Chapter 7: Wraith Descends

"What the fuck was that!?" Coco cried out. The explosion had flung her across the room, slamming her through the thin plaster wall, and leaving her sprawled in the corridor covered in dust; her arms were wrapped tightly around Velvet who she'd grabbed in hopes of cushioning her from the blast. It seemed to have worked, even if her beret hadn't provided sufficient protection for her head.

"Some kind of explosion." Velvet answered, wriggling her way out of her girlfriends protective grasp; her ears bolt upright as she looked out their rooms window. It wasn't good, the village they were in was mostly made of wood, two feet of stones may have allowed the buildings enough strength to stand up, but the vast majority of their structures were made from the local wood. Combine that with the heat of the plasma and you had a massive fire on your hands. The panicked cries of all the villagers as they scrambled around wasn't helping.

"Plasma strike." Noble Six explained as she uncurled herself from the ball she'd made herself into, looking out the window towards where the explosion had gone off. Before turning her attention to the fire raging outside "And a big one."

"Covenant?" Yatsuhashi asked as he freed himself from the destroid ruins of his bed; his hand reaching for his sword as his Aura flashed up around him.

"Yes, probably a Wraith, it's one of their tanks." Six said, looking around for the room and realising something very bad, she didn't have her magnum and Velvet didn't have the sniper rifle.

"Okay people, this is what we trained for." Coco said. Her head pounded as she staggered to her feet, but she pushed through and composed herself as she looked down at her scroll. "Professor Ozpin, we could really do with some help now."

"The Scroll's dead." Yatsuhashi said, picking up the device and showing Coco the blank screen.

"It was the Plasma Strike." Six explained. "Most UNSC tech is-"

She was going to say 'protected from the EMP effects' but she never got a chance, due to another ball of plasma crashing down, this time much closer to the hotel they were in.

"We need to get out of here." Fox declared, readying his Tofa before reaching up and nervously touching something in his ear. "Coco, Ada's gone."

"Crap." Coco scowled as she ran through everything they did have, which sadly wasn't much. She had Gianduja, which was currently stuck in it's handbag form, which still offered a heavy melee option even if firing it was out of the question. Fox had his Tofa working but he relied on the Ada unit in his ear to map out the surrounding environment, without it he had no effective way of navigating the claustrophobic village without the tech mapping everything out. He'd be able to see people just fine thanks to their Auras but he wouldn't have a good map of the terrain. Velvet was a superb hand to hand fighter, but without her weapon she wasn't anywhere near as versatile and Six… had the window open with her leg half out.

"You're going out there!?" Velvet cried, the purple haired girl didn't even look back or stop climbing as she called over the panicked screaming of the villagers:

"I'm going to the Hog, we have weapons there, and I'm the only one here with any experience fighting the Covenant."

"You're not going alone!" Coco called out and, realising the girl wasn't stopping, she had to think fast. "Right, Velvet, Yatsuhashi, get out that window and protect her. Fox you come with me, I want you inside the village shelter. Find someone to get Ada back online, once that gets done I want you out there helping us; otherwise sit tight."

"What are you going to do after that?" Velvet asked as Yatsuhashi clambered out after the Spartan had already sprinted off down the cobbled stone path.

"I'll be at the north wall, the arc of that last shot say's that's where they're coming from. Their gonna need every fighter they've got out there." Coco explained, looking at Velvet who bit her lip, her face kept shifting, it was obvious she wanted to say something, but in the end she settled for sprinting over, kissing her quickly and quietly whispering in her ear.

"Stay safe."

The Rabbit Faunus was gone a second later, diving out the window and setting off after the others.

"They'll be fine." Fox said quietly. Coco wished she shared his confidence.


"Six, slow down!"

Noble Six did hear Velvet's call, but that didn't mean she listened to it. Every second she didn't have a gun in her hands was a second that she couldn't fight the Covenant. Thankfully she'd paid attention when she was being directed through the village and had a reasonably good map in her head as she ran though, ducking around terrified civilians as she sprinted through what might have been a maze of chaos to most people.

