In my nearly seven months of writing, I've had to write nearly one hundred thousand words. A lot of it, mostly in this story, is action. However, never have I been this satisfied with an action scene since chapter fourteen.

I got Dragon Age Inquisition yesterday, so I'm going to be playing that for the next couple of days. I decided that if I'm not going to write more until maybe Saturday or Sunday, I might as well give all of my readers an extra long chapter.

Happy reading!

"John, get Cortana back into the system. We need to get out of here fast." Six said. "Even with Hom covering our escape with twenty five or so ships, the Covenant have at least a dozen more."

"Already in." Cortana said.

"Would anyone mind explaining what the hell all of that was about?" Locklear asked. "What just happened?"

"You heard everything. You were looking." John replied. "What more is there to explain?"

"But what was that?" Dave asked. "Everything stopped except for you three! No technology could do something like that!""

"Everyone, this is a pretty goddamn unique situation, I understand." Six said, addressing the entire crew. "But the only thing that you need to focus on right now is the prime objective. That being said, several dozen Covenant are closing in on the bridge right now. We have minimal firepower, but we can take down these bastards if we keep our eye on the ball."

He told everyone to disregard what had just happened, but he was still thinking about it. He wasn't sure if Hom was one hundred percent trustworthy. She had contradicted herself multiple times, the most prominent being her fake aggression. She may have bashed his face with a shotgun, but Six could tell that it was a ruse to intimidate. He had seen the look that she carried on so many faces.

But, all in all, Hom was powerful, and, as an ally, she would be extremely helpful. As much as he disliked joining forces with the Enclave, the soldiers that murdered Jun and put a half of a foot of carbon fiber in his stomach, he had to. For the good of Humanity.

For the good of his family.

The main door to the bridge, covered in the blood of Sangheili and Unggoy just like a lot of the room, was currently shut tight, forcefully locked by Cortana just moments before. The safety of the thick doors wouldn't last more than about thirty seconds against a blowtorch like the Spec-ops Elites were using back at the hexagonal door.

Just as he thought that, it happened. Sparks flew through from the other side of the door and began to cut a neat square section to enter through. Six jogged towards where the Sangheili were cutting and stuck to the side, waiting.

"Johnson, you're with me." Six said.

Johnson walked over and leaned against the other side of the door, straightening his green cap and pulling back the hammer on his assault rifle.

"Let's give these dumb bugs something to cry about." He said, a ready smirk on his battle scarred face.

"Everyone else get into position. John, cover Cortana." Six said. "Don't let your guard down and don't be a hero, and we just might get through this in one piece instead of pieces. Ready?"

"Ready." Haverson said.

"Yep." Clancy said.

"Let's bust some heads." Locklear said.

The blowtorch neared the beginning cut. Just a few more inches.

The section of door bashed open, the metal, red hot around the edges, hitting the floor. Plasma fired through the door and the crew returned bullets, the smoke from the blowtorch obscuring both parties' vision. A Sangheili with a needle rifle stepped through the opening, firing rounds at the others.

Six took aim at the Sangheili with his magnum and fired three rounds at it's face. The rail clicked back and held there, the clip empty. No ammo. All he had were five fragmentation grenades, his knife and his hands, all very dangerous options considering his surroundings.

Wait a minute... what had Hom said?

"The stock will act as a switch on your knuckles, and I did not alter the use of your weapon."

He looked at the arm for a split second. The pump sat on the inside of his forearm. Before, he had thought Hom had just used the shotgun to make the arm whole, but now, he realized;

The arm was the shotgun.

The Sangheili turned to him as if in slow motion. For what felt like a solid ten seconds, Six looked at the Elite, which he now recognized to be Spec-ops, and looked it in the eye. It's mandibles opened in a frothy roar, wide enough for him to be able to see down its throat.

Six didn't like it when they did that.

He grabbed the pump on the inlay of his forearm plate and pumped it back, one of the five shells that were in the chamber before the gun was crushed loading into the barrel. He took a strong step forward and reeled his arm back, clenching his metallic fist like a vice, and swung his knuckles forth in a furious left hook that could have bashed a hole in titanium.

Right before the stock hit the Sangheili's face, he wondered what it could have been thinking.

Probably wondering what that black metal thing was in front of his face.

The stock impacted against the Elites face, and the shell fired, it's extremely close proximity busting through the remaining hard light shielding and shredding its face with buckshot. Bits of armor and skull shot out of the left side of its head, on Six's right, and blue blood splattered over the slightly older blue blood that soaked the floors. It's body hit the ground like a sack of rocks, settling on the floor like the perfect corpse should.

