Chapter 11: A Ring and a Canvas Short Of a Forge World.
-Mistral-
-Dragon's Head Mountain-
The light snow fell from the clouds slowly enveloping the ground below in a cold coat of nature. The mountain was home to a structure, completely foreign and alien to Atlas. To the Spartans however...
All too familiar.
"Never thought I'd see another Forerunner site this early." Damian viewed the Forerunner structure from the Pelican's cockpit
"Yeah, since Requiem these bloody sites have been poppin up everywhere." Hannah spoke, she flew over the site and looked for a suitable spot to land. "Alright, we're landing might as well load up mate."
Damian nodded and stood off his seat, he walked to the Pelican's bay, seeing the rest of the Spartans were loading up. Damian walked to the Pelican's weapon rack and grabbed his weapons. His Assault rifle with a Laser targeter attached, his modified Magnum and a Hydra launcher. He looked over to his Energy sword hilt and clamped it on as well.
Xavier Loaded his DMR and clamped it on his back, along with a Magnum, then grabbed a M319 Individual grenade launcher. The Spartan grabbed a grenade and loaded it into the launcher, also clamping it on his back as well. "Alright team. We're going into a Forerunner site with little to no intel, plus, we got a team of Atlasian soldiers backing us up."
Jirou held an ARC-920 Railgun and loaded it with a shell "Not sure they'll be much help."
"Yep, they might not last if there are Prometheans in there." Magnus passed his finger through his Brute shot's blade, he silently noted a stranger's finger print on it. Magnus placed the brute shot on his back and grabbed his Shotgun and Magnum.
Xavier held his hands up "Now I know compared to us, the Atlasians might just look like marines. But even the marines had their use, so let's try and play nice."
The team felt the Pelican land and stood up from their seats. Hannah emerged from the cockpit and grabbed herself a Spartan laser, along with her SMG and modified Magnum. Damian opened the Pelican's door and stood ready for the cold environment. The Pelican's doors slowly opened, letting the cold wind into the ship.
Xavier walked out and saw the Atlasian airship slowly make it's approach "Alright, Atlas is here. Let's meet up and then we'll advance on the site."
The Spartans saw as the Atlasian ship descended. Xavier looked back towards the Spartans and then back at the drops hip, the ship's doors opened and there he saw Sanith Viento.
He wore a seemingly modified version of Atlasian armor, this was much more plated and had more pouches. He was holding his helmet, it didn't have the usual open face design the usual Atlas soldiers had, it was also full black with brown accents.
The rest of the Atlasian Spec Ops walked with their leader, they all had different Rifles, pistols and shotguns than the usual Atlas Solider. Their armor was also very much more plated, including leg plates and fully plated arms.
"Spartans, it's been a while." Sanith started
"Yes it quite has…is your injury healed up?" Xavier noted the Atlas soldiers were carrying a small box-like device with them
"Of course, the wonders of Atlas's medicine were definitely more than enough to treat it"
"What's that box thing your guys are carrying?" Damian asked, the soldiers who carried it turned to the Spartans
"It's simply a way to get us comms over this…cold hell." Sanith turned the soldiers. "Do we have it set up yet?"
"Sir, activating now." The Atlas soldier pressed a green button and activated the device. Now, Winter Schnee was in their comms.
"Specialist Viento, you read?" The Schnee asked
"Loud and clear ma'am" Sanith nodded, he motioned one of his soldier to give the Spartans access to the comm
"And the Spartans?"
Damian spoke into the comms first "We are in the comms, Specialist…?"
"You may call me Specialist Winter Schnee. I'll be overseeing this operation." Winter spoke, she looked into Lieutenant. Hearts helmet feed "Lt. Hearts feed is clear, let's begin this operation."
The Spartans nodded and started walking towards the forerunner site, behind them were Sanith and his 10 troops.
Damian was the first to notice Winter's last name "Winter Schnee? Like she's related to Weiss?"
"Most definitely, though Weiss is supposedly the current heiress. So, she must've gotten thrown out the heir list" Jirou answered
The Spartans stopped their tracks and noticed there was a steep drop to the caved entrance. "How do we get down?"
"Oi, that pile of snow over there might help us out" Hannah pointed to a pile of snow leading down
The Spartans and Atlasians stood by a iced wall of sort, near it was a half buried forerunner piece, it emitted a small field of red particles. It was almost like a heat wave.
"There's an ice wall between us and the site." Sanith spoke "Ariel, Herman. Set up some low power charges to make a way through"
"Yes sir." The two set down a bag and grabbed the explosives.
