A/N: I have decided to introduce... The Arbiter, and Miranda Keyes, and Sergeant Johnson in this chapter. I hope you all like it. Oh yeah, please don't flame me for using Soulgard's Mirratord, as he gave me permission to use them for my story. So expect to see them. Oh yeah, I just read that the either the Arbiter or the Spec Ops Elite's name is Rtas 'Vadumee from on 5/17/2006! What, only two reviews? Oh well, here we go.
Chapter 3: Capture of the Rising Ascension Pt2
After a period of about 5 minutes, the other Pelicans arrived, and fresh troops, ammo, and other supplies arrived. Other wounded ODST's were also evacuated to the Cairo. After everyone loaded up on supplies, like ammo and guns if they wanted to switch weapons. So with the Master Chief and about 50 ODST's, they set off to attack the Brute positions. Master Chief was leading, with his new MA8B, and his trusty MA5B, and 8 frags.
Walking for about 2 minutes and passing through 2 corridors, they finally encountered a fortified position, consisting of a plasma turret, and 6 Brutes, along with 8 Jackals. The Chief primed, and threw a grenade over the shields that the Jackals use, and killed 4 of them. Then he fired a couple bursts from his AR, and downed a Brute. The Hell Jumpers started firing and throwing Grenades and killed the rest of the Jackals, and killed 4 other Brutes. Master Chief then switched to his MA8B and fired precision shots, and killed the other Brutes, except the one on the Plasma Turret, that of which, had killed about 7 soldiers already.
Then, faced with overwhelming odds, and seeing his comrades die so mercilessly, got off the turret, and went berserk. He crushed 4 other ODST's before being slaughtered by all of the incoming fire. They continued on after taking the names of who died.
"Come, Humans, we must reach the Pride and Justice before anymore attacks come from the Jiralhanea" the Arbiter said "with Varu 'Hiraldee assaulting the Void Knight, I do not know is he has succeeded, but he has proved a match for even the De-" he refrained from saying Demon in the presence of the Humans, "-you're Master Chief."
"Impressive, but still, I don't think that many would be able to capture an entire ship filled with Brutes" said Miranda Keyes. "Yes, well there is a bunch of Spec. Ops. on board with their camouflage on, he probably met up with them by now, and took over most, if not all, of the Pride and Justice" said the Arbiter. "If you don't mind, could we just hurry the hell up to that ship, and meet up with this Hiraldee character?" Johnson said. The Arbiter huffed in irritation at the Human's impatience, and nodded in agreement.
Varu 'Hiraldee, nicknamed 'Half-Jaw' throughout the Covenant, is viewed as a Spec Ops Commander throughout it. But is known by few, to be the famed Mirratord Second within the Sangheili High Council. He was having fun, by ripping out the guts of the cursed Jiralhanea, and decapitating them just as well. As he had just slain 2 more with his 2 single blades, he found out that 3 more Mirratord were on this ship as well, they were killing any of the scum who took over their ship, but were not trying to re-take the ship.
He pondered the reason to this, as it would only take a team of two, working together, to take over a cruiser this big. "Perhaps they do not know that the others are still alive?" 'Hiraldee thought about this for a moment while slicing down some more Jiralhanea.
He contacted them over his shortwave communicator "Brothers, why are you hiding in those rooms and not trying to cleanse this ship of these scum?" he asked.
The response he got was "Because, Second, we are only trainees, we do not have the capability of one that is on active duty"
"Ah, I see, but I will need you're help if we are to take back this ship, meet me in the engine room, and tell the rest of the trainees on this ship to do likewise"
"Yes, Excellency, you're order shall be completed"
"Good, now hurry, the Arbiter has agreed to meet me in here after he has slain Tartarus."
During this conversation with his others, he paused to take a rest from his killing spree. He now hurried to Engineering, but he also enjoyed killing as much of the Jiralhanea as much as he possibly could.
The Master Chief luckily knew some hacking skills and was able to get the schematics for the ship. He noticed that the brig on this ship was one deck below them. He turned to his troops and said
"I pulled up the schematics for this ship, and I found out that the holding cells are only one deck below us, and that there is a gravity lift one hallway away from this position. Now they might have some of our marines in there, so we are going to check it out." Captain Wellow said to his ODST's "10 of you stand guard here and make sure that no one gets past, and get a turret or 2 up here, the rest of you follow the Master Chief."
They all nodded in agreement, and went about they're duties. Master Chief then mowed down another defending Brute squad with the help of the Shock Troopers, and continued to the Grav lift. They went down it and towards the brig, but found it lightly guarded. When he entered, he was astonished, for what he saw was not beaten Marines, but imprisoned Elites, Grunts, and even a pair of Hunters.
