Author's Note: Alright, got an update up quick this time. Hope you all enjoy this one... its starting to get a little farther from the Halo canon now.
Chapter 7: The Challenge
In the darkness of the ruins Cerberus slowly opened his eyes. The human had nearly killed him, but hadn't quite finished the job. With pain running through him he grasped the axe, and pulled it out of his chest, luckily it had caught on his sternum and hadn't damaged any vital organs. He ignored the blood flowing from the wound and matting down his fur.
He heard something skittering, and looked behind him in time to see an infection form flying at his face. He swung at it with a meaty paw, and the thing popped on contact with his fist.
So the parasite was here now. They had lots of corpses to add to their army. Cerberus knew that the ruins were no longer safe, he had to get out of here before the flood warriors awoke. He picked up his fallen axe, and his vision swooned.
He took a shaky step, and half fell before he got his hand up against a wall to steady himself. He had lost a lot of blood, and if he was not careful he would die within this place. To survive an axe to the chest only to die of blood loss or the flood just a few minutes after regaining consciousness would not be a good end.
Taking a few breaths, Cerberus tried again, but yet again dizziness overcame him. This time he fell back against the wall and slid to the floor, and let out a scream of rage. This was not how it was supposed to end.
Then he heard a growl from down the hall. Cerberus looked up and saw the mutilated brute with tentacles swarming over his body, and massive claws where his paws used to be. The head was dangling in front of the chest, held in place by a few strands of green flesh. Cerberus put himself on his knees, and gripped his axe.
"Come for me then, kill me if you can," he growled.
The infected Brute came after him and at the last second Cerberus rose bringing his axe up with him, splitting the Flood warrior up the middle, cutting through muscle, bone, and the controller within its chest cavity. Its two halves fell to the floor and yellowish gore was sprayed into the air.
Again Cerberus was overcome by vertigo, and this time he fell on his back. Panting, he clutched his chest, and flipped onto his stomach, then pushed himself to his feet. He would escape this place, no one was going to stop him.
Jimaelhae clambered up the walls, and pulled himself up onto the roof of the ruin. There Vartainee was waiting for him, who had removed his headdress.
"You have come for your death low born," Vartainee said.
"Everyone has their day to die," Jimaelhae responded, it was something Nathan had told him when they were by the campfire.
Vartainee laughed at that statement, then dropped into an ancient Sangheilli fighting stance. Jimaelhae did the same, and the two cautiously approached each other. Vartainee threw the first punch, hoping to hit Jimaelhae in the face, but the younger elite was able to block the attack and quickly counter with a strike to the chest. Vartainee was pushed a little bit back, but quickly lashed out.
Jimaelhae went to block and counter again, but the initial lash was a decoy and he felt a solid hit against his face, then another strike to the gut doubling him over. A third strike hit him in the head sending him backwards to land on his back. Vartainee stood above Jimaelhae and went to smash his foot down, but the low born elite grabbed the descending foot, and threw the elder elite away from him.
Vartainee landed in a roll, and sprung to his feet, only to catch a fist to the head; Jimaelhae had followed through with his throw and jumped up behind Vartainee. Jimaelhae noticed Vartainee on the edge of the roof, he went to push him off, but the elder was faster at recovering than the younger had anticipated, and Vartainee slammed a shoulder into Jimaelhae's chest, and the two went back towards the centre of the roof.
Down on the ground Fenris and Nathan were flicking their gaze between the fight on the rooftop and the entrance to the ruins. If the controllers got into the ruins there were lots of corpses for them to convert into warriors.
"We should just go in there and clean them all out," Fenris said, starting forward.
Nathan grabbed her by the shoulder, and she spun around with a snarl. Nathan didn't even flinch, he just let go of her.
"If there are any surviving elites or brutes in there, they can kill of some of the flood for us. Besides, I'd rather fight the parasites out here in the open where they can't get their claws at me as easily," Nathan said calmly.
