Our Land, Their Blood
The Squad
Abandoned Apartment Complex Near Mahora Academy
One hour after drop
"The Scarab is priority one. It has to die before they're even aware that we're here, or we're all dead."
No one argued the point.
On the top floor of the building, a portable holoprojector was set up displaying the entrenched Covenant positions. The focus of the floating image was the crouching, currently inactive Scarab, butted up against the side of another apartment complex three buildings down from the currently-inhabited one. Gathered around the strategy meeting were the members of Three-Alpha-Six; except for Cynthia; Chao, Kelly, Fred, Lucy, and Chachazero. Two other squads of ODSTs and thirty marines were scattered throughout the building, keeping watch on the enemy and guarding the entrances to their building.
"The best entry point is here," Fred remarked, pointing to where one of the legs of the Scarab had smashed through the building it was resting against, disappearing inside the wrecked structure. "We can get aboard from the leg, slip down inside it, and take out the reactor that way."
Chihiro observed the hologram intently, pacing around it to get a full view of the most imposing enemy target on the field. "That's certainly the quickest way, but doing it like that will skyline us to the enemy."
"You have another idea?" Kelly asked, sincerely rather than cynically.
He nodded and stopped at the rear of the projection, facing the backside of the Scarab and the building it butted up against. "They've got no guards back here, no defenses," he said, pointing to the corner of the building nearest the Scarab, only a ten meter distance. "It's sitting a bit off the ground, so we send in everybody who can fly by any means. They take out the crew nice and quiet-like, then no more Scarab."
"Bold," Johnathan appraised. "They won't expect that."
Fred nodded in agreement. "Very well, we'll do it that way. The assault force will consist of…" He looked around, taking in who was wearing thruster packs and who wasn't. "Lucy, Chihiro…"
"I can fly," Akio pointed out, knowing that Fred wasn't aware of exactly what he was.
"So can I, with my artifact," Johnathan added.
At this, Cheryl shook her head. "No, that'd be more suited for a direct assault against the enemy, rather than sneaking around on the Scarab." She looked toward the Chinese fire mage. "Chao, you've got an anti-gravity unit on your armor, don't you?"
She nodded. "But I can also use my temporal powers to blink-step onto the Scarab as well-ne. I'll go with the infiltration team as well."
Fred looked around, waiting to see if anyone else would speak up, then said, "Very well, that's our Scarab team. Lucy, Murakami, Sakurazaki, and Lingshen."
Seated on Lucy's shoulder, the marionette Chachazero bloodthirstily remarked, "Ahh, more throats to cut!" as the puppet rocked back and forth, scissoring the twin combat knives together in anticipation.
Fred didn't even bat an eye at the psychotic puppet, instead continuing, "The rest of us will get into position to start our assault as soon as the Scarab threat is removed. Linda, Rivale, you two still there?"
"Despite their best efforts," Cynthia dryly responded.
"Read you, Blue One," Linda answered.
"Right, I'm going to need you two to pick off as many of the heavy emplacement weapons as you can as soon as you see that Scarab go off. We can handle a lot of the vehicles on the ground ourselves, but those heavy weapons are going to be what kills us."
"Don't worry, we've got you covered," Linda assured.
Alysia reached forward to the controls of the holographic plate, zooming the view out to show a wider area. "That convoy of armor from the 506th is still inbound, and a Sangheili assault force is making their way toward us. They should be here by the time we've neutralized the Scarab, so we'll have a sizable assault force to take the academy with."
"Not exactly fair, is it?" Akio asked, chuckling, as he crossed his arms.
Fred looked at him a bit funny. "Maybe forty of us and six tanks against over a hundred mixed Covenant vehicles, a heavily-fortified building, and over a thousand ground troops? No, I wouldn't exactly call that fair."
The half-demon grinned. "I meant not fair for them."
Chuckling, the Spartan nodded and picked up his assault rifle. "Yeah, today's a bad day to be an alien."
"Alien basterd," Chihiro corrected off-hand, loading a new clip of needles into his needle rifle.
"Either way, dead is still dead," Johnathan said as Alysia switched off the holoprojector and the group split up to their separate taskings.
The infiltrator quartet waited for the others to head toward the front of the building, then made their way down a rear stairwell toward the back. Chihiro stepped out first into the alley, sweeping either direction with his needle rifle. Finding it clear, he stalked purposely forward, moving slowly and methodically in case a threat showed itself. Chao, Lucy, and Akio moved into the alley behind him, maintaining an omnidirectional awareness and range of firepower should any be needed.
As they moved, a pair of Banshees hurtled over the alley at rooftop level, the gravity pods mounted to their wingtips screaming in overboost as they moved to some distant engagement. In the relative quiet of the alley, the quartet could hear the distant roar of jet engines, both of the kind from the aircraft that the Crusader pilots had flown and of a distinct pitch that they didn't recognize.
"This is Steel Gunner," the platoon commander of a unit of Scorpions reported over the battlenet. "We're going to take back our spaceport. Ravens, we could sure use some cover."
According to data scrolling over the HUDs of the Spartan and two troopers, Steel Gunner was a tank platoon assigned to the 506th, as would be every other Scorpion on the field, all deployed from the Yamato. Raven was the fighter squadron aboard the ship, while Crusader was the ground attack aircraft squadron whose pilots had helped the squad earlier.
Calling up more information to overlay in transparency over his direct view ahead, Chihiro remarked, "Man, Crusaders, those guys were flying A-10s. A-10s are ancient as all hell. Like, 21st century stuff, man."
"Colonel's got a taste for antiques," Akio responded, carefully scanning the back windows of the buildings along the right side of the alley.
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," Chachazero pointed out, sitting on top of Lucy's helmet and idly observing the group's surroundings.
"I saw many A-10s in action during the Unification War-ne," Chao added, turning backwards occasionally to watch their rear. "As ground support aircraft, they're devastatingly-effective, and now even moreso since Evangeline has modified them with my 'hammerspace' system to give them effectively-unlimited ammunition-yo."
"Heheh, the air force is gonna be busy then," Chihiro murmured, flipping his visor over to threat assessment to be alerted to any Covenant surprises left in the alley.
"The enemy Phantoms are turning," Cynthia reported. "Must be diverting elsewhere. The capitol sector's getting rolled with a big mechanized force from the 506th and Delta Company, so they're probably heading there."
"Copy, Four," Alysia responded. "Keep us updated."