As the body hit the ground, Locklear chucked the grenade that he had been holding since he was frozen towards the incoming plasma. A stray shot found the grenade as soon as it entered the door, detonating it and rending the flesh of two with shrapnel and fire. Sangheili began to enter in greater numbers, from two to three every few seconds. The blowtorch was active again, cutting an even larger section of the door out. That was bad news.

As the crew rained bullets, more and more Sangheili funneled through the opening. Grunts came through with needlers and plasma pistols recklessly and, surprisingly, without fear. Suddenly, another section of the door came down, and more troops funneled on to the bridge, firing flurries of disintegrating plasma. Six looked past one Sangheili, and saw that the one beside him had an energy sword. He was rushing forward with an overshield, shrugging off bullets like wind. John stood at the ready, a grenade in hand and an assault rifle in the other.

The Sangheili that was operating the blowtorch was a lowly Recruit, and fast on his feet. But he wasn't to fast for Clancy's dead eye. Clancy fired eight shots through the crowd, bullets streaming through miniscule spaces and hitting the Recruit. It tried to run, but it tripped, and he finished it off without another thought. The blowtorch skid across the floor and back behind the wall, and Clancy kept firing.

The Sangheili rushing towards John had the appearance and zeal of a master swordsman. In the ranks of the Covenant military, such swordsmen were agile and powerful. They weren't your average warriors, but John was confident that he could take on a single Elite. It was clad in powerful looking armor, and it ran like an animal. It reached the top of the stairs as Dave and Haverson fired on it.

"Eyes front, you two!" John said. "I can handle this one!"

They nodded, and began to fire on the entering Sangheili, those of which were on the bridge increasing in number exponentially. The Swordsman roared at John, and did something rather unexpected. It pulled off its own helmet, revealing the greyish-purple skin underneath. It flexed its mandibles in what John could only guess was a bloodthirsty grin, then charged.

John ducked as the energy sword slashed at him, the trail of energy following close behind. He grabbed his rifle like a battering ram and smashed the stock against the Swordsman's abdomen, causing it to stumble and lowering its shields to half overshield. John recovered quickly, and pulled a grenade from his belt. As he pulled the pin, the Swordsman recovered and knocked the armed hand grenade from John's hand. It rolled town to the first step and stopped, but the Sangheili and John were relatively close by the grenade's eventual explosive radius. Using quick thinking, he kicked the Sangheili on to the floor and jumped from the platform. The Swordsman recovered with great speed and jumped after him just as the grenade exploded, warping the metal of the stairs and the rail.

Six, who was currently knifing a Sangheili in the throat, heard the explosion nearby John and whipped his head towards the platform. John was at the bottom of the stairs, back to fighting the Swordsman.

"Six!" John yelled. "Get to Cortana! I'm occupied!"

"You need help!" Six replied.

"She's more important!" John said. "I can handle this!"

Six looked towards the staircase. Sangheili were running for the stairs, eager to take back control of the ship.

"Cortana, how close are you to taking this thing over?!" Six yelled, taking a running step towards the attackers. "Cortana!"

"I'm getting there. These Covenant technologies operate like no UNSC technology. They're... different. More complex. It would take me weeks, months to decipher all of this information."

"We don't exactly have months!" Six said, pushing past several Sangheili. He had to duck his head in order to not get shot. He could see Clancy firing round after round into multiple Elites at a time, causing them to hide behind their comrades. Dave, who was nearby, fell to the floor, dropping his assault rifle. It slid to Clancy's feet, but he was unaware. A Sangheili closed in on Dave as he got back to his feet and tried to run to his rifle.

"Clancy!" Six yelled, still running. Clancy looked over to him, taking his eyes off of combat for a split second. "Gun!" He shouted, pointing to Dave's rifle.

Clancy looked back to Dave, then looked to the assault rifle at his feet. He picked it up and threw it like a football to the stumbling marine, who caught it and turned around with bullets spraying out of the barrel like a hose.

Polaski was struggling, using only her magnum to fight off several Grunts. Locklear drew his knife from a Sangheili's back and ran to her side, sheathing his knife and spraying bullets into the surrounding Unggoy. Across the room, Johnson was fighting his own battle, but as Six broke from a fast run into a full-on sprint, he noticed that Johnson was staying in control of the fight. Out of all of the marines that he had met, Six knew that Sergeant Johnson was one of the toughest he ever had the pleasure of fighting by the side of. He had no doubt that he could handle himself.

John, however, was a different story. As Six came within five yards of him, he realized that the Spartan-II was perfectly matched. John put his rifle up to catch the energy sword that the Swordsman was swinging down in a perfect arc towards the middle of his helmet, and the blade, made of hard light and flesh-rendingly hot plasma, cut through it with ease. John told him to run for Cortana, but he couldn't leave his friend to struggle like he was. So he hatched a plan to intervene.

