Chapter 3 Dying Inside

Once again, the return of the Great Hammermaster. I think this chapter is far superior to the first two, and I'm hoping that it will continue to progress from here. Thank you all for reviewing, and please continue to review. Yeah, i'm in need of constructive criticism.

A strange, array of colors, flashing like a carnival (not that he'd ever seen a carnival) flew through his brain, intensifying the disorder that he saw. The chaos. The lack of order. Images flew through his brain, forming strange pictures. But one stood out above the others. It showed a mother gently holding her child in her arms. The image faded away, and he saw a father walking down the street with his child up on his shoulders.

The Master Chief opened his eyes, and the images all faded away. Then, he began to cry. He cried for his stolen life. He cried for his mother, for his father, for the brothers and sisters that he may have had. It hurt. He knew it hurt. As his salty tears began to roll onto his visor, obscuring his vision, John began to speak.

"My name is John," he said as the tears kept falling down. "I'm John. Speak to me someone. I'm dying inside."

Suddenly the Master Chief heard the sound of static, and a garbled voice intertwined within the static. He slowly rose to his feet, and looked around for the source of the static. He saw a messed up gigantic computer of some sort up against the wall. The computer showed fuzzed up images of the ship's course, and images of what was going on outside. But it also had a radio. It was scratched up, and the speaker had been slashed open, but it still just barely worked. The Master Chief walked up to it, and listened to the messages.

"Fff...asterief...asterief...fxxx...ortanafxx...oo...oo...read...fx..."

The Master Chief tried to make sense of the message.

"Fff...asterief...asterief...fxxx...ortanafxx...oo...oo...read...fx..."

"I can't understand you!" Master Chief shouted in reply. "Repeat the message please!"

"...arr..oo...asterieffx?"

"What?"

"...arrr...ou...Johnfx...?"

"John!" the Master Chief shouted. "That's me! That's me! I'm John!"

"...asterief...?"

"Master Chief," John said. "Yes, who is this?"

"...ortanafxx..."

"Cortana?"

"...ortanafxx...es..."

"Cortana, yes."

"...es..."

"Cortana, I can barely understand you."

"...I...o...appy...oo...arr...ine..."

"I'm happy I'm okay too," the Master Chief replied.

"...ere..arr..oo..?...I...ust...roadast...essage...acros...alaxy..."

"Were am I, you just broadcasted the message across the galaxy?"

"...oo..reeli...arrr...spxartanfx..."

"Yes, thank you. I'm so happy you found me. I was worried that I would be stuck here forever."

"...ere...arr...oo...?"

"I don't know," Master Chief replied. "I'm on some Covenant ship, though so far I haven't seen any Covenant here. I saw some Flood, a strange person dressed in orange armor, and some unidentified alien creature."

"...erson..as..dressed...orangfx...'rmor...?"

"Yes."

"...I...ontact...alactic...ederation...ey..ot..a..erson..amed...amus...fxe..'resses..in...orangfx...'rmor..."

"What is the Galactic Federation? I can't understand you. Your signal is breaking up."

"...urry..asterief...ell..ee...ere...oo...arr..."

"It appears to be..." John paused while he looked on the computer screen to analyze the ship's course. "The ship appears to be heading straight for Earth. It should arrive their in... oh... I don't know. I can't understand these markings. They are in the Covenant dialect."

"...escrfx...a...ip..."

"I can't understand you Cortana, your signal is breaking up."

"...escrfx...a...ip..."

"Cortana, can you repeat that?"

"...rfx...a...i..."

"Cortana!"

"..."

"Dang!" Master Chief exclaimed in disappointment.

The connection had been broken.

"Stupid computers!" Master Chief shouted. "Speak to me! Cortana! Speak to me!"

You're the only person who ever treated me as a human. Speak to me Cortana, I'm dying inside.

Suddenly the Master Chief heard a thud, and turned to see the same orange warrior who he had fought before kneeling beneath an open vent in the ceiling as if he'd/she'd just jumped down from inside of it. The Master Chief's Battle Rifle was immediately in his hands, and he pulled the trigger.

Samus Aran, leaped to the side, spinning as she jumped. She was not rusty enough to be caught, as she often referred to it as, with her pants down. Samus smiled as she felt the humorous side of her rising up. But she immediately became serious. Whoever this armor clad enemy was, he had just declared his intentions by firing upon her. Samus landed, rolling across the floor before leaping back up to her feet. She fired several bolts of plasma energy towards her foe, but he leaped to the side, dodging every single blast. Samus had to give him credit, he knew what he was doing. Just like Adam.

"No," she told herself. "Don't think of that."

Samus switched over to her scan visor, and quickly scanned her enemy.

Species: Human. Gender: Male. Subject seems to have augmented strength, and flexibility. Possible genetic enhancement. Subject has some cybernetic implants inside of his body. Subject is more enhanced physically than most humans, and also has better stamina, and endurance. Interesting to note is that the subject's sex drive has been significantly lowered. Subject's DNA is like that of the super soldiers of the United States Navy. The Spartan Project. Few Spartans still remain alive, for most were killed in action. They are currently being used by the U.S. Government to combat the Covenant and the Flood. The person who succeeded in destroying Halo was a Spartan.

Samus smirked. A Spartan. The computer always managed to write out long, scientific descriptions of the things it scanned. Samus preferred plain English. Samus had indeed heard rumors about the legendary Spartan project. She had been told that the U.S. Navy had secretly abducted children from their families, and turned them into super soldiers. Samus frowned. She believed that such a plan was heartless, and immoral. Taking children from their families was the work of cruel kidnappers, not respectable Government Officials.

