.
But the dragon-thing hadn't openly been hostile to him.
The Spartan reached the bottom of the hill and swept his recently re-equipped assault rifle through the bushes, checking for potential scouts searching for him.
The soldier didn't see any humans. What he did see was a deer, suddenly looking up and sprinting away. The movement was enough to make him drop to a crouch and remove the safety of his weapon, but once he had identified the target as nonhostile and herbivorous, he eased up.
The presence on top of his mind did not. He felt another, vague tendril slapping against what he liked to think of as his Carrier; his mind was the armoured ship, impenetrable. The presence –which had to be the dragon- was the Pelican dropship attempting to enter. He could touch, but it couldn't get through.
And the tendril only had thing it wanted to tell him: that the dragon was hungry.
Being ambushed by ancient alien robots, sent through another dimension into a world with biologically altered humans and here he was, stuck with a hungry dragon.
But…if this creature was capable of interfering with his Neural interface or worse, capable of telepathic signals, he needed to be very careful. It might grow unstable when it saw too much.
He kept walking for another hour, during which he almost reached the village he had seen. He just had to move through another series of forests before he could get to civilization. It was a smaller wooded area, not much longer or wider than a kilometer. The geology of this land seemed to vary greatly; he had seen large mountains, yet the entire distance between Uru'baen and the forest he currently found himself in had mostly been bare. Large, wide open plains, forests and the like.
A sudden signal on his motion tracker caught his attention and he brought his rifle to bear. The dragon perched on his head grew uneasy and started to squeal loudly, scratching against his dark helmet with its tiny claws.
His motion tracker only identified UNSC signals as his allies, while only identifying Covenant signals as his targets. Everything else appeared like grey circles on the scanner, ranging from small dots to large blips.
And three circles were currently moving towards him, faster than humans could.
The Spartan flicked his safety off and readied his rifle, waiting for the hostiles to show themselves. The dragon was scrambling like mad to stay on top of his head, not realizing that its own frantic movements were causing it to lose his balance in the first place.
The howling of wolves tore through the night and he relaxed. The dragon –which might have imprinted him as his mother, he came to realize- got even more scared if that was possible. It jumped off of his head and touched down on the ground, but it slipped in a patch of grass and fell flat on its stomach.
"Bad idea," He told the dragon, but then the wolves were upon them. There were three of them, large grey and vicious. They seemed larger than the ones in his memory, but he had never really seen a wolf in real life before, so…
The dragon screeched with terror and the first wolf lunged for it, intent on tearing it apart with its blinkering teeth-
-only to receive a crushing kick to its head, cracking its skull and killing it in one hit. The lifeless corpse sailed through the air and impacted on a tree, where it slid down and landed on the ground in a worthless heap.
He wanted to refrain from firing his weapon this close to the city and neither did he want to waste munition on wild animals.
The second wolf jumped at him this time. Its scrambling paws allowed it to pick up an impressive pace before it jumped at the Spartan. However, the wolf's head proved to have a critical weakness to blades being shoved through it. The soldier lashed out with his combat knife and jammed it into the canine's skull, earning his second kill that night.
The Spartan then pulled his knife out, spun around and instinctively brought an arm up to defend himself, as the last wolf had chosen that moment to ignore the deaths of its packmates and continue the hunt.
Its jaws were lined with razor-sharp teeth; canines intent on penetrating and molars intent on cutting and crushing. He had learned that wolfs were capable of crushing bones with a well-placed bite…however, that didn't seem to go with MJOLNIR armour. The soldier allowed the beast to impact on his body, watching as it broke its teeth off on the grey arm.
Then, he grabbed the neck of the hound with his other hand and squeezed. The wolf whined and thrashed until he felt its bone snap in a sickening crunch, at which point the wolf gave one more spasm before it died.
He threw the dead carcass to the ground, shaking his head. Wasted time and wasted energy were never positive things. And tomorrow-morning, hunters would find the bodies of three killed wolves, one of which had a set of broken teeth. If that didn't serve as a trail for the experienced tracker, he didn't know what did.
The terrified dragon leaped up to meet his face, flapping twice with its wings to allow it to remain airborne for a bit longer. The annoying presence on his mind fluctuated; now there was a secondary trait added to the first one. Instead of just 'hunger', he now felt 'relieve' too. The signal was definitely coming from the reptile, it was somehow touching his consciousness with its own mind.
