Author's Notes: Hi everyone! I really do apologize, but I have a semi-decent excuse this time. For one thing, this chapter was finished a while ago, but, as you'll notice, it doesn't cover the ENTIRE Covenant Horde battle...if it had, it would've been several thousand words more than what it is (meaning...above 10000, easy). Instead, since the last half or so wasn't done, I elected to split it in half and post the other half within 48 hours of this one for you all.

That being said, I would've had this posted 48 hours AGO, except that FanFiction adamantly refused to load the Document Page for me...I just got it to load this morning, and now, this evening, I have the chapter for you all. Again, provided FanFiction does not fail me again, I will have the next chapter for you all by Friday or, at the absolute latest, Saturday. But, most likely, it will be up tomorrow evening.

Now, moving on, and assuming you all can forgive me for the delay, here is the section we've all grown accustomed to, REVIEWS!

Reviews:

WolfyWolf: lol, "bass-ackwards." I've actually said that, so...yeah, it was a "familiar" term. Also, the school mentioned in these chapters is based loosely on the lower-grade schools I attended. Thanks for your review!

Lord Of The Trees: lol, thanks for your compliment on the fight scenes! I certainly enjoy those more than any other. Anyways, here's the Horde I mentioned, up ahead...I hope you like what goes on!

Benaia Dre: lol, glad you enjoyed it, Cory! As we talk at this very second, lol, I say I hope you like this one!

killerman83ca: Hey, sorry I couldn't exactly "update soon," but FanFiction is responsible for most of that...anyway, here's your answer to their survival! Thanks for the review!

Suliac Griffin: Yeah...that was a lot of Drones, but I had to find SOME way to make a battle with them interesting. ;) Up ahead though is the Horde, and things are gonna get ugly. Thanks for reading, as always!

rebelbullit04: Thanks very much for your compliments about the story. It really does make my day to read all these positive reviews from people. Also, on the compliments I left...you're very welcome. :)

Samson00: Hey man! I don't know about a "new par," but thanks for the compliments! I guess you kinda already know some of what's comin', but still...lol. Hope you like! Thanks for reading it through for me (twice?). ;)

Nameless Destruction: Well, I can't make any promises on anyone's survival...ever...but, for now, you have my word that at least some of the Sangheili will make it through...some of this "segment" of the story. ;) No, but really, I intend on keeping them here for a while, no worries. Thanks for the review!

The Great Valley Guardian: Thanks for your compliments on this last one! People took to it much better than I thought they might. Glad you liked those lines too...really, I'm just glad SOMEONE said something. ;) I wanted them to be the "taglines" for the chapter, but you were the only one to come through and say something for me! lol. Which was your favorite, you think??? Anyways, here's the next one for you!

1 way ticket: lol, I figured you might not like that one as much, since it was more fighting than anything. You might not be a fan of this one either, then...but I hope so. And yes...the Horde should be afraid. ;) Thanks for reading!

Lord of Purple: New reviewer! lol. Hi, new reviewer! I'm always happy to have another person start giving me input on this story. The more, the better. Not for the numbers, so much as it tells me what I do right and what could be improved. Anyway, thank you very, very much for the compliments on the story and my writing. I assure you, I'm nowhere near "novel-writing" level, but I do appreciate it.

Also, to answer your question...Magnus will not appear in this "segment" of the story. He will appear in the next one, however. I'm sorry he's been gone for so long...it's part of my pre-made storyline. There's a method to my madness...most of the time. ;) Anyways, thanks for reviewing, and I hope you'll stick around!

PandamanX: First of all, regarding Ahrmonro...I'm really glad SOMEONE mentioned whether or not it was done well. You'd be surprised how nerve-racking it is to try and write from an alien standpoint when you don't have a full feel for how they think/react to everyday things. But thanks very much for that.

As for Zeke and Vic...lol. I guess it kinda was like that...I'm not opposed to "funny" though. ;) And, in regards to the informational chapters...those are the ones I have the most trouble with. It's not always that I think they're horrible...it's just that they seem that way 'cause they're so hard for me. Just a weird quirk of mine.

Finally, in answer to your question: yes, I have the story mostly mapped out. I basically have an outline and an idea of most of the major events. So, I guess, most of what you read isn't at all random. It's there because it somehow fits into my "Grand Order." But, at the same time, it's not mapped out to an absolute science, either. For instance, I never thought the Drones would have their own chapter...it ended up longer than I had anticipated. That answer your question okay?

Taylor114: And my last reviewer, who actually emailed me a review because the internet wasn't working! Thank you very much! Ha, bet you thought I wouldn't answer you, huh? ;) I'm glad you liked the Fusion Coil idea...a friend helped me perfect that little bit. Thank Samson00 if you feel like it. :) Anyways, thanks for your review, and I hope your computer allows you to do the next one more easily!

Now, after so long, on with the story!


