Chapter 6: Pawn Vs. King

Murphy sprinted through the dark expanse of the cave, the sounds of his footsteps being overpowered by the screams of the demons that were hot on his trail. He glanced to his right, finding a nook for him to hide a few dozen feet away. He dove inside and waited for his pursuers to pass, getting a glimpse of the horrible creatures that were hunting him. Two Imps shambled past his position, but the third one leapt from the side of the wall and stumbled onto the ground, losing its foothold and collapsing. Murphy removed his knife from its sheath, making its signature shk sound. The Imp locked eyes with the ODST, the removal of his knife having given himself away. He tackled the demon to the ground and plunged his blade into its throat to stop it from sending out an alarm, but the demon threw him off of itself and let out a screech to its brethren before Murphy drew his M6C SOCOM and unloaded seven rounds into the creature's throat. Murphy pulled his knife from the Imp's body, finding the blade to have begun to melt.

"What the hell?" Murphy muttered.

The other two Imps crawled into view and leapt towards the ODST, one coming up short and the other knocking him to the ground, causing him to lose his grip on the sidearm in his hand. The Imp scratched through the skin in his left shoulder, cutting through his muscles and shoulder blade. Murphy threw his right fist into the Imp's face, causing it to briefly recoil and free him. He dove for his Automag and grabbed it by the slide before the second Imp grabbed his ankle and pulled him towards the other demon and the two began to scratch and pull at his wounded arm, as if they were trying to pull him apart like cotton candy.

Murphy flipped the grip of the pistol into his hand and shoved the barrel into one of the Imp's eyes before unloading five rounds into its head. The other Imp shifted its hands to the ODST's neck, only for him to whip the pistol into its jaw, throwing aside the magazine inside. He grabbed another mag with his injured arm, causing jolts of pain to surge through his shoulder, which increased dramatically as he slapped it into the weapon and pulled back the slide. The Imp quickly recovered and slammed Murphy against the wall, shattering his Humeris before it had 5 rounds unloaded into its head.

Murphy leaned against the wall and holstered his weapon, finally getting a chance to breathe. As the adrenaline in his system slowly wore off, the pain in his arm grew. The pain was great, like salt was being manufactured into his body. He put his good hand on the epicenter of the pain and began to squeeze, applying pressure to the probable wound. He hoped he would be able to hold out long enough to make it to the rally point. How wrong he was.

He glanced over at his bad arm, causing a sick feeling to grow in his stomach. Blood had gushed all over his arm and chest, staining his body suit, and the bone… He lifted his hand from the wound, finding his palm to have been covered in blood. He returned his hand to the injury and cursed at himself for ditching his rucksack. Murphy rose to his feet and sprinted back the way he came. He had to get his pack soon, or he wouldn't make it to rescue.


Murphy ducked out of the cave and behind an instacrete barrier, finally getting an idea of the scale of the invasion. Hell Knights smashed through walls and threw debris to find survivors while Pinkies sniffed them out, like dogs at the airport looking for food. He noticed an area of distorted air moving around, so he activated his VISR, finding the outline of a Spectre to be searching the area as well. His gaze snapped to the source of an M6C gunshot, finding that someone had been found. The Hell Knight grabbed Jackson's arm and crushed the bone, causing the Magnum to fall from his hand. Jackson was a good kid. He was always talking about his girlfriend back home and how he was going to get down on one knee and ask her to marry him the second he got home. The Knight slammed his head into an instacrete barrier.

Murphy's face morphed into a grimace. The Knight dragged Jackson's body away as Murphy sprinted into the barracks. He ducked into a cubicle to stay hidden while he tried to remember the layout of Alpha Base, but an item on the floor caught his attention. A chess board lay on the floor of the cubicle, all of the black pieces in their starting positions, except the queen was missing. The white king was in the position of the black queen, while the white queen, one of the white rooks, and one of the white knights stood in front of the black pieces. Was this some kind of message? The formation was impossible, so it had to symbolize something…

Murphy shook his head and left the cubicle, knowing that he needed to find a biofoam canister before he could bleed out. He took cover in the corner nearby the door, glancing out to survey the area. He abandoned his rucksack not long before he entered the cave, so it had to be nearby.

