The two could only stare down the shaft where their elevator fell threw. Chief naturally broke out of the trance and ready his shotgun.

"Let's move," Chief instructed as he loaded new shells into his shotgun. "A facility this size must have a more than one entrance." Ruby nodded wordlessly as she follows the Spartan.

Chief was beginning to worry about Ruby. Despite the training, Ruby has shown him and others this last week. She was still young, and he could think of nothing that could prepare her for something like this. This mission was over their heads.

The pair of continued their journey to escape this vile place, backtracking a couple rooms and fighting through increasing amounts of those mutated hostiles and the small creatures. By some stroke of luck, they arrived back at another lift.

The Chief and Twilight ran to the lift, activated it, and waited for them to go upwards, except they didn't. In fact, they descended at a remarkable speed.

"Chief! We're supposed to go up, not down!" Ruby shouted at the supersoldier.

"I can't read Forerunner script," Chief replied back, his tone neutral. Inwardly he was a little embarrassed.

They descended downwards into the dark. Fear slowly building up in their chests when they noticed the shaft was covered in grunt blood as they went down.

When they landed at the bottom, they found more hostiles awaited them. Ruby focused her attention on the little ones with her assault rifle while the Chief took care of the combat forms when they got close.

After fighting through the ambushing hostiles, they moved out into the next room.

It was here that Ruby saw a sight that she would never, ever want to see again. A single creature stood in the middle of the room, wildly moving towards them. What stopped her and the Chief from firing their weapons was the fact that it was a mutated human. In fact, they both recognized the face of what was once one of Sergeants Johnson's men.

The Chief lowered his shotgun. "Mendoza?" He shouted, trying to reason with potentially the humanity still within the once Marine, "come on, let's get you out of here. I know they did something to you, but the medics can fix it."

However, that humanity was long gone as Mendoza vaulted at the two of them, swinging its tentacle at them, aiming for Ruby's head.

Ruby burst in a cloud of rose petals away from the spot she was standing, just before the thing that was Mendoza slammed into that spot. Seeing its prey had getaway, it switched to face the Chief. Using its tentacle arm to strike him with superhuman strength, almost knocking him off his feet.

Circling around while firing her rifle at the same time, distracting the reanimated Marine enough for the Chief to aim his shotgun and fire two rounds point-blank. The 8-gage pellets slammed into the turned Marine's body into rotting meat chunks.

Ruby was panting as the adrenalin was flooding her body as she looked at the former Marien.

The young Huntress remembered this guy. He was on the lifeboat with them when they left the ship. Seeing a human being turned into one of these walk zombies was more horrible in person than in movies. Ruby was less inclined to watch horror movies from now on. Her thoughts were interrupted when Chief walked up beside her and found him feeding shells into his shotgun.

"You may want to reload any weapons you've used," he said as he pumped a round into the chamber, "These things seem to take a lot of punishment before they go down, the first time at least." He grumbled out the last words, making the redhead look at him.

"First time?" She asked.

"One of the ones in the first encounter played dead with me before trying to choke me to death," he clarified.

The two of them just stood there, their minds processing what they had just seen. Not only were the Captain and Johnson's squad most likely all dead, but they have been turned into those creatures, a fate that Ruby believed was worse than death.

They traveled to the next room to see more Covenant fighting against the Flood upon a ledge on the far side. Cheif signaled Ruby to hold fire as he guided them to the left where an open hatch was.

Ruby crouched along and sent a few glances at the firefight that the Covenant squad was losing soldiers to the Flood. But not before taking a few of the parasites with them. Whatever they were, Ruby must not let them reach Remnant, by any means, due to at least how horrifying they are. Her world was already terrible, as is with the Grimm. It doesn't need more horrors to add on top of them.

Ruby then thought of what would happen if a Flood infecting a Grimm like an Ursa. It was not a comforting thought.

Leaving the firefight behind them, the two travel in silence through the next few rooms. Sneaking past more Flood forms to avoid any fights. Ruby and Chief knew they could handle them, but this wasn't going to end well for them if they don't get out of here.