Chapter 28:

Heavy Metal –

1800 Hours - January 1, 2553

Streets of Los Angeles, California

Lurrebus drove the Chopper slowly around the corner of the two streets, looking for any sign of the humans in the fading light of the evening. Along with seven other Chopper-driving Brutes, he was leading the rest of the attack group through the city. Behind him, two Mortar Wraiths were slowly preparing to come around into the next street as well. And, behind them, was their lone Anti-Air Wraith.

And, behind them, eighteen lazy, Ghost-piloting Grunts were barely keeping pace. Lurrebus scoffed. It was only because of the eight Choppers and three Prowlers on their asses that the Grunts even bothered to stay that close.

The Brute Captain could hear the air above him whistling quietly as the six Banshees that were a part of their group flew out in front in an attempt to find the humans' military establishment that one of the Jackals had alluded to earlier.

Slowly, he hit the end of the street and made a right turn into yet another barren road, this one almost identical to the last except for small variations in the buildings. On his left, a huge, two-story building took up the entire street. It was one the humans called "department stores." Every wall on the second floor was made almost exclusively of glass windows.

And the humans are supposed to be intelligent, Lurrebus thought.

On the right was another building. This one was three stories tall and was what the humans referred to as a "school." Something about it stood out, however. Lurrebus slowed his Chopper to a stop.

The same metal that covered the humans' warships was coating parts of the school. Even though several buildings had had last-minute shielding added to them when the Brutes arrived, this one seemed different. The armor had no chinks in it. It was added recently.

"Rottius," he said to the Brute Major piloting a Chopper beside him, "the last human resistance we destroyed…how far was it from here?"

The Major cocked his head, causing his dark-blue armor to reflect the dim rays of the evening sun. "Not far, Lurrebus," he said, "a quarter-mile, by human standards."

"Of course," the Captain grumbled, squinting behind his helmet to get a good view of the school. He turned to the Brute Major. "This is it." He said. "Get th-"

BOOM!

Out of the corner of his eye, Lurrebus watched as two red beams of energy engulfed the leftmost Mortar Wraith, devouring it and leaving only a smoking pile of scrap a moment later. The Brute turned to look to the source of the beams: the top of the school.

"Demons!" he yelled. There were at least two of them up there, on the edge, holding a pair of huge cannons on their shoulders. Before he could give another order, however, the Banshees turned ninety-degrees in midair to attack them and any other humans on the roof.

Just as their Plasma Cannons started firing, Lurrebus watched as eight projectiles came flying from the roof, leaving smoking trails in their midst. Seven of them impacted the Banshees, and three of the crafts exploded in a haze of smoke. Two of them fell in burning pieces down onto the street, but one managed to crash into another non-injured flier first, causing them both to spin in loose circles as they crashed into the roof of the department store opposite the school.

Lurrebus heard one of the Chieftains roar out in rage behind him. He turned to see the gold-armored Chieftain, Gortalus, walking toward him.

"How many are there?" The Brute roared.

Lurrebus growled. "I do not know."

"Kill the Demons! Kill them all!" The Chieftain snapped back. "And do it now!"

Lurrebus started to answer, but was interrupted as the very ground around him seemed to spontaneously explode. He looked up to see that a group of three humans and yet another Demon had fired over a half-dozen rockets down into the front of the attack group. In the midst of the attack, two more red beams of energy identical to the last two seared the air to his left, hitting the other Mortar Wraith and completely destroying it as easily as they had the first.

As Choppers and Ghosts detonated all around him, the Captain got the feeling that there was more wrong than what was being shown to him. The humans had planned something…and it was working. The Brutes' attacking force was being demolished.

Finally, the humans stopped firing, and Lurrebus looked around in an attempt to assess the damage. In reality, it could've been much worse. Out of the original sixteen Choppers and eighteen Ghosts, twelve Choppers were still intact and only one of the Ghosts had been destroyed. Of course, both of the Wraiths were also obliterated in the attack, and four Banshees had been lost as well.

Still, he thought, it could've been worse.

No sooner had the realization come to him than Lurrebus heard the sound of a Brute Chopper's engine behind him. Normally, in a squad full of them, this would mean nothing, but this engine wasn't just running, it was revving. It was boosting.

Out of nowhere, one of the huge windows on the second story of the department store shattered and another one of the Demons, clad in black armor, came flying out onto the street in a Chopper of his own. Without a moment's pause, the Demon boosted straight through one of the remaining Choppers, crushing it beneath the enormous, spiked wheels of his own.

Still not stopping, the Chopper-driving human ramped over the fallen Wraith and wiped out a pair of Ghosts before speeding down the street and rounding the corner. Gortalus roared again, furious.

"I want the Demon dead! Bring his corpse to me!" He said. Immediately, six of the remaining twelve Choppers sped away to follow the Demon.

As they left, the two undamaged Banshees came back, flying in low and raining fire down on the humans located atop the school. Lurrebus could hear them yelling as huge, green bolts of plasma exploded against the rooftop.

"Send in the first Phantom." Gortalus snapped behind him, seemingly to himself. Lurrebus knew better, however, aware that the Chieftain had a pre-established link with the operators of the two dropships.

