I know... it took me sooo freaking looong to get this chapter out, but I'm actually pretty happy with how it turned out and all, I mean you guys for the most part were pretty cool about it (Or didn't care but I'm thinking positive) so without further a due here is chapter 28, enjoy.
PS: I noticed in another Fic I was reading (You know who you are Ice) and I noticed people complaining about OOC Spartans... by now if you are still reading you should be ok with it, so I'm not angry or anything, I think it's just dumb how clearly FOZ (and the fic itself) is a COMEDY. It's supposed to be funny. How else would I make a funny Spartan without breaking character even a little bit? Anyways... I'm done ranting... to the story!
PPS: by comparison to the rest of the story, this will be one of the more dark chapters...
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"C'mon Guiche!" I yelled as I hung from the walls of one of the covered walkways above him, one hand semi-adhered to the wall along with my feet, my free hand held a wooden sword, a jetpack on my back. I lacked a helmet right now just to be fair and not have the advantages of enhanced motion detection, zoom and scanners in order to give Guiche a chance... albeit incredibly small...
Guiche looked up at me in frustration, he held a glowing pink foil in his hand, a flower for the handle and hilt. "That's not fair, a true Noble wouldn't run away!" he yelled. The Undine Squad was out practicing and I was trying to teach them new skills, some had handled it fairly well, mind you Malicorn was out of the picture the moment we tried to get a Jetpack on him... it was not pretty... we had to dig a very large hole for him...
In order to pull him out of the ground... ha!
Anyways Guiche was wearing a set of purple TSOG EVA marine armor, helmetless of course with a Jetpack on his back. EVA ODST, Marine and Spartan armor in general had adhesive membranes and/or magnetic weave to them which could be turned on or off, it let EVA troopers cling to the sides of space ships while doing a stealth boarding action, Spacewalk for repairs and other things in the vacuum of space. Conveniently when enough heavy pressure is applied they worked for scaling walls on medium gravity worlds fairly well... almost like Nano climbing gloves they used back in early 2000s to 2100s. (*Cough* another COD ref *cough*!)
Guiche pressed a few buttons on his tripled banded chest piece which readied his Jetpack without having to reach around for it. He backed up and ran towards me, jumping and activating his pack with a nice sprinting start.
"It's not running away its tactical! Get the jump on your enemy!" I replied, jumping off the wall activating my Spartan variation of the Jetpack which was tuned up to take the weight of my armor.
Our Swords collided mid air as we streaked past each other, Guiche hit the wall which I was just on and pushed off it back at me. He actually would have hit me, since I had no brace to change directions quickly... if that is... if I hadn't cut the power to my pack and fallen a bit just before he crossed my path.
He missed me and I started my pack back up, rising to meet him and kicking him in the chest at half force, still enough to send him flying back into the outer circular wall of the academy. I actually heard a faint crack.
"Ohh!" Guiche wailed an octave higher... which considering it was him, was an amazing feat I assure you.
However once he gained his breath back, he used the wall to push at me, he flew straight at me... I just hovered there in mid air... waiting... waiting... waiting...
He was about to hit me but he'd lost so much momentum from the distance traveled that I was easily able to grab his wrist and fling him into the center walls of the Academy tower half way across the courtyard...
"Fuck..." he whimpered... before sliding to the ground...
I sighed exasperatedly. Guiche was a fast learner despite being one so... stubborn? Dimwitted? Eh... either way... I slowly turned my Jetpack off as its charge was low and needed to recharge... I landed on the ground almost silently despite my weight and unlatched my Jetpack. The rest of the Squad had also landed after sparing with a partner of their choice... I guess I just got stuck with Guiche since he was the most experienced out of them... Guiche... most experienced... why do those to little snippets not seem to go together... I think I'd have an easier time getting an Elite to mate with a Grunt than forcing myself to hear or say Guiche was the best we had again.
Thankfully I didn't have to...
"Hey Six!" someone called and I turned around to face Carter who was across the field, he waved me over.
"Yeah what is it?" I asked.
Carter sighed "Remember? You needed to go get that shining ball from the Forerunner installation in the forest several klicks away from here."
"Oh right, it's time then?"
Carter slipped his helmet out from under his shoulder. "You fuckin' know it." he said in his usual no non-sense and chill tone.