Fenris looked back at the dark entrance of the ruins, and remembered Harris. How the one flood warrior had torn his stomach out, throwing his intestines across the field. She remembered his screams of agony as blood and other organs fell from the gaping hole in his gut, before the combat form finished him off by sending a tentacle through his right lung. She remembered the bright red froth spilling from his mouth how he had looked at her for mercy, how she had put a burst through his skull, then through the creature that had killed him. By then the other marines in her squad were already running off, all in separate directions, the flood were hunting them down and killing them one by one. Fenris broke for the woods, keeping her rifle handy, gunning down anything that came for her.
"They can get to you out in the open to, and plus with this long grass, the little bastard infection forms can get to you easier," Fenris countered to Nathan's argument.
The sergeant thought about that for a moment. Then he noticed the grass rustling a few feet ahead of him. He smiled, and went to point it out to Fenris, but she had already heard it, and she was smiling as well.
"Well, I guess they can't sneak very well," she said, picked up a rock, and chucked it at the point of movement in the grass. They both heard a small pop and saw some strands of flesh fly above the grass.
A growl emanated from behind them. Fenris grinned, the Flood had come for them.
Barkarus led the attack on the human encampment himself. It did well to show your men that you were no coward. The humans were fighting back well, cutting down many of his troops, but Jackal snipers made short work of the marines outside the central bunker.
Barkarus swung his war hammer in a large arc, hitting one unfortunate human in the chest. He could hear the ribs snap even above the sounds of the battle, and watched his body crumple and fly across the battlefield.
"Take the bunker" Barkarus yelled out, charging through the short concrete walls the humans had made to try and make a better defensive position. Of course they were used to fighting elites who would use their ranged weapons more often to win their fights. The brutes were as likely to smash your face in as to shoot you.
The brutes leapt over the short concrete blocks and continued forward at an alarming pace towards the humans. The heavy machine gun turrets they had deployed still cut through the advancing brutes, the large caliber bullets tore out hunks of flesh, and sprayed blood across the ones behind them.
Then out of the corner of his eye, Barkarus saw a brute with tentacles above its head. It was running towards his troops. His eyes went wide as he realized what it was.
"Watch the flanks," he yelled out, but it was too late. The converted brute jumped on a normal one, and tore it to pieces.
The flood were attacking the humans as well, and much of the fire shifted to fend of the oncoming flood. Barkarus saw his chance. In this darkest moment of the battle, instead of banding together against a common foe, he pushed his troops forward.
Private James Herald fired his battle rifle as fast as he could, switching between Flood and Covenant targets. His heart skipped a beat as there was a loud snap as the bolt inside his rifle did something, he tilted his rifle to the left out of instinct, saw the ejection port open, and that the bolt had slammed to the back, indicating an empty weapon.
He ejected his empty magazine, and pulled a fresh one out of his combat harness, and slammed it in. He hit the bolt catch, which sent the bolt forward again at lightning speed, placing a round in the chamber, and started firing again.
With each squeeze of the trigger he could feel the weapon jump against his shoulder. He didn't think about what he knew was going to happen, he just thought about killing as many of the alien bastards as he possibly could. He started yelling out in defiance as he put a burst through a brute's skull.
He didn't even keep looking to see the effect of his shot, and switched to a flood warrior coming at the bunker. Before he could shoot it, another marine beside him gunned it down.
"Someone get on the turret!" the sergeant yelled, Herald didn't know his name, he was form another unit.
"Mine," the private yelled, throwing the battle rifle over his back, and grabbing hold of the turret. Almost immediately he pressed down on the trigger, sending a constant barrage of bullets into the aliens coming towards the last human position. It could very well be the last human held position on Halo.
His mouth opened in a constant scream, never ending just like the bullets. He watched as covenant and brutes alike were cut down.
There was a scream and a growl behind him. Herald glanced over his shoulder to see a Flood warrior in the base cutting another marine in half. Another soldier armed with a shotgun put short work to the combat form. Again, Herald didn't know either of the two, they were from different units. Everyone had just collected here. It had been some kind of haven for a little while at least.
