FIVE
Le-Koro, Magna Nui(Or whatever it's called), Spherus Magna
This was a terrible idea, Buck thought as he descended onto the conflict zone. He stabilized his armor, then ground-pounded one of the… things. New Rock, right? It saw him and dodged, rolling out of the way. He landed next to it.
"Aww… Aren't you cute?" He asked it. The thing was rotund- almost hilariously so- and waddled towards him. It kinda looked like a chicken, but with no neck and a head as long as its body. He fired a few rounds at it, attempting to down it, but the most the bullets did was dent its plating. It fired arm-mounted weapons(of course, they were mounted on the same, stubby limbs that the feet were) at the Spartan, and Buck attempted to dodge it, barely being grazed. His shield was at a tiny fraction of full, which was definitely not good.
He took cover behind a tree- which was then blasted apart by the New Rock's weapon. He was fully exposed, and the creature was waddling towards him, weapons at the ready.
"Well, crap."
Le-Koro, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna
Aerus watched as a toa- he didn't know what element it was, as it was black but was able to glide- fired at a Nurok with a weapon he didn't recognize after the creature had exposed the Toa's cover.
The Toa jumped onto its back and tried to pry open the head, but the locking mechanism was too strong. It jumped off the Nurok's head milliseconds before the creature rolled up into a ball.
Ultia landed near him. "How's he doing?"
"The Toa?" Aerus asked, still hiding.
"He's not a Toa. He's a… Spartan, or Ohdeyesttee or something like that." She explained. "He's from the ship in the sky, one of those offworlders." The Sartan yelled towards them in an urgent tone. He couldn't understand the language, but Ultia knew what he essentially was saying. "I need to go help him. Go! Run! Get away from here!"
Buck fired a shotgun round at it, but that did nothing. Oh, great. he're going up against infantry with tank armor. Fun. It leaned forwards, and its canopy opened.
Ultia watched in horror as the Nurok was about to infect the Spartan with a Krana. She attempted to create a barrier around him, but was knocked off her feet, almost off the cliff that was on the northern side of Le-Koro. Her Kualsi was taken off from her head, and she was pinned down by a cage of some sort of orange light.
Her attacker looked somewhat like the Spartans, but was made out of floating pieces of metal. It only had one hand, with the other arm being made up of a weapon from the lower arm down. She banged on the cage, but to no avail. The attacker attempted to crush her Kualsi, but it wasn't strong enough. She tried using her powers to push it back, but she was too weakened.
Buck was hit straight in the visor by some organic thing launched by his opponent, resonating with a wet "Thwack!". He looked, dumbfounded at the creature it had catapulted him. It was slug-like, but with legs on its side. Two eyehole-like openings were slightly above its center. The thing looked at him with two red eyes that expressed no emotion, but ran past back into what had launched it.
His opponent turned back into a ball and charged him, and he dodged to the side with his armor's thrusters, and it careened off the cliff, into the abyss below. Oh, so there was a cliff there. Good to know. "Bam, said the lady!"
Locke landed next to him, along with Vale and Tanaka.
"Oh, hey guys. Don't worry, I've got this all under control." He said, and then was tackled by a Crawler. "Gorram!"
Locke grabbed the dog-like Promethean and tossed it away.
"Where'd the Promethean bushwhack come from?" Buck asked his CO as he was helped up by the former ONI agent.
"Great, he's talking in Buck again." Tanaka muttered under her breath to Vale and Locke. "Was there anyway for Cortana to track us?"
"Not that I know of." Locke replied.
"What about a mole?"
"Possibly." Locke fired at the Promethean Soldier that was keeping the one Congitis called "Ultia" caged in Hard light, killing it. "I'll check with Captain Lasky once this is over. Tanaka, get Ultia up."
"Roger that," Tanaka ran over towards the Toa of Air and grabbed her mask, putting it on her face. Ultia felt her strength returning to her, and held out her fist towards Tanaka. At first, the Spartan-IV was confused, but bumped fists with the Toa. "I think she was saying 'Thank you'."
