"ECHO FIGHTERS"

By .

Despite all of the time that Salem had spent by Ozpin's side, and all of the time that she had spent fighting against him, she was never one to ever adopt any of his habits. One exception to this was his sense of over-preparedness, or at least, an urge to close any and all holes in a strategy that one might have. The Battle of Argus hadn't been a massive success, but she had accomplished her secondary goals of weakening both the UNSC and the forces of Atlas, at least enough to allow her some amount of satisfaction. Even so, she was still troubled by the UNSC's show of fighting prowess, especially their so-called "Onyx Team."

For the most part, she watched with great enjoyment as the Grimm picked off the UNSC's Marines one by one, viewing the havoc with great interest via her network of Seers that she spread across the shattered city. But her mood had always soured the moment that the nine-man team of "Heroes" appeared, dealing with whatever problem she threw at them with unmatched efficiency. The only thing that prevented her from truly getting angry was the Grimm's ability to dispatch two of their members during the conflict, but that wasn't even half of the fireteam's fighting strength, and she was fairly certain that one of them had lived.

It was the two Spartans, those robot-like armored soldiers, who posed the greatest threat by far. They stood a full head taller than all of their peers, were as strong as a Beringel, faster than a Beowolf, and smart enough to coordinate their comrades in swift counterattacks and blistering charges, something that her creations simply couldn't match, with or without her guidance. Their chassis were nigh-impregnable, even boasting some sort of energy shielding that she was loath to admit that she didn't understand. If she had a sample of that technology, she would surely be able to use it against Ozpin, but alas, that would require killing one of them in the first place. Whatever the case, it was clear that the Onyx Team needed to be destroyed.

In the dead, eerie quiet of the night, she found herself in her workshop, if something so arcane and elegant could even be called that. This was the forge in which all of her creations were formed, and perhaps the only place on Remnant where magic was still used in the art of creation.

Her Workshop was an open chamber in the centre of her palace of terror. In the middle of the circular floor, fed by gigantic pulsating veins arcing through the floor, was a quagmire of bubbling tar, blacker than black, fouler than foul. Although few were ever permitted to walk her halls, fewer still were permitted to see this place, and those who possessed such a privilege were generally in no hurry to return. It was only true visionaries, like the diligent Tyrian Callows and the genius Doctor Watts, who frequented the chamber.

With a snap of her fingers, she commanded an orifice to open in the wall and permit the entrance of a pack of misshapen drones, who dutifully waddled through, their diminutive figures carrying her desired packages. On each of their backs was the body of a UNSC Marine recovered from the Battle of Argus, totalling nine altogether. Taking the corpses intact had been no small task, as their comrades seemed to hold a great value in the corpses of their dead friends, and the Grimm tended to tear apart anyone whom they killed. Still, with great effort, she now had the foundation for her newest creation.

Taking care not to damage the bodies any more than they already had been, she went about inspecting the specimens that the Grimm had managed to acquire. One of them was clad in armor that seemed to denote them as an "ODST," an acronym that was meaningless to her. The others were dressed in forest green camouflage, characteristic of their station as foot soldiers for the alien force. One small victory for her was in their anatomy, as they seemed to be no different from your average Human on Remnant. It would make the next step much easier.

With another gesture, tendrils of an unspeakable inky substance reached up and out of the pit, coiling around each of the marines and lifting them up and above the mire. In one deft motion, each of them made a singular incision underneath their BDUs and removed their organs, discarding the viscera without further regard, before submerging all nine of them within the bubbling vat of Grimm fluid. Taking a deep breath, Salem reached out with her consciousness, envisioning her ideal form for each of her new creations. Time ebbed and flowed, but she did not care. Her work came first.

Bones were snapped and reconnected, useless organs replaced with pitch-black muscle, sinew was sewn anew to create a chimera of the human physique and a Grimm's function. She reached out through the fluid, her thoughts and desires shaping their creation. She drew forth influences from what she had borne witness to at Argus, the speed that they would need, the unrivalled capacity for violence.

Then, she delved within the dead minds of the warriors. Time had not been kind to the bodies, and decay had taken much of their memories and experiences, but not everything. Sporadic images and scenes flashed before her eyes, of a dozen worlds or more that were far away from Remnant. She saw fire unlike anything she had ever seen, the alien menace they faced, she saw terrors that would be unimaginable to the simple-minded fools of Remnant, and she relished in every second of it.