A Sangheili that looked particularly bloodthirsty stepped in front of Six a few yards away and started into a swinging motion with its arm, using the needle enclosed in its first like a set of brass knuckles. If he kept on advancing at the speed that he was going for a few more feet, then he was going to be clotheslined and knocked on his ass or worse. He reached for a grenade, pulling the pin out as he detached it from his belt. He wasn't even sure if what he was doing as he did it. Everything after that point was just based on his warrior instinct.

He spotted an Unggoy just a yard forward and to the left, and, without thinking, jumped towards it. He planted his heavy metal boot into its skull as he used the Grunt like a stepping stone, pushing his full weight off of the little monster and sailing forward and up, his hips at level with everyone else's head. As he flew towards the Sangheili, he stuck both feet down, one aiming towards its neck and the other towards its gut. Just as the Elite realized its predicament, Six's right boot connected with the unfortunate warrior's trachea, and it fell to the floor. The foot on its neck stayed on its neck, and, as the Elite hit the ground, Six crouched, his other foot connecting with its stomach. The Sangheili's body slid towards John and the Swordsman like a skateboard, clearing two yards easily. The Swordsman kicked John's leg out, and he fell to one knee, one piece of the rifle still in hand. He was trying to dodge, to regain his balance, but it was difficult to fight like he had been while his muscles ached and cramped from the constant battle since days before. His shields were broken and his every joint burned in intense pain. The savage and eager Swordsman raised his blade in another arc, closing in on the kill he had been fighting for.

Six leapt from the sliding Elite in a full tackle, flying towards the bloodthirsty Swordsman with not a thought on his mind but to protect John. He caught the Sangheili just as he brought the sword down in a strike that surely would have ended his friend's life, tackling the Sangheili sideways.

Instead of being planted in his head, the energy sword slashed John's right shoulder deeply, cutting through the dense MJOLNIR armor like a hot knife in butter. It cut the surface of the black bodysuit below as well, and burned a large section of skin below that, slicing that open at least a centimeter and a half deep and cutting into muscle. Under his helmet, John gritted his teeth with intense concentration, trying as hard as he could to hold in his reaction to the slice. He wanted to shout in pain, but he couldn't. He had felt much worse, and he knew it.

"John, go!" Six yelled over the gunfire. He looked out to pick out the members of the crew, but he couldn't see them all from where he was standing. He pumped his arm.

"I told you, I'm-"

"-getting your ass up those stairs!" Six finished.

He wanted to protest, but he knew that he would get hurt even worse if he continued. He could barely move his right arm as it was. John knew that he had been careless, getting too cocky when faced with the premise of one on one combat. He had broken one of his most important rules: Never underestimate an enemy's skill.

"Get to her, n-" Six shouted, but the impact of the Swordsman's elbow struck him in the face before he could finish the sentence. He recovered from the hit skillfully, rolling back instead of continuing to stumble. He place his right fingers against his knuckle switch, aimed the barrel at the Swordsman, and pushed on the stock with force, firing the shell into the Sangheili's overshield and breaking through it. John nodded and ran towards the stairs, his arm burning. An overcharged plasma bolt impacted the floor in front of him, but he jumped over the shot just in time.

The others had been buying time and killing Sangheili that attempted to reach the controls. It had only been a minute and a half since the battle began, and easily three dozen Covenant lay dead around the bridge. They had to have been the luckiest squad of soldiers in the solar system at that moment, because most of the injuries that they had were either minor or slightly worse. Locklear had a large cut on his forehead where blood was dripping on to his nose, and Polaski was sporting a limp. Clancy was on the back of a Sangheili Recruit, strangling the life out of the thing with his gun held around its neck, and blood was running down his arm.

John rushed up the stairs and pulled out his combat knife with his left hand. It felt strange, as he wasn't exactly ambidextrous, but his right arm could barely move without causing him extreme pain. He preferred to avoid extreme pain. He reached the top stair and two Sangheili stood over the console, trying to break through Cortana's firewalls. He ran up behind the one closest to Cortana and plunged the blade into its neck from behind, puncturing vital connections to the Sangheili's spine. Its shields went down and it collapsed onto the console, not quite dead but unable to move. Its friend noticed John's presence and aimed a needler, shooting purple spikes in his immediate direction. He rolled forward, and the homing spikes turned to hit the floor behind him. He came up out of the roll with his knife pointed upwards art the Sangheili's chin, but the Covenant warrior was very lucky. It smacked the needler to the left and punched John extremely hard, stunning him momentarily. He brought the knife back in a sideways stab, and the Elite had no choice but to catch the blade with its open hand.

