Dangers of Forerunner Logic
By
Ayla Curtis
Acknowledgement – I thank X-Mep for all her help with this fic. Sorry I keep bugging you, dude!
Disclaimer – X-Mep and I do not own the rights to any games mentioned
Author's Note – This is a very random fic based on mental images and daft conversations. It is a crossover between Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2 and a survival/horror game on the PS2 called 'Extermination'.
IMPORTANT - I'll write the Extermination parts in as much detail as possible so you don't have to find the game to understand the fic. Extermination sure isn't the best game in the world, and I think that it was a flop so it's probably unheard of by most people, but I like it anyways.
WARNING – OOCness ahead! I haven't personally played either of the Halos', I've only watched X-Mep play them, and so if this fic has problems I am sooooo sorry. Correct me but please don't Flame me. All suggestions are welcome. Mwahahaha!
extermination-game (dot com) is the official web site for all those who wanna look for pics and additional infoI haven't supplied yet.
Level 1: The Chief's New Marine
The Monitor was seriously getting on the Chief's nerves. It was bad enough that he was well and truly lost inside the Control Base on the new Halo (someone tell me which Installation it is!) no thanks to Cortana's misdirection's, but now he had been mugged! Him, the Master Chief, Spartan-117 had been robbed! Some damned Infestation forms ('I-forms', for ease of typing) had swarmed out of nowhere and while he had been busy emptying his guns into them 343 Guilty Spark had zipped over at full speed and slammed into him. The Index had been knocked straight out of his armour and down a small hole in the floor. The Monitor had then teleported away the very moment that the Index was out of the cyborg's reach, which was just as well as the second Chief regained his balance he let loose hell. Nothing was safe as bullets sprayed aimlessly about the room, bursting corpses and Flood alike. Dead bodies seemed to live again as the shots jerked them about on the ground.
Chief, calm down! Cortana yelled in the back of his head.
He did clam down, but only because all of the enemies had become non-existent; each and every one reduced to a sticky puddle on the floor.
"I'm calm, I'm calm." He replied, unconvincingly. "Now I am going to find that floating blue light bulb and smash it to bits…and then I might even flush it down the nearest toilet just to make myself feel better."
You might want to get the Index back first.
"That might be a good idea, yeah." He said as he knelt beside the hole in the floor and peered into it. It was miles too small to fit himself through but he could still have a look. He couldn't see the t-shaped green key on the floor below onto which the hole looked but it could have just rolled out of sight.
We need to find a way to get down there Cortana said urgently There should be a-
He cut her off. "None of your directions have helped so far, y'know."
But I am sure this time, honestly, I mean it.
"I'd rather make my own way there, thanks all the same."
Their argument, however, was interrupted by a small, cute voice behind them on the other side of the room. "Demon!" it squeaked.
Chief stood and turned to be confronted by a Grunt. He levelled his Battle Rifle at it and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
He was fresh out of ammo. "Ah."
"I like my gun." Said the grunt, and aimed a Fuel Rod at the chief's visor.
Chief had only just begun to process the problem of whether he had the time to run over and whack the little Covenant irritant around the head when said body part suddenly got a messy hole in the side of it that was heralded by a single gun shot.
Blood spattered over the floor and the wall close by before the Grunt fell neatly over sideways. Dead.
"I like my gun too." Said a new voice that sounded somewhat tired.
The owner of the voice was sitting on an upper level with his legs dangling over the edge and some sort of customised assault rifle in his hands. He looked to be in his early twenties, 25 at the most, with short brown hair and blue eyes. His clothes were military but of a design that Chief did not recognise which consisted of a lot of black and grey. There was a lightweight but protective jacket made of a material that looked like a cross between leather, neoprene and Kevlar that was tight enough to show well defined and shadowed muscle structure below. He had a heavy belt that seemed to hang on his hips rather than his waist and trousers that looked to be made of pretty much the same material as the jacket but looser. They were tucked into his boots. There was a knife strapped to his left leg, a radio earpiece in his left ear and there was a crest on his right arm…but, again, it was from a regiment Chief did not know. The man's boots were also typically military and black shin and knee guards protected his legs and seemed to be almost part of the boots. He also had black gloves, a watch and there were straps about his uniform in strategic places to be used as a harness.
Cortana seemed just as confused.
Though the man appeared to be relatively young he also appeared to be world weary and bored, as if all he wanted to do was go home and sleep. The man got up and used a set of nearby stairs to reach the gore-covered level that Chief was on. "Looks like a set from a horror movie." He said as he stepped around piles of steaming organs with his boots making slight leather creaking noises in accompaniment with his steps.
Cortana studied the man through Chief's senses. Those clothes…that weapon…I the design of them is …dated…
"Who are you?" Chief demanded, not really sure what he should be doing with the armed human stranger.