After successfully sneaking through the second room, Ruby heard rifle fire, and a bullet impacted on her shoulder guard. She turned around she felt more rounds impact on her chest plate, and the Chief's shields flare from being hit as well. The Culprit soon emerged from the shadows, an Infected Human, holding an Assault Rifle with a single hand. It continued to fire at the Chief, who fired back at the Combat Form. The Combat Form had its arm shot off first before finally succumbing to the Chief's and Ruby's volley of bullets. Their small victory didn't last as it now alerted the others in the room. Soon more Combat Forms armed with a variety of weapons, both human and Covenant alike turned to them.

Ruby felt her body got cold at the sight they were in. She found herself not only dodging rushing Combat and Infection Forms, but also the Combat Forms that fired their weapons at her. She kept using her semblance to rush side to side to avoid getting hit.

Fortunately, despite the number of enemies he had to face, the Chief seemingly sent out an unyielding volley of bullets. As he alternated between his shotgun, firing until it ran out of ammo, before switching to his assault rifle. When that happened, Ruby wordlessly stepped in and covered him. Destroying many inflected forms as they came near.

But it wasn't enough. As one jumped to close to the Chief and bashed him away, draining his shields till they were gone.

"Chief!" Ruby yelled in a worried tone. But was not paying attention to her surroundings as Infector form came from above with the intent to infect Ruby. The girl could do nothing as it landed on top of her and wraps its tentacles around her neck. This made her drop her assault rifle in surprise as she then tried desperately to pull the thing off her. Ruby felt adrenaline and panic set in as she felt the Infector squeeze her neck as it attempted to strangle her, her crimson aura flaring.

Chief saw this and felt fear and anger well up in him. Drawing his sidearm, he fired at the bulge in the Combat form that hit him before turning his gun with the aim with the intent of killing the Infector. But Ruby's position made the shot very difficult without harming the teen. But to the Chief and Ruby's surprise, the Infector suddenly jumped off Ruby by this but quickly shot the flood infection form as it tried to scurry away.

"Are you OK?" Chief asked the Huntress.

"Yeah, I'm fine it did nothing to me," Ruby huffed out as she waited for her adrenalin high to settle. While also ignoring how her chest wound from when the Zealot sliced her had flared up again.

Chief wasn't so easily convinced as he looked her over. Ruby had her hand over her chest and found her eyes darting to the side where the Flood infector had jumped her. She was going to suffer some nightmares in the future if he didn't get her mind off what happened.

"How do you move like that?" He asked her, making Ruby looked at him in confusion. He points to the pile of rose petals that were slowly disappearing. "I've seen you move really fast and leave a trail of rose petals of all things behind. You never explained how that happens?" He was genuinely curious about that, but if it helps calm her down, then all the better.

"Oh! I guess never went into that dd I?" She said.

"You told me bits about yourself and your family, not much else."

"So...you don't know what aura is ether?" Chief shook his head no.

"No. What is that?"

Ruby looked thoughtful, "Well, most people think of Aura as an 'extension of the soul,' much like how a common belief is that a weapon is an 'extension of the body'… I don't really understand the philosophy about it, but it's very useful. Just look at this."

Ruby pulled off one of her gloves she had on and drew out her combat knife. "Watch," She said, as she jabbed the blade down into her own hand.

Chief expected Ruby to cause a bloody mess with her hand but became fascinated when a shimmering red "aura" appear around where the tip of the blades impact point.

"That isn't the only thing it can do," Ruby continued, she carefully lowered the blade to her skin and gave a look of deep discomfort as she cut a small gash into her hand. Then a moment later, a field of red closed around the cut. Moments later, it started to fade, the skin stitching itself together and not even leaving a scar, the small cut taking nearly a minute to heal. Leaving no evidence of a wound was present in the first place. "The only thing I wish it could do is block out the pain completely, it still hurts when you get hit..."

Chief took a moment to process this before answering. "You possess a natural energy shield that also heals over time?"