But he hadn't missed the intent behind the signal, oh no. This thing was hungry.
"Five minutes," He told the dragon, feeling somewhat silly for talking to an animal. The stupid beast was still clinging to his visor, scratching his shields with its claws in an attempt to gain some height. How did that communication work again? Through the mind? Well, he had no idea how to do that and quite frankly, he didn't really care. He wanted to find the Pelican dropship, save the captain and his crew if possible, find a way back to the When Duty Ends and repair it. Then he wanted to call for UNSC reinforcements and find out just what was wrong with this world…with these people.
He was losing his patience very fast. He closed his eyes and focused on the little annoying blimp that was attached to his mind: the dragon's consciousness. Doing so was akin to him opening the hangar bay, floating out of the carrier, closing the bays again and moving on to the dragon's mind. Then, he cooked up the perfect educational message
Eat or starve.
The dragon lowered its front-paws, pulled its head away from his visor and stared at him with those surprisingly intelligent eyes.
He stared right back at it, aware of the fact that it was only an animal that couldn't understand him.
But then, much to his surprise, the dragon released him and moved towards the broken body of the first wolf, the one who had attacked her.
It turned its neck and looked at him again.
He held up five fingers and marched past her, trying to determine where he had been heading before the unfortunate timing of the wolves.
A loud, tearing noise behind him indicated that the little abomination had indeed gotten the message. Curious. So it was more intelligent than he had thought it to be-
-he turned around, his rifle aimed at the petite back of the reptile. He had concentrated on a message…in his language. Near his mind. So how had the dragon understood him? It didn't make sense…unless the dragon was telepathic.
And if the dragon was telepathic –for whatever bizarre biological reason- it meant that his own thoughts weren't secure.
A security breach in the form of a telepathic animal. He guessed even Admiral Parangosky hadn't seen that one coming.
The Spartan watched the reptile tear into the body of the wolf, ripping through its flesh with ease as the razor-sharp teeth tore deep into the carcass. The thing had a strong jaw, he had to give it that.
If the dragon was intelligent enough to understand his language…to understand him…it meant a human-level consciousness. As such, this creature would be truly important to the UNSC. He needed it alive.
He waited for exactly five minutes for the animal to finish before he grabbed hold of it and pried it away from its meal. It was such a tiny thing, not much larger than a cat. Why did it have such an appetite? Where did all that meat go?
Unless it was going to have a growing-spurt…dragons tended to be very large in human lore.
He sighed, yearning for more information. There were two options: either this world was a true medieval one possibly made by the Forerunners, or this world was a rebel base where the leaders were playing an excessively filthy game. He didn't hold it above them, that was for damn sure.
With the dragon in tow, he made his way to the village. The Spartan and the dragon stopped, however, when the former suddenly thought of something.
They won't help if I show up there, he realized. He had murdered his way past more than a hundred imperial men that day alone, stealing their national treasure in the meantime. Whichever method these people used to send messages –if it even was anything else than a radar system- had to be very fast. The men searching for him had known who he was and where he was going…so if he was to risk entering the village, he would need to leave the dragon behind briefly.
He was going to hunt for some information.
The soldier slowly opened the steel walls around his mind again, allowed a thought of his to slip out and then searched for what he had determined to be the dragon's consciousness. 'Stay here,' He told the beast.
The tendril of thoughts that the animal extended in return was clear. Curiosity.
It wanted to know where he was going –the thing was actually aware of the things that happened around it.
'Information,´ he then told it and looked for a sufficiently tall tree where it could stay, safe from other predators looking for it. The blood it had spilled that night was bound to attract other predators.
He looked around, before noticing a particularly large one. It reached easily taller than twenty meters /and it was climbable for him. He hoped.
He looked at a large branch and grabbed the dragon by its back, lifting it in the air with ease. ´Safe,´ he told it.
The dragon didn't respond, but neither did it fight against his grip. It allowed itself to be lifted in the air by his ice-cold gauntlets, giving the soldier more than enough chance to fling it high up the tree. It flapped with its wings in an undignified manner, not having expected to be thrown up there.
It quickly jumped up another branch and then turned around, extending its long neck towards him and glaring at him.
The Spartan almost thought that the creature had a mildly amused look on its face.
He marked the tree with his knife and then moved out of the forest, making his way to the city. It was encircled by a wall, with the occasional guard patrolling over its edge. He needed one of those guards; they were bound to know something.