What she'd forgotten was A: the rain that had been falling on and off for the last four days and B: she wasn't wearing anything on her feet.

What this meant was as she side stepped out of the way of a panicking civilian her foot came down on a particularly nasty bit of jagged cobble at top speed, the edge easily breaking the skin. Now, Noble Six was a god damn Spartan; a cut to her foot, regardless of how big it was, wasn't going to stop her, what it did do was cause her leg to spasm slightly and throw her balance off just the tiniest bit, really it shouldn't have amounted to anything.

Unfortunately, that's where the wet terrain came in. The loss of friction combined with the spasm sent her crashing to the ground, splashing down in a particularly large puddle.

"Six! Are you alright!" Velvet called as she caught up, reaching her hand up before Six brushed it away.

"I'm fine." She said firmly, forcing herself back up.

"You're bleeding." Yatsuhashi noted just as another blast of Plasma erupted behind them.

"Priorities." Six retorted, her flat eyes glanced down to examine her legs; honestly, it was just a few cuts. "Come on."

She set off again, shocking the Beacon students by not slowing down despite the injuries.

Why does this place have to be such a maze, the hell was wrong with a simple grid layout!?

Six skidded to a halt, she'd arrived at the outer wall which meant she knew where to go now. Quickly she turned back and spotted the alley way she was looking for; darting down it she almost smiled when she saw it was still there, and more importantly, so were the guns.

"Take this." Six ordered, reaching in to grab the sniper rifle and handing it to Velvet, before turning around and freeing her magnum.

Only got three shots left, crap this isn't good, hang on…

"Who recovered the Gravity Hammer?" Six asked, her tone slightly stunned as she pulled it out, the weapon was both a lot heavier and larger then she remembered it being, obviously a result of whatever had happened to her augmentations. Still, she held it as steadily as she could, it was a valuable weapon regardless of any weight.

"Me." Yatsuhashi answered, his posture and expression making it harder to infer anything else.

"Okay, we need to-"

BWWOOOM!

The wall behind her exploded, the wooden fortifications on top bursting into fire and crashing down around them like miniature meteores, the stone exploding outwards, smashing through buildings, crushing wood and plaster and anything else they hit. Six lowered her arm and saw through the cloud of dust the first covenant combatants entering.

Without thinking she brought her arm forward and popped off her three shots, each one reducing the approaching Grunt's brains to a purple mist.

"Cover me." She called out as she ran towards the bodies, ducking low near the corpses, she shifted the crab's over so she could recover their weapons. Between the three she had two Plasma Pistols and one Needler, making up her mind she took one of the Plasma Pistols and stuffed it into one of the coat's pockets; it wasn't an ideal holster but it would do under the circumstances. Then she grabbed the Needler before darting back behind the hog.

"What were those things!?" Velvet cried as the Spartan settled down next to her, gripping the reload trigger and giving the Needler a firm shake, to her delight a crystal burst out of every hole on the weapon's back. So she knew she had at least one full clip, but without a hud she couldn't know if she had anything else.

"Grunt's, they're deceptively strong for their size and often carry plasma grenades." Six answered as a loud roar erupted from behind the walls, the shadows of more figures becoming visible as the dust cloud settled down.

"We need to move." Yatsuhashi pointed out, to which Six was forced to agree. This was not a good firing position with them jammed down a narrow alleyway, the covenant would reduce them to super heated mush within seconds. Still didn't mean running away felt good.

Enough of that Soldier, there's always a time for retreating.

Six had never agreed with that sentiment but she moved anyway. Another trio of Grunts tried to trap them in the alleyway, but Six reduced them to nothing more than mush with a volley from the Needler. Just as she was about to join Velvet and Yatsuhashi in fleeing, she spotted the gravity hammer again, and made the decision to heft it along.

