-UNSC High Command Reach Castle Base-

"This is Admiral Cole; operation forest fire is in motion. Gray team you are cleared for assassination. Good hunting out there".

"Affirmative".

-Resolute Solidarity Vodin Orbit-

Standing guard all day was perhaps the most brutally tedious task he had ever done. Even the fact he was guarding a holy prophet did not help. One positive was that he could stand on the bridge and observe the battles the Resolute Solidarity fought in. As well as the glassing that the Prophet of Forgiveness was now performing.

It was a strange sight, a world being on fire. In a single day with some special stealth technique, and a whole world full of creatures was gone. The surface blistering hot, the clouds turning a sickly yellow. Soon the air itself would combust, and then nothing survived. It was complete annihilation of what was in its own way an irreplaceable ecosystem.

Cas could have sworn he saw something out in space, through the viewscreen. It was not his place to say or relay, he just stood there and waited. Since no sangheili on the bridge had noticed; it must have been nothing. Perhaps he spotted an asteroid or something similar.

The prophet and the shipmaster were discussing how to move forward after this. The prophet, as religious fanatical as he was wanted to continue burning the humans with no rest. Whilst the Shipmaster wished to go to a friendly place and restock the supplies of the ship. Technically the shipmaster had senior and absolute authority on his own ship. However, you must have a very good reason to outright deny a prophet their wish.

The shipmaster and prophet continued arguing and it did not seem like stopping any time soon. Cas was officially assigned to the prophet and do his every wish. Although in this situation he agreed more with the shipmaster. It seems not all prophets are infallible as it is said they are. Deep down he knew it had just been propaganda as a child but seeing a prophet with his own eyes blatantly ignore logic and try to make a horrible decision was something you seldom forget.

-Gray Team captured phantom-

"Ay Jay, how many covies do you think I'll kill this op?"

"Less than me, that's for certain".

"Yea right".

"I have visual on the hangar".

"Copy that, take us in. Do the codes work?"

"Affirmative"

-Resolute Solidarity Vodin Orbit-

It had gone another hour and the two had stopped arguing, now they were simply pretending that the other did not exist whilst the shipmaster did his job. He had in the end after a very heated debate exercised his authority and was setting a course back to a nearby covenant friendly world. Be that occupied for temporary base or home turf. To Cas it made no difference, he would just stand here all day looking pretty and doing nothing.

He really liked the armour, it was strong, easy to move in. Did not weight him down too much. The most beloved thing it included in his opinion was the spear, or lance as the oracle had once called it. Back then the prophets had ignored it and continued using their own name since they were 'never wrong'. Cas however used the proper forerunner term, not in public though. The wider populous did not know of that name since the prophets back than had concealed that little nugget of information so their infallibility could be upheld.

It had both a projectile and melee mode. In addition to that it could retract into a less cumbersome form when not in use. Almost as practical as the energy sword. Only almost, its size retracted was on another level. Sadly, he could not bring his energy sword on this duty. It was still with him on the ship, but that had to stay in his quarters.

Now that he had some time not dedicated to fighting, he could finally think. One sentence had been constantly on his mind since he had been made a zealot. 'So it is true, you have returned' What does that mean? Why would the oracle tell it to him? Would a prophet, the holiest of creatures after the gods themselves not be more suitable? So many questions. No answers. The only times the oracle spoke was when interacting with forerunner artifacts. Why him? Was he somehow connected to the gods? Why did the oracle say those words!

-Gray Team Resolute Solidarity-

Jay walked over to the comms station and double checked that the jammers were online. You could never be too thoughtful. They were ready to disembark, just waiting for the right moment. Jay knew they could take this ship, that was the easy part. Confirming they got a specific kill, that however was more difficult. Which meant they could not use a nuke before the target was confirmed.