A second later, the first of the two Phantoms flew in low over the roof and opened its side-hatches, letting two-dozen Brutes jump down onto the building, armed with everything from Spikers to Fuel Rod Cannons.

"Good," Lurrebus mumbled to himself, "now those pathetic humans will see the true force of the Jiralhanae!" He glanced around, but stopped suddenly when something caught his eye at the end of the street.

There, in a large, eight-story building at the far end of the street, was yet another of the Demons. This one was clad in all white armor except for large red circles on his shoulders. He was behind a big, glass window on the second story.

"Another Demon," Lurrebus growled, enraged. These days, it appeared that the Demons were becoming as abundant as the rest of the humans.

A second later, the white-armored soldier jumped through the glass, shattering it and landing solidly on the ground in the middle of the street. At over a hundred yards away, Lurrebus couldn't even make out the Demon's weapon.

"Another one!" the Chieftain roared behind him. "Kill it now!"

As the Brutes tried to mobilize, however, Lurrebus heard another window shatter off to his right, in the department store. He turned just in time to see the huge spikes of a Chopper coming down fast…straight for him. He tried to roar, but his voice was drowned out by the Chopper's propulsion system and the crunching of his own bones beneath its front wheel.


Blaine stood ready in the middle of the street, watching patiently as the Elite they called "Buno" ran straight through the group of Covenant soldiers with his stolen Chopper. The Sangheili warrior rode right over a Brute Captain, missed the Chieftain, but made up for it by blasting through a pair of Ghosts before getting off the Brute-made craft and bringing his twin Plasma Rifles to bear.

The biomechanical Spartan, on the other hand, was prepared to wage his own war. He had a Rocket Launcher with four shots in it and a Gravity Hammer on his back, albeit a hammer with a battery at only about 30-percent. In addition to that, he was carrying all the grenades he could pack and a piece of equipment the Marines called a Power Drain.

Plain and simple, things were about to get really ugly.

"And here's my first customer." The cybernetic Spartan said with a smile as a single Ghost came careening toward him from out of the group of Covenant. The rest of them, it seemed, were preoccupied with trying to get into the school.

The Grunt driving the Ghost was a red-armored one and, if Blaine didn't know better, he'd say the thing was smiling as it engaged the Ghost's boost-system and charged him, laughing madly. That was about to change, though.

When the Ghost was less than twenty feet from him, Blaine quickly grabbed the hammer from his back and held it high above his head.

The response was immediate. The Grunt driver yelled out and tried to stop the Ghost, but it was too late: he was far too close already. As Blaine readied the hammer for his first crushing blow of the evening, he saw several more Ghosts start to move from the group toward him.

The Spartan smiled and smashed the hammer straight down, onto the Ghost and its driver, smashing them both and then sending them flying away from the sphere of altered gravity the weapon had created on impact.

A second later, he heard the cry of another Grunt. "What A-hole gave him a hammer?" The alien screamed frantically, not seeming to know whether to charge him at all.

There was a Chopper coming in hard from his left, however, and the driver had no qualms with charging him. Only once the Chopper was so close that its driver activated the vehicle's boost-mechanism, Blaine held the hammer over his left shoulder and swung it sideways like a baseball bat again, sending the huge craft rolling across the street and flipping end-over-end into a particularly unlucky Ghost-driving Grunt. The two vehicles collided and exploded in the middle of the street, their detonations causing so much chaos that even the Chieftain at the other end of the road seemed lost for a moment.

Blaine checked the hammer. One more good hit in it, he thought. It was depressing, really. He'd wanted to do a lot more damage with it before switching weapons.

"Die, Demon!" A Grunt's voice echoed from his right as the creature started firing the Ghost's twin Plasma Cannons.

Blaine smiled beneath his helmet and ran straight for the Ghost, holding the hammer high above his head like he was brandishing a flag. The Grunt panicked and stopped shooting, instead trying to turn the Ghost around and flee, screaming as it did so.

"Don't forget your parting-gift." Blaine said, priming a Plasma Grenade and winging it at the Ghost as it turned around. The grenade stuck right to the Grunt's methane tank.

"No! No-no-no! No!" The alien screamed frantically. "Bad thing! Very bad thing! Very bad-"

BOOM!

The grenade detonated, its blue explosion engulfing the Grunt and its vehicle in a cloud of gas and flying metal.

Blaine grinned silently, watching the devastation. A second later, he became aware that yet another Chopper was coming for him.

"Good Lord," he said irritably, "you freaks are slow learners."

This time, he didn't bother blasting the Chopper away from him with a sideways swing of the hammer. He didn't bother doing some fancy trick and sticking the driver with a grenade. No, this time, Blaine simply turned around and slammed the hammer down on the Chopper's engine as hard as he could, flattening pieces of it and stopping it dead in its tracks. The Brute Major driving it got out immediately, roaring in rage.

"That's right Bo-Bo," Blaine mocked, "come and get me."