"Something's wrong about this." Six muttered, fighting the urge to tilt her head as they backed up. They re-entered the market area that she'd passed through earlier, ducked down behind one of the larger stalls. This must have been the wealthier end of the market, as these stalls were made from stone, unlike the rest of the wooden town. While she didn't really care who owned it, the solid construction would offer more cover and was less likely to catch fire.

"What do you mean?" Velvet asked.

"I mean the Covenant aren't normally this careful." Six explained. "That Wraith should be bombing this town cosntantly, they shouldn't be waiting and firing in scync like this, they'd normally just charge in and slaughter everyone."

"And you're complaining that they're not doing that?" Yatsuhashi asked, with a small smile on his face, that the Spartan didn't return.

"I want to know why." Six muttered, crawling along and taking a nervous peek around the corner, ducking back into cover within a second.

"Maybe they lost a bunch of their gear, like you did." Velvet suggested. "Wouldn't that be a good thing?"

"When the Covenant get desperate, bad things happen." Six responded curtly, beginning to explain Grunts rather common habit of sucide strikes before stopping when she saw Velvet's ear twitching.

Yatsuhashi didn't say anything as Six and Velvet nervously looked around; he obviously couldn't hear what they had heard.

"Velvet, look for where the shots come from." Six whispered, dropping the Gravity Hammer before charging to the right out of their cover and diving prone behind the other stone stall next to them.

No shots.

Maybe they're saving ammo.

Or they're not using a gun.

Six heard the splashing and immediately flung herself backwards as an arc of Plasma ignited in front of her and stabbed into the ground. Instantly Six realised she was under attack from an Energy Sword, the familiar dual bladed stabbing weapon floating in front of her told her some things, like who was wielding it:

Crap, we would get followed by an Elite, wouldn't we!?

Six threw herself over the stand as another stab came close to Liquidizing her.

"Velvet, shoot it!" Six yelled, immediately regretting it as she realised the mistake inherent in her request. The Elite might not be aware anyone else was there; she'd effectively marked Velvet and Yatsuhashi for the lizard.

Velvet thankfully had the sense to stay quiet and flicked the rifle's bipod down and aimed, before bringing up their next problem.

"I can't see it enough, I might hit you!"

Oh that's helpful!

Six scowled, hoping she was fast enough to keep running from the lizard. Its active camo had to run out at some point, right?

Thankfully, it did, revealing the Elite to be the Ultra, which was good in the sense that they knew where it was, but bad because now they didn't know where the Zealot was.

At least the footsteps only suggested one Elite.

That very much depends on where the Zealot is, and there could easily be more than just those two.

The big picture could wait because the other Elites' location wouldn't matter if Six didn't survive this encounter.

"Time's up, human!" It growled, revealing it to have a rather deep voice, one that absolutely dripped with malice as it adjusted its grip on its handle and pulled the sword arm back.

"I am not going down to you Sangheili!" Six spat, diving out of the way of another stab from the creature, grinning at the look of confusion on its face. Using the proper name had had the intended effect, as it froze in place, confusion visible in its eyes. If her back-up with the Sniper Rifle was paying attention she'd just given her a perfect opportunity to make the shot.

Velvet fired at the Elte, managing to hit the creatures armour, unfortunately the angle the bullet had connected at meant the shot didn't peirce, simply ricocheting and blasting into the stone ground. It had given Six time to plan however, as she reached into her coat to pull out her other stolen weapon.

She held down the trigger and backed up carefully, the tip of the pistol growing insanely hot from the glowing green orb that was steadily building, growing bigger and bigger as she charged the shot. She could feel the skin on her hand blistering under the heat but she held true, watching as Velvet fired another shot. This time the shot made contact with the Elite's shoulder, unfortunately it was again a grazing shot and this time it wasn't enough to stop the alien from getting its senses together, as it readied it's sword and ran at the retreating Spartan.

