Halo: Of Wolves and Wagtails

Episode 10: Silver for monsters

A/N: I apologize for the delay, ... and if this chapter jumps around too much. Have a Happy HALO-WEEN everybody!

[Guest1: Yes they are yes we will.]

[halsey11mc: Thanks, and I wanted to world build so... it's become more than just an easter egg.]

[Slim A Lou Prime: Thank you, and I'm going to give you more than a vibe.]

[pitsacee: Thanks!]

[trninjakiller: Ok, you're free to have your opinion.]

The terrorist leader quivered in fear of demon that stood in front of her, beads of sweat dripped from her forehead while the seven foot tall giant stared down at her. Without a word of warning 6 shot forward and gripped her throat in a chokehold. The leader's reflection stared back at her as if to show herself all the terror on her face, like looking into the eyes of fear itself.

"Just tell me, what kind of monster are you?" She asked the armored giant. "Stay away from me! I'm warning you!"

"I'm no monster, I'm just the wolf. Are you scared of me now? You should be. I am the man who doesn't exist, who makes sure civilians can sleep at night because of the work I do in the dark to handle problems like this." 6 clarified in a bored tone as stared down at the White Mask cell leader, even without much effort he knew exactly how to strike fear into the hearts of his targets, especially her. Beneath that mask the leader was panicking in fear, her blood had chilled to arctic levels from the overwhelming terror at the sight of the beast standing in front of her. Such an overwhelming aura of terror made her feel like a rabbit in the jaws of an apex predator that viewed her as nothing more than food in its bowl.

"You're a dog then, just another slave of the world order like the rest. Don't look down on me! I'm a white mask, I control the fear!" The female terrorist leader lowered her head, little did the spartan know that beneath her mask she sported a grin that would a frighten an average person.

"You control nothing, all your men are dead and I'm standing right here as the witness." 6 replied coldly to her words of fear.

All she had to do was keep crawling back and playing the role of a helpless victim to distract the wolf. "Perhaps I should inform you, I brought my own creature … one that eats dogs like you!" A chuckle left her lips as she shook her arm, and then pressed a button the small device that fell out of her sleeve.

In response 6 clenched his fist tighter around her throat, forcing the woman to gasp desperately for air. She began to turn blue from the iron grip of the spartan's fist, that hand of anger made it clear held her life in the was in the palm of his hand. Desperate to live, she slapped her hands against 6's forearm to signal that she needed to breathe. For a few seconds 6 decided to be cruel and held her throat tightly until she teetered on the point of passing out from the lack of Oxygen. Eventually the spartan relented and gave her just enough room to catch a gasp of fresh air so that she would stay awake to answer his questions.

"What did you release?" He growled menacingly at his captive. "Tell me, now." The white mask leader squirmed for a moment to gather her breath, and the spartan loosened his grip just enough for her to breathe. The terrorist merely pointed her finger at the steel door that slid open, what stepped through it was quite large. A high pitched roar came from behind the spartan, to which he instinctively turned his attention to the new threat.

"What. Is. That?" Misako stared at the creature in a mix of surprise and disgust while she scanned it from head to toe. The creature in question was scale clad humanoid with features akin to an alligator, with large claws on its hands and feet.

"HEINRICH! KILL!" The terrorist leader screeched to the beast. On command the gator beast crouched into a hunched stance and rushed the spartan with all the built in speed of a bio-engineered apex predator. 6 sidestepped the beast as it crashed into the control console like a flying bulldozer, dropping his captive in the process. Instincts kicked in for 6 when he drew his pistol and fired it at the gator beast's center of mass.

Several 12.7mm pistol bullets pierced the monster's hide in rapid succession, which forced it to cry out in pain. After another loud cry of anger the mutated creature lunged at 6 as he swapped to another weapon to deal with the creature.