Approaching the end of the alley, Chihiro slowed his pace to a crawl and pressed himself up against the back wall of the building, moving ever more carefully now that they were nearly to their objective. He stopped just short of where the corner of the building had collapsed under the Scarab's leg, and the others stacked up on him. Slipping a fiber optic cable out of a pouch in his armor, he snaked the device around the corner and observed the enemy heavy armor.
"Yep, figures. They've got a grunt on the back plasma cannon, and he seems to be paying attention. Any ideas?"
"I'll handle it-yo," Chao said, then vanished in a static flicker.
A moment passed, then Akio reached out his left hand and poked at the air where her shoulder would've been had she simply turned on an active camouflage unit. "Nope, she's really gone," the hanyou pronounced.
It was only a moment more before the fire mage's voice crackled over their radios, "Back ramp clear-yo. Move up."
Stepping out of the corner, Chihiro aimed his rifle down the side of the building to cover the others as they made the short dash to the Scarab. He waited until the green acknowledgment light flashed in his HUD, then stood from his crouch and ran into the massive weapon's shadow. The deck was level with his chest, and so he tossed his weapon up to Chao, then pulled himself up and onto the enemy vehicle. As he rolled back to his feet, he glanced down at the dead grunt that had manned the plasma cannon, its head nearly severed by whatever Chao had done to it, luminous blue blood pooling on the deck.
"We're aboard," he reported back over the battlenet as Chao passed him back the needle rifle. "Stand by."
Lucy stood by the ramp, covering it with her assault rifle. Lifting her off-hand from the weapon, she gestured to her visor, pointed up the ramp, then shook her head. No contact, and no idea of hostile force strength. She tapped her own chestplate, then nodded her head up toward the ramp as she replaced her hand on her weapon.
Nodding in response to her offer to go up top, Chihiro then turned to Chao, pointing to her, then himself, then down toward the command center of the Scarab, currently protected by an energy shield. She nodded, and then Akio made an 'over-the-top' gesture with his left hand to indicate that his plan was to fly up to the upper deck from outside, to catch any hostiles up there in a flank between him and Lucy.
As Chao and Chihiro moved down to deal with the shield, and Lucy and Chachazero crept up the ramp, Akio moved back toward the edge of the bay, slinging his battle rifle up to rest vertically up his spine. With a murmured key phrase, he unsealed his demonic side, his wings bursting out through specially-designed openings in his armor with a whisper of ruffled feathers. "Mea Ensis," he deadpanned, holding his right hand out to his side. It was only a few moments before Yuunagi found its way into his hand from wherever it had been left waiting.
Now properly armed, he launched himself up with a single downbeat of his wings, lifting himself up to the middle deck of the Scarab, its armor-protected reactor core off his left. The grunt manning the plasma cannon spotted him, and as it swung its turreted weapon around toward him, he launched forward, impaling the creature's throat at the tip of his blade and shoving it backwards off the weapon even as he himself landed squarely on the deck.
Ahead, a brute looking in his direction snarled and reached for its weapon, but a body-check from Lucy slammed it against the hull of the Scarab, where Chachazero descended upon it from above, blades first. Blue-red blood splashed across the deck as the murderous puppet carved out a significant chunk of its throat, and then Lucy threw it to the deck, leaving it to die slowly as she nudged its weapon away with her boot.
He pulled his blade from the dead grunt, flicking his wrist to free it of the alien's luminous blue blood, and turned to walk around the rear of the second deck to reach the other side. A jackal coming around the opposite corner reared back in shock, then started to bring its plasma pistol into line. Akio rolled forward as soon as he saw it, coming up in a seated crouch within reach. His left arm shoved its shield aside as his right drove Yuunagi halfway down its length into the alien's chest.
Jackals always came in pairs or more. He rose up quickly, kicking the dead or dying alien from his blade in time for a bolt of plasma to strike his chestplate. The magically-treated armor withstood the shot, but he knew that the protection offered was limited. Behind the jackal was another brute, this one armed with a plasma rifle. That weapon would surely shred through his armor, magical enhancement or not. As the brute raised its weapon toward Akio and the jackal, not even caring that it was just as likely to hit its subordinate, Lucy dove onto its back, gripping the side of its helmet as she drew her knife with her other hand, the blade glinting in the afternoon light. At the same time, Chachazero dashed past the brute, drawing her own not-inconsiderable blades back behind her as she leapt up and slammed into the back of the jackal's head, amplifying her own laughable mass with inertia to bear it to the ground. She raised her blades and spun them to face down, then impaled the back of the jackal's skull with them.
This particular brute was proving tougher than the average alien, its frantic pitching motions in an attempt to dislodge Lucy preventing her from sinking her knife into any of its sweet spots. Numerous slash and partial stab wounds tattooed its throat, the right side of its helmet bearing an equal number of blade scars, testament to her efforts to down the beast. Finally, it managed to get one meaty paw onto the arm she was holding onto it with, wrenching her free and turning to toss her over the side of the Scarab. It continued facing that direction in order to watch her fall, a fatal mistake.
Jumping over Chachazero and the dead jackal, Akio struck at the brute's knees, the wide sweep of Yuunagi biting into flesh unprotected, hamstringing the beast. As it dropped to its knees, he spun the blade in his grip to reposition it, then drove it forward, piercing the back of its neck and continuing on to burst out of the front of its throat. Just as swiftly, he ripped his blade free, spilling blood and gore over the deck, then turned to see that Lucy had managed to halt her freefall with her jetpack, and was now rising back up to the middle deck.
"Top deck secure," the hanyou reported into the radio.
"Copy," Chihiro answered. "We've breached and cleared the control room. Stand by."
In the silence that ensued, the trio moved back to the core area of the Scarab, dragging the bodies with them to conceal their presence from the enemy still on the ground. From their vantage point, they had a clear view across the bowl-shaped terrain that was the city of Mahora, giving them a cross-section of the massive battle being waged. Smoke from fires and explosions hung in the air over the city, casting a pall cloud broken by the distant tiny forms of allied and enemy aircraft, both dueling with one another and attacking targets on the ground. One of the fighters from Raven Squadron, a design unknown to Akio, peeled out of the smoke cloud toward an oncoming group of a dozen Banshees. Even given the speed advantage of the human fighter, the numbers game didn't look to be a good one.
Then the upper surface of the fighter rippled, and a dozen brilliantly-blazing missiles shot into the sky, arcing around and seeking out their targets in the enemy formation. The missiles reached the Banshees as the fighter began to pull away to find other targets, the projectiles needing no further direction from the originating fighter. Even the vaunted maneuverability of the Covenant Banshee could not save them from the missiles, which detonated within close proximity, each missile unleashing a deadly cloud of shrapnel haze to rip through the light frames of the enemy fliers.
