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Fate Continuum

Act V

Chapter II

"Metropolis"

The last thing that K'an remembered before his clarity had been torn from him was yelling a curse of fright as he watched the side of the bus getting drastically closer. In fact, he hardly remembered the collision other than his helmet meeting one of the metal frames of the side windows of the bus. His senses eventually had come back to him, once they did, he found himself quite pained and uncomfortably laying on his back. He was looking up at the dented side of the Warthog that was being suspended above him. His ear piece was sparking off with franticness of those he assumed had been left behind by the Solemn Penance. He sat up with a sharp groan before looking around and where he was. It would have seemed that the bus had wrapped halfway around the Warthog as the collision happened. The forces exerted were clearly great as the collision had caused the both of the vehicles, now meshed together in a forced bond, to roll over onto the side of the bus leaving the Warthog's weight above. K'an had been thrown through the window and into the bus.

He groaned again before checking his leg brace to find that it surprisingly had not broken in the collision. He struggled to stand up against his aching muscles before spitting on the shattered window that had been under him. After collecting the carrier bag and the Battle Rifle that had, much like his brace, not somehow been destroyed by the collision, he ducked towards the front of the crippled and bent bus. The windshield had been shattered into a spider web while remaining in its original shape. This would prove unable to stay as a trap for the Sangheili as he drove the butt of the Battle Rifle through it several times before it would come loose enough to be removed. Once removed, K'an took a step out of the front of the bus. He stretched for a few moments before looking around at his surroundings.

The bridge was fortunately still standing from the explosion of the slip space rupture; it had to had taken a hit however, as structural damage was one of the main and numerous reasons that FTL jumps were never made in atmosphere. There was still quite a change in scenery from the blast; as would be expected, the blast had caused a shift in air pressures, causing a steady breeze that blew dust and the glowing particles of slip space residue across the cityscape. The air was crisp and hard to bare from the burnt smell of the air, smoke, and amount of particles in the air. He caught his bearings as he looked to the city sections on either side of the bridge. The side he had come from was very active with Human ground to air bombardment; that might not be the place for him to be as he wanted to avoid major conflict on this planet. He grimaced as his comms chipped on loudly as someone began to speak.

"Let it be known my broods: Death to the Sangheili!" The obvious voice of a Jiralhanae yelled through the comms channel

This strange transmission was followed by a roar of agreement of several other Jiralhanae on the channel.

K'an put his finger up to his once again ringing ear to broadcast back. "Listen, you furry bastards: Take your communal breeding circle to another channel!" The others on the channel took quite offense to this.

"This one has a mouth!" One proclaimed.

"Hold your tongue, squid, for my pack shall tear your limb from their wretched sockets!" another replied before several of them repeated the 'death to all Sangheili' chant again.

"Alright… I see what you are all saying." K'an groans in slight confusion as he began to walk along the road of the bridge he before had traversing. "When you all decide to evolve and act maturely, you may return to speaking terms with me."

The pack on the channel all growled viciously at the words. Several of them began to demand that he 'stood firm' and tell them where he was.

"Your wretched species is doomed to fall by our hands, Sangheili." One of them boasted loudly.

"Even so. The completion of such a goal would still not be enough to change the fact that your mother is a sloppy whore." With a jester's smile, K'an turned off his ear piece entirely. "Well…" He chuckled. "That was satisfying." Such a delivered insult would add some pep into K'an's pace across the bridge.

This whole operation was quite literally fucked. For starters, this planet was way too heavily defended for such a small fleet; He would guess that the Prophet was not intending to stumble on the Human's home world. The second thing to raise a red flag was the speed at which Regret had just blipped off into slip space while his forces were still on the ground. On top of that, the Jiralhanae were going to the literal definition of ape shit together as they were making quite the extreme set of chants over the comms. K'an had no idea what the hell was going on, but it made him quite uneasy. Hopefully someone in the fight that had been left by the Solemn Penance could let him know what was actually happening.

K'an would first have to make it to that sector of the city and it would most likely be walking. His immediate hopes were that the bridge would hold up as he crossed it. He soon was over the apex of the bridge to where he had made it too before he had turned around. The hole that had been blown through the roadway had only grown in size and scope of damage. In fact, it had gotten so bad that he would wager that the still visible left side of the highway next to it would most likely not stay up for much longer if weight of vehicles were applied. As he was briefly inspecting the opening in the roadway, a distant rumble grew from down the road.