Ruby put a finger to her chin in thought before answering. "If you want to think it like that, I guess. But unlike what you and the Covenant have, I can still feel everything that hits me. And If my aura brakes, I can get hurt just like everyone else."

"Like you when the Zealot kicked and sliced you back on the rescue mission."

Ruby winced at the memory but nodded. "Yeah...if I didn't have it, I'll probably be in worse shape, or...no longer here."

Chief nodded, "And you bursting into rose petals like magic?" Saying something like it was magic felt extremely weird for him to say.

Well," she began as she leaned up against a wall, "I guess magic might be one way of looking at semblances and aura. Everyone can have an aura, a little training, and you may stumble upon your semblance. Like how mine is speed."

"Looks like its more than that. There were a few times where your whole body turned into a storm of plant parts as shots seemed to go right through you." Chief saw Ruby do just that in the last fight.

This made Ruby think before answering, "I guess. I was still in combat school learning how to improve myself as both a fight and a leader."

Now, this caught John's attention. "There are schools dedicated to training kids in combat where you're from, and you were given a leadership position?"

Ruby smiled. "There are many schools on my world that help teaches people how to defend themselves. Remnant is dangerous outside the city walls. I went to Signal academy before heading to Beacon, one of the four great Huntsmen academies. I ended up impressing the Headmaster and got in two years early and was given leadership of my own team."

Ruby then pulled out her Scroll and went into its picture library, pulling up the one with her team and showing it to Chief.

John had to blink at the picture presented to him. On it was four teenage girls, he recognized the Ruby instantly on the far left. Wearing a black skirt and her signature cloke. Next to her was a girl with snow-white hair with bright blue eyes and a scar running over her left eye. She was also wearing an all-white skirt and had a sword, a reaper, hooked on her waist. Next to her was a girl with raven black hair and amber-colored eyes. She wore a mostly black outfit with what looked like a big cleaver with a ribbon on the handle, her most notable part of her outfit was the big black bow on her head. Lastly was a teen with strikingly long golden blond hair that nearly reached down to the girl's waist and unusual Lilac colored eyes. She wore a tan jacket that bares her midriff, with golden brown piping and short, puffy sleeves with black cuffs. She also had on a pair of big metal cuffs on her wrists and wore a big smile on her face. "This is your team?" He said in bewilderment.

"Yep...my partner Wiess. My sister's partner Blake and my older sister Yang." Ruby pointed out each of her teammates on the screen.

"Sister?" John asked as he looked between Ruby and the blond.

"I know what your thinking. It's because we're half-sisters, same dad different moms," she explained.

John took another look at the screen. "I have more questions to ask, but it's best saved them for when we're out of here," he said as he readied his shotgun.

"Right," said firmly as she readied her weapon before she stopped and smiled at the supersoldier. "Chief, thank you."

John just nodded before heading to the next room.

The pair entered the next room, where they heard the sounds of gunfire seemed to echo from nearby. The Chief, in a brief moment of weakness, let his hope rise and ran to the door where the shots were the loudest, opening it with his approach.

'Come on,' he thought as he traversed another corridor, with Ruby right behind him, her face determined. 'Please let there be Marines still alive.'

He was forced to slid to a halt as a door in the corridor's sidewall burst open, spawning out two dozen Infection Forms. He punched one with enough force that it popped five others from its own explosion. He destroyed the others with a single burst from his Assault rifle. Still, they had succeeded in distracting him for a few seconds, which could be the difference between life and death in battle. He hoped that he was wrong as he continued down the corridor.

That hope swiftly turned to despair and defeat as he exited through the hatch, and witnessed a lone Marine getting impaled by the tentacle arm of a Combat Form. Now seething with both anger and hatred, the Chief ran at the clustered group of monsters and tackled one to the ground. He then picked it up began using it as a shield when another combat form tried to shoot him with a plasma rifle, killing the one he held. He threw it to the side and, with the shotgun in one hand, fired a single round at extreme proximity to the combat form, the shot tore the combat form to shreds. He then turned to the rest, with an angry Ruby by his side.