Another of the human fighters screamed over the cityscape over the Covenant lines, provoking heavy anti-aircraft fire from plasma turrets, shades, and anti-air Wraiths far too cumbersome to properly track the speedy craft. Both the top and bottom of this fighter rippled, and three dozen missiles erupted from its frame, looping and spiraling through the skies to strike thirty-six individually-designated targets ranging from vehicles to emplacements to aircraft.
A column of Scorpions moved to take advantage of the opening left in the wake of the fighter's attack, the roar of their cannons little more than muffled popping sounds from where Lucy and Akio watched on the Scarab. Ninety millimeter tungsten penetrator and canister anti-infantry shells shredded what vehicular opposition remained, and was no kinder to any buildings which the enemy sought to use for cover. An ashen dust cloud soon filled the street, hiding the armor and infantry advance from further observation.
Several streets over, a large number of grunts and jackals led by a number of brutes made their way parallel to the armored assault, seeking to swing around behind the tanks and strike the task force from the rear. It soon became apparent that such a thing was anticipated, as from the buildings surrounding the street, dozens of rockets struck down into the Covenant ranks, decimating their assault force. Small-arms fire followed on the heels of the rocket strike, mopping up whatever troops remained that were not slain by the high explosives.
Beneath their feet, the deck of the Scarab rumbled as its reactor and engines came online, this interrupting any further observation of the distant battle as the Scarab began to lift into its upright assault position. Akio turned away from the battle, automatically raising a hand to press against the side of his helmet, an instinct action that knowledge of internal radios did nothing to deter. "Six, the Scarab is moving," he deadpanned.
"Thank you for the confirmation," came the equally-deadpan response.
"Steel Gunners here, we're making steady progress. Just a little more to Yokota-Narita Air Force Base."
"All Coalition forces targeting Mahora Academy, prepare to attack on my signal," Chihiro announced over the general comms.
By now, the Covenant forces in the courtyard and streets were starting to respond to the actions of the rogue Scarab. Forces nearest it began to pull back in fearful uncertainty. They, better than most, knew of the walker's sheer destructive power. Others looked on curiously, waiting to see what would happen.
The techno-specialist turned the small weapon of mass destruction toward the largest cluster of vehicles and charged the plasma beam. A shrill shrieking noise filled the air as the projector 'head' glowed a sickly green color. Many of the enemy still looked confused, but a significant amount of them now understood the situation and were beginning to brandish their weapons or retreat in alarm.
This did not go unnoticed by the human hijackers. "Too late for that, alien bastards. All batteries fire!"
A blinding flash lit the courtyard as the Scarab fired, the high-intensity plasma beam vaporizing half a dozen Banshees, a number of Wraiths and Ghosts, and countless repair and arming crews working on the vehicles. Several nearby methane tanks cooked off from the heat backlash, rocking the courtyard with tremendous explosions.
Now there was absolutely no question in the enemy's mind about what was going on. Plasma and spiker fire hammered the Scarab's flanks, doing absolutely nothing to its heavily-armored hull. Emplaced plasma and fuel rod turrets joined in the assault, likewise doing nothing to the vehicle, but posing a sincere threat to its occupants.
Diving behind the core wall as fuel rods impacted and burst all across the deck, Akio called over the radio, "Control, Alpha-Six-Five! We're pinned down by enemy fire! We need air support!"
Almost immediately, a familiar voice spoke, "Flight Control, Crusader Three-One. We're in position to provide support, but a lot of the emplaced weapons are coming out of the academy. Requesting permission to engage on high-priority target."
There was a lengthy delay in response, during which time Akio could see the paired A-10s that had saved them before circling high overhead, bristling with weapons and itching to unleash them on the enemy. Finally, Control's voice came back, "Copy, Crusader Three-One, you are authorized one guns-only pass."
"Solid copy, Control. Alpha-Six, help is on the way."
High overhead, the two A-10s heeled over into an inverted dive, leveling out just a few hundred feet above ground level and tracking the green globes of the fuel rods as their targeting point. Crusader Three-One switched his weapons control over to the lethal GAU-8 Avenger 30mm cannon, then bracketed the thickest concentration of turrets in the gun sights that came up on his heads-up display. The sights passed over the Scarab, and his finger twitched slightly on the trigger, years of war almost causing him to fire on the stolen enemy vehicle on instinct. Finally, as the academy drew closer and the HUD indicated optimal firing range, he reported, "Guns, guns, guns," and tightened up on the trigger.
Smoke issued immediately from the nose of the aircraft, followed by what looked no less than a molten stream of fire drawing a line from the plane to the building below. Due to the direction of approach, the line of 30mm rounds chewed a diagonal swath of destruction across the face of the school, obliterating brick and mortar, glass, weapon emplacements, and enemy troops with equal ferocity. A third of the school's face disappeared in a dust and debris cloud.
As the tracking sights cleared the roof of the school, Three-One pulled out of his shallow dive over the courtyard at rooftop level, the whine of his engines drawing some of the aliens' attention, and their fire, ineffectually skyward.
Behind him, Crusader Three-Two made a straight-on approach, taking a deeper angle of approach to increase the enemies caught in the affected area. "Guns, guns, guns," the pilot called, initiating his assault. A dozen aliens died before they ever realized what was descending upon them, reduced to a fine meat paste by the heavy anti-armor rounds. The carnage chewed its way across the left side of the courtyard, splitting a landed Phantom in half, slaughtering dozens of infantry, and then rising its way up the side of the building. Plasma and fuel rod batteries exploded violently, their detonations setting off chain reactions all across the building front.
Passing over the courtyard, Crusader Three-Two turned into a gentle arc away from the battlefield. In the chaos below, a brute war chieftain shouldered its fuel rod gun and fired into the A-10's path. The explosive burst against the left engine, chewing half of its underside and causing it to flame out. But to the alien's consternation, the aircraft merely dipped slightly in altitude with no discernible loss of control and continued on its way, smoke trailing from its left side as it dropped flares to dissuade any further guided missiles.
The response to the war chieftain's attempted shoot-down of the A-10 was swift and harsh. An extreme range sniper shot, whether from Cynthia or Linda unknown, tore through the temple of its helmet, overpowering its shield in an instant and expending the last of its momentum inside the alien's skull. Nerve twitches caused it to pull the trigger of the fuel rod gun, a globe exploding at its feet and sending its body pitching through the air.
"Passes complete," Crusader Three-One reported. "Merry Christmas, Alpha-Six."
