Alright, I'm going to do something a little different this time.
This takes place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, mostly Agents of SHIELD. Specifically, this story takes place during the events of Season 2, and before Avengers: Age of Ultron.
As usual, I do not own Halo or anything within the MCU.
In a secret underground facility within the Antarctic circle, the main laboratories were alive with movement as scientists ran to their stations at the orders of the black-armored security guards stationed within. Meanwhile, within a conference room, a dozen men and women in black suits and labcoats were occasionally glancing at a blank screen.
As the head of security, Chief Saunders arrived, he was flanked by 4 guards, 2 on each side, who spread out to the walls of the room, the telescreen activated, first displaying the logo of the organization (a skull surrounded by tentacles), then the head of the organization himself: Baron Wolfgang von Strucker.
"Gentleman, you have news for me?" Strucker addressed the assembled room.
"Yes sir," the head scientist replied, "We have found a possible Omega level entity at the site."
Strucker's eyes narrowed, "Needless to say, any mention of this outside this room will be grounds for immediate execution," he whispered, looking at the assembled security guards. "My men will not say a word." Saunders replied. It was an unneeded warning; the agents and scientists stationed here knew exactly what kind of work was done in this place, given the items that came through here, like the Beserker staff and Loki's scepter.
Strucker nodded, "Alright, what did you find?" Keying the controls on the table, files and folders appeared on the screen for all to see as the head scientist began his presentation.
"At 2300 hours last night, Object Rho activated for 3.4 seconds," At this, an image of a circular ancient artifact appeared on the screen, showing a portal in the middle of it. "and several small lifeforms emerged from it. Security was sent in to contain these creatures, but they quickly attached themselves to the soldiers and... took control of them." A video started, displaying the squid-shaped forms jamming themselves into the spines of each soldier and twisting them into hideous monstrosities.
Reinforcements sent in were shot at by these corrupted beings, but were eventually overwhelmed by the determined security teams. "These beings were terminated, but we soon found out that the spores produced by these creatures are sufficient enough to corrupt any lifeform," it cut to a video, showing another soldier screaming in agony as his body was torn open by disgusting flesh, and the man's screams became inhuman howling.
"We have spores and some of these monsters in containment, and we believe we can turn them into weapons." The lead scientist finished, pausing to allow Strucker to process this information.
"This.. is incredible," Strucker said, "Continue your progress. I want to see results within the week."
"Yes sir. Hail HYDRA!" At this, Strucker cut the feed and the scientists filed out of the room to get back to work. Chief Saunders barely paid them any mind however, as he was watching 2 of his men; Durkhiem and Petro. The two of them had reacted when the video of the creatures showed up on the screen: Durkhiem had clenched his fists and Petro had paled considerably. Admittedly, most of the people in the room had reacted with fear and disgust on seeing the footage, but in the eyes of those two, there seemed to be a sense of recognition.
They had never seen these things before and yet they seemed to know what they were. Saunders resolved to keep an eye on them.
Later that night, in one of the offices, Durkhiem sat down at a computer terminal, with the appearance of a late night worker. A quiet scraping noise drew his attention, causing him to unholster his sidearm and point at the newly arrived Petro, who also had his sidearm unholstered and pointed at him.
"Busted." Petro said mockingly, "Oh, like you've managed to keep yourself hidden." Durkhiem snorted, gesturing at the sidearm in his hand. Glowing with an unnaturally blue light, Petro had drawn his native combination of railgun/energy pistol, which outed his otherwordly nature. Of course, Durkhiem was well aware of the hypocrisy of his words, considering he was wielding a similar weapon at that moment.
"So, we're at a standoff then?" Petro asked.
"No, we're wasting time, we need to contain this now."
"And why would I do that?" Petro asked sarcastically, "Maybe I'll let HYDRA do this and give it to my superiors-"
"You and I both know that's never going happen." Durkhiem interjected. "The Flood is impossible to control, and given the security measures in place, they'll break free soon enough-"
"Yeah, yeah, I know." Petro grumbled, lowering his gun as Durkhiem did the same. "Do RI agents even have a sense of humor?" He asked.
"We're professionals. Why do you think SI agents keep losing to us?" Durkhiem chuckled as Petro sat down beside him.
"Dick." The two spies would normally be opposing each other, but standing orders from both of their governments ordered all of their forces to work together if the Flood were involved.
"So, what security measures do they have to hold the Flood?" Petro asked. Grabbing his holoprojecter, Durkhiem activated a blueprint of the facility and pointed to the containment vault.
"Triple-shielded blast doors sealing off a room filled with stasis pods. Ventilation shafts have been removed from every section of the facility near it and those that haven't are filled with disintegration fields that vaporizes any matter that crosses through. Armed guards patrol the perimeter 24/7 and surveillance cameras are always active within the vault. The laboratory has similar defensive measures, and experiments are used with the help of robotics. All in all, these are rather impressive quarantine measures that HYDRA has undertaken."
There was a moment of silence as they considered the security defenses HYDRA had set up. Then Petro asked the obvious question.
"So, how long until the Flood break through all of that?"
"3 days max. Knowing HYDRA's policy on employee safety, we probably have less time than that." Durkhiem grimly replied. "I'm thinking that we activate the self-destruct on the reactor ASAP."
"Whatever the cost." Petro replied, knowing they might not survive. Neither of them were planning on betraying the other. Why would they? It would just allow the Flood to spread and they could not allow that to happen.
"When?" he asked.
