Here's the new chapter 3.
By the way, when I said to have whoever you knew add me to their lists, that's because I thought I had to erase my entire Halohazard file to restart and I'd lose you all, but then I remembered my chapter rewriting technique and decided to remain.
Last time: Some of what you read may look the same, but the unwanted things are either removed or changed.
Enjoy.
Inside the R.P.D. station . . .
John rose up and brushed off every piece of shattered glass from his armor and looked around.
He was in a hallway with a silver statue at the far end and a stairway that led downward to the room's lower floor occupied with more zombies. The ceiling's lights flickered on and off without end.
The zombies slagged around and immediately spotted the Master Chief. They moaned and walked to him with their raised, rotting hands.
John hopped off the balcony and onto the lower floor. The undead tried crowding around him, but they were no match against him as he commenced his armor lock mode, held it in place for a few seconds, and when he released the lock, the zombies were blasted away, most of them died from crashing into walls, doors and windows. Any who survived met their end at his hands, literally.
He attempted to open one of the room's doors, but it was locked and no key to it was found.
"Locked. Any ideas?" Cortana asked and indeed the Master Chief had one as a good soldier always did. He raised his boot, simply kicked the door down and walked right through.
"Of course." she said humorously.
Another hall passage, only this one had boarded up windows and a broken generator mounted on the wall on his right.
As he marched on, John saw the windows on the side boarded up with wooded planks nailed to them, there were some unused planks laying on the side.
A pair of double doors caught the Chief's eye and he fiddled with the doorknobs to see if they were locked. They weren't and he stepped inside.
The new place was covered in darkness, so he switched to his helmet's night vision mode.
It resembled a classroom/meeting room. Everywhere he looked there were messy desks, papers, books, beverage and coffee machines, and a chalkboard with illegible marks on it.
John walked across the empty room to an open one. Inside was more useless junk, a box full of handgun bullets lying on top of a desk and a fireplace filled with a flammable substance ready for lighting. He retrieved the ammo box and quickly dismissed lighting the fireplace since he had nothing to light it with.
After finding no survivors and nothing useful, he exited both rooms and back out into the hall with the boarded windows.
The search for Leon had to wait when he noticed another red dot on his HUD radar along with a creepy, exhaling sound. It sounded like no zombie.
"Heeeeehhhhhhhhh . . ." it said.
The random noise made the Chief enter a combat stance to face the upcoming threat.
A click-clacking sound from the ceiling came next and the soldier cocked his head up and found the cause. It was another viral creature, but this one was completely different from the zombies.
It's skin was absent and its entire muscular system was exposed. It had four limbs with huge claws on each one, its brain was showing on top of its head, no eyes on its face, a beating heart outside its chest, and above all, a long saliva-covered tongue hanged from its fang-filled mouth.
"What is that hideous . . . thing?" Cortana asked. She was disgusted by the monster's appearance. It was just as ugly as the Flood parasites. It heard her voice and released its grip on the ceiling and dropped down to the floor and hissed at the Spartan with great aggression.
John gave no answer of his own as he prepared himself for battle. He didn't need his weapons to kill this new enemy.
The abomination growled, charged at the Master Chief and latched on to him. He simply shoved it off. Next, it whipped its long tongue at him, but John caught it in his left hand and pulled hard.
This made the beast screech angrily and thrash about, trying to reclaim its appendage, but no luck as its target yanked on the tongue and forced the creature toward him. It suffered four strong and painful punches to the face and was flipped to the ground with a kick to the right side of the head.
The tongue monster tried to free itself from captivity again by slashing at John, but his armor and shields made the attacks look pathetic.
Still gripping the tongue, John decided to end it by lifting the viral creature's entire body high above his own head with both hands and brought it down on his right thigh with force so excessive, the move fractured the monster's side and spinal column, killing it instantly.
"Wow . . ." Cortana commented as John removed the tongue from his hand and let the body drop.
Cortana made a suggestion. "If we're going to confront more enemies like that, we might as well give them identifiable code names. Because of its long tongue, I think we'll call things like that 'Lickers'."
He agreed with her choice and moved on.
As the two made their way throughout the halls, they heard the sounds of gunfire, grunting, and screeching. It sounded like another "Licker" monster was nearby. John had a strong hunch that the gunfire was from the cop he was trying to find.
