Chapter XIII

As Phase Three of Operation: Red Rage came to an end, Doc and Lopez made a startling discovery about the technology housed in the mysterious Red and Blue Flags and the Master Chief made a discovery of his own . . .

"You . . . I killed you! I watched you die! How are you-"

"Still alive? I guess your indestructible skull is thicker than the metaphor implies."

Oh, har-dee-har-har.

"The brain inside that thick skull is what killed you the first time."

"Clueless . . . completely clueless. Let me ask you something; is it possible that I'm not 'still' alive? That maybe I just am alive?"

Which makes no sense at all.

"That would mean that you would've had to have not died in the first place, which you clearly did. I watched your bio-signs as they flat-lined."

"You're right. The bio-signs did flat-line. The woman you mercilessly annihilated in the Blue Base did die."

If there's one thing I hate more than losing, its riddles.

"Are you saying that you aren't Tex then?

"Oh, I'm as Tex as Tex will ever be. And I'll prove it to you, right here, right now."

First she's a brand new person, and now she's back from the dead. Women.

"I beat you once, and I can do it again."

"I learned from the mistakes of the one you killed before, Master Chief. I won't be so easily defeated."

And now she's talking in riddles again. Where's Batman when you need him?

"Even if you do kill me, you're not getting out of here. There are about thirty Reds up there, and you defiled their holy place. They'll tear you limb from limb."

"I'll take my chances."

Tex stared at the Master Chief. Master Chief stared back. Then, for the second time in his life, jade clashed with black, and the Chief was locked in a ferocious battle that raged through the lower chambers of the Red Fortress.

The Red Prophet hastily followed Doc and Donut to the security room. They arrived to see a group of Zealots and the rest of Red Squad crowded around a security monitoring system. When the Prophet entered, they stepped back to allow him to view what was happening. One of the monitors was displaying an intense battle between the Master Chief and Tex.

"This is being recorded from the laboratory?" the Prophet asked.

"Yes sir," answered one of the Security personnel. "He activated the Override Code to the lower chambers, so we can't send any troops to assist him. Only the victor of this battle will be able to open the door."

"Then we must pray that the Master Chief wins,"

At that moment, a chair thrown by Tex was deflected by the Chief's quick arm right into the camera.

"and ask the Flag for strength in our hour of need . . ."

All of the Reds in the base were silent. Below, however, things were quite noisy.

The Master Chief blocked several quick strikes from Tex with his forearms. Tex then put her full weight into a punch that the Chief only sidestepped at the last millisecond. The momentum of the missed strike carried her forward. She was about to use the momentum to her advantage when the Chief used it to his. The Chief held his hand out straight and brought it down on Tex's neck like a guillotine. At the same time, his left leg swiped both of Tex's out from under her. She fell flat on her face. The Chief, not being as foolish as to put only one foot on his query again, straddled her back. He grabbed her helmet and yanked it backwards.

"You know," Tex said while struggling to resist the Chief's iron grip, "under different, more romantic, circumstances, I might have let you do this."

Ignoring the snide comment, the Chief revealed his combat knife and brought it to Tex's throat.

"Oh, now we're using weapons?" Tex said. There was an element of amusement in her tone. "Kinky."

"I'm not playing games. I remember putting you down last time, and I plan to do it again."

"Oh, really? Remember this?"

Tex, who was surprisingly flexible, arched her back and bent her knees so that her feet clamped onto the Chief's head.

"Son of a biscut."

She swung them back with unexpected force and sent the Chief flailing over several tables, shattering beakers and test tubes and other various lab equipment pieces. He quickly righted himself and stood to face Tex, only to find that she was already on him. She picked him up by his shoulders and threw him into a wall and revealed a concealed blade. She pinned the Chief to the wall with one arm and repetitively stabbed him in the stomach with the other. The Master Chief could feel each individual stab and the pain tore through his body like an explosion as his midsection was being torn to pieces. The Chief grabbed Tex's helmet and crashed their heads together. He was temporarily stunned, but it beat being made into sushi. Pushing the pain aside, the Chief dodged a series of quick blows that left cracks in the rock. The Chief reciprocated by delivering his own quick punches, all of which Tex dodged. The Chief's punches, however, left holes in the rock. Tex had backed up a considerable length from the Chief and began to sprint at him. She leapt into the air, ready to drop-kick him.

Again? I thought she would have learned the first time . . .