"Tomorrow at noon." Durkhiem replied, "I'll meet you in the auxilary hallway."
The next day, Petro made his way towards the meeting point after lunch, moving as fast as he could without seeming suspicious. However, just as he arrived he found a squad of HYDRA soldiers led by Chief Saunders, who requested (at gunpoint) that Petro come with them. As he wasn't willing to break cover yet, and figuring that Durkhiem was in a similar position, Petro pretended to surrender.
He was led to the holding cells, and caught a glimpse of Durkhiem in another cell, pretending to give in to HYDRA's demands. Petro was thrown into a different cell himself, and stripped of all of his HYDRA issued equipment.
He was chained in his cell with a pair of guards standing on either side of the doorway as the HYDRA interrogator walked in with a rack of torture equipment.
"Is that really necessary?" Petro asked sarcastically. The interrogator wasn't in the mood for games however, and left his tools on the table for now.
"We recorded your body language at the meeting the other day. Both you and Durkhiem reacted as though you know what the Omega creatures are, so you will tell us what you know and how you know it." The interrogator said with what would be a threatening tone for the people in their world.
Petro however, looked bored at the threat, causing the interrogator to glare at him. Unknown to him, Petro had drawn a knife, seemingly from thin air, and was cutting through the chains holding his hands behind his back.
Finally acknowledging the question, Petro looked up at the interrogator. "No idea what you're talking about." He replied, earning a slap in the face from the HYDRA interrogator.
"We have ways of making you talk." The man smiled evilly, picking a knife up from the table. However, before Petro could call him out on using such a cliche line, an alarm started blaring, and the announcement declared "Foreign contamination detected." The HYDRA agents looked around in alarm at this development.
"You fucking idiots." Petro said in exaperation, more at HYDRA in general than these three agents. Just as he said that, he sped up the rate at which he was cutting his cuffs, initially pretending that he was more helpless, but given recent events, time was of the essence. Breaking the cuffs in less than 2 seconds, to the shock of the guards, Petro drew his sidearm from a pocket dimension, and fired 1 round at each HYDRA agent, killing them before they had a chance to react.
Meanwhile, Durkhiem had faced a similar scenario, right down to the reactions of the guards when the alarm started blaring.
"Well, that didn't take long." Durkhiem thought, considering HYDRA's security measures hadn't lasted even remotely as long as they had predicted.
Summoning his armor, the suit materialized around him, allowing him to break through his chains with ease. The guards managed to get a couple of shots off, which slammed into his energy shield with little effect. Ripping their weapons from their hands, a swift blow to each agent knocked them all unconscious. He then broke through the cell door, and turned just in time to see 3 energy-coated railgun rounds tear through Petro's cell like it was made of tissue paper.
A moment later, Petro himself kicked the door down, now wearing his own suit of armor that was slightly less advanced than Durkhiem's. As he stepped through the door, Petro pulled a block of metal from his thigh, which configured itself into a plasma SMG. Durkhiem himself pulled a battle rifle from his back, the weapon unfolding and assembling in his hands.
"They've escaped. We need to move now!" Durkhiem yelled, and the two of them sprinted through the hallways of the facility through the flashing lights and the blaring alarms. They came across and observation deck, and saw a horde of Flood forms charge the HYDRA soldiers, whose weapons had little effect on the monstrous parasite. Terror shot through the spines of both agents when they realized that one of the Flood forms was holding the Beserker staff.
"This is bad." Petro said in shock.
The Beserker Flood started carving a path through the HYDRA agents and the blast doors with little effort. Durkhiem took aim at the Beserker and unloaded a burst of energy bolts into his body, vaporizing it. This did little to stem the tide as another combat form scooped up the staff and dozens of others were holding HYDRA's advanced weapon prototypes.
"We need to get to the reactor." Durkhiem shouted, and the two spies once again took off running through the facility, through the green fog of Flood spores that were making their way through the vents. The filters in their helmets kept the spores from entering their lungs.
As they passed through one of the hallways, they came across a squad led by Chief Saunders, who yelled "Kill the-" before a barrage of hard light and plasma bolts killed the entire squad and the mass of Flood forms gathering behind them.
"Hail HYDRA, mother fucker." Petro muttered as they ran past the dissolving clouds of cobalt ash.
Breaching the reactor, the two agents quickly set it to overload. After that, the two of them pulled out small computer boxes and activated their emergency teleport modules just as the Flood started breaking through the door. Just before the reactor went critical, the two agents disappeared, leaving the Flood to be annihilated in the explosion.
Petro and Durkhiem rematerialized several miles from the facility, just in time to witness the complex collapse in on itself. Not willing to chance that the Flood had survived, both of them called their respective supporting fleets, who commenced orbital bombardment on the wreckage of the complex, turning it into a crater of glass.
By the time HYDRA reinforcements arrived, all they found was a crater, scattered pieces of their weapons prototypes, a blackened, but intact Beserker Staff and several miles away, a pair of nametags, reading "V. Petro" and "A. Durkhiem."
I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. Also note that at the time of the Flood escaping, Loki's scepter was not in the facility.
In answer to the reviewer who asked if I have a story behind all of these events, the answer is yes, I do (admittedly one that would probably fall apart the more you think about it) and this one-shot is meant to tie into that.
In regards to weapons, I took inspiration from some of Andrithir's weapon designs in Lost Legacy (also, if you haven't read that, DO SO NOW! It's amazing!).
Please review if you want to learn more.