Chapter Twenty-Five; Killjoy
"Wait! Don't touch that button!" Emile jumped off the tank and rushed over to the control panel that Six was in front of. The tank had reached a closed door within the giant metal cave, and Six had been sent to the controls to open it. His armored finger was only inches from a glyph-button that looked like an L.
"What do you want, Emile?" Six asked as Noble Four approached. Emile moved Six's hand away from the panel, and pushed a different button. The door slowly broke into four sections and slid back into the wall. "You know, I had that."
Emile rolled his eyes. "With your luck, I'm surprised that you haven't found the self-destruct button yet." Emile and Six headed back to the tank, and Chief eased the Scorpion over the weird metal speedbumps.
"Those two have got to be the most talkative Spartans I've seen yet," Cortana commented to Chief.
"Yeah," Chief responded, focusing on the tunnel ahead.
"Well," Cortana continued, "Six has an excuse, he's a IV. As for Emile, I guess he's just that way or something."
"Yeah," Chief repeated.
"You need to lighten up, John. You're always so closed up and to yourself. This war will be over someday, and if we win and you live, then you'll need to have people skills."
Chief ignored her.
On the main body of the tank, Six was walking over to the Marine sargeants. "Hey." Both Johnson and Keels looked up at him. "Spare a Sniper Rifle?" The sargeants looked at each other, and Johnson said; "Keels, give him yours. You can't hit shit with it."
"Okay, thanks!" Six said as he stole the Sniper Rifle that was resting behind Keels. He ran back over to his jumpseat, and looked back at Keels, who was shooting him the bird. Johnson was trying to suppress a snicker.
Emile held his Assualt Rifle over his shoulder. He staggered a little when the tank went over one of those metal speedbumps thingys. "Six, you wouldn't happen to have any spare shotgun shells one you, would you?" Six reached into his thigh pouch, and dug around a little. "Let's see, car keys, lightsaber, automatic nuke builder, 101 ways to get laid book, nope no shells."
Emile shook his head sadly. At least Six was starting to be an ass again. Even sadder, all Marines, except Johnson, had looked over at Six when he mentioned the 101 ways to get laid book. Just an every day statement about normal humans. Males, that is.
The tank stopped in front of a metal speedbump, and just over it was the enterance to a massive cave. There was enough room to fight a ton of shit in that cave. "Six, Emile, do a bit of recon and see what we're up against," Chief ordered, and the two Spartans dismounted from the tank. Six went prone and crawled all the way up and peeked his head over. As far as he could tell, there were two Elites right in front of them, pacing back and forth, on patrol. There was a bridge that spanned a gaint chasm, and Six slowly brought up the Sniper Rifle and peered through the scope as Emile crawled up next to him, Assualt Rifle resting in his elbows.
Across the bridge, he could make out two Hunters, two more Elites, and some Jackals. All along the bridge were Grunts, and Six could make out a stationary gun on each side. "Cortana, mark all Covenant forces, and transmitt the visual," Six told the AI.
Johnson joined the two Spartans, also going prone. His Sniper Rifle was across his back, and a cigar in his mouth. "How are we going to do it?" He asked. "Fast and loud, or slowly and quietly?"
Six honestly didn't know. "Chief, how are we going to do this?"
Chief sat inside the tank, analyzing the visual live from Six's point of view. "Um, take out those two Elites in front of you, and I'll bring the tank through." That could work.
"Consider them gone," Six said as he brought the rifle scope up to his helmet. He lined up one of the two Elites, and sqeezed the trigger. Six jerked back as the weapon fired. Elite blood and brains slpattered against the floor, scaring the shit out of every alien in the cave. He pulled the bolt back, and a second shot rang out. Johnson smiled as the other Elite took a bullet to the shoulder, and did a backflip from the force of the shot, and landed face first on the floor, blood slowly oozing from the wound.
The tank rolled up over the metal hill, and down into the large opening. Six pushed himself up, and crouch-walked beside the tank, using it for cover. "Hit the Hunters!" Chief ordered to anyone who would listen.
Six climbed up onto the body of the tank, and aimed the long-range weapon at the Covenant's largest shock troops. One of them fired a fuel rod at the tank. "Bail!" Six shouted as he jumped off the Scorpion. The Marines dove off the moving vehicle, and the fuel rod hit the tank right where they had the heavy machine gun set up. It melted through the armor, and Chief kicked the canopy open before the heat from the fuel rod could detonate the ammo stores.
Chief rolled to safety just as the Scorpion blew sky high. The main cannon was launched easily ten feet in the air, and fell down into the ravine. "I guess this means we go on foot," Chief commented as he stared at the burning wreakage.
"Ya think?" Six asked as he took aim at the Hunters once more. He fired, and the bullet went right in between the top metal cap and the main body armor, hitting the orange fleshy worms. The high caliber tore right through the worms, decapitating the Hunter.
Six tossed the clip out, now that it was empty, and searched his person for another clip. But, he found nothing. "Damn," he cursed as he tossed the empty weapon aside, and pulled out his Carbine. Plasma bolts hit him from the side, and he saw the Grunts and Jackals that were coming by means of the bridge.
Emile opened up on the poor Grunts with his MA5, mowing down several before the sixty bullet clip ran dry. He threw the empty clip at a Grunt, and the Marines joined in one the slaughter fest. Automatic fire tore through the ranks of Grunts, and the Jackals began to back up, seeing that they were over powered.