"Copy, confirmed numerous splashes," Cynthia responded. "I see lots of little pieces. Good kills."
Following behind Fred, Kelly stepped out of the apartment complex and looked toward the courtyard, watching the flames of burning vehicles rising into the sky from the softening attack by the attack planes. Fred turned and nodded back to her, and the Spartans took off running, sprinting toward the battlefield as Fred called into the battlenet, "Don't let 'em recover! Press the advantage and attack!"
All around them, the ODSTs and Marines that had been lying in wait now surged forward, war cries and shouts of encouragement to their fellows, and invectives against their enemies, rising above the cacophony of rifles and running feet, of screaming plasma and alien roars. But even in their eagerness, the humans were not stupid, moving from one obstacle to another, providing covering fire for their comrades, and using the haze of smoke filling the courtyard to screen their movements. The enemy met them, grunts and jackals waddling forward as the brutes attempted to suppress the charging humans. All around them, the air was thick with energy and projectiles, surely suicidal to plunge through.
Her breath rang harsh in her ears as Kelly sprinted forward, outpacing Fred within seconds and swiftly approaching the front of the humans' lines. A Marine slid into cover behind a concrete bench as she approached, leaning up to fire his assault rifle over it as she passed. Ahead, a pillar of smoke shifted and a grunt armed with a fuel rod cannon that had been targeting her collapsed under the sustained fire of the Marine, spinning backwards and sending its weapon rolling away.
To her left, she glimpsed Alysia body-checking a brute to the ground, light glinting from her upraised combat knife before she had to divert her attention away. A standing ODST beside Alysia, emptying his Magnum into an unshielded brute, tracked through her field of vision. A glancing plasma bolt flickered her shield, drawing her attention forward in time to see a jackal planted in her path, shield and pistol aimed at her. Even as she tracked it with her assault rifle, a jagged shard of ice shot from practically nowhere and impaled its skull. Without missing a step, she vaulted the dying alien, her already-aligned assault rifle chewing away at the shield sphere of a brute captain. Two Marines in cover added their fire to hers, shredding the alien officer in the span of the time it took her to reach it.
Overhead, the shrill shriek of the Scarab charging its plasma cannon filled the air. She looked up at the mobile death platform towering above her, its bulk shadowing her from the sun as the plasma emitter's glow reached a sickly pinnacle. Interrupting her sprint only for the sake of saving her skin, she dove underneath the still-hot remnants of the Phantom as the Scarab fired and spent coolant gel splashed to the ground on all sides of her cover. The only purpose of the coolant gel was to keep the emitter of the cannon from melting due to the absurdly-high temperature of the plasma beam. The coolant, superheated by absorbing heat that would otherwise melt the cannon, vented beneath the Scarab every time it fired.
Heat and radiation sensors in her armor redlined from the surrounding presence of the coolant, but as soon as the fusillade had ceased, she leaped clear over the pool nearest her and angled toward the enemy once more, her boots finding traction on the cobblestone and pavement. Briefly overlaying a transparent map of the courtyard over her HUD, she was dismayed to find that they had only crossed one-fourth of the distance, but she shoved that thought aside and pressed on. To her right, she saw a Marine and an ODST scrambling to get away from the glowing blue ball of a plasma grenade that had landed in front of them. The Helljumper pushed the Marine down, imposing his or her own body in between the Marine and the explosive, and was hurled bodily into the air by the blast.
Shifting her weight, she turned herself in the direction of her stricken comrades, reaching the two as the Marine rolled onto his knees and pushed back up to his feet, visibly stunned by the explosion as training and instinct took over, prompting him to grab a shoulder strap of the ODST and haul the injured or dead man away from the front lines. Kelly grabbed the Helljumper's other shoulder strap and added her considerable strength to the effort. The Marine looked up, and the awe at seeing a living Spartan not only in person, but coming to his aid, was written all over his face. Together, they pulled the fallen trooper behind the wreckage of a collapsed building, and Kelly immediately stood and fired her assault rifle into a pair of grunts that had attempted to follow them.
"Go on, ma'am!" the Marine said to her, prompting her to glance toward him. She could see blood streaming down the sides of his head from beneath his helmet, indicating that his eardrums had probably been blown out by the explosion. "I've got it from here!"
Nodding, she grabbed his shoulder for a moment, then stood up to resume her sprint. A Marine stopped running thirty feet ahead of her and sprayed fire from his assault rifle indiscriminately at a cluster of grunts to the side. Before she could chastise him, a fuel rod shot struck him in the torso, incinerating the doomed man. She spotted the offending alien, a brute war chieftain, and noted with satisfaction that Lucy was descending upon the unsuspecting alien bastard from above, combat knife in hand.
The squelch of her fellow Spartan's dynamic entrance went unheard over the noise of the combat. A few dozen feet away, the swordsman Akio landed on another brute's head, crushing its skull as he rolled forward into a crowd of enemies to disperse the impact. She saw his blade flash, and a dozen lesser aliens collapsed to the ground, mortally drawn. A nearby brute roared in anger, only to be silenced by an upstroke of Yuunagi.
"Who's next!" she heard Johnathan demand over the comms, but didn't look back to see what act of curb-stomping had prompted that remark from the big man.
"Let's not tempt fate like that," Cheryl's voice responded.
Ahead, she watched a grunt throw down its plasma pistol and pull out a pair of plasma grenades, but just as it had primed them, before it could charge toward either her or Akio, its head and upper body disappeared in a crimson mist, spraying gore over its fellows as either Cynthia or Linda took it down with extreme prejudice. The headless body collapsed to the ground in the midst of its fellows, the twin detonation of its grenades obliterating the lot of them.
Akio charged directly through the dying explosions, the Helljumper's helmet tipping in her direction as he passed, advancing on a pack of enemies that she had bypassed. She heard the folded steel sing as it struck down its alien foes behind her, Unggoy combat harnesses and Jiralhanae power armor alike useless against the legendary blade. A vehicle-sized red dot appeared behind her on her motion tracker, heading at high speed toward Akio, but a thunderclap later it disappeared, and bits and pieces of Ghost debris came skittering past her, giving an indication as to exactly what had happened.
What enemy heavy armor remained were focused on taking out the Scarab rather than combating infantry, and so Kelly shifted her weight again to head in the direction of the Wraiths, prepared to rip them apart by hand if necessary. As she ran, a panicking grunt crossed her path a dozen feet ahead, being guided by a maniacally-cackling Chachazero. Taken off-guard by the unusual sight, she tracked the marionette-guided alien as it careened wildly through its own ranks, shrieking comically all the way, and unknowingly allowing the murderous doll to hack a bloody trail of carnage through the otherwise-unsuspecting aliens.
