IV. The man in the suit
I forgot to put a guide
' thoughts
"actual speech
*sound effect
*CRASH! SNAP!
Katelyn Granville dodged the numerous tendrils aiming for her life. She along with a dozen others had split from the first platoon in order to buy time for the other half to clean up the Novalized pandoras and catch up. With only half a platoon with her, no doubt blood will be shed. Whether all of them were still alive by the time the reinforcements arrived.
"Senpai watch out!"
"Quick! Restrain it's movements!"
Such words were being thrown around in the battlefield. Although none were aimed at her. Unlike most of the pandoras, she didn't have a limiter. No partner to trust her back to except fellow Pandoras. No one from the opposite sex that she trusted. Her luck and ability as a fighter was all that kept her alive. Although at the moment, it would seem lady luck was not on their side.
"Be advised, the enemy pandora's weakpoint is the stigmata on the collarbone. I repeat. All units, target and destroy the stigmata in the collarbone."
Good. finding the weakpoint was a good thing. It meant that the leader Aileen and the rest of her platoon would be able to reach them. Now she hoped the endurance of those on her end were still capable of holding.
"Look out!" one of the pandoras shouted. Katelyn wheeled around only to see...
*Pew!
The nova fired it's beam at her...
"FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK !"
Inside his pod, Thomas was in a bad situation. Though the new gen HEV pods were now perfectly capable of withstanding the heat, the thrusters were not. Of the four boosters meant for his maneuvering, three were damaged by the collision with the asteroid. They were fine at first, but the heat of atmospheric reentry caused them to malfunction. Instead of crash landing normally like how the pod was designed to, the pod had Thomas spinning. To make matters worse, there wasn't much fuel left. It was leaking out.
"SHIIIIIIIIIIIT! Revealer, analyze current trajectory! Estimate landing site!"
The screen showed him a facility surrounded by a forest. Originally he had planned to land away from civilization (if any) to avoid any immediate confrontations. With the fuel almost out, he had two choices: realign the pod to land feet first, or correct the landing site. If he did the latter, the spinning would cause the pod to explode on impact. He might have survived but definitely not his equipment and distress beacon.
"At least it's dirt...Pressurize ballistic layer to maximum." No choice, Thomas chose the first option and hoped for the best.
"Gahhhh!"
The beam clipped her, burning off both her legs. Thankfully Katelyn avoided a mortal blow...
Only to delay it for a few more seconds . She was now unable to move. To top it off, the pain was unbearable. Wincing, she looked around her. Half of the group lay around her feet. Some were screaming in pain, others didn't move a muscle.
That meant at best only a quarter of a platoon was facing off with the nova. Even a majority of the limiters they had were down.
"Shit..." she said with an almost silent whisper. She was beginning to pass out from shock and the loss of blood.
.
"Support the others! We need a medic here now!" she heard.
'Ugh... good, at least we bought time for the others to arrive...'
The Nova fired another beam, silencing the glimmer of hope or perhaps the shock has already taken her hearing. Alone once more, she lay in a pool of her own blood, waiting for the end to come. The nova, as if to answer that call, aims itself at her general area.
'I-Is this i-it?'
She knows the incoming beam is aimed at reinforcements behind her yet the blast will incinerate her none the less.
Time stops, her whole life flashes by her in a mere moment. Among them lay the reason she couldn't trust men. The bitter feeling remained even after the memory faded, tethering her dim conscience to the world.
'maybe it's not so bad, I can forget about that time soon...'
Closing her eyes, she accepts her fate, knowing she will die even before the pain would register. Knowing it would come any moment now...
*BOOM! CRASH!
...yet the end doesn't come. The shaking of the earth reawakens her senses. Beside her is Aileen with a shocked expression on her face.
"What the fuck?" says her leader
Katelyn knew it wasn't due to her injuries nor the destruction that lay around her. She focuses her vision at the Nova and finds it lying on the ground.
Beside it, among the flattened trees, is...
Thomas clenched his teeth. Even with the mouth guard and G-shock absorbers, in a damaged pod, he wasn't going to take any chances. As he entered mezosphere-stratosphere area, the fiery glow about his pod began to fade. Good for him, that meant the remaining thruster was holding. Things were about to get worse though.
Fifteen seconds. That was the amount of time left before crashing into the surface. Until now, Thomas kept his eyes on the timer.
Ten seconds. The fuel guage dropped to zero. He shifted his eyes onto the see-through window of his pod and lo and behold. A ten-story monster enveloped his vision.
"Today is definitely not my day..." He sighed a mere moment before crashing into the giant.
.
.
.
'...'
"...ughhhh..."
Thomas shook his head, trying to clear his vision. Mentally. he double checked the feeling of his body. The crash had numbed it all over. Thankfully everything was still attached. His ballistic gel layer too had depressurized to normal.
"Now second order of business... What the hell was that thing? As a member of MALVIONE, Thomas had been to a few Earths and this wasn't the first time he came face to face with giant humanoids. From experience and the stories of his coworkers, 90% of the time, they meant trouble.
"ughh, shit..."
Thomas unlocked one of his weapons from the side- an assault rifle. He had a weapon probably more effective against it, but if needed a scope of the area, he needed to be mobile. From the cracked display of his hatch, all he could see was the giant's bulk. Hitting the release, Thomas stepped out and looked around.
Aside from the giant nearby, he seemed to be alone...
...until
* "Get a medic over here now!" A woman's voice. Barely audible
"Careful, it's getting back up!"
"Get back in formation!"
"Deploy decoys!"