Finally, she found what she was looking for within the mind of what had once been "Corporal Kerry." She found tactics, training, strategy, expertise with weapons and vehicles. This knowledge, combined with the battlefield experiences that she had gleaned from him and the others, would be the foundation for the minds of the new Grimm. If these beings were to destroy the Onyx Team, they would need to mimic the nature of their foes.

And from the swirling mass of the dark, they rose. All nine of them now stood several inches taller than before on shattered limbs, bearing blackened skin and new, boney white masks that denoted their piety to a new cause. Replacing hands were manipulators, soaked in Grimm fluid and constructed of woven stringy tissue and bone, strong enough to rend steel as if it were brisket. Their fatigues had been replaced with a Grimm's traditional hide, yet all of them still wore their BDUs, dyed a new shade of midnight. They were misfitting and sat crookedly on their bloated torsos, but would still offer some protection to the "Imps", but these creatures would only serve as support for their leader.

Standing at over seven feet tall, with elongated limbs and boasting a black-dyed set of ODST armour, her prime creation stood at the ready. Horn-like reinforcements extended like spikes from its elbows, greaves, and shoulder blades. Where there was once a bodysuit to regulate temperature was now toughened sinew, woven to be stronger than kevlar could ever hope to be. The gaping wound in his throat had been sealed and covered by a plate of bone, the helmet's visor was shattered and replaced with a single hardened sheet of bone, with only two openings for a pair of piercing red eyes. The creature's physique was still distinctly human, but this… Demon was anything but.

A red glint of an eye shone from behind its monolithic face, staring Salem down with an expression that cried for nothing but unending cruelty and bloodshed. However, Salem knew that the feeling was not directed at her, but rather just a part of the Grimm's nature, at its core, the creature knew that she was its master. Stepping out of the black blood, the team of nine snapped to attention as if they still served their comrades in life. In death, however, they would be serving her.

"Your… orders…?" The Demon barely managed to croak as it refamiliarized itself with the process of speaking. The rest of his compatriots, the Imps, had been restructured without vocal cords, but Salem wanted to ensure that this Demon could give orders in her stead, much as the Spartans did in the absence of any leadership figure. Salem smiled at the display of her creation's function, truly, she had outdone herself.

"Seek out the Humans of Onyx Team. Find them, and destroy them. They must not be allowed to interfere any further," her words were cold, yet carried a sense of purpose that inspired each of her demonic troops, they required little encouragement to commit acts of violence. "You were created for this single purpose. Justify my effort."

"Yes… My Queen." The Demon slung it's rifle over its shoulder in the only position that was comfortable for it. Turning on its heel, the Demon was quick to lead the Imps behind it and out of the workshop. Returning to her overlook of her domain, Salem turned towards a floating Seer, beckoning it with naught but her mind.

"Watts?" She questioned. A clattering sounded from through the Seer's bulbous head, no doubt evidence of having disturbed the professor's work. If he was irritated, however, he did not show it, as he appeared on the display without fail.

"Yes, Mistress?" He asked. What scant few traces there were of indignation vanishing from his face as he saw her own expression.

"I have sent my latest creations down to the staging area. I ask that you provide them with transportation to Sanus. They shall handle the rest," she ordered.

Watts offered no verbal reply, but he responded rather with the loud clacking of a mechanical keyboard. After a few moments, he offered a confirmation.

"Certainly. It just so happens that there's a Mistrali freighter departing for Vale shortly. The Pilot has been dependable in the past, and I have no reason to suspect that has changed."

"Very well. Relay the necessary instructions to the Demon, it will take care of the rest."

"By your order, my liege."

The Seer's glassy head faded back to a dull red as Salem looked back out onto the stormy fields surrounding Evernight Castle. She did not smile, for nothing was truly set in place yet. She would belay her expectations until the deed was done. Even so, she was nevertheless excited in some sense of the word. If there was another thing that she took from Ozpin, it was satisfaction in her work, and a desire to see things through until the end.

"Look man, I'm telling ya, have you actually had the whiskey they serve here? Who knows what they put in that? Shit tastes like Meridian run-off washed with Brute piss," Nathan groaned as the team walked a well-beaten path, framed by trees and lush shrubbery on either side of them.