The Brute roared again, louder this time, and charged the Spartan. It took all of two steps before Blaine thrust the handle-end of the hammer into its forehead. It wasn't enough to impale the creature, but it did cause it to recoil and fall over backwards, howling in pain.

"Hmm," Blaine mused as he looked at the hammer, "even with no battery left in it, I might still keep this thing."

"Stupid human!" the Brute yelled as it stood up. It came at him again, this time raising its arms high above its head. It raised them up and ran forward, roaring and-

Blaine smacked it in the ribcage with the handle again and heard bones crack. The alien stopped dead in its tracks, howling in agony. The cybernetic Spartan didn't wait though; he thrust the handle into the Brute's gut, causing it to hunch over, coughing up crimson blood.

"Oh, did that hurt?" He asked with a tone flooded with false concern. Quickly, he added, "Good!" and plunged the handle into the Brute's foot. Before the beast could even respond, he flipped the handle up, smacking it in the chin, leaving it facing the sky as it continued to cough and gag on its own blood.

At that, Blaine had had enough. He twisted to the right and then snapped back with the hammer, first smacking the handle into the Brute's cheek, and then sending a crushing blow to its skull with the head of the hammer. The alien was sent skidding across the ground for several meters before it came to a stop.

The Spartan was looking at the hammer, admiring its power even without a battery, when he heard a familiar sound behind him: another Chopper. He scowled. No longer did he have the power of altered gravity to fend off the stupid things.

"Oh well," he said, dropping the huge mallet and putting the Rocket Launcher on his shoulder, "no matter."

When he could hear the Brute boosting behind him, Blaine turned 180-degrees and immediately fired the launcher. The rocket took all of a fraction of a second to impact with the Chopper, detonating with the engine and sending pieces of it in all directions.

Blaine stood completely still and felt the wind from the explosion blowing around him as the huge frames of the spiked wheels flew inches from his face, skimming just over his shoulders. As the overpressure surged across his visor, he calmly cocked his head to the side to avoid another foot-long piece of shrapnel that had come flying off the Brute vehicle, ready to impale him without a second's notice.

The Spartan could hear the Grunts and Brutes that had seen what he had just done to their fellow soldier.

They were screaming.

"So," he yelled, motioning to the launcher, "who wants me?"

Almost as if it were in response, eight Ghosts came rushing out from behind the remaining Wraiths toward him, boosting for all they were worth.

"Shit," Blaine said. He hadn't counted on quite that many. "I could've dealt with six." He turned and ran back to the office-building he'd just jumped out of a few minutes before and jumped first on top of a wrecked car, and then back through the same window he'd come through, immediately taking cover behind a nearby wall as all eight of the Ghosts let loose their Plasma Cannons.

Blaine silently cursed himself as he reloaded the Rocket Launcher. He hadn't counted on getting quite that many Covenant interested in him. Still, it posed an interesting challenge. He thought of all he had on him: a few grenades, the rockets…and the Marines' Power Drain.

I wonder, he thought, bouncing the blue electronic ball in his hands. I wonder what this thing can do.

He stood behind the wall, contemplating it for a moment as he listened to the whining noise of the Plasma Cannons. Finally, he smiled and gripped the ball in his right hand. "Oh, what the Hell?" he said to himself, and broke from his cover.

The next few seconds were some that Blaine wouldn't forget. Without even another glance, he rounded the corner and jumped out the window he'd used twice already, leaping clean over the squad of Ghosts beneath him, but dropping the Power Drain on them as he did so.

The incredible little device started emitting a huge sphere of blue energy that stopped all the Ghosts in their tracks and caused the Grunts to yell and scream obscenities as they tried to get their vehicles running again. Blaine landed a few feet outside the sphere with his back turned to the eight Covenant soldiers.

He smiled and pulled his last Plasma Grenade from its slot on his armor. Looking at it, he wondered for a second whether or not a rocket would be a better choice to make sure that the Ghosts were taken care of.

Blaine shrugged and shook his head, listening happily to the sounds of the screaming Grunts behind him. He primed the grenade and threw it casually over his shoulder as he began to walk away.

"No!" one of the Grunts yelled suddenly. "Not again!"

Blaine grinned as he counted the seconds down in his head. Three…two…one…


BOOM!

Victoria watched through a window on the third story of the school as the Plasma Grenade detonated in the middle of the group of Ghosts. One right after another, the Ghosts began to explode, first of their own accord, and then multiple times after igniting the grenades their Grunt drivers had been carrying. In a few seconds, nothing remained of the eight vehicles and their drivers but a half-dozen smoking holes, burnt and twisted metal, and a few scattered pieces of the Grunts' corpses.

"Hell yeah!" Landon yelled through the communications-link. "Now that's what I'm talkin' about!"

CRASH!

"Vic!" Samuel said behind her, "they're coming in again!"

