WARNING
There is a shitting fuckton of swearing in this chapter, bitches.
The Pillar of Autumn lay in the sand, leaning a bit less that halfway off of a cliff. It's exterior was burnt and warped in places, but a majority of the ship was still relatively intact. Off of the horizon, Noble Six and John-117's Banshees' engines were failing.
"These things are falling apart!" Cortana said.
"You're telling us!" Six replied.
"They'll hold." John said.
"We aren't going to make it!" Cortana yelled. "Pull up!"
"We'll make it." John said calmly.
They were speeding towards the escape pod bay. Six's Banshee began to lower.
"Come on..." He said. He activated the boosters and shot forward. Within a few seconds, his Banshee stopped flying completely and crashed down hard on to the floor of the bay. It scraped across the floor for at least a dozen feet before stopping. Six got out of his Banshee and looked out of the bay door towards John, but his Banshee wasn't doing as hot.
"My boosters aren't working!" John said.
"Pull up, dammit!" Cortana yelled.
"I'm trying!" He said. John pulled up as far as he could, but he was still short. He exited the Banshee and jumped off of the windshield to the bay. He barely had a grip on the edge until Six grabbed his other hand. He pulled John up.
"Thanks, Six. I owe you one." John said.
"I..." Six said. Those were Jun's last words before he died. "Don't mention it."
"We need to get to the bridge. From there, we can use the Captain's neural implants to initiate an overload of the ship's fusion engines. The explosion should damage enough systems below it to destroy the ring." Cortana said.
"We should lay low until we get there." Six said. "I'm not sure if he communicates with his Sentinels, but we don't need Guilty Spark knowing that we're back to destroy the ring."
From afar, Six could hear the sounds of Sentinels firing their lasers at what was probably Flood forms. He reached to his right side for the sentinel beam that he snapped off of one of them back at the Halo's control center. From the EMPing, being soaked in coolant and just general combat, he hoped that it still worked.
They advanced quietly and quickly, careful not to make a sound.
After a short while, the familiar hallways and rooms of the Autumn were recognized by Six, and from there, he led the way to the bridge.
When they finally got there, the doors were already open. "Nice to see a door that isn't stuck, for once." Six said.
"We made it. Let's get to work." Cortana said. John pulled her chip from his helmet as they walked into the bridge. As soon as they entered, Six pushed John back.
"What?... Oh." John said.
There were three of the same Sangheili from the Truth and Reconciliation, the ones with the rags and strange armor. They appeared to be rooting around in the data inside of the internal memory storage. Either that, or struggling to get past one of the system's many firewalls. One sat at a terminal nearby the door, and the other two were on the other side.
"Who the hell are these Sangheili? I saw a bunch of these guys on Reach, but I don't think that they're Covenant. They're... something else." Six said.
"I don't have any files on them, but, whoever they are, we need to stop them. If they gather data on any Human technology, whoever they work for will know the UNSC's weaknesses." Cortana said.
"Let's blast 'em," Six said angrily. "And figure out who they work for later."
The two Spartans walked into the room and raised their guns, ready to fire. A Sangheili noticed them enter and scrambled for his gun, but Six shot his hand and kicked him into the guard rail. The others quickly turned to fire upon them, but were shot and stabbed by John before they could fire. The Elite that Six had kicked was now back up, and tried to jump on Six. He grabbed the Sangheili's arms and flipped him forward, knocking the wind out of him. Six grabbed his head and held it in place on the floor with brute strength. John walked over to him.
"Who do you work for?" Six said aggressively.
"Stupid... Demon." The Sangheili said, out of breath. "I will not ever tell."
"I'll give you one more chance to answer my question before I start hurting you." Six growled.
The Sangheili chuckled. "What was the question, again?" It said cheekily.
Six pulled out his combat knife and stabbed it directly into the Sangheili's arm. It screamed in agony, clenching its first and breathing heavily.
"I've seen your little comrades on Reach, and on the Truth and Reconciliation! While me and my friend ran for our fucking lives, your people gunned him down like a god damn dog and tried to send me down with him!" Six said intensely, raising his voice. "So I'll ask you one more time, you useless shitbag!" He continued menacingly, twisting the blade, causing the Sangheili to cry out in further agony. "Who are you, and who the fuck do you work for?!"
The Sangheili breathed heavily, obviously in extreme pain. "Riok ni' jinohag thugra, Klaka zzi." It raggedly spat out. You don't deserve to wear that armor, humans. "You are not warriors. Merely... obstacles! You and your kind will be punished!"
"The Covenant can't punish the Human race if we run them out of our galaxy." Six snarled, pulling out the knife from its arm and raising it to the Sangheili's throat. "Now speak, asshole."
The Sangheili chuckled at Six. "You truly believe that we are of the Covenant? Believe whatever you'd like. The Covenant are mindless beasts, and their goals mean nothing to us."
"Do I really have to fucking ask again?" Six said, pushing the knife further towards the Sangheili, drawing blood.
Once again, the Sangheili laughed. Suddenly, its face went deadpan.
"Hail the Enclave." It said.
The what?
The Sangheili kicked Six off with immense strength and stripped the knife from his hand. Six looked up, and the next thing that he saw was his own knife flying through the air towards his face. Six drew his magnum and stood up, but instead of hitting his face, the blade planted itself down to the hilt in his stomach, breaking his shield. Six fell back into the guard rail mid-shot and missed the Sangheili's head by at most a centimeter.
"Six!" John yelled as Six slid into a sitting position, clutching his stomach with one hand and aiming unsteadily with the other.