He told the Hell Jumpers to guard outside so he could find out what had happened to them, and they reluctantly agreed. He then looked for an Elite with gold or white armor, as they are usually the highest ranking ones in a ship. He found a gold armored one, and he spoke to the Elite.
"Why are you and the Grunts and Hunters locked up in jail cells, while the Drones, Brutes, and Jackals continue to be free with the Prophets?"
Then it was the Elite's turn to speak "because we have found the truth about the Halos, and we have told all of our crew, before the others and the Prophet of Truth had loaded onto the ship. The Prophet has imprisoned my brothers, and our allies, and it seems that, from what I can tell, the Prophets are denouncing us Sangheili, Unggoy, and Lekgolo are no longer worthy of the Covenant, and have considered us as enemies to The Great Journey. We will help you if you want us, but we will not expect you to try and save one of us if we are about to die, and the same to you're kind."
"That would explain why I saw all of the Elites, Grunts, and Hunters, fighting the Brutes, Drones, and Jackals on High Charity. But why has this happened?" he wondered. So he asked the Elite "why has this happened? What has caused the Prophets to hate you're kind?"
"We do not know, all we know, is that the Prophets have cast down the Sangheili, in favor of the Jiralhanea" the gold Elite said. "Perhaps The Arbiter has the answer, but now, we want to fight against the Prophets and Jiralhanea, who have shattered our honor, and to pay our debt to you Humans, whom we have mercilessly slaughtered."
The Chief said "I have told the other soldiers here, and they have agreed to help you, but if you have any 'friendly fire', we will kill you and you're followers. But all you have to do is survive long enough so you can meet up with our Admiral, and set up an alliance, at least temporarily." The Elite nodded in agreement, and Chief pressed a button on the pedestal in the center of the room.
Everyone who could, got out, and looked at their superior, unsure of what to do. The Elite apparently told them to not attack the Humans, and there was a temporary alliance, because some of the Elites had disdainful and disgusted looks upon their faces. The Chief smirked inside his helmet, and knew that this would be difficult, and that they would have to trust each other for this alliance to last out.
By the time that 'Hiraldee had made it to engineering, he had killed over three dozen more Jiralhanea with his twin single blades. When he got there, he saw that out of the ship's compliment of 10, there were only 7 of the Mirratord Trainees here. "Where are the other 3?" he asked.
"The others were executed by the Jiralhanea because they chose poor hiding spots, but luckily, they did not reveal anything about the Mirratord." One of the Trainees said.
"That is sad, but we must be moving along to conquer the rest of this ship. I have already cleared decks 15--7, I contacted you after the 7th, and this is deck 5. We must make an assault on the control room, and take the ship. We can clear up any of the filth once The Arbiter and his allies get back." said 'Hiraldee.
"What! A new Arbiter was chosen! When?"
"Right after the destruction of the first Halo, But now instead of helping the Prophets, he is helping us on our way to victory. But that is not important right now. Come, brothers, and let us retake the rest of this ship!" They all gave a roar of approval, and turned their active cloaking on and continued through the ship, towards the control room, undetected.
They radioed for a Phantom, boarded it, and told the pilot to get to the Pride and Justice. The pilot complied, and in kind, they felt the rumble of the ship's engines on their feet. Johnson saw the Arbiter, and went over to him. "So when we get to the Pride and Justice, we should be able to find your friend named 'Hiraldee?"
The Arbiter nodded, and hoped that he had taken control of at least the landing bays, if not all of the ship. In 5 minutes, they had reached one of the landing bays, docked, and departed the drop ship they had just taken.
"Hurry! Time is of the essence and we must reach the control room. I'm sure that 'Hiraldee was able to clear most of the ship by now, but still, we must be cautious." Said the Arbiter.
The Sergeant added "well its about damn time we did something around here." The Commander was about to berate the Sergeant, but then they came across 3 Jiralhanea wondering around the halls, and each one was quickly cut down under a barrage of fire. They continued onwards to the control room.
The Chief soon found out from the former Ship Master of the Forerunner ship, knew how to get to the Prophet of Truth, without causing too much disturbance. And it was conveniently in a corridor with no camera access. But, for such a thing to succeed, he told his detachment of Hell Jumpers to go back to the base on the ship, and await for orders.
They started to object, but were quickly cut off by Captain Wellow. After they finally agreed, they headed out, leaving the Chief, and his new-found friends to deal with. The Ship Master told his troops, with the exception of the Ultras, to stay put. "C'mon. lets go kill a Prophet" Chief said.
The 4 Elites nodded, and they silently made their way to the hallway they talked about. Withstanding the fact that they met two more picket patrols, they made it there relatively fast. They cleared the deserted hallway in 2 minutes, and were standing at the door. It was locked.
