A/N: Second chapter, prepare to read and hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer, since I missed the one in my last chapter: I don't own Halo or Walking Dead. Both are owned by, surprisingly, their respective owners.
And also, warning. I can get pretty graphic when I want to, so I wouldn't recommend eating when you read this. It may cause you to vomit out your internal organs through your tear ducts.
... yeah. I'm a terrible person.
Rick Grimes raised an eyebrow at the man before him.
He'd subconsciously known that the guy wasn't one of those dead freaks, but his appearance was just so startling that Rick had to ask.
Seriously, try walking up to a seven-foot tall guy who looks unhealthily pale in a post-apocalyptic world and see how well you do.
Rick slowly lowered the gun and gave the man an unsure nod, which he returned steadily. His unusually calm facade was unnerving, and the Sheriff's deputy held onto the bag over his shoulder a little tighter.
"What's the situation here?" Chief asked. "Where am I?"
"Well, currently, you're on the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia. As for the situation..." Rick said, his voice dropping steadily lower. "I'm honestly not sure myself. Where'd you come from, by the way?"
"A couple hundred meters north of here," he replied, pointing in the direction. "Apparently, I fell out of a tree and woke up with a zombie next to me."
Rick almost fell off his horse.
"You met one of those things?" he asked, his voice rising several octaves. The Chief nodded yes. "And you're still alive? You weren't bitten?"
"Obviously."
Rick floundered slightly as his mind tried to comprehend the ridiculousness of the situation. "And you fell out of a tree?"
"Out of it or through it, take your pick."
"But, that's... you don't even have any weapons on you!"
The Chief raised his hands and wiggled his fingers. "Don't need any for those things. They're easy to kill if you know how."
At that, Rick's face soured. 'Yeah, if you're a fucking seven-foot tall hunk of muscle that can bend steel with your bare hands,' he thought sarcastically.
He would gradually learn that that statement wasn't far from the truth.
"I told you who I am, shouldn't you return the favor?" Chief's voice broke him out of his stupor.
"Um... yeah, my name is Rick Grimes, Sheriff's deputy. And let me tell you, man, if I hadn't woke up in a hospital a couple of days ago, I probably wouldn't believe your story."
Chief gave a short nod of acknowledgment. "Where are you headed?" he asked.
"Well, I'm going to Atlanta to try to find some leads as to where my family went. I heard there was some big camp in Atlanta with food and shelter."
The Spartan looked at the city and raised an eyebrow. "That's not very likely, but it's better than nothing. Would you mind if I went with you?"
Rick looked at him in surprise. "Do you think you can keep up? I've got a horse."
"And I've got legs." When the deputy looked at him skeptically, he just gave him a look. "I can outrun any of those things easily, I'll be fine."
"If you say so," Rick said doubtfully, but nudged the horse around to keep walking towards Atlanta. After a second, the Spartan followed, easily keeping up with the horse due to his longer strides.
As they passed through the city borders, the Master Chief tried to focus on both the city around them and Rick's poor attempts at smalltalk.
"So, you Army or something?" he asked.
"Or something."
"Okay, uh... where are you from?"
"Elysium City."
"... is that far from here?"
"Reasonably."
Rick shook his head. Getting information out of this guy was harder than moving a house.
As they passed between the first two buildings, the Spartan couldn't help but marvel at how antiquated everything looked. The buildings looked like they were made out of ordinary concrete, steel and glass. Those hadn't been used in buildings in nearly four centuries. And the cars, despite being ancient designs, still looked like they ran on fossil fuels.
His first assumption was that this was a military test, but he immediately discarded that idea. That thing he ran into used to be human, and clearly wasn't faking it. He'd seen real rotting flesh, crushed real bones, and snapped a real neck- he'd done it plenty of times before. ONI wouldn't casually throw away a life like that just to test him, especially since they knew who he was.
And it would hardly be like the UNSC to throw him into a test so soon after Requiem.
His heart ached a little at the reminder of the accursed Forerunner construct.
Shaking his head to clear it of distracting thoughts, he resumed looking around at their surroundings. They passed by several empty vehicles, mostly cars, but the last one caused the Spartan's eyes to widen slightly.
"An M1A2 Abrams Tank? What is this antique doing here?"
Rick reared his horse to a stop and raised an eyebrow at him. "What do you mean, antique? This stuff is practically brand new."
Chief looked at him skeptically. "I haven't seen one of these since I entered the military. These were aged out of service years ago."
Rick was about to answer, but before he could, they passed by a bus and the Spartan's head swiveled around at the two corpses sitting in the seats. "Two dead guys, 3 o'clock," he muttered, and Rick turned and saw them as well.
The horse shied away and snorted from the bus as the two corpses slowly got up and started to follow them. Both the horse and the Spartan picked up the pace a little as Rick tried to assuage the horse's fears.