"Taking notes." Vale said, recording the clip. A Nurok almost hit her, but she charged her Type-54 Plasma Pistol up and let the ionized gas hit the the robot, short-circuiting it while it was rolling up into a ball. She kicked it off the cliff, letting it roll off to its doom. This was one very convenient cliff.
"Hey, ground team, this is Roland. I'm picking up a large slipspace signature in your AO." Roland hopped back onto the comms. "You want me to warm up the Infinity's MAC?"
"No. That won't be necessary." Locke killed another Promethean. "Where's Blue Team?"
"They dealt with the Nurok and are heading to reinforce your position."
"We'll need all the help we can get."
"I'll send down a-" His signal was cut off by static. "Promet… jamm… com...an't…ough..."
"Prometheans are jamming our comms!" Locke signalled to Osiris. "We're dark."
A voice came over the comms. It was a robotic, inorganic, booming voice. One they knew very, very well.
"WHERE IS 8593 MIDNIGHT EXIGENT?" Warden Eternal's voice boomed.
"Oh, hey, Warden." Buck said, calmly. "How's the wife and kids?"
Corporal Ronda Miles tossed her pistol up in the air, caught it, and twirled it. The safety was on- thankfully she hadn't forgotten to do that- and she hoped she never had to take it off.
She had been watching videos her family had sent her about their vacation before the Created had taken over. She didn't know if they were alive, dead, or injured. She didn't know her wife's status, or that of her kids. She had planned to only be on the Infinity for a few months, then return to Odin. But then the whole incident with the Guardians had popped up, and the Infinity had to hide. She heard stories from the bridge crew of how Roland had brought the Infinity into slipspace moments before a Guardian could destroy them. Roland was the reason they were still alive. There was no way they would have lasted as long with any other AI.
She wondered why Roland didn't turn against them, why he was still loyal to Humanity, and how many others like him were left. The local she had met seemed cool, but-
There was the sound of footsteps. Not Spartan footsteps, not Promethean, not Elite, not anything she knew. She hid down and took her pistol off safe. The window of the Pelican was broken open in a shattering of glass after glowing cracks pierced through it. She aimed down her pistol's sights, preparing for anything that attempted to harm her.
A mechanical, gray-and-brown leg stepped into the Pelicans cockpit. It was a robot of some kind, with lanky legs, a thin torso, a horizontal neck, and long arms holding a staff. It looked at her and roared, with the head splitting open, exposing some sort of slug-like creature. She fired at it, and the pistol round hit it in the eye, then exploded. It staggered back in pain, each step causing cracks in the floor, then covered its face with its arm as she fired her entire magazine at it with no effect. As she attempted to reload, it knocked her pistol out of her grip, and raised its staff as best as it could, then brought it downwards.
The Panrahk, after killing its prey, destroyed the aircraft's control panel, and walked back out. A Guurahk was outside, and the brown rahkshi signalled to its partner, who placed its Staff of Disintegration on the aircraft's hull and focused on the internal workings. It could feel the vibrations of the engines, the flowing fuel, the on-and-off of electronics. It sent energy into these vital components, and turned them into nothing but dust. The rahkshi switched to their flight modes and flew away, back to their dark master.
John-117 watched as the Prometheans continued attacking Fireteam Osiris and the Matoran. Ultia was using her powers over air to crush, throw, and otherwise decimate the ranks of the attackers. "Roland, have you alerted Turaga Cognitis that Prometheans are here?"
Static. "Wha…ief?... Can… signa…"
"WHERE IS 8593 MIDNIGHT EXIGENT?" Warden Eternal's voice reverberated throughout Le-Koro.
"Comms are down." He turned towards Kelly-087. "Kelly, you warn the Turaga. Fred, Linda, oversee defenses here and here. You have the data for writing common Matoran words, use them to communicate with the locals." He marked two spots on his HUD of the local map of Le-Koro. "Warden Eternal is coming. You hear the whistle, run to my position."
"Roger that, Chief." Blue Team separated, each soldier going through their assignments. John didn't need to tell them what the whistle would be.