"That won't be necessary" Xavier told
"Why not?" Sanith said just in time to see Magnus charge head first against the wall, shattering it and emerging onto the other side.
"Alright, we're through. Doesn't seem anything is around." Magnus held his shotgun, ever ready to shoot it.
"Okay, Five of you, stay on guard." Sanith ordered, five soldiers then turned and stayed as the rest of the group walked towards the site.
The Spartans could see it, the entrance to this forerunner site. It had a calm yet demanding architecture, it was dark colored with orange accents around it. It was connected to a nearby piece of land, the only thing keeping it connected was a meager metal bridge.
"This place looks very different from then ones on Requiem…" Hannah observed as there was a…liquid hardlight nearby on the edges of the entrance, it's 'Molten' flowing down to the cold abyss below.
An Atlas soldier stood near the 'Molten' and leaned her head, her train of thought was interrupted by Magnus
"Thristy?" Magnus patted the soldier on the back as he walked past her.
They team continued through the structure, it was definitely a ways different of the usual Forerunner installation. The Sleek blues and silvers were replaced by dark rough metals and orange lights, along with the 'Molten' flowing nearby
"This place looks like nothing we've ever seen before" Winter said through comms
Damian looked above and saw a small pack of sentinels floating about "Hey look, sentinels" The group turned to where Damian was "What are those?"
"They're sentinels. What I just said." Damian answered
"Well yes we know but, what're they doing?" Sanith asked
"They keep the structure safe and make sure it's systems are preserved." Jirou answered Sanith's question
"But this place looks to have been left behind for centuries…" an Atlas soldier said
"You'd be surprised how well Forerunner sites hold up in the passage of time." Jirou smiled, then his face turned into a frown. "Though this one looks like it has been decaying"
The group kept their walk into the Forerunner structure, until they made their way to a door. Damian stood next to it and hovered his hand over the opening "Okay, everyone. Stay sharp and don't let your guard down."
"Pfft, don't worry it's not like this place is gonna vaporize us or anything." A soldier jokingly spoke
The Spartans briefly looked at each other "That is one of the things that could happen yes." This response left the soldiers and Sanith flabbergasted
Sanith put on his helmet and grabbed his other weapon, an Atlasian Lever action rifle, based in part by the standard CR-50 rifle of the Atlasian military.
"Alright, moving in." Damian activated the door and immediately raised his rifle, along with the other Spartans. They walked in and immediately they a hallway that lead to what seemed like a bigger room.
The group carefully made their way through the hallway, only to reach the end and be awestruck by the grand hall before them. The walls were incased in the 'Molten' with some arches in the walls redirecting them to other halls. A giant pool of this artificial Molten laid in front of them with a floating pad emerging from it, containing a ball of Molten.
"What secrets could this structure harbor…?" Winter wondered "Investigate and look around for any valuable data"
"Let's go this way, looks promising" Damian suggested, the team walked to one of the halls and found an odd sight.
"What's this place for?" Xavier asked
The hall in question had humanoid silhouettes behind a hard light barrier, before them was a holographic display of some sort. Hannah walked up to one and inspected it.
The Spartans helmet had a weak forerunner translation module. It was created shortly after the battle of requiem in hopes of facilitating Spartan recon missions on Forerunner sites. "Okay…this says power, this says speed…"
"What does it do?"
"Display?" Hannah pressed the symbol and multiple sets of forerunner armor were materialized on the humanoid figures, a holographic symbol appeared before her "Apply…yeah no"
"It's an armory." Magnus said, he looked around and different models of armor. Some were slim, whilst others were bulky.
An Atlas soldier approached one of the armors, the same holographic symbol that Hannah saw appeared before him. He pressed it and the displayed armor de-materialized and materialized, now applied to himself "Woah! Check this armor out"
The Atlas soldiers huddled around their comrade, all in awe of the alien armor. Their awe was cut short by Hannah deactivating the displays and armors.
"Don't touch anything. You might get yourselves turned into a pile of pixels." Hannah ordered, the group walked out of the display hall "You'll be able to touch stuff when you have your science teams here."
The group walked to another of the hall, they noticed small rectangular looking devices on some stands. Jirou approached one and grabbed it "Hm, this seems like an armor module."
"Like Damian's hard light shield?" Xavier asked
"Yes, put this one on me, I'll see what it can do." Jirou requested
"I thought we weren't supposed to touch anything?" One of the Atlas spec Ops spoke
"Exactly, you aren't supposed to touch anything." Jirou answered, the Armor module was installed and his helmet linked with it "We know what we're doing."