Victoria nodded, bending her arms slightly and letting the blades on her elbows activate, suddenly glowing with blue-white energy. She ran in front of Samuel and watched as the door at the end of the hall flew open, spilling seven Brutes out into the passage, all of them waving around their Brute Shots and Spikers.

"I got 'em," she said, grabbing the Energy Sword from her thigh and taking off for the group. She vaguely heard Samuel and Jason behind her, no doubt objecting to her "reckless" behavior, but she didn't care. There were only seven of them, after all.

Just as the aliens reached the middle of the hall, she leapt forward, working carefully not to hit the ceiling as she jumped over their heads and landed in the middle of them.

The reaction was instant: each of the seven Brutes tried desperately to stab or slice her with both the big and small blades mounted to their weapons. Victoria only smiled behind her visor, parrying the strikes with the mounted blades on her arms and the Energy Sword. Once, she even went so far as to bring her knee up to block a vicious attack from a Brute Shot.

That was one thing her augmentations, no matter how strange, had been good for: the entire world seemed to move slower than she did. These Brutes, while they were swinging with all their might, would have to work a lot harder to hit her as long as she was at her best. She couldn't dodge bullets or plasma shots very well, but physical attacks? She'd gotten a lot of practice with Zeke, and if he couldn't catch her, they sure as Hell weren't about to.

This isn't any fun at all, she thought as she blocked a pair of Brute Spikers that were flying toward her back…without even turning to face them. Bored, she ducked low and spun a full circle with her arms bent inward, the result being that the two mounted blades made cuts across the legs of each of the four Brutes circled directly around her. As she stood up, listening to them roar, she gripped the ends of two Spike Grenades mounted to her armor and stuck them into the walls on either side of her.

"Time to go," she mumbled, bracing her legs before doing a back-flip and landing on the outside of the circle of still-howling Covenant. Just as they began to turn to face her, the grenades went off, sending superheated spikes flying between the two walls and shredding them into nothing more than piles of gruesome confetti.

As she walked back to her teammates, Jason shook his head. "That wasn't even right." He said. "You're too damned fast for your own good."

Victoria smiled. For now, it appeared she was just fast enough for her own good.

"Guys!" another Spartan's voice echoed in her ears. "We need help on the first floor! They're coming in!" It was Stephanie. Landon, herself, and two of the Elites were the ones assigned to hold the bottom floor.

Samuel cracked the knuckles on one of his enormous hands. "We're coming down. Hold on."

As Victoria turned to run for the stairs, he stopped her. "No," he said, "you stay here and handle whatever's left from the dropship. I'll take Jason downstairs and I'll send you one of the Elites as backup."

Victoria nodded. "Sounds great," she said sarcastically, "except that last part…why do I need backup?"

Samuel shook his head. "Just keep them from raining down on us, okay?"

"You got it."

"Good," and he smashed his foot into the floor, shattering it and making a hole big enough for himself and Jason to jump through.

A second later, Victoria was left alone in the hall, waiting for more.

"Well, this sucks." She whined, looking at the far door. The Brutes had just sent in a group of seven, and there had been one group of eight before that. That meant that there were no more than ten more still on the roof and doing God-only-knew-what. Victoria didn't like that.

She glanced out the window overlooking the street to get some idea as to how the battle was going out there, but instantly wished that she hadn't.

Blaine was backed up into a corner by two Prowlers that were getting air-support from one of the Banshees. He still had the Rocket Launcher, but didn't look like he knew which one to shoot.

The Elite Major, Buno, was trying futilely to fight hand-to-hand against four of the Brutes, two of which were gold-armored Captains. Victoria watched as one came up behind the Sangheili and backhanded the alien into another of the Brutes. That one simply grabbed the Elite and held him still as one of the Captains came up behind him and stuck a Spike Grenade deep into his back.

"Buno," she said, watching in shock as they flipped him onto his back. "No…"

The Elite struggled for a moment to stand up, but the Brutes only watched him, mocking him as he tried so desperately. A second later, the grenade exploded, and his entire upper-body was shredded in the spikes. The Brutes laughed even as a few of the spikes nicked their armor, leaving deep scratches and cuts.

"Buno!" she yelled, enraged. Subconsciously, she activated the Energy Sword still in her hand. "Brutes…" she said lowly, "you're gonna pay for that."

Still watching them, she silently cursed herself and the situation. She'd been instructed to stay and keep the Brutes from coming in from the roof. She had to stay. But she didn't want to. She wanted to jump clean out of the window and go slit the throats of the four Brutes that had just mutilated one of her allies without so much as one hint of honor in the kill. They'd ganged up on him. They'd hit him in the back.

Her fists clenched tighter until the Energy Sword felt like it would snap. The Brutes were going to pay for the blood spilled today. Even if it took her the rest of her life, she was going to avenge every human and Sangheili lost.

"Bastards," she whispered under her breath. "You just better hope Blaine or Samuel gets to you before I do."


