Author's Note: Hooha! Finally another new chapter to my Combat Devolved fans after several months of waiting. I'm really sorry everyone. I haven't been able to write as much as I used to. I started my senior year and that's taken a lot of my time away. For those who's been to my FictionPress account, you've seen that I haven't updated my story Intersteller for a long time. Thats because its going through a rewrite. So sorry there as well. I hope this chapter keeps you happy till I can finish the next one... sigh...
10. I Would've Been Your Daddy…
1031 Hours
"That's as far as I can go," Master Chief heard the pilot announce over the intercom.
"Roger that," Cortana replied.
Master Chief opened his eyes finally and saw a semi circular catwalk. The Pelican began to descend and Frank nudged him. "Ready?" he asked, snapping a fresh magazine into his MA5B.
"No." Master Chief whimpered. He grabbed the collar of Franks and pulled in close to whisper in his ear. "I have another confession to make… I'm claustrophobic…"
Frank's blank expression made Master Chief tilt his head.
"Did I say something that offended you?" he asked.
Shaking his head, Frank unbuckled himself from the jumpseat and got up. "No, it's just that I'm not sure how you made it through combat training…"
"Me either," Master Chief jumped up from his jumpseat. "But I'm sure am happy I didn't." They both looked out of the ramp.
"Good luck," the pilot sounded skeptical. "Foehammer out."
"Wha'? Wait!" Master Chief tried to persist, but Vern pushed him out of the way. Master Chief stumbled on the catwalk and watched as the Pelican dusted off and descended deeper into the cylindrical room. He glared at Vern. "Thanks a lot…"
"Hey," Vern shrugged and started to walk towards a lonely hatch. "I would've been your daddy."
Just then, the hatch hummed and opened. Standing in the doorway was a Elite clad in the maroon-ish red armor. It roared loudly and shook its head violently.
"Yeah, yeah… I've seen it all," Vern muttered as he held down the bead of his assault rifle. The Elite's head exploded and splattered purple blood and brain tissue against the wall. The five Grunts standing behind him squeaked and retreated down the tight corridor. "HEY!" Vern shouted, chasing after them and still empting his MA5B of ammunition. "Get back here so I can mow you down!"
Frank looked at Master Chief and sighed. "I guess we better go after him, just in case Mr. Unhurt runs into a Hunter."
They stepped over the mangled body of the dead Elite and went through the hatch, which closed over the Elite with a gruesome crunch. They turned left no sooner had they entered, then took a right, followed again by another left and right.
"My gosh," Master Chief panted through his helmet. "Why couldn't the people that built these halls just make them straight? It'd be much more cheaper, save time, and it'd be good for the environment."
Frank shrugged as the sound of automatic gunfire and Vern swearing loudly echoed through the corridor. "See? What'd I tell ya?"
They ran into the octagonal room where an Elite lay on the ground, it's abdomen completely shredded into pieces. Master Chief cringed as a grenade went off.
"Jackals at one o'clock," warned Frank over their COM. "Careful."
"Got 'em," replied Master Chief as he charged at them, swinging his M6D left and right, smashing the Jackal's temples into their skulls. They collapsed to the floor quickly in a pool of blood.
Vern jumped out in front of Master Chief and shouted, "BOO!"
Master Chief nearly screamed at the top of his lungs as he shot at Vern. The bullet rushed past Vern's head, clipping a single strand of hair and ricocheted off the wall behind him.
"Did you just?" Vern stammered and jerked his head around to look at the small hole in the wall. "Did you just miss me from one foot away?" he asked glancing back at Master Chief.
"I'm so sorry!" Master Chief cried. "I didn't mean to. It just happened all of a sudden."
Frank appeared behind Master Chief's shoulder. "You didn't mean to what; shoot at Vern, or miss him?"
"Uh…" Master Chief thought a moment. "Yeah…"
"The Covenant presence is stronger than I anticipated," Cortana randomly announced. "They seem to have the entire region secure."
"You mean there's gonna be more?" Master Chief sighed. "And I thought there was a lot of Covenant on The Pillar of Autumn."
"Heh, that was nothing," Frank stepped through the hatch and looked back over his shoulder at the other two. "Did I ever tell you about the time I was stationed on Reach?
They took a left, followed by a right turn, and then there was a towering hatch in front of them. Frank went first through the hatch and it led outside, where there was—
"SNOW!" Master Chief exclaimed, pushing Vern out of the way and running to the hatch.
Frank caught Master Chief's wrist and held up a finger to his lips, which he hoped Master Chief would catch on to be silent. Just the same, he whispered, "Shhh!" And standing in front of them was a sleeping Grunt.