The two others on his team were just finishing up. Packed full of ordinance and weapons. Multiple ammunition cases for the rocket launcher which they would use at their hearts content. Jay walked over to them; two green lights winked on his HUD and the game was on. Opening the hatch, they sprung out. In the 1 second it took him to land on the floor it was already littered with bodies.

The covenant were slaughtered, no alarm raised, and Gray Team moved on. Running between cover towards one exit they heard a group of grunts coming around the corner, they were carrying a multitude of boxes full of what looked like ship parts and some sort of fuel.

That was helpful, lining up his shot Jay pierced the tank with a bullet, and it erupted in flames. Scorching any grunt unlucky to be near it. In the three seconds it took them to sprint to the opening another group of grunts came waddling down, these were actually prepared, having unholstered their pistols after the explosion Jay had caused.

Standing at one edge of the entrance was Adriana rocket launcher in hand and ready to blast the incoming grunts to hell. Jay flashed a green and she fired. This second group was scorched just as the previous, their drawn weapons making no difference.

They followed a schematic map to the assumed bridge where this split-jaw important enough to divert three Spartans. If that elite's death meant thousands of human lives spared, well then Jay was all for it. They came to a crossroads where a group of elites had camped down, weapons ready. The place where Jay had been an instance before was now no more than a plasma burnt dent.

Turning around the corner and firing with his smg Jay saw one elite running towards them with its energy sword drawn. ONI valued capture of those very highly and if Gray team managed to secure this and the mission, well then even better. He signalled for his troops to fire on the ones in the back whilst Jay took the energy sword one.

The elite that charged jay had a strange red armour. If Jay remembered correctly, which he did since Spartans had impeccable memory, then that armour signified a major. An ODST compared to minors who were more like the common marine. Focusing back on the enemy he saw multiple flaws in a fraction of a second, analysing every potential move as if everything happened in slow motion. Spartan-time. Something Kelly had named a few years back, but it had stuck.

Jay could see the elite overstretching exposing his feet which spartan-006 was intent on exploiting. Jumping towards the elite he fainted an attack on against the elites head with his knife, this made the elite swing his sword up to protect his head whilst Jay used his own feet to topple the elite over with a good kick to the legs. Not giving the elite any time, he smashed his heel into its neck and retrieved its sword all in the span of 2 seconds.

Now equipped with a strong melee weapon he charged against the remaining two, running at 40km/h and weighing 500kg was not something you wanted to be hit by. And that was exactly what hit the two elites. Thrown into the walls they tried to dodge the next attack, but Jay was too fast for them. One large cut with the sword and they both lacked heads.

And as if nothing major had happened they continued on, the crew still not alerted to the situation. When they were Gray Team had to speed up and eliminate the target. The planned exfil would be via the phantom and then fly to their prowler which was still hidden in the system. That plan crumbled once the ship entered slipspace.

-Resolute Solidarity Vodin Orbit-

"Where exactly are we going shipmaster?" the prophet asked without even trying to conceal his contempt for that man. The shipmaster with equal content shot answered, "The glassed human world of Biko which we glassed at the very beginning o the war". Cas had heard of that planet before, after it was glassed the covenant had set up temporary refuelling bases on the surface. In essence a forward operating base that stayed after the front moved forward.

He had never gone back to a glassed planet so this would be his first. It would be safe for him, in the end they were only going to refuel, nothing more nothing less. Maybe he even got some time to rest. He had been standing on this same spot for 14 hours now since the prophet was insisting on staying aboard the bridge. Apparently, the Prophet of Forgiveness wanted to know everything that happened. With the help of his anti-grav chair he could stay here as long as he wished. Food could be brought in for him too. He was a prophet after all.

-Gray Team Resolute Solidarity-

"New plan, listen up. Once we exit slipspace we do the assassination, before we exit, we set up the havoc to detonate on command. After the assassination we escape down to wherever we are going. From there we either join up with humans or we capture a covenant craft". Two green lights were the only response. They were now in total mission mode, no banter only the mission at hand.