The Spartan moved like a shadows creeping over the grasslands, graceful as water and fast like a bird. No man ever spotted him and within a few seconds, he had made his way to the base of the wall.
It was a meter of five high, but nothing he couldn't handle.
The super-soldier braced himself and then jumped, the force-enhancing circuits in his MJOLNIR extending the height he could reach by a full two meters. His fingers wrapped themselves around the edge and he pulled himself up, sticking his head over the dark wall. The night was dark and the wind was loud ,masking each and every sign that someone was possibly infiltrating the city.
After a minute of him hanging there, one of the guards moved closer in his patrol, walking right in front of him.
He shot out with his left arm, grabbing the tunic of the man's back and pulling him right over the edge. He needed the man alive, so he couldn't just throw him to the ground. The guard might break his legs and the screaming would wake every single man, woman and child in the city.
So he broke his fall, slowing himself by jamming his armoured hand into the wall, keeping his other hand over the man's mouth to prevent him from screaming.
With the guard secured in his grasp, he retreated back into the forest. If the man decided to be stupid and scream, nobody would hear him.
The Spartan dumped the body of the unfortunate male onto the ground and pulled out his knife, pointing it as his target's face.
"Scream and you're dead," He snapped at the man, taking notice of the gray hair and beard adorning his head. This man was easily older than sixty years. A veteran, then.
The guard seemed to understand his order, as he did not scream."Who in the blazes are you?"
"I need answers," He told the old soldier. "I'm not from around."
The POW looked around warily, taking in the cold and dark environment. "Answers you couldn't get over some mead and a few coins?"
The Spartan ignored that. "You with Galbatorix?"
The man scoffed. "I protect the city of Furnost I do! It might be part of the empire, but I serve my lady."
"Your lady?"
The man sighed. "Where are you from, kid-"
He grabbed the man by the front of his clothes and jammed the knife against his throat, putting a slight pressure on the blade. "Don't. Only talk when I ask you."
The man nervously eyed the black steel pressed against his throat, but his eyes quickly shot back up to the dark-gray helmet in front of him. "A-alright then…no need for violence."
He withdrew his knife and waited for the man to finish.
"The lady Tarana…is my liegelord. She rules the city of Furnost with a gentle hand…and the men are loyal to her, not to the King."
"Are you people rebels?"
The man stared at him, an incredulous expression on his face. "I just…I just told you that I serve the city of Fur-"
"I got that."
The Spartan sighed, understanding that his situation was very difficult. "Where did you people come from, in this…Alagaesia?"
The man laughed, sounding like an old crow. "You must truly be from somewhere else. Our people came from overseas, thousands of years ago. Ol' Palancar the mad, we called the one who led us here. Vanquished by the elves he was, three times. Then, his son took his life…and humans knew peace. Didn't take long-"
The Spartan interrupted him. "Lie to me again and I will cut your fingers off. Elves?"
His threat had hit home alright; the man opened his mouth to say something, but thought better and quickly closed it. Then he opened his mouth and gasped for air. Closed his mouth again. Eventually…"I want to answer you…heavens know I do…but I don't know what you know. You might see my answers as lies if you have never encountered the before, please…just…keep an open mind."
He sighed, understanding what the old soldier meant. If one of these people had captured a marine on Earth and demanded to know what the things around him were, that man or woman wouldn't believe the marine either. If this man spoke the truth, these people weren't Insurrectionists. And that would make his troubles only bigger.
"I come from the stars," He cautiously told the senior. "Now tell me, where-"
The man gasped again and crawled backwards, looking more scared than he had looked when faced with the concept of death. His eyes seemed to bulge out of his head and he grew very pale. "The Prophecy is true! The traveler from the stars, here! Please, just…show mercy! I will answer your questions but…please have mercy!"
The Spartan didn't know of any prophecy, but he wanted answers more than he wanted to interrupt the man. "Good. Elves?"
"Yes lord-"
Lord?
"-in the forests to the north, the forests of Du Weldenvarden!"
So he travelled to the wrong part of the country, then. No matter. "Why do people talk of magic?"
"Yes, magic! Elves can use it, dragons could use it and there are humans who can use it!"
"What is magic?"
"Magic…it is the force allows one to manipulate energy with your mind!"
Did that last part needed to be whispered so dramatically? "What do you know of dragons?"
"Lord, I cannot tell you too much…if the king would hear me, he would chop my head right off!"