"OSIRIS!" John-117's external speakers were amplified, allowing his fellow Spartans to see him. He ground-pounded nearby them, killing a Promethean Crawler. "I've assigned the rest of Blue Team to assist the Matoran defending at certain points."
"Roger that." Locke said. "But shouldn't we have all split?"
"Warden will be coming for me. I know it."
"He could be coming for that… Milky Endless or whatever he called it." Buck loaded his shotgun as he took cover.
"8593 Midnight Exigent." Vale corrected her squadmate.
"I said that,"
Tanaka marked something on John-117's and the rest of Fireteam Osiris' HUDs. "Looks like we got a squad of Knights. They're probably paving the way for Warden Eternal."
"Focus them down. We can't let them hit the Matoran." John prepared for a fight. Knights weren't easy to take down.
Ultia crushed several of the knights together, and slammed them onto the surviving members of the squad.
Buck holstered his shotgun and walked away. "Well, never mind. Looks like our friends have this under control."
Ultia was caught by a constraint field. A large slipspace rupture emerged, and a over 5-meter-tall figure emerged. Every part of its body was floating, linked together by a force invisible to the naked eye, and covered with lines of glowing orange, like an inner fire. As it spoke, its skull-shaped face moved. "I am Warden Eternal, and I stand in search for 8593 Midnight Exigent."
"Go loud!" Locke commanded.
"Go really, really loud!" Buck added to his CO's order.
John hid behind cover, turned up his external speakers, and let out a short, recognizable whistle.
Olly Olly Oxen Free, Buck thought, marveling at the noise and sight. "Hell yeah! Show 'em who's boss, Blue Team!"
"Osiris! On my lead!" Locke fired a few rounds at Warden to distract him, then signalled "Launchers" to the others.
All four members of Fireteam Osiris took out the compact railguns they had brought with them. Originally meant for ONI's own SPARTAN-IV agents, the weapons were powerful enough to punch through several Wraiths and keep going for several meters, and the cartridges had a thermonuclear warhead that would explode when primed with a button on a side. However, they were single shot, and would be disposed off once they returned to the Infinity.
"FIRE!"
Several beams of what seemed to be blue light were formed at the barrels of the weapon as the projectile fired from it accelerated to almost supersonic speeds. There was a large boom, and the recoil almost knocked the Spartans onto the ground, if it wasn't for the stabilizers in their armor. They hit Warden Eternal in the leg, arms, and torso, ripping through it, and detonating while inside. The titanic Promethean fell over, its body too damaged to stand up.
Fred took out his combat knife and severed the remaining leg, while Linda pierced its shoulder joint, and Kelly destroyed its remaining hand. Slowly, John walked towards it.
"Ah. How grandiose." The Warden said. "I knew you humans had a penchant for it. But you are no longer 'Reclaimers'. Hiding is futile. Running away will get you nowhere. This world will be destro-"
John stabbed it in the head, killing the body.
Three Warden Eternal constructs emerged from slipspace portals. "As I was saying," It continued, using the middle one as a mouthpiece, as if someone had simply cut it off, not killed it. "This world will be destroyed for harboring refugees of the Created's enemies. Starting with this little village." The Wardens took out their swords, and prepared to kill the Spartans, but the Hard Light swords were disintegrated by someone. It summoned several hundreds of Prometheans, but they all met the same fate as Warden's swords.
A toa- this one white and gold- walked towards the Wardens, and constrained them just like they had Ultia. Its mask was similar to Cognitis, but slightly different. "You will leave this world alone."
Le-Koro Outskirts, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna
Itshe heard the sounds of the battle emitting from Le-Koro, and continued her jog. She wished she wasn't a courier. Her backpack contained supplies for the local Toa of the region, and it was heavy. She wasn't an Onu-Matoran, with a stout frame, broad shoulders, and strong muscles. She was a Po-Matoran, and while she was hardier than the other Matoran types, she was also the most fleshy and organic. The light armor did make it easier to run and maintain her pace, but her muscles burned and cried out in pain for a water break.