"And I'm saying that you need to quit your bellyaching. Not like some new tastes ever hurt anyone," Meadows replied over his shoulder.

Normally, Jorge or Fairfire would have ordered them to buckle down, but needless to say, things were getting dull. With the securing of their FOB in Vytal, and preparations being made for a first wave of recruitment on Remnant, every active fireteam on the Dominion's roster was being rotated in and out on constant patrols. They were out on the trail every few hours, causing no shortage of boredom between the team's various members. As such, banter was left unchecked for certain stretches of the trek, seeing as walking the same eight-klick trail over and over again on high alert was grating for even the best of them.

"Yeah, I betcha that's what the first wise guy who tried to eat a pufferfish thought." Evidently, Nathan was suffering the worst of it, his bad attitude accentuated by the same damn hike over and over.

"Nathan, just shut up. I thought you were a big boy? Or do you need mommy to come over and pour you some apple juice?" Kowalski threw in his own two cents from behind the beleaguered sniper.

"Oi, I don't want to hear shit from you two. Meadows, you're practically unkillable at this point, you don't have to worry about what the hell you drink. And you, Kowalski, are the type of guy to punch open a nuke and drink all the shit you find inside. Let me wallow in my little oasis of realism for a bit, ok?"

In all honesty, Ben found the banter funny enough, but he couldn't afford to let his discipline lapse. The UNSC's weakened state was bearing down heavily on those left, and thus the need to maintain security was higher than ever. He brought up the rear, right behind Kowalski and Nathan, who were currently engaged in upping the ante of their argument. Fairfire and Jorge took point, mostly to be out of range of the bickering in the back, while Yu and Peggy maintained their positions in the middle of the formation.

"Don't you want to join in?" Curie asked, her hologram in the corner of his display gesturing to Kowalski planting a slap on the backside of Nathan's helmet.

Ben shook his head. "Putting aside the fact that I've never even tried whiskey, I don't think they're exactly open to any new opinions at the moment."

Curie faintly frowned as Nathan used his truly vast and colorful vocabulary of foul language words to insult Kowalski's mother. "Well… okay, perhaps you raise a fair point. What they are having is hardly a researched debate."

"Oh, I don't know about that." Ben said as Kowalski replied with his display of 'sailor mouth'. "Wow, I'm impressed, I bet even Chief Mendez didn't know all of those."

Curie's sigh was a unique blend of exasperation and contempt. "I would not be surprised. For all of his rants, the CPO was a very dignified-" Curie froze midway through her statement, causing Ben to slip his finger inside the trigger guard of his MA5K.

"Movement, coming from our left. 10 o'clock from Corporal Sato," she wasted no time announcing, causing the whole team to snap to attention. Weapons were raised in an instant, as Yu and Peggy moved in tandem towards the source of the disturbance. Ben moved up to Nathan's position as the latter dropped back behind the Spartan, taking a knee and shouldering his SRS99D.

"Form up. Corporal Sato, investigate. Move up in pairs and follow ten paces behind each other," Jorge ordered calmly, hefting his weapon with ease as he fell in beside Ben. All parties waited with bated breath as Yu and Peggy took step after step into the underbrush, followed by Meadows and Fairfire. Ben slowly worked his way up to behind his squadmates, Kowalski stepping beside him. Keeping his rifle shouldered, Ben scanned both ways, but even with Curie's sensors and Nathan giving reports on anything he could see with his Semblance, he couldn't make anything out.

"Nothing here, Sir," Yu reported over TeamCom with a puzzled tone. "Sure you picked something up, Curie?"

"Oui. A moving object of the same mass and profile as a human, passing through at about 13 kilometres per hour. Light canter," The A.I responded.

"Maybe it was a deer or something?" Meadows posed.

"Seems like the only answer. Shit, maybe we're just getting too damn jumpy," Fairfire said. Jorge and Nathan had since arrived to meet up with the rest of the team as they gathered in a fairly clear portion of the thicket.

"If that is what it is, let's keep moving, we don't want to be too far behind sche-" A fuzziness erupted across the nape of Ben's neck. The voices in his head screamed an ephemeral warning. Behind.

