Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 13: The Flood

Lieutenant Melissa McKay slowly opened her eyes, fighting off the feeling of nausea as she listened to the familiar purr of a warthog's engines. Half-aware of her surroundings, half asleep the ODST glanced wearily at the driver of the vehicle, her blood running cold when she spotted the armored form of Darth Revan. Fully awake now, McKay felt for a weapon, finding nothing while Revan sighed, the sound audible even over the roar of the warthog's engine.
"You are unarmed and I might add it would be suicidal to shoot me while I am driving this... primitive thing. I'm going to return you to your people and then I am going to have a nice long talk with Captain Keyes... I feel a sudden desire to murder large, large amounts of Covenant and I honestly don't care how that gets done. I'm sure your people can see reason and perhaps stop shooting my people on sight?"

Revan's masked features turned to stare at the UNSC and McKay frowned. Was he offering yet another alliance? Maybe the Covenant's persistence at wiping out all humanity was starting to piss him off too.

"I can't say and I wouldn't trust your intentions either way."

Revan nodded calmly, pulling the looted UNSC weapons from where they rested at handed them to the ODST. McKay took the weapons warily while Revan followed the Sith occupied warthog in front of him.

"At least you're honest. Lets just say if your people play along nicely I won't glass your homeworld. Oh, and I can pull that information from your minds if I so choose. Am I clear?"

Revan's voice had been conversational, pleasant even but the threat was clear. Work with me or I give the Covenant a lesson in brutality at your people's expense. Behind Revan, Bastila Shan frowned deeply, annoyed at the seemingly one-tracked minds of the Sith, often to violent ends but also troubled at the fact that Revan was absolutely serious. He would burn an entire world, dozens of worlds to glass and ashes to get his hands on a rumored weapon that Halo promised. That thought alone was enough to give the Padawan pause in her dealings with Darth Revan.

The small Sith convoy came to a sudden stop after literally hours of driving through an impossibly spacious underground labyrinth of tunnels and walkways lining Halo's superstructure. The Sith moved from the vehicles, all heavily armed and on guard immediately while Revan approached Aven with Bastila and a blank-faced Lieutenant McKay in tow. The Lieutenant knew she didn't stand much of a chance head on with Revan and wouldn't make a move unless absolutely necessary. From what she understood of the situation the armored man had a very bald, very tall friend with a very powerful ship overhead and she did not doubt for one moment that his threats were idle.

"Strange... I don't sense Captain Keyes..."

Revan's brow was furrowed beneath his mask. He could have sworn he'd sensed the UNSC Naval officer when they'd approached the area. Consulting a datapad with a simple map of Halo and rechecking his position through his mask's sensors, Revan felt an echo through the Force; pain, fear and death. The obvious signs of battle.

"Two, Selar, Koler with me."

Revan moved ahead of the Sith gathered, Bastila frowning and looking to Lieutenant McKay before the UNSC soldier checked her weapons and followed. Maybe if she got him alone she could stand a chance at escaping and it was likely the only way she'd get away from the other Sith. Noticing the red-skinned alien glaring at her, McKay hurried her steps, catching up with Revan and the Three Sith accompanying him. The Sith ignored the ODST's presence and Bastila made a move to follow before she sensed something behind her. Turning, the Padawan frowned when she saw nothing. Moving closer to the other Sith, Bastila glanced at the numerous corridors and tunnels leading into their location and shuddered slightly at the echoes through the Force. Something terrible had happened, was happening; of that she was certain.

On the Covenant cruiser Truth and Reconciliation a floating Covenant Engineer had finished repairing and rebuilding a rust-colored device. The device had been badly damaged in the bombardment of the Sith encampment but as soon as the Huragok had spotted the complex and pristine mechanical innards it had, with the assistance of a dozen others of its kind; taken the device back to the Truth and Reconciliation. A simple static charge ignited deep within the rust-colored device and two crimson lights switched on, marking the eyes of the device. A humanoid hand of metal opened and closed and the droid sat up, glancing left and right as its hands opened and closed and it took stock of its situation.

"Statement: It appears you meatbags have repaired my ingenious components adequately..."

HK-47 reviewed his memory core, finding a set of orders Darth Revan had transmitted to him from his mask. Catching up to date within several seconds, HK-47 reached out, his metal fingers closing over a fully assembled blaster rifle. Had the droid a mouth it would have curved into a sadistic smirk as the eyes glowed brighter and it turned its gaze to the floating Huragok. The Covenant Engineers didn't seem to notice the movement of the droid, so fascinated by its design and function that the danger did not register.

