Hey guys, I'm back with another chapter. I don't have much to say at the moment, so let's get on with the show:

The first thing I heard as I started to wake up was the sound of flames crackling. I slowly opened my eyes to find the inside of the airship an absolute wreck. Everyone else inside was dead, and fire was slowly starting to spread. I glanced to my left and then my right. It was dark out, that much I could tell. My helmet was still on my head, and nothing seemed broken both on my equipment and my body.

From what I could tell, the airship was laying partly on its side and had embedded itself into a mountain side. The only way out was straight forward, through the shattered remnants of the bridge's viewing glass. Activating the night vision on my helmet, I watched as everything came into focus, despite being tinted green. My M7S was a short distance away from me on the floor, and I quickly recovered that.

"Please! I'll give you money, I'll tell you secrets, I'll give you anything just let me live!" came a voice from outside. I crept forward, using my armor's dark color to blend in with the shadows as I peeked outside to see what was going on. There was an airship crew member on his knees with his hands held up in surrender.

In front of him were a red and a few blue armored Elites. But that wasn't all. There were about four or five orange armored Grunts, and a pair of Jackals with Type 51 Carbines. All of them were illuminated by a the spotlight of a Phantom drop ship hovering overhead. The red armored Elite looked over the airship crewmember, taking a few steps closer and bending down to his head level.

After a moment of silence, the Elite straightened up and began to walk away as if the crew member wasn't worth his time. As he passed the Jackals, the massive reptilian alien barked something to the two creatures. In an instant, both had dropped their weapons and tackled the crew member with a ravenous hunger. The Grunts looked on with cocked heads while the Elites walked back to the drop ship's grav lift, ignoring the screams of the man as he was torn limb from limb.

I looked on helplessly, unable to do anything. Three Elites with my current load out would be a tough fight. Three Elites with Grunt, Jackal, and drop ship backup was suicidal. If I did try to help, we'd both have been meals for the alien freaks. So I waited in tense silence with my weapon at the ready, listening to the sound of flames and jaws chewing on flesh.

Finally a bark like order came from the commanding Elite, and all the aliens withdrew back to the Phantom. I held my position for several tense moments as the spotlight made one final sweep over the area before the humming sound of the Phantom faded away as it flew off. I stayed in the airship wreck as long as I could after that before the ever growing fire forced me to head outside.

Checking the compass on my HUD, I set off in the direction of Republic City, picking my through the underbrush with my weapon at the ready. I had a long walk ahead of me, and I wasn't looking forward to it in the slightest.

Three hours later.

I emerged from the trees on a ridge overlooking the city. It was about two in the morning now, based upon the clock in my helmet. The city had several fires burning all of the place. Hovering in the sky was a massive CAS-class Assault Carrier. It just hung there in the sky, silently, like a predator watching the city die. I double checked my weapons before heading down into the flaming nightmare that Republic City had become.

It took the better part of another two hours just to make my way back towards the Police HQ. The streets were crawling with Covenant patrols that I was forced to bypass and avoid. It didn't help that I wasn't overly familiar with the city layout either, so getting lost was fairly easy. When I did finally get there, I found the whole place ransacked and abandoned.

Just inside the main entrance to the Police HQ was a sandbag wall and several bodies. Dead Grunts lay sprawled out before the makeshift barrier, along with a few Jackels and even a couple of Elites. There were bloodstains on the floor, both Human and Covenant alike. Burn marks scorched the walls, places where plasma bolts had made impact.

Behind the sandbags were dead humans, their bodies scorched like the ones I had seen in Wai. From what I could gather, they had put up a decent last stand when the Covenant had attacked the HQ in force. A glint of something metal and shiny caught my eye on the floor, and I knelt down and picked it up to inspect it better with my night vision.

It was a bullet casing, from a rifle to be exact. The floor was littered with them, and the several of the Covenant bodies on the other side of the sandbags had bullet wounds in them. That meant that someone had stood here and fired at least one burst into the oncoming enemy. The only weapon that I knew of that fit the profile was the Gunny's MA5.

That meant that Buck had been here when this place had fallen to the Covenant. Which meant that there was the possibility that the others had been here as well. I set off deeper into the HQ, determined to find something of my squad. If not their bodies, then at least where they had been going. The further into the building I went, the more dead I found, along with several makeshift barricades made out of desks and chairs. Based on the amount of dead on both sides, there had been one hell of a fight here. Still, there was no sign of either my squad or Korra's little band of friends. Not ready to give up yet, I made my way down to the lockup, hoping to find something of use that could be scavenged.