"FROM BEHIND! AMBUSH!" He yelled, his throat straining from the force of his shout. On cue, a red flash of rapidly approaching activity sparked on his motion tracker, and nine bundles of black burst from the foliage. They moved fast, faster than Ben could comprehend at first, and then his vision exploded in stars as something collided with him, sending him barreling through a tree and skidding across the damp soil.

The rest of the team split, ducking down and managing to avoid the rushing of their adversaries. Kicking himself back up onto his feet, Ben shouldered his MA5K once again, catching sight of his targets. Standing opposed to the fireteam were nine humanoid figures, who were, strangely enough, clad in UNSC uniform. Their skin was black, boney white plates protruding from their necks, shoulders, and sides. The smaller ones stood hunched, cruel manipulators gripping the ground on all fours, feral in nature. On each of their heads was a crooked Marine helm, with a bone mask covering the bottom half of their faces, save for a pair of beady red eyes shining with contempt.

Nathan attempted to shake the shock from his head. "Ok, Kowalski?"

"Yeah?"

"If we live through this, first round's on me."

"I'll take you up on that," the other Helljumper responded, although there was little levity in his tone.

"What the hell…?" Fairfire mumbled, her grip on her shotgun tightening. Perhaps the most terrifying about them was the fact that they still carried faint IFF signals given off by their neural laces. Heavily damaged and most certainly unreadable, but signals nonetheless. These Grimm were actual Marines, and that thought sickened Ben to the core. But his discomfort lay not with this sole fact, as he laid his eyes on the figure that had bowled him over mere moments ago.

It stood about as tall as him, clad in a thick set of armour that emulated MJOLNIR to an uncomfortable degree. Unlike its compatriots, it stood tall, its limbs long and a rifle clutched in its arms. It stared at Ben, a similar red glare shining from behind its "visor." Keeping his rifle trained on it, the two seemed to share a sort of staring contest; if any of them so much as twitched, they would fire instantly. But contrary to what anyone would have ever expected, the Demon's head twitched, before it spoke.

"...O...Onyx?" It rasped, its voice crackling to life.

Ben was taken aback, like the rest of his team, as the abrasive sound stabbed at their ears. Normally, shock was just a part of any given fight. It happens and you move on from it, it was a soldier's job to do as such. But a Grimm, especially one clad in UNSC uniform speaking, creatures like this didn't speak, or rather, they shouldn't speak.

Maybe it was just him or a product of the reactionary chemicals in his head, but he was the first to snap from his stupor, bringing his Assault Rifle to bear. With the safety off in a flash, he wasted no time slamming down on the trigger, sending bursts of five hurtling downrange at the mock Spartan. It seemed to even have some sort of bastardized shielding as well, as a thin inky mucus emerged from around its body and started to absorb the shots.

The gunfire snapped the rest of the team from their shock as they all quickly raised their weapons in succession and fired volleys with deadly precision. But these Imps were nimble, ducking and weaving in and out of the team's crossfire at ludicrous speeds. Nevertheless, they weren't faster than Jorge, who managed to gun down one of the offenders with his chaingun. The humanoid Grimm was subsequently shredded, its limbs flying off in separate directions and ichorous gore splattered on the forest floor.

"Concentrate your fire, work in pairs! Pick and choose your targets fast!" Jorge barked over TEAMCOM as an array of green acknowledgement status lights winked on and off. Onyx Team snapped into familiar action. Fairfire slammed back slug after slug, with the intent to constrict their rate of movement. By sheer luck, she was able to clip the back of one of the Imps' helmets, but much to her dismay, the Grimm didn't even react to having half of its head knocked open like a pumpkin.

As if to reward her for her efforts, it wasted no time slamming its shoulder into Fairfire's chest, sending her sprawling on the ground. It pounced on her fallen form just as fast, forcing her to jam the width of her shotgun into its manipulators to avoid being torn to ribbons. Flooding as much of her Aura into her arms as she could, she tried to push the Imp off. The Grimm's grip buckled, but held. With one hand on the barrel and the other on the stock, she pulled one of her legs back and pushed out into the Imp's gut. The blow forced it to flinch again, but it held steady once again. Undeterred this time, she twisted her waist to rest on her left hip while striking out with her right leg. This time, her shin caught significant purchase on the side of the former Marine, sending it hurtling several feet over. As soon as she felt its weight off of her weapon, Fairfire adjusted her grip while shifting her body so that she was facing her downed target, pulling the trigger without hesitation.