Suddenly, the Chief realized that Tex probably did learn from her first encounter that such a maneuver would result in her own demise. The Chief moved into position, ready to grab the leg that extended towards him. At the last moment, Tex switched legs and the Chief switched positions, predicting the move. He caught the limb, but rather than slam her into a wall, he used the force from her failed attack to spin around in circles. Theexertion blurred Tex's vision and she thought she would black out. She would have, if the Chief had not become extremely dizzy. He let go of his foe, launching her across the room like a human hammer toss. Her weakened form crashed into a wall, shattered the rock, bounced off the wall and fell to the floor in a crumpled heap. Tex quickly regained her sight and was able to stand, if not well, and see that the Chief was still suffering from his ordeal. He was on his knees with one hand extended out at his side and the other one clutching his diced-up stomach. Tex walked over to his helpless form, regaining her composure with each step.

"How ironic," Tex laughed, "The Red's greatest warrior, beaten because of something as childish as spinning around in circles.

Tex pulled out her combat knife again. It was the same one her predecessor had tried to slay the Master Chief with which ended up lodged in the back of the woman's neck. Tex would not fail as the previous assailant did. Tex gripped the handle with both hands and brought it up above her head. The Chief appeared to still be in a daze and had managed to get one knee up. Both his hands were out at his sides. Suddenly, his arms snapped up and the Chief used his leg that was planted to the ground to spring back. His elbows bent and the Chief stood on his hands for a split second, the pain in his midsection nearly blinding him and then shot upwards at Tex's head. One of his legs was outstretched and knocked the blade from her hands. The other foot was coiled up like a lethal spring. It shot out and connected with Tex's jaw. The impact was so powerful that the seals on her helmet broke and the helmet itself flew off Tex's head. The helmet bounced off the ceiling and clattered to the ground. The Chief landed behind her and was about to strike the finishing blow when he saw Tex's almost disarmingly beautiful face. He entered what his friend once dubbed 'Spartan-Time' and everything seemed to slow down. Long, black, wavy hair was falling into Tex's face after being released from the helmet. Her sky blue eyes were unfocused, as she was still recovering from the blow. A single tear slowly made its way down her cheek and the Chief felt a pang of guilt for have caused her pain. Her nose was bleeding, but the Chief could see no problem with it otherwise. His eyes drifted to her lips and he noticed how enticing they were. Then he mentally smacked himself in the face and visibly flinched from the 'impact'. The soldier part of his psyche was screaming at him for being so incompetent. His inability to act had given Tex an opportunity to strike, possibly even kill, him. The Chief thought about CPO Mendez from when he was a trainee. He could envision his former instructor chewing him out for such a reaction. Of course, the Spartans were never trained on how to react when dealing with extremely attractive hostiles. These thoughts ran through the Chief's head in less than a second. Time returned to normal as Tex staggered from the kick. The Chief decided that, gorgeous or not, Tex had to be eliminated.

He pushed any thoughts about Tex that weren't synonymous with 'enemy' to the back of his mind. The ruthless soldier resurfaced and he moved in for the kill. Tex looked at the Chief and raised a hand to her face only to find her helmet was gone. She looked from the Chief to where her helmet lay on the other side of the room. One punch to her unarmored head would be all it took to kill her, and she knew it. She also knew that the Chief was faster than she was, and could kill her if she decided to make for her helmet. Tex decided on the latter. She turned and sprinted to the helmet. The faster she ran, the farther away it appeared. The Chief grabbed hisknife. He took a step forward and threw it. The blade flew towards the back of Tex's neck. It was meant to pierce her spine, killing her instantly, but by some horrible twist of fate, Tex, who had reached her helmet, heard the sound and turned to see what was making it. The blade easily penetrated the soft skin around the front of her neck. The blade stabbed through Tex's jugular vein and blood squirted out from the wound. The blade sunk deeper, blocking her windpipe and finally stopped, mere centimeters from her vertebrae, denying her a quick and painless death. Tex's eyes opened wide and she clutched her throat, struggling to breathe. She attempted to pull the blade out of her neck, but the serrated edges on the Chief's knife only dug deeper to the inside of her throat. Slowly, her attempts at removing the blade from her neck weakened and her eyes rolled into the back of her head. Her arms fell limp at her sides and her head hit the concrete floor. Blood dripped from her open mouth which was frozen in pain and terror like the rest of her face.

The Chief walked over to the body and, remembering the apparent rise from the dead, knelt down and violently yanked the blade free from its human sheath. More blood splattered the floor, as well as the Chief's armor. He put the blade back in its leather sheath on his waist. He then checked her bio-signs, which were flat. Just to make sure, he removed one of his gauntlets and checked for a pulse. Satisfied that there was none, the Chief closed her eyes, stood and left the laboratory. He stopped outside the door to assess Lopez, who was not as badly damaged as he appeared. After a quick examination and a few wire reconnections, Lopez was back online.