Like the rest of the HQ, the lockup was pretty trashed. Bits of equipment that weren't missing entirely were little more then slag heaps. From the looks of things, my squad had cleared out the lockup and then torched whatever they couldn't carry. There were some supplies I was able to scavenge, a few mags for my M7S and even a sniper rifle with about twenty spare rounds. Attaching the rifle to the magnetic clamp on the back of my armor, I gave the lockup one last look over before heading back upstairs.

It was in the radio room that I found what appeared to be the remnants of a command post. Papers were scattered all over, burn marks lined the walls. An Elite was pinned to the wall next to the door, speared clean through by what appeared to be a section of ventilation duct. Across from it was a metalbender slouched against the wall, his armor and a good portion of his chest cavity having been torn open by an explosion of some kind. Looking closer, I noticed several shards of pink crystal embedded in his wounds. The poor guy had taken a full burst from a Needler and suffered the consequences.

Most of the papers and maps that were here were in Chinese, and therefore little more then gibberish to me. However, there was one map that caught my eye. It was a map of the city, with the Sato Estate having been circled in black marker. Underneath this were the words 'fallback point' written in English.

From the looks of things, my squad and the others had chosen to retreat to the Sato Estate, although the exact reason why had me a little puzzled. It wasn't fully outside of the city, and was well within range of Covenant strike craft. The only thing I could do now was make my way there and hope that they hadn't gotten themselves killed.

With nothing left to gain from staying here, I put the Police HQ behind me and began the long trek across the city. It wasn't easy, not by a long shot. I had to stick to back alleys the entire time, zig zagging my way back and forth through the shadows in order to avoid Covenant patrols. Sometimes a Phantom would fly overhead, and I'd have pause and hold my breath, praying that they wouldn't see me before pushing on.

There were no civilians to be found, well not ones that were alive anyway. Occasionally I'd come across a car that had been torn apart by plasma fire with it's driver slumped over the wheel and a passenger or two laying dead in their seats. But other then that, there was no one to be found. It seemed that evacuations had been put into place and they had been somewhat successful in getting people out of the city.

It was about ten blocks or so from the HQ when I came across the convoy. A line of five vehicles, all of them with the United Forces symbol on them. The lead and rear vehicle were jeeps, while the center three were armored trucks of some kind. From the looks of things, the Covenant had hit the convoy hard. One of the central trucks was on it's side, while the one in the rear had been forced off into a shop front and the one in the lead had gotten pinned between a fallen light post and a car. The forward jeep was upside down and on fire, while the rear looked like it had jackknifed to avoid something before it's occupants had all been killed.

I started toward the wreckage in order to look for survivors, but quickly came to a halt when a Phantom appeared around a corner and illuminated the convoy with it's spotlight. Falling back, I hid behind the wreckage of a burnt out car and brought up the sniper rifle. Through it's scope, I watched as a few Elites disembarked from the craft's lift and began to pick their way through the vehicles. The Phantom swept the whole of the convoy with it's spotlight again before it turned and flew off into the night.

Rather then slip away into the shadows, I continued to watch these Elites with curiosity. They weren't overly high ranking, with the leader being a red armor and the other two being blue. But something about this convoy had warranted them to come back and investigate it themselves, rather then sending Grunts or Jackals to do it for them.

As I watched, some movement in the cab of the lead truck caught my attention. I shifted my focus from the aliens to this point, zooming the scope in as close as I could and focusing the night vision so I could get a better view of what I was looking at. What I saw made me blink in surprise. It was Korra.

The young woman was wearing dark clothing and was currently trying to kick out the truck's windshield, apparently unaware of the Elites that were nearby. I pulled the scope's zoom out some and focused on the nearest Elite. If she attracted it's attention, I'd have to act fast in order to help. The Avatar's boot finally broke the glass, the sound of which attracting the nearby aliens. She didn't even realize she had company until the Elite I had been watching jumped onto the hood of the truck and leveled it's plasma rifle at her.

Before either one of them could react, I squeezed the trigger on the rifle. The gunshot echoed off of the buildings, and the Elite was knocked forward as the bullet caused it's shield to flare and then fail. However the creature was still very much alive, if a little dazed from the impact. Korra was the first to recover, shoving her fist out and bending a stream of fire straight into the Elite's open maw. It let out a wail of pain as it turned and leapt from the truck, a hulking pillar of fire illuminating the night.