More voices, more people. He began to hear them clustered on the other end of the the giant. The ground began to shake- it was getting back up. As a soldier he had to check it out. The voices were young, yet the speech patterns were military. Obviously something big was up. Picking up his rifle, he circled around. Halfway across, he saw a horrible site.
The ground was covered in blood. Body parts littered the ground. with his visor, Thomas counted only a dozen girls standing with an equal number of males behind them. The girls were armed with... blades? Many of them were bleeding. He swiveled his HUD towards a few people crouching at a corner, and saw another girl missing her legs. Another woman was beside her in a defensive pose. There were a few others doing the same dotting the battlefield.
*Snap!
The remaining trees left standing broke as the white mass stood up. With a HUD capable of zooming in, Thomas saw the look on their faces. They knew they couldn't come out of this unscathed, yet they had to defeat this creature quickly if they wanted to save their comrades. Thomas looked at the beast again and saw a crack dead center of its "chest"
'That's tough armor...' his pod may have crash landed but coming down from the atmosphere meant he was fast- to the point he probably would have gone straight through one or two buildings yet this thing survives with merely a crack?
4 women, as if on cue, disappeared from the corner of his HUD
'Fast!' Even if he wasn't focused on them, even if Thomas had fought high speed opponents before, these people were on a class of their own.
For an instant, Thomas was hit with some sort of gravity field and saw now the males with arms outstretched, perhaps contributing to the said event.
.
"Hey what are you doing here? Get out of here now!" one of the girls takes notice of me and closes the distance in a split second. But with her attention half focused on me, she gets hit with one of the 'arms'.
'At that speed, she was still hit!?' Instinctively he raises his rifle and fires three round bursts at the giant, hoping to attract it's attention but it merely swats at him without so much as leaving its focus on the others. The soldier escapes unscathed purely by intuition
"I don't know who you are but stop. Your wasting your ammunition, bullets don't work against the Nova"
"A what?" He turns and sees the same girl who called out to him, hurt but otherwise in one piece.
"A Nova. don't tell me you don't know about them?" She tells him in reply
"Well sorry to disappoint you missy but i'm not from around here..." Thomas tells the girl "Besides, if..."
The 'Nova' swings itself at us once more, then stays still for a scant moment before...
"Get down!" ...It fires a beam. Thomas's vision is engulfed in white for a few seconds. When it clears, the girl he was conversing with lies beside him
"Hey what was that all..." He begins to say before realizing her right side is completely burneed off.
"No! senpai!" A younger boy runs up to her side. "Senpai, you can't die!... " he shouts, giving words of encouragement. however, its too late. The girl smiles at him and dies in his arms. "No!" the boy cries as he cradles her body
Something in the soldier snaps. A girl, possibly younger than him sacrificed herself to save him- one not even from the same plane of existence. Someone who should be enjoying a regular life died instead. Something like this should happen to anyone.
'Didn't something similar happen before?' he though, remembering a brief moment of his past.
'No, I can't let something happen like that again.' Thomas looked at the pair, and resolved himself.
He'll end it if he used that. He'll be able to kill the 'Nova'
"hey kid, get to cover, I'll do something about that"
"Don't try, I don't know who you are but only a pandora can harm a nova." answers the boy
"Just do it. Here, I'll help carry her out." The boy relents, and the pair carry the woman's body to relative safety.
"Now then, stay here." The boy nods his head slightly.
The soldier looks at the Nova and thought,
'Just cause my rifle didn't work doesn't mean it's impossible. All I need is a bigger gun.' before jumping into the fray once more.
The people reformed their ranks and face off against the Nova. With a signal from their leader, they charge once more. Among them though, is one not part of their ranks. Thomas too races toward the giant but his target is not the Nova itself, but the pod he left behind it.
*Smash- one of the girls destroyed it's armor. Perfect.
He slips past the beast and jumps straight into the pod. Quickly, he unlocks the largest weapon crammed inside: The prototype Mark II rail cannon. Meant to be a downsized MAC, it shot supercharged projectiles at subsonic speeds. Power-wise, it was easily the strongest in his limited arsenal. The catch was, with all the other equipment inside, he only had 3 shells. He unslung the oversized weapon and stood at the edge of his downed unit. He had to hurry, each second lost was a second later that medics could save everyone still alive. He loaded the first shell into the chamber and waited for it to charge up.
With no idea of the weakpoint, Thomas aimed the 2.5 meter cannon at the spot where the armor was fractured and hoped for the best. His HUD gave a slight ping, indicating it was ready.
"Hey, all of you get out the way!" He shouted a warning to the fighters just before firing.
Author's notes:
How was today's chapter? A look on the would be female protagonist of the story
Here's her specs:
Name: Katelyn Granville
Age: 19
Bday: N/A
year: Senior
Role: Decoy
Height: 6'4
Weight: N/a (she'd kill me )
BWH: N/a
Hair color: Silver
Eye color: Purple
Skin color: fair
Resides: West Genetics
BTW here's Thomas's
Name: Thomas Shubaltz
Age: 19
Bday: N/a
year: TBA (now announced at a later chapter, he is listed as a senior)
role: TBA (also announced, he is classified as an assault limiter)
Height: 6'1
Weight: 85 kg
Hair color: Blonde
Eye color: Green
Skin color: Fair
Reviews and suggestions anyone? It would be greatly appreciated
/ The Poarter: Thanks for the insight. I'll see what I can do to make him more spartan-like
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UltimateFanJob123 - Beta 27: yeah definitely need to improve on the slipspace theory and physics. Again I'll see what I can do [corrected- or at least simplified to remove as much misconceptions as possible]
TL/ sorry if i can't update Biweekly. I have a life too :P
thats it for now
DISCLAIMER: i do not own Freezing or Halo