Chief through a frag at the retreating Kig-Yar, causing them to dive away from the grenade. It went off, killing two who were unlucky enough to be too close to it, and maiming another, now missing its legs. It tried to crawl away, yelping in pain as it made very little progress. Keels ended its misery with a well placed pistol headshot.
The two Elites from the other side of the abyss ran across the bridge, Plasma Rifles burning holes on the ground behind the humans. "You know, I think I would've rather died on Reach than be right here, right now," one of the Marines said as he dodged the plasma. Six raised his Carbine, but he was showered by blue bolts of heat.
Chief emptied a clip from his Assualt Rifle into the Elite that got too close. The alien went down in a pool of its own blood, eliciting a cry of anger from the other. It ran at their postition, throwing a plasma grenade at the humans. One of the Marines was too close to the blue ball of death, and was killed by the explosion. His armor was turned black, charred from the intense heat. His skin was melting, causing the room to smell of burning flesh.
Six rushed over to the body, and took the fallen Marines MA5, dropping the Carbine to the ground, and charged at the offending alien, bullets flying out of the gun. The Elite's sheilds held, but it recoiled back from the impact, allowing Six to get too close.
The Spartan smacked the Elite in the head with the Assault Rifle, and then did a Chuck Norris-style roundhouse kick to the face, crushing its skull. Six stomped on the head, and heard the sickly cracking sound of a dead Elites brains being squished out.
"Six! Behind you!" Emile shouted as he raised his MA5. Six turned around, and ducked a splitsecond later. He had almost been decapitated by the other Hunter's sheild arm. It swung its arm up, ready to bring it down on Six. Noble Six rolled to the side, only dodging it by a few inches. The force of the impact sent him sprawling of the edge of the bridge. He managed to catch the edge of the bridge, and tried to pull himself up, but the heavy stomping that the Hunter made as it walked toward him threatened to knock him off.
The Marines fired at the bigass alien, but they were completely out of ammo. This was bad, and to make matters worse, some of the Jackals that had escaped now had Beam Rifles and were taking potshots at them. They had taken cover behind some of the bridge braces that overlapped onto the bridge. Then, Emile went out of cover. "Hey! You big bitch! Fight someone worth fighting!" Emile shouted as he chucked his MA5 at the Hunter.
"Since you guys are the only chance of my survival, I'm not going to take that offensively!" Six exclaimed as he tried to pull himself up again. It was hard when you were wearing a ton of armor.
"RAAWWWRR!" said the Hunter. That could be translated as "Fuck you!" by some people. The Hunter charged at Emile, who was standing strong, his fist raised in a fighting position. "As soon as we're engaged, get your asses out of here," Emile ordered, still standing despite the shaking of the bridge. He started backing up, and the Hunter charged past the hidden humans.
"But, Emile, you can't possibly take on a Hunter without a gun and expect to survive!" Cortana exclaimed, as Chief and the Marines prepared to run by the Hunter. It could easily kill them all.
"Did I say that I expected to live?" Emile asked as he ran at the Hunter, pulling out his knife. He jumped at it, and everything went silent.
"Now!" Emile shouted and broke the silence. Chief and the Marines ran out of cover, and dodged the beams that were aimed at them. One of the Marines took a direct headshot, and collasped to the floor. Chief skidded to a stop in front of Six, who still hadn't managed to get up, and held out his arm.
Six took it, and Chief pulled him up. "Run!" Chief ordered, and Six took off, stopping only to grab one of the fallen Elites Plasma Rifles. Chief grabbed the other, and the two of the opened fire on the Jackals, who were killed by only a few shots.
Chief snatched the weapon out of Six's hands, and charged the Hunter, who was completely oblivious to him, since it had its back to him. Chief fired the Plasma Rifles, hitting the exposed orange flesh at the back. After a few seconds of fire, the weapons battery ran dry. The Hunter turned, and finally shook Emile off, who landed with a loud thud a few feet from Chief. That had to hurt. With yet another "RAAWWWRRR!" the Hunter charged once more.
Six watched on, and looked for a way to help. His eyes landed on the control panel next to the door out of the cave. "Emile, activate your night vision! Chief, do whatever it is you do that allows you to see in the dark!" He ran over to the controls, and pressed the button with the same glyph as the one ha always pressed.
The lights went out. Only the glow of the tiny lights on the fallen Covenant weaponry remained, as for a few lights of Chief and Emile's armor. Six remained in the faint glow of the panel.
Emile saw the room in green now, and hoped the Hunter didn't have night vision. He jumped on it again, pulling is knife out of the beast's belly, where he had thrust it in before. Chief circled around the Hunter, and jumped on the back, and proceeded to punch it in the fleshly orange worms.
Six heard the confused and fustrated roars, and finally heard the loud metal thud as the Covenant behemoth fell to the ground. He pressed the button again, and the lights returned. "Bet you're glad I found that button now, right?" Six asked as the other two Spartans approached.
"Don't flatter yourself. You almost died again," Emile retorted, and searched around for a weapon of any sorts.
"But, I did awesome." Six looked around the cave, observing the dead bodies, and the blown up tank. "Killjoys," he muttered as the Scorpion burned.
A/N: I hope this story is enjoyed by all who read it. Anyway, this might be the last chapter up for a while, since I'm going back to rewrite chapters 3-8. I don't wanna, but they sorta suck.
Next Chapter, we learn of an event in Emile's past. A rather shocking one.
Peace out!