"Gleeful Exclamation: Oh Master! You are too generous!"

The sound of a blaster pack charging drew the attention of the Huragok as they attempted to take the blaster from HK-47's hands, curious as to its function. The rust-colored assassin droid shared that knowledge with the Huragok, discharging a high-powered blast into its floating form. Spotting two more Huragok floating around the room, HK-47 took aim and terminated the Covenant, its eyes dimming to a yellow-orange shade as it moved to the doorway. The door opened and a Covenant Elite entered, a look of confusion on its face for a moment before it spotted HK-47. The droid tilted its head slightly, taking aim and shot the Elite in the face. The Elite's shields flared from the high-powered blast and failed and it drew a plasma sword, lashing outward. HK-47 activated his defensive protocol, dodging the slash and firing at the Elite.

"Assessment: No meatbags detected, beginning search and destroy protocol."

HK-47 took several grenades from the smoking corpse of the Covenant Elite, moving to fulfill Revan's last orders to him. Find and destroy all Covenant forces, ignore all others. While it annoyed the droid slightly that it would not get to kill any Jedi or human meatbags it came across unless attacked, HK knew there were hordes of Covenant to terminate. His Master was a thoughtful one, trusting his assassination protocol to clear the Covenant threat from Halo. As the demonic rust-colored hunter-killer droid moved through the Covenant ship, killing small scattered groups of Covenant the bridge crew moved stared at the internal displays of their ship, confused by the loss of so many of the crew within.

"Two, watch McKay, Selar the rear, Koler up front."

Private Koler nodded, his silver armor almost a dark gray in the darkened maze of Halo's underground tunnels. Revan stood in the middle, a lightsaber in his right hand and a flashlight laying out a beam of blue-white light ahead of him. Delta Two's gun-mounted light as well as McKay's provided some additional light while the other two Sith had activated their helmet-mounted lights. Revan had switched on his helm's night vision setting but had kept the light on for the other's benefit, save Delta Two. Gray and white shapes and passages stretched before him and Revan frowned, the flashing blue indicator of HK-47 providing him some comfort. The droid had self-repaired and was likely following out its final order, to make the Covenant pay dearly. Revan smirked slightly at the thought of the mayhem and bloodshed on the Covenant lines before he caught a shape in the distance and pinned his light on it. A dead UNSC Marine lay against a wall, the area around him opening into a small corridor that seemed to wrap around a ramp according to his mask's sensors. Private Koler quickly shouldered his blaster rifle, unholstering his pistol from his waist as he took the light Revan offered and attached its specific design to the bottom of his pistol. Discreetly checking the room before stepping over to the body, Koler knelt beside the fallen Marine, spotting an M6D at the man's side. Studying the scene, Koler came to a quick conclusion.

"Suicide."

Frowning, Revan motioned for Koler's sidearm, taking the weapon and light as he flicked off his night vision sensors for a better look. A bullet, there was no doubt, had entered at the base of the man's chin, coming out of the top of his skull and not penetrating the human's armored helmet. The position of the gun, lying at the man's side and out of his hand suggested suicide and Revan frowned at the crazed look on the man's face. Fear, outright terror seemed to hang in the air, clogging his senses and Revan felt a shiver travel up his spine as he held the pistol out to Koler. Koler detached the light, holstering his weapon and returned the light to Revan. Revan unholstered his own pistol, given to him when he had been at the UNSC Alpha Base and too wounded to fight with his saber and attached the light to the base of the blaster, flicking it off and reactivating his helm's night vision sensors as he holstered the pistol.

"Koler, fall to the rear, Selar eyes on prisoner, Two up front."

The Sith moved like professional soldiers, executing Revan's commands in seconds and Delta Two proceeded to sweep the sight while Revan knelt beside the dead Marine and pulled a small chip from the man's helmet. A recording device.
"Hmm."

Running a quick diagnostic, Revan tossed the chip to McKay who caught the device reflexively and attached it to her own helm. An image of the Master Chief trying to placate the Marine as the man took shots at him appeared before the camera before the man shouted in an insane babble incoherent words and turned the gun on himself. Revan's mask's sensors picked up the information and displayed it to the Dark Lord and Revan glanced back at McKay, seeing a confused and troubled look on the ODST's face.

"UNSC Jarheads are hard-core. Any veteran has seen the cremation of billions on the worlds we lose to the Covies and whatever scared this man..."