Its chest caved in and burst in a shower of blackened viscera. Not allowing herself a chance to breathe, she rolled up to her feet in order to survey the situation. Their formation was well and truly broken, as members of Onyx fought desperately to relieve themselves of immediate threats. She was able to spot Meadows and Jorge holding a position near where they entered, with the Helljumper putting a burst into the body of an Imp. Peggy and Kowalski were out of her sight, but a quick update on her team roster showed that their vitals, while spiking, were still steady. The real source of her worry, however, was Nathan, as she caught sight of him on the other side of the clearing.

He was desperately trying to bat a pair of Imps back with the butt of his Sniper Rifle, the marksman's weapon obviously having a minimal effect now that his adversaries were a metre away. He didn't have the time nor the space to line up a shot, and he would risk hitting friendlies by firing blindly. Instead, he tossed the weapon aside, snatching his M6S off his hip within the same motion. His Aura allowed him to move faster than he'd ever hoped of doing so before their arrival, so he used his newfound speed to his advantage, jumping and rolling several feet to his right. His semblance proved to be an even greater asset than he'd thought as well, as the enhanced visual ability granted his already deft eyes greater comprehension. Twisting on his knee and weaving his hands around the M6S's grip, he was able to put one down with a series of well-placed shots to the sternum. He attempted to switch his aim from the crumpling Imp to the second one, but it was too late, as it bore down on him with burning eyes. He let out a yelp as it reared one of its manipulators up and swung down. It was a flurry of action that took place in about the same time it took for Fairfire to close the distance just in time to tackle the second one.

She bowled it over, slamming it into the ground and caving its head in with the butt of her shotgun. The thing kept thrashing, however, its claws scratching at her helmet. Nathan was snapped from his shock and quickly wrested one of its arms off of her headgear before shoving his M6S into its chest and pulling the trigger. It kipped, seemingly in pain, but it didn't die outright, instead doubling the frequency of its thrashing. Nathan had to shield himself as a stray strike knocked him flat onto his back as it caught him across the head.

Fairfire, righting herself and fighting through the flurry of wild blows, she drove the barrel of her shotgun next to where Nathan's SOCOM was and pulled the trigger herself. The 8-gauge buckshot proved to be much more effective than his sidearm, as it tore the Grimm's chest wide open. BDU or not, very few things could boast surviving a point-blank blast from Misriah Armory's M90.

"Ugh, I had that, Liz," groaned Nathan as he pushed himself back up. Fairfire elected not to answer, instead offering him a hand as all the response she needed to give. Pulling Nathan back onto his feet, the two of them spared a quick moment to catch their breath.

"It seems like taking them in the chest is the only way to put them down. Shooting them in the head doesn't so much as make 'em flinch," Nathan said, retrieving his sniper rifle and slinging it over his shoulder.

"I've noticed. Blew one of their heads open and he kept moving like it was nothing. Don't think they need brains anymore, not after whatever… happened to the poor bastards." Fairfire looked down at the body of the Imp with a pensive gaze, more notably at its shattered helmet. "They came with us, and now we have to put them down."

"Well, if we live through this, we can make sure that we won't need to ever again. Whoever's doing this needs to pay. Bastard's got an Sabot with their name on it," Nathan's voice carried a rare vindication that Fairfire seldom heard. Being an ODST on top of being a sniper usually required the operator to be of sound mind, and despite his joking, she'd never heard Nathan sounding truly angry. Anxious, sure, even afraid, but angry? Never.

"You save some for me, then. I'll take what's left." However, Fairfire never needed to worry about nerves. Hell, being angry was where she felt the most alive. Or at least, that's what she kept telling herself to keep her Semblance running. Either way, it lit a fire in her belly to see her fallen comrades used this way. They were soldiers, sure, but this? A perversion on life itself? She didn't know how to describe it but it violated so many things that it made her retch and rage at the same time. She reloaded her shotgun with renewed vigour. "C'mon, let's move. I count four hostiles left, we have them on the ropes for now."

"Copy th-WHOOF!"