"Misako! I need intel on this thing, now." 6 told his AI companion as he changed his choice of guns to his assault rifle. It was thanks to sheer luck that 6 managed to counter another lunge from the gator mutant, blocking a downward slash from the creature's claws with the rifle. Angered by the bullet holes in its hide the gator beast screeched into the spartan's faceplate, covering his armor with drops of monster spit.

"Uh Right! It's one of Umbrella's Hunter-class BOWs!" The AI replied after getting her scan of the creature. "My advice on killing this thing: if you can, swap out to your shotgun and hit it with some buck shot, that'll knock it back!" 6 snorted and kneed the beast in its stomach, and then followed that hit with a punch to the creature's jaw. Next he slammed his leg into the side of the mutant, getting another cry of pain from his prey.

Despite the spartan's efforts to gain ground with CQB measures, it was still designed to kill and would not be beaten so easily. Retaliation came from the beast in the form of dodge and slash to the Mjolnir armor's front torso plate. Both sets of claws on the lizard monster's hand swung at the spartan in a flurry of left and right slashes that the spartan continuously weaved through one after the other.

With the benefit of spartan time 6 could anticipate the creature's attacks well enough, which made the spartan feel somewhat relaxed since he wasn't dealing with a certain sekirei. To him it was just another creature he'd have to kill, and as a self-proclaimed wolf it was only natural to prove himself as the apex predator. After evading several more strikes from the mutant, 6 managed to grapple one its arms into a lock. What followed that was a loud crash when the beast was thrown into the facility's control console.

With his breathing room established, the spartan unholstered the shotgun from his back and chambered a shell. At the sound of the weapon's click the creature darted it's view to the spartan, screeching again just before the gun's trigger was pulled. Pellets flew into the beast with great kinetic force embedding themselves into its hide. Another pump of the action cycled a fresh shell into the firing chamber and once again 6 pulled trigger for a blast of scattergun pellets, this time the majority of the blast struck the creature directly on its face.

Misako watched from her ringside seat as the spartan tore into the mutant with an odd reverence, there was a sort of strange comfort in knowing she was paired with a killing machine of his caliber. What she bore witness to next made her flinch a bit, the spartan had begun mauling the creature with his own bare hands. Mutant Blood coated the Mjolnir gauntlets, staining the metal from repeated blows to the creature's face. Misako knew 6 wouldn't say it openly, but he seemed to be enjoying the beatdown on the monster a bit too much. This fight could have ended sooner and she knew it, but then it might not be in her interest to lecture living weapon on violence, especially when it came to a freak of nature.

Each smack of the spartan's fists against the creature's skull drove the beast further into a rage as it struggled to recover and swat away the super soldier. It bucked hard against the wall to rattle the spartan and shake itself free of the junk that it was beating crushed against.

Finally a lucky strike of the creature's claw created an opening when 6 forced to dodge the blow and the beast took the opportunity to break free. It swiped a claw at the helmet, knocking the spartan to the ground. 6 landed on his back with a thud from the impact and immediately brought up his legs to counter a charge from the creature. 6 kicked his legs up at the moment of impact, tossing the creature over and forcing it to cough up blood.

With a moment of reprieve to act, the spartan unleashed his red blade again and dashed towards the injured mutant. The beast sprang to its feet in an effort to retaliate but that was cut short when the twin blades of the crimson energy sword carved straight through its face. The blades were sliced downward until the monster had cleaved in half by the searing hot plasma blades. Both halves of the beast thumped onto the floor as nothing more than a pile of lifeless blood and gore. 6 caught a small ping on his radar and menacingly turned his head back to the white mask leader who was struggling to crawl away as she looked upon the blood cover armor with fear.

"Now for you." 6 said to her as he stepped forward, his shadow loomed over her with a terrifying presence as she witnessed what could only be described as the wrath of a hungry wolf. "We're going to have a little chat."

"AIIIEEEE!" The terrorist leader screamed as she suffered at the hands of the black ops spartan.

