(Hey everyone, so I am really sorry that last chapter was kind of wordy, most of it was either tying a bow on WD game season 4 or leading into Chpt 3. This will be a Fun one. Please leave reviews, good or bad, they help.)
(I do not own Halo or the Walking Dead.)
A BRIEF recap of last chapter:
Chief and Cortana met the Ericson crew after a bit of a tense moment.
Chief explained what the UNSC and Spartans were.
Chief told the story of his universe while Cortana memorized the Identities of the Ericson Crew except for AJ.
Cortana told Clementine what all the Ericson kids would have done normally.
Lily was re-tasked with capturing Clem and AJ.
…
It was early in the morning but none of the Ericson kids would have missed Chief and Cortana leaving for the world. Chief gave Clementine a com-link so that if they ever needed anything than they could reach Cortana.
"Will you come back?" Ten asked Chief.
"I don't know. But if you ever need me than I'm just a com-link away." Chief said as he smiled in his helmet.
Chief got into the driver seat of the warthog and waved as he drove off. Chief had wanted to mention the fact that the Dawn could fabricate combat prosthetics to Clementine and Violet but also didn't want to reveal the Dawn's exact location either. Right now he had one thing on his mind, find the person responsible for the outbreak and make them pay.
…
Chief had been driving for just over 45 minutes when Cortana spoke up; "Chief there is some kind of phantom signal in the area. I can't hack it but I can tell it's heavily encrypted."
"What direction is it coming from?" Chief asked.
"Roughly South West." Cortana said
"Are you sure, that's the complete opposite direction that we want to be going in." Chief said.
"I'm positive Chief, once we get within a few miles I should be able to hack the signal." Cortana said. "Wait, now it's gone!"
"What do you mean it's gone?" Chief said
"I mean one minute it was there and the next it wasn't. I think it might have been a short coded communication. Whatever was being said must have been sensitive to someone though, because that was one tough signal to locate." Cortana said.
"Could it pertain to our new friends?" Chief asked.
"Possibly, again anything could have been said and I would be none the wiser." Cortana said.
"Well we still have a good amount of fuel left, let's check it out." Chief decided.
…
Jackson walked into his tent and over to a table. He picked up a small badge in the shape of an octagon. It had red and white markings on it in the shapes of triangles.
"This is agent Black Omen to Castle, our assets are moving to apprehend primary and secondary targets. Requesting further instructions, over." Jackson whispered.
"This is Castle Black Omen; new instructions are to disregard secondary target. Move to apprehend primary target by any means necessary. How copy? Over." The badge said.
"Affirmative, however the asset has special interest in primary target. Requesting authorization to employ 'Longshot' over." Jackson said.
"Authorization to employ 'Longshot' granted. Castle over and out." The badge said as the communication ended.
Jackson put his badge back and walked outside the tent. He and the rest of Lilies' task force had camped next to a river that was now the only real obstacle between them and Ericson's Boarding School for Troubled Youth. Jackson knew that his agency had been keeping a close eye on the girl who was now their leader. He shivered at the thought of anyone outsmarting William Carver let alone killing him. That event was almost a decade behind them now and his agency still looked at it as one of the greatest defeats in their history. Jackson knew his agency had something planned for this girl and possibly the child she had taken into her care, but he just couldn't put his finger on what. With everything Jackson had learned about Clementine Nira over the years, he had come to a few conclusions about her. The first was that she would take the moral high ground whenever possible which meant that she might not help his agency willingly. The second was that she was incredibly smart. Defeating Lily was not something that everyone could do, especially with how depraved of any morals she was. And killing William Carver was no small task either. This meant that any trick or deception that he or his agency used on her would eventually get found out. Between these two facts, he was unsure about what his hierarchs wanted with her. Normally his agency only recruited new members if they agreed with what its overall goal was and the methods they used to achieve that goal. To Jackson, it seemed highly unlikely that she would agree with either. Still, his agency had its ways.
"Morning Jackson." One of Lily's men said. "Excited for some revenge?" He asked eagerly.
"I don't know if you could say excited Joe. I am ready to avenge our fallen comrades, but killing children still doesn't sit well with me." Jackson said.
"Oh don't beat yourself up pal, those 'kids' wouldn't hesitate to kill you or me if they got the chance. Besides they made their choice when they sunk that ship." Joe said in a friendly way.
Jackson noticed that Joe had a rather heavy sniper rifle hung across his back.
"They absolutely have to pay for what they did to us Joe. There is no excuse for sinking an entire ship full of people and recourses, even if they were soldiers. However, you have to look at it from their point of view as well. To them, we started this whole thing by kidnapping their friends, then murdered several of them when they tried to fight back, and finally tried to take them all as soldiers to fight a war that wasn't their own." Jackson said.
"Yeah, well I guess there is some truth to that. Still, remember that one of those 'friends we kidnapped' was on that ship when it sunk. We may have made these kids what they are Jackson, but it doesn't change the fact that they're monsters." Joe said.
As Joe walked away, Jackson thought of how Lily had made Milly kill Sophia and what a shell of a human being Milly became after that. "Was it really their friend who died on that ship?" He asked himself under his breath.