Within a minute, the fight was over, with two very angry individuals triumphant over the forces of hell.

The Chief looked down at the body of the newly slain Marine and found that two other Marines were laying there as well. Both of them mutilated by either weapon fire or physical damage. His anger dilated itself, swiftly turning into sorrow as he stared at the young face of a man who had died fighting an enemy that was worse than the Covenant.

Chief knelt down to one Marine, and closed the young man's eyes and retrieved his tags while also doing the same to others. He then heard the sound of metal scraping the ground. He found Ruby dragging one body of the slain Marines over to the other and laying them down.

"What are you doing?" He asked her.

Ruby looked back at him. "On Remnant, we burn our dead. No room within the cities for grave yards." She pointed at the dead Marines before pulling out a plasma grenade. "These guys shouldn't have their bodies desecrated."

Chief didn't need to think twice about this and picked up the third dead Marine and sat him next to the other three. He took what ammo the three had before Ruby tossed the grenade, incinerating the bodies. He then saw the blip on his motion sensor, a blip that was fast and heading his way. He swiveled on the spot, raising his shotgun when he spotted an Infection Form attach itself onto the corpse of a nearby dead Elite.

The Infection form wrapped its tentacles around the neck of the corpse while bringing out what looked like pincers and embedded them in the chest, digging into the flesh within a matter of seconds. Then, the infection form began to deflate at a rapid pace and get sucked into the holes made by the pincers. Then, the corpse started screaming, even though it was dead and began to spasm, rolling side to side, limbs thrashing everywhere. The tumor started to form at a near-instantaneous rate where the infection form disappeared. The tumor grew out, encompassing most of the upper body as blood was sent spitting out of wounds and the mouth. However, it was quickly turning into the green fluid, and flesh burst like in intense heat. From the center of the tumor emerged the front tentacles of the Infection form. The neck elongated and stretched out, while tentacles burst out of the left arm in a very gruesome manner, bones cracking. The blue skin turned into a sickly yellow/green, and most features became heavily deformed. The screams morphed into growls as the corpse rose to its feet, turned to the horrified pair of the Chief and Ruby. It roared at them, the usual voice and tone of "worts" replaced by a bloodcurdling, demonic cry.

Ruby screamed back as she leveled and unleashed a furry of assault rounds into the monster. A moment later, Chief added his shotgun to the mix, turning the thing into shredded chunks of rotting meat.

The silence was deafening after Ruby ran out of bullets in her gun. But was soon broken when Ruby dubbed over and puked where she stood, all the while crying as she did.

When she was finished, she looked over at the Chief with a sad expression. "I'm ready to go home now."

Chief didn't say anything at first but waved his hand to follow him. "Let's move out," he said, raising his shotgun. "We shouldn't dwell on anything right now other than getting out of here. Save that for later."She did just that and reloaded her gun without another word. Ruby wanted this day to be over with.

They quickly walked to the nearest hatch, eyes alert for any movement. It opened with a hiss, revealing a dozen infection forms waiting for them. Even as Ruby screamed in surprise, the pod-shaped creatures leaped at the pair, only to be blown away by a single shotgun blast from the Chief.

"Well, I can safely say, I'm happy that if they're close to one other, they can pop each other," Ruby commented as they passed through the hatch. The corridor they entered was empty, except for the bodies of half a dozen Combat Forms littered around. Ruby felt a sense of relief as she noticed that all of the bodies were killed with bullets from human weapons and that there was no blood from any human staining the room.

Going through another hatch, the pair expected to enter another large room like the ones they had traversed through beforehand. But found, much to their delight, that it was instead a room with a lift. The bad news: It was full of Combat Forms and Infection Forms. As if they could sense the pair before they even entered the room. The creatures were rushing towards the hatch as it opened, intent on killing and claiming the humans.