The Elite squealed with rage and pain, but John kept pushing the knife. John was pushing slightly harder, and every so slowly the carbon fiber knife inched closer to the Sangheili's head. Reluctantly, John struggled to move his right arm up to the knife's hilt, fire shooting through his veins. With a final push, the knife lurched forward and implanted itself into the Elite's skull, pinning its hand to its forehead. He backed up as the warrior fell and turned to the console.

"Cortana, you need to hurry." He said.

"Hang on... I'm just about there!" She replied. "Any second, now..."

Meanwhile, on the lower deck, Six had bitten off more than he could chew. He should have remembered that John, being a Spartan-II, was much stronger than Six physically, and even he could barely keep up with this mad Swordsman. The only advantage that Six had was the shotgun on his arm. He punched the crazed Sangheili in the gut, firing the third of five shells. The Swordsman's shielding was stronger than most, likely due to its penchant for close quarters combat, and still had not fully diminished after two shotgun blasts. The Swordsman retaliated to the hit with a side slash that Six barely dodged, cleaving a layer of metal from his supplemental chestguard. The Swordsman fell into his own strike, building momentum for a second slash, and came down with vigor. Six knew that he was going to have to come up with a plan, or he would be as dead as the Covenant bodies that littered the ground around him.

Suddenly, the flagship lurched upwards, propelled by an outside force.

"Got it!" Cortana said.

Six clenched his leg muscles to prevent himself from falling over, the vertical propulsion making him dizzy. The Swordsman was not expecting the sudden jump, and tripped over itself, nearly falling to the floor. Six took this as an opportunity, and kicked the Covenant warrior with the force of a speeding car. It fell onto its back as it tried to recover. A yellow glow ensnared the space around the Swordsman, and then faded in separate pieces.

Its shields were down.

Clancy, who had been backed into the middle of the room by a pair of Elites and a Grunt, fired the last bullet in his clip and reached down for another. He patted his hand around where he had put the clips, but nothing hung there. He slung the DMR over his back and turned on a dime, rushing towards a nearby body for a plasma rifle. A Sangheili stepped around him and kicked the rifle across the floor. It skid several yards away in the direction of Six, whom was still locked in combat. Clancy stumbled to his feet as the flagship began to move and ran as fast as he could towards the rifle and Six. Johnson spotted the Covenant chasing Clancy and fired at them, killing the Grunt and one of the Elites before running out of ammo. He had only one clip left.

Clancy kicked a dead grunt out of the way and jumped over the corpse of a Sangheili. He slid for the gun and grabbed hold of it, and the energy chamber rolled like a wheel. Plasma fired as soon as Clancy rolled over and aimed at the remaining Elite on his tail. Blasts of the scalding hot ammo struck the Sangheili, dropping its shields. He kept firing, and the Elite's armor eroded and hit flesh. The warrior dropped dead at Clancy's feet.

"'Little help here, Clancy?" Six grunted. He was holding the Swordsman's wrists, pushing against its force as hard as he possibly could. Six scanned the room. The Covenant population on the bridge was a bit more than one dozen, consisting entirely of Sangheili. Polaski picked up a pair of plasma rifles and emptied shots into several of them.

Clancy stood and fired at the Swordsman, hitting and melting the extra-tough armor alloy. The rifle suddenly locked up and overheated, and burned Clancy's bare hand. He dropped the weapon, and the Swordsman took the opportunity to make its move.

It kneed Six in the stomach, causing him to lose his grip, and ripped its arms from his hands. Following its own momentum, it span around in a full circle on its hell and roundhouse kicked Six to the floor. The Swordsman lunged at Clancy, mandibles and spiky teeth barred, and slashed the marine diagonally across his chest. His combat armor split and the thick cloth layer was ripped to ribbons. The plasma charred the top layer of his skin, and blood lightly oozed from the enormous wound. He fell to the floor and landed on his right shoulder, howling in pain and trying to aim the now cooled down plasma rifle.

As the Swordsman raised the energy sword, Clancy closed his eyes. He didn't want to die.

Not like this.

"Clancy!" Six shouted. He rushed to his feet and dashed towards the Swordsman, pumping his arm and reeling back for what had to have been the hardest punch that the Spartan had ever thrown.

Six's fist impacted with the Swordsman's head with immense force, cracking the Sangheili's skull. The shotgun blast exploded from the barrel, sending pellets into the Covenant warrior's cheek and out of the other side. The shot unfortunately didn't strike anything vital, but the Swordsman roared in pain, dropping the energy sword to clutch its face. The hilt dropped over the railing nearby and fell somewhere below, and the Swordsman stumbled away.