Lily, had been up all night preparing and planning for the raid. She still had one day left before they were going to attack and she wanted to make it count. She had a substantially larger contingent of soldiers than the last time she had attacked Ericson. She was planning on better fortifications, faster response times, and a very well-armed band of kids since the boat had sunk in relatively shallow water and there were plenty of guns and ammunition on it. Her mood could have been described as a work fever but she was desperate to get revenge on Clementine and redeem her social status in her community.
"Have the scouts returned yet?" Lily asked one of the mercenaries in the room.
"No, but last I heard, they were headed NE to a good spot on the ridge to spy." The mercenary responded.
"Let me know the second that they get back, we can't leave anything to chance with Clementine. I want to know about anything and everything that she has on her side." Lily said in a scheming way.
…
Chief had followed the ruff direction of the phantom signal for about a half an hour when Cortana detected a large camp up ahead. After parking the warthog, Chief approached the camp on foot. He had swapped his Spartan laser out for a silenced SMG and grabbed an active camo module from the weapons crate in the warthog. Once he got close to the encampment, Chief activated the active camo.
"Be careful, we don't have a ton of time before the active camo fails." Cortana said.
"We'll be in and out before they ever know we were here." Chief said reassuringly.
Chief made his way to the probable source of the phantom signal and ended up in Lily's tent as she was studying her forces expected strengths and weaknesses. Chief secured his com so there wouldn't be a sound when he spoke.
"Cortana, who is this women?" Chief asked.
"Lily Backer, normally she would have been the leader of a very dangerous gang and Louis would arrest her for the murder of 14 people, the attempted murder of 2 others, blackmail, four counts of kidnapping, and having connections to the worst human trafficking ring of the 21st century." Cortana said.
"So altogether a great person." Chief said sarcastically as he perused through the plans on Lily's desk.
"Cortana, how do you have access to civilian records? I thought you only contained knowledge of the UNSC database." Chief asked while looking at Lily.
"While I was linked to the Grave mind, the flood gained access to the civilian and historical databases on earth during their attack on Africa. I stopped them from getting the files by downloading them and destroying the original records. You can imagine how the Grave-mind reacted to that." Chief said.
Chief was about to leave when he looked at the main table and saw a paper with the title "Battle Plan". He looked closer and realized that the structure they were going to assault was the boarding school!
"Chief! These guys are going to launch an attack on those kids! We have to stop them!" Cortana said in horror.
"We aren't prepared to take on a camp this large. They have some pretty hefty weapons too. But we can destroy their extra munitions." Chief said as he left the tent and pulled a grenade off his belt.
He found their munitions tent and rolled the grenade past the guard. Before the guard could say or do anything though, he was blown to smithereens along with the rest of their extra guns and munitions. The whole camp was knocked off their feet by the resulting blast wave. Lily screamed something but nobody could hear her because their ears were ringing so loudly. Chief was prepared for the blast but his active camo wasn't. He reappeared in the middle of the camp, but ran so fast that hardly anybody realized that he was there let alone got a good look at him. Lily had seen him though, and as he was running she raised her pistol and shot at him. Chief counted three shots, one missed and two bounced off his shields. Lily started to chase him but soon realized how incredibly tall, big, and fast he was. Her amazement at how fast he got out of the camp got the better of her as she stopped perusing him.
"We have to warn those kids John; I don't think that the loss of their munitions will stop them or at least not for long." Cortana said as Chief got in the warthog.
"Why do you say that?" Chief asked while he started the engine and started driving away.
"In the records I have of Lily, she is one persistent and impatient dictator. I guess the good thing is that that quality was ultimately her downfall." Cortana said. "Louis couldn't prove she had done anything she was suspected of until she got impatient with one of her plans and rushed it, the plan failed due to poor planning and Louis capitalized on it." Cortana said.
"Okay, radio the kids and warn them. And tell them that we'll be there to assist as soon as we can." Chief said.
"Already on it." Cortana said.
Lily had recovered by now and had assessed the damage to her camp. She breathed a sigh of relief when she found out that she only lost three people and injuries had been minimal. She knew that their primary munitions tent was completely destroyed but she had taken the precaution of moving a substantial amount of its contents to a secondary tent outside the camp. She didn't know who that guy was but she knew that somehow he had infiltrated the camp and slipped past 85 people to destroy one tent. Lily didn't want to chance anything so she ordered that the attack take place as soon as possible so that if that guy was working for Clementine, they wouldn't have that much time to prepare for an attack.
…
Clementine was playing a game of chess against Louis when the com link that Chief had given her suddenly started buzzing. She didn't understand why it was doing that but when Louis pressed a button they heard Cortana say; "Sorry if this is a little unexpected but after Chief and I left we followed a phantom communication and discovered a very large encampment of mercenaries who had plans drawn out to attack you guys. Chief destroyed their munitions tent but having read their leader's record, I doubt that will stop them for long."
The two teenagers were shocked. But more than that, they both instantly knew who was leading that group.
"Cortana, was their leader's name Lily?" Louis asked.