K'an looked up to see a convoy of Human vehicles rolling up the highway towards him. In this convoy was a hefty fourteen platform pieces in the line. Six of them were Scorpion Main Battle Tanks, there were seven Warthogs, and a single Elephant Transport in the convoy. A pair of Warthogs were leading one of the Scorpions with the Elephant in tow; the rest of the vehicles followed single file in line. He was vastly outmatched and trying to face them was utterly useless. Even if they were passing just through, they would not hesitate to blow him clear off the planet if they saw him. He had very little time to find a place to hide. It would not be long before the convoy would reach his location. So as fast as he could, he attempted to climb up onto the side of the highway railing to use one of the cable connectors as a place to hide.

Unfortunately, he knew he had been seen as his shields flared from the rounds of one of the Warthog turrets heavily striking against him. He ducked behind one of the large connectors as the other Warthog began to unload to his location as well. K'an flinched as he looked off of the side of the bridge. He really would not want to jump from the bridge as he hated swimming and it was quite a fall. The possibility of survival was slim, but it was still far greater than staying on the bridge. He wondered still if he could somehow wait out their fire to hope that they would leave him be. That was until the whoosh of a tank shell flew a mere meter from his head.

"Fuck this! I am jumping!" He screamed as he moved to prepare.

"No! Stop shooting you fucking idiots!" A Human voice screamed out from convoy could barely be heard over the guns. This stopped K'an from his jump. "The bridge wont fucking h-" The man's sentence was cut off by the tank as it sent a shell at a near miss at K'an once again.

The sudden sound of metal screeching rang out loudly from the front of the convoy. The guns all simultaneously stopped firing as several of them yelled out in profanity. K'an peeked over his cover to see that the Scorpion had stopped next to the large puncture of the road to fire its gun with the two Warthogs. The roadway between the vehicles was swiftly beginning to give as it could not handle the vibration of the tank's weapon. The roadway began to fall through just between the Elephant and Scorpion; as the tank began to tilt upwards the driver fired the gun, most likely on accident, as he tried to climb out of the cockpit. Without hardly a moment to react, the tank fell through the failing roadway. The Elephant began trying to reverse as the road began to fall out from under the front tracks and the Warthogs too were caught in the concavity that grew beneath them. The one in the middle of the road could only spin its tires in vain until it, much like the tank, fell to the water below. The other had managed to accelerate itself partially onto the side of the railing so that its front tires were propped on the lip of the railing, preventing its fall. The last vehicle to be claimed by the road failure was the Elephant, which after quite the attempt at nearly saving itself by reversing, slowly angled forward before lurching forward, leaving everyone watching horrified as the transport to plunge to the waters below.

K'an could feel the embarrassment of the convoy from where he was watching. With the convoy now effectively halted and very uninterested in him currently, he decided that it would be best to not stick around. He would take his time and stick to placed where the Humans could not see him. Eventually there was enough distance to block him from view and so he could get back on the road. With the low chance of the Human convoy following him, he left the noises of confused Human soldiers and continued on. He was surprised to see so many destroyed Ghosts and Wraiths along the way. The Demon had made very short work of all of them it seemed. How he did was vastly beyond him. His only hope other than taking a bullet was to never meet another one of those god forsaken Demons. K'an wished the death or at least disappearance of the one responsible for all of the destroyed vehicles.

Eventually K'an would make it to the other side of the bridge to where he was originally was supposed to meet with the transports to return to the fleet. Now the only things lefts were a pair of crashed Banshees and a pair of Wraith tanks that had been reduced to flaming hulls. He stopped to reconsider his options next to one of the toll booths present on that side. One of the monitors on the side of the booth beeped loudly. K'an glanced over to see that the screen read in clear lettering 'Bridge Pedestrian: Please Return Home.'

K'an cocked his head back in slight confusion. "Cheeky bastard…"

The loud groan of twisting metal tore through the sky above. K'an swiftly looked towards the space elevator to see several explosions rupture through the base of the elevator's cables. More explosions tore through the superstructure, and several of the support rings from the tether were broken off and thrown in multiple directions from the torque as it snapped violently.

The impacts caused the air and ground around the city to shake and rumble heavily, K'an struggled to stay standing and he quickly gripped the remaining section of the toll gate arm for support. Such a spectacle was very frightening to K'an, but also quite spectacular to view. However, if any pieces were to fall nearby, he would likely be killed. K'an watched, terrified, as a large ring section was launched in his direction, he was sure this was then end. Only for the chunk bounce off building just beyond the seawall. After plowing through the structure, the large ring rolled closer, falling to a stop against one of the seawall towers. With the skies clear, for the moment, K'an allowed himself a moment to breath, only to find that his body was still shaking.

"Like… Holy mother of fuck!" K'an exclaimed as he leaned slightly against the toll post.

