So did anybody catch the Young Justice reference I made in the last chapter?
Episode 6
For a long moment, nobody moved, not Philips, not Michael and not the Elite. Then there was a hot boiling sound and Michael was split open between his head and right shoulder. This gave Philips enough time to reach for his battle rifle, and as the Elite tossed Michael aside, Philips fired several bursts at the alien soldier.
It's energy shields took the brunt of the damage and the Elite took cover and cloaked, disappearing into the darkness of the ruins. "Don't think you can hide, you alien bastard." Philips whispered as he triggered his VISR mode. Looking around, Philips managed to see the Elite's massive outline just as it came up behind him and grabbed him by the neck.
Knocking the battle rifle aside with its one free hand, the Elite then decloaked, red glowing eyes emitting from its helmet looking into the ODST's faceplate. As Philips waited for it to do to him what it had done to Michael, the alien started speaking to him in English.
"I mean you no harm."
"Bullshit," Philips said, "Your species has done nothing but routinely slaughter humanity for the better part of two decades. Why the hell would I believe you?"
In response, the Elite lowered the ODST back to the ground. As soon as the Elite released him, Philips dove to the side, scooped up his battle rifle and aimed it straight at the alien, who made no attempt to defend itself, or even move out of the way.
"If I had wanted you dead human, we would not be having this conversation." The Elite said, in a surprisingly eloquent voice. The slow delivery of his words cut through the adrenaline and into the rational part of his mind as Philips realized the truth of those words.
This Elite had probably been watching him the moment he had arrived at the ruins. The memory of a shimmering image on the roof of the temple stood out in Philips' mind as he realized that the Elite had been following him. It had saved him from the possessed corpse of Michael and it could have easily snapped his neck like a twig a moment ago.
Lowering his weapon, Philips asked the alien, "You want to be allies with me?" The Elite nodded. "Why?" He asked, still not trusting this Split-Faced bastard. "Because as your people say, human, we have bigger fish to deal with." A hint of what might have been fear seeped into the Elite's voice, as the ODST realized that it must have had similar encounters to what he had to deal with.
"What have you seen?" Philips asked, but before the Elite could respond, a low rumbling noise echoed through the temple. "They will be coming soon." The Elite said, a small trace of fear being the only hint that something was worrying him, "To the Phantom." He said as he exited the temple, Philips following close behind. A howling sound started erupting through the air as the Elite froze and looked around.
"Make haste, human! They will soon be upon us." The Elite started sprinting towards the crash site, as Philips struggled to keep up. As they reached the crash site, Philips saw what the Elite was so afraid of.
Shadow beings, similar to what Philips had encountered at the power plant, only these were more substantial, more detailed and much faster than the ones he had encountered. Philips realized the two of them would be unable to hide from the swarm of shadows for very long. Looking at the Elite, the ODST could tell that he was thinking the same thing.
"We need to get out of here." Philips said, pointing to the Warthog. The ODST leapt into the driver's seat while the Elite clambered up to the gunner position.
"You know how to work that thing?" Philips shouted over the howling.
"Just drive, human!" The Elite shouted as he pulled the triggers. A hailstorm of bullets erupted from the M41 LAAG, impacting several shadows. As Philips drove away, he was relieved to see that these creatures were killable at least, though fear flooded through him when he realized that these things could now appear outside of his flashes.
Philips made a break for the open desert, but found his path blocked off by more of those creatures, forcing him to go through the ruins. Shadows appeared on the rooftops and leapt towards the Hog, only to be cut down by heavy fire from the Warthog's chaingun.
"Get us out of here!" The Elite yelled over the roar of LAAG. Philips managed to find a path back onto the sands, but just before he passed the last ruined buildings, one of the shadows leapt off the roof and landed on the windshield. Philips paused for a second as he saw something different about this creature:
For a brief moment, the shadow disappeared and Philips could see that it looked like a human, only in a disgusting blue color and with weird glowing cybernetics all over its body. The creature smashed a hand through the windshield and tried to grab the ODST, Philips responded by pulling out his sidearm and fired 3 rounds at the abomination.
The creature died and it's corpse slid off the speeding Warthog, which had now entered the open desert and left those shadows far behind it. After driving for another hour, Philips brought the Hog to a screeching halt.
"Why are we stopping?" The Elite asked, still searching behind them with the chaingun.
"Well, I don't know about you, but I have absolutely no idea on where we are." Philips said in exasperation.
"We should keep moving," The Elite said, "And go where?" Philips responded angrily, dismounting the Warthog as the Elite did the same. The sun was slowly setting in the backdrop.
"It'll be nightfall soon enough," Philips said, pulling out his battle rifle, "And I'm not sure I feel comfortable sleeping in the same vicinity as a Split-Head." The ODST finished his statement as he aimed his battle rifle at the hulking figure behind him.
"Don't be a fool, human." The Elite said with a threatening undertone. "I could easily kill you right now, but we need to work together."
"Now, you see, that's actually what's bothering me." Philips was almost yelling now, "Why the hell would you be willing to work with a human?"
"Because the Covenant have betrayed us!" The Elite suddenly shouted, as Philips jumped in surprise. Calming down, the Elite lowered his voice again before speaking; "Before my lance and I were transported here, we intercepted a transmission from the Arbiter that proclaimed the Great Journey to be a fabrication."