The unidentified soldier type stopped a couple of feet in front of him, hooked his gun onto his back and finally introduced himself. "Sergeant Dennis Riley, Red Light team, US Marines Special Reconnaissance Unit. (RECON)"
"Marine?"
He doesn't look anything like a marine…wait…he said 'US' US RECON, not UNSC…Red Light team? That doesn't even exist!
"Yeah, marine." Dennis confirmed with a nod.
Suspicious…highly suspicious.
"Why are you here?" Chief asked the self proclaimed Sergeant.
"I'd like to know that myself. There I am minding my own business when this funky floating blue light thing appears out of thin air and pulls off a 'Star Trek' moment; beaming me to this godforsaken place. I would just love to know where the hell I am." He looked about himself and his gazed stopped on the dead grunt. "What is it?"
"A Grunt. The lowest of the low in the Covenant forces."
"Really…uh…great." There wasn't a hint of enthusiasm in his voice but there was plenty of noticeable confusion in every word. "What does that make you then?"
"You can call me Master Chief. So long as you aren't on the Covenant's payroll you can say I'm on your side."
"Sure. Can you tell me why I'm here?"
"Can you tell me what you're doing on this Halo?"
"What's a Halo? I'm guessing that it doesn't hover over an angel's head."
Something is not right here.
"You're kidding right? You don't know?"
Dennis shook his head. "Would I ask if I did? I've never heard of it. Look, whateveryournameis, it's hard enough for me to come to terms with what I've seen with my own two eyes already, let alone what I didn't even know existed."
Where has this guy been?
'Well there's a thought.' Chief said privately to himself. "Riley, right? Right, well listen up, I don't know you, I've never heard of your 'team' so help me out here; where were you before you were here?"
"That's classified."
"You want me to help you?"
Dennis said nothing.
Amnesia, it's just got to be. He's hit his head on something and lost every marble he ever had.
"If you want help, I need some information."
"Sorry, but I'm not at liberty to give you any." He was very military about it, it wasn't an apology; it was a statement.
What does the Monitor want with him then? Why did he drag him here?
"Stupid AI, he said he doesn't know." The Chief accidentally said out loud.
"Huh?" Dennis grunted.
"Ah, nothing." Chief said, waving one hand dismissively.
Remembering that he was out of useable weaponry Chief took a short wander about the room and picked up a couple of Needlers from a few Covenent corpses before turning back to poor lost Dennis. "I don't know why you're here but it can't be a good thing if it was the Monitor who delivered you."
"Monitor?"
"The blue light thing."
"Oh, ok."
Maybe we should find it and see if we can get it to tell us what it's up to this time.
'Good plan' "Hey, Riley, I think you had better stick with me. I'm going to find out what's going on."
"Sure." Dennis said with a shrug and swung his gun back into his hands.
Together, uneasy allies, they headed for the door.
-
The place was quiet…where before there had been rooms filled with Flood there were now chillingly empty spaces. Too quiet.
Too much like a carefully set trap.
"Where are we going?" Dennis asked softly so as not to raise his voice and attract unwanted attention from things that might have a desire to rip him to pieces and eat what was left. He had his gun firmly to his shoulder and his eye trained along to the laser dot sight, checking the hall they had only just entered for potential threats.
"The Control room. It's somewhere I really don't want to have to wind up in but if this mess with you is going to be resolved it's the most likely place in which we'll get an answer." Chief looked up; there was a small hole in the ceiling of the hallway…this must be the hall that the Index had dropped into earlier. Unfortunately it was nowhere to be seen. 'Damn, this just keeps getting better and better.'
The Monitor is still our best bet, so just keep going.
'Shut up and let me think for myself for once.'
Oooh, touchy.
Beside him, Dennis lowered his rifle and rubbed his eyes with one hand. "This really isn't my day. I wish I could've stayed at home…not accepted that damned mission…but then the detonators would never have been set…Cindy and Gary…ah damn…"
"What mission is that then?" Chief asked conversationally.
"Can't say." Dennis told him.
He'll slip at some point. You just have to keep asking.
'Shut up! Just for five minutes! Is it too much to ask!'
Down the hall a door burst open and out of it swarmed no less that twenty I-forms. Chief know how to deal with them and they popped like gruesome party balloons under his gunfire.
"What in the hell!" Dennis exclaimed, putting his own gun to good use and picking off any that the Chief missed as his bullets swept the hall.
"Riley, meet the Flood." Chief said. "Do not let them touch you unless you have a burning desire to be an alien parasites' brand new host."
The wave of Flood died off without too much difficulty and then they were free to continue their searching.
"Mind telling me what the hell is going on here?" Dennis asked, hoping he wouldn't be faced with that again.
"That was the Flood…or at least part of it anyway." He went on to give the man a short description of what the Flood were and what they liked to do best. He negated most of the history behind them, however, as he didn't think it important. How to get rid of them was all that the 'marine' needed to know.