"That has to be him! Let's go, Chief!"
More gunfire rang out. Cortana and John were getting closer.
Two more zombies interfered and they were killed.
Just as he made it to the hall's door, it burst open fast and in sprang John's protected target Leon.
When he saw the tall, green armored Spartan standing in front of him, he forgot why he ran for a second and stared in surprise.
"Whoa! What the . . .?" he said in shock.
During his distraction, a long and slimy tongue belonging to another Licker creature wrapped itself around one of Leon's ankles, causing him to trip and lose his gun and be dragged away.
The Master Chief pulled out his magnum and fired a shot at the Licker's naked brain. Blood and brain matter splattered from the bullet hole now showing and the monster released its victim and died.
The rookie freed himself from the dead Licker's tongue, got his pistol back and stood up and stared at the Spartan. To him, he looked like a cyborg from a sci-fi movie.
Thanks . . .uh, who are you?" he asked the armored man.
The UNSC member gave his introduction.
"I am Master Chief John-117."
Leon was at a loss for words over his intro, but he let it be.
"Name's Leon S. Kennedy. I'm a police officer of this department. Well, probably the only police officer in the entire building or city by now."
John noticed a dark-red bloodstain on Leon's right arm and pointed to it.
Leon looked at the stain and explained. "It's from a zombie I killed earlier. It jumped me by surprise and had me pinned down. It didn't bite or scratch me, I used my knife to stab one of its eyes out and escape since my gun got knocked out of my hand."
The Chief nodded in belief and after several seconds of silence, Leon broke it when he suddenly remembered something important.
"Excuse me . . . John-117," he said and turned around. "but I'm looking for another survivor, a young woman dressed in motorcycle clothes. Her name's Claire Redfield and I told her to come here. Have you seen her by any chance?" he asked the soldier to which he nodded.
"I have someone keeping her under close protection and please, call me John."
Leon was relieved to hear that Claire was safe and to better his chances of survival, he offered to tag along with the Chief and he accepted. Now Leon had back-up for the rest of the search for Claire in this nightmarish adventure. He hoped he was right about suddenly joining forces with someone he barely met and not some government spy.
Because Leon had taken a tour here previously before the outbreak, he knew his way around the station a little and decided that he should take point. They came up to a gray, steel door and Leon tried opening it, but he failed.
"Unless we have the key to this door, we have no way of getting in." he said. He turned and saw his new ally getting ready to perform something and he immediately stood back.
Using all his Spartan-enhanced strength, John shoulder rammed the locked door down.
Leon whistled in awe from this man's incredible feat and followed him in.
The room was filled with rows of folders containing records that were of no use to them. Among the items there, Leon discovered a brown crank that laid on top of a cabinet. Since there was nothing to boost him up to get it, he asked the Chief to grab it for him and, after inspecting it, Leon kept it just in case.
Leon and John left the room and as they followed the path the Chief came from, he stopped Leon and he asked him why.
The UNSC veteran gave Leon the handgun bullet box he found. Leon put them in his pocket and thanked him.
Soon it was back to the hallway with the boarded up windows. But as the two ventured further, the windows were suddenly breached by pairs of zombie arms and hands, they tried latching onto Leon and John.
"Crap!" Leon was grabbed by three hands, but the Spartan pulled him away. The zombies then broke through the barriers and were now inside with the duo.
Leon fired at one, but after three shots his gun clicked, it seemed he forgot to reload. No time in doing so, he withdrew his combat knife and put his combat training to the test and the Chief removed his machete and mowed down the undead while Leon only killed a couple zombies.
"I sure wish I had your abilities and . . . whatever that is you're wearing on you." said Leon after seeing zombie blood smeared on the walls.
After getting across safely, past the Licker the Chief eliminated which Leon mistook for a live one at first, and to the room John breached in before, they made it to the second floor.
Leon saw a statue and clasped in its right hand was a shiny, red object. Whatever it was, he had a feeling that he may need it.
His thinking on a plan of obtaining the object was halted when he saw his armored sidekick grip the statue's hand and break it off. He took the thing out by force and handed it to Leon.
Amazing Leon thought took said object.
It was a red, Virgin Heart diamond. The statue's plaque read:
"The god of the sun and the god of the moon. Their gaze upon me is the only thing that can release red soul."