Nathan was swept off his feet as Fairfire turned around to see him skidding across the dirt face first.

"Nathan! What was that?!" She whipped around, only to catch something moving out of her peripheral. She was able to steel herself as a boney fist collided with her gut. She deflected the blow as best as she could with her elbow, but the force of the blow was more than enough to lift her up off her feet and across the field. Stars splashed over her vision as her spine slammed hard against the ground. Thanks to her Aura, no bones were broken, but it still felt as if she had kissed a Warthog's grille on the Autobahn.

Through the haze, she made out the forms of Peggy, Yu, and Kowalski attempting to slow whatever that… thing, was, but to no avail, as no matter how many rounds they shot at the Demon, its inky shield was able to absorb enough punishment to bat them aside like ragdolls. Her hearing was washed over in a sea of static as if she was underwater. Her HUD and comms were busted, likely due to the forming crack in her visor. She felt around for her shotgun, but it was wrenched from her grasp when she fell. It stood over top of her, looming over her comparatively small form like a statue. Several thoughts ran through her head, the most prominent one landing on Ben. What happened to him? Did the Demon kill him to get past? Or was he preoccupied? She didn't have much time to think as it reared its arm back.

But then, it was gone. Something had grabbed it from behind and pulled it out of her vision. She blinked the blood from her brow out of her eyes as she ripped the malfunctioning helmet from her head. To her amazement, Jorge had grabbed the Demon with both arms and was currently putting it in a headlock. Despite its size, even Jorge stood taller than it, the Spartan-II utilizing all of his strength to maintain his hold. It bucked and kicked and surprisingly, it screamed.

Resolute in his action, Jorge clobbered it hard with a right jab before bringing it up in a savage cross to its cheek from behind, popping its 'shields' in a shattering of strange mucus. It was non-Newtonian in nature, as it fell like liquid after absorbing the stress of the blow. The Demon was seemingly panicked by the failing of its shields as it redoubled its efforts to shake the elder Spartan, but he held firm.

Scrambling to her feet, Fairfire sprinted several feet to her left and scooped the M90 off the ground, shouldering it and training it on the Demon. But its thrashing form proved to be enough to shake even Jorge's grasp, as it refused to remain still for even the blink of an eye. She would have taken the shot, knowing that Jorge's shield could most likely take the hit, but if she missed, it would be loose, and then there wouldn't be anything standing in the way of it and ripping Onyx apart, piece by piece.

Unfortunately for her, rumination or not would have failed anyway, as one of the remaining Imps leaped up and onto Jorge's back. Yelling, mostly in frustration, Jorge was forced to let go of the beleaguered Demon and rip the Imp off his back, lest it ripped his helmeted head off with its manipulators. He tossed the Grimm into a tree, shattering the oak trunk, before turning back to his first foe, but it was too late. Forced on his back foot by a burst from its rifle, it slammed a first into the Spartan's stomach before driving a brutal buttstroke with its rifle, the whipping of the weapon knocking him off his feet.

Peggy tried to attract its attention and draw it away from his downed commander with a prolonged burst from his Assault Rifle, but it was in vain as the Demon paid the little man no heed. A Spartan proved to be greater prey. Fairfire contributed as well, slam-firing the M90 and emptying its contents with brutal efficiency, but as she blew out chunks of its bone-metallic composite armour, it only remained fixated on Jorge.

"Ssssssspartannnnn…" it drawled, reaching down and grabbing Jorge's collar piece and lifting him to eye level. He tried to retaliate with a punch, but the Demon quickly righted its head, despite the crack in the bone plate covering its face. Its breathing was heavy and unsettling, as Fairfire worked as quickly as she could to load shell after shell into the chamber of her shotgun.

But she wouldn't need to.

A dull thud attracted the attention of the Demon, less the sound but more the intent behind it. A rapidly decomposing body of an Imp landed between it and the underbrush as a familiar figure emerged. His right shoulder was shredded, red blood flowing freely and the pauldron missing entirely. The arm was slightly slack, but it still held a gore-spattered MA5K speckled with red and black blood alike. Sparks flickered and wisped around the gnarled metal figure as it stepped out of the foliage, a trail of burnt liquid in its wake.