Dennis listened to all he was told and then shook his head in a dejected manner. "God damn…from one to another. I don't know which is worse."
"You had alien parasites on your mission?" 'Ah ha, now we're getting somewhere.'
"Huh? I thought I told you; it's classified. Sheesh, get the message." He added under his breath.
"I heard that."
Dennis shrugged his shoulders non-committaly, indicating that he couldn't really be bothered to care. He didn't see the point in trying to make excuses…especially seeing as he had none to hand.
"Listen up, Riley; the Flood are not to be taken lightly. They may look easy but you haven't seen the half of it. I'm pretty much safe because of my armour and shield but you wouldn't stand a snowflakes' chance in hell if one of them managed to snag a hold of you."
"I didn't plan on letting that happen."
"That's just as well because I'm not going to be responsible for your life. Come on, keep up."
"I am keeping up." Dennis grumbled as the Chief marched on ahead.
-
The other rooms and halls turned out to be pretty much the same; they started off void of all life threatening entities and then ended up being smothered in bubble-bodied I-forms.
Dennis turned out to be rather handy to have around and they began to form a good tactic together. Chief would do the major clearout; focusing on the main body of the assault while Dennis would pick off the stragglers or ones that had managed to evade the initial onslaught of bullets, needles and super heated plasma blasts. The supposed marine Sergeant of the possibly imaginary Red Light team had damned descent aim and was pretty multitalented. As was his gun; described to the Chief as an SPR4 (Special Purpose Rifle Mark 4), it could be customised to the owners discretion and had many attachments as well as the actual rifle part. He had great fun cremating I-forms that dared to get to close with the optional Flame Thrower Unit. He was pretty handy with his knife too; the thin skin of the I-forms split easily under his slashes and their gooey contents all over the floor.
After one such room was cleared, Chief realised that he was dangerously low on ammunition again and there didn't seem to be any dead Covenant or marines about to supply him with more.
You'll have to backtrack. You can't go on without any ammo.
'No. There hasn't been any lying about for ages. I would have to go all the way back to the room where we first met Riley and I sure as hell don't want to trek that far. I want this over with. We are pressing on whether you like it or not. If I run out I'll just smash everything in the face.'
Don't blame me when you die.
'Don't worry; I will.'
Good. What?………Hey!
'For an advanced AI you are really slow sometimes.'
He was suddenly aware that Dennis was no longer following him. The black-clad soldier with the spiky fringe seemed to be listening intently to a door.
"Hello back there, I don't have all day!" Chief called to him.
"Yeah." Dennis said somewhat distractedly. "Sure, whatever." He made his way back to the Chief, though his head was the last part of him to turn and he kept glancing back at the door. He seemed to be a little paler than before.
"You look as if you've seen a ghost." Chief commented.
Dennis let his eyes flick back again. "If only." He mumbled. He said it in such a way that he hadn't really meant to be heard.
Chief stopped walking to have a good stare at the offending door. "Well what's wrong with it? Something inside?"
"That door is locked, right?"
"Without the right code, yes." Even with his enhanced hearing there was nothing that he could say was out of the ordinary…no shuffling about…just, perhaps, some dripping water…but in a place like this there had to be burst pipes and leaks. "So what is it?"
"Nothing. I'm just hearing things. Forget it." He squeezed the grip if his rifle as if for comfort. "Can we just keep moving?"
Chief nodded. "Sure, I don't think we're far from the Control Room now anyway."
"Well, let's just pick up the pace."
He's nervous…I think you should check out that room.
'Find the Monitor or open every door in this place that someone gets a bad feeling about? Make up your mind for crying out loud.'
Oh go and break the Monitor's bulb, that room isn't going anywhere and neither is its contents. It's secure.
The further Chief led his new marine away from that room the more he felt that Dennis wanted to run back to it. It was as though he really wanted to get away but also just wanted to finish off whatever it was that had spooked him. Chief decided that the minute he had bullied some answers out of the Monitor, he would go back with some heavy weaponry and see just what was behind the door.
"Are you going to tell me what that mission of yours was yet?" Chief asked again.
"No." Dennis replied simply. "You may as well just stop asking.
He'll give in at some point; you just have to keep at it.
'Now is not the time.'
But aren't you even the least bit curious? It could be important!
'I'm busy here, ok!'
They entered into yet another large room…but this one wasn't so empty. This one had a lot of corpses in it…burnt and bloody…the floor was slick with the entrails of Flood in all its various stages…and there was a Sentinel Major hovering above the carnage ready to greet them.
To be continued……A/N – Hahahaha first chappy done! So people, tell me what you think. Also, my description of Dennis is a bit thrown together so you might wanna just check out that site for a pic. Bear with me; I know it's confusing at the moment. It will all make sense as it goes along. (If you want it to go along that is). Sidenote- Anyone out there knowhow can I get to upload symbols?