Ch. 19 The Honeymoon in a Combat Zone
Well it's time for the grand finale in this roller coaster story. Don't worry I will be posting an epilogue chapter as well to give this story a great way to end. I will also do my best to ensure that the epilogue won't harm the making of a sequel if I do one.
On a side note, has anyone played MKX and if you did can you tell me if its worth getting? On that thought, is Scholar of the First Sin worth it as well? I like Dark Souls and MK but I've heard that they aren't the best but again my sources aren't the best judges of games.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, all characters belong to Bungie and 343.
"So I take it this is a use it if you got it moment?" One of the Spartans asked as the Arbiter finished her rampage.
"It's called taking advantage of the wife's fury." Another replied as Cortana sighed in the Chief's helmet.
"She might turn on you Chief." Cortana warned as the Chief shrugged. "I know you can defend yourself but her rage isn't something you want to invoke."
"I'll manage it." The Chief promised as the Arbiter walked up to him covered in purple.
"Still think I'm weak now?" she asked angrily as the Chief shook his head.
"Never doubted you for a minute." he replied as he motioned for his team to continue. "Feel like tagging along?"
The Arbiter gave a short huff. "Trying to get rid of me?"
"Nope, just wanting to know if you wanted to run with real fighters." The Chief replied as the Spartans snickered and the Arbiter bristled.
"Chief..." Cortana said in exasperation.
"You are dead when we get back." The Arbiter replied angrily as the Chief smiled behind his helmet.
-With Rtas-
"Leader, we have located the targets. They are hold up in an underground part of the Keep and surrounded by an entire platoon." A Sangheili said as Rtas growled.
"So they wish to make us dig for them. Let us grant us their wish, bring the Scarab." Rtas ordered as the Sangheili around him moved to follow his orders. A few minutes later they heard the sound of an incoming Scarab drop and it kicked up a cloud of dirt when it hit the ground. "Warn those inside the Keep."
"By your orders Shipmaster." One of the Sangheili said before the Scarab began to power up.
"Isn't this overkill?