McKay trailed off, her attention turning from escape from the Sith to anxiety. The air felt thick, suffocating and the hairs on the back of her neck and on her arms were standing on end.
"Maybe it was just his time. Pressure can build for a while before it bursts..."

Revan stated, surprising McKay. Maybe he wasn't some barbaric brute after all.

"Two, report."

Revan asked over the ever-open communications line. Two's indicator flashed and Revan gave McKay a hard stare a moment before he made a hand motion for Private Koler and Private Selar to take up forward defensive positions. McKay, seeing that the rear was no longer guarded briefly toyed with running before she heard a noise in the distance down the way they had come. Backing against the wall and sliding back to back with the Sith, McKay listened to the distant sound of Covenant weapons fire, burned into her mind from years of fighting. Revan had waited, frowning when Two's indicator continued to flash and made a hand-motion to the two silver-armored Sith troopers to cover him. Breaking cover and moving around the corner, Revan turned again and climbed down the ramp, spotting an opened doorway and another dead UNSC soldier.

"Two, report."

Revan stated again. The indicator continued to flash and Revan frowned at that. He had sensed a burst of fear from Delta Two before it was gone and now all he could sense was pain. If the Delta was dead the indicator would dim altogether, flashing either meant combat or injury. Hearing no weapons fire, Revan peered around the corner into the doorway and promptly fell back, his lightsaber dropping to the ground as he instinctively grabbed the object obscuring his vision and pulled. A squeaking wailing chirp filled Revan's ears as the sound of flesh scratching and tearing echoed in the room before him. Pulling the pod-like form free, Revan got a split-second look at a gaping mouth with a sharp likely venom-filled pincer and tentacles waving before he threw the offending creature away from him and watched it explode against the wall. Delta Two's flashing light had dimmed altogether at some point and as the Dark Lord of the Sith got a hold on his dropped lightsaber, Revan's night vision seemed to play against what he was actually seeing.

The floor seemed to pulse, moving as Delta Two lay in the middle, only discernable by the transponder indicator on Revan's mask. Within a second Revan made the distinction of the pod that had attacked him with the seemingly moving floor and he held out his hand, sending a powerful Force-push into the room. Dozens of Flood pod-forms exploded from the powerful push but dozens more scuttled and crawled towards their potential victim, hunger and pain echoing very, very faintly in the Force. Revan ignited his lightsaber, swinging the blade in a twirling motion as it disintegrated three Flood pods that leapt at him. Turning, Revan ran, holding his lightsaber ahead of him in his right hand while his left hung behind, blasting a powerful storm of blue-white Force-lightning at the doorway. Revan all but ran into the wall at the top of the ramp and began running back to his fellow Sith, a shout coming from his lips as he ran past.

"Run!"

Neither Sith nor the ODST needed to be told twice as they followed Revan's crimson lightsaber that led their way through the darkened corridors. A scuttling screeching noise sounded behind the humans but none looked back, knowing that something that had sent Darth Revan running should not be studied too closely. Melissa McKay heard a cry of pain from behind her but did not stop, hearing a blaster answering the scream. One of the silver-armored Sith troopers had fallen and McKay caught out of the corner of her eye dozens of pod-like objects crawling over the screaming man. The other Sith had turned to fire and McKay caught a dark blur amongst the pods.
"Two, give me a hand!"

Private Selar shouted, trying to shoot the Sith free of his companion Private Koler. Revan had slowed and was looking back at the scene, his face hidden beneath his mask but twisted in a look of confused curiosity. He'd sensed Delta Two die, though he could clearly see the black-armored Sith running amongst the pod-like creatures. The curiosity fled the Dark Lord's mind when Selar's helmet-mounted light fell over Delta Two's face, illuminating a pod deeply buried along the man's neck and upper chest. The face was not visible but Revan sensed nothing and before he could shout for Selar to run, Two's mutilated form had ran into him, smashing his fists against his once brother in arms in a blind rage as Flood pods scurried about, a few trying to burrow between the cracks in Selar and Koler's armor while dozens more gave chase to McKay and Revan.

"Bloody, keep moving!"

Revan shouted to McKay. McKay wholeheartedly agreed, her face white as a bed sheet as she fired her MA5B behind her blindly, emptying the sixty round magazine.

"Grenade?"