Master Chief guffawed to himself. "Whad'dya gonna do with him?" He whispered back.
Holding his MA5B, so the butt was poised above the Grunt's ugly head, Frank swung the assault rifle down and crushed its skull. It didn't utter a word as it fell dead. Master Chief had to plug his nose to keep himself from laughing out loud.
"Go get the rest," Frank muttered, walking towards another sleeping Grunt.
Master Chief went to the next Grunt then he saw that they were standing on a high walkway. He grinned to himself and quickly snatched the Grunt in his hands and threw him over the edge. He heard the faint squeak of a Grunt falling through the air.
Very happy with himself, Master Chief went to another Grunt and swung his MA5B like a golf club. The side of the assault rifle slapped against the environmental suit of the Grunt with a loud bang. The back portion blew off and exploded suddenly. Frank spun around and looked at Master Chief, who was standing beside the burnt corpse of a Grunt, holding his MA5B upside down and high in the air, as if he had clipped a wonderful swing.
"FOUR!" Master Chief hollered just as a big blue plasma round blew up beside him. His head searched the sky for the source of the plasma and saw a Banshee flying towards them. He dropped his arms to his side and ran back towards the hatch, with Frank right behind him.
A male's voice cried out from over the COM. "This is fire team Zulu requesting immediate help from any UNSC forces. Does anyone copy? Over."
Cortana sounded surprised. "I didn't think there was any more human forces on this part of the ring." She linked onto the Battlenet frequency. "Cortana to fire team Zulu, I read you," then she added, "Fire team Zulu, this is Cortana, we're on our way."
There was brief moment of static, then, "Roger that, make it quick."
The Banshee turned tail and began firing upon a Pelican that flew over the walkway. Master Chief climbed up onto the Shade turret and began pumping plasma at the alien aircraft. It changed its course and flew directly at him, preparing a plasma bomb.
"John," Frank screamed, trying to pull Master Chief off the turret. "Fall back!"
An Elite appeared in front of them and laughed just as the Banshee exploded. The pilot inside of the Banshee free-fell until he hit the ground, bounced back up and over the ledge of the walkway. The Elite saw the burning body and turned just about the same time the Banshee crashed, front first into the Elite.
"SWEETNESS!" Master Chief shouted for joy as he jumped to his feet and punched both of his fists into the air. "Got 'em; all me."
"HOOHA!" Frank exclaimed, slapping Master Chief's armored arm in congratulations. "That's the way to do it John!"
Vern peered out of the hatchway. "Is it clear? Is it safe?"
Frank grabbed Vern's arm and yanked him out. "Course its okay. We got John on our side. Now let's get down there and help that fire team Zulu out."
They took off down the walkway, where they encountered a couple more Grunts and Jackals. When they were nearly to the hatch Master Chief saw something he recognized; a gold armor plated Elite.
"RUN!" Vern squealed as he nearly stumbled around to start running back the way they came.
However, Frank chucked a grenade at the Elite, which stuck to its sword-arm. The Elite glared down at his arm, made a loud growl before the grenade exploded, sending the Elite sprawling over the edge and down to the ground fall below.
"Hooha! One Elite down for me," Frank held up his index finger. "Four more to go…" his voice faltered as he looked around. "Where's John?"
Vern stopped running and scoped the place. "Uh-oh… think he was blown over the edge too?"
They both peered over the edge. It was far to long of a way down to tell the twisted shapes from human to alien.
"Nah," Frank shook his head as he began searching for Master Chief. "If he had, we would've heard him."
"Hey-loo?!" they heard John's voice sing out below them. They looked at each other, each had an eyebrow raised. "Is there anyone up there? I'm down here… on the landing below you!"
They both let out a loud breath as they glanced down through the shattered glass and saw Master Chief waving. "How do I get up there?" he asked.
"I'll get him," Frank muttered as he left Vern standing alone on the top walkway. He went down the ramp and found Master Chief, alive and well. They went back up and went through the next hatch and through the windy corridors. Eventually they arrived at another hatch.
"Careful," warned Frank. "I got a feeling that something we might not like might be on the other side of this hatch."
Vern nodded, as did Master Chief, although a little reluctant. They stepped closer to the hatch, Frank first, followed by Master Chief, then Vern brought up the rear. The hatch parted and opened, granting them entrance.
Frank looked about the entry and didn't see anything suspicious so he took another step and saw a Grunt disappear behind a wall. He pointed over there, which told the others that he had seen a contact, before he took a couple more steps and looked into the main room. There was complete silence, and Master Chief could hear the sound of his own heartbeat. Suddenly Frank pulled the trigger of his M6D, which he held steady in his hand. The muzzle flashed and the bullet found its target; an invisible Elite.