Six fired off the shot with the pistol, keeping her arm up until the blast was gone, whereupon she quickly dropped the weapon. The glowing cloud of green energy slammed into the Elite, its shield's dropping before Velvet fired off the final bullet in her magazine, this time her shot met its mark, tearing through the lizard's forearm and hand, the Energy Sword shutting off as its internals were gutted.

The Elite let out a roar of pain, it's momentum carrying it forwards as Six dived out of the way, snatching up her Needler and aiming it at the creature, intent on finishing the Elite before something caught the corner of her eye. Spinning around fast, she squeezed the trigger, firing a burst of crystals towards the roof of a nearby building; each of which slammed into the visor of the Jackal Sniper's helmet.

"Six, get down!" Yatsuhashi cried. Six dropped down instantly, making herself flat on the floor as Yatsuhashi vaulted over her, swinging his sword into the Grunts that had been trying to flank them. His strike didn't go through the Grunt's armour, but it did send them flying, slamming them into a stone wall with enough force to smash the pyramid shaped air tanks off their backs, the escaping methane sending them flying into the sky before crashing down.

"Nice hit." Six said as she clambered to her feet, looking for the Elite, only to see it was gone.

"It ran off." Velvet explained, pulling herself up from behind the stand, her ears drooping as she held out the rifle. "Sorry I missed most of my shots."

"At that range and speed you did fine." Six said simply, taking the rifle from her and detaching the empty magazine, taking a spare off Velvet and sliding it into the mag well before sliding the bolt forward. "You've got another four shots, use them carefully. I might not get a chance to do it again."

Velvet smiled as she took the gun back, before repeating the process Six had just done.

"Now it's got five because-" Six began to explain, but Velvet interrupted her.

"Because of the one in the chamber, right?" Velvet asked. "Don't worry, I learn quickly."

Impressed, Six nodded before looking around. There didn't seem to be any more Covenant coming from this direction, perhaps the intent had been to send a small force in around the back to ambush the defenders and break up their formation. It made sense, the Wraith really was overkill in this situation, Plasma grenades were enough to get through these walls. As she was thinking, Velvet brought her back to the moment.

"We should get to Coco and the others by the north wall."

Six nodded again, the rabbit girl's idea made sense, so she retrieved the Gravity Hammer and followed the group. Once again covering their rear as they ran.


As the three reached the north wall, they weren't reassured. Piling behind it were knocked out fighters, all being hastily bandaged by the village Doctor who was darting from patient to patient, his dog ears plastered to his head, visibly wincing at every burst of fire from one of the wall's chain guns.

Velvet and Yatsuhashi slowed down, stepping around the injured patients. Six chose to keep running, jumping over the various patients before rapidly scaling the ladder to the wall.

"Die motherfucker die!" The current gunner yelled, screaming as he blasted away on the gun, tearing into a squad of approaching Skirmishers. Despite their lack of discipline, Six had to appreciate the team work. The gunners were working in sync to make sure one was always firing so the Covenant's ground forces never got a break. She was also oddly calmed that the phrase to time machine gun bursts was the same on this planet as it was for the UNSC.

"Six, you made it!" Coco called, gesturing her to come closer to where she currently was, hunkered down behind the wooden wall of the guard structure.

"That wood isn't going to save you from plasma." Six pointed out as she crouched down next to her.

"They can't target me if they can't see me." Coco responded, before quickly grabbing the Spartan and shoving her down as a cloud of blue Plasma sailed overhead and slammed into another building in the village, melting its way through the wood and only exploding when it hit the floor under the building. Luckily the fire wasn't spreading all that fast because everything was waterlogged from the day's endless deluge, but no medic wanted a fire near where they were trying to work.

"That freakin' artillery!" The gunner yelled out as he revved his gun back up to speed. "Nothing we do to it will slow it down!"

Six moved carefully to a point where the wall had been shot, making a hole she could look out of without being an obvious target. The Wraith was sitting at the back and was currently the only thing not moving on the field; everything else was a foot soldier frantically trying to avoid the machine gun fire.