And then a scream pierced the air. It wasn't loud enough for the combatants at Le-Koro to hear it, so there would be no help coming from that direction. She ran to investigate.
It took her a decently-long time, as her legs were not very long nor were they as powerful as a Toa's or even an Agori's. There was an olive-green colored aircraft in a clearing, heavily damaged. It wasn't any vehicle she recognized. She took out her Multi-Knife(good for carving stone or metal, and pretty good at being a weapon, too) and moved to inspect, quitely. She moved from the back of the vehicle, seeing several tire tracks. But they were old, and went towards Le-koro, so they weren't the culprits. Walking silently forwards, she moved towards the window. It was shattered, but not the same way a projectile would break glass. She crawled into it after abandoning her pack, and when she hopped down onto the floor, she noticed minute cracks in it, and coughed on the dust that she had settled. Then she noticed something. A weapon. It was discarded by its owner. Did they run away or-
Itshe had pondered the question as she looked up, and saw the now-deceased owner. She couldn't even describe the sight, and almost threw up in her mouth. She backed away into the fresh air and examined the cracks and dust. It was spilling out of the vents, and dust was not supposed to do that. It was too fine, and the aircraft was too new to form dust from sitting around. She noticed footprints around the craft that started and stopped. They were flat and long, and there was only one race she knew of that had those types of feet and the abilities to turn things into dust or fragment matter like that.
She ran off towards Le-Koro. She had to tell the offworlders. She only hoped there would be a translator there.
Le-Koro, Magna Nui, Spherus Magna
"And who is threatening me?" Warden asked the Toa.
"My name is Tanma, Toa of Light." It said, calmly, unfazed by the Wardens. "A new friend of mind- Roland, right?" He asked the Spartans.
"Insufferably cheery, yellow, and extremely sarcastic?" Buck asked.
"Yes."
"That's Roland."
"Thank you, Spartan Edward Buck." Tanma turned to the Warden. "Roland told me your soldiers were built out of a phenomenon called 'Hard Light', and from what you can guess from my title, I control light. I can plunge a continent into eternal darkness with a mere thought. I can blind an opponent with but a portion of my focus. I can cause entire cities to vanish without looking. And I can decimate your army of 'Prometheans' as easily as I can dispatch anyone who attempts to harm my brothers and sisters."
Turaga Cognitis walked up to Tanma, who was surprised at her appearance, and the two spoke in their native languages, discussing what to do with the Warden Eternal.
Cognitis turned to the Promethean construct. "So, you are Warden Eternal?"
"I am Warden Eternal, and I stand in service to Cortana and the Created."
"Cortana? These Spartans that are under my protection mentioned such a name. What brings you here?"
"8593 Midnight Exigent. That was the sender of a category one distress signal originating from this planet."
"And who is this '8593 Midnight Exigent'?"
"A Monitor who was lost sometime after the firing of the Halo Array."
"You will find no 'monitor', no observer, no watcher of any foreign origin here." She entered his mind, and took all of the information he knew of Spherus Magna. "You will leave." She forced him to activate his Slipspace portals, and sent him back to where he came from.
The Spartans were in shock at what had happened.
"Not bad for an old lady." Buck quipped.
Cognitis looked at him. "Old? I may be over three thousand years old, but I am not old. Experienced, perhaps, but not old."
"Buck, shut it. Don't say a word. I don't want a war starting because you insulted a local leader." Vale told her comrade.
Buck nodded silently.
Locke switched his comm channel to Infinity's. "Infinity, this is Spartan Locke. Prometheans are dealt with. All personnel intact. How copy?"
"Spartan Locke, this is Infinity." Roland's voice came over the radio. "You want us to send an extraction crew?"
Locke looked back at Fireteam Osiris and Blue team. "Negative, Infinity. Our Pelican's undamaged, and we should be able to rendezvous with the bird and take it back home. It'll have local microbial samples that you can use to synthesize vaccines for the locals."
"Alrighty, looks like this was a pretty good first contact. Went a hell of a lot better than from what happened with the Covenant, from what I've heard."