"You're not getting past me a second time." Ben's voice was low and steady, conserving his breath. The taunt seemed to get the Demon's attention, however, as it slammed Jorge back into the ground and howled.

"SPARTAAAANNNNN!"

Ben lifted the MA5K, emptying the rifle's magazine into the approaching Grimm, but bullets no longer had any effect. Tossing the now empty weapon aside, Ben proceeded to raise his kukri, wielding it in his left hand. The first blow from the Demon was wild, imprecise, but Ben knew it was trying to zone him into a position that would allow it to deliver a blow that could rend even MJOLNIR. He knew because it worked once. But the time for mental beration would come after the fight, as regardless of whether or not it gave him the slip the first time, he wouldn't let it happen again.

The curved blade of his kukri found flesh as it sunk into a chink in the armour of the beast. Ripping it free in a flood of ichor, Ben attempted a heavy-handed blow aimed at the Demon's right arm. The arm, still clutching the ODST's former BR55, was raised just in time to block the blade, but Ben was counting on that. Grabbing the rifle with his right, he drove the kukri hilt-deep into the neck of the Demon.

The strike wasn't enough to kill it, not even close, but it was opportunity enough. White-hot rage poured into the forefront of his mind, as with animalistic instinct, Ben gripped the BR55 harder and pulled. The Demon did not release the weapon, but the sinew of its arm snapped and popped as it was ripped inch by inch from the rest of its wielder. The Spartan-III proceeded to stomp down on its foot with his right and push into its torso with his left. The resulting force was more than enough, as its arm was torn in two, and Ben was left clutching the half that had been holding the rifle.

It howled in agony, punching Ben across the face. He tasted blood, and lots of it, but it refused to let up as he tossed the Grimm's former weapon away and rushed back in, returning the blow in kind with one of his own. It was a slugfest, as both combatants exchanged strikes with the force of a wrecking ball. Ben could feel his mind slipping as a punch to his ribs caused him to gag on the feeling of the air leaving his chest.

Even so, he refused to let up. The idea that something had twisted his fallen comrade like this, into a perverted version of someone who was supposed to be a saviour of humanity. That they would lay their hands on his comrades, his family like they did. It angered him. It angered him to no end. So he grabbed, and he punched, and he kicked.

"You…" the creature rasped, most of its armour shattered, revealing what Ben could make out as the remains of an ODST's BDU underneath. "You left me!"

Ben felt like it wasn't so much screaming into the void but not it was addressing them specifically. "You all left me as I was being eaten alive!" Be it as a taunt, or as some ghost of a memory, its voice was familiar. Too familiar.

"Kerry?" Nathan uttered over the comms. The voice of their fallen squad member from the Battle of Argus rang out in their ears. While garbled, it was unmistakable, especially with the remainder of his bone visor gone, a shattered Helljumper helmet showing underneath. Kerry, or rather, the Grimm inhabiting its body, twitched and rattled, staggering towards Ben with a single, glowering eye from behind a hole in his visor.

Curie, who had been silent managing Ben's shattered armour, spoke up with a quavering voice. "Enough of his Neural Interface's signal is readable… that is indeed Ke- who we think it is." She refrained from saying his name as if merely uttering it was enough to make her feel disgusted.

"Onyx Team… left me for dead… they ate me alive! Carved my insides! Like-Like I'll carve yours!" His voice was lost in the garbling of fluid rushing from the stab wound in his neck, but it still struck deep. He took this moment of hesitation to rush Ben down once more. Only able to bring his arms up in a partial guard, Ben felt his arms buckle against the force of a vicious straight punch that threatened to shatter the MJOLNIR under its pressure. The Demon then proceeded to execute a shin kick that took out Ben's left knee from behind, a blow that he couldn't telegraph due to the pummelling his arms were receiving. Down on one knee, Ben was unable to block the next kick that struck him under his right armpit this time.

A blow to the head. A strike to his chest. A smashing uppercut sent him staggering back into a tree, nearly crushing the old growth under his weight. Ben bore with it as his mind churned. Not in hesitation, nor in guilt or despair, but once again in rage. Another teammate he failed to protect, someone who he fought alongside, ate alongside, and lived alongside. Someone whose memory and likeness were being twisted by what he could only describe as a sickness.