"Hmh!" I huffed and walked over to a bench which a few girls had been standing in front of, watching the Undines practice. I waved them to part and they did so without hesitation, allowing me to grab my helmet off the bench.
I put it on before turning back to Carter. "Alright, let's do this!"
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We all sat on one of the three TSOG Falcons which were taking us from the Academy to the digsite, passing over the forest below... I was equipped with my usual M392 DMR and M6G Magnum. I had Derflinger on my back as well along with a MA5D Assault Rifle for close quarters, with my morphable Energy Sword at my side, opposite of my Magnum.
After going over my gear one last time I saw the brown scar on the horizon as we approached our destination.
The Falcon landed with a thud, letting us off before the pilot jumped out herself. She waved us to follow her and lead us into the room where we'd originally met 042-Tristain. A group of TSOG soldiers were inside, a small wooden table had been brought in and at said table stood an old recruit.
"Anies..." I said "Looks like you've climbed up fast."
Her purple ODST helmet was on the table next to her as she looked over a set of maps and intelligence data. "Yeah" she said, twisting her body so her shoulder was pointed at me, I saw the crest of a Sergeant Major. "Sergeant Major Anies de Milan of Delta Squad, TSOG Elite."
"Leader of Delta squad huh?"
"Well, the old Gunpowder and several other knight squads got folded into TSOG, the GP Squad got folded into Delta Squad along with another Knight unit." She momentarily looked back at the maps. "Which reminds me, Delta is going to be accompanying you in there along with a few UNSC marines, Commander Keys' orders."
"Keys?" I asked confused "Which one might I ask?"
"Didn't catch her first name, female, short black hair... kinda reckless..." detailed Anies.
"Miranda?" I asked baffled "Wasn't she dead?"
"Um, Six... weren't we dead not long ago?" asked Kat.
"Oh right... point taken..." I admitted "A clone then? What next an army of Sergeant Johnsons?"
"That's not a bad idea actually" said Cortana, who in my opinion talks too much...
I groaned "Anyways, have you located Tristain?"
"The orb? No." Replied Anies "We've assembled teams however to search for him... it... thing..." Anies coughed regaining her train of thought "But, we have located the facility's power core using the terminals here, thanks to some UNSC Engineers..."
I looked over at the door from which way the Prometheans had come from a few months ago... it was on lockdown, the door outlines were red.
We split into teams of six, two Spartans, two UNSC soldiers and two TSOG soldiers. I was to go with Jorge, Cpl. Jenny, Cpl. Foley who is an ODST vet from Fire team Delta, SgtM. Anies and Pvt. Felicia a TSOG soldier.
Carter gave the green light to open the door for us and the red light changed to orange, opening for us. Once we stepped through it shut and went red again to prevent any Prometheans from getting in while we were gone.
The hall was long with two side passages, the first passage was where I'd seen my first Promethean... as we approached the corner I nervously took a peek around it to check if there was anything there... all clear thankfully.
I waved everyone up, while Carter and Kat's team consisting of themselves and Pvt. Orlav UNSC, Cpl. Desmond UNSC, Pvt. Metez TSOG and Pvt. Joan TSOG went down that path. At the next turn off Jun and Emile's team consisting of them, Sgt. Montgomery UNSC, Sgt. Bradley UNSC, Cpl. William TSOG and Pvt. Francis TSOG went down the next side route to the left. That left my team with straight ahead, through the small but menacing looking forerunner door right in front of us.
We filled through with Jorge taking point with his usual massive machinegun, quickly checking the room for any sign of robot activity.
"Clear" hissed Anies
"Affirmative" I replied and did a quick look about... this seemed like an observatory station... maybe a security office... there were camera screens lined around the walls, each one with a different picture. Some were mere hallways while some were big open spaces, a few of them looked like lab settings with large blurry tubes in the back ground with weird... misshapen... things inside them... I couldn't make out what they were exactly but I figured they were some kind of alien creatures.
"Cpl. Foley" I said "You stay here, keep an eye on things and report to us if you see anything on the monitors... keep the doors locked at all times unless we are actually on the monitor, knocking on the door.
"Aye sir." He said and unpacked a few of his electronic tools to interact with the Forerunner tech properly while we headed out the door opposite of the one we had just come in.
We crept along the narrow hallways, feeling a bit claustrophobic at the moment, why they made such long and narrow halls was difficult to understand, but we eventually came to a T section, where the path split into two directions, we could go left or right... on the wall were a set of signs which none of us could read but I guessed they must have been directions.