"We can't hit 'em!" The Marine on one of the turrets yelled as he continued to pelt the doors to one of the hallways leading from the cafeteria to the outside. The Brutes had bypassed the security out there and run in through the hall. Barely, a few of them had gotten close enough to slam one of the two titanium doors shut and use it as cover, peeking out only long enough to fire a few shots or wing a random grenade.

"This is ridiculous!" Stephanie yelled as dozens of rounds continued to splash across the door and the wall. She walked over to the Marine, holding two Fragmentation Grenades in her hands.

"What is it?" He asked, still not taking his finger off the trigger.

"Give me that!" She snapped, prying his hands from the turret and promptly ripping it from its mount.

"Woah!" he yelled. "What are you-?"

"Here!" She said, pointing at his hands and handing him the grenades. The man lost it.

"I can't beat them with these! I need a gu-"

"Just throw them at the wall!" She pointed at the open door. "Bounce them around the door when I say so."

The man started to object, but stopped when Stephanie raised her hands up. She motioned once more to the door and started running toward it.

"Alright," she said mostly to herself as she approached the big, titanium door. She turned around to face the Marine and made a throwing motion with her arm.

The man reared back and flung the first grenade at the wall beside the door, barely throwing it hard enough to bounce it around the side. A second later, as the first one exploded, he threw the second one, which made it around much easier and detonated on the far side.

As grey smoke billowed around the door, Stephanie took a deep breath, walked the last few steps and kicked it wide open, pulling and holding the trigger on the turret as she did so. The moment the door was open, dozens of shots echoed through the narrow hallway, absolutely shredding the seven shocked Brutes on the other side.

When the last one fell, she let go of the trigger and let the gunfire die down. Once it had, she heard something she hadn't heard before. It sounded like someone screaming; a female…and young.

What the Hell? She wondered, listening to the noise. There were no words, just screaming, from down the hall. She could hear someone crying too.

"Sergeant!" she yelled back into the cafeteria.

The man turned her way. "What is it?"

"Are there any civilians in here?"

The Sergeant stopped cold, his eyes growing wide. "Oh shit!" He yelled. "There was a woman. She came in looking for a place to hide. We put her in the south wing!" He froze for a moment, then added, "she had a little girl with her!"

Stephanie didn't wait any longer. She turned and ran down the hall as fast as she could, passing over a dozen wooden doors before she got to the end of the hall, which formed a large 'T.' She looked left just in time to watch a little girl, no more than eight years old, run into an open classroom. A woman, her mother, ran in behind her and slammed the door shut just as a gold-armored Brute Captain charged around the corner.

The alien looked at the locked door and grabbed a Brute Shot from its back, pointing it at the entrance to the room.

Stephanie ran toward the creature as it fired the launcher once, blowing the door right off its hinges. The little girl screamed again.

"Come here!" The Covenant soldier yelled, and Stephanie lost it. She sped up, running as fast as her legs could possibly go, and yelled at the top of her lungs as she approached the Brute.

The alien turned toward her just in time to be tackled by the world's angriest Spartan. Stephanie ran straight into the Brute like a football player, her momentum lifting it off the ground as she ran. In a blinded rage, she ran straight through the brick wall of the school, carrying the huge alien with her.

With bricks cracking and breaking around her, she crashed right through and came out into the street, dropping the Brute on the ground in front of her. As the alien tried to stand, she lifted it up by the chin, but then promptly turned and slammed it, face-first, into the road they were standing on.

She stood there, panting, until she heard Samuel's voice sound in her ear. "Stephanie," he said, "where are you?" His voice was full of tension.

Slowly, regaining her composure, she answered, "I'm outside. I'm coming back in."

"You need to get in here now!" He said. "We've got Brutes trying to get in through the doors on all sides!"

"Coming," she said, and ran back in the way she had come, speeding down the hall toward the cafeteria. She didn't see the girl or her mother in the hallways.

A half-minute later, she stormed into the cafeteria with her Fuel Rod Cannon on her shoulder. The first thing she noticed was a woman and her daughter hiding behind one of the bunkers.

She couldn't help but smile. They were alive solely because of her.

"Stephanie!" Samuel yelled, pointing to one of the halls on the opposite side. He was manning one entrance while Jason worked at another. The three Elites that had been in the room before were now gone as well. "They're coming in!" He said.

Without a word, Stephanie took off for the other entrance, where the titanium plating was already starting to bend inward from the power of whatever was hitting it on the other side. Just before she could get there, the Marines trying to hold it were flung to the sides as the door flew inwards, a series of blue explosions detonating just outside.

Over a dozen Brutes all came barreling in, firing Spikers and Brute Shots and throwing grenades madly the entire way. Stephanie stopped, bracing herself as one of the grenades from a Brute Shot hit her in the stomach.

For some reason, the same anger that had been present only a few minutes before took over her once again, causing her eyes to glaze over slightly and her breath to come in short, shallow gasps. She fired the Fuel Rod Cannon five times, letting the huge green bolts of streaming energy devour most of the group of alien soldiers.