Jirou raised his hand and suddenly spawned a cyan tinted crawler with white accents. Winter observed through the Atlas's soldier helmet feed "Interesting…"
Jirou de-activated the Crawler, who faded away into a pile of pixels. "Let's keep looking around"
The group walked through the structure, finding several more rooms and halls, each filled with various gadgets, weaponry and even vehicles.
Damian grabbed a small square device of some kind "Hm, this looks like a splinter grenade." He inspected it further and saw a very distinctive holographic pattern on one of it's sides. The pattern consisted of three circles and another in the middle, though this one was smaller than the rest
The Spartan pressed the one of the outer circles, causing to rest of the circles to softly flash for a second. Damian then pressed the central circle and suddenly one of the vehicles de-materialzed, prompting one of the device's circle start to glow. "Oh cool, I think this is a storage unit of some kind"
Magnus looked above and saw sentinels carrying metals. They stopped above a platform and dropped them "They're still building."
"You'd think they'd stop by now." Xavier looked at a pair of sentinels blankly staring them, they turned and flew away. "Where do they keep the excess?"
"Spartans, I think this may answer that." Sanith called, the Spartans walked to where Sanith looked and saw a ever growing sea of 'Molten', a hive of Sentinels flew over the massive body, dumping any excess weaponry or metals they may have in it.
"Look over there, on the walls" Damian pointed at what seemed like a hive of Gatherer sentinels taking from the cave's walls. "They're cleared this place clean."
"Spartans if I may inquire. How is it you know so much of these…Forerunners as you call them?" Winter asked
"We've been on quite the operations in sites like these. The reason we take extreme precaution around here is because we don't want to activate their defenses…or find something worse." Xavier answered
"Hm. Very well, continue."
"Hey look at this little fella!" an Atlas soldier said, he was face to face with a crawler "It's like the one the red one had"
Magnus immediately walked over and grabbed the crawler's face before it could do anything "This isn't an Animal, this thing is four legged recon drone that can kill you."
"Listen, I think I can speak for all of us that we know what we're doi-BRRRRAAAAAAA" The Atlas soldier was hit with a Binary Rifle's Beam, reducing him to a pile of data
"HERMAN! " A soldier shouted
Magnus immediately turned around and saw various Promethean Defense Units take up positions. All of them were armed.
"Team, what's your situation?!" Winter frantically asked
"We've been engaged!" Magnus crushed the Crawler's head and grabbed his Brute shot, wasting no time in firing
Damian threw himself behind cover and began shooting his Hydra Launcher. Various aggressor sentinels started to flock towards the group, Damian quickly loaded new missiles and fired at the sentinels, taking many of their numbers out.
Hannah sprinted past Damian and towards the enemy, jumping , she activated her jetpack, flying straight towards a Knight and knocking it to the floor. This knight was smaller and more round than those she'd fought before, she ignored the thought and grabbed her knife, plunging it into its head.
The Valkyrie grabbed her Spartan Laser and fired upon more Knights, she activated her jetpack to gain the High ground against them, raining lasers upon the Prometheans.
Jirou summoned his crawler and sent it to attack. He stayed behind his cover and charged up his Railgun, he fired at a group of crawlers running towards them, instantly blowing them out of combat. The Spartan saw within the corner of his eye a soldier exiting what appeared to be Active camoflague and was sneaking up behind an Atlas soldier, Jirou rapidly de-activated his crawler and re-summoned it now send it to attack the soldier.
The Atlas soldier turned around just in time to see Jirou's crawler jump on the Soldier. He used the opportunity to fire at the soldier, causing it to explode into pixels.
Xavier shot a grenade and blew up a Soldier Sniper, he flicked his launcher and grabbed a grenade, a Knight stabbed towards Xavier, only for him to move and punch into the Knight's Shell, he drew his Magnum and rapid fired at the grenade stuck in the Knight, detonating it and blowing the Knight to data.
Magnus lobbed his Grenades from his Brute shot, blowing the Promethans into a show of flames and Hardlight, he turned around and grabbed a new belt, to prevent any stray bolt hitting any of his grenades. He saw a red dot behind him on his radar and flipped the Brute shot around, decapitating a Soldier. Magnus stowed his Brute Shot and racked his shotgun.
An Atlas Soldier peeked from his cover and saw the Spartans slowly, but surely, push back the mechanical threat. Magnus was firing his Shotgun at a small horde of Crawlers, each shot decimating a pair of them, on his other hand was a Red energy blade of sort coming from his gauntlet, cutting down any that got closer than his shotgun.
