Lin and Mak Dak were a couple of peas in a pod. Ludo found them deep inside the warehouse fighting back to back, each covering one side whilst fully relying on the other to do the same. It only made sense to have them take point.
Ludo had specifically ordered the two Jackals to focus primarily on the infection forms. Meanwhile, he followed behind their neon yellow shields with a Covenant carbine that belonged to the dead copilot of Kobul, the air assault Elite standing beside him. According to the rundown, Kobul and his copilot already cheated death by being the only two to survive their Phantom's crash landing into a crowd of Flood. Ludo and his team had made it in time to rescue Kobul, but for his copilot, they were just seconds too late.
A shotgun boomed behind him and reminded him of their human ally's presence, the first of the rescued survivors. He'd lost track of how many times he thought she had died in all the chaos. She had a tendency to disappear on them, only to come back with a game changer of sorts, an expression of creativity that consistently benefited the team. A mounted missile pod up on a catwalk in one instance. A forklift in another, which, with a crate on the prongs, she operated like an elevator conductor after the Flood destroyed a set of stairs necessary to get to the next part of the warehouse.
"Hurry!" Ludo barked upon hearing the unmistakable sounds of distant yelling and gunfire rising over the incessant groaning and moaning coming from the city-wide parasite infestation.
Someone else is in trouble.
They entered the rearmost section of the warehouse and accidentally disturbed about a dozen carrier forms nesting there. Incandescent light emitted from slightly swaying ceiling lamps cast long, moving shadows on the forms, which grew collectively hostile towards the unwanted presence of the newcomers. Off to the far right, opposite to the door Ludo and his team had entered through, he saw another door presumably leading outside.
He armed and tossed a plasma grenade at the leading carrier form before it waddled too close and detonated itself in their proximity like some kind of deadly, biological land mine. When it exploded, the carrier forms standing behind and beside it were launched way back and in turn, detonated themselves once they hit the ground.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Each one shook the ground like an earthquake tremor. In a matter of seconds the room became home to a sea of infection forms. Without being told, Kobul and the rest of the survivors held their ground and tossed their own grenades into the incoming tidal wave. Again, the scuffle outside grabbed at Ludo's attention.
He equipped his hammer and turned to Kobul, saying, "You're in charge!"
Before the pilot could respond, he booked it across the room to the door on the right, yanked it open, and charged through. Outside, past the empty loading dock, a lone Brute was retreating from a horde of combat forms. The Plague gave chase.
Eventually the Brute ran out of places to go. He found himself boxed in by a large, eighteen-wheel delivery truck deliberately parked in front of the exit. He turned around and killed an airborne Flood with two shots from a carbine, then dropped that and pulled out a compact sidearm commonly known as a mauler. A turned Brute rushed towards him and he blasted it to dust with a single shot.
The Plague transferred all his energy into the Fist of Rukt. His thick force field generated by the hammer slowly receded into the handle, as did the next layer, his personal energy shield generated by an electrical system in his armor.
The Fist of Rukt glowed bright blue and vibrated imperceptibly fast in his hands. They felt completely numb and the vibrations were traveling up his arms. The energy moved up to the handle, then to the ancient stone head and stopped there, growing brighter and brighter.
The Brute mauler-blasted a third combat form and turned to stab another. He was too distracted by his immediate foes to see the three in the air, let alone have a defense against them. Luckily, Ludo released the energy charge at that very moment. A single gravity pulse projectile shot forth from the hammer and destroyed the leaping parasites like plates at target practice.
The Brute shielded himself with his furry arms as bits and crumbs of Flood came raining down on him. When he lowered them and saw Ludo standing there, he shook his head and grinned like he'd won the lottery.
"Long time no see, eh Ludo?"