"Don't worry, nothing we can't outrun," he muttered. He looked over at Master Chief, who had a frown of concentration on his face. "What is it?"
"Do you hear that?"
Rick looked up and strained his ears, wondering what the strange guy was talking about. Then he heard it.
"It sounds like a helicopter!" the deputy said, sounding excited, and John looked up at a nearby building to see an indistinct shape reflected in the glass.
"Maybe, but..." he was interrupted as Rick clapped his heels to the horse's sides and took off down the street to try to get a better look. "Grimes, wait!"
But Rick didn't, instead galloping forward. The Spartan looked over his shoulder and saw more and more of the corpses shambling forward. At his shout, they turned their heads, beckoned by his voice. They're drawn to noise.
He looked back at Rick and his eyes widened. He had wheeled the horse around and was now galloping back, followed by a veritable horde of corpses.
"Grimes, get off the horse!" he said loudly, but the deputy didn't and just galloped past him. He turned around and ran after the horse with a muttered curse, easily able to outrun the shambling corpses behind him. Unfortunately, Rick had managed to run into the other horde of zombies following them, and the Spartan almost rolled his eyes.
Civilians. So undisciplined.
He watched as the horse reared, throwing Rick off it's back, before being dragged down by the monsters. The bag of guns had fallen off Rick's shoulder into the street while the zombies descended upon the horse with gusto.
The world slowed down as he closed his eyes and entered the state dubbed by Kelly as Spartan Time.
'Options.
Buildings on both sides. No way to get through them without leaving Rick behind.
Zombies on both sides. No way to get through them without leaving Rick behind.
Zombies near Rick Grimes; distracted by horse.
Bag of guns; accessible. Potentially useful. Saving not required, but recommended.
Rick Grimes; still alive. Undisciplined idiot. Saving not required, but recommended.
M1A2 Abrams; potentially secure. Hatch on top and bottom.
Plan: get guns, get Rick Grimes under Abrams, distract zombies from Rick Grimes, go on top of Abrams, wait until Rick Grimes secure, go into Abrams, wait until zombies disperse, make run for it.'
His eyes snapped open.
Sprinting forward, the Spartan slammed a fist into the head of one of the monsters near Rick, pulping its skull and brain. He picked up the now permanently deceased corpse and threw it at another group of the zombies, knocking them over and buying him a few seconds.
He reached down and pulled the bag full of guns up and swung it around, smashing a few more zombies away. A few boxes of rounds and one small black device fell out through the unzipped top, but he didn't pay them much attention as he pulled Rick to his feet.
"Get underneath the tank," he growled into the deputy's ear. "There's a hatch below, I'll go above and distract them. Move!"
Rick gave him a fearful look, but he nodded and dropped down, crawling underneath the tank.
He threw a look over his shoulder. Most of the horse had been ripped into pieces, but more and more corpses were coming towards him. He climbed to the top of the tank in two strides and kicked one of the zombies in the chest, shattering it's ribcage and sending it back into the horde. He dropped the bag down the hatch, planted his feet and began to throw punches at any corpse that got close.
"Grimes, are you secure?" he asked loudly, throwing another skull-splitting punch.
"Yeah, yeah I'm- ah!" Ricks call was interrupted as he gave a panicked cry. Before the Spartan could ask what was wrong, a gunshot rang out and he felt a searing pain in his leg. He ignored the pain and pushed a zombie off the tank, then took a look at himself. The bullet had grazed the back of his right calf, which was bleeding. Luckily, it hadn't torn the muscle or the tendon, just broken the skin. He looked back up at another corpse coming toward him and frowned.
Most of the zombies were still focused on the horse, since it was an easier meal, but many more from all around had been drawn by the gunshot. He seized the last zombie by the hair and pulled it's head down, while bringing his knee up, driving a knee shaped dent in it's face. He seized it by the foot and swung it around above his head, knocking a dozen zombies off the tank, before throwing it back into the horde.
He dropped down into the tank, managing to squeeze in despite his massive frame, and came face to face with a corpse and a pale-faced Rick Grimes. Pulling the hatch closed behind him, he made sure that the corpse was really dead and that the both the hatches were sealed. Then he turned around and looked at the deputy, who's ears were still ringing from the gunshot. Rick slowly focused on the stern-faced man in front of him, and felt himself rooted in place by the flinty stare.
"Do you have any idea how stupid that was?" the Spartan asked, and Rick just stared at him confusedly. "Don't you know that these things are attracted to sound? You may have drawn every one in the city with that gunshot." The Chief's voice was quiet, but somehow that just made it all the more frightening. He was about to say more, but before he could, the radio in the tank crackled to life.
"Hey, you. Yeah, you two in the tank. Having fun in there?"