"How did you contact Tanma?"
"Because he was onboard the ship with a translator and some big, red-and-silver guy with an axe. There was a blue-and-gold guy who was able to create portals that he used for instant travel."
"We'll be back onboard in three hours. We need to help clean up and secure the area."
"Roger that. Infinity out."
A brown-and-orange Matoran ran over to Tanma. It was heaving, panting, and pointing in the direction the Spartans' Pelican had landed in. It was clearly afraid.
Locke tried to calm them down. "That's our dropship. There's nothing to be afraid of."
"That's not what he's saying," Tanma said grimly. "He's saying that someone…"
"Someone… What?" Tanaka asked. Whatever the Toa was going to say, it wasn't good.
"Someone sabotaged your transport and killed your pilot. It cannot be flown. We don't know who or what did this act."
"We'll need to bury the pilot." Locke told Tanma.
"I understand." Tanma walked the Matoran away, then turned back to the Spartans. "I'm… I'm sorry your first visit to our world ended in tragedy."
"We'll find who did this and kill them." Buck said.
"I am sorry, but this is our world, and you will abide by our laws when you are on our ground."
"And what are your laws? Just let them go free?" Buck was angered. "To Hell with that."
"Our laws are-"
Buck punched the Toa right in the face.
"Buck!" Vale yelled at her comrade, and tried to restrain him.
Buck pushed her aside, but and hit Tanma in the gut, who took the blow and staggered.
There was a pistol shot, Buck's shield broke, and everything went still. Buck turned around. John was pointing his sidearm at his fellow Spartan, and a bullet casing was by his foot.
"They aren't the enemy here. Stop." Chief's voice was stern as he lowered his pistol.
"How do you know? How do you know that Tanma or Ultia or anyone else didn't kill Corporal Miles?" Buck asked.
John said nothing.
"And you want to know how I know her name? Because I read care about other people, you goddammed ROBOT!"
John, again, simply stared at Buck, still as a statue.
"I could give you a list of people I lost under my command! People I knew, drank with, celebrated hard-fought victories with! You know how many people I saw die on Reach? You know how many of my squad was left alive after that? You know how many people I've lost? You know how many people I wake up in the morning to and go to call up or send a message to check on them and have to remember that they're dead?"
"Samuel-034. Kurt-051. Cadet Chyler Silva. Captain Jacob Keyes. Commander Miranda Keyes. Sergeant Major Avery Johnson. I could go on and on and on about those I cared for, those I was supposed to protect, and who I lost. You don't know anything about me and what I've sacrificed." Every word John said was punctuated with a step forwards towards the former ODST.
"Who do you think you are? Space-Jesus?" Buck pushed the Spartan-II back.
"Edward Buck! Stand down!" Locke ordered.
"A soldier. And so are you." John answered Buck's question.
Fred interjected, trying to complete. "What the Chief means is that we have a mission to complete. And, Buck, if you want to find who killed Corporal Miles, what good is infighting going to do?"
The Spartan-IV locked eyes with the blue-armored Spartan-II, then stormed away.
Cognitis watched the exchange. These Spartans were good warriors, but they were… disturbed. And she could sympathize with that. They were a long way from their home, with no way to know of the status of their family or friends. They were in darkness, and darkness was unnerving.
Before the pilot of the Spartan's transport died, she had felt darkness. Shadow. The very thought of the sensation sent chills down her spine. She looked into Itshe's mind- she hated probing the thoughts of others, but here, it was necessary- and looked at the dropship's status. There was only one race that she knew of that was capable of such destruction. She walked towards her aircraft, and hopped into the cockpit. As she stared it up, Augmentus shouted at her. "Where are you going?"
"To Bolkan. There is an incident Ierax must know of." She told Le-Koro's Turaga.
"Whoever sabotaged the Offworlder's transport will attempt to take you out. You must have guards." Augmentus said, concerned. "I can assign Ultia to you as an escort."
She didn't even have to think about his offer. "I will need all the help I can get."
"Then may the Great Spirit himself guide your journey."