"Ok... which way?" I wondered aloud, implying that I wanted suggestions.
"Hold on Six." Said Cortana "Get in close to the signs."
I stepped closer to the signs and the inside of my helmet flashed a bright purple. "Alright" said Cortana "Left is a kind of lab, while right is a specimen storage center... sounds more like a prison if you ask me."
"Ok... everyone pick a side, one with most votes we go to." I said. And Anies, Jenny and I pointed to the storage while Jorge and Felicia pointed to labs... "Storage it is..." I said.
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Carter's POV
"Hey" said Kat as we entered a large atrium like room with two floors. "Notice its quiet in here... I mean really quiet, we haven't heard even a single skitter... I was under the impression this place was crawling with Prometheans."
We crossed over a bridge on the second floor which looked over the rest of the room. "Yeah... I have" I replied, looking over the edge... and stopping. "Is that... blood?"
The others looked over the edge, sure enough there was a trail of light blue glowing blood which led into the corner of the room. I couldn't see what was there at this angle so I had no idea what to expect.
"Rappel belts marines." I said and the marines vaulted over the sides and rappelled down... Kat and I were able to easily just jump down with no injury.
"I don't entirely understand what I'm seeing here sir." Said Pvt. Orlav, kneeling next to the blue blood trail, which lead towards a set of closed and powered down doors.
"Well private..." smugly stated Cpl. Desmond "Its blood... Grunt blood... idiot..."
"No, I mean I was under the impression that only Prometheans were in here... yet now we see signs of Covies, but have heard not a single squeal from grunt nor jackal OR even a single skitter of a Promethean Crawler..."
I put a hand to my armored chin... "See if you can get that door open Marines." I ordered "Look for the power while I see if Kat and I can pry it open.
The Marines and TSOG soldiers went off around the room searching for some kind of a switch, or breaker which would power the doors. Meanwhile Kat and I had made our way to the door and were attempting to pry it open with our Spartan strength... to no avail however as the doors remained shut up tight.
"Marines! Found anything!?"
"No sir!" Replied Orlav
"Negitive!" Answered Desmond
"I think I might have something here..." said Metez and a buzzing sound filled the room as the orange outline on the doors came on and they slid open... however it was pitch black beyond the doors, Kat and I flicked on our helmet and gun lights, casting an eerie glow on the floor.
"Alright marines, let's get going! Check in!"
"Bravo three here"
"Bravo four sir!"
"Bravo five reporting!"
We waited... "Bravo six? Report!" we waited longer... I tried my radio "Bravo Six! Where are you? We are leaving! Report!" All I got was muffled static and hail sounds... "Damnit!"
"What?" asked Metez
"I think something got Joan... stay tight, watch your backs... let's move..."
"Yes sir."
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Sgt. Montgomery's Pov
We'd followed the second turn off and come to a crew quarters of some kind, at least it looked like a crew or workers quarters... we turned the room inside out looking for anything valuable... nothing.
With nowhere else to go we headed back to the main hall and went up the way Alpha team went... the door was locked but Jun stepped up and knocked on the door softly...
"Hello?" said a voice...
"Who is this?" asked Jun calmly.
"Cpl. Foley... hold on... ok I'll let you in..."
The doors slid open and we entered a small security room with Cpl. Foley sitting on a blocky forerunner chair of some kind, staring at the security panels which had cameras linked all over the facility.
"I just saw Carter's team drop down to the bottom floor of one of the atriums here but I lost contact with them after that... nothing but static... I'm going to try to help them as best I can however with doors and stuff most of which I can control from here... aside from some which are locked off the grid and isolated within the system..." said Foley.
"Alright, any word from Alpha squad?" asked Emile
"They told me to stay here and monitor everything on the cameras... however over half these things are down and show only snow and soot... some are just blacked out... the weird thing is judging from these lights here" he pointed to a board lined with green and red dash lights. "Only a quarter of the cameras are actually broken per say... like physically busted or offline... the rest just seem to have interference which I can't fix from here... odd..."
"Alright I take it Alpha went this way..." said Jun pointing to the door opposite the one we came in.
"Yes, but on the cameras I saw them come to a turning point and they went right... you could go the same way and cover the left wing..."
Jun nodded and ordered us to follow him.
