The Blue team would only need a little more than a max of four minutes to clear the distance. The man that was twenty miles faster the majority of The Blue team. So he was going to beat them by at least a full minute. For most men a minute wouldn't be much time. But for him, they bet he wouldn't even need thirty seconds. They ran through the woods and found another encampment. It was in a sort of clearing of the woods and all across the ground were corpses. An entire marine assault team was scattered across the ground… half of which… weren't human.
Skin turned pale white as the majority of their face sunk into their skulls. Each one looking as the majority of their muscles and fat had seemly been burnt off their bodies. Turning them into husks of what once thought to be a man. The covenant soldiers were much similar but with more growth to them. Skin turning more red and more demonic. Brutes looked like they had bone caps covering half their heads as their arms became thicker. The Elites looked they merged with their weapons and had shards of bone coming out of their elbows and shoulder as their heads grew horns. Someone, other two, some even had three. Jackals became bigger and their flesh turned more crimson as their fingers became razor sharp like claws. It was hellish.
"What is this?" Fredrick asked. "Some sort of Flood variation?"
"No." John shot out. He prayed that it wasn't. "The flood is dead. Besides, the flood was more of a disease, nothing seemed uniform with the changes. This looked more like a mutation or transformation."
"So what are the covenant doing?" Kelly asked. "Is this their idea of an edge? Transforming their soldiers?"
"Then why would our guys change as well?" Linda asked. "No. This is something worse."
They reached the center of the encampment and found ripper with the head of his shotgun pressed to the skull of what was once a Spartan. But they were no longer such… they had horns and their flesh had turned pure black with their veins burning red. Their eyes looked like that of a lizard. Half of their armor was blown off and was bleeding darkened blood. Behind them was some sort of device that was crafted out of flesh. Above it was an orb of dark power.
"Stop!" Kelly called out, trying to rush over. But the man already pulled the trigger. "Son of a bitch!"
The man stepped away from the corpse and cracked his neck and walked over to the orb device and ran his hand over it. Almost as if he was remembering it. Blue team walked over and watched what he did. Fredrick was already holding a handful of dog tags. Kelly gritted her teeth under her helmet. Linda continued to scan the area, trying to figure out what the hell happened there. Then a voice erupted.
"DoomSlayer…" It bellowed. The voice was deeper, darker, and more demonic than anything the Spartans ever even believed to be possible to hear within one's lifetime. It came from the orb… it was connected to something. "Where do you not exist?"
"Doomslayer?" Blue team questioned.
"Time… distance… matters not to you." It continued. "DoomSlayer…"
The man grunted and grabbed what appeared to be the pulsing heart of the device and tore it off. The orb vanished along with the light coming off of it. He tossed the heart off to the side and walked off to the side and slide his shotgun into his warp pack. He knelt down to a now dead marine that was corrupted, a hole was blown through his chest. He looked at the man's dog tag and ripped it off his neck. The man stood up and tossed the tags to Fredrick. He walked over to a covenant building and punched through the steel hull.
"So…" John said walking over to the man. "You've dealt with these things before?"
The man nodded without looking back.
"You aren't this ultimate marine are you?" John asked. "You're something worse." Another nod.
"They wanted to match you. You were the model. You are something worse. The Doomslayer." John confirmed. Once again the man nodded. "Well how do we beat these things?"
"…" Silence.
"What kind of thing did you do to swear off speaking?" Linda asked. The man looked over his shoulder. Almost to say. "The worst kind."
The returned to the bridge of The Infinity. The man had removed his armor and was wearing a black short sleeved shirt. Which honestly for the men on the bridge actually wish he had kept his armor on. He practically dwarfed the muscles of the other men on the bridge. None of them were weak either. He looked over at the captain and showed half of his clenched teeth in a silent growl.
"So Chief, what are dealing with?" Captain Lasky asked. "We got reports of devices made of flesh that corrupt the dead."
"That's accurate." John answered.
"Well what are they?"
"He should be able to answer that." He gestured towards the man.
The man raised an eyebrow and rolled his eyes. He stepped up to the center table, put his thumb to his mouth, and bit into it. His thumb bled and he drew a circle in his own blood before drawing a pentagram in it. The captain's eyes went wide upon seeing it and looked at the man with a concerned look.
"Demons?" Captain Lasky asked with a chuckle. "You've got to be kidding me."
"It would explain a lot about the odd elements and markings that his armor and the casing he was trapped in were comprised of." Dr. Halsey inputted.