"Y... yes, how did you know that?" Cortana asked.
"I'm sorry Cortana, we should have told you and Chief. Lily is the leader of a community south of here. She's brutal and tried to take us all as prisoners to fight a war they have with another settlement. We fought back but a lot of our friends died. Now Lily is back to finish the job and you two just walked right into the middle of it." Clementine said with worry in her voice.
"Don't worry about Chief and I, we've been in MUCH worse situations than this before. Right now we are enroot to the boarding school to provide as much assistance as possible before they attack." Cortana said.
"Wait how big was that camp Cortana." Louis asked.
"If you mean how many people should you expect Lily to bring? Then about 80 people, maybe more. Chief did kill some with the blast in the camp and I would imagine that there were injuries too." Cortana said.
"This isn't good at all, but any help would be appreciated Cortana. We'll see you when you get here." Clementine said.
The com link shut down after that as the two hurried to tell the others and prepare for an attack.
…
When Chief got to the school he noticed that everyone was hard at work gathering weapons, checking fortifications, and barricading the main building. He parked the warthog in the courtyard so that its turret was parallel to the gate and the main body of the truck was in the way of snipers trying to get a clean shot into the courtyard.
"Chief, your back!" Willy said.
"I am, but I wish it was under better circumstances." Chief said as he removed Cortana's chip from his helmet. He placed it down on the main table inside the building and Cortana appeared over it.
"Work with them to maximize the barricades effectiveness. I am going to go see what they have weapon wise." Chief said to Cortana. In front of Cortana stood AJ, Mary, and Ten. "Ok you three, do you have any cables or wires?" Cortana asked.
"Yes, some old steel towing cables." Mary said.
"Perfect, if you could go and get those then that would be great." Cortana said.
They went to get the cables as Cortana created a 3D map of the school. Meanwhile Chief was looking over the weapons that the kids had and wasn't impressed.
"You only have spears, a couple axes, and some pistols that don't have enough ammo for a Mexican standoff?" Chief said in annoyance.
"Well guns and bullets are hard to come across these days, especially when you live in the forest." Aasim said.
"In fact the only long range weapons we have are Clem's bow, your truck's turret, your assault rifle and pistol, and these pistols with hardly any ammo." Louis said.
"Well, I still don't have enough for everyone but there is a weapons crate in the warthog with enough guns and ammo to at least put up a fight." Chief said.
Louis, Aasim, and Violet dug through the crate and found a sniper rifle, two silenced SMGs, three Socom pistols with extended magazines and ani-peg lasers, a Saw heavy machine gun, a tactical shotgun, and what they thought was a rocket launcher.
"Chief, there are enough guns and ammo here to stop an army of walkers. And this rocket launcher will destroy any vehicle that Lily brings." Violet said.
"Yeah, except if anyone but me fires that 'rocket launcher' they are going to be in the same condition as whatever it hits." Chief said.
"What do you mean?" Aasim asked.
"That's not a rocket launcher, it's an M6 Grindell Nonlinear Rifle also known as the Spartan Laser. It takes time to charge a powerful laser beam and when it fires it has enough force to blowup a shielded fighter jet. And it has so much kick that only a Spartan can use it without hurting themselves." Chief explained.
"Oh, well then you better take it." Louis said as Chief traded his SMG for the Spartan Laser.
"You should pass the SMGs out to everyone who is going to fight at the front of the school. They are better at midrange and since they're silenced, they're users will be harder to spot. Give the Socom pistols to the younger ones since they're light on the kickback. Give someone who is staying next to the Gate the shotgun because it's better for close up targets. The sniper rifle should go to Clem and she should stay up in the main building because she's disabled. Give Omar the Saw because he is the only one with the muscle to handle the kick and the mussel rise." Chief told Louis.
"What about the turret?" Violet asked.
"It has armor plating so it might be a good spot for Mary but I don't want to expose anyone to sniper fire if we don't have to." Chief said. "We should only use it if the person at the gate with the shotgun gets hurt or too many of them storm the gate at once."
"Okay, but what if they get past the turret?" Aasim asked.
"We fall back into the main building and hope for the best." Chief said.
"Alright, so Aasim and I will take the SMGs, Violet you have the shotgun, AJ Willy and Ten get the Socoms, Clem gets the sniper rifle, Omar has the Saw, and Mary can use Chief's SMG until we need her as a medic or on the turret." Louis said.
"Yes, and I'll go and do as much damage to their force as I can." Chief said. "Ok let's pass out the weapons and the plan."
Inside they had made a home alone style trap by mounting the cables to the top banister and to a large metal strut that would swing down and give the person on the receiving end a really bad day. Cortana had assumed that Chief would need a sniper so she made sure one of the upstairs rooms had open windows rather than barricades. There were defensive positions on the stairs so that they could fall back inside the building if needed. Cortana also took fire into account and had Mary get several buckets of water on hand in case of Molotov cocktails. She then reviewed the 3D map and noticed where weak points were and made sure everyone knew about them. It had gotten late and the sun was setting when Chief saw lights off in the distance.
"Let the fight begin." Cortana said.