We proceeded down the hall beyond the security room, coming to a turn off with a sign in an unreadable language... "Left it is..." said Jun who pointed us down the opposite side from which Alpha squad went.
We entered a strange lad like area... tables were lined with high tech cutting tools, mostly laser based and these orange cutting knife things... like an alien mad scientist's lab...
"Ok... so where are all the Promies at?" asked Emlie.
The room was oddly clean, like someone had just washed down the whole place as if not to leave us a clue as to what this place was really for... I had hunches, but I was sure this place was no hospital.
"Search the room, see if you can find anything... we need that glowing ball dude." Said Emile.
"Aye sir." We all replied.
As we were searching I found something that made my stomach turn in the corner of the room... apparently this room wasn't so clean after all... "I think I'm gonna be sick..." I muttered getting the Spartans attention... who came over to look at the body I'd found.
A Brute corpse all mangled and knarled with its guts hanging out of its abdomen, it was partially rotten and stunk like... well... a rotten corpse... the neck had been snapped with tremendous force so it's head was upside down with bone protruding from the bottom of the neck which was now almost at the top of it's head. It was missing an arm and the other arm had a long blade of bone sticking out much further than seemed possible...
"Yeah I'm gonna be sick..." I said as I hurled away from the Spartans
"Hmm, its got a keycard... could be useful..." said Jun.
"You kiddin'?" replied Emile "I ain't goin' nowhere near that thing!"
"Suck it up you baby, I thought you was mister tough and scary." Replied Jun mocking Emile as he bent down and ripped the card from the dead Brute's semi-intact hand.
"Let's go, Charlie team, on me." Said Jun and lead us out the opposite side of the room... as we left I covered our rears, looking back into the room as we left and swore I caught movement.
"Huh?"
Then a great roar erupted from the room and I jumped, firing a burst from my rifle accidentally. The others came running back... storming back into the room... nothing...
"What the hell was that!?" exclaimed Bradley, our ODST.
"What ever it was... it didn't sound friendly..." added Pvt. Francis.
"Hey guys..." Said Cpl. Williams, who stood over in the corner where we'd gotten the card, the sound of fear in his voice... "Where did the dead Brute go?"
"Uh-oh..." muttered Jun "I think I know what we're dealing with..."
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Scorch's POV
We entered the storage wing of the facility... it really was just a massive sci-fi prison... with laser gates in place of the typical iron bars... however most of them were turned off, only one or two remained on with nothing behind them, save for one with a large hole in the back of the cell, leading into a pitch black passageway.
"Team, report" I said
"Noble-5 Reporting"
"Alpha three here..." said Jenny
"Alpha five here..." added Anies
"Alpha six here..." came Felicia
I nodded "Ok, so that is everyone but Foley who is back at the security station... I haven't heard a word from him however, something must be interfering with our communications."
I looked down off the edge to the bottom of the storage area... and was shocked... there were hundreds of dead Covies at the bottom... mostly brutes however, there were many grunts, jackals and even a few hunters but they were... gruesomely torn up and mangled... the Brute corpses seemed mostly intact...
I looked up along the row of dead Covies below me and spotted one who moved... it was an alive Brute alright, he held a long jagged sword of some kind and breathed so heavily that we could hear him from the top floor, three stories up. Oddly however... he just paced around the fallen bodies of his comrades. He didn't seem to be the least bit fazed by this massacre!
"What the hell?" whispered Jenny "I'm pretty sure a few hundred dead covies would even send a shiver of fear or doubt down one Brute's spine? I'm not detecting anything, its almost like he's emotionless..."
"Well Brutes aren't known for being passionate..." I quirked back. "Or even all that sympathetic, friend or foe..."
I heard a blast of gunfire... human gunfire and the Brute downstairs turned right around toward, ripped a door out of its sockets almost with no effort and charged out into the hallways towards the gunfire.
"Ok that was weird..." I muttered
"You can say that again Six..." replied Jorge.
"Hold up." Said Cortana "The actions of that Brute seem familiar... accessing databanks, this may take a minute to dig up so just go on ahead, I'll let you know as soon as I have found something..." she sighed "The download from my original version is messy at best so I need to sort through all the data."
We as quietly as possible hurried down the ramp cases to the bottom floor where the Brute had been, stepping around and over as many bodies as we could to make it to the ripped open door, going the opposite way from which the Brute had gone.