Jay figured that planting the bomb in the engine room would be the best option, since then it would possibly cause an even bigger explosion by making the engine detonate too. As their trainers back on reach sometimes said. 'The bigger the explosion the bigger success'. In retrospect it was not 100% right, but in this case it applied. He got another insane idea, to b fair every single mission and idea Gray team had was insane. But it always worked. They were the team that went behind enemy lines to do more damage to the covenant than the entire UNSC. This was a walk in the park in comparison.

"Gray team new mission parameters. Adriana, you go to their armoury and see if you can find ay covenant bomb to increase the bomb yield. Mike and I will secure the engine room". Adriana just nodded and ran towards her objective. The Mjolnir propelling her forward at inhuman speed. Mike and Jay moved onwards to the engine room. Ready to deal with any trouble.

-Resolute Solidarity Vodin Orbit-

A minor elite ran into the bridge, his entire demeanour screamed trouble. Perhaps Cas got some action after all. "Shi- Shipmaster three of our patrol squads have not reported back and the entire hangar is dark. We read no life signs there".

The prophet was the first to speak up, "Well then go secure the hangar! Find the perpetrators and kill them".

Cas could see the anger welling up inside of the shipmaster, this was his ship, and he was not happy with a prophet constantly giving out orders as if this was his ship. "Prophet! This is not your ship to command. I have the last say, I want those perpetrators captured, alive. We need to find where they came from and whom they serve". The prophet just grumbled something in return whilst the elite minor ran out of the bridge carrying the shipmaster's order.

-Gray Team Resolute Solidarity-

Jay and Mike cleared out the last remaining covenant resistance in the engine room. He keyed his comm and spoke, "Adriana we have cleared the room, how close are you". He waited for a second expecting an answer. His worries were cut short by the door open and Adriana coming in dragging something akin to a spiky purple coffin that apparently had a massive nuclear yield.

Nodding they began to work. Syncing the two bombs together; the human havoc and covenant spike coffin. Then they connected that to the main engine. Once they were done, they walked out, having set a 10-minute timer. They had not initiated it yet. Waiting to exit slipspace first. Detonating a bomb whilst in slipspace was not something jay wanted to experience.

Just as they left the engine room, they heard a voice over the speakers. Jay could not pinpoint where it was, but his Mjolnir translation software understood it well enough. "Slipspace exit in 5 seconds". Initiating the timer, they began running towards the bridge. Anyone unlucky enough to be in their way were crushed by the overwhelming force of three Spartans.

-Resolute Solidarity Vodin Orbit-

Cas could have done well with some company. Perhaps one more honour guard. Alas this ship was not meant to be on the frontline and thus it did not need the same protection for the prophet. Now he started to disagree with that notion. He was on full alert, as was the entire bridge and someone had infiltrated their ship and taken the entire hangar plus armoury offline.

Whilst he was focused on the door, he could hear someone in the background "Shipmaster, the infiltrators have taken one of our antimatter bombs!" A shiver crept up Cas' spine. Such a bomb was powerful enough to destroy this entire ship. Swallow it whole in its blast. And Cas was on it.

He started to speak. "Oh, noble prophet, perhaps we should descend to the surface where it is safer and you are not at risk of dying by an explosion". The prophet he was supposed to be guarding started to speak but was interrupted by the bridge door blasting open.

Cas could see nothing; some sort of smoke bomb had filled the entire bridge. He could only hear the screams of the bridge crew dying and, human weapons! He would have suspected a rival sangheili or perhaps a brute sabotage. But humans, they had never shown these capabilities before.

