Purpose Of Existence Chapter 41: From Dust We Rise, To Dust We Fall
This time the enemy was overwhelming. They came from everywhere and for every single dead elite, a new one took its place, for every single dead grunt, a small army came to replace it. They were getting overwhelmed, and they knew it.
Yet a spartan doesn't give up, so they didn't.
"Locke, behind you!"
This far the damage they had sustained was minimal, but if they didn't leave soon… They would all die.
"Reloading!".
"Where the hell are all of them coming from?!"
"I don't know, just shoot".
"Soon I don't have much to shoot with!"
"Use their weapons, buy time for the Chief!"
Vale ducked under a swing from a brute's gravity hammer, diving between its legs and stabbing her knife to its lower back, killing the already injured specimen. "Roger that".
"You should never have come here human, This time there will be no escape. Me and you, one of us dies". Atriox pulled his massive weapon from behind his head, leaving a sizeable dent in the floor where it landed. Chief only barely managing to dodge the peace of instantaneous death. He took a moment to look at Atriox, his eyes scanning him from behind his visor. Chief knew they didn't have much time, but he failed to kill this monster once before, he won't make that mistake twice.
"On that, we can agree". Lodging his last plasma grenades at the berserk brute, forcing Atriox to roll out of their way, Chief dived the giant, his augmented strength bringing them both down to the ground. Atriox tried to retaliate by punching Chief's visor, only to be dodged and getting butted to the head by a assault rifle stock.
Their fight was brought to a momentary pause as a explosion took place not more than a meter away from them. The pause was prolonged as Biases voice ringed from John's helmet speakers "Do tell creature, for being a Covenant exile, you most certainly know much about the behaviour and tactics of humans, may I ask why?"
"Bad time Bias".
Atriox managed to shove his hands under The Chief, knocking him up in the air and using his legs to kick him away, sending him crashing to the nearby guardrailing.
"Why do I know so much about humans?" Atriox took a moment and gave a low, dark laugh full of irony "I know so much about humans because this ain't the first time I and your precious Captain Cutter have fought for control of something".
This gave even The Chief a pause "wha". His musings were cut off by a haywire ghost almost crashing into him, forcing him to jump to to side, giving Atriox the perfect change to land a punch to his side, sending him flying again.
Bias however was unfaced knowing that the spartan was completely fine, if not bruised, fairly badly. "You have? Interesting, taking in consideration that The Spirit Of Fire has been lost for twenty-eight years, only known campaigns being the battle of Harvest and Arcadia….
And the forerunner shield world. You were among the Covenant soldiers following Arbiter Ripa 'Moramee".
Suddenly Jerome's face popped up in the lower left corner of John's hud. "Chief, I know Atriox is, he led a continent of Covenant troops against us during our battle at the shield world. He hated the Covenant, especially The Arbiter. This would explain The Banished".
Chief shook his head, finally pulling himself of the floor. "If he survived a battle of that magnitude and the explosion that followed, then it's all more reason to remove him".
"If you are done chit chatting, we are running out of time and I would very much like to keep my head where it stands". Chief turned just in time to see a elite taking a horizontal swing, missing Douglases head only by inches. Douglas caught the blade and twisted it out of the elites crasp, he activated the weapon pushing it upwards, through the elites chest.
Douglas gave him a nod and turned around, slashing another elite to half and pushing the corpse out of his way. Chief in the other hand turned his gaze back to the Chieftain. Atriox hadn't made a move against him he knew that, Bias would have warned him.
"So the little humans finally figured out who I am". Atriox picked his fallen hammer off the ground, dusting it with his other hand. "I was wondering when your teammates connected the puzzle pieces". Atriox moved his gaze from the weapon back to Chief "I always have respected you humans, in my own way. Your will to evolve and survive impossible odds still leaves me amazed". Atriox moved his hammer, know facing Chief fully and pointing it at his chest. He activated it, letting its red hue light his face and cybernetic implants. "But you stand in my way, and nothing will stop me from getting my revenge. I will lead the brutes to a new era and not you, or your crazed AI nor the UNSC can stop me".
Chief pulled his standard issue combat knife from its pouch, spinning it between his fingers, getting a feel for the grip. "You know I can't let you do that". He fell into a standard armed melee combat stance and waited for Atriox to do the first move.
"Your opinion wasn't asked, human". And with a might roar, Atriox charged swinging his hammer, trying to cut Chief in half, ending the fight before it even started.
Luckily Chief managed to dodge, grazing Atriox's hand with his knife, leaving a slight trail of blood falling along his arm. This didn't much effect the cybernetic brute and he charged again this time changing his attack patterns, making it harder for the Chief to keep up.
One of the grazed swings forced Chief to fall backwards, making him lose his balance in the progress, as he fell down, he spotted plasma pistol nearby. Dropped by one of the dead grunts. He picked it up and immediately rolled to his right, dodging another hammer blow.