As I said these hallways were not fun to be in at all. Tight quarters and narrow passageways made for a claustrophobic and nauseating squeeze, I swear if I had just jumped a bit, I'd bang by head on the ceiling or reached both my arms out sideways I could span the hallway easily. How they managed to get Hunters in here baffled me.
We soon came to a room, what looked like another cartographer of some kind... I opened up the map of the facility and found a small red blinking dot one level below us, in some kind of factory room... unfortunately there was no map legend so I had no idea what that dot meant...
Fortunately Cortana popped up and told me. "It's the Monitor for this facility. Tristain is there we need to get him!"
"Right! Lead the way Cortana..."
I put Cortana into the system and she opened a door to our left which lead to another ramp case down into the factory levels. We slunk down the ramp quietly before opening the door at the bottom to a pitch black hallway, no lights or even half-lit dim light to guide our way...
"Lights on Marines." I said causing Jorge and the Marines to flip on their gun lights while I had to use a Flare or my Night Vision on my helmet.
We started in, the lights casting ominous glows upon the forerunner metal... the orange glow from the flare I held wasn't helping the creepiness of this place...
It was then... then that we heard running... everyone flashed their lights down towards the end of the hall but the lights only reached so far. However we managed to make out a person, a human running towards us, smiling with glee, one arm behind her back the other waving at us...
"Is that Joan?!" exclaimed Anies
"One of your troops?" asked Jenny.
"Yeah, a damn good one, she must have been separated from Carter's Group..." concluded Anies "Hey Jenny, what the hell happened!?" she asked
No response, just a silent lost girl marine running at us with a crazed smile on her face...
Then Cortana whispered something to me through my helmet... I froze for a moment... before raising my Assault Rifle and plugging the incoming Marine full of lead.
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Carter's POV
"HOLY SHIT!" Wailed Metez "What the fuck are these things!?" as he shot at his feet, taking out waves upon waves of these tiny little ball like balloon creatures...
"I don't know but keep shooting!" I yelled as we ran for our lives to wherever we could find safety... we ran and ran past broken down Prometheans, slaughtered Covies and broken barriers, some doors had been ripped clean out of their sliding sockets or plowed right through... I had no idea what could do such a thing but these small tiny balloon... octopus... tentacle things... sure didn't seem that powerful... but they were many... very many...
"Orlav!" Exclaimed Desmond as one of the creatures latched onto his chest and tore it open, burrowing into him and giving a slow, painful death.
"AH! AH AHHHHHHH!" Orlav screamed as he vanished under a wave of the forms... then went silent.
I noticed Metez freezing up during the fight, well... not physically... he kept running with us but not shooting...
"Metez!" I yelled "This is no time to be taken in by the fear factor! Just keep shooting we're getting out of here! Fuck this Monitor! I just hope the others are getting out of here as well!"
"Over here!" Yelled Kat as she waved us into a side room, sallying us in and shutting the door... she then backed up and unloaded a volley of fire into the control panel. "That should stop them..."
"But just to be safe..." said Metez... as he started to move anything not bolted down to barricade the door.
"No exit..." Sighed Desmond "We're trapped..."
I chuckled humorlessly "so what now? Wait for rescue? Head out back into that sea of... things... or die of starvation or dehydration, whichever comes first..."
*BANG*
The door shook and a few of the smaller things piled in front of the door fell to the ground with a clatter.
"Or looks like we won't have to wait till we die of natural causes... it seems we woke the big daddy..." said Kat, nonchalantly as usual due to her tone.
"Fan-fucking-tastic..." I replied, looking for a possible way out... then found our salvation... I pointed up at the ceiling. "A vent!" I exclaimed. It was awfully big considering the tight corridors we had been having to deal with... maybe it was a maintenance route or something like that.
"I see, hold my on your shoulders One, I'll have it open in a minute." Said Kat, referring to me by number.
"I hoisted Kat up, who pulled out her welding torch, considering she was the techie in our team it was no surprise she had some tools on her... continently enough.
Another bang at the door and the doors started to bend open, only the barricade holding back the creatures.
"Shit!" Cursed Desmond as he pulled out a grenade, pulled the pin and forced it out the door.
*Ka-boom*
The banging stopped briefly but started up again... this time worse with more smaller bangs rather than just one big one. He started firing his Assault rifle through whatever cracks he could find, only marginally slowing the creatures progress.