She looked closer, the Wraith also had a machine gunner, it was trying to hit the humans firing on their comrades but something was clearly wrong; it was only firing the occasional shot and not very frequently either.

"The cooling's off on the machine gun." Six muttered to herself as she looked at everything in front of her.

"On the tank thing?" Coco asked, causing the Spartan to nod. "It's supposed to fire faster than that?!"

"Yeah, and that's good, it can't focus on anyone attacking it from the ground without a functional gun, so we can get close." Six muttered, thinking of how many soldiers had been killed just trying to get close to a Wraith.

"Yeah, but what does it matter if we get close if we can't kill the driver, they've been hammering it since the fight began." Coco pointed out, gesturing to the gunners.

"The armour and its shields will do a fairly good job of resisting bullets." Six explained, looking out again. "Get the gunner to hit the Wraith."

Coco looked confused but nodded, turning to the gunner and yelling at him to hit the tank, he seemed confused but did so, leading Six to grin as the bullets made contact and no shield flared up. They were joined by Velvet who scaled the ladder behind them, the Sniper Rifle still in her grip as she crawled to meet them while Six put her plan together.

"What's the situation?" Velvet asked, looking at the grinning Spartan and feeling slightly unnerved.

"We can kill the Wraith." Six said with a smirk. "Velvet if you snipe the gunner on the machine gun I can run up and breach the hatch."

"That thing has been taking shots from a machine gun for over twenty minuites, how are you going to breach that?" Coco asked, Six rolled her eyes.

"I'm gonna punch…" She began before she remembered something important; she currently had no Mjolnir. Her hands were weak, she didn't have the muscles or armour that could take it, a quick look at her hands showed just how hot the Plasma Pistol tip had gotten with the nasty burns on them.

"You can't punch through that!" Velvet cried, apparently also having seen the problem with Noble Six's plan. Said girl was racking her brains, with punching off the table she'd have to think of another way to breach the hatch.

We'd need something heavy, preferably that can move quickly and that was dense so it takes the hit.

But we don't have anything like that.

We might.

"Coco, this is going to be dangerous but you can take that tank out." Six said, her eye's meeting Coco's who looked at the girl like she was insane, her jaw dropping and her eyes flicking between the Spartan and Velvet.

"What is she meant to do, hit it with her bag?" Velvet asked incredulously, only to recoil in horror as the Spartan nodded. At that her ears flattened on her head. "Six, it's an Alien tank!"

"One I've fought before." Six countered, grabbing Coco's head and forcing her to meet her eyes. "Listen to me, you can take that thing out if you can get up on the front. The shields are offline and the hatch is a weak point with no reinforcement behind it, it's fully possible to dish out enough force to break it, and once that's done the driver's an easy target."


Coco stared Six down, meeting the purple haired girl's fierce orange eyes, looking into them, determined to figure out if the girl was telling the truth, determined to see if she was being honest with her.

"Okay, Velvet can you get the machine gun taken offline?" Coco asked, looking over to her girlfriend, who, quite justifiably, was looking at the pair like they were crazy, but after a few seconds she answered.

"Yeah, I can do it." She said, unfurling the bipod and planting the rifle, aiming down the alien scope until it lined up with the skinny lizard manning the machine gun. She shot well, with one hit piercing the gun and the next blasting the bird-like head of the operator.

"Give her covering fire!" Six yelled at the gunner, who looked confused as Coco got ready to vault over the wall, before he grinned and yelled back:

"You got it!" His cockily flashed thumbs up was returned to his gun, blasting at any force vaguely standing between their stretch of wall and the alien tank.

Coco braced before flinging herself over, rolling on impact and charging towards the tank, which saw her coming and revving up its engines. She jumped and was able to roll up the tank's curved front armour, gripping the destroyed remains of the machine gun with her free hand to stop her going too far. Reaching out with her other hand she pulled herself down and made a firm purchase on the tank's rounded front.