She turned back in time to see a brute charging at her at full speed. It struck her before she could react, slamming her to the ground where it proceeded to attempt to wrench off her helmet to get at the squishy human bits inside. Swinging her head in constant motion to keep it from being able to get a good grip, she grabbed its meaty wrist in her right hand, and with her left snuck a solid punch into its jaw. The brute's head snapped back, and then as it came back down to roar at her, she reached down and twisted the arming mechanism on one of its spike grenades. Knowing exactly what she had done, the brute let up its pressure on her for an instant to look down at itself in horror. Seizing the opportunity, she drew in her legs and kicked out as hard as possible, shoving the brute back, and scrambled backwards on her hands. The spike grenade exploded, the razor-edged shrapnel ripping out the alien's midsection and sending the remaining halves slumping to the ground.
A horrid metallic screech filled the air, and she looked up to see the stolen Scarab teetering, its front left leg warped and burnt by sustained plasma fire. The heavy assault vehicle stumbled, nearly collapsing, and then Chihiro managed to stabilize it by balancing its weight amongst the three remaining legs, the vehicle's murderous gaze turning to the offending Wraiths as that other shrieking howl rose above the plaza. "Take that, bastards!" the overly-friendly Helljumper roared across some sort of broadcasting system, even as the Scarab unleashed its main weapon, vaporizing the offending Wraiths in an instant.
Almost as if in response, another Scarab beam struck the stolen unit, melting away the damaged leg and sending the vehicle crashing into the ground. Kelly tracked the beam to its source with her eyes, seeing another enemy Scarab crawling over the dormitory building that serviced the academy three-quarters of a mile away. Parts of the building had already caught on fire from the leaked coolant from the shot, even as the emitter glowed a sickly green, the aliens clearly taking exception to the theft of their vehicle.
"Six, get out of there!" Alysia shouted over the comms. "That thing's got you zeroed!"
"I'm not done yet!" the Helljumper answered, his voice strained, as his Scarab struggled to stand back up, to get pointed in the direction of the enemy unit. As he came up, a second shot from the enemy unit struck the rear of his own vehicle, melting away the armor plating that protected the reactor core and critically-compromising it in the process. The stolen Scarab let out a shriek akin to a dying animal and slammed into the ground, energy sparks cascading over its frame as its core ran through a wildcat destabilization. But now it was facing the enemy's Scarab.
"Get out now, Six!"
Kelly threw herself into a drainage ditch and gripped a bubble shield grenade, all too aware of the explosive power of a Scarab's reactor detonation, having been responsible for no small number of them herself. She raised her head, her position in the ditch allowing her to see the Scarab as more and more energy raced over it. Knowing the detonation to be imminent, she activated the bubble shield and slammed it to the ground, lowering her head again as the golden geodesic sphere of protection rose up around her.
"JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM!" Chihiro roared his defiance to the alien menace, firing one final shot at the enemy Scarab that had all available power diverted to it.
It was because of this power rerouting that the Scarab didn't detonate all at once as the UNSC personnel were used to seeing. The explosion went off in sequence, crawling its way forward from the reactor at the rear to the cannon at the front, chunks of armor and alien metal flying outward from the points of detonation. Through it all, the Scarab continued firing, though the explosions threw the beam off-target, causing it to cut its way across the enemy machine's flank, gouging deep scars into it, and then slicing through the roof of the building beneath it. The enemy vehicle's weight did the rest, collapsing the roof beneath it, sending it crashing down into the interior of the building.
At the same time, the explosions of the stolen Scarab reached its head, the final blast shattering the plasma cannon and cracking the remaining hull apart with a deafening thunder. Bits of superheated metal and shrapnel rained down in a wide spread around the destroyed unit, and for several moments, silence filled the battle.
The silence was broken by a raw scream of rage and anguish, one that chilled even the heartless Covenant where they stood. Standing upright, Kelly quickly located the source of the scream: the combat-mage Cheryl. She felt an extra shiver, recalling that this ODST had been the only survivor from the 105th at Jericho VII, she herself having been the one to recover the traumatized young woman. She knew that Cheryl had to be seeing that slaughter in her mind again. This was the worst possible time for a post-traumatic disorder to rear its ugly head.
"You bastards have taken my comrades, my friends, and my family away from me," the Helljumper hissed, across both the local battlenet and open comms so that the enemy could hear. An unnatural wind began to blow through the courtyard, and Kelly could feel the tug of magicka moving as well. That combined with the low, quietly-dangerous tone of Cheryl's words caused a little icy ball of fear to clench in the Spartan's guts. "I won't let it happen anymore. You monsters will not take anyone else from me!"
The diminutive ODST stood up from her cover, her designated marksman rifle left forgotten on the ground behind her as luminous yellow-white energy began to swirl around her open palms. "To symbolaion diakoneto moi basileu Ouranionon…"
The alien species of the Covenant knew nothing about magic, only that the humans they were fighting in this city could somehow turn the very elements of fire and ice and lightning against them, and that it was superbly-effective. They knew nothing of the mechanics of magic and spellcraft, of incanting and magic circles. But they didn't need to know any of that to know that the sight of a human standing in the open with glowing hands speaking a dead human language was not something that they should allow to happen. One brute officer was keenly aware of this fact, and roared an order to its underlings as it gestured toward the spellcasting ODST. It along with two other brutes and a dozen jackals and grunts focused their fire on the exposed mage, intending to burn her down where she stood.
Johnathan interposed himself between Cheryl and the incoming storm of alien weaponry in what, to the unwary observer, would appear to be a sacrificial act. However, the big man was holding a card in his left hand as he casually tossed his shotgun aside, and though he didn't transmit over the comms, Kelly knew that the only word to come out of his mouth would be "Adeat." There was a flash of light, and a minor explosion from all that energy striking something.
When the smoke cleared, Cheryl remained unharmed, still casting her spell, and Johnathan was unmoved before her, a massive gunmetal-colored shield held in his left hand. The man's impassive helmet stared past it at the Covenant forces. "Wouldn't be a very good minister to let my magistra get shot up like that, would I? My turn."
The armored shield flashed and its form returned to that of a card, at which point he passed it to his right hand, and it flared again, changing shape once more, thinning and elongating. What came to pass looked no less than Johnathan had pulled the main cannon off of a Scorpion and was now wielding it as a support weapon. The weapon fired, rocking the ODST backwards with recoil, and the nest of Covenant that had fired at Cheryl promptly disintegrated in an explosion. Johnathan cranked back on the lever that he held in his right hand, and a spent shell casing the size of a suitcase ejected from the side of the cannon.