The said humans were definitely opposed to this. Fighting with their rifles, shotguns, and grenades. The Chief was like an Alpha Beowolf in the middle of a flock of sheep. Ripping through his foes with his weapons like they were made out of paper. Ruby moved with the speed of a Sabyr. Flanking the Flood forms and preparing them with rifle rounds till they were no longer a threat. Within a minute, the room had been cleared, and the pair was free to step on the lift.

The Chief lifted his hand to activate the lift, and the lift moved upwards at a fast pace. The pair reloaded their weapons, expecting another firefight with the enemy when they arrived at an entrance of the Installation only to find a squad of living, uninfected Marines waiting for them. Not only that, but she heard Foehammer's voice over the radio.

"This is Echo 419. Chief, Ruby, is that you? I lost your signal when you disappeared inside the structure. What's going on down there? I'm tracking movement all over the place! Are you alright?" She asked, she was worried really she has grown close to Ruby over time.

Ruby decided to answer. "I... don't think so 419," Ruby reported.

"You wouldn't believe us if we told you," the Master Chief replied, his voice grim, "and believe me: You don't want to know. Be advised: Captain Keys is missing and is most likely KIA. Over."

"Roger that," the pilot replied. "I'm sorry to hear that, over."

Several of the Marines ran up to the two. "Thank God you're here," one of the Marines said, a Corporal, to the Chief in a frightened tone, his body practically shivering from fear. "We've been lost out here for hours. After we lost contact with the rest of the mission, we...we headed for the RV point, and these things, they ambushed us. We gotta get out of here!"

"That's command thinking," the Chief responded in an instant,
"We still need to get out if here Marine, but... will most likely have to fight our way out," Chief said, and all the Marines nodded in understanding.

"There's a large tower a few hundred meters from your current position," Foehammer spoke out, hearing the conversation. "Find a way above the fog and foliage canopy, and I can move in to pick you up."

"OK, got it Echo 419. See you there." Ruby said to the pilot.

"Let's move out!" The Chief ordered the group.

Hearing this, Ruby got red as she followed the group outside back into the swamp. Never before the Huntresses' life did it feel good to be in the middle of the muck and rain.

Knowing the dropship was somewhere above the mist, and eager to get the hell out, the marines forged ahead. The Spartan advised caution to slow down, to keep their eye peeled, but it wasn't long before he found himself in the middle of the pack. Looking behind him, he saw Ruby taking the rear, her weapon sweeping the brush line for anything that may pop out.

The tower Foehammer had mentioned appeared up ahead. The base of the column was circular, with half-rounded supports that protruded from the sides. Farther up, extending out from the column itself, were winglike platforms. There purpose, like the rest of the structure, was unknown. The top was unseen with the mist.

The Master Chief paused to look around when one of the leathernecks shouted, "Contact!" This was quickly followed by the sound of fully automatic weapons fire. A host of red dots appeared on his motion tracker, spotted dozens of Infector forms bouncing in the mist, and knew the possibility of containing these things underground was out of the question.

Ruby fired short bursts of her assault rifle and popped dozens of Infector forms before firing on a Combat form as it charged at her. The ex-Elite's chest opened like a flower in Spring, and the Infector form inside blew up into a pussy mesh.

Not all of them were so lucky as one Marne got jumped and dragged into the fog, vanishing from sight.

They couldn't see what was happening, but Ruby could paint a horrible picture in her mind from all the screaming and the sounds of bone and flesh breaking. The screams turned into growls and the Marine, now a Combat form jumped out of the fog. It was then that Ruby decided that there was nothing scarier than encountering this enemy in a foggy, dark swamp.

Ruby would rather face down a Grimm pack with a dull kitchen knife than be here.

Despite all of their efforts, the enemy was too numerous, too quick. One by one, the group of survivors dwindled as its members. Were either killed outright or taken in the thick fog and were infected, their screams haunting the others.

Ruby saw one Infector form about to jump on one Marnie while he was trying to reload as quickly as he can. Ruby adjusted and shot the Infection form, killing it before it could touch the Marine.

"Thanks, kid." the Marine said gratefully as he finished the reload.

"No problem, now go!" Ruby yelled.