John rushed the Sangheili with his energy sword as it drew its wrist blades. John brought the sword down in an arc towards the Elite's head. It crossed its blades to stop the attack, but the power in his strike sliced through the metal, staggering them both. John recovered first, and drove the sword into its chest.
"We... Will..." The Sangheili choked out.
"...Die." John finished, ripping the blade out of it. He pushed the Sangheili over the guard rail and a second later it hit the floor with a thump.
John ran to Six side. He had dropped his pistol next to him and had both hands hovering around the hilt of the knife, still startled. He was breathing shakily and his heart was racing, blood spilling down his armor.
"Hrghh... uhh..." Six groaned, grabbing the hilt of the knife. He pulled on it, but the pain was intense. He had no idea how Emile stood an energy sword to the back if he couldn't take a four inch knife to the stomach.
"Hold still, Six. I'm going to pull the knife out."
"No!" Six said. "No, I think I'm fine. Really."
"If we don't take that thing out of you, you're going to bleed to death."
"I will either way." Six said.
"Fine. Whatever you say, "Sir"." John said sarcastically. As soon as Six looked away, John grabbed the knife and pulled it out as quickly as he could.
"Holy mother of fffff-" Six said, holding back the pain. "Oh, god dammit John!"
"Can you stand?" John asked.
"Don't... worry... about me. We have... bigger fish to fry." Six replied. Putting pressure on his wound made it hurt even more, but it needed to happen. "Put Cortana... into the terminal."
John stood up and put Cortana's chip into the terminal to their left. She had not been aware of what had just happened, as she had been out of John's helmet for the duration of the fight. As her avatar popped up, she greeted John, but didn't see Six.
"Where..." She asked. She noticed him slumped against the guard rail and put her hands over her mouth. "Oh my god. Six, are you okay?"
"Yeah... I'm just dandy." He responded, raising a bloodsoaked hand.
"Chief, he needs medical attention." Cortana said. "There are a few med-kits around the bridge. Get him to one while I try and work my way back in here."
John lifted Six up and supported his shaky footsteps.
"There's a kit... at the bottom of the stairs." Six said.
"Stay here." John said. He ran down the stairs and detatched the pack from the wall. He ran back up, and kneeled next to Six.
"John, did I ever tell you... how I got here?" Six asked.
"Stay quiet. This is going to hurt." John said, grabbing a container of Medi-Gel.
"No, this is important." Six said.
John looked up at Six.
"When I was... six years old..." Six said. "...my neighborhood was carpet bombed by the Covenant." A tear filled Six's eye. "They killed my mom. I was sent me to an orphanage and separated me from my baby brother and sister because my dad didn't want the... responsibility... the ass. I was chosen to be a SPARTAN-III, but Halsey didn't even know that the program existed until she met me... and my team. Carter... Kat, Jun, Emile..." He said, wincing as John applied the gel. "... Jorge. And then there was me. Everyone else sacrificed themselves for the rest to survive... except for Jun. Those... Enclave fuckers shot him in the head while he was dangling... in my hands."
"... Jun was his name?" John asked. "The friend that you mentioned earlier that died?"
"...Yeah... the intelligent son of a bitch had a not so good plan. I lived, he didn't."
"..."
"..."
"...When you told me back underground that you went a little bit crazy for a while..." John said. "You weren't exaggerating at all. Were you?"
"I just stared at walls for most of the time." Six responded. "When I got to the Autumn, it all just... melted away. When I cleared that one entire room though... it all fucking came back. Everyone I lost just hit me like a punch in the jaw."
John stayed silent, not knowing what to say. "..."
"When I got back to where I belonged, I thought I would just forget. But I never forgot a single moment. Everything and everyone I've lost along the way is burned in my mind with a fucking branding iron." Six said. "But I can't remember my family's names."
"I don't remember mine. Period." John said. "I don't think about them either."
"I never wanted to be a Spartan." Six said.
"Neither did I, but they plucked me off of the street like a stray dog. I had no say in the matter." John countered. "You should be thankful that you had a choice."
"I wanted revenge. It was why I said yes. Everything that I've ever done since the day that they picked me up, I did for revenge against those wrinkled bastards. I've been waiting for a chance to make it feel like everyone I knew didn't die in vain. Maybe it won't be today. Or tomorrow. But one thing is for sure..." Six said, standing up with his newly applied bandages.
"I won't have to wait much longer." He said.
"..."
"Let's go see where Cortana is at." Six said, trying to change the subject. "Come on, John."
John stood there for a moment as Six walked back to the center of the bridge, and then followed behind him.
In the past, John had had it rough, there was no doubt. He had been kidnapped, killed people while training by accident with his strength, and been locked in cryogenic sleep for longer than he knew. But Six, and with everything that he had gone through...
John seemed like he was the lucky one.
I'm not even going to try and lie, I think that this was the most fun chapter to write for this story so far. There are only a few more chapters until I'm finished with Combat Evolved, and, after what will likely be only a two week hiatus/relaxation from writing, I will start writing the events of Halo 2, should the want for more be ever so desired. Obviously, because this story is from Six's point of view, Thel 'Vadam/ee (AKA The Arbiter) may or may not have chapters focusing on only him (I'm still debating it).
Now, the Enclave are a group that I created. They may seem trivial at the moment, but trust me, they will be important soon. If I had a picture of one, I would show you guys and girls, but, for now, you'll just have to visualize. They hate the Covenant deeper than words can explain, and they don't have a liking for humanity, either...
...Although they aren't quite what they seem, themselves.
I hope that you all enjoyed this chapter, because we're getting down to the wire!
Have a great day, Wolfgang!
~Husky