-MEANWHILE-

Outside the building, Toyko Metro PD had arrived in force to secure the area while in the skies a government helicopter was quickly approaching the sector. Aboard the helicopter was a group of special operators working for international agency ... Rainbow 6. The Operatives where checking their gear. Each one of them from different nations. Their gear uninformed. This was the "Siege" teams. Operatives specialized in CQC and Hostage situations.

Standing at front of the chopper near the cockpit was a tall man with a south eastern US accent, the patch on his chest read: Keller, Logan. He cleared his throat to get the team's attention. "Alright team, here's the briefing in a nutshell: Apparently the White Masks have a T-Virus Bio Weapon stashed at the facility we're heading to. Rules of Engagement are per the usual, but if you encounter ANYTHING that looks infected, you put it down. Same as in New Mexico 2 years ago with the Chimera outbreak. The primary objective will be to secure the viral samples if they haven't been damaged. We clear?" Logan told the operators.

"Affirmative. Any idea on who the group is?" Blackbeard says checking his SCAR one last time.

"The only thing we know for certain is that they're a cell of the White Masks. Otherwise intel is pretty light on who exactly you'll be shooting at. Your secondary objective will be to scrape together any useful intel you can find for the analysts so the brass can get a better idea on that. That means laptops, papers, hard drives." Logan replied coolly.

"Copy that. Any word on anyone else in the building?" Hibana asked as she fiddled with the sight on her gun. "Civilians, maybe the odd janitor?"

"Negative, it should be clear of civilians. So weapons free." Logan told her.

"Copy that. This is gonna get hot people so mind your fire! Don't want to accidently unleash a zombie apocalypse in NOT Tokyo." She grumbled the last part.

"Ja, that Scheiße is something nobody needs to deal vith." IQ nodded in agreement with her fellow operator.

"We're coming up to the roof now! Sniper teams reported its all clear! Get ready!" The Pilot says as the roof of the White Mask facility came into view below the chopper.

"You heard the man, get ready to rappel down!" Logan shouted to the operators as the chopper side door opened and he kicked out the rappel rope. "Hey! Don't cause the apocalypse with a stray shot! The room where the samples are stored is on the second floor! GO GO GO!" He signaled with his hands for them to grab the rope and drop to the building.

"YES SIR!" The operators shouted in unison and began repelling down to the roof one by one. Leather boots hit the roof with a smack as the operators touched down on the concrete. Around them were several dead bodies which they assumed had been killed by the snipers from how brutal some of the deaths seemed. As far as they knew a hole in one of the dead men's chests could have only been cause by a large caliber round, otherwise it looked to have been done by a shotgun … or a huge fist.

"Blackbeard, take point." Hibana told the American operator and pointed to the roof access door.

Blackbeard nodded and headed for the door with his Gunshield up just in case of an encounter with the enemy. Quietly the group of operators closed in on the door, stacked up for entry into the building's interior. Blackbeard peered inside and signaled for his compatriots to follow down him into the building, one que they headed inside the stairwell. What greeted them as they walked down was a bunch of scattered bodies of deceased White Mask personnel.

"Logan, we have contacts. Dead White Masks on the stairwells." Hibana said over the radio link to the controller onboard their chopper.

"Understood Hibana, can you confirm if it was caused by an infected?" Logan said with a tone of concern.

Hibana turned on over with her boot. "Errr … that's a negative...they were shot. Well some of them were..."

"And some of them were blown up ... or cut in half." Blackbeard said as he studied some of the dead bodies. "Something doesn't feel right here." He grumbled to Hibana with a scowl of uncertainty.

"There a bloody third party member involve?" Slegde said. Cocking his shotgun.

"Well we didn't send another team ahead of you, and the BSAA are still a few minutes out. My advice, keep your guard up and continue the mission. I'll get Bishop on the horn and let him know we might have someone else in the AO." Logan said.

"Copy." With hand signs they moved as one through the halls. The place was a blood bath.