Both of them knew nothing of its meaning and moved on.
Leon and his ally were in another hallway filled with gray walls and windows, and a room on the left side with "S.T.A.R.S. Office" written on its door.
With them were three police officer zombies. Leon killed one of them with a pistol shot to the head while John grabbed the other two, each by the front of their messy uniforms, and tossed them out through the windows. Their bodies shattered the glass and they fell a good three stories and crash landed on the concrete ground with a gory splat and a few cracks on the concrete under them.
The officer and the Spartan entered the S.T.A.R.S. room and found it quite amusing. Their were rows of computers on the desks, an old electric guitar sitting on a chair collecting dust, some clean water bottles which Leon helped himself to, and a locker that John opened and found a shotgun just waiting for action.
After Leon quenched his thirst, he noticed a blue book laying on one desk. It said "Chris Redfield's Diary" on the cover.
Leon picked it up and, although he wanted to, he refused to read any of its contents and decided to hold onto it for Claire when he found her. After all, since Claire was related to this Chris Redfield guy, he figured only she had the right to read it.
Where Claire Redfield and Thel 'Vadam were . . .
Claire Redfield took the stairs back down to the lower floor while her new alien buddy simply leaped off the balcony and beat her to the entrance.
Claire wondered who this new guy really was. If she knew, she would be in a bit of a shock.
Before they could proceed further, Thel stopped and turned to the woman.
"What shall I call you?" he asked her.
Baffled by the manner of which he spoke in, she answered.
"My name's Claire Redfield, but call me Claire. Be careful when we enter here, you never know what surprises lay in wait."
Unknown to her for now, Thel 'Vadam really did know what lurked ahead of them. His HUD picked up signs of more zombified humans inside.
He cracked the door open and Claire followed him in.
It was a messy office and inside were about nine zombies wandering aimlessly around minus the already dead body laying in front of the two.
Remembering how the previous zombie foes died from beheadings or heavy blows to their heads, Thel bent over, grabbed the late human's head by the sides and forcefully detached it from the body. Blood leaked everywhere from the gaping neck area.
"Why did you just do that?" Claire asked him. His action grossed her out.
"To prevent it from entering the stage of zombification. I repeated the task on that other corpse back where we confronted the giant abomination. Always assault the head of these infected to annihilate them quickly."
He just barely arrived in Raccoon City and yet he still knew one exact thing: all creatures, living or as of tonight, undead, had a common weak point: the head and brain.
Now Claire knew why that body in the hall went missing. She didn't even have to ask about the fate of the infected crows since she already had it figured out.
The biker and Elite readied themselves to fight the undead. Claire got both her weapons ready to open fire, but she was stopped by the Arbiter when he placed his left arm in front of her.
"Leave this to me." he offered and removed his plasma rifle. "My weapons are built with superior power and will kill them faster."
Claire put her guns down and stood by to watch as Thel 'Vadam raised his weapon and fired. The instant the heated plasma bolts splashed onto a zombie cop's face, it ate away at its head and flesh until it dropped dead. The alien calmly walked around the office and repeated his actions with the others without so much as a peep.
Holy crap! First the bubble dome thing, then the blue bomb, and now this. Where did this guy obtain such incredible technology? she thought.
The Covenant Separatist blasted another zombie in the chest and roundhouse kicked it away, then he stashed his gun away and got out his energy sword handles and activated them. Thel impaled three zombies together like a kabob and slid them off. He then chucked his right blade and the final infected like a tomahawk and pinned it against a wall.
With the zombie homicide over with, Thel retrieved his sword and turned his attention to Claire.
"All clear." he said.
Claire was too shocked by what just happened. She could not move, speak, or even think. Her mouth was agape and her eyes resembled the thousand-yard stare.
Thel was confused by her current state.
"Is there something troubling you?" he asked her.
Finally she snapped out of her mental coma and replied, "What was that?"
"This is not the first time I have battled infected." he stated.
"You . . .dealt with zombies before?" She assumed he was talking about that mansion incident her brother often spoke about the last time he was seen. But unknown to her, by "infected", Thel meant the Flood. She and her police friend didn't need to know about that since she, him, and whoever else still alive in the city would be long dead by the time the Flood parasites exposed themselves and caused havok far worse than this zombie outbreak.
