Chapter 10: The Guardians
(Couldn't find anything on sites that could help me with the Forerunner's original language. So I had to create my own.)
Samus somersaulted in the air and landed behind an elite when she landed she had grabbed the elite's forehead and two mandibles on its mouth. She twisted violently, snapping the elite's neck with a sickening crunch sound.
The orange X parasite ejected out of the elite's now dead body and hovered in air for a moment before being absorbed by Samus.
An Elite; that was using the cloaking tech, snuck up behind Samus and drew out his energy sword. He raised the sword high in the air and propelled it down towards Samus's helmet!
Samus's suit's proximity detectors picked up the movement and when she turned around she saw a sword made of plasma being swung down at her. She fully powered her shields as the sword was about to make contact with her suit.
As the sword got barely two inches from her helmet; the sword stopped hovering in the air above her head. She looked up at the Elite and saw that its right eye had been shot straight out from its socket and all that was left was a burning gaping hole.
The goo of the X parasite seeped out of the hole and started to trickle down the dead Elite corpse. As it slid down the corpse it started to burn up its body slowly dissipating away. The corpse fell onto the ground next to Samus, "That was a bit close…" Chief stated.
He pulled a glowing orange clip and he loaded it into the gun's empty cartage loader. "Thanks for the save…but, I didn't need the help my shielding was at full power."
Samus responded. Chief nodded skeptically and aimed his gun at the last remaining Sangheili, he pulled the trigger and another blinding flash of orange light shot out from the nozzle of the gun.
The beam of energy went straight through the Elite's neck; which caused its spinal column to dissipate and cut the body's response to the controlling brain/X. The Sangheili dropped to the floor and its head twitched as the X phased out of the dead host.
Samus walked over to the X and grabbed it, letting the X squirm in her grasp as it tried to break free of its imminent demise. The X's goo went limp; having no energy left to try and brake free, as it was started being absorbed by her hand.
Chief watched this process curious as to what it felt like to absorb one of those things. "Okay, before anything else happens. Samus what do you know about these parasites?" Cortana questioned.
Samus looked at Chief and sighed slightly. "That's a story…I don't like to talk about…" She stated sadly. She looked down and started to tell a bit about how she came into contact with the X parasites.
"A couple weeks or so before I found your ship I was on a mission to protect some scientists gathering stuff on the planet SR388, which was the planet that Metroids called their home until I exterminated all of them. During the job we found a strange red, orange, and blue toad-like creature; when we came close it shot acid like spit at are feet." Samus told.
"I told them to stand back while I handled this creature. I stepped towards it and aimed my cannon at the toad thing, when I got as little a meter or so from the thing it lowered itself closer to the ground. It jumped high in the air and was going to spit its acid saliva at me, I aimed my cannon at it and fired blowing its body into chunks. But, when I did a blob of free floating orange goo emerged out of its remains,"
"I aimed my cannon at this thing and fired five shots at it. But, the shots just phased right through the blob. It lunged at me and phased inside of my body, but I was able to resist the X's influence… at least until I got into my ship. I passed out and ended up crashing my old ship into an asteroid." She continued.
Samus then started to tell about her recent job she did; which happened to be just a week and a half ago, was the job that she learned about the X more and how that the X also corrupted her suit parts and repaired her old suit and was using it against her.
As she spoke John didn't think she was telling him the full story, as there were some large gaps in her story. For instance, she told how she used her ship's onboard computer to help her by using the station's she was on main computers, then telling about how she found and rescued the animals from the habitat enclosure they were being held in.
Chief wanted to know more of this mission; out of curiosity of course… ah curiosity the one fatal flaw that no amount of D.N.A. altering and training can ever get rid of a human being. But, he had a feeling that something about that mission really affected her and made her not want to talk about it.
Cortana looked at Samus, "Okay…so they are able to take over any organic and any non-organic materials?" Cortana asked.
Samus nodded slightly, "Yeah, and if a large number of them are absorbed into one host body that host body will become much, much stronger. And when you kill that host body they will have formed a large X core inside of a hardened crystallized spiked casing." Samus explained.
"Well, that is good to know. The more you know about your enemy the better…but now after she explained it…these X parasites remind me all too well of the Flood…" Chief thought to himself.
He and Samus sauntered through the hallway that the infected Covenant X forces came through. They approached a large door that had symbols on them that were in the Forerunner language. "Cortana, are you able to translate those symbols?" He asked.
"No, I am sorry Chief but I cannot translate these symbols. They seem to be an ancient form of Forerunner writing."
Cortana answered.
"Right, in that case Samus and I are going to look around inside the room." Chief informed her.
Samus and Chief entered the room and saw large pillars going all around a large podium with a holographic control panel and the walkway leading to it. Samus and Chief walked down the walkway looking at the pillars, wondering what purpose they could have served in this room.
They walked up the stairs leading up to the holographic panel and when they got up there the hologram flashed an "Activate" text on it. John holstered his light rifle and approached the console.
"Cortana, could this be a control console that connects or relates with the jammers?" Chief asked.
"Well, it is a possibility. But, I am not getting any readings on what this console does exactly." Cortana warned.
Chief nodded and held his hand over the activation control. He placed his hand on the activation control and it made a "whooshing" sound as in front of them two arks raised from the balcony overlooking the valley outside of the facility. When it was fully raised it activated a portal; which sent a signal through John's waypoint system updating the waypoints making them indicate to go into the warp gate.
The console lowered into the paneling below it; its purpose now completed. When it lowered completely a voice on the speakers of the facility spoke.
The voice over the speakers spoke in what sounded like the Forerunner's native tongue, "Shinko, Shinko, Friklonk Trylier kekeon aki prothieknle guarikds li facuklties!" It exclaimed. Just then some kind of android entities appeared out of nowhere on every pillar in the room.
"Cortana…what did that voice say…?" Chief asked.
"Uh…okay here we go. I just managed to translate it: it said "Warning…warning, intruder alert activating Promethean guardian in all facilities." She explained.
"Well…this isn't going to go well…" Chief stated as he pulled out his light rifle and Samus aimed her arm cannon.