Just then he saw a human the size of an elite clad in heavy power armour and in his hand an energy sword. It lunged forwards decapitating three crewmembers in one swing, with such speed that Cas had never seen before. He looked around him, all the bodies were either decapitated by the sword or had a clean headshot wound through their face. These humans had an almost uncanny accuracy. That was not all, he saw the shipmaster himself take out his energy sword and charge at one of the humans. Instead of the human dying as any other living thing should. It instead ran forwards at what must have been a speed faster than a ghost and slammed into the shipmaster. Knocking him off balance and it took its arms around his mandibles and ripped. The shipmasters entire mouth was gone, all that was left was a stream of blood. With that this new foe took its knife and cut off the head of the elite.

These were no humans, they fought with such force that it could only be the gods themselves, but the gods were on the side of the covenant. They must have been DEMONS!

Cas extended his energy spear and placed himself in front of the prophet. If he was to give his life, then he would do it in the name of the great journey. Behind him the prophet was quivering in fear trying as well as he could to hide behind Cas. Once the smoke cleared, he could see that he was the only one left. All others were gone, and the humans did not even get scratched. The leader it seemed extended his energy sword whilst the others took out a knife and a pistol. If they wanted a fight, then that was what they were going to get.

Cas used the crow control mode on the lance in tandem with his plasma rifle to try and hit these demons. Fitting to their names they just shrugged off the attack and leapt at him. In a desperate attempt to stay alive he jumped over their heads and landed behind them, signalling the prophet to use his chair weapons. He obliged without question and started to beam down the closest demon. What should have been an incinerate husk was just a small black mark on the suit.

Cas once again attacked this time swinging his spear around, he managed to hit one and sent to flying across the room. Instead of the wound being fatal the demon just pulled out its gun and began shooting whilst still in the air. The demon with the energy sword slashed at him but Cas blocked it and sent another blast straight at its face. This seemed to only disorient it for a second. Almost enough to hit it. The hit was a near miss. Trying again he swung the lance around and tried to knock the demon off balance. It worked partially but it had left Cas exposed to the second spartan, who jumped onto his back and tried to stab Cas with his knife.

Cas tried to throw off the demon, but it weighed to much, then realising this Cas threw his back into the wall. Making a dent that reached almost a metre in. His shields were soon empty as the others had a near constant stream of fire on him. Taking this as que to leave he unceremoniously dragged the prophets chair after him whilst he ran.

As the demons came out behind him the prophet fired on last blast staggering them behind enough to continue their escape. Cas ran for the escape pods, but they had been disabled before the demons entered the bridge. Cursed demons, making everything difficult. Now they had to get to one of the secondary hangars, there should be something that could take the to the ground.

As they ran through the corridor the terror inside Cas grew. The entire passage was littered with bodies, ranging from grunts to ultras. He would be surprised if there were any more survivors. He heard the demons come up behind him. Instead of allowing them to continue he smashed the door controls and it closed shut. It would only take them a half minute to open, but that was more than enough to escape.

Cas ran towards the closest craft, a spirit, that had to do, "Prophet! Enter the Spirit!" Cas shouted whilst he sprinted for the cockpit. The prophet obliged speechless, probably terror-stricken and trying to process everything he saw. Getting the engines on Cas heard a deafening boom, the door was open and out came the three demons. His eyes widened at the sight. On of them ran towards the spirit trying to jump in, Cas managed to close it the last second, seeing a dent of a hand be made and the screeching of metal against metal.

Cas did a barrel roll and the demon fell off only to be picked up by another covenant craft they had stolen, a phantom. Putting the spirit to maximum speed and blasting out of the hangar. Cas could see the demons following him already shooting away his shields.

A bright light that grew into a massive yellow orb encompassed the entire ship they had just escape, a millisecond later and another green explosion happened. Then as on que a covenant antimatter bomb detonated and swallowed the ship whole.

Not only had these demons infiltrated the ship and killed all its inhabitants. They had also managed to remove it from existence, and a crew of 3 thousand could not even damage them. If that was what the humans packed, then he feared this war could be over very soon.

The shockwaves of the three blasts hit a second later, draining all the shields and flinging the spirit on a crash course towards the planet. And there was nothing Cas could do. At least the same would happen to the demons. If that was their capabilities, then Cas was content with taking them with him to their grave.