He hesitated for a second before answering her.
"Something like that." he said point blank.
Claire bought it and searched the scattered papers for any information about her brother or this apocalyptic nightmare while the Sangheili gave himself a tour of the room.
She found a couple more handgun clips and stored them in her vest pocket.
With nowhere else to go and, despite what went on earlier, Claire and Thel had no choice but to head back up to the upper floor where the giant attacked her.
Once back outside, Claire carefully and nervously looked at the upper room, fearful that the giant might see them and attack on cue.
"Wait here. I will go and seek out that heathen." Thel offered and used his hoverpack to fly to the rooftop and descended back through the hole. Claire was amazed that he can fly.
Using his helmet's HUD, the alien inspected the hall for the threat and was glad to learn it was nowhere in sight, for now.
He poked his head out one window and gave Claire the "Come" signal with his right hand and within seconds, they regrouped.
"He's gone, huh?" she asked and Thel nodded. They came upon two doors. One was brown and the other was a blue. They took the brown one.
Their new surroundings was yet another hall, only this time it was brighter. Claire and Thel' Vadam walked to its right corner and discovered the nose of the crashed helicopter sticking out from the side of the area and it was nearly blocking the door in front of it.
The air suddenly filled with a random, violent scream. It sounded female. Claire almost jumped out of her wits while her ally remained calm as ever.
After the scream had died out, Claire instructed the alien into the other room.
It resembled an art museum. It was stored with discarded paintings and pottery designs everywhere. Who owned them all?
Up ahead were three wall statues, two of them were carved like women and the third between them looked like a woman dressed in medieval clothing with chains bound around her. From the looks of it, there seemed to be a secret compartment in the statue's breastplate.
Claire did her best to open it, but she failed.
"Hey, can you help me get this open please?" she asked him.
He approached the wall decoration and the Sangheili warrior placed his large hands between the plate's mini doors and pried them open with ease until the doors hinges broke and snapped right off in separate pieces.
Claire was impressed by his accomplishment and took the item from inside.
As the duo were about to depart, the glass dome above their heads shattered and a Licker dropped right inside with them. Even though it was blind, it hissed upon sensing their presence.
"Wait for me outside. I shall deal with this hideous life form alone!" Thel ordered and Claire obeyed.
The Licker spat its deadly tongue at the girl, but was stopped by the Elite, giving Claire precious seconds to make her exit. When she got out, instead of closing the door fully, she cracked it open for a peek of the upcoming fight.
The Licker forgot about Claire and turned its full attention on the armored alien from the future.
Thel 'Vadam, like always, readied for battle. He imagined what witty phrase the late Avery Johnson might have used to describe this beast if he were around. He always liked to crack jokes and use human slang terms several times during the war. He'd probably say something like, "Damn, you are one ugly motherfucker!"
The Licker pounced on the Arbiter and smacked him on the head a bit before its target latched a binding grip onto its throat with his left hand.
As it tried to impale the Sangheili through his concealed face with its tongue, he grabbed the wet appendage with his opposite hand, wrapped it around and yanked on it with god-like strength till it completely tore right out of the monster's mouth.
It bled heavily from this and screeched so loud, Thel 'Vadam silenced the monstrosity by taking the head in both hands and bent it so far back, its neck and esophagus tore open and its blood and vocal cords gashed out.
Even though Claire traveled to Raccoon City on an empty stomach, the sight of how her mystery friend eliminated the monster still made her want to blow chunks badly. She held it together when Thel emerged.
"Are you feeling alright?" he wondered. She answered with a yes and they retreated back the way they came. this time, they took the door to their right.
The next room was empty of life besides them. There was a U-shaped desk with a typewriter on it, two cushion benches, and another doorway ahead with a big box next to it.
Claire went and opened the box. It was a storage container and it housed four handgun magazine clips and one clip for her machine gun. She snatched them all out and put them away. She closed the lid and the pair exited through the new door.
They were now in the balcony of the police department's main office plaza. The enormous room had a dome ceiling with a fancy decoration that reminded Claire of the worldwide famous Michelangelo painting.
Below them on the main floor was a desk with an active desktop computer and a statue of a person donned in ancient era garb holding an instrument-like object.
On the far side of the balcony was an emergency ladder and six police zombies who spotted them and started limping to them.