Revan shouted, falling in shoulder to shoulder beside McKay as the two ran. Revan had attached his saber to his belt, opting for the pistol as he sprayed blasterbolts back as quickly as he could. McKay pulled a frag grenade from her harness, popping the pin and letting the round explosive fly. Revan hastily threw a Force-barrier behind them, slowing the advancing Flood and reducing the danger to them as the grenade detonated, consuming scores of Floor. Not bothering to look over their work, ODST and Sith Lord ran for the rest of the Sith and their vehicles, both skidding to a halt as they came upon a small group of Covenant. in a two-story loading room. Being on the top floor, Revan and McKay were spared a few precious seconds before the Covenant forces opened up on the two with plasma weapons and needlers. Revan dodged the deadly plasma and needler shards while McKay moved for cover and the Flood quickly caught up, spilling out of the narrow tunnel and into the room. Many fell to the first floor, shocking some of the Covenant while dozens more continued after Revan and McKay. With the Covenant busy fighting off the parasite, Revan and McKay quickly exited the loading room, running down yet another dark and narrow hallway as they worked their way to the Sith in the stolen warthogs.

"Aven, Atton, Mira, anyone! Get the bloody vehicles warmed up and get ready to run!"

Static answered Revan's shouted orders and the Dark Lord holstered his pistol, drawing his lightsaber and turning. In the same motion as the turn and drawing of his weapon, Revan's crimson blade snapped to life and shot through a Covenant combat form, one that had been a UNSC soldier by its uniform. McKay kept running, taking the reprieve offered by Revan's motion to reload her assault rifle. Revan quickly matched McKay's pace once more and the UNSC soldier snapped her MA5B's bolt, holding the weapon behind her and emptying the mag once more. Running into the well-lit walkway housing the other Sith and Bastila, Revan let out a shout and ripped his mask from his face as bright light blinded him temporarily due to his still active night vision. The night vision setting cleared and Revan spotted the other Sith already on the vehicles while his remained in the rear with Bastila sitting in the driver's seat, a small pout on her face as she looked at the controls.

"MOVE IT! "

Revan bellowed, letting McKay run past him and into the passenger seat while he climbed on the back of the warthog and quickly slid his lightsaber to his belt while simultaneously turning the craft's chain-gun on the corridor as Flood of all shapes and sizes appeared, scuttling about. Atton quickly pressed on the gas, his warthog screeching as its tires turned in place a moment and kicked up smoke before it bounced away. The other Sith followed suit while Bastila struggled with the strange controls.

"Now would be a very good time to leave!"

McKay shouted to Bastila. Bastila, seeing a Flood out of the corner of her eye instinctively grabbed the blaster pistol on her waist and fired a blind shot at the leaping pod. The pod exploded in mid-air, showering the side of the warthog with yellow and gray gore before Bastila found the starter and pushed down on the gas. The shots from behind stopped suddenly and a loud metal thump sounded but neither McKay nor Bastila looked back as they raced away from the Flood. After several moments of silence and covering close to a half mile, Bastila and McKay looked to one another, both panting heavily from exhaustion and anxiety and Bastila turned her eyes back in a cold glare to give Revan a piece of her mind. The Padawan's gray eyes widened comically when she saw only a swaying chain-gun and McKay quickly grabbed the wheel, keeping the warthog steady as she caught a glimpse of their missing passenger.

"Well, shit."

McKay muttered.

"We. Are. Dead."

Bastila breathed out, spotting the Sith in the vehicle ahead of her staring back. The convoy slowed and they turned while Aven leapt from her vehicle and landed on the back of Bastila and McKay's. Bastila whitened slightly and McKay wore a blank expression at the enraged and troubled look on the Twi'lek's face.

"Where the Bloody Hell is Revan you stupid Schutta?"

Bastila flinched, stammering out a shaky confession of not knowing while McKay pressed her lips together tightly, her eyes flickering with a troubled look. The man was a bastard, yes. He'd killed her companions and other UNSC soldiers and he'd threatened to dismember, torture her and tear apart her mind but recalling the screams of Private Koler and the animalistic, rage-filled wail from Delta Two's ravaged form the ODST wouldn't wish that on anyone. Well, maybe the Covies but the split-faced alien bastards had it coming. Maybe she wouldn't wish it on any human.

Close to a kilometer behind, Revan had rolled over the walkway and landed thirty yards below on a lower walkway, free of the Flood. The Dark Lord of the Sith lay for a moment, dazed and pained as his ribs cracked and he stared up at the distant lights on the walls of the cavernous underground tunnels. A distant wail of a Flood combat form brought Revan's mind to the present and the Dark Lord of the Sith stood, crimson lightsaber snapping to life in his hand as flood leapt from the walkway above to his own, closing in on his solitary form.