Before the chaos had even died down, however, Stephanie dropped the Covenant weapon and charged into the pack of Brutes with nothing but her bare hands. She ran blindly into the green haze until she felt resistance, and then punched the Brute in front her so hard that flew backwards into its packmates. Still not stopping, she groped around until she felt something – a wrist – and pulled the Brute toward her before crushing the bones with her hand and flinging it away from her, into the wall.

Finally, the smoke cleared, and Stephanie stood in a ragged circle of the torn, broken alien bodies of the Brutes who had tried to enter. She stood there, gasping for air, not out of fatigue, but pure rage. Something had snapped inside her. Seeing that child and her mother running in fear had changed the situation. She wasn't just fighting the Brutes now. She was going to kill them all.


"Come on, freaks!" Ezekiel yelled as he felt the Chopper boost again, speeding up and launching him over the top of a pile of rubble. He'd been on a driving spree for a while now, and the Brutes appeared to be gaining little ground, if any.

He reached the end of the street and turned a hard right, killing his momentum but giving him a few seconds' cover from the 35mm autocannons that were mounted on each of his pursuers' vehicles.

Suddenly, he saw a multi-leveled parking garage at the far end of the street, on the right, and got an idea to put a stop to this pointless chase.

He slowed down and waited for the first of the Choppers to round the corner behind him before hanging another hard right, into the garage. By the time they came in after him, he was already zooming up the ramp to the second floor.

"That's right, you stupid primates," he yelled back. "Catch me if you can!" He sped up and zigzagged around the debris and rubble as he searched for the ramp to the next floor.

Zeke could still hear the Choppers below him, even after he'd gone up two more stories. Accelerating again, he found himself on the top floor of the garage, four stories above the ground.

"Alright," he whispered, finding a car that was still parked at an edge of the garage. Conveniently, while there was a two-foot barrier that surrounded the garage so that people couldn't simply back right out of the building, there was no wall above that, and the car would do nicely for what Ezekiel had planned. He angled the Chopper toward it and waited until he heard the Brutes coming up behind him.

Over the loud engines of the Choppers, he could make out one word the Brutes were chanting: Demon.

"Here goes nothing!" He yelled, driving forward and pulling on the front of the Chopper with all the power his MJOLNIR armor could muster. The big, spiked wheel came off the ground for a split-second, just long enough to roll on top of the car and boost over it like a small ramp.

There was a terrifying, yet exhilarating sense of vertigo as the Chopper seemed to fly on its own, through the empty air. Looking down, Zeke realized that he was over an abandoned construction site that extended for almost fifty yards. Beyond that, however, was open road.

As the Chopper started to angle downward, weighed down by the heavy engine in the front, Zeke pulled as hard as he could to keep it level, activating the boost mechanism again as soon as he had the chance. Barely, by less than ten feet, he cleared the fence surrounding the construction site, landing hard on the barren road.

"Damn," he said, slowing the Chopper down as his shield-system beeped incessantly. He looked back up to the garage, but was surprised: the Brutes weren't following him. "Well, that sucks." He said. "I just did a Hell-jump for nothing."

Suddenly, the first of the Choppers came flying out of the garage from the same spot he'd just come from. A second later, another one followed, and another, and another.

"I know! I know!" He said bitterly, looking up at the sky, to Heaven, "be careful what you wish for. Freakin' hilarious…really." he scowled, boosting again to accelerate the Chopper. He glanced back only once, just in time to watch one of the Brutes land in the construction site, face-first. There was a small rumble as the Chopper exploded.

Alright, he thought, only five more. Zeke pushed the Chopper to go as fast as it would go, boosting every single time he got the chance. He could feel the occasional lucky shot from an autocannon hitting the Chopper, or worse, his shields.

He turned right, down another ruined stretch of road, dodging left and right to avoid scattered debris. Up ahead, he saw something that made his blood run cold: the road was ending.

"Oh, Hell no," he growled. Up ahead was, in his opinion, one of the world's oldest wastes of time: a "drawbridge." Both sides, for some reason, lifted up at an angle so that, in the middle, a ship or supply boat could travel down the river. But, for this particular bridge, the river had dried up ages ago.

And, of course, the operator seemed to have dried up with it, since both halves of the bridge were pointed up at more than sixty-degree angles.

"That's great," he muttered, glancing at the sky again. "That's just great. I'm fighting aliens of a half-dozen different species, and do any of them get me? Of course not! I get screwed by own damned species and our idiotic habits of leaving things any way but how we found them!"

The Chopper suddenly twitched to the right as several shots from the Brutes' autocannons hit the backside of it.

"This is quite a mess," a little voice echoed in the Spartan's head.

He scoffed under his breath. "Of course," he said, "just when I thought the situation could get no better." He paused. "I don't suppose you, in all your technological glory, have some idea to get them off my ass?"

"Not a one," Demon said nonchalantly.

"Remind me to have you scrapped when I get back to the base."

By now, the bridge was less than one-hundred yards further down the road, and Zeke's Chopper was closing the ground quickly.