As they proceeded through the hallways they saw they aftermath left behind by whoever had hit the building first. Hibana glanced at the wall as they passed a cross section on their way to the other set of stairs. A message was scrawled on the wall in blood that had dried a relatively short time ago. "Oh my kami ... "

"These guys were hunted, I can tell. Who or whatever did this was playing with their food, because they died quick and the attacker made sure it hurt like hell." Blackbeard remarked.

"H - hunted?" Dokkaebi stuttered with a bit of fear in her voice.

"Focus! Ve have a job to do." IQ said as she pointed to a part of the floor that had been caved in with explosives. "It seems someone made our work easier."

Sledge whistled at the sight of the collateral damage caused by a series of explosions that had happened in the battle between the terrorists and the third party. "Bloody hell. Someone came prepared..." He picked up chunk of rock that had been covered in the blood of a dead terrorist, carefully looking it over for explosive residue.

"Agreed, we missed one hell of a party." Blackbeard nodded as he climbed down the rubble to the lower floor.

Streams of water flowed through some of the busted pipes, coating the area in puddles and mud from the rubble. The entire section of the building was an utter mess by their standards, and the smell from some of the dead bodies certainly didn't help the situation. Bloody chunks from some of the dead men were mixed in with the water, their mangled skulls and limbs only served to fuel the unease of the siege team. Each of them had done their fair share of killing in battle but this looked more akin to massacre than any fight they'd had against the White Masks before. But then none of them had done battles against members of the cartels, of which the stories of brutality were numerous and gruesome.

Suddenly there was a loud cry of pain and terror from a fortified room down the hall from their position.

Seconds later it was followed by another ear piercing scream of agony that echoed throughout the hallway, with a loud squelching noise aright afterwards.

"Dokkeabi can you hack the cameras? We need eyes on." Hibana whispered.

"Already working on it!" She replies.

Hibana motioned for the team to stack up at the door and ran towards the cries of agony. As she presps to breach the door. And take position. Waiting on dokkaebi

"Talk to me whats in there?"

The South Korean operator's eyes froze in place as she stared at the screen, her gaze transfixed on the sight that would make most civilians cower in terror. "That's ... oh ..." She seemed to be fighting an urge to puke.

"Grace, talk to me!" Hibana hissed to the other tech wiz of the team.

She briefly snapped out of her stupor and took a deep breath to steady herself, but there was a clear look of horror on her face. "Th - there's a contact standing by the secure container that's holding the viral samples! A few meters directly behind the door! They ... just ripped out someone's spine ... with their bare hands." The tech wiz said in a mix of fear and shock.

"What?!" Hibana recoiled at the words of her compatriot.

"Holy shit, that's a new one on me." Blackbeard grunted in surprise as he cocked his SCAR for a breach and clear of the room.

"Someone's spine is not in them anymore." Dokkaebi muttered in shock, she'd never seen that kind of brutality before in her career.

"Whoever this guy is, he's far from normal" Hibana muttered to herself and then pressed her finger to her ear as she tried to contact Logan again over the radio." ... command, Logan, are you seeing this?"

"Seeing it alright, ... but I'm having a hard time believing it. Get in there and bring them in, or take them down, whatever you do it's your call. But Bishop and 6 want whoever's behind this alive if you can do it." Logan told the team.

"Christ, let's not stand around then." Sledge huffed as he readied his hammer to smash in the door. "Time to break something." Everyone backed off from the Scotsman as he swung the heavy club against the door.

With a loud crash the door exploded into a pile of metal bits and wooden splinters from the force of the Hammer's strike. Immediately the Rainbow team stormed into the room behind Sledge, each of them pointed their weapons at the figure with the bones in his hands. "FREEZE!" Shout Hibana and Blackbeard while they had lasers dancing around on the back of the stranger's helmet.