Herald looked back in front of him, in time to see a brute jumping towards him. Herald turned the machine gun and the bullets cut the brute in half, spilling guts across the ground.
Another brute was coming at him, so he began swiveling the machine gun towards him, when it suddenly stopped firing. Herald quickly checked it, hoping it was just a jam, because he could fix that in a second, but it was out of ammo. His blood went cold, as he felt the brute's hand close over his head and pull him out of the bunker.
"Mother fuc-" he tried yelling before the sound of his skull crushing, cut him off.
The brutes had taken the central bunker. The humans were all dead, now they had to hold off the flood.
Barkarus rallied his surviving troops, and sent them against the flood. While Jackals provided ranged support, his brutes ran in using fists, brute shots, and plasma rifles to kill off the Flood that still lived.
When the battle was finally over Barkarus took the time to look over the field. It was covered in corpses, from all three sides. He sighed, it had been costly, but surprisingly enough, it was the flood who had won it for him. If they had not attacked when they did, the humans would probably have gunned down all his men. He wondered why that happened the way it did. Was it coincidence, or did something else plan it like that.
Fenris fired her shotgun and the Flood warrior was blown in half. While the bottom half went lifeless the top half tried to make its way towards her by dragging itself through the grass. Fenris just used another shell to end its life permanently.
Nathan was keeping up a steady stream of fire to make sure that none of the combat forms got close. Their bodies were torn apart by the constant barrage. Surprisingly, very few of them were coming out from the ruins, maybe there were still some survivors in there giving them a rough time. Whatever the case, Nathan didn't want to go in and find out.
"I'm running low on shells, we had better find some more ammo soon," Fenris yelled over to Nathan.
"Agreed," Nathan said as he slammed his second last magazine into the battle rifle. Things were starting to get bad. He didn't want to have to use a carbine again, and he absolutely hated the plasma rifles. He remembered what happened to Jim.
Jimaelhae caught another fist with his face. Blood was running freely from his mandibles, but Vartainee was worse off, with blood flowing from a missing eye as well as from a missing mandible.
"Why do you not surrender?" Vartainee asked, breathing heavily.
"Because, I will show you that I am a warrior," Jimaelhae said, and when Vartainee went to punch again, Jimaelhae grabbed his arm, and snapped it against itself. The sound of Vartainee's arm breaking was drowned out by his scream of pain. Jimaelhae barreled into him knocking the elder to the ground.
"Now, you will not live to see the great journey," Jimaelhae said, getting behind Vartainee and wrapping his arms around the elder's neck. Then before Vartainee could respond, Jimaelhae snapped his neck. Vartainee's corpse flopped to the ground, and lay still. Jimaelhae pulled out a small knife hidden behind his leg. The Sangheilli kept these for one purpose, and one purpose only. The covenant had tried to destroy this part of the warrior species culture, but they had kept it.
The winner of a challenge claimed not only victory, but the head of the loser. Jimaelhae used the knife to cut off Vartainee's head, and then he raised the gruesome trophy above his head. It had been the first challenge in centuries, and a low born had been the victor. Vartainee's blood ran down Jimaelhae's arm, over his shoulder and down his chest. He let out a roar of victory.
He was Sangheilli, not an elite. He was a warrior of his own will, not a soldier for the prophet's cause. He made a vow to himself right there on the roof, bathing in the blood of his fallen foe, that the Sangheilli would find their warrior roots again, and reclaim their lost honor.
In the darkness of the ruins, Cerberus, covered in yellow gore, finally found the exit. His bleeding had finally stopped, and the dizzy spells with it. He emerged into the shadow of the cliff, it was a back entrance. He had escaped with his life, like he said he would. Now he would regain his strength, and get his vengeance.
On the other side of the ruins, slipping her empty shotgun across her back, and getting her battle rifle ready, Fenris smiled.
"So your still alive," she said, catching a familiar scent on the air.