As he stood up, the sound of a building collapsing could be heard nearby. K'an shot his gaze towards the building that had been struck first by the elevator piece. It was clear that such a strike against the structure's skeleton was too much to handle, and as a result, the building had begun to topple over heavily. Within moments, the front of the building careened until it slammed onto the ground above what looked to be the only open tunnel from the bridge. Unfortunately, the weight of the building clearly was too much as a huge screen of debris and wave of dust and smoke swiftly blasted from the entrance of the tunnel. That would not be a viable way to travel. While the ring section had taken out the one way to proceed, it had opened another by opening another. It would seem that once the building just off to the side of the toll area had been destroyed, it showed a possible path further into the city.

Without wishing to wait around for anything else to come crashing down around him, K'an got a move on through the wreckage of the building towards the city. It was a slow process due to his leg, yet it was surprisingly clean cut path. He couldn't figure out quite what the building's purpose was for, although it seemed like it was a small warehouse or receiving and shipping facility for freight. He eventually made his way onto the other side of the wreckage, which placed him on the roof overlooking some sort of park. There had been quite a fight that had taken place here, there were nearly a dozen Kig'Yar marksmen that had been killed, most had been gibed by some sort of heavy ordinance. It was clearly the work of the Demon.

Wanting to push further, K'an moved towards the edge of the roof he was on to lower himself onto the easiest way down onto ground below. He continued his way easily around the park-esc place as he walked on the crescent shaped walkway towards the opposite wall where there was a pair of openings that would lead him further. It seemed that with each step he took, there was more death and destroyed vehicles. After walking through a pair of flaming Ghost hulls and one of the two paths in the wall, he came along a pair of deceased Human Marines. One had dead against a wall besides some small crates and the other lay clutching an empty rocket launcher.

K'an was slightly unsure as to why he actually was going towards the city; obviously the Human presence would be heavy there, but from the sounds of it the Brutes were going literal ape-shit over the Sangheili. He didn't know what that was about, but he would like to find out. He knew, despite all of the multi-front opposition he could face, that his best bet was in the city. Any chance to find allies to get out of this situation would be there in the concrete jungle, he would just have to be lucky.

Once he passed by the two Human soldiers who had perished before as well as several more destroyed Ghosts scattered across another more open area, he approached the remains of a Wraith tank that had been holed by an anti-vehicle Gauss cannon. Behind it, as if the tank had been guarding such a thing, was the entrance to the park-esc area K'an had been walking through that lead into the city. As he stepped over a pair of Kig'Yar marksmen, he noticed that one had perished with nearly a full battery charge in his Beam Rifle. After stowing his Battle Rifle on his back, he leaned over easily to take the Beam Rifle. It would easily pierce the skull of both Human and Jiralhanae about as much as its Human counterpart, though K'an would greatly prefer the latter.

Ahead was a small ledge at the base of a trio of indoor waterfalls. K'an walked up to the one to the left and sat down as he set the satchel bag besides him. He checked his bag over to take a mental list of what he had. He still had his jug of water, the dozen or so bug bars, a trio of road flares, and a pair of magazines for the M6D, four for the Battle Rifle, and a single grenade. With a slight nod of his head, he questioned his survivability over a drink of water. As he took a decent long drink from his jug, the sound of a nearby explosion sounded out quite loudly, startling him. It was as if someone had light off an entire crate of explosives.

"What the fuck?" K'an looked around confused. Suddenly his ACI beeped, showing a nearby squad mate. He glanced down at the roster on his HUD, seeing it read 'Sci. Maj. ' "How the fuck?"

He stood up. She wasn't far according to the roster. First, before he would traverse further, he would try to contact her to see if she was ok. In order to do this he sent a short wave ping to her via his comms piece. Unfortunately she didn't respond to the ping. Strangely enough her blip on his motion tracker stayed solid, implying she was on the move. He would do his best to meet her on her path; with more help he could possibly survive the city. With a grunt, he placed the beam rifle on his back, clipping it to the harness over his shoulder, before replacing the Human Battle Rifle in his hands.

Leaving the slightly soothing waterfall displays, he continued on, leaving the indoor pass. Once outside, a large throughway lay between a large junction between several industrial buildings. A few names that stuck out to him were, Hannibal, Lethbridge, and Tterrab. To the left was a large wall that held a closed large security gate, leading to it being very clear the road to the left was closed, and to the right a similar wall was seen much further down. From there he could see that the road to the right ended after a large intersection that branched towards the North. He would take that route as it seemed as the only way towards Naki's location.