"Alright," Ezekiel said, making up his mind, "I've gotten lucky once today. Time to see if I'm two-for-two!"

With that, he sped the Brute-made craft up as fast as it could go without a boost, and drove straight for the bridge. When he was less than five feet from the edge, he activated the Chopper's boost function, causing it to launch off the edge like a rocket.

"Time to see how dumb these aliens really are," the Spartan said, bracing his feet against the seat of the Chopper, but maintaining a grip on the controls as it flew through the air.

Time seemed to slow as he glanced back to watch the Brutes. Sure enough, one…two…three of them were all flying over the edge with him. They'd fallen for it. But still, that left two more. Where were they? If they were waiting, he was a dead-man.

It doesn't matter. He thought, bracing himself. At the last second before the Chopper started to tip downward, he flexed his legs and jumped backwards with all the muscle that he could produce between himself and the MJOLNIR armor. He did a backwards summersault in the air, and then another, landing – barely – on the edge of the bridge, overlooking the chasm.

"Holy Hell," he said, panting. Deep down, he was dumbstruck; he'd never have imagined that that would have actually worked.

"Not bad," the voice echoed in his head again. "I couldn't have done it better myself."

"One more word," Zeke growled, "and I'll make you into something more useful, like an iPod."

Suddenly, the sound of a Chopper's engine roared somewhere behind him. The Spartan turned around to see one of the giant, demonic, alien-made motorcycles speeding toward him from down the road.

Here we go, he thought, taking a deep breath and charging toward the vehicle, working deliberately to get away from the edge of the bridge.

"Stupid Brutes," he said, pulling out the Sniper Rifle. "Just try this here-"

CRACK!

The shot hit the giant wheel at the front of the vehicle, bouncing off harmlessly.

"Okay," he said, taking a breath before aiming again. "Try this again…"

CRACK!

Again, the shot ricocheted off the natural protection offered by the sheer size of the Brute-vehicle.

"Damn it." He cursed. This was getting old.

CLICK!

"What the-?" he checked the rifle, only to realize that the magazine was empty. As the Chopper drew closer, he reached for the extra ammo stored on his thigh and-

It was gone.

Zeke looked down, searching frantically for the ammunition, but it was gone. So were his grenades. The only thing he still had was his Energy Sword and the piece of equipment he'd taken from the base.

Damn it! He thought. He cursed himself for being foolish, realizing what had happened. They're in that God-forsaken department store. Of course I woul-

The Chopper's roaring engine tore him from his thoughts.

"Oh no," he said without a hint of emotion, looking up to see the Chopper boosting again, now working on covering a small, sixty-meter gap between them.

"So," Demon said, "what now?"

Ezekiel ignored the AI and took a deep breath, bracing himself. He grabbed the device that was magnetically attached to his back.

"Alright," he said, inching closer to make sure that the Brute felt comfortable trying to ram him with the Chopper as opposed to shooting at him. If the creature got smart, he was dead. "Come on…" he said, "closer…closer…"

The Brute roared so loudly that it drowned out the blaring noise of the Chopper's engine, and Zeke gripped the machine on his armor with both hands and threw it out in front of him, ducking down as he did so. A second later, as the Chopper surged forward from a boost, a tower of blue and purple light shot up from the device.

The Brute howled, trying to slow the enormous vehicle down, but it was no use: the alien had just given the craft a massive rush from its propulsion system and there was no saving it. The Chopper roared forward, into the light, and then rose up, high into the air. Its momentum caused it to fly forward in the air, and it soared right over the edge of the bridge, down into the abyss below.

Ezekiel stood up and sighed. "Wow," he said, "I actually caught a break." He took a moment, looking down at his hands, absolutely astonished. "This is incredible. I shouldn't be alive."

And, as if fate had a response to fit the moment, the last of the Brute Choppers suddenly appeared from behind a ruined building on the right side of the street Zeke had just come from. The Brute roared in triumph as it drove the vehicle straight for him.

"Of course," Zeke scowled, tightening his fists, "of course." He pulled the Energy Sword from his thigh and looked up at the tower of energy that was still pulsing from the Portable Gravity Lift on the ground.

Demon started to speak in his head. "You're not really going to-"

He activated the weapon and ran into the lift, jumping when he hit it and raising the sword high above his head.


Author's Notes: NOW, before anyone gets torches out, I just want to tell everyone: this was basically HALF the battle with the Horde (maybe less), and everyone else's parts are coming up. They'll be posted in a day or two, as well, so if you're a Samuel or Jason or Landon or even an Elite fan, you won't wait long. I just want a few reviews from this one, and enough time to double-check the other and make sure it's worth reading for you all.

So, very soon, I'll have the last part of the battle for you. And, if you all thought "oh, well this was boring...the odds weren't even" or anything like that...next chapter, I'm turning the tables a bit, just as a heads-up. So...yeah, chew on this for a day or two, and I'll keep you posted. :)

Thanks again, and please review, if you would...just 'cause I'm getting another one up doesn't mean I don't like to hear from you all!