Just as hope was lost, the survivors only numbering five, Ruby saw something emerging from the treeline. It was a cylindrical metal contraption, with two appendages and a red light at the front, hovering in the air before swooping down to approach them. More soon joined it, and the sky was quickly filled with them.

A Marine raised his rifle at one of them, "What are they?" he yelled. The Chief stopped him, saying, "Hold on, Marine...let's see what they do."

"Huh? Oh, please tell me there on our side..." Ruby said, hoping.

To their surprise and relief, the machines fired a beam of light that burned away at any nearby parasites, avoiding Marines, her, and the Chief. They were on there side!

The survivors ran to the base of the tower and set themselves up a firing line and began mowing down enemies as quickly as they came.

"Thank you, robots!" Ruby yelled, waving at one of them. The one she waved at turned to her, then used one of its parts to waved back at her before leaving. "Man, they were nice."

"Foehammer! We've reached the tower; you can pick us up now!" Ruby said over he radio only to get static in return. "Foehammer?" Then to her surprise, the Chief suddenly disappeared in a golden light. "CHIEF!"


John suddenly finds himself enveloped in bright gold rings of light and found himself upon the top of one of the legs of the tower. He heard something start humming from behind him and turned his weapon on it.

He found himself face to face with another type of robot, this time, one that was similarly shaped like a sphere. It had a similar texture to the tower and the other robots they say before. It had a single eye that shone brightly, the 'iris' looking directly at the Chief. Like the other robots, it had no legs, but unlike them, it had no appendages and was simply hovering in front of him. It turned to look directly at the Chief. It then spoke in a cheery businesslike manner.

"Greetings, I am the Monitor of Installation 04. I am Three-Four-Three Guilty Spark." it introduced itself. "Also, I apologize for taking you away from the created being."

John slowly lowers his assault rifle. Gunfire is still heard below, and bright beams slice through the dark swamp. John and the Monitor ignore the commotion. But Chief wondered what the Monitor meant by "created being," was it referring to Ruby?

The robot then goes on. "But Someone has released the Flood. My function is to prevent it from leaving this Installation. But I require your assistance. Come. This way."

Before John could ask some questions about what the little machine meant by that, his words never came. Rings of gold light traveled the length of his body, he felt light-headed and saw an explosion of light.


She was not the only one who noticed Chief disappearance...the Marines noticed and Echo 419 we well."Chief, I've lost your signal! Where'd you go? Chief? Chief!"

"Where is he? We need to find him!" A marine yelled.

But they heard a roar as more Flood was coming. They needed to leave now!

"Foehammer! We're still down here, get us out of here!" A loud roar of engines came from above within seconds of the call. To the Marines, it was like a course of angels were sing from on high. "Everyone, run!" She yelled out. The Marines didn't need to be told twice as the six rushed towards the open troop bay. Turning back, Ruby saw several Combat forms rushing towards the open troop bay.

"We're in! GO! GO! GO!" Ruby ordered the pilot.

At the Pelican rose into the air, one combat form jumped up to and land in the troop bay. It soon ceases to exist three seconds later after four assault rifles and two shotguns tore into it. Their owners screaming like crazy till nothing remained of the abomination.

A minute later of flying, all were dead tired as the slumped against the nearest seats. Ruby, on the other hand, need some answers. She got right back up and entered the cockpit where Foehammer and her Copilot and Crew Chief were at.

The Crew Chief saw her first, his nameplate on his chest read CULLEN. "Is everyone alright back there?" He asked her.

Ruby shook her head. "I don't think any of us are going to be alright after what we saw down there," she answered. "But that's not why I'm here. It's where we're going next."

"We?" Foehammer asked as she turned her head back to the redhead. "And where in the galaxy is that, girl?"

"Take us back to the control room Foehammer...I need to talk to Cortana."


Note: Here's the next chapter! Also hope you like it and like the horror to it...also why 343 called Ruby the creation...that will be revealed later on.

Also I like to thank Helljumper206 for helping me edit this.