The Elite spoke "This does not make sense; these doors are always opened, even if there was an AI onboard. But, you Humans are able to make exemplary A.I.s, did you Humans happen to bring one along with you?"
This time it was the Chief's turn to speak, "Yes, hold on while I contact him." The Elite told his comrades, and they nodded, ad talked to each other silently.
"Patton, why have you locked the doors that I'm at?"
The response he got was "I thought that they would start to use it as an attack route, as there are no cameras at your position."
"Well, open the doors, cut the lights, and cut power to the lights in the control room, and make it so that the light above each enemy is lit so they won't get used to the dark."
"Yes sir, commencing."
He then told the four Elites standing around him what was about to happen, and they nodded and got out their personal Energy Blades. John got out his own, quickly checked the charge, and thought he had a sufficient amount of power left in it. Suddenly, the doors opened, and the Elites and Chief charged through the room.
They found several brutes stupidly staring around, wondering what had happened to the lights. Soon, their thoughts were put to rest as the Ultras and Chief cut through them. The Chief found it a bit irritating that he could not keep up with the graceful warriors as they cut down the Brutes, one by one. Chief found Truth still waiting for the inevitable, in the center of the room. He quickly advanced to him, from behind.
Satisfied that the Prophet did not recognize his exact location in the room, he proceeded to life Truth off of his gravity chair. The Prophet became extremely startled, and began shouting.
"Patton, turn on all lights, and tell the Hell Jumpers to get here quickly, but they are not to attack any Ex-Covenant member" the Chief stated calmly.
"Yes sir" was the reply.
Then, the lights came on, and revealed the slaughtering of the Ultras. Bodies lay everywhere without their heads, some of them in half, or just torn apart completely.
"You! You dare disgrace the Forerunners by taking over this ship?" The Prophet started to yell incoherently, and started to regain his composure.
"Hold on now, we have done nothing to harm you're Covenant, but then you attacked Harvest. Without reason, and without cause. What has Humanity done to deserve this?" John asked. The Elites listened intently trying to also find out why.
The Prophet spoke "You are an affront to the Forerunners. You're kind has done nothing but strip every planet you colonize of its natural beauty with you're disgusting cities. There are to many reasons to even list! We--"
John cut off Truth, "Do not forget Mr. High and Mighty, that you have done this as well with the planets you use to build all of you're technology you'reselves. Oh wait, I forgot, you don't even know enough to come up with you're own technology do you? You copied everything you have from the forerunners. Not to mention you've hidden most of it away from the rest of the Covenant, especially the Elites. I have long since been fighting them, and I respect them at least, whilst you just sit on you're gravity chairs, and feed them religious bullshit about the Halos, Great Journey, and anything about the Forerunners."
The Elites then visibly flinched at the hearing of the Great Journey being fake, but previous knowledge has made them accept that what this Human was saying was right.
"Treachery!" The Prophet started to plead with the Elites, and Chief, before systematically recieving a left hook to his chin, that made him shut up. The Hell Jumpers arrived right after the punch, and saw the Chief along with the Elites. Talking amongst themselves, they took seats along the wall watching what was happening.
The Chief then decided to land another strength-enhanced blow to the Prophet, and felt some of his ribs break under the force.
Truth then started to gasp in pain "you will not recieve any mercy from me, or anyone else for that matter for the pain and suffering you have caused." Chief said. So he landed another punch to his face, and felt his skull crack, and finally Truth gave out a last moan of pain, and died. he opened a comm. channel to Admiral Hood "Sir, I have located and killed the Prophet of Truth. This ship, is ours." Master Chief waited for a reply.
"Acknowledged Master Chief, we are going to send in 2 more platoons, ammo, supplies, and anything else you might want? The Admiral said with an elated tone. He had not been this happy since before the war started.
"Yes sir. There appears to have been an uprising within the Covenant. The Elites, Grunts, and Hunters are appeared to have been exiled it, and the resulting forces left on this ship, has agreed to an allaince."
The Admiral was shocked, as well as the bridge crew, and waited for the Admiral. "We'll send in another Pelican for them and yourself, we shall discuss this onboard the Cairo while we send in more troops to clear out the ship of remaining unwanted guests."
"Yes sir."
A/N: Finally, Truth dies. Beware of new technologies surfacing within the next week or so of me updating my profile. I would like to thank you all who like this story, and I respect the opinions of those who don't. Please give me some suggestions, I am running out of ideas for where this story is going, although I have the ending of part one formulated in my head somewhere. This story will have at least two 'books' you could say to it. Thats it for this chapter! Until next time.