A glowing golden magic circle flared into life on the ground, with Cheryl at its center. Pulling her right hand back behind her and into a fist, a secondary sphere of magic runes formed around her hand, while her left, palm-out toward the enemy, crackled with lightning energy. "Epigenentheto aithalous keraune os Titenas phtheirein…" she continued, heedless of the giant target she was making herself.
Thunderous booms from Johnathan's cannon filled the air as he targeted pockets of the enemy, the noise masking the approach of a hammer chieftain that came around to the rear of the humans in an effort to take out the mage. Kelly charged the beast, pushing herself to the limits of her speed in order to reach the alien before it could harm her comrades. Halfway to it, a sniper shot struck it in the back of its skull, but its more-powerful shield took the shot, the kinetic energy imparted by the shot staggering it and giving her time to reach it.
She slammed into the chieftain at full-speed, her mass and acceleration force enough to knock it to the ground. Her right hand snapped out her combat knife, which she rose to drive down into the brute's throat, through its esophagus and spinal column, but the alien moved its head to the side to avoid the strike and grabbed her by the head with one meaty hand, tossing her off of it.
Rolling in midair to soften the blow and swiftly return to her feet, Kelly dropped into a combat stance and faced the chieftain, which rose slowly and gripped its hammer in one hand, a malignant smirk on its face as it relished the prospect of defeating a 'demon' in solo combat.
A number of Marines nearby took notice of her plight and opened fire on the chieftain in order to aid her, not suffering from the misgivings of honor before reason to let a Spartan armed only with a combat knife fight a hammer chieftain alone. Their combined fire illuminated the brute's shield but didn't come close to overloading it. Roaring in anger at being interrupted, the chieftain turned to deal with them, at which point Kelly charged. Gripping her knife in a reverse grip, she leapt up to grab onto the black horns of its armor, but the brute spotted her and powerfully backhanded her out of the air with its left hand, sending her smashing through a concrete bench adjacent to a fountain pool.
Stars danced before her vision and the shield bar in her HUD indicated that half her shield had been drained by that single blow. She heard a hammer discharge, saw a Marine's body fly, heard the others curse and break to get away from the rampaging alien, still hammering it with their assault rifles. Pushing herself up, she ignored the warning bells of the half-drained shield and shook her head to clear it, grabbing a chunk of the stone bench and hurling it at the brute's back to get its attention back on her.
Roaring at the impact, the chieftain turned to see that she was coming back toward him, and that malicious look appeared on its face again. It turned the hammer in its hand until the bladed backside would be the striking surface, then turned suddenly and swung the weapon laterally at one of the Marines. The man was too slow to react, and the blade caved in the side of his head, blood spraying into the air and coating the hammer. With the dead Marine still wedged to the blade of the hammer, the chieftain waved it about like a grim parody of a flag, obviously taunting the humans around it.
"You fucking son of a bitch!" one of the remaining Marines raged, slamming down the bolt of his reloaded assault rifle and charging the chieftain, screaming and unloading his weapon into the creature's chest as he did. The assault rifle clicked empty just as he reached it, and the man wasted no time putting his full weight and momentum behind the hammer blow of the assault rifle into the alien's chest.
Not even rocked by the hit, the chieftain wasted no time in grabbing the man off the ground, shaking him as would a dog with its prey. It then unleashed an animalistic roar and bit the man's throat out, crimson arterial spray fountaining into the air.
Hot rage the likes of which she'd never known flooded Kelly's entire body and she charged at the bastard alien, a wordless scream of rage and fury leading her charge. The chieftain tossed aside the dying Marine, then plucked the other one off its hammer and moved to meet her charge, swinging its hammer in a horizontal arc at her. She flipped up and over it, kicking the alien in the back of the skull as she passed over it, and landed squarely on the Marine that had been hit by the hammer, the uneven footing sending her tumbling to the ground.
Sensing her vulnerability, the chieftain turned slowly and chuckled, gloating over having the Spartan seemingly at its mercy. In that instant, Kelly's gaze fell on the dead Marine, her increased mental processes registering the gash torn into the side of the helmet, the way the man's head had been partially-flattened by the force of the blow even as the blade had carved open a wedge in his skull, revealing blood and brain matter within. Fury surged through her again, and she planted her left hand against the ground, pushing up and spinning to come into a low stance with her weight supported by her toes and left hand, right raised up behind her, almost like a one-handed pushup but far more deadly. She wanted nothing more than to rip that smug look right off the alien's face.
She screamed out again as she charged, right hand drawn back, intent on making pulp of the brute's head. It set its stance to meet her charge, drawing the hammer back in both hands like a baseball bat, and met her own scream of fury with a roar of its own, knowing and believing its own victory to be assured.
As she drew closer, Kelly felt her body begin to act independent of her control, the positioning of her hands and upper body changing as though she were armed with a long-bladed sword rather than her empty fists. Even as confusion set in, she reached the brute's range, saw the hammer swing down toward her, and saw a flash of light just before it hit. To her great shame, she felt herself flinch.
Warmth washed over her, warmth and a blinding light, and she knew she was dead. But she felt satisfied, knowing that her actions kept the brute away from Cheryl for a time, hopefully long enough for her to complete the spell. She found herself wishing there was some way she could look over the battle from wherever she was, to see what was going on. That spell had been in ancient Greek, and from what she knew of magic, that meant it would be one hell of a blast. She didn't want to miss it.
You're not dead yet, girl! came a voice within her mind, so similar to her own and yet different enough to be noticeable. Open your eyes!
And so she did. She found herself staring down the brute chieftain, which now had a massive black steel blade shoved through its chest, the length of which she traced back to find held in her own hands. Its hammer was pressed against the side of the thick blade opposite her, her body having acted of its own accord to use the blade's size to both deal the killing blow and protect her from a counterattack.
But as she looked down at herself, she noticed in confusion that a ghostly form seemed to be overlaying hers; where she saw her own armored body, there was also a womanly form wearing a black dress in gothic Lolita style, and she could see long twin tails of red hair reaching down to her knees. A comm window flashed on in her HUD, displaying the grinning face of Evangeline. "Well then, it seems that the power of your ancestor has finally awakened in you, Kelly-087. Or, perhaps it should be, Kelly Kagurazaka?"
"What? My ancestor's…"
Magic in the left hand, that voice whispered again. Ki in the right. Combine them to form the perfect nothingness. Kankahou. The ultimate technique.