"Get over here, you son of a bitch!" Six growled, and he punched the injured Sangheili in the face when he got close enough. The Swordsman took the hit and its knees buckled, causing it to fall to the floor. Six raised his fist for one last punch, but the Swordsman was anticipating it, smashing his hand to the side with the back of its own and grabbing Six by the throat.

"Locklear!" John shouted. He turned from firing at one of the few remaining Sangheili and looked to John. "Grab Clancy! He's injured!"

Locklear nodded, and ran to Clancy's side. "Get up, you lazy bastard." He said jokingly, pulling him up.

Six stared the Swordsman in the face while simultaneously pounding on it with his left arm. Cobalt blood dripped from spots all over its face, and an enormous hole from the shotgun blast lay in the warrior's right cheek. Pellet holes were scattered on the other cheek, and its mandibles were shredded. It looked as if was hit by a train, but still it fought. This Sangheili was unstoppable.

Six looked around for something to turn the tide. If he interrupted anyone, they would lose focus and possibly be killed. John would be his go-to choice, but all it took was a single camouflaged Covenant that was smart enough to self destruct the system, and the whole plan would be absolutely screwed.

Six spotted something over the Swordsman's shoulder. Along the walls of the bridge were escape pod hatches, closed tight. An idea sparked in his head.

Six grabbed the side of the Sangheili's head and put his robotic thumb over its right eye. He pushed inwards, and blood flowed as the Swordsman's eyeball hemorrhaged. It cried out in intense pain and let go of Six once again, reaching down to its hip to grab something. It came up with a plasma pistol and began firing. Six rushed the Sangheili and smashed his shoulder into its chest, knocking it to the floor in a heap. He jumped over the crumpled Swordsman and ran to one of the escape pod hatches, rushing to find a control panel of some sort to open the pods. Nothing.

"Cortana!" Six said, breathing heavily. "Can you open the escape pod doors manually? I have a friend that I know who would just love to go for a ride!"

"Just a minute!" Cortana promised.

The Swordsman got to its feet. This Sangheili knew no concept of the word surrender. The warrior spat a blue and violet mess of phlegm and blood on to the ground. It activated both of its wristblades at the same time, a dark look on its face, and charged for one last attempt at the Spartan Noble Six.

The fifty sets of escape pod doors, twenty-five on either side, all opened at precisely the same moment. Six pumped his arm, lined the barrel up with the Swordsman's leg, and fired the shell by pressing on the stock. The Swordsman staggered and rolled as it tried to stand. Moving out of the way, Six got behind the Sangheili and waited for it to regain its balance. It turned to look at him. The bloody, grey-purple skin and mangled teeth of the warrior looked particularly ferocious in this light. In its one remaining eye, he saw what looked to be fear. Anger. But most of all, he saw a thirst for revenge.

Six simply gritted his teeth.

"Get the fuck off of this ship." He growled, sending a powerful front kick directly into the Swordsman's chest. The Sangheili's breastplate cracked like cheap porcelain China as it fell to the ground of the escape pod.

"Doors." Six said to Cortana. The escape pod doors shut at once, and the Swordsman crashed against the one foot thick glass trying to escape. The pod disengaged from the flagship and shot away at the speed of a bullet, twirling into the group of Enclave and Covenant cruisers like a spec of dust in the light.

Six, with his muscles burning like a methane fire and his breathing heavier than the hum of the flagship's acceleration, turned to the rest of the room. Every Covenant soldier that had entered the bridge was now dead on the floor, dozens upon dozens of corpses hung over railings and sprawled over stairs. Six looked to his crew. Not one of them was without some of their own blood on themselves, and there was plenty of Unggoy and Sangheili blood on much more than themselves.

Six leaned against the wall. He looked at John, and Polaski, Clancy, Johnson, Locklear, Haverson, Dave and all of the bodies scattered around. He looked, and he sighed deeply.

"Good work, all of you. That... that was, uh... the hard part." He said, relaxing his aching muscles.

For now, Cortana could fly the flagship, but she would need the rest of the crew, including Six, to help again soon.

Six decided to make the most of this extra time. Who knew when he would get another moment of silence like this one?

In Halo: First Strike, Haverson sustained an injury very similar to Clancy's in almost the exact same way. The Swordsman appeared in a different manner at the same point in the story, and the original 5 in the crew (John, Polaski, Locklear, Johnson, Haverson) could barely deal with him.

I hope that you enjoyed this extra long chapter, Wolfgang! Have a super extra fantabulous day, wished by yours truly!

~Husky