Sanith jumped over a Knight, landing on its carapace and grabbing its face. He aimed his rifle at a Solider and hit it on the head, shattering its face plate. He followed by successive shot, killing it. He looked back down at the Knight and jumped off, still holding on to it, he knocked the Knight down and noticed the Cannon it had. Sanith grabbed the weapon and pulled it whilst pushing the Knights head, he ripped it off and blasted the Knight.
Hannah flew over the battlefield, shooting any sort of aerial reinforcement or leading Knight. She aimed at a Knight trying to take a sniper position and eviscerated him with her laser, she narrowly dodged a sentinels beam, grabbing her Magnum, she fired at the sentinels, killing few of them.
Hannah noticed how the Prometheans were retreating, this was unusual Promethean behavior. "Hey, they're backing up!"
Damian also noticed the strange behavior "Yeah, that ain't right."
But the Spartans soon found out what was going on. From the halls, a Bigger, Bulkier and Way more weaponized Knight emerged. This one had four large mechanical arms, three of which held weaponry and one had a massive tower shield.
"Oh that's a big one…" Hannah aimed her laser, only for the Knight to raised one of its arms and fire a binary ray. She narrowly dodged it, but managed to hit her jetpack, disabling it and grounding her
"Hannah! You alright?" Damian ran to his comrade
"OH no, it's not too damaged is it?" Hannah frantically asked
Damian quickly inspected it, it was very severe, luckily the jetpack was hit where it wouldn't explode. "It's gonna need some fixing"
Magnus turned to Xavier "Find a Control room. I'll take care of this one."
Xavier nodded and motioned the rest to find a control room "Good Luck!"
Magnus loaded his shotgun and started firing at the Knight, it raised it's shield in defense and peeked one of its arms and begun charging a beam of sort. Magnus quickly dashed to cover and narrowly dodged the Knights beam attack, he leapt out of cover and activated one of his Gauntlet energy blades, swiping across the Knight's shield, chipping off a piece of it.
The Knight's carapace shined and suddenly it started to teleport around. Magnus's stayed lock with the Knight, it suddenly came to a stop and teleported in front of Magnus, dropkicking him away a few feet. Magnus's feet dragged across the floor, he immediately activated his thrusters and sprinted at the Knight, plunging it into the Knight and tackling him as well.
The Spartan carried the knight and crashed through a glass window, they both fell and crushed various different metals and containers. Magnus jumped to his feet and saw the Knight firing a, what looked like a double barreled suppressor.
Magnus turned and had his back take the shots, he noticed a large Weapon of the floor, he picked it up and noticed it was an LMG of sort. The Knight stopped firing and started sprinting at Magnus, who turned and charged the weapon and blasted the Knight, shattering its plating.
The Knight flipped and begun shooting volleys of splinter grenades at Magnus. The Spartan quickly ran through the hard light explosives and grabbed his Brute shot, flipping it he stabbed the Knight's carapace and violently detached it from the Knight, it's core was exposed.
The Knight turned and slashed two Promethean blades at Magnus, who ducked under and plunged the Brute Shots blade into the Knight, piercing through the Armor and stabbing the Core on its back. The Knight slowly faded into a pile of data.
A door opened near Magnus, showing a squad of Crawlers, Magnus flipped his Brute shot and readied to fire, but the crawlers did not attack. His comms suddenly spoke "We de-activated the Security protocol!"
The Crawlers walked around the room, they begun to clean up the shattered containers. Magnus inspected the forerunner weapon he'd picked up, it looked to be worth keeping.
The Spartans collected data from the Master terminal, Magnus stood leaned on a wall, waiting for them to finish. Hannah was talking to Sanith.
"So, your science teams are comin' soon?" Hannah asked
"Yes, there will be much to do after they arrive." Sanith nodded, he looked around and saw His team chatting "Though I'd just wish Herman might've made it."
"He's not technically dead." Xavier butted in, he had a device of sort, small and cylindrical with orange lights around it. "Here."
Sanith grabbed the device "What's this? And how isn't he dead?"
"He just got turned into a pile of data. He's right in there, well not him but his consciousness" Xavier explained
"I…I see."
"We got everything we need. You'll gonna want to put this site on lockdown, do not let anyone or anything that isn't us or your teams enter here." Damian said "This is an incredibly important place and you won't want some bad people come in and take this stuff"
"I understand." Sanith nodded "I'll inform General Ironwood of our success."
Xavier nodded and motioned the rest towards the pelican, Hannah manually removed her jetpack andlooked at the damages first hand "Oh this is just great, how am I fixing this"
Damian patted Hannah's shoulder "It'll be fixed. I'm pretty sure we've got some boxes with Jet pack parts"
"I sure bloody hope so."