Chief fired the pistol rapidly, not having time to charge it. Luckily this proved to be enough and Atriox took a few steps backwards. Chief quickly got up and charged towards the plasma burned brute, stabbing the combat knife into his lower stomach.
The brute howled in pain and for a moment there was silence. Even the battle had silenced for a second and it looked like it was over.
Then Atriox's distant gaze turned sharp and he pulled the knife out of his chest, crushing it in his grip. His now crazed gazze turned to him, it was clear that the brute went berserk.
"I will crush you for that!" The thing about a brute going berserk is, that they are faster stronger and even more violent than usually. Their blows are so fast that even spartan eyes are having trouble tracking them and Chief is forced to rely on his instincts alone to dodge and block him. Now weaponless, he cannot effectively counter Atriox's blows.
And this proved to be the fatal problem. As Chief wa so focused on dodging Atriox's blows, he hadn't noticed a elite sneaking behind him.
Chief only managed to turn his head halfway, till he felt the burning pain of a plasma sword entering his back, coming through his torso. It wasn't a perfect hit by no means, but still... it was bad enough.
Atriox wasted no time, stopping straight in front of Chief and raising his hammer, bringing it down to finish the job.
For a moment everything was quiet. Chief turned his gaze and inspected the battlefield, where his broken family and fellow soldiers were dying for a cause much larger than themselves. They were dying so he could succeed…
And he failed.
Palmer had a bloody gash just under her mouth. Locke was mostly fine but exhaustion shined from his actions. Vale's left arm was clearly broken. Something that should be nearly impossible, amazing what these spartans can do. Tanaka's Mobile minigun was in pieces and she was using her combat knife to hold off two elites simultaneously. The spartan II's were faring better but even they can't hold on forever.
John turned his gaze back to the hammer. It was now coming down and for a second he felt at peace. He closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable to come.
Except it never came.
"It's not your time yet John, your future is among the stars, with me"
After few moments he reopened his eyes… Only to see Douglas desperately fighting Atriox back, it was clear he had taken the attack for him and that his injuries were severe. He wouldn't hold out for long.
John tried to get up but the plasma wound was insanely painful, even his suits biofoam dispensers had hard time compensating for the damage. He had no other option but to watch as Douglas took blow after blow, eventually being cornered into a group of elites, being forced to fight Atriox.
"Now I will make him watch, as you die, human"
Douglas tried one final push against his overwhelming opponent, dodging Atriox's strike and bringing his plasma sword down, cutting nearly half of his natural hand away…
And paying for that damage with his life. Atriox grabbed his throat with his metallic hand, and pushed with everything he had, crushing the weakened spartans throat. After a moment he let go and Douglas's lifeless body dropped to the ground.
For a good five seconds nothing happened. Then Jerome's distressed yell could be heard from the background. He wanted to get to his brothers side but was caught off by a pair of elites and forced into a fight.
Chief's mind was numb. So many of them dead. First nearly all his siblings, then Keyes, then Miranda, and after that...Cortana. He believed nothing could make this universe worse.
Funny.
Guess he was wrong.
His thoughts were ruined by Kelly's distressed voice. Of course it would be Kelly. She always was the one to worry, always the one most human from their messed up family. If it could be called that.
Then he heard her yell again. This time a cry of pain.
And then everything went red.
Chief got up from the ground, his eyes were focused on one single thing and that was Atriox. He didn't care that this wasn't the most efficient approach. He Didn't care that his wounds were on fire or that he was bleeding immensely.
Two elites tried to stop him, but he simply dodged their energy sword trikes, catching the other sword from the middle and twisting it, breaking the elite shand. The creatures yell of pain was cut in half literally as Chief continued to progress towards Atriox. You could see surprise even in the old warchiefs face, now calmed down from his bloodlust.
Suddenly John started to run, few more of Atriox's forces tried to intervene but were cut off by Locke and Palmer.
Atriox finally managed to pull himself out of his surprised haze and tried to swing at Chief, only for him to jump over his hammer, taking his metallic arm in the progress and twisting it backwards. Even though the battle you could hear the arms metallic motors fighting against the enraged spartans inhuman strength. You could hear the groaning and violent metallic sounds of the slowly twisting arm.
And then it happened. With a large shrieking sound, Chief twisted Atriox's metallic arm, clean of its socket, causing the warchief to roar from the insane pain. Finally Chief picked up the hammer Atriox had dropped. A feat not possible for many. And raised it above his head, bringing it down and smashing the now dead Banished leards skull in.
Then Chiefs vision cleared and he took a few steps backwards. He was too confused on what was going on to even realise that the room had fell silent and that everyone was watching him.
For a moment he only stared at the headless corpse that was once known as Atriox…
And then he passed out, completely losing consciousness from the strain and blood loss.