"What I'd do for a flamethrower right now!" he huffed.
"Ok its open, let's move up." Said Kat as she jumped off my shoulders and up the shaft.
"Ok Metez, you're up." I said, having him jump onto my lowered hands, vaulting up into the shaft. "Desmond let's go!" and he then followed suit.
I myself was able to jump up, grabbing the sides of the vent shaft to pull myself into them... I'd made it to the top when Kat jumped back down with a slab of metal she must have cut from the side of the vents... she then placed it onto the cut area where we had come through and welded it in place to prevent them from following us.
As soon as she was done and back up with us we heard the door bust open... the inaudible mumbles, groans and slurring sounds we heard riled up at not being able to find us... thankfully these things didn't seem to be very smart as the sounds died down, so we assumed they left the room.
"Those things... what were they?" I asked, wondering if Kat would know.
"I don't know Sir... but whatever they are, I don't think we want to unleash them into Halkenginia... this place needs to go up in flames..."
"In the mean time, let's get back to the surface... I bet this shaft leads back to the security room, lets follow it until we get there, and stay quiet..."
"Aye sir."
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Scorch's POV
"W-what the fuck was that!?" wailed Anies
"Relax... Cortana filled me in on what we are up against..." I ignited my energy sword, walked over to the fallen marine... who I'd filled full of lead, her stomach torn up even worse than it had been before, and a large cavity in her chest where a bulb like creature had just been... however just as I stepped over it, it's eyes opened again and started to snarl but I just lobbed it's head off with my sword and hacked all its limbs off before running it through again.
Anies looked a bit pale and Jenny might have barfed but I then went on to explain.
"Flood... these things are Flood..."
"W-what is that?" asked Anies
"A parasitic being... you see this... thing... was no longer Joan, your soldier... it was a Combat Flood Form... the main workers and fighters of a Flood Swarm... Cortana says that the Gravemind was destroyed with the detonation of the Arc... but smaller cells which have been trapped in containment facilities may still be alive and active... as such as seen here..." I sighed, things were never easy anymore... "Now our objective is two-fold... find Tristain, and blow this place up..."
"That is your solution to everything isn't it?" asked Anies.
"Hey you can't deny its effectiveness!"
"Touché..."
I waved for them to follow me, according to Cortana we were close to Tristain... in fact he was just ahead... through the next door!
I pressed a small green button which opened up into a vast underground foundry... it was alive with sounds and light, in fact machines which to me really seemed magical were cranking out robot things... flying robot things with laser beams! They were shooting something... I looked closer and saw Tristain upon a platform trying to interact with a console of some sort while the flying robot things protected him, shooting high powered laser beams at the attacking flood.
"Chief stop!" said Cortana. I paused...
"Chief?" I asked
Then Cortana quipped... almost seemed flustered... "Sorry... just a bit of data corruption on my original's part... parts of her memory are coming to me, things I don't know if I want to remember..."
"I'm sorry?" I nervously inched... unsure on how to respond to being called Chief... as in The Master Chief... me and him... we were nothing alike... now more than ever if he was still alive... but I dropped the subject, we had a light bulb to save and a factory to blow up.
"Those things are Sentinels, not Prometheans... they will help us." Explained Cortana.
We followed a raised path over the facility floor, these Flood didn't seem very smart but Cortana assured me that individually they learned and were quite smart beings, it was just with the lack of a Gravemind they lacked the communal thought, meaning that what one flood creature learned would not be shared with the other connected Flood beings... the Flood being that learned it however would retain it until the infection form moved on to a new host... but by that point the infection form would likely have been killed...
"Tristain!" I yelled getting the Monitor's attention.
"Ah!" warbled the bubble "Reclaimer! So nice to see you, but I'm afraid your timing couldn't have been worse... as you can see, the flood specimens contained here have become... not quite so contained..."
"Yeah I can see that, which is why we are getting you out of here and blowing this place up..." I explained
"Leaving? Destroying my facility!?" Tristain paused "though my programming instructs me to maintain this facility at all costs, removing the flood presence it a higher priority on the list, so I must help you, assuming you do not already have a plan..."
"I don't know... are there any weak spots available here?" I asked
"The main power core would be an obvious first choice... but it is also where the Flood have build their nest... due to the heat and humidity of the reactors there."
"Of course..." I groaned.
