Chapter 19: Fural

Fural thrusted his fist forward. The blades extending from the hilt in his hand cleanly pierced through the chest of the first combat form. He twisted his hand and kicked the now dead thing away from him. Another jumped out at him, and he brought his sword up and cut it clean in half. There are way too many of these things! More must have come from the surface! Fural thought as he sliced another combat form in half at the waist.

He could hear the sounds of struggle behind him, the sloshing of wet meat as it fell to the ground, the swishing of an energy sword, and the grunts of effort that came from Dom. There was no time to turn and help. The two brothers were surrounded, and the only way out was to cut through the infection.

One of the balloon-like infector forms jumped at Fural from outside his view, but he grabbed it in his palm before it could latch onto his body. He squeezed his hand into a fist, and the thing exploded. The viscous liquids that were inside the creature simply slid off his energy shields.

An infected Kig-Yar tried to attack him next, and he swung his blades to stab it through the chest. Fural winced when he got a good look at it. Its entire right arm looked like a javelin made from bone, and it was covered in thin flesh and slime near the shoulder. What was worse was that the thing was completely missing its head.

Fural already knew that these combat forms were being piloted by the infectors buried in their chests, but it was still a horrifying thought. Everything was horrifying. His actions were calm. He sliced through each of the combat forms attacking him with ease. But inside, he was freaking out. Never in his life had he been as scared as he was in that moment.

The slaughter of the combat forms became almost mindless, like he was doing it subconsciously. The thing that brought him back to reality was the bullets that slammed into his back. He turned and saw a human combat form lazily wielding a rifle, waving it around like it was having trouble holding it. But when it fired, all of its shots hit.

He heard more gunshots echo around the chamber, but he didn't feel them. They were focusing on Dom. Fural jumped forward and slammed his energy sword straight through the thing's chest, and turned towards Dom.

Multiple combat forms jumped on Dom, and he shook them off. Another combat form in the corner of the room fired a plasma rifle at him. Fural didn't have time to think. He grabbed his own plasma rifle with his free hand and shot at the combat form just as the creature's shots hit Dom's shield. The combat form exploded, but so too did Dom's shields.

The sound was louder than anything. It almost sounded like glass breaking, followed by the crackle of energy that tried to build the shield back up again. Dom was surrounded. When Fural had attacked the rifle-wielding combat form that was shooting at him, it drew him away from his brother.

Fural fired his plasma rifle into the group of combat forms lunging towards his brother until it finally stopped shooting. The combat forms he hit fell apart, and Dom was able to use his skills as a Blademaster to cut apart the remaining attackers. The room fell silent, the attack from the Flood was over.

Dom slowly turned to his brother, his chest heaving with the effort of breathing after an intense fight. The blue outline of his armour's shields flashed as they regenerated. Fural breathed a sigh of relief that his brother was still standing alive before him.

"Close call," Fural breathed.

"Yeah," Dom said, lowering his head. He looked at the mess in the room. There were far more bodies than there should've been, and that wasn't counting the ones that were once human.

"The Flood has escaped," Fural said, voicing his thoughts from earlier. "More must be coming down from the surface. I don't think they will stop until they've infected us."

"Agreed," Dom said. He moved through the sludge of blood and guts beneath his feet, moving to the next door. Only a few more chambers and they would be at the elevator that would take them out of the facility. Only a few more chambers and this will have been little more than a nightmare.

"Eyes on your trackers," Dom said as he moved to the next door, "we're in for another fight."

"The fight down here will never end," Fural sighed.

He did as his brother suggested. The motion tracker on his HUD showed a large mass of hostiles through the next door. Their movement showed them slowly getting into a line, they knew that the brothers would be coming through.

"They're going to blast us," Fural said. He motioned to the side of the door.

Dom stood against the wall without Fural needing to tell him anything more. Fural took one of his two remaining plasma grenades and primed it. The door opened as he stepped close to it, just as every other door in the facility had. He saw the twisted horrors that were the combat forms, and he tossed the grenade into the middle of the group just as they started shooting.

But Fural had vastly underestimated the Flood's intelligence. One of the combat forms got stuck, but it had jumped into the grenade before it could land near the group like Fural had intended. And it was still moving towards him as the grenade exploded.

Fural was blasted back into the wall behind him, his shields popped before he slid onto the floor. Dom shouted something, but he couldn't hear it. His vision was hazy, so he could barely see anything either.

Two bullets slammed into his right shoulder, whatever they were they were enough to pierce straight through his armour and his skin. More would have hit him if Dom didn't rush through the door and launch into the crowd of armed combat forms.

Fural's senses recovered, and he felt the pain the bullets had caused to his shoulder. He grunted and used his left hand to push himself back to his feet. What he saw in the room was a sight similar to what he saw in the previous room. Flood were everywhere. Combat forms, infectors, the weird bloated things that released even more infectors whenever they were shot at.

Dom was holding them all off with ease. In one hand his brother cut through combat form after combat form with his energy sword, in the other he wielded his plasma rifle and dropped targets from afar. Fural looked down at his arm, the grey armour was stained with purple streaks as his blood leaked from his wounds. His right arm was his good one, but he could fight with his left too. He only needed his right when he was fighting Dom, and luckily the Flood were much easier to fight.

Dom stabbed a combat form, shot another that was shooting him from a distance, and kicked a third that tried to sneak up behind him. Though Fural often prided himself at being a good fighter, he saw that Dom was even better.