Philips lowered his rifle slightly and looked at the Elite with curiosity as he continued speaking, "The Prophets also ordered the genocide of my race, just like they ordered yours. We are now of the same kind, human." The Elite finished his speech.
"And to top it all off, we're on an uncharted world filled with unknown hostiles." Philips responded, lowering his weapon as he did so. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." He finished with a whisper. Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Then the Elite broke the silence.
"We will make camp for the night, but we must leave by morning." He said, and the events of the last day finally caught up with the ODST as Philips realized how tired he was from all of that running. Joining the Elite in setting up some shelter near a rocky outcropping, Philips went to take a nap, making sure his sidearm was with him as he did so.
He woke up several hours later in the early morning, while it was still mostly dark in the desert. Philips looked around and found that his unusual comrade was keeping watch in the vast empty desert, occasionally pausing to gaze up at the stars and the natural ring orbiting the planet.
The ODST had to admit, the view was spectacular, as he followed the Elite's gaze into the sky. Coming up beside the alien, Philips cleared his throat to announce his presence to the Elite.
"Have you been up all night?" Philips asked. "I chose to keep watch in case we were ambushed." The Elite responded with a heavy tone. "Well, we have a few more hours until we need to get moving. I can stand watch while you get some sleep."
The Elite let off its version of a yawn as it looked over their campsite. "Very well, I'll rest for a few hours, but we must leave afterwards."
"We'll deal with that when we come to it." Philips said, "Get some sleep,-" The ODST stopped when he realized he had no idea what to call his new ally. The Elite caught the hint fairly quickly and offered his name.
"Mtan." He said. "Philips." The ODST replied, offering his own name. "You just get some sleep, Mtan."
As the Elite retired for the night, Philips took his job and kept scanning the dunes for any sign of life. He was the only lifeform in the area... well, him and Mtan. The ODST's gaze drifted towards the sleeping Elite, wondering how his life had come to this: working alongside one of the killers of humanity.
Though it's not like he had much of a choice.
Whatever was going on on this planet was clearly too big to handle alone. It was obvious that the Elite- no, Mtan had dealt with something worse than the ODST had, if he was really willing to work with a human.
Philips had no idea what the terms, Arbiter, Prophets and Great Journey meant to the religious alien, but he couldn't believe that a simple transmission or crisis of faith would easily undo 27 years of hatred in the honor-obsessed warrior.
He might be able to kill Mtan in his sleep, though he doubted the Spec Ops would be taken that easily. And as much as working with an Elite was making him uneasy, Philips was relieved to know he wasn't going insane, and that he actually had something of an ally now.
Wondering if Mtan had also seen any of these flashes, another one happened not two seconds after he started thinking about it. Through an orange filter, Philips could see a convoy of trucks less than a mile away, but he had no idea where they were going. Suddenly, one of the trucks exploded in a ball of fire.
A tank had appeared over a dune on a perpendicular path to the convoy and was now unleashing hell on them. The explosion of another truck blasted debris towards the ODST's position, who dove out of the way to avoid it.
As Philips recovered, he realized that a portable radio had landed near him, and even more miraculously, it was still working as a stream of panicked orders and screaming emerged from the speaker.
"God damn it, she's found us!"
"What do we do? What do we-" *another explosion followed by static*
"Everyone, retreat to the city, NOW!"
The trucks made a beeline through the desert as explosive shells followed them. When the tank's targets finally got out of range, the armored cannon turned its attention towards the few survivors of its rampage, most of whom were lying on the desert floor, bleeding, or stumbling as they tried to run away.
The tank's main cannon fired on the few wounded survivors, reducing them all to bloody chunks of flesh. The flash ended at that moment, and Philips found that his vision's return seemed to coincide with the sunrise. Shaking his head to clear the nausea of what he witnessed, the ODST saw something glinting in the sun, and he quickly ran over to retrieve it.
Finding a small flat computer screen resembling a TacPad, Philips tried accessing the contents, but all he found was a map of the region. Frustrated by the lack of information, Philips almost hurled the pad away in anger, when he realized that there was a city nearby this location.
"What did you find?" Philips jumped when Mtan's voice came up behind him, and he turned to look at his ally.
"A data pad. It doesn't have much to go on, but it does have GPS coordinates to a nearby city." Philips said. Mtan nodded in understanding.
"Then that is where we'll go."
As the Warthog departed, a figure stood on the rocky outcropping, watching the newfound allies as they made their way towards the city. As the Warthog disappeared over the dunes, the figure allowed herself a small grin.
Things were going as planned.
There had been some unpredictable and unintended variables: The Covenant Phantom had been drawn in unintentionally, and the ODST's brief cross-dimensional displacement had been an unexpected and rather unwelcome turn of events.
However, the plan was now back on track and soon she would be free. The figure vanished, leaving behind an empty, desolate wasteland once again.
I'll be honest, I probably made Philips and Mtan become friends a little too quickly, but I wanted to move the plot forward, and dwelling on the distrust between the two would probably get a little tedious.
I hope everyone enjoyed the chapter, and as always reviews are welcome.