Hey everyone, sorry this chapter took a little longer to get to you then it should have (especially considering it has been written for a while and just needed proof reading). I've just been busy getting ready to go off to college in a few weeks among other things now that I am back home from my two year mission trip. Anyway enough rambling a excuses. Now the plot begins to thicken. As per usual please remember to rate, review, and above all else, enjoy.

Chapter 9: Belly of the Beast

Aaron's ship descended into the American ruins, Chicago area. Aaron landed the ship in an old stadium.

"Can you believe what happened here?" Rex said as he and Aaron exited the ship.

"Don't worry Rex, the darkness will get what's coming to it. It'll pay for this destruction."

"Oh I know that, I was talking about the stadium. In 2016 the Cubs won the world series and broke their losing curse from the Billy goat." Aaron laughed as he summoned his sparrow in front of him.

"Remind me to ask you about that story when we get home." Rex disappeared from sight as Aaron mounted his sparrow and took off out of the stadium.

Aaron rode across the ruined landscape of Chicago, beyond the city limits and across the barren fields that remained. He traveled for about 5 minutes before he came to the base of a large hill. Aaron left his sparrow to dematerialize as he began to scale the hill. Once at the top he looked down the other side to see the warehouse as well as a buzz of Fallen around it.

"Well this looks fun." Aaron said quietly as a few skiffs decloaked and came to a stop in front of the warehouse. Fallen filed out of the skiffs, all of them carrying arm fulls of scrap metal and electrical supplies.

"What the hell are they up to?" Aaron asked.

"If I recall that's what we're here to find out. Of course we have to get inside to do that. Any Bright Ideas?" Rex said.

"I don't know, we got any nukes?" Rex looked at Aaron in a ghosts equivalent of an irritated scowl. "What? It's a legitimate question." Rex remained silent. "You just want to suck the joy out of everything don't you?"

Aaron watched the Fallen buzz around the warehouse for a few minutes. Finally he smiled and he summoned his sparrow behind him.

"Rex I want you to dematerialize the sparrow when the Fallen get close to it."

"What's your plan?"

"We give them some scrap."

Aaron pushed the sparrow and it started to slowly float down the hill toward the warehouse. I caught the eyes of the Fallen quickly and they all turned their attention to the marvelous piece of technology. Meanwhile Aaron quickly made his way down the hill, using piles of rubble to cover him. As Aaron reached the warehouse the Fallen approached the sparrow as it vanished from existence.

Aaron quickly ran to an open door. As he did a dreg guard spotted him. Before it could even yell or shoot Aaron wrapped his arm around its neck and spun it around into a choke hold. Aaron ducked into the open door and grabbed the dreg's shoulder with his free hand and in one swift motion the titan snapped the dregs neck and dropped it's corpse to the dirt.

Aaron turned toward the middle of the warehouse and his heart skipped a beat at what he saw. Hidden inside the warehouse was a Fallen Ketch with banners and symbols denoting the House of Kings. The Fallen were moving the supplies and scrap into the ketch.

"What the hell are they doing in there?" Aaron asked.

"How did they get the ketch in here? " Rex asked.

"We need to get in there and figure out what they're doing." Aaron said as he started moving toward the ketch.

"Are you not wondering how they got a ketch in here without breaking the building? Rex said.

Aaron ignored his ghost and moved through the shadows to the main platform of the ketch. Staying as quiet as possible, Aaron climbed up the platform and hugged the wall as he moved into the ketch.

Once inside the ketch Aaron drew his Ironwreath and paused for a moment. Aaron took a moment to look at the pistol and the thought of Jewel flashed through his mind.

"I'll be back baby. I promise."

Aaron took sidearm as well a knife he kept above his mark in hand and made his way through the halls of the ketch.

"Rex see if you can figure out where they're taking all the supplies." Rex floated over to a small console on the wall.

"Give me some time, the Fallen language is tricky."

"Then I guess it's good you've been taking lessons from Variks."

Aaron heard commotion from one of the side halls causing him to fall silent. Aaron rushed to the corner of the hall and listened as the Fallen approached. He waited till he could hear them breath after which he took the knife and he turned the corner and plunged the blade into a dreg's throat. Quickly Aaron raised Ironwreath and with two quick shots he dropped two more dregs. Aaron pulled the knife from the first dreg and it fell to the ground limp. Aaron returned to Rex and the ghost led him down some more halls and up into some upper sections of the ketch. Soon they came to a door which opened into a sort of operations room that overlooked a larger room. Aaron made quick work of the two vandals inside and then stepped up to the windows.

"Oh shit." Was all Aaron could say.

The room below was a factory of sorts. The Fallen were mass producing spider walkers and skiffs of different kinds.

"Rex can you figure out what's going on here?"

"Let's see." Rex said as he access the computers. After a few moment Rex pulled up projections of schematics.

"Alright, somekind of new walker. 8 legs with heavier armor then a spider walker. 2 main cannons, 2 shock pods, 4 Gatling guns 2 in front and 2 in back, and 2 skiff turrets in front. Has more armor, better control and can climb walls."

"So basically hell on legs. What about the skiffs."

"Well let's see. One is made to transport up to 2 walkers at once. Another is built strictly for combat and is effective for anti-ground and anti-air. The last is made for bombing and sieging positions."

"Shit. Rex copy those files. We need to get back to the tower now."

Suddenly the door to the operations room opened. Aaron spun around to see two more vandals standing there. One started shooting while the second triggered an alarm. Aaron grabbed his Red Specter off his back and quickly took the vandals out.

"Damn it! Rex do you have the files?"

"Almost…..got it. Lets go."

Aaron took off sprinting through the halls of the ketch killing any fallen that got in his way. In a matter of minutes Aaron was back to the door he first used to enter the warehouse and he burst out only to be met by increased fire. Aaron ducked behind some rubble and started to fight back.

"Rex take remote control of the ship and fly it over here."

Aaron continued to fight off the fallen. However there were so many they were constantly moving in on him, Soon Aaron heard the roar of his ship's engines. Looking over his shoulder Aaron saw his vessel soaring toward him. As the ship approached Aaron left his cover and began to run for his ship, however, a red laser pointed at the ship and suddenly there was a loud BOOM and the left side of the ship was destroyed. The blockade runner faltered and fell from the sky, crashing down to the ground in front of him. The ship exploded and flung the titan away, slamming him into the ground.

Aaron slowly opened his eyes as the pain in his head along with his vision started to clear. Ringing in his ears being the only thing he could hear Aaron looked around to see fallen all around him. He saw one of the experimental walkers in the warehouses large main doorway, it's twin barrels smoking. Meanwhile he saw one captain walked up to him with a sword. When the captain got close however there was a loud fallen yell the cut through the ring and caused all the fallen to back away.

A large fallen approached Aaron. When it came up to him it knelt down and looked at him for a time. After a few seconds it stood and yelled something else to the fallen around it. The captain walked back up to Aaron but this time it raised it's foot above Aaron's head.

"Son of a bitch." Was all he said before the world went dark.

Hey hope you enoyed. Hopefully I will be able to think about how I need to get the rest of the chapters (which are pretty much all written already) edited when I'm not busy or trying to fall asleep so you can finish the story after 2 years of dely. Funny story about this chapter though, when I wrote it originally Rex talked about how the Cubs never won the world series ever since the billy goat incident. However in 2016 the Cubs did manage to win the world series so I had to come back and change that detail. Just thought some of you might enjoy that little look into the writing process.