The alien didn't utter one sound as it collapsed to its knees and keeled over sideways. Grunts screamed and pointed at the dead Elite, unbeknownst to them that there were three UNSC soldiers in the same room. Frank smirked at the other two and nodded, holstering his M6D at his side and withdrew his assault rifle.
The other two did likewise and waited for Frank to finish his three second countdown. When he got to one, all three of them stood up and opened a relentless salvo of automatic gunfire.
Master Chief ran down the left side of the room, laughing his head off as he ran past Grunts, shooting them down and bashing their skulls. He found some dead bodies of UNSC marines and a couple of frag grenades. He snatched those up, as well as some ammunition for his pistol, which was running low.
There was a loud reverberating boom behind him as a shower of debris from the wall fell on him. He turned around and saw a Hunter charging at him.
Quickly, at a record speed of a half a split-second, Master Chief had exchanged his MA5B to his M6D pistol and fired a single bullet through the back of the Hunter. As it fell, Master Chief remembered something. Usually when there was one Hunter, there was usually a second—
"HUNTER!" Vern cried. "JOHN!!"
Master Chief sprinted for the rescue of his companions and ran into the main room where a Hunter was charging at the cowering marine. Master Chief let out four shots with his pistol, each one found their target and the Hunter fell.
"Wheew!" Vern got up and wiped his brow. "And I thought I was gonna die." He went over to the Hunter and began shooting at its weak spot with his MA5B, causing the orange fluid to splatter everywhere. "How ya like that, huh punk?! You don't get anywhere against the Hunter hunter."
"Let's just keep on going," Frank muttered and they left the room. A couple of minutes later they found themselves on an elevator. Master Chief was about to press the button to the main floor (ground-level) when Frank tapped the lowest one. He looked at the marine and huffed. Frank shrugged. "We're going down."
"Now that sounded wrong," Vern commented.
Frank looked at Vern. "You sounded wrong."
"You sounded—"
The sound of buttons being pressed caught their attention. They both looked over at Master Chief, who was pressing every button on the elevator.
"Ohh… crap," was the only word that Frank could find to say that was appropriate for this story.
When he was finished, Master Chief took a step back and admired what he had done. "Doesn't it look great? It kind looks like a… like a… like a…"
"Like a long boring ride down an elevator…" Vern sighed as he sat down on the ground and began muttering.
"Ohh… c'mon," Frank tried to sound optimistic. "At least we have each other…"—Master Chief looked at him—"… still…"—Vern looked up and shook his head—"I'll shut up now," Frank smiled, hoping that the other two would forget he even said that.
Two hours, and who knows how many stops later, they arrived on the bottom floor and they stepped off the elevator. It wasn't long before they found themselves outside, where the ground was covered in snow. No sooner had they been outside a large blue plasma mortar flew overhead and crashed someplace to their right.
"That must be where those other marines are at," Frank suggested. They ran off in that direction, ready for fight with their comrades to the end.
They reached the camp where three more marines fought with everything thing they had, including Covenant weapons. But for some reason, they left a rocket launcher and sniper rifle lying in the snow. Master Chief gladly traded his weapons for them.
Master Chief made sure that there was a rocket inside the SPNKr rocket launcher before he fired a rocket at a Ghost flying in his direction. The rocket blasted out of the end of the rocket launcher and struck the snow-covered hill in front of the Ghost, the explosion caused it to flip backwards and crash on top of the Elite. The three other marines that were there turned and cheered, just as a plasma mortar crashed into the trees above them.
Frank pulled up in a Warthog and told Master Chief to get in. Vern was sitting on the passenger's side seat, fiddling with his iPod, so Master Chief climbed up onto the back of the Warthog. He tried to find the seat belt to strap him to the turret so he wouldn't fall out, but he couldn't find one.
"Oh crap," Vern muttered, as he put his headphones into his ears. "I got less than 20 percent battery life left on my iPod… I knew I shoulda charged it last night…"
Frank revved the car and it shot forward across the snowy field. Seconds later they were approaching a large blue bulb. It turned to face them before it fired a fiery hot plasma mortar in their direction. Frank barely had time to swerve out of the shell's path and slid across ice that the bulb hovered. The blast shook the ground so much that Master Chief lost his grip on the turret's handlebars and landed in a bank of snow.
He climbed out, brushing the snow off his armor so it wouldn't rust. Then he picked up his weapons, putting the S2 AM sniper rifle on his back and hefting the SPNKr rocket launcher on his right shoulder. He aimed it at the Wraith and fired off two rockets. They found their target and exploded. The force of the blast sent Master Chief flying back into the snow bank.