"Bugger."

Revan muttered, sweeping his lightsaber across a leaping Flood pod and obliterating the creature before five more leapt at him. Pain erupted in the Dark Lord's side and he shouted out a wordless roar as he was run into by a Flood combat form, this one having been a powerful Elite at one point. Bones could be heard beneath Revan's armor cracking a the force of the impact and Revan was sent across the walkway to the ground, sliding a yard or two as the tentacles from the combat form's rotting and mutilated arms flailed about, trying to tear into him, through his armor. A Flood pod wrapped its tentacles around Revan's neck and the Dark Lord felt a stinger pierce his neck. A surge of mind-splitting pain filled Revan and the Dark Lord twisted, his lightsaber slicing into the Flood combat form and killing it while he bucked and kicked to get free of its massive weight. The pincer drove in deeper and Revan's vision blurred as the Dark Lord grasped the pod in his hand and began squeezing even as more pods crawled over his prone form.

Having fought his way from the same scene Revan and his Sith had come across an hour before, Spartan John-117 walked on a raised platform overlooking the Flood-infested swamp around him and cursed as he tried to find higher ground for an evac from Echo 419. Wishing he had kept Cortana rather than leaving her at the Control Room, John spotted something that gave him pause as he stared at the floating orb before him. As if the Flood and humans from another galaxy that could move things with their minds wasn't ridiculous enough, the damn thing turned a glowing blue-white eye to him and spoke.

"Greetings. I am the Monitor of Installation 04. I am 343 Guilty Spark. Someone has released the Flood. My function is to prevent it from leaving this installation. But I require your assistance. Come. This way."

The thing's voice was chirpy and more suiting a librarian than a strange mechanical drone but if the things that had attacked him and Captain Keyes and the others were the Flood, that sounded like the best damn news he'd heard in a while. 343 Guilty Spark neglected to tell the Master Chief that he was not the first or only Reclaimer he had drafted and the Spartan felt a sudden sense of nausea as an amber light flared around him, almost like a collapsing shield and he vanished from the platform. Echo 419, also known as Foe Hammer called frantically for the Chief, having lost his signal. If the Chief, Captain Keyes, Cortana, Lieutenant McKay and Sergeant Johnson were all MIA it was a huge blow to the UNSC forces on Halo. Foe Hammer continued calling for some time after before she was diverted to a nearby mountain chain to assist another group of besieged UNSC.

In a dark tunnel near the point where Delta Two had fallen, Sergeant Avery J. Johnson sat against a wall, breathing heavily as he wiped a gauze pad against his neck. A Flood pod had attached itself to him but for some strange, miraculous reason it hadn't injected him and burrowed into his brain stem. Instead the pod as slithered away with its fellows, seeking out more victims and Johnson had fought tooth and nail to get to where he was. He'd heard the Covies fighting the Flood but none of his people, that is until he'd heard the report of a blasterbolt, unique in its sound compared to UNSC or Covenant weapons. The Sergeant had moved down a level and deeper into the structure to escape the roaming Flood when he had inspected his wound. Unknown to the Sergeant a heavy dose of radiation received by him during the battle of Paris IV when he had captured Covenant plasma grenades and his diagnosed Boren's Syndrome had saved him from infection by the Flood. The radiation from the plasma grenades he'd captured from the Covenant had given him migraines, minor amnesia and a few small brain tumors. Johnson had no time to get the thirty weeks of chemotherapy and had opted to go back to the front lines to kill more Covenant. The results had been painful and were wearing the aging human down but pure hatred of the Covenant had fueled him to keep fighting and Johnson was quite simply one of the UNSC's best.

A wordless shout, almost inhuman from down the corridor caused Johnson to ready his MA5B and the Sergeant cursed under his breath, pushing down the corridor and staring at the scene before him. The leader of the Sith that had helped Masterchief save Charlie Company and had later splintered from the UNSC/Sith alliance lay on the ground, struggling with Flood pods as they crawled all over him. A crimson blade glowed in the man's hand as it swept the pods clear of him and Johnson recalled the deaths and infection of his comrades at the hands of the Flood. The Marine lined up his sights into the mass of Flood and at Revan and he squeezed the trigger. The MA5B roared as it spit out sixty 7.62 mm rounds into the scene.