"Then again there is always the simple several tons of explosives which might do the trick... or the failsafe options in the security office at the top level... which would release a highly flammable gas into the facility then spark it off in multiple places at once resulting in a highly volatile mixture for an explosion, killing every living thing within!" the way he said it so... merrily worried me.
"Ok we're going with that then... can you take us back up to the main office?"
"I believe I can warp you up using the facility's power... there we go, too-dee-loo!"
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Carter's POV
"Hello anyone can anyone hear me?" asked a warped Emile on the radio.
"Emile? What the hell are you doing?" I replied as we emerged from the vents into the security room.
"We left the facility as soon as we realized what we're up against and are looking for a way to destroy it. I left Foley and Bradley to guard the security room are they still there?"
I looked around and saw the two marines staring at the screens, Foley looked back and gave me a thumbs up.
"Yeah they're fine."
"Alright, let me know if you come up with anything, and make sure Six and Five get out of there..."
"Rodger that, One out."
Just as I hung up a golden light appeared in the room and Six, Five, Woods, Anies and Felicia stepped out, along with a floating purple orb...
"Oh! Hello. I am 042-Tristain, monitor of Forerunner R-facility 01-138 of the Hargon system, planet 92-849." It bubbled.
"Uh...huh..."
"We found Tristain and he knows a way to destroy the place..." explained Six as the orb hovered over to the place where Foley and Bradley sat... a thin blue laser shot out and zapped the console, revealing a miniscule red button which had been hidden under all the dash lights of cameras.
"Reclaimer, would you do the honors?" addressed Tristain to Six.
"Um, sure..." he replied and walked over, placing his finger on the button... "So... do we like... have to run or something after this?"
"Yes, run, run all the way out, very very fast, you will only have one minute to evacuate."
Six cringed. "Ok guys, get going, I'll hit the button once you guys get a head start... go go go!"
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Scorch's POV
I waited until the door closed leaving me alone with Tristain and two sentinels...
"When you are ready Reclaimer..." her chirped.
"Three..." I counted down "Two..." I took a breath "One..." I pressed the button, grabbed my Assault rifle and ran for all I was worth... I barreled out the security room doors and saw spagetii thin tubes leak out a brown golden gas which I guessed was the flammable concoction Tristain had mentioned... I bolted out the doors into the upper facility where the command center had been ran out the entry hallway and into the dig site before the ground started shaking, I heard screams coming from deep within the ground which all together stopped after only a few seconds... I looked back to see smoke coming from the entry halls of the facility... I panted... and panted... it was done, I'd never have to face anymore of those terrifying beasts... more dust picked up and I looked to the sky to see a TSOG Falcon land next to me with Anies on it.
"Sir, we're heading back... climb aboard." She said
I sighed, action was fun and all... back in the day it was all I did... but now that I had spent so much time out of situations like this... I wondered if I was growing soft... a few hours ago I wanted nothing but to fight something... now... I realized how much I was taking the peace, quiet and minor problems for granted...
I climbed aboard the Falcon which sped back to the academy leaving the dig site a smoldering ruin... it would be good to get back to the academy... even if I had to deal with Louise again.
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I have no excuse for why this chapter was so late... I apologize greatly for the wait, I hope it was worth it and I hope you enjoyed this darker chapter of Spartan of Zero... I'll get back out of the deep dark stuff with the next chapter when it comes out, I'll try to actually get it out within a two week period so that you aren't left with this disappointing and rather gruesome flood chapter. The next one will cheer you up I garunteed it, there will be many boob touching and peeking... also and let me know what you think about this, either sometime after the Slypirs's Ball or however you say it episode which would be about three or four chapters away IF I do the OVA! Anyways after that I was wondering if I should have the main characters take a bit of a field trip/vacation to Earth, or Reach to see what Scorch's world is like... if you would like to see that let me know, otherwise I'll save it for the dead end.
Lastley I hope you enjoyed the chapter, if you did why not add it to your faves and follow to stay in the know of updates. Also a review would be much appreiciated, they help me to understand what is good and not so good with the story. Let me know what you liked, or didn't like but do so in a constructive criticism form, as in tell me what exactly is wrong with it and how I can fix it, rather than going "EEHH! This part sux and all! I hate you, you have a small penis and you-" yeah you get the idea... I don't like that...
Also please don't talk about my penis 0.0 seriously... just don't...
Heh... ok as usual... WTYL Fanbros...
-Rogue.