He didn't know how long it was till Frank and Vern pulled up to the snow in the Warthog with the other three marines. But they eventually sat him up and began checking to see if he was alive.
"John!" he heard someone say, probably Frank. "John! JOHN! Are you OK?"
"Course he's all right," he heard someone else say. He was one hundred percent sure that this one was Frank. "It's the Hunter hunter."
Now Master Chief was confused. Frank wasn't too concerned about his wellbeing, but he never called him Hunter hunter, that was Vern. But Vern was the one who was concerned about his wellbeing. He opened his eyes, but everything was black. He shook his head and moaned.
"Dude… that hurt," he said, as he got to his feet. "Where's mom?"
"What the heck is he talking about?" he heard a marine ask.
The black finally brightened and Master Chief found himself staring at Frank. "Hey, man, did my pizza ever arrive?"
Frank slapped his shoulder and chuckled. "Yup, he's fine. Mount up. There's some more marines not that far from here. We need to rendezvous with them."
Master Chief stumbled over to the Warthog and got onto the driver's side. He checked the blinkers and side view mirrors before starting the vehicle. They went over a little ledge and landed on some ice. The Warthog slided across the ice, while Master Chief steering right. Ahead of them was a Scorpion tank, a downed Pelican and several marines shooting at some Covenant soldiers.
"Go! GO! GO!" Frank urged, as he began to shoot at the Covies with the turret.
There were three more marines here, and several Grunts and Elites had pinned them down. Master Chief drove over the hill that the marines were stuck on, and splattered several Covenant. Vern cheered as his favorite song came on his iPod.
It didn't take long to wipe out the rest of the Covenant soldiers there, with the death of only one marine. When the area was secure, Master Chief hopped out of the Warthog and climbed into the Scorpion. He had always wanted to drive one of those. He admired the control panel, which no one's ever seen before.
Four marines, including Frank and Vern climbed up on the side of the Scorpion while the other three got into the Warthog.
"Lets go wipe out s'more Covies!" Frank hollered. "HOO-HA!"
It took Master Chief a second to figure out how to move forward, but before long he was leading the group through a tunnel. At the end of the tunnel Cortana hailed him. "The Covenant placed their tanks to defend the entrance to the tunnel."
Master Chief turned left and went around a cliff edge and blew up a Ghost approaching them. The Covenant Wraith was to their right and it fired a fiery hot plasma mortar at them. It missed of course, so Master Chief fired a rocket shell at it and got a direct hit. When he tried to fire another shot, the computer told him it was reloading. The Wraith got another round off before Master Chief could fire again. But it missed again, but hit a Ghost coming in behind them. When Master Chief fired again, the shell hit the Wraith and it exploded in flames.
"That armor wasn't so tough after all," Vern mocked. "Now let's mop up the rest of them."
Two seconds later the Covenant blockade of Shade turrets and Ghosts were piles of strewn wreckage and metal and Master Chief and the driver of the Warthog had complete access to the entrance of the tunnel. As they went down the sloping entrance, two Hunters came running up. Master Chief fired off a shell and it blew them away.
Suddenly a green plasma bomb whizzed past the Scorpion and exploded not far from them. Master Chief turned the tank around and saw a Banshee flying directly at them. He aimed and fired. The Banshee blew up in a ball of fire and crashed on the ground.
At the bottom of the entrance, a blast door had been closed shut. Master Chief hopped out of the Scorpion, tapped the panel to unlock the door, then climbed back into the Scorpion. Continuing forward, Master Chief turned right, then left, then right again as they went deeper and deeper into the tunnel.
'Why don't they just make it straight?' He wondered as they came up on two unsuspecting Covenant Elites sentries. He fired a rocket and they went flying over the edge of the walkway ahead.
As he entered the massive domed enclosure, the marines in the Warthog rushed past him and drove across a bridge to the left, the marine on the turret brought down several Jackals and Grunts. But what the driver didn't expect was to see two Hunters waiting at the end of the bridge with their massive guns charged. The massive beasts fired and blasted the Warthog over the edge of the bridge and down into the void below.
Master Chief was riding up behind them, and the second the Warthog was out of the scene, he fired a shell at them and they fell to the ground. Driving a tank was so much fun, Master Chief decided that he wouldn't never ever want to drive a Warthog ever again.
They reached another shut door, so Master Chief hopped out the Scorpion once more and tapped the panel. The door opened up and they went through. And to his dismay, the tunnel turned right, then left, then right again.