He knew what he had to do. His mind clicked and he knew what he had to do. He could feel it. Instinct gave way to years of trained muscle memory and the rage disappeared into a void of cold doctrine. Despite the screaming of his pain receptors, he brought his right arm up into a fighting stance and drove into the blow with his legs. Using his momentum, he pivoted on his right foot and slammed a punishing kick into the Demon's solar plexus. It bled from underneath its helmet, at least showing Ben he was getting somewhere.

From behind, another party joined the fray, as Meadows dashed across the battlefield and leaped onto the Demon's back, sinking his knife into a shattered portion of its chestpiece. Taking his lead, Kowalski charged in after him, wrapping his arms around his waist and stabbing him multiple times with his blade. The Demon's strength began to wane as the rest of Onyx Team piled onto it, weakening under the combined assault of the Helljumpers.

"That's the way, force him down!" Meadows yelled as he struggled to maintain his hold. Ben, not willing to let the pain overtake him, forced the adrenaline to continue to pump as he reached out and grabbed the Demon by its collar, the other ODSTs detaching themselves as the Spartan lifted him up off the ground.

"You aren't Kerry. You don't understand who he was," he said.

"You left me!" 'Kerry' repeated, scrabbling at Ben's iron hold. The Spartan didn't waver.

"He understood, like the rest of us, that this is not only our job, but our duty," he continued, the faceplate of his MJOLNIR staring right through the Grimm's eyes. "And that a soldier should not be honoured for doing what is expected of them."

Its screeches started to quiet, as if whatever had its hold on it was starting to go. It ceased thrashing, instead limply hanging off of Ben's grip.

"Kerry understood that. You didn't. You never will." It had stopped all its cries, instead, the single red eye started to grow duller and duller, continuing to stare right back at Ben. He looked right back, knowing that the man in his grasp was fading fast. He knew that he didn't have the means to kill him now, not as drained as he was. Thankfully, there was someone else in the fireteam that did. And everybody, even Kerry's body, seemed to remember.

Raising his leg one last time, Kerry launched himself in tandem with Ben's throw as a single SPNKR rocket made impact with what was left of the Demon's body in mid-air, erupting in a fireball that knocked the rest of the team back. On her knees several meters back was Yu, the smoking rocket launcher having brought peace to her former comrade.

As Ben attempted to maintain his balance, he could vaguely make something out over the comms, not via TeamCom, but rather a personal channel open from an unknown source. Like a fleeting memory, it spoke to him in hushed tones, offering him but one phrase that faded just as quick as it was received.

"Thank you."

Salem let out an exhale as she witnessed the final moments of her newest creations through the lens of a Seer. She supposed she had no one else to blame, really. She failed to take into account Onyx's teamwork and spirit, although morale was hardly the least logical thing about it all.

Listening to the Spartan - Ben's speech, shook something inside of her. A pure admission of dedication to a higher cause, the willingness to lay one's life down for the sake of others. It wasn't directed at the Grimm, but rather straight to her, it felt like, as his voice cut through her recent memory like a hot iron.

It confused her to no end. Why? If you have the potential to live a long life, accomplish many things, and potentially extend your time, why wouldn't you? Why would you not try to understand your opportunities and instead throw it away for something as abstract as duty? She couldn't help but be bothered by it as she looked back out onto her endless domain of black and crimson.

With a click of her tongue, the Seer was dismissed, fading into dust and disappearing. She couldn't stand to see more of this drivel. The UNSC had come out on top with this one, but Salem knew that the Demon's strength was effective. Even so, she felt no inclination to continue producing them, despite what logic dictated.

Because I know, that without what they have, they wouldn't be able to win. She conceded, resting her head on her hand.

The throne room felt so very empty today. Nothing like the satisfaction of basking in one's work.

Oh, Ozma. Is this what you felt?

There was no reply.

Ayo, lookie who it is? It's Healthcare, the one and only! Fellows in this particular category may recognize me as the guy who wrote that one flop of a fic and then rotated to writing one-shots and editing a bunch of stuff, including the Men From Onyx. This was an idea that the boss had sitting around, and I took it. Big thanks to him, by the way. He's the best partner-in-crime I could ask for. Anyways, I might write more of these, be it for the same premise or otherwise. Who knows? Maybe I'll actually update my own stuff. Only time will tell. Thanks for reading, friends.