He made his way as fast as he could while remaining cautious as he moved along the sparse destroyed vehicles that littered the street. He peeked around the intersections corner to see a larger lane between two lines of buildings, between the two sides of roads there was a large median that connected to a set of two stairs that lead up to two cat walks along the roads. He could see a pair of Wraith tanks that had been destroyed previously on either side of the roads, and that there was a single nonoperational Scorpion tank that had been clearly hit by the main gun of a Scarab perched atop the furthest catwalk. Looking past them he could see that the building at the end of the lane had been heavily occupied by the UNSC. This was of course just before he noticed the slight glint of a sniper rifle nested on the crest of said building.

He was just lucky enough to pull himself behind the corner as the streak of a 50. Caliber round coursed through the air where he had been standing. Such an experience had been felt by K'an many times before, but he never quite got used to it. While it still caused his blood pressure to rise and made his nerves crazy with fear, he had grown acutely on how to react to such a drastic feeling.

He quickly switched the Battle Rifle out for the Beam Rifle as he activated his active camouflage. Once he was fully transparent, he nestled the barrel of the Beam Rifle against the corner of the building he was next to. He quickly pivoted his weapon to aim for the sniper's position. In the moment and with the fact he was staying hidden, his aim wasn't at its best use. He still was able to quickly place a round of his rifle through the scope of the opposing sniper's weapon. The Sniper quickly was rendered unable to continue the marksman game, so K'an looked quickly through the rest of the building to see if there was any others. Seeing none besides the one he had shot, he looked ahead down the road to see a side street a few meters ahead. Once he reached the side street, he continued on to put some distance towards Naki. The side street unfortunately seemed to loop immediately back into the lanes before much closer to where the Human placement.

"Son of a bitch." K'an grumbled.

Suddenly, one of the industrial doors not far from him open. He snapped his weapon to the door to find Naki at the end of his barrel.

"Naki?"

"K'an!" She seemed more excited than bewildered at his gun.

K'an jerked slightly, quickly lowering his weapon. "Naki, hush. There are Humans nearby."

"I know, the command post is right there." She said as she looked past him.

K'an exhaled with some relief; it was amazing that he would no longer be alone. "Are you alright?"

"Yes... I'm fine. I have just run into my fair share of Brutes lately." Naki sighed herself.

"I haven't yet... I haven't run into anyone yet actually…" He admitted as he took a brief look around. "Have they actually turned on us?"

"Yes... I have encountered two different groups."

"Damn it. That makes this whole scenario interesting." If what Naki says was true, this would make both of their current endeavors in the city quite complicated.

"There was a pack following me through the building, but I think I may have thrown them off."

"Let's hope you have... Do you have any idea what is going on? Why the Prophet left with such haste?"

"The demon was getting close, I think they panicked."

"Indeed…" K'an hummed.

Naki paused for a moment as if to collect her thoughts. "So, where are you headed?"

"After the Phantoms all left with the ship I didn't really have any plans…"

Naki hummed slightly in thought.

"Tell you what…. You placed me on your roster for security detail. I intend to continue that. I am all yours' Cimutee." He smiled slightly too possibly give some situational comfort to either of them. He only hoped she had a better plan than he did.

Before she could give a solid answer, the door that she had come from opened again, this time several Jiralhanae burst from the opening. As soon as they had cleared from the doorway, they began to raise their weapons and fire at K'an and Naki.

"Shit." K'an swiftly snapped up his Battle Rifle and began firing bursts of shots at the Brutes. He took a step forward to place himself more so in between Naki and them to give her some protection.

"Now we run!" Naki yelled as she too lifted her weapon and began to fire at them, beginning to run from them for the ramp.

As she got some momentum, he began to backpedal, doing his best to place his shots into the Brute's chests and heads. He has successfully dispatched two of them and nearly incapacitated another before he turned to run after Naki. Spiker rounds and plasma bolts zipped past the both of them as the fled for the direction of the Human stronghold. It wasn't that it was where they wished to go, it was simply the only direction they could go. There was too many Brutes for them to fight off, so they must flee.

Following Naki's lead, the two were soon running towards the median. Ahead of her there was a large garage door open under a clearly marked 'TTERRAB Industries' above. K'an hoped that their shields would hold long enough against the near constant barrage of Brute weapons soaring around them. He also hoped the Human's would not start taking pot shots at them. The last thing either of them wanted was to get caught in a two front cross fire.

For whatever reason, the Humans had not begun firing at them all until K'an and Naki were nearly in the cover of the open bay door. Maybe it was the slight comical notion of a pack of Brutes running down a pair of Sangheili like a bunch of mad men. When they did begin to fire their weapons down from their emplacement, their volleys were nearly exclusively for the Brute pack. K'an quickly came to a stop to aid Naki in gripping the bay door and pulling it down to slam it shut. Leaving the two to pant in the darkness to the sounds of several Brutes screaming and hollering to their demise.