"That doesn't make any sense." Lasky said taking a step back.
"No offence captain. But not even three centuries ago we didn't even know of any life outside of a few bacteria." She reminded him. "Now can you add anything else? Or do you still stick by your notion of never speaking?"
The man grunted at her and pulled off a large chip off his waist and inserted into a port on the main table and taking a step back. The lights in the room flickered and he crossed his arms. Roland's image appeared above the table and stood off to the side with a confused expression of his own.
"Roland. What's going on?" Captain Lasky questioned the A.I. Roland held onto his hologram chin.
"Well? I think he just uploaded a new friend."
"What."
"Hello." A voice erupted as a flat hologram that looked like a fancy circle appeared next to Roland. It looked around the room and flickered a couple of time. "I have integrated into this system. Quite easily as well. This is a space vessel correct? Quite a large one as well. Running off a 75 Terawatt system per year is quite impressive. Still less than my system on Mars which took 2.4 terawatts to run at most given points in time."
"Uh… who are you?" Captain Lasky asked.
"I am the Vega 3.0 system. Vega is what Director Hayden and most referred to me as." The circle flickered with each word. It turned to the man who was crossing his arms. "Thank you for keeping me alive." The man nodded.
"So… we are dealing with a demonic threat. How do we deal with it?" Roland asked. Vega looked Roland up and down for a moment. It flickered and the disk began to morph till it changed into a person that looked like a simple man in a button up shirt with a vest over it.
"Now this is interesting." Vega said looking at his body. "Not a too complicated code. Now on the demonic threat. How long ago has it occurred?"
"Not certain. We just encountered it." Captain Lasky answered. "It seems to be aiding one of our enemies."
"With the recorded instants that I have been involved with. The portal to hell would open and demons would come out until said portal was destroyed or closed." Vega answered.
"How do we close this portal when and if we find it?" Dr. Halsey questioned.
"Destroy its anchor from both sides. Something or someone must open it from this side for the demonic presence to come through." Vega answered. "Any more information?"
"Not currently no." Captain Lasky asked. "How about combatively? How do we beat them?"
"Doom Marine?" Vega asked. The man put two fingers to the side of his head and quickly jerked them away. "He is quite efficient when it comes to killing them."
"Speaking about him. Who is he?" Dr. Halsey demanded.
"The DoomSlayer." Vega answered. "From a mixture of records and cryptic writings. He once was a warrior of another dimension that merged with hell. He was the last man to stand against their forces before finally being captured and sealed away before Samuel Hayden discovered him and brought him back to the facility on Mars. All the records we found agreed upon one thing though. That they fear him above all else."
"What about the ultimate Marine project?" Dr. Halsey asked.
"We modeled it after him. Using different forms of science and practices to create a person as powerful as him." Vegan answered.
"And?"
"He killed it."
"Wait… so he scares hell?" A marine said pointing at him. "And they call him DoomSlayer? The motherfucking doom guy? You've got to be joking. That is the dumbest name I have heard."
The man, now called Doomslayer, looked at him with a lowered gaze as if to say. The man looked away and whistled. The man returned to looking forward
"Whether or not that is accurate." Lasky said stepping up. He gestured towards the man. "If we found this portal, would you be able to close it?" The man nodded. "Then that is our main objective. We have one week to repair the warp drive. In the mean time we shall find and destroy this hell portal. But we need to do it as quickly as possible. If we stay too long, then Cortana will definitely locate us. All clear?"
"Yes sir." Master Chief said straitening up a bit. The man's expression did not change.
"Dismissed." Captain Lasky told them.
The DoomSlayer pulled Vega out of the computer and onto his side. Master Chief followed the man as he went back to the place where he had removed his armor and watched as the man put the armor back on. The man looked up at John's visor before sliding his helmet on. He reached into his warp pack and pulled out a double barrel shotgun and walking down the hallway.
"So?" Linda's voice shot into John's head through his helmet. "Who is he?"
"A man called the Doomslayer. He's not human." John told her.
"And when you say that you mean it don't you?" Linda sighed. "So about these demons, anything on them?"
"The man told us that they can be killed. Which is good to know." John replied.
"How about stopping it all together."
"We have to go to hell."
"We've been through it before. Isn't that right Demon?" She half mocked.
"We'll go through a lot more." Master Chief replied. "But that man, from the looks of it, he's done a lot more than just been through hell."
"What does that mean?"
"We'll just have to figure that out."