The figure simply stood its ground menacingly with the dead woman's spine crunched in his left hand. Buckets of blood were splattered all over the armor of the person that waited in front of the Rainbow team. Beside the suspect was the corpse of a freakish creature that had been sliced clean in half and a corpse that was missing the spinal cord. For the team it seemed like they were looking at a violent serial killer straight out of a science fiction horror movie. A normal person would have vomited at the sight of the spineless corpse but thanks to their training the tactical team had the constitution to hold their stomachs until after the mission was over.

For what seemed like minutes no one moved a muscle on either side of the confrontation, a tense silence hung in the room during the standoff. Slowly the armored stranger turned his head to the group of tactical operators but Blackbeard reacted before the stranger could get so much as a glance at them. He squeezed the trigger to the point that a slight twitch could unleash the rounds in the gun.

"Hands behind your head. NOW." Blackbeard instructed the armored figure to surrender. "Face forward."

Silently the stranger turned his back to the wall in front of him and clenched his free hand into a fist. What happened next was almost a blur to the operators when the stranger reached for an explosive on his belt and flung it to the ground.

"FLASHBANG!" Blackbeard shouted as he pulled the trigger.

Now blinded by the light, the operators fired wildly into the room as their suspect rushed towards them with the human spinal still in his hands. Just as the flash wore off the bones were flung into their faces just as the suspect plowed right through them into the hall.

Despite being knocked to the floor by the heavy metal monster, Hibana recovered quickly and sprung to her feet for a fast chase through the hallways of the building. "Blackbeard, Sledge, take care of things here! I'm going after that bastard!" The Japanese member of the team said in a determined tone.

The other team members weer a bit slower on the take but Sledge decided to be a bit humorous. "OY, CAREFUL NOT TO LOSE YOUR HEAD AND SPINE!" He shouted to Hibana as she bolted out the door.

Hibana raced up the rubble incline to the next floor, she was dead set on catching the third party who'd torn through the White Masks so ruthlessly. The sounds of heavy boot stomps gave her some clues that she was still in the chase but for how big the suspect was they were moving fast. She inhaled and broke into a hard sprint for the stairwell door, if she was right the suspect would be going up to the roof of the building. Otherwise they'd run into the Metro PD that had the place surrounded with an established perimeter. Either way that the suspect went, they'd be cornered and cutoff from escape.

"Command, I'm in pursuit of the suspect! Status on the samples?" Hibana asked Logan as she passed through the same hallway she'd come through on her way into the building earlier. She rounded a corner as the suspect ducked to their right to attempt to evade her pursuit.

"BSAA just arrived on site to take the cargo for disposal. Don't lose the suspect Yumi!" Logan replied urgently.

"I'm still on him! Any Idea where this...thing came from!?" She asked as she tried to catch up with the suspect with all the breath she could muster. Her own speed paled when compared to the person she was chasing, even as one of the fastest operator in Rainbow she was having a hard time chasing down the suspect. It was almost like she was chasing an Olympic athlete and losing hard in her efforts to catch up.

"No clue, old man Zero patched in and he figures this thing's a deniable asset." Logan told her.

"Great. Just what I needed to hear!" She huffed sarcastically as she sweated bullets in exhaustion. Only the sounds of heavy stomping were her guide as she lost sight of the suspect, and it seemed they were heading up to the roof. A big mistake on their part, once they hit the roof there would be nowhere to go but down. "Tell the sniper teams to get ready, looks like he may be heading to the upper floors!"

"Way ahead of ya! Metro PD has it lit up, they ain't getting far." Logan said as Hibana began to run up the stairs.

Hibana kept her pace up, feeling like death from all the sprinting while she pushed herself to her limits to catch the suspect. Just because he'd be cornered didn't mean she could let up on her pursuit, anything could happen and feeling confident in her abilities she believed that she would be ready. A few minutes of climbing later she stomped onto the front step with her pistol drawn and ready for shooting. Hibana remained careful to avoid getting into the line of fire for any of the police sniper teams as she scanned the area for the suspect. "Logan, does anyone have eyes on the suspect?"

"Negative, no visual from up here. Are you sure you didn't lose him?" Logan said as the helicopter passed over her position.

