"Long drop." Six said, looking down a pit sitting in the middle of the doorway. The door was the easiest way that they could progress, so, naturally, it was blocked off. "Think we could make the jump?" He asked John.

"Maybe." He replied. "Its far. Maybe too far."

"I'm with the Chief on this one. We're better off just finding a way around it. This hole was caused by some kind of explosive. Very powerful if it tore through a ship's hull. All I detect down there are pools of coolant."

"Right. We should turn back, then." Six said.

As they walked back, a singular Flood parasite dropped from a hole in the ceiling. Six sped up his pace and kicked it like a soccer ball directly into the wall. Alone, those tiny little things had nothing on the two Spartans. They were really only dangerous when they grouped together.

Six walked up to the door that they had come through and pressed a button, intending to open it up. The door strained to open, but didn't.

Six tried again. It refused to open. "Great. Is it stuck, or-"

"Six, watch out!" Cortana yelled. Six froze.

He stopped because of the two feet of sword that penetrated the solid metal doors and touched his chest lightly. He stayed there stunned as the blade pushed forward further, causing him to back up slightly. It pushed forward another three feet, but Six had anticipated the sudden thrust and he rolled backwards, the tip of the sword scraping a bit of the dark steel finish off of his boot. He landed with one hand on the floor, both feet down. The blade slashed upwards, ripping the door in two. It was suddenly caved in by an obviously powerful force. Each half of the door flew in either direction, the right half flying directly at John. He swatted it out of the way with brute strength and pulled out his energy sword. Six was on the other side of the room.

"Goliath!" Six yelled. He checked his belt for any firebomb grenades, but he had none.

John looked surprised. "More are coming!"

He wasn't wrong. Quite a few Flood combat forms were making their way down the hallway behind the Goliath, whom was shaping itself to fit through the doorway.

"Cortana, we need a way out!" Six said.

"You can always jump into the coolant." She replied. "You would most likely survive."

"We can take them if we concentrate." John said, raising his assault rifle to fire on the Flood forms. It didn't last long. The Goliath regained its form and charged him. John dodged the charge, but wasn't expecting the monster to flourish and dual blade-flat slam him directly in the face.

"John!" Cortana and Six both yelled at the same time. John flew across the room and slammed his back against the floor. He rolled towards the pit and fell in. Six rushed to the edge of the pit and looked over the side. John was clinging to an iron support rod sticking out of the floor. His visor had a small crack in it. Six was about to reach out to John, but John objected before he could.

"Don't bother! Just jump!" He yelled, letting go of the rod and falling into the blackness below.

Six looked down into the pit and back at the Flood, whom were almost upon him. He backed up to the edge of the pit and gave them all the finger, then fell backwards into the abyss.

A few seconds passed.

A cold sensation engulfed him. He was under. He swam for the top.

A hand went into the coolant. Six grabbed it.

He was pulled to the top by John. "You alright, man? I don't think you concentrated enough." Six asked him.

"Yeah. Don't worry about it. We have bigger problems. We need to find a way out of here." John replied. Six looked around them. This section of the ship was wrecked and torn, with reactor fluid spilled everywhere.

"In the usual CSS-Class Battlecruiser, there are gravity lifts on this level. Hopefully, they're still operational." Cortana said.

"Then I guess that's our best bet." Six said. "Come on, John."

"Right behind you." He replied.

They ended up finding the gravity lifts. Six and John shot up into the air and on to the next floor.

"We should be able to get into the ship's control room from here." Cortana said. After a pause, she groaned. "The Covenant Battlenet is a mess. I can't access the ship's schematics. My records indicate that a shuttle bay should be... here." She said, marking the Spartans' HUDs.

After a brief walk to the nav point, they reached a cracking metal door, rusty from the coolant. Six waded through the knee high coolant fluid and quite literally kicked the door in, full force. The coolant spilled on to the floor in the room ahead of them and rusty metal changed on the ground.

The doorway did, in fact, lead to a shuttle bay. It was rather small for holding a Covenant armada, but still vast. In the corners lie bodies of Sangheili and Unggoy. For at least two minutes straight, they speedwalked in silence to the other end of the bay. When they reached it and opened the door, Cortana caught Keyes' transmission again.