Nearing the surface Cas managed to slow the craft down a small fraction. He crash-landed near a glassed hillside breaking up all the glass that had previously been there, revealing a layer of warm dirt and rock. And alloy? What sort of metal was that? His thoughts were cut short by the sight of three burning hot balls flying out of the Phantom which housed the demons.

They had jumped out of a craft at thousands of metres in the air without a drop pod. What kind of human breed was this? They hit the ground no less than 10 kilometres away, obviously coming towards Cas and the prophet. The prophet looked like an animal that was going to be slaughtered. His eyes were ice cold out of terror and his entire body was stiff. Somewhere on the ship he had lost his crown and his now exposed top was bald and covered in dust from the crash. "Prophet come out; we need to leave. The closest base is 5 kilometres that way" Cas said as he pointed towards the horizon.

They started to walk, but Cas quickly realised that it would not be fast enough and subsequently started running at a more manageable pace. The prophet could only keep up due to his chair, if that were to fail then Cas had to carry him. Which he did not want even the slightest.

Finally, the prophet seems to regain his senses and pull out of his shellshocked state. "What were those Cas 'Wanee?" Cas was shocked, the prophet had used his name instead of title, that was a sign of respect and not given lightly. He was honoured. Alas it would be a dishonour to not answer his question. "Oh, noble prophet I believ- ". The prophet cut him off, "Please you have saved my life and managed to get me to safety, you can use my real name. No need for titles between friends, Fort Tawa. That is my name". Once again Cas was stunned, a prophet had called him friend, and revealed his name to him. Cas' previous assumptions about this Fort tawa had been turned on its head. Cas presumed that the only reason he had disliked the prophet earlier was due to the argument he had had with the shipmaster.

"Fort, as far as I can tell. They were human, engineered to kill. A more fitting name to what they managed to do must be Demon". Fort simply nodded sombrely and continued 'running'. In his case floating forwards in his chair. As they ran, they could see the smaller fragments of what had once been Cas' home fall from the sky. The DDS-class carrier Resolute Solidarity. Joza 'Chasum the shipmaster had not been the best, making many mistakes. Although that was inevitable. In the end Cas had always seen him as a good man and he did not deserve to die this way. Loosing everything he had worked for.

-Glassed Planet Biko Gray Team-

His Mjolnir finally started depressurising from the fall. He was damn lucky that it had that feature, if not he would have been dead ages ago. Since this was not the first time he had fallen from orbit. However, this was the most hectic fall.

Jay walked over to his teammates Jay and Adriana, both were in a similar state to him, in pain from the fall but determined to continue. Picking up his rifle he looked up to see their handywork crash to the surface, or rather what was left of it. Hay was thoroughly impressed by the covie bomb, they needed to get more of those. And jay suspected that where the targets were going there would be more covenant to blow up. And they carried just that. Since they scarcely went back to human space they were fully stocked up on resources. This included three havoc's one which had been blown up on the ship but two were still on the backs of the Spartans. 1 on Mike and 1 on Adriana.

The group started running at cruising speed for a spartan. Fast enough to catch any foe but not so fast you drain yourself. After an hour's worth of running, they could see a city, or the glassed remains of it. The city had been converted into a covenant military base by the looks of it. Magnifying his visor, he could see two people walking towards the encampment, one floating in a chair and the other a massive elite. His target and presumably the last species the ONI reports talked about but had no evidence of. Well, here they had solid evidence all right. Perhaps they could even bring in its corpse. This mission proved to be much more than what the had expected.

He began sprinting, staying in the shadows but moving at a speed impossible for any other human, or creature for that matter. They had approached to about 300 metres of the pair and were ready to attack. The target was priority one and thus would be eliminated first. Taking his burst rifle off of his back and unpacking it was second nature to him. He placed the scopes right over the targets head, took a deep breath and fired.

