Chapter 15: Fural

The thing jumped out at them. He didn't know what it was, if it was good or bad, but instinct caused Fural to attack it, because it seemed to be attacking him. He punched the attacking fleshy balloon, and it exploded. Viscous green liquid that seemed like blood coated the layer of shields in front of Fural's armour.

When Fural saw that there were more of them, hundreds more of them, he ran.

"Close the door!" Fural shouted to Dom when they made it back to the containment room's entrance.

"I'm going as fast as I can!" Dom shouted back, his special door-unlocking device was attached to the wall since the door was wide open.

One of the hundreds of things jumped on Dunyap, and he enough to be heard over the sound of plasma weapons firing. Tendrils extruded from one of the things, and it dug them into Dunyap's neck.

Fural was busy firing at them to notice when it had buried itself inside Dunyap's body. Each of the fleshy sacks rushing toward him exploded when they were shot, they exploded with enough force to cause the others around them to explode as well. But it still wasn't enough to stop the ride of creatures attacking him.

He saw Dunyap fall onto the ground. The other Unggoy and the Kig-Yar had made it back through the door safely, Dunyap had not. Just as there became too many of the creatures to stop, the door slammed shut.

"What the hell are these?" Fural said, taking deep breaths to recover from the panic he felt, "these aren't weapons! Are they!?"

Dom was quiet. He was breathing heavily as well. He grabbed the special door-unlocking device and reattached it to his belt.

"Are these the Forerunner weapons!?" Fural asked again.

"I don't know!" Dom shouted back, "the map listed them as weapons! It said this was a weapons facility!"

They heard a crash behind the door, and all of them jumped. The door itself began to cave in towards them.

"We need to move, now!" Dom said, "that thing isn't going to hold!"

Dom, Fural, and the others sprinted through the narrow corridor, and back out to the light bridge chamber. Dom paused next to the door to the observation room and began the process of locking it down.

Fural inspected his plasma rifle, making sure it wouldn't run out of shots anytime soon. He glanced behind him at the Kig-Yar, they were lined up with their shields in front of them. They were trembling. Fural had never seen a Kig-Yar scared.

"What… What happened to Dunyap?" asked one of the Unggoy.

"They killed him," Dom said from the side of the door, "and they'll kill us too if we don't stop them."

Fural heard a crash from the direction they had run from, followed by the sound of wet flesh dragging across the floor. They were coming. Around the corners of the observation room, the fleshy balloons charged. The Kig-Yar overcharged their plasma pistols, taking out large swaths of them with the blasts of plasma. Fural fired over their heads with his plasma rifle, taking out the ones they had missed.

When Fural thought they had gotten all of them, something else had arrived. A stubby creature covered in bulbous rotting flesh. The same tendrils that protruded from the balloon creatures also came out of this one's chest. Its left arm ended in three long razor-sharp claws. In its right hand it held a plasma pistol.

Fural didn't need to think too much about it to know that it had been Dunyap. It seemed to blindly fire the plasma pistol, but one bolt of plasma caught Fural's shields. He raised his plasma rifle at it to shoot it, but it leaped forward before he could pull the trigger. The thing tackled one of the Kig-Yar with little care, and it sunk its claws deep into the Kig-Yar's chest. Fural fired, and the thing that had been Dunyap violently exploded, coating everything around it with a mixture of Unggoy blood and the same viscous green liquid that filled the balloons.

After that, the fighting seemed to have stopped.

"Did we get them all?" Fural asked, looking around. The once pristine surfaces of the weapons facility were ruined with the aftermath of what had just happened.

Dom finished working on the door, and it slammed shut. "I'm not seeing anything more on my trackers…" his voice trailed off.

Fural knew what Dom was thinking. The other teams. They hadn't had time to warn the other teams that had entered the facility, and they already knew it was too late. Hopefully they had the same idea of closing the doors behind them.

"What have we just unleashed?" Fural said, taking a step back.

"These things…" Dom said, looking down at the remains of Dunyap. "I think… I think they're the Flood."

"What is the Flood?" Fural asked. The name sounded familiar. He figured he'd heard it in some history lesson at some point, but it was nothing he ever really thought about.

"They're one of the many obstacles on the Great Journey," Dom explained, "a test from the Forerunners that we must pass to light the rings. I didn't think… I didn't think they would be like this."

"Does any of your ancient knowledge have anything that could help us stop them?"

"I don't know," Dom said, this was the first time Fural had ever heard fear in his brother's voice.

A low gurgling sound came from Dunyap's body. Did I not kill it? Dom slowly moved back, and Fural raised his plasma rifle at what had been Dunyap. But when it began to move, it was actually the Kig-Yar that was pushing it. That Kig-Yar should be dead.