Up close she could see the hatch Six had mentioned. She growled, ignoring another shot Velvet sent out, hoping it had hit whatever was sneaking up on her as she brought her bag down hard.

Something people didn't realise about Gianduja was just how powerful it was when curled up. Sure, it's minigun form would tear through just about anything she aimed it at, but the bag form was also strong, mostly because it was terrible as an actual bag due to the lack of interior space. With its gun form retracted you were left with nothing but a solid chunk of tightly packed together metal. Getting hit with it was like getting hit with a mace, or if she had some extra momentum, a car.

Basically, it was a lump of solidsteel covered in a fashionable leather exterior, and Coco took full advantage of this fact as she drove it repeatedly into the Tank's hatch. Watching with immense satisfaction as the metal buckled with each strike.

Soon it was ruined and a surge of energy shot through it, causing it to explode and shatter off. Coco's Aura took the hit and she went to bring her bag down on the tank's pilot, only to feel a burst of pain to her gut as she was flung bodily off the tank.

The girl crashed down into the mud forcing herself up, sweeping her rain soaked hair out of her face. Her Aura weakened from the hit but was still holding strong, as the tank's pilot stood up.

Coco hadn't realised earlier how tall an Elite was, partly from how far away it was and partly from the taller brute standing next to it at the time. The thing was a lot taller than her though, taller than Yatsuhashi even.

It stomped out, it's feet sinking into the dirt, its burnt golden armour glinting in the moonlight as it reached for the weapon on its thigh.

Bang!

Velvet came through, sensing the danger and firing off a shot at the Elite. The shot was either a miss or incredibly lucky, because she ended up shooting the pistol right out of the alien's hand. The Elite made a sound of annoyance and looked up at the wall, only to watch as Velvet pulled the rifle back to be reloaded.

The Lizard laughed as it exploded towards Coco, four clawed hand aimed right at her face. The girl narrowly dodged only to be on the receiving end of a brutal hoofed kick. Coco expected to go flying again but she didn't, the alien had grabbed onto her wrist to keep her close. She guessed why almost instantly, it was to stop back up fire, no one would be able to aim at them without risking hitting her.

Annoyed that this strategy appeared to be working, Coco swung her bag at the creature. The bag slammed into the Alien helmet, failing to do much; she did it again, the round helmet seamingly capable of taking plenty of punishment.

"You fight well, human."

It was funny, in the last twenty four hours Six had explained what Elites were multiple times, what she had never said was how disturbing it was to watch them talk. Their four mandibles moving and clicking, exposing many sharp teeth and the disgusting exposed pit of their tongueless throat.

Coco didn't answer, instead swinging her bag up and striking the Elite in the mandibles, jolting the creature's head back, finally forcing it to let go of her wrist and allowing her to put some distance between them.

"Well done Human."

The Elite was ginning, several of its teeth were shattered and one of it's mandibles was bent at an odd angle. It was a weird, twisted smile, but still undeniably a smile.

Then in a second it had closed in, driving a fist into Coco's gut before delivering another follow up hit. With the wind knocked out of her, Coco was forced to the ground before the Alien delivered a brutal strike to her face with its foot. Kicking again and again, laughing as her Aura flashed up every time.

"A tough one aren't you!" It cried, seemingly delighted as it brutalised it's opponent.

Coco couldn't think of a way out as the scaly alien brought it's foot down again, her Aura actually breaking with the strike. The Elite brought it's hoof up one last time to stomp her to death, only to realise the same thing that Coco did. In kicking her to the ground, he had lost his only leverage.

Velvet fired off four shots in rapid succession, two missed, one ricocheted off of the creature's helmet, but the fourth struck true in the alien's torso, creating a spray of purple blood in the air.. Unfortunately, the Elite was still alive, but it was no longer focusing on her. This alone would have brought her a few seconds, what came out of the forest brought her a lot more.