The projectile flew out of the barrel, going the distance in less than a second and impacting the elite. Its shields flared up making him shine bright yellow. It dove for cover dragging the other species with him. Jay managed to put in one more shot before it was completely concealed.

Standing up he ordered his squad to move forward. Taking the point he held a magnum pistol in one hand and the 'requisitioned' energy sword in the other hand. They had now closed to 50 metres of the target when it jumped out from cover, using its strange spear of sorts to blast plasma at a place just in front of them. It was not a very damaging plasma, but it did knock them back a few steps. Staggering them enough, to move once again.

Before Jay was back on its feet he was sprayed by plasma, not from the spear but from its other weapon, a plasma rifle. His armour could hold up giving him enough time to shoot back. Jay managed to pop its shields and score three well placed bullets in its shoulder. He was about to do a clean headshot when something appeared above them. A phantom, it had flown out of the base to help their friends here. Jay cursed himself for not noticing it earlier. No time for regrets now. He started shooting at the phantom turret which after a good few seconds broke under the barrage of bullets. But not before the phantom had taken off and on its way to their base. This mission had gone from a simple assassination to, sabotage, dogfight, orbital insertion, pursuit and now they had to infiltrate the base.

-Biko Covenant Military Base-

Cas lay in the phantom on a crate of weapons, not the sot comfortable position but better than being actively shot at. His shoulder hurt like hell, the human demons had pierced his armour and managed to hit his skin. How they had managed to do that in speed at a lengthy distance was beyond him. He had just accepted that those demons could do anything he could but better.

From the place he lay he could see several of the human skyscrapers, melted to slag by the glassing but the main structural appearance was still there. If he remembered this world had fallen particularly easy. It must have been a sparsely populated world then; any larger world would have put up more of a fight. His honed militarily analytical brain could see the advent of using a former city as a base. They could use the fallen buildings as boundaries and those that still stood had massive vantage points, excellent for snipers.

Touching down Cas was rushed out of the place, put in some sort of medical room, it was nothing big. Most equipment only to treat burn wounds due to the still somewhat warm glass. It had to do, they could at least remove the bullet and stop it from bleeding. Any more drastic measures were not needed. The bullets did not penetrate anything important and would only leave a scar. No long term damages.

He could finally rest after a near constant battle for survival both in space and on the ground. His body was completely exhausted. Once he closed his eyelids he dozed off. Waking only moments later to alarms sounding around the camp, an automated voice spoke over the speakers, "Danger. Intruder alert. Human intruder. Danger. Intruder alert. Human intruder". He was instantly awake, adrenaline rushing into his body giving him renewed strength. Those cursed demons had gotten into the base and were after the prophet once more.

He ran out grabbing his weapons as he went. To his right a large explosion occurred, the station AA gun was down just as the transports. All had been blown to dust by the demons. He ran to the nearest person not intent on killing him. "Is there any way out!" The Jackal looked back up at him whilst quivering in fear, "Yes honour guard, down the mines. I think there is a passage through there somewhere that goes up and out". Cas di not even stop and thank him, he just kept running. Soon he found Fort Tawa and they joined up.

Finding the cave entrance was the easy part, getting out of it was going to be a problem. Cas opened the cave door leading Fort inside. All the light were offline, probably due to the demon attack on the base. Cas and turned on the helmet light and the chair light respectively. Giving them a bit more visibility. There were signs lining the wall that told them where to go. It felt like he was walking into a trap. The air in here felt powerful, as if something deep in the mines called for them.

As they descended Cas turned to see a faint shimmer of something in the wall. "Fort, what does this remind you of?" Fort turned around, clearly not in any mood to stop but after hearing the worry in Cas's voice he floated over. His eyes widened at what he saw, "It, I, It's the holy building material of the gods!" Cas nodded in agreement. "This takes priority over my life and protection; we need to investigate". It was an honourable thing to say, this prophet was ready to give his life for what could be a simple forerunner wall. Cas just nodded in agreement before investigating the rest of the area for more.