Fural lowered his plasma rifle slightly and took another step back. He was about to feel relief that they would have the Kig-Yar's support to fight their way out of the facility, but it didn't seem right.

Blood poured from the Kig-Yar's wounds as it stood up, its skin grew slightly more grey with each second. Its jaw fell limp from its head, and it growled. It raised a hand towards Fural, and before Fural could say anything, the hand popped off its arm. The Kig-Yar's arm bone extended out from it, and it leaped at Fural in an attempt to stab him with it. Fural shot the Kig-Yar with his plasma rifle, and its chest exploded. But it was still moving. It slammed into him, and that was enough force to push him off the light bridge platform and onto the floor beneath it.

"Fural!" Dom shouted, running to the edge of the platform.

Fural slowly stood up. His shields still held strong. The thing that had been Dunyap stabbed the Kig-Yar, and that was enough to start turning the Kig-Yar into one of those Flood monsters. If the Kig-Yar had stabbed him, he would be on his way to becoming one too.

He looked up. The light bridge was the only way to get back to the elevator they'd used to enter the facility.

"I'll find another way up," Fural said.

"We'll come down to you," Dom said, getting ready to jump down.

"No! Hold the door. If more of those things arrive we'll still need a way out. Make sure we have it. I'll find another way up."

"Curse you, brother," Dom snarled. He motioned with his head to the light bridge chamber's entrance, and he and the others moved across to it. "Stay in constant contact," he called from the other side of the room.

"Already planned on it," Fural responded. He found a door to his left, and he ran through it immediately.

Fural moved quickly through a looping hallway, and he found himself in one of the many chambers they had travelled through on their way to the containment room. Knowing now what the weapons they'd been hunting for were, this chamber seemed completely different. In the centre of the chamber was a glass tank of some kind, filled with a dense green liquid that was now reminding him of the stuff that came out of the Flood creatures when they were shot.

Each side of the square chamber had a door that led somewhere. Fural opted for the one across from where he entered. He stepped through it, and it led to another looping hallway, and that led to another light bridge chamber. How the hell am I supposed to get up?

"Fural, come in," Dom's voice sounded from his communicator.

"I'm here," Fural answered. He moved to the other side of the light bridge chamber where there was another door.

"Any sign of more Flood? It's all clear in here."

"No, but I'm starting to think there's more containment rooms than the ones we went to."

"What do you mean?"

"Some of the chambers we passed through," Fural moved through another looping hallway that led to yet another chamber like the one he was about to describe to Dom. "The ones with the green liquid tanks. I think they hold more Flood."

"That's not good."

"No, it isn't."

Fural had so much on his mind that he only just now thought of using Dom's map of the facility, so he brought it up on his HUD. He found what looked like a ramp up to the second level, and he was already heading towards it. He passed through another door, and he moved up the ramp.

"I've been trying to reach the other squads. I already knew it was too late, but I tried to hope…"

"Yeah, they're gone."

Fural moved along the walkways of the chamber's second level, and he backtracked. As he stepped out into the previous light bridge chamber, he saw the door he was heading to slide open. I thought I'd have more time…

He raised his plasma rifle. Something more vulgar than what had been Dunyap stepped through. It was massive. Pulsating flesh covered its shoulder down to the claws that all of these Flood monsters seemed to have on their left arms. Fural's heart dropped when he noticed the remains of a Sangheili combat harness attached to the thing.

"I've got a contact!" Fural shouted. He took a plasma grenade and tossed it over to the door just as a horde of the Flood balloons began pouring through.

"Do you need help?"

"No, just stay there! If they found me, they'll find you soon!"

The thing that had been a Sangheili crouched, and pushed off the platform. It jumped at an impossible height, and an impossible distance for a Sangheili. The plasma grenade exploded, scorching the walls and clearing the horde of balloons, and the Sangheili-Flood monster landed next to him.

Fural shot at it with his plasma rifle, but the thing still had shields. It began to charge toward him, and it let out a shrill that a Sangheili couldn't have made. He kept firing, its shields glowed brighter before they gave way. He ducked as it brought its clawed arm down onto him, the claws missed but its arm still impacted and caused his shields to flare. He pressed the front of his plasma rifle against the thing's chest and fired, shooting a hole straight through it.

"Fural! They're here!" Dom's panicked voice shouted. He could hear the sound of distant plasma fire, muffled by the multiple walls between them.

Fural pulled up Dom's map again. From where he was, there was another way back to the elevator.

"Get back to the elevator!" Fural shouted, "I've got my own way."

"I'll wait for you there!"

Fural glanced towards the door where the Flood-Sangheili had come from, and it opened again. The horrors that came through were significantly worse than what he had just faced, and so he turned away from them, and he ran.