"I... gave you an order, soldier! Now pull out!" Keyes said, coughing.

"He's delirious! In pain! We have to find him!" Cortana said worryingly. "The control room should be just through here."

"Hang on, Captain." Six said under his breath. They ran off through the door ahead.

By the time that they had gotten near the control room, Keyes was screaming in pain. "Ohhhh gaahhhhh... Hrhh! Aghhh!"

"Hurry, you two!" Cortana yelled. "His vitals are fading!"

They reached the control room doors, and Six pushed the button to open it. It didn't work. Frustrated, Six banged on the door. He stuck his hands under the door and began to lift, pulling the door up only slightly. John stepped up and began to lift, too. Together, they just barely pried the door open, needing to crouch to get through. Six went first. When he stood, he tensed up, frozen.

John followed shortly after, and was equally as stunned as Six.

Mounted on the wall was an enormous mass of Flood tissue, and what looked like mangled human bodies. There were hands, legs, torsos and...

...faces.

Six walked closer, slowly. When he got up close, something dawned on him.

And then it hit him like a punch in the stomach.

Among the faces, the torn up and reconnected limbs and all of the Flood biomass was Captain Jacob Keyes, hung on the front like a puppet.

"...Oh my god..." Six said. "I..."

"No human life-signs detected." Cortana said, horrified. "The Captain... he's one of... them."

Everything was silent, as if time itself stopped.

John stood there with not one thought going through his head. He couldn't even think.

"We can't let the Flood get off this ring!" Cortana piped up. "You know what he'd expect, Chief... What he'd want us to do."

John stood there for a moment, not moving. He swallowed his emotions, then stepped forward.

"What-" Six said, but stopped, realizing what John had to do. He had seen so much death so far in his life, but this was one man that he didn't need to see as really truly dead. He turned around.

There was a cracking sound, along with several squishing noises. After a moment, the sounds stopped. Six looked back and saw John shaking brain matter from Keyes' neural implant chip.

"Hold on to this, Six, will you?" John asked. He handed the chip to Six.

Six took it.

He just stared at the chip for a moment. He flipped it over once or twice, then clutched it tightly in his hand. He was going to keep it safe. He stuck it into the slot on his arm.

"I'll begin the data transfer." Cortana said, hollow. A few moments later, she finished. "Transfer complete. Let's... get out of here."

They crouched back under the door and got to the other side. After a few steps, Six stopped. He turned around and stomped the bottom edge of the door as hard as he could, easily knocking it back down.

He was angry.

"We need to blow this ring." Six said, speeding up to John.

"For the Captain." John agreed.

They reached the shuttle bay and checked for operating vehicles. A loud clattering emanated from the vents above. Six raised his DMR to the ceiling, and hundreds of Flood parasites spilled from the furthest vent on the other side of the room. A door opened on their side, and several Sangheili spec ops soldiers emerged from the opening. But something was wrong with the way that these particular Sangheili were outfitted. They wore grey armor instead of the Covenant's usual blue or red, and they were wearing tattered red and black garments on their shoulders and around their necks. The Sangheili noticed the Spartans, but instead turned their attention to the Flood and attacking the immediate threat. While they clashed, John found a small group of four Banshees that were all ready for takeoff.

"John, is it me, or do those Sangheili seem... different?" Six asked.

"They do look odd, but there isn't time to dwell on it, Six. Come on." John said.

"Wait a minute, I've seen..." Six said. "Never mind."

Six ran over to the Banshees and got into one. John took off with Six at his side.

Keyes was dead, Guilty Spark was insane, and Six was having a serious case of deja vu. They needed to hurry, or else they might be too late to stop the Monitor from firing the gun pointed at the head of the universe.

First day of school for me was today. So far, Sophomore year sucks. I wrote this from beginning to end as soon as I got home.

Sorry that it was sad and everything, but, sometimes, you can't bend the rules.

Have a good day, Wolfgang.

~Husky