Cas noticed a bit more of the forerunner alloy further down, he called Fort over who promptly agreed with Cas's assumption that it was the forerunner alloy. They began climbing down towards the place Cas had spotted. At the bottom he looked back up, had he really climbed that far down, it had to have been 70-metres at least. Whilst he was looking up, something caught his attention. It was just a flicker but that was all that he needed. He dove for cover, unholstering his rifle and shooting up.

The demons evaded his shots before jumping down towards him, using the wall to dampen their fall. One after another the three of them came. Cas retrieved his lance ready to fight once more. His body was physically drained, but his mental ferocity kept him going. This was not his end. He would not allow himself to die at the bottom of a cave on a glassed human world looking at a wall.

Lunging out with his spear he got a lucky hit on one of the demons, gracing its chest plate. Making a massive ravine of sorts. It was not enough to breach the armour in its entirety, but the demon was stunned for the half second Cas needed to tackle the demon to the ground. Before Cas managed to strike his lance through the demon's heart another demon pulled him back and threw him into the wall, before Cas even hit the wall the demon was on him. Punching him straight across his unguarded mandible, breaking multiple teeth. In an instant he remembered the fate of the late shipmaster. Getting his mandible ripped off. Cas did not wish that fate on even his worst enemy. He reconsidered that thought, he could be fine with Zipo 'Haramee having his lives end that way. That scum deserved nothing less.

The murderer of his mother was one person who deserved nothing other than death, in Cas's eyes he was thousandfold worse than humans. No other living member in the covenant could say they were Cas's enemy. Only Zipo, and one day Cas would get his revenge.

Cas was violently pulled out his thoughts when he got yet another punch in the face. His body wanted to give up, but Cas kept going, pushing back the demon enough to roll over, curve his feet into his stomach and kick up. Sending the demon flying across the cavern. Just as he got up yet another threat came, the energy sword wielding demon. To this Cas had no defence he was caught at the absolute worst time when he could not parry the attack; this was his end.

He accepted death and let go, instead of death he heard a rumble from far away that grew into a powerful earthquake that threw the demon away from him and saved Cas' life. The demons had blown up the base. He and Fort were truly alone down here. One of the demons jumped at Cas holding him tight and they were both launched backwards into a wall. Not of rock but forerunner alloy.

Fort Tawa tried to help, flying his chair into the demon. This only made things worse, the chair was destroyed, and Fort could barely stand without it. He staggered towards Cas who sheltered the prophet behind him. The demon jumped again throwing them both into the wall, or so it seemed. All three of them flew through the wall, the forerunner becoming solid and transparent once they were through. Cas could see the remaining two demons on the other side trying get inside. It did not work. They were stuck on the outside and Cas was stuck on the inside.

Cas and the demon circled around each other, punching and kicking whilst trying to dodge the opponent's attacks. Cas sensed he was losing, and fast. The demon did not even seem tired. As they did this Fort had walked over to a nearby forerunner terminal, it was a teleportation device. As he tried to activate it a panel appeared. Typing franticly, he inputted the only forerunner coordinates he knew. Those of the dreadnought in the middle of High Charity. Once he was done a shining blue portal opened revealing the inside of the ship.

Fort shouted at Cas to come, only for Cas to fall a few centimetres short. The demon on top of him stabbing a knife through his chest. The demon rose for the killing blow, but Fort had other plans, he strained his legs to run over to Cas' spear. In one motion he switched it to crowd control mode and blasted a shot right at the demon who was flung into the portal. Crashing into the wall and setting alarms off all through the structure.

And with that the portal closed. Leaving the two of them behind. Fort looked towards the wall they had gone through, the demons had left, possibly for the surface. He had no doubts that the demons would survive. And then they would come back and hunt Fort and Cas down once again.