K'an panted heavily as he dropped the empty magazine from his gun to load a fresh one. "You ok?" He asked Naki.

"Yes, I'm fine. You?"

"I'm good…" K'an exhaled deeply and closed his eyes to rest for a moment. "The Humans didn't shoot at us... Did you notice that?"

"Probably for no specific reason."

"Probably not."

K'an sighed once again before standing from the wall. "Now. If I know humans as well as I think I do, those few Jiralhanae will not fulfil their attention spans for two long. I would suggest that we get a move on before they want to find out where we went too."

"Where do we go?"

"I have no idea…" K'an looked down at the Battle Rifle and sighed softly. "Anywhere but here." He pulled back the weapons bolt and began to make his way away though the building.

"How did you get left here?" K'an asked, looking to make their journey a little bit less quiet.

"The Phantom I was in got hit by a rocket. Ryau had to let me go."

"Let me guess... You feel into the water... right?"

"Of course."

"I was going to say…" K'an chuckled slightly. "When you found me, I don't think I've ever seen you so wet."

Naki just shook her head.

"Sorry…" K'an's chuckling soon ended with the clearing of his throat. "My humor hasn't died."

Naki sighed and shook her head once again.

"Anyway…" K'an grumbled slightly. "I was on my way across the large city bridge. I had commandeered a vehicle and was halfway there to the extraction point when the ship took off."

"Okay?"

"I also firsthand found out that FTL jumps in atmosphere create quite the shock wave."

"You didn't know that?" Naki cocked her head slightly at him. "I thought you liked ships and space."

"Oh I do... I've just never seen it firsthand" K'an corrected himself. "Forgive me for not being just a few kilometers from an in-atmosphere jump more than once in my life. It is a bit of a new experience for me."

"I've never seen one before either but the way you said that implied that you've not even heard of it either."

"Apologies... My words are getting a bit mixed up with all of the excitement going on around us." K'an explained before taking a few breaths to calm himself. "Anyway... Do you have any sense of direction as to where we need to go?"

"I'm not sure. With the Brutes here, it would be best to get out of the city."

"That is what I was thinking too…" He sighed. "Though the nearest bridge is out; it is not structurally sound and there are a lot of Humans on the other side. I just came from there."

"Best to head that way then." She stated as she pointed southward.

K'an nodded in agreement. "Yes Ma'am."

The two took their bearings and began their southbound direction. Now that they had to not worry about getting shot at, they could breathe a little easier. It was quiet for a while until K'an began to start up another conversation.

"So… What do you think our chances of getting out of this city alive, Naki?" He questioned.

"Quite high." She answered surprisingly quick and affirmatively.

"I'm not so convinced... How do you figure?"

"There were not that many brutes in this city." She explained. "Even if they caught our brothers off guard, and killed them, they cannot block all of our routes."

"The issue is that I am not worried about the Brutes themselves…" K'an argued. "I am worried about them… All of the other Covenant that align themselves with the Brutes, and the Humans on top of that. We are literally alone on this battleground."

Naki shrugged "You said this city, not the planet."

K'an rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean."

"I think we will be able to make it out." Naki answered directly. "The humans have probably evacuated this area and pulled back in case we glass the city."

"That doesn't make me feel any better." K'an grumbled. "Whatever… We just need to pick a direction and stick with it."

"As you said: Away from here." Naki nodded.

"Alright…" K'an sighed. "Maybe we should keep heading south, deeper into the city. There is bound to be few any Humans left and I would wager that we should encounter many Sangheili to aid... Don't you think?"

"That sounds well enough."

Their route turned once again into silence as the two maneuvered around every vehicle and barrier they came across. Still yet they failed to encounter anyone on the streets. As the industrial sector turned into what they could assume would be the corporate section of the city, they were more able to traverse mainly by way of alleys to avoid most of the roadways.

Eventually, the two could head heavy fighting close ahead. It sounded just beyond the mouth of the alley they were in. As the two drew closer to the street, a group of frightened Human Civilians rushed past, leaving K'an and Naki to duck slightly at the suddenness of them. The sounds of the fighting grew louder and more audible. It could now be heard that the still unseen firefight had only the acute sounds of Brute and Plasma weaponry.

"What the fuck?" K'an muttered.

"Stand firm, Brothers!" A booming Sangheili voice called out nearby. "We shall destroy each and every one of these blasphemous Brutes! Keep fighting! For glory!"