I shifted my aim, turning the crosshairs to the red armored Elite. My trigger finger braced twice, firing off two quick shots. Like the first, the officer's shields failed from the first shot, while the second almost completely decapitated it. Before I could fully line up a shot with the last Elite, Korra burst forth from the truck's cab. She bent a large bolder from the street and hurled it, knocking the Elite off it's feet and causing it's shield to fail. Before the alien could recover, she was upon it, forcing fire down it's throat like she had with the first. The creature wailed in pain before finally dying, allowing Korra to step back and pant in an effort to recover her breath.

Picking myself up, I made my way forward while still scanning the rooftops for any sudden unwanted appearances. As I got closer, Korra's ears perked up to the sound of my approaching footsteps. She fell into a bending stance again as she turned towards me, ready for a fight. Although I could see her just fine thanks to my VISR, she was having trouble making me out due to the darkness and the color of my armor.

"Who's there?" she called. I stepped into the light of a small fire, allowing it to illuminate my form.

"Seems I can't leave you alone for one minute, Avatar," I said. Korra looked stunned as she lowered her fists.

"James?" Before I could react, she had vaulted forward and thrown her arms around my neck.

"Thank the spirits, you're alive, I knew it!" As happy as I was to see her, much less another human being in general, we didn't have time and we were highly exposed in the location we were in. I was forced to grab her by the collar of her shirt and drag her back a few steps so I could get a better look at her.

"We can't stay here all night. Where is my squad, where are the others?" I asked.

"Tenzin went back to Air Temple Island to get his family. Your Sergeant and Captain went ahead to Asami's place to clear it of any of those things. My job was to escort Raiko and his wife there once we got the all clear signal from them," Korra said. I looked from her to the wreckage of the convoy.

"The President?" I asked. She answered with a halfhearted shrug. It was clear just by looking that Raiko's chances of survival were slim. Still, I wasn't the type of person to leave a stone unturned. I made my way over to what had been the center truck in the convoy before peering in the back. The VISR illuminated the inside, revealing several bodies of United Forces personal. In the center of it all was the President with a large burn mark across the center of his chest.

The first lady was there was well, having suffered a similar fate to her husband with burns along the left side of her head. They had died clutching each others hands, clearly trusting in each other during their final moments. I pursed my lips beneath my helmet. Everyone in here had been dead for hours, there was nothing that could be done for them now.

"We need to go," I said to Korra as I turned away from the scene. She peaked inside the truck as well. Although the low light kept her from seeing everything, she still saw enough to comprehended what she was looking at. She hung her head, both in sadness and in shame.

"I'm a terrible Avatar. I was given the job of protecting someone and I couldn't even pull that off," she said in defeat.

"You were ambushed by the Covenant. You should consider yourself lucky you survived the encounter," I said.

"How...how am I suppose to handle this? How am I suppose to save the world? From this?" she asked, gesturing upwards toward the Carrier hanging above the city.

"I don't have the answers. What I know is that every alien within a five block radius heard the shots from my rifle and are more then likely headed here right now. So we need to move," I said. Korra could have her little break down later. Right now, our focus needed to be on moving out of the open and finding a safe place. My words must have convinced her of this, because she finally turned away from the truck and led the way into a nearby alley.

Ordinary I would have taken point, but Korra knew this city far better then I did. The only reason I had gotten this far was because I had pointed myself in a general direction and kept going until I got results. With her, we were making much better time, until we'd nearly bump into a Covenant patrol and have to backtrack in order to avoid them.

Dawn was approaching when we finally reached the northern water front and started following it east. The Covenant had blocked all the bridges with roadblocks, and I wasn't overly keen on the idea of swimming unless we had no other choice in the matter. We'd stopped in an abandoned warehouse under Kyoshi Bridge for a breather before either one of us spoke again.

"James I..." she started.

"Please don't call me that," I interrupted. I was using this moment to reload one of the sniper rifle's magazines with what spare rounds I had left while the rifle sat on an old table in front of me.

"But that's your name," she said, confused.

"That's my full name, but not the one I use," I corrected.

"Well then what do you go by?" she asked.

"Jim, or Jimmy is what I got called a lot." She shook her head at that.

"Doesn't suit you."

"My squad calls me Rookie."