Six wasn't sure exactly what she was looking at. It resembled some of the creature's she'd observed Team CFVY fighting earlier in the day, but only in the sense of it was black and covered in protruding bones.

The thing was tall yet impossibly skeletal and thin. Standing around ten metres tall the skeletal humanoid's upper half was covered in feathers that made it vaguely resemble a tree. Its long arms hanging down its side, it walked out of the forest and looked around at what was going on around it, the battle field, the aliens and everything else.

Then it roared, and Six really paid attention to the head.

The creature didn't seem to have a skull, or indeed any features that resembled the head of any animal that she'd had a long curved neck that ended with a cone-like protrusion within which was what looked like a relatively normal human-like mouth.

The more pressing aspect of the creature was its scream. The sound reverberated throughout seemingly the whole forest; Velvet had to cover her enhanced ears with both hands and cried out. Six was also covering her ears; this sound had to be heard for miles around.

Then it turned on Coco, reaching down and grabbing the impractically dressed girl. Six glanced over and saw Velvet going for a reload, only to not detach the magazine properly and fumble.

Whether it was some battlefield instinct or the memories of what she had previously been capable of, Six felt an irresistible compulsion to act; she had to save Coco. She leapt off of the wall, plummeting a fair distance and probably breaking something, but she ignored the pain and launched into a sprint towards the creature. She raised her needler and volleyed off a series of needles at the creature, however, the tracking system within the weapon, combined with the skinny nature of her target, meant that every needle missed their mark.

She did, however, succeed in getting the beast's attention. It reached down and grabbed her, crushing her left arm and her torso as it lifted her into the air. Six's vision darkened as she struggled to free herself. She managed to free her right arm, along with the needler, and blindly fired off the rest of the weapon's magazine at what she assumed was the creature's gut. As the last needle fired, the creature tightened its grip and again she felt a bone break as she was forced to drop the weapon.

Six's vision came back just enough for her to see the creature's mouth, counting each rotten tooth and seeing every disgusting vein and bump inside the thing's cavernous jaw as it stretched wider and wider to swallow her whole.

Then the crystals embedded in the creature exploded.

The creature was killed instantly and fell backwards, dragging the Spartan down with it. Her body hit the ground with a painful thud and a nasty crunch. Six didn't doubt that the fix on her arm was ruined and that her ribs must have been broken too, probably a leg or two as well, at least, that was what the pain suggested.

She coughed and spluttered, genuinely surprised when she saw her blood stain the grass beside her. Looking over at Coco, she saw the girl dragging herself to her feet and running over to her. She couldn't process what she was saying but she smiled anyway.

She's safe, that's good, she's safe. This is what it means to be a Spartan, I did everything I could, this is… no...

More of the creatures were coming out of the forest, the roar the other one made must have summoned them. Six tried to force out a warning but nothing came, it hurt too much. She tried to point, to do something but it was useless, everything was broken and useless and the shock had finally started settling in.

She didn't want to give up, she had to think of something, she couldn't let this happen, she had to think of something! Willpower could only go so far however, and hers had been pushed past its limits. She was tired, battered and in immense pain. Bleeding and blacking out, she couldn't do anything to protect the girl before her, let alone the village behind them. Just like she couldn't protect Reach. Just like how she'd failed Noble Team.

But then, for once, the universe threw her a bone. A string of purple energy flew through the creature's torsos, Six strained to look up enough to see some kind of dropship flying in. The aircraft let loose with a series of machine guns as people began to leap out of it and attack the creatures.

Must be backup, that's good… that's real good…

She doubted it would be able to act quick enough to help her, but the knowledge that not everyone there would die due to her failure would be enough. With that one last burden removed she finally allowed herself to lay back. She could faintly hear Coco telling her to stay awake, but the choice was no longer hers to make. Cold and wet on the muddy battlefield, Six wouldn't complain if that's how she died. It wasn't that bad, better than the last time she'd been in this situation at the very least.