Even though the old guard spoke like he couldn't say anything, his excited demeanor still indicated that he did want to talk about it. He had shifted from fear to surprise to mortal fear and then…an almost religious agitation. It was very strange…but the man was a goldmine of Intel.
"Why would the king do that?"
"Because people say he was responsible for the fall of the Riders."
"The Riders?"
The man nodded, looking increasingly nervous. "Legend has it that the elves had a magical pact with the dragons…forming a group of peacekeepers called the Dragon Riders. Soon, the humans joined in the pact. Legend has it that Galbatorix was a Rider, before he destroyed their order and formed the Empire."
"Dragons?"
"The rumors differ lord! Some say that dragons are all but extinct, others say that they have never existed. Legends is all that remains…and I don't know more of it. I am deeply sorry."
The man's fear was gone now. There was only the almost feverish awe that lined his intonation…an awe that might have originated from the Spartan's blood-smeared armour, frightening appearance or otherwise unworldly presence. Or perhaps it was due to the content of this…Prophecy…the man talked about.
"What do you know of dragons?"
"Nothing sir, nothing that aren't there in the legends. They could breathe fire…change the world at their whim. They were said to be more intelligent than men or dwarves!"
…dwarves? That was a new one. "Where do these…dwarves…live?"
"In the Beor Mountains, to the south. Rumor has it…" The man's voice dropped to a whisper, "…that the Varden is hiding somewhere in the Beor Mountains. I don't know anything about you Lord, and please don't tell me more. But I ask of you the following: if I tell you how to reach the Beor Mountains, will you reconsider?"
"No promises."
What was there to reconsider?
"Tis all I need. Travel south, alongside the edge of the Tüdosten Lake. Then, you will find a city called Petrovya. Head east from there."
He got to his feet, rising in his full seven feet of MJOLNIR-clad height. He had a dilemma now. "Why are you so easily helping me?"
"There are many evils at work in our Alagaesia, lord. Urgals…spies and murder. If you truly came from the stars…and someone were to show you kindness…you might reconsider."
Reconsider what?
Even if this man were to show him kindness, it wouldn't take his foremost problem away. This man had seen him; a stranger clad in armour, asking dangerous questions. If this old man survived, he would spread the word and soon, every city would know about him. He couldn't have that –he would have to kill this man.
Images of a burning village shot through his mind, and he hesitated.
It wasn't as if he would blend in otherwise. He didn't exactly know how to act inconspicuous in a crowd and his armour didn't make it easier on him. The only way for him to truly infiltrate the society was to take his armour off. And he would never do that. Whether this man survived or not…he wouldn't be able to blend in in the empire of Galbatorix. He would need to find the…Varden…in the Beor Mountains. They fought the empire from what he had gathered –they would give him all the Intel he needed. The easy way or the hard way.
Regardless, this man was a threat. He had been plucked from the city and he would be missed. He could not be left alive. Not now…he knew his duty. He couldn't get compromised.
The super-soldier reached out and grabbed the prone man, lifting him in the air and turning him around. Then, he snaked his arm around the senior's throat and placed his other hand in front of his mouth, to prevent him from screaming.
The man's face…it had been so familiar. And he knew why it had looked familiar. This entire world reminded him of it.
He pulled tighter, ignoring the man's frantic spasms and jerking. He counted down from four to zero once the body had stopped moving and then let it go.
The Spartan moved to the tree where he had hidden his dragon, seeking its mind out while positioning himself on the thickest branch. Placing the motionless body on two moderately sturdy branches, he told the dragon that they were going to keep moving.
And as the winged creature –said to be capable of feats like magic and above-human intelligence- flew towards him, he gave the body of the guard, whom he had strangled into unconsciousness, no more thought.
He had a mission to complete: first the Varden, then Wren and then the UNSC.
And then he would see what to do with the dragon.
~0~
"The project is a success. Thirteen Spartans- that is, Secret-Spartans, are fully functional and working at full capacity. After five years of service, there has been not a single casualty. And some of their missions had odds that stood as pronounced as 1 to 10!"
"But?"
Seeing as we started the project at an average age of four years old…our indoctrination procedures were very thorough. They are soldiers all right- but that is it. Operatives that can only function as long as they are send on missions and battles- we have been able to glean off some details about their individual personality's ma'am. I will send you the reports this evening."
"See to it that you will, Colonel."
Conversation between Colonel Ackerson and Admiral Parangosky.
~0~