"Come on, come on…" Murphy whispered to himself. "Where are you?"

An eyeless Hell Knight stepped into sight and stopped in its tracks, listening. It heard him. It swung its arms through the wall, causing most of the roof and left wall to cave in. The Knight stepped into the barracks and stood before Murphy, attracted by the smell of the blood staining his armor. The ODST shifted his right arm to his holster and slowly removed his sidearm, causing the Knight to immediately confirm his location, grab him by the shoulder and pull him towards its face. Its hand was like an iron clamped around his arm. It let out a breath through its minimal nose, overwhelming his suit's temperature regulation system and causing sweat to drip down his face. He shoved the barrel of his Automag into the demon's nose, tipped it up slightly, and unloaded the seven bullets in the mag into its head. Surprisingly, it actually worked.

The Hell Knight let go of Murphy and fell to the ground. He rushed back into his corner, placed his weapon on the ground, removed the mag, replaced the mag, and returned it to its holster. He looked up through the breach in the wall and found what he was looking for.

"I don't care that you've collected all of the survivors in the base, they're still not enough to construct a Gore Nest!" Vor shouted at his number two while he waved around Murphy's rucksack with his robotic hand. "And don't even get me started on how you let one of them get away!"

Vor threw the pack, causing it to land a couple meters away from the barracks, the canister of biofoam and a couple MREs falling out.

"We are still a great distance from our goal. Your ignorance will not lengthen that distance. Do I make myself clear?" Vor said, raising the Summoning Key to threaten his subordinate.

The Hell Knight Ultra knelt before his Commander. Murphy's mind began to wander. What was their goal? What is a Gore Nest? What is that gold orb? He shook his head, focusing himself on the situation at hand. He couldn't grab the bag while Vor and his Knight were nearby, but he was beginning to become lightheaded, he knew that he wouldn't last much longer if he didn't. Vor and his number two began to walk away, causing Murphy to slowly move out from cover. The Marauder turned his head towards the barracks, causing the ODST to quickly duck back into cover. Satisfied, the Commander turned away and continued on his way.

Murphy moved through the exit and grabbed his backpack, kicking the items that had fallen out back into the barracks, which he quickly returned to. He grabbed the biofoam canister and shoved the dispenser into his wound, causing a surge of pain to come from his torn muscles and shattered arm. He activated the canister, causing the sensations of thousands of tiny knives stabbing the inside of his arm, but it quickly subsided as the foam numbed his arm and stopped the bleeding.

Murphy leaned against the wall, finally getting a chance to catch his breath. He placed the loose items around him inside his rucksack and activated the comm device inside. He returned the pack to his back and sprinted out the barracks towards the cave. He glanced over his shoulder, seeing the red outline of a Spectre come into view. He ran as fast as he could, entering the cave quickly. He looked over his shoulder again, watching as the entrance grew smaller and smaller behind him, but nothing else. His VISR didn't show him anything. He was in the clear.


Vor shifted two chess pieces around in his cybernetic hand, one black and one white, while he waited for the Doom Scourge to report in. The Doom Hunter hovered away from the barracks and returned to its mount and stood before the Marauder.

"It's as you said, Commander," The robotic voice of the Doom Scourge said. "The Marine did return for his communications device."

"Good," Vor said. "Thanks to him, the Gore Nest will soon be complete."

"What are we to do with him?"

"He won't present much of a problem. Eliminating him will simply be a waste of time."

"Acknowledged."

The Doom Scourge rolled away and Vor chuckled to himself. He dropped the two kings on the ground and stomped them into pieces.

"This world is a game of chess, and I control the board."

*digital sigh*

I know how long it's been. I'm going to be honest, I just didn't feel like writing, A: because I didn't feel motivated to write; and B: I went through a ton of rewrites, for all but basically one of my stories because the directions that they were going in were absolutely horrible. I'm not that great of a writer, I'm going to be honest, but I really want my stories(that no one probably cares about) to be the best that they can be. I hope that this was worth the wait.