Samus fired a charged shot at her enemy, but missed by a lot. The armored master leaped across the room, embarrassing Samus by how easily he dodged her blast. He then rolled across the floor, before flipping up, and firing his gun into Samus' face.

No!

The bullets pelted into her helmet, cracking the face mask, and pelting off the chozo armor, but doing little else.

My armor is strong, Samus thought. You can't get better than Chozo armor.

But her enemy possessed a resource which Samus did not have. Energy shields. Samus began firing upon him again, but the silver armored figure dodged three of her blasts, and his shield held off the other one.

"Dang!" Samus exclaimed.

The Spartan rolled behind the wall as Samus fired several blasts of energy towards him. The silver warrior ducked behind a wall, and Samus continued firing her steady stream of plasma. But then she stopped when no further activity happened. Samus released her hold of the trigger and tried to think about what her enemy could be doing back there.

The Master Chief thought's flew by rapidly. His brain had been enhanced so it was able to think strategically even in situations where the normal person would have panicked and lost all control. The Master Chief knew how to think and fight at the same time. And what a gift it was. Suddenly he noticed the shattered body of a Covenant warrior lying on the ground, defeated. Numerous burn scars covered its chest, suggesting it had gotten in a fight with some creature with a plasma weapon. But clutched in its cold dead arms was a shotgun! Master Chief immediately grabbed it, and turned towards the corner. This baby would blast the snot out of his enemy.
The silver warrior popped out from behind the wall quicker than Samus could react, clutching a new weapon in his arms. Samus readied her arm cannon, but before she could attack her enemy fired a blast from his gun into her shoulder. The blast shattered through her armor as if it were scrap metal, but did not break into her flesh. The blast knocked Samus off balance, causing her to stumble about. Her enemy fired the weapon again. This time it broke through her leg armor, and a shard of the metal fired from the gun went into Samus' leg. The Bounty Hunter ignored the pain, and immediately spiraled out of the way. She ducked behind a corner, but not before her enemy fired another shot, this time splintering through her back armor.

Samus tried to think. Her enemy was not a wimpy soldier, or a "person who thought they could wield a gun when they couldn't even hold one right." Samus almost laughed at her joke, but she pushed it aside. This was no laughing matter. Her enemy was a master. He knew how to fight, and Samus had not had to deal with such enemies in a long time. She rarely fought humans, and when she did, they were always horrible at fighting. But her enemy did not have Chozo armor, and he certainly did not have missiles.

Samus immediately leaped up to her feet, and leaped out from behind the corner. She immediately fired a missile, but her enemy just ducked, and it went flying over his head. Then, the Spartan pulled some sort of blue shining ball out of his pocket, and threw it at Samus. A grenade!

The grenade hit Samus on her suit's "breast plate," but did not bounce off of her armor as she expected. Instead, it stuck to her chest. The Bounty Hunter almost panicked. But she didn't. Samus quickly pulled the grenade from her chest, and threw it away from her. It exploded right in front of her, sending her flying across the room in a blast of blue fire.

Samus slammed against the wall, and fell to the ground in a heap. She lifted her head from the floor, and watched as flashes of light appeared before her eyes. In this dizzy state of being, Samus watched as the Spartan walked up to her, and placed the muzzle of his weapon against her head.

"Who are you," he said firmly, demanding an answer. "And why did you attack me?"

Samus shook the stars out of her head, and looked up into her enemies visor. Suddenly she heard a commotion, and saw a small alien leap through a broken metal door in hysterics.

"Aaauuugghh!" it screamed. "Their taking over us!"

Then it stopped, and looked over at the Master Chief.

"It's the Demon! Aaaaauuugggghhhhh!"

It then ran away screaming. But its brief presence had been enough to draw the Spartan's attention away from Samus. The Bounty Hunter immediately leaped to her feet, and knocked her silver enemy aside with a strong punch in his chest. The Spartan leaped back to his feet, and raised his gun to fire. But he never got the chance. Samus immediately leaped into the air and spiraled towards her enemy. As she flew, Samus activated the screw attack, and immediately the pours in her suit began to release painful sparks of energy. She collided with her enemy as she spun through the air while curled up like a ball. The strong energy of the screw attack shattered through the Spartan's shields, knocking him across the room as his body was pumped full of the harmful energy. Samus ended her spiral, and landed on her feet.

Samus raised the barrel of her cannon, and fired one missile into her enemy as he flew across the room. The explosion sent him flying into the wall, knocking him unconscious. Samus smiled, but did not make any other attempt to celebrate. She was in too much pain to celebrate. What scared her the most was that she would have lost the battle if that alien hadn't ran into the room and distracted the Spartan.

But the Bounty Hunter was in bad shape. A sharp pain shot through her leg every time she moved it, and her whole body ached from the bashes she had received. Samus turned to the side, and immediately a sharp pain shot through her chest.

"Ow," Samus moaned.

Her lungs burned for air, and one of her ribs just may have been cracked open. But why had this Spartan attacked her. It didn't make any sense.

Get a bit of Samus' point of view in there. Tired of hearing the Master Chief's thoughts all the time? Sick of his do or die attitude and mental conflict? Then subscribe to "Samus' thoughts." We provide a nice break between the thoughts of the Master Chief with the thoughts of the Bounty Hunter. All this, for one low price.