In the comm window, Evangeline was silent to observe her for a few moments, then remarked simply, "Give those aliens hell, Imperial Twilight Princess."
Kelly felt power, raw and primal, course through her body this time, focusing itself into either of her hands, which began to faintly glow, her left white, right black. Letting the black sword drop, its end still embedded in the brute chieftain, she slammed her gauntleted hands together, and an explosion of colorless energy engulfed her. Gripping the sword once more in her hands, she ripped it from the dead alien, spying a hunter pair nearby menacing a squad of Marines. Manhandling the sword to hold it behind her, she charged at the aliens, whose backs were toward her, unaware of her approach.
The first hunter fell with no warning, cleaved in half at the midsection by the legendary sword in Kelly's hands. Freeing a hand, she primed a grenade and shoved it into the collection of worms remaining in the upper set of armor, then stepped over it and turned her attention on the second hunter. The massive alien entity roared in anger and fury, turning away from the Marines and ignoring their fire into its back as it rushed Kelly, intent on smearing the human into the pavement. With a speed that its massive size belied, the hunter swung its shield up and then brought it down toward Kelly's head.
The massive black steel weapon rose to intercept, not so much stopping the hunter's shield as chopping it into two where the blade met. Overbalanced and taken off-guard by this, the hunter stumbled even as Kelly continued her momentum into a flowing spin, bringing the sword around into an uppercut that sheared the alien's fuel rod cannon, and accompanying arm, from the rest of the body. Volatile high-temperature incendiary gel flowed out of the compromised weapon, coating the hunter and immediately starting to melt away at the armor and the vulnerable worms underneath. Kelly jumped back to get clear of the gel, and stood watching as the heavy assault platform thrashed about, spraying more of the gel about even as it was burned alive, its pained roars echoing over the courtyard. The Marines it had been harassing approached cautiously, remaining well clear of the dying alien, their expressions varied as they observed the death of the hunter.
An electric tingle coursed up Kelly's spine, prompting her to raise her helmeted head marginally. She turned suddenly, yelling to the Marines, "Get down! Protect your ears!" even as she dropped and put her face to the concrete, turning the audio dampening in her helmet to its maximum power. The Marines, unsure of what was going on but knowing better than to question a Spartan, did as ordered, dropping to the ground and covering their ears beneath their helmets.
Without warning, the world seemed to explode in light and noise. Meter-thick thunderbolts rained down from the heavens, crushing down onto the part of the courtyard still occupied by the Covenant. The barrage continued for nearly a minute, bolts striking with such regularity as to sound like a single massive explosion. Heat and pressure washed over the allies, forcing them to shield their eyes from the blinding glow of so many hundreds of lightning strikes in a concentrated area.
Finally, the storm of magic destruction passed, breaking like the thunderstorm that it was, leaving silence and stillness in its wake, and an acrid ozone scent that filled the air. Kelly pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, deafened by the thunder of such close proximity to the edge of that Thousand Bolts spell. A ringing sound filled her ears, through which she could hear snippets of radio chatter: "…have recaptured Yokota-Narita Air Force Base!"
"Nice work, Steel Gunners!" Evangeline's voice responded. "You've earned this victory."
Even as her mind automatically filed that useful bit of information away, Kelly shakily stood and looked around her. Of the hundreds of Covenant and their vehicles and emplacements that had still been barring their path to the academy, nothing remained but a smoking, glass-crusted crater caused by the released energy of Cheryl's spell, one of the seven most destructive spells known to humankind. And though it was magic, its affects were not immune to the laws of physics, in particular the shock effect of a near-miss lightning strike to human physiology. Data scrolling across her HUD alerted to her that her left eardrum had ruptured, but the automated biofoam injectors had already sealed that injury.
Others weren't so lucky. The Marines she had saved from the hunters were still on the ground, hands gripped to ears as their faces contorted in agony, and she could see the blood from their shattered eardrums coating their gloved hands. She turned in a slow circle, and every Marine and ODST in sight was affected in some way. The ODSTs fared better than their Marine brethren, but even the black-armored shock troops were shaken by the noise of the magical display.
"Control, this is Alpha-Six-One," Alysia's voice broke through the static, subdued. "We've secured the Mahora Academy courtyard and are preparing to enter the academy proper. Requesting resupply and casualty evacuation."
"Alpha-Six-One, this is Hotel One-Nine-Two, inbound your position with extra ammo. I'll take out as many of your wounded as I can on the way out."
"Much appreciated, One-Nine-Two."
Across the courtyard, Johnathan cracked a smoke canister and tossed it into a street that ran parallel across the front of the courtyard. Thick green smoke issued into the air, marking a landing zone big enough for the Pelican to set down in. The next few minutes were spent corralling those too wounded to continue fighting to the pickup zone, and coercing those who did not believe they were too wounded to leave.
Kelly herself helped to get the three Marines near her to the extraction point. She chose not to simply lift them up and haul them bodily to where they needed to go, which she certainly would have been capable of given her superior strength. Instead, she drove her sword into the ground, leaned down, and grabbed the hand and wrist of the Marine nearest her, hauling the man to his feet and slinging his arm over her shoulder. She shifted around to bring her other side toward the next Marine, pulling him up and supporting his weight with hers as well. Together, she and the Marine on her left got the third standing, and together, the four of them crossed the blood-soaked and shell casing-ridden cobblestone and pavement to the landing zone.
As they arrived, the Pelican was already in sight, approaching the courtyard at rooftop level still a distance out. Cheryl, the very incarnation of destruction moments before, had completely reversed roles and was performing her role as a field medic, triaging the wounded soldiers on the spot and helping to settle disputes amongst those who didn't think they were too injured to continue fighting. Kelly led her Marines to the edge of the evacuation point, sitting them down against the railing that ran along the edge of the roadway. Scattered single shots of various weapons echoed across the courtyard as many of those still on their feet went around finishing off still-living enemies.
Kelly was still kneeling near the Marines as Alysia approached, the Helljumper wandering aimlessly through the battle area. The Spartan stood, interposing her considerable bulk into Alysia's path. As the ODST stopped and looked up at her, Kelly depolarized her golden visor at the same time she laid a hand on her comrade's shoulder. "I'm sorry," she whispered through her helmet's external speakers. "For your trooper and your cousin."
Alysia shook her head awkwardly, and though her visor remained darkened, Kelly could see light refracting from moisture that she doubted was sweat on the inner surface of the visor. "No, I…" She looked away suddenly, turning toward the Pelican as it flared up over the landing zone, rotated to present its bay doors to the gathered wounded, and lowered itself slowly to the road.