Thel and Claire ran across to extend the ladder and she flipped its switch and nothing happened.
"Shit!" she muttered and turned to see the infected cops inching closer. She also noticed a circular bronze medal way in the back with a unicorn insignia on its front side.
"You see that bronze medal on the wall behind the zombies, Thel?"
The Elite zoomed in with his HUD and caught a glimpse of the item. "I see it." he said.
Claire continued, "We may need that so can you lower me down so I can inspect that computer and you get it, please?"
He agreed and helped her climb down safely and rushed to kill the zombies and fetch the medal.
Claire raced to the computer and found a message on the screen that read:
DOOR LOCK SERVICE. HALL SIDE DOORS: UNLOCKED.
She didn't know the doors here were locked until now, she didn't even know they were electronically controlled.
"Leon . . ." she said to herself when she figured he was here earlier and had deactivated the locks.
Thel killed the zombies, snagged the unicorn medal and hovered to where Claire stood. She told him that everything here was unlocked the whole time and was handed the medal.
She walked over to the statue and saw that it required the medal on its table in a hole shaped just like it and Claire inserted said medal in.
The statue slid forward toward the survivors and something shiny spit itself out of the instrument.
It was a precinct key with a blue spade on the handle and she grabbed it and put it away.
"Let us go through there." Thel said and pointed to a door with a symbol on it with human writing.
They went with his choice. When she gripped the handle and pulled, she was surprised that it was locked manually.
"Now how are we gonna open this?" Claire wondered.
Like before, Thel 'Vadam told her to stand aside and she watched in curiosity as her masked partner retreated back further and charged at the door like a football tackler. It gave in to his shoulder ram and clattered to the ground.
"Holy crap!" she said in a low tone to avoid alerting any undead that may be inside.
It was yet another office only more messier than the last one.
Uhhh . . .
That groan sounded human rather than a zombie. Upon hearing it, Thel withdrew his plasma gun again.
"I'll handle it. You keep a lookout for any more zombies." she told him.
"Very well." he said back.
While he did as instructed, Claire noticed a trail of blood on the floor that led to a small office corner and she followed it.
When she reached the trail's ending point, she discovered something she'd thought she'd never see: Lying limp next to a desk was another officer, a black male, only he wasn't a zombie, but he did look severely wounded and was coughing up blood.
"Hey, are you alright?" Claire asked the downed man and wanted to aid him.
All forms of help for him came too late because when she inched closer to him, she stopped when he slowly stood up and silently glared at the girl.
What Claire Redfield was next scared the daylights out of her.
The victimized officer started to mutate right in front of her. His skin tone changed to light gray, the pupils in his eyes vanished until the were ghostly white, and his hands and head twitched unnaturally and he let out the exact moan of the virus infected.
Claire Redfield had to face facts, the Raccoon Police Depeartment officer standing before her was no more. He was now a member of the living dead.
The biker worriedly stepped back and raised her gun at the new hostile foe limping toward her with his hands outstretched and his mouth drooling with infected saliva and hunger.
"Stay back! Don't make me pull the trigger on you!" she said to the soulless being.
Thel turned and saw Claire backing away from another zombie. He prepared to slay it, but Claire beat him to it and fired one bullet into the creature's brain and killed it.
Judging by the upsetting look on her face, the alien asked her, "Did you know this hu-person?" He almost used the term "human". He was uneasy about how she would react if he revealed his true form to her or to the one the Master Chief searched for.
His reason for helping her and any other human they may meet in this city was because he carried within himself the guilt from what his people did to the planet the humans in his time period called "Reach", even though he guessed that the human race probably had forgiven his species for their part in the Human-Covenant War.
He also carried the anguish he had toward his deceased former Prophets Mercy, Regret, and Truth, for playing all of his people for saps about the Halo installations, the so-called "sacred rings".
Claire looked at Thel, shook her head, and they left the office quietly.
Here you go. To all who are new, the machete the Master Chief carries is based on one of the scrapped weapons from the beta days of Halo: CE.
The way the Halo characters fought the Lickers is borrowed from the game Aliens Vs. Predator(the 2010 version). The way Thel 'Vadam killed his Licker victim was my own idea. The kill moves the Predators use on the Aliens in the game kicked major ass and I couldn't resist adding them here.
More to come.