Hibana looked around the empty rooftop, but there was no sign of the armored man anywhere. "N-No... the suspect went up the stairwell... there's no fucking way..." She leaned over to catch her breath and holstered the pistol.

"Your camera feed doesn't lie, you did see him go up this way." Logan reassured her as he tried to make sense of the whole disappearing act the suspect had just pulled on them. No one could simply vanish into thin air as far as he knew, and he'd seen a lot during his time with Rainbow and beyond. "This is a new one on me."

"Damn it. Well, were any of the samples taken?" She asked Logan as she looked up at the helicopter.

At that moment, one of the other siege team member decided to speak up. "Sledge here, they're all accounted for from the looks of it. Take that for a bit sunshine on your day." The Scotsman chimed in.

Blackbeard sighed in relief as he stepped out onto the roof beside Hibana."So no apocalypse, that's a good thing... though I'd hate to be the guys up top trying to explain whatever the hell THAT thing was. And it looks like that falls to you, Yumi." He pointed at the Japanese operator from Nagoya.

"You're telling me." Hibana groaned in frustration and looked around one last time on the roof for any signs of the suspect who'd vanished into thin air.

"Chasing ghosts are ya?" The SEAL chuckled in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"Shut up Craig." Hibana muttered sourly and flopped down onto to her behind for a rest.

"Just trying to make the best of this." He shrugged coolly as he kneeled beside his comrade, then he waved for the chopper to come down to pick them up. For a few minute the two of them waited in silence as the helicopter closed in on the roof and slowly set down on the larger section of the rooftop.

"If you two aren't busy playing around up there, Grace might need to see DOC or 6 after what she saw. She's not looking so good. Girl's gone paler than before since that crazy bastard threw human bones at us." Sledge told them.

"I'll get word to 6." Logan said as the chopper landed nearby.

"Copy that. And Sledge, how goes the hand off down there?" Hibana asked.

"The BSAA guys are doing it quick, their commander Redfield seems to think the faster they get this done the better. He's not wrong." Sledge replied honestly.

"It's their show now boys and girls, so we'd better get going. The brass want us back at base for a debrief, and I'm sure the old guys are going to have a field day with this." Logan told the whole team and signaled for Hibana and Blackbeard to board the chopper.

"For what it's worth, we aren't going back empty handed. Now we've got plenty of intelligence for them to use. Anyway we're heading up to the roof now." IQ added.

"Good, but I think this is going to be a long night." Hibana shook her head and stretched out right before she walked over to the helicopter. "Because we've stumbled onto something big, and it's just getting started."

No one noticed the shimmering figure that slid down the side of the building to the streets. As if it were a ghost the lone figure disappeared into the shadows of the nearby buildings, careful to avoid the horde of police officers in the area. With all the chaos of the cops searching for large figure in black armor, a shimmer in dark would be the least of their concerns. The warm sun had set over the great city, and the veil of the evening's darkness had begun to take the place of that hopeful light with the moon as its guide.

Nearby on another rooftop stood a buxom woman with silver hair in a familiar gray robe, the grin plastered on her face spoke volumes of the thoughts within her mind. It seemed she made an excellent choice after all, she just needed to was break him in first. After all she had enjoyed the wonderfully entertaining show that her ashikabi had made of killing all those pathetic humans that she'd have normally been dispatched to deal with. If she didn't know any better he might as well have sent her a bloody love letter with all that destruction he'd performed. Within her black heart a small fire of lust had begun to grow, and a certain girl of fate she knew would say that the flame in her heart grew three sizes that day.

"Ah such a perfect night for a hunt." The silver haired woman kicked her feet over the side of the building. "Oh Yume, if you could see me now. I guess I found one for myself after all, and he's all mine." She blushed slightly at the feelings she could perceive through her bond with the super soldier. A purr rumbled in her throat as the moon rose into the sky above her head, she would satisfy her hunger soon enough.

-END CHAPTER-