The bay doors opened and the crew chief started shoving out crates filled with replenishment weapons and ammunition, which those on the ground quickly moved out of the way. With the offloading of supplies completed in under a minute, the focus turned toward cramming as many wounded aboard the dropship as possible. Leaving Alysia to cope in her own way, Kelly assisted her Marines in getting aboard the Pelican, securing them the last three spots in the already-overloaded vehicle.
Seated at the very edge of the ramp, the most coherent of the Marines grabbed Kelly's armored hand before she could pull away. "Thank you, ma'am!" he shouted above the noise of the Pelican engines and his own damaged hearing.
She didn't know why, but this gratitude from the wounded Marine touched something inside her. She'd saved countless soldiers and civilians in her time, but their thanks had never meant anything to her before. She suspected it was due to her awakening heritage, and it was a suspicion she was thankful for. It just felt good to protect others, something she felt a momentary pang of regret over as she realized it was something that none of her fellow Spartan-IIs had ever had the opportunity to feel. She squeezed his hand gently, mindful of her superior strength, and answered, "You'd have done the same for me!"
Letting go of his hand, she stepped out and away from the transport as the pitch of its engines rose, and with a flurry of debris, lifted into the air and slowly angled skyward to return to the Yamato. As it was doing so, Kelly turned to the nearest of the resupply crates; her ancestor's sword was a great thing, but she'd spent the last thirty-five years with a gun in her hand, and that was a lot of training to even attempt to break out of.
"Alpha-Six, be advised, large hostile force inbound to your location," a tactical controller reported. "We have confirmed sighting of six Phantoms and one hundred-plus foot-mobiles, with a squadron of Banshees."
"Where the hell are those tanks from the 506th!" Akio demanded.
"They're pinned down by an enemy ambush and have taken heavy casualties," the tactical controller replied.
"Air support?" Alysia asked calmly.
"Unavailable at this time."
"To hell with it." Given a clear threat, Alysia was now back in leader mode, her grief at the loss of her teammate and family momentarily pushed to the rear of her mind. "We've got a clear line to the Academy and no cover out here. Better to fight in a building against enemies front and back than out in the open with no cover. Move out!"
There was no argument, and the dozen and a half remaining troopers immediately broke to run for the academy building. It was eerily-silent, allowing the distant noise of the city at war to be heard. As she jogged at a sedate pace, not wishing to get too far ahead of her fellows, Kelly raised her head to the sky, filled with the smoke of burning vehicles and buildings, with white plumes of missile trails criss-crossing the entire visible sector of sky. The best pilots the world had ever seen soared through those skies, turning air dominance and close air support into a beautifully-choreographed dance of destruction.
But as busy as those pilots were in their sector of the battle, they were unable to turn their attention to the Academy, where Kelly's enhanced hearing could pick up the inimitable hum of Covenant Banshees. She slowed to a halt, turning backwards to where she could see a flight of the enemy fliers coming toward the school. Two of them altered course, rising relative to the horizon, and it took Kelly a moment to understand.
"Hotel One-Nine-Two, you have Banshees incoming on your tail," the Spartan warned over the battlenet, her heart leaping into her throat as she watched the purple-hulled fighters close on the Pelican.
"Dammit, I need backup here!" the Pelican's pilot called out, not so much answering Kelly as putting out a general call for aid. "I'm overloaded with personnel, my evasive options are limited!"
"Hotel One-Nine-Two, Crusader Three-One hot inbound your position," the A-10 pilot answered, tension evident in his voice. "Do what you can to stay alive."
"I'll do my best but…"
Kelly watched as the bay-mounted heavy machine gun of the Pelican opened up on the Banshees, peppering the lead aircraft with 7.62 rounds. The two Banshees split to diffuse the fire coming in at them, with the already-damaged lead craft dropping back, the other moving forward to draw fire. With the gunner engaged with the second Banshee, the first moved in for the kill, the fuel rod launcher underneath glowing a sickly green before the radioactive explosive hurled itself outward, tracking the Pelican and detonating the left rear engine nacelle.
The Pelican immediately slewed to the right, the sudden impact nearly pitching the crew chief out of the vehicle, the man dangling precariously with his grip on the heavy machine gun the only thing keeping him from a fatal plummet. Smoke trailing from the destroyed engine, the Pelican spiraled through the sky as the pilot fought to regain control of it.
"One-Nine-Two going down," the pilot calmly reported, having abandoned keeping the vehicle flying and now intent on crashing as gently as possible. "Hotel One-Nine-Two is going down hard."
Cheryl stopped at the top of the academy stairs to look up at the spinning Pelican passing overhead, acrid black smoke pouring from its flank. Rapidly losing altitude, the vehicle skipped off the roof of the academy, the metal screeching as it smashed across the roof, taking out air conditioning units and building edge facades before tumbling into a central courtyard.
"Pelican down, Pelican down," the tactical controller from before announced across the entire net. "We've got a bird down in the city."
"Go, go!" Kelly shouted, waving the ODSTs into the building as the first of the Covenant ground forces began to enter the courtyard, streaming their way toward the academy. Overhead, the thrumming drives of the Phantoms filled the air as she turned to glare at the enemy transports. They hovered over various points of the large courtyard, deploying their infantry forces and not even bothering to fire their turrets at the lone Spartan standing opposed to them.
All the more fools they, then.
She raised her right hand, and the massive black sword shot from where it had been left, spinning through the air until the hilt smacked into her armored gauntlet. She twirled the weapon like the propeller of an aircraft with an ease that surprised her, then drove it into the ground and planted herself firmly in the path of the aliens.
Smirking behind her visor, she set her helmet comms to broadcast at its highest external volume and across all open local frequencies simultaneously, and issued her challenge: "To the UNSC, I am Spartan-087. To the Covenant, a demon. You who wish to harm my allies, know my name as Kelly Kagurazaka, descendant of the Imperial Princess of Twilight, Asuna Kagurazaka, known and feared as the Slayer of Worlds."
The aliens were still advancing confidently, but she could sense an unease in their front ranks. They, of course, would know nothing of the Imperial Princess of Twilight or Kelly's ancestry, but the fact that she was a Spartan, and the confidence in her posture and words needed no translation.
"I stand before you as gatekeeper, inheritor of all she left behind. I am Mage, and you who deem yourselves holy…" In a single fluid motion, she ripped the sword out of the ground and flipped it into a reverse-handed grip, the blade rising high above her form as she stood down the enemy.
"Look upon my power and despair."