"Not calling you that, either," she said. By this point I was done with my reloading. I picked up the rifle again and attached it to the magnetic clamp on my back.

"I usually went by initials when I was a civie: JD," I said. Korra gave me a look, cocking her head to the side as she studied me.

"That'll work. At least until I find something better," she said. My helmet was still polarized, so she could see me roll my eyes at her.

We left the warehouse behind and headed a few more blocks upriver. The sky ahead of us was starting to turn orange as the sun rose as we slipped into a small parking lot. We both went on point at the sound of crunching metal. A car flipped over as a Type 26 Assault Gun Carriage glided into the parking lot with us.

The Wraith was a massive dark purple monster, somewhat resembling a beetle with no visible means of touching the ground. It's main gun rose above the rest of the body like a scorpion's tale, primed, bristling with energy, and ready to fire. Rather then blast us, it simply moved closer, as if the driver was curious about is.

I looked around and realized just how much trouble we were in. We were caught in the open with no cover at all. If that main cannon fired, we'd be little more then black burn marks on the concrete before we'd even realized what had happened. If we ran, the secondary plasma cannons would cut us down in an instant. We only stood a chance if we could get behind it, which I was already formulating a plan on. A gutsy and frankly suicidal plan, but a plan none the less.

"What do we do?" Korra asked, falling into a stance with her fists at the ready. Before I could answer, a pair of rockets, one right after the other streaked across the parking lot and slammed into the back of the Wraith. The resulting explosion tore its way upward through the tank, causing the plasma cannon to detonate into a brilliant purple colored explosion. Korra and I threw up our hands, protecting our faces from debris and the sudden flare of heat. The body of the tank slammed down onto the concrete as it's anti gravity works failed. Purple colored flames danced from the now torn open shell of the Wraith.

We looked at each other before looking past the tank to where the rockets had come from. Kneeling on one knee in the door to another warehouse was an ODST in full BDU. He was reloading an M41 SPNKR, and his armor had red paint on it. As he finished reloading, he slipped the rocket launcher onto his back before drawing his own M7S. I almost couldn't believe my eyes.

"Micky?" I asked. He had been MIA for days, and now here was popping up out of the blue.

"Rookie?" We closed the distance between each other quickly, happy to see another member of our squad.

"Where have you been? It's been days," I said.

"My pod cashed into the river and I got rescued by some friends of mine. They're not exactly on good terms with the local establishment so we've been on the down low, until all this happened," Micky said, gesturing around them.

"We've been looking everyone for you..." I started, but stopped when my ears picked up the sound of an approaching Phantom. Both Korra and Micky heard it as well, and the other ODST motioned for us to follow.

"This way, quickly," he said before turning and leading us back toward the warehouse. Inside, we found a small group, about squad size of men and women wearing black body suits and gas masks. At sight of them, Korra instantly fell into a defensive bending stance.

"Equalists!" she hissed in surprise and anger, ready to attack. The Equalists fell into fighting stances as well, ready to face off against Korra. Only Micky and I remained the way we were.

"Hey, kill each other when we don't have the Covenant breathing down our necks!" I snapped. The two sides slowly eased out of their stances, however it was clear that they did not trust each other. Micky's helmet depolarized as he looked back and forth between the two sides with a confused expression.

"Did I miss something?" he asked.

"It's a long story," I answered. It probably was, and I didn't have the time or all the details.

"Right, we need to move, now," Micky said as his helmet polarized again. He led the way through the warehouse to an access entrance to the tunnels beneath the streets. I had to admit, it was way smarter then traveling out in the open in broad daylight.

"You think we can get to the Sato place from these tunnels?" I asked Korra. She pursed her lips in thought.

"We should be able to. The main reason Asami's place was chosen as the fall back point was cause of an old Equalist factory located under the Estate. They were gonna use it as a bunker and because it had access to the tunnels under the city," she said. So that's why the rally point was so close to the city. It was nice to know that the Gunny and Dare didn't just want a fancy place to hunker down in.

"This may be better then I thought," I said. Before I could take another step, Korra caught my arm and held me back.

"You think it's a good idea, trusting these guys?" she asked. I shrugged in response.

"I don't know what your beef with them is, but I do know that to the Covenant, we're all just a bunch of humans to kill," I answered.

And that's a wrap for this time. Please, I beg of you, drop a review or send a PM, ask questions, make statements. I want to know what you guys think. With that in mind, I'll see you all next time.