"Lopez, I need you to go into the lab and hide any data about the Flag that you can find. The Reds will be coming down here to clean, and we can't let them find the information. Once you're done, I need you to damage yourself again so the Red Zealots don't become suspicious. If you can't hide the data safely, destroy it, understand?"

"Affirmative. I will begin immediately."

Lopez rushed into the room. The Chief realized that the Zealots would waste no time getting to the lab to begin cleanup. The Chief had to buy Lopez some time, and since Lopez's radio was damaged by Tex, he couldn't ask how far along he was. The Chief saw that there were security cameras that had activated to keep track of the intruder. The Chief had deflected the one chair into the camera in the lab camera on purpose so the Red Prophet wouldn't be able to monitor their actions later. The Chief knew there was another camera just around the corner, and another one at the entrance. Simply walking up there and waiting several minutes wouldn't work, as the Zealots would grow wary. The Chief decided that the only thing to do was to concentrate on his wounds. He had learned to push pain out of his mind; a trick that had saved his life countless times. Now he had to focus on it. The rush knocked the wind out of the Chief as he fully realized how bad the extents of his injuries were. The more he concentrated on the pain, the worse it hurt him. He clutched his stomach and rounded the corner . . .

"Look!" cried Donut. Most of the Reds in the security room had fallen asleep. Donut's cry woke them up instantly. Some fell out of their chairs. Donut pointed to one of the screens that showed Master Chief come out from behind a corner. All of the Reds cheered at the Master Chief's success until one of the Red Zealots shouted.

"He's wounded!"

Sure enough, the Chief looked as if he was struggling to stand. One hand clutched his stomach while the other was against the wall to sturdy himself. He fell several times, smearing blood on the floor.

"Get a medical staff down there immediately," commanded the Red Prophet. "When he opens that door, take him to the medical wing."

Doc accompanied the medical staff down to the door that the Master Chief was behind. The rest of the Reds watched as the Chief finally made his way to the panel and reached out with his wavering hand to open the door.

Master Chief collapsed on the stairs right underneath the panel. He reached up with his hand, then dropped it, feigning weakness.

Lopez, I sure hope you're done in there.

The Chief was now starting to feel the pain a lot worse now. His vision clouded and he reached up with the last of his strength trying to reach the panel. His finger barely tapped the button to open the door. As soon as it did, the door slid open and the Chief blacked out.

"Guys, I hate to interrupt, but zero seconds."

A dial tone sounded from Church's robotic stomach and everyone turned towards him.

"What? Oh, son of a-"

His complaint was cut short by the explosion from the ten megaton bomb in his mechanical stomach. It was amplified from the lightning from Lopez's weather machine and tore a hole in the space-time continuum. Everyone survived except the present. The bomb's explosion warped time to such an extent that the era that the Reds and Blues were in was torn apart. That was the story Simmons had told him, but the Chief had often wondered at what point in time they had started in. Why had the UNSC never reported the existence of other humans that were fighting a civil war? What point in time was he at anyway? And if these people and this war had never been reported, was it possible that they had been wiped out before the UNSC could find them? It seemed logical . . . it had happened to the Forerunners.

The Chief sat up quickly, but winced as he remembered the knife wounds. He felt medical wrap around his abdomen and was thankful for the stuff immediately. He then realized that he lying on an examination table in a medical wing.He wasalso wearing loose-fitting clothes. The shirt was red with short sleeves. The pants were also red and were made of similar material like that of civilian boxer shorts. The Chief felt uncomfortable in the clothes, as he was used to wearing his armor. He looked to his left and saw Simmons, who was sleeping at a table and Lopez, who was facing away from both of them.

"Lopez," whispered the Chief.

If his guess was correct, Simmons had many late nights worrying about the Chief's condition and was probably catching up on some much needed rest. Lopez heard the Chief and walked over to him.

"How are you feeling?" Lopez asked. His tone was as monotonous as ever, but it was hushed a few decibels, as to not wake Simmons.

"Better, thanks. I think I need some rest, but I'll be ready to go in a few days. Were you successful?"

"Yes. I stored the data inside my body. Luckily, the Zealots were too busy fussing over their laboratory to take any notice of me. Lock-jaw carried my body to the guest chambers where Simmons reactivated me. I then gave everything to Doc, who put it in a safe place."

"Excellent work, Lopez, excellent," the Chief yawned, "work." The fight had taken a lot out of him.The Chief fell back against his pillow and drifted off to sleep where dreams- and nightmares- awaited him.

To Be Continued