Fural reached for the hilt of his sword and rushed into the room, cutting through more combat forms attacking him. Somehow these Flood looked even worse than the other ones. Some were already missing limbs or had huge chunks of flesh missing from their bodies, and that was before Dom or Fural attacked them. Maybe they survived other attacks. Or maybe we killed these ones already and those infector things can bring them back from the dead.

Another swing, another combat form fell. Two more swings, a combat form fell back with its arms detached from its body. Fural stepped forward and stomped on its chest with all his force, crushing the thing inside it that was driving it.

Fural felt more bullets hit his back, but he hadn't heard the gunshots that fired them. It should've been louder than the sounds of battle that were presently in his ears. He turned around and saw what they came from.

A dog-like creature was attacked to the wall behind him, high up in the chamber. He recognised it as one of the animals native to the ring, he had seen several of them before. But this one was different. Its head was twisted, its jaw was completely missing. The lump of an infector stuck straight out of the thing's throat, the three tendrils waved around like they were caught in intense winds. The flesh of its back stuck straight out of its body, and shards of bright glowing bone stuck out from it. Even from the distance he was from it, he could hear it squeal, and the shards of bone shot out from it.

Fural backed away as the shards slammed into his shields with enough force to cause him to stumble. The thing was too high up for him to attack it, he didn't know how well he would be able to shoot his carbine with only one hand.

"Dom!" he shouted. His brother turned, and saw the thing attached to the wall.

"I got it!" Dom aimed his plasma rifle at the thing and fired. It scurried along the wall, just barely avoiding getting hit, and it began to fire more frantically.

Fural saw more Flood forms entering the room. One of the bloated things hobbled towards him, two tentacle-like appendages wriggled out at him. He couldn't do much against it. If it exploded and the things inside it got on him, he would be worse than dead. He had no way to shoot it.

"Move!" Fural shouted.

Dom turned to see what Fural was shouting about, and that small decision ended up being his biggest mistake. The bloated thing exploded, blasting both of them away. Fural landed back by the door where he had been shot, Dom landed almost at the other side of the room.

Fural was able to get far enough away that the explosion did little to him than knock him around. Dom was on the ground with his shields down once more. Fural watched his brother scramble away from the infectors that began to swarm him. He climbed back to his feet as quickly as he could, but both of them knew it was too late.

"Run!" his brother shouted.

Fural hesitated for a moment. Dom smacked away as many of the things as he could, but one was all it took. One dug its tendrils into his armour, and began the process of burying itself in his body.

"Run, Fural!" Dom shouted again, his voice taut with blood in his mouth.

Fural knew at the back of his mind that hesitating a moment longer would have him end up like his brother. And so he followed Dom's final order to him, and he ran.

Fural didn't know where he was running. He didn't care. He needed to get as far away from the Flood as he could. He needed to get as far away from his brother as he could. Thoughts raced through his mind. I'm never going to see him again. He's suffering a fate worse than death. I'm going to have to kill him.

Fural eventually came to a stop. There was no motion on any of his trackers. He let out a deep breath and slammed a fist into the nearest wall. It wasn't a good idea, it was his only usable hand and it really hurt, but he did it anyway.

He couldn't believe that had just happened. The brother he had known all his life, the one that had taught him everything he knew, was gone. No. He's even worse than gone, Fural's thoughts returned. I didn't think it could happen.

I didn't think we could lose.

Fural took a deep breath. He didn't want to forget his brother so easily, but he knew he had to get out of there. I won't forget him. But I mustn't stay here.

The lone brother took in his surroundings. It was another light bridge chamber. He was on the floor with no way up to the raised platforms that would take him out of there. He pulled up his brother's map. The elevator chamber they'd been trying to reach was close, only a couple light bridge chambers away.

He looked down at his arm. The purple streaks of blood had become distorted from his running. It took effort, but he moved it. His body screamed out in protest as he balled and raised a fist, and soon he was the one screaming as he tried to throw a punch with it. His right arm was going to be no good. The only way he was going to be getting it fixed was by getting out of there. At least he could swing a sword with his left. If some Flood form decided to fight him from a range, he would be done for.

Then he realised that he would be done for anyways if he didn't get out of there soon. The holes in his shoulder weren't going to close, he was going to continue bleeding. If bleeding out is how I die… Fural was angered at the thought, but he knew it wasn't going to be much of a problem after he was already dead.

Fural reached behind his back and grabbed his carbine. The weapon was meant to be used with two hands, but he was going to have to make due with one. And he was going to have to make due with it soon because he saw movement on his motion tracker.

The enemy was coming from ahead of him, and so he stood with his back to the wall, and raised his carbine. It was better to use the weapon at a distance than up close. But then he heard gunshots. The familiar fire of human weapon fire coming from the direction of the enemy. Impossible. No humans could still be alive down here.

Then the door across from him opened, and a single human came rushing through. The human quickly turned back towards the door and attached some type of device to it. Fural slightly lowered his carbine, and he saw the door lock after the human tapped on the device a few times. Just like Dom's device.

Fural's footsteps must have been louder than he thought, because the human whipped around in an instant when he stepped forward. He had fought humans long enough to tell some of them apart. He was looking at a man. A man as frightened as he was, even if he wasn't the best at showing it.

The human raised his hands and started to back up, he said something in his language that Fural could barely understand. Fural looked down at his carbine, and lowered it more so the barrel pointed at the floor. The human understood, and slowly put his hands down to his sides. Even if they couldn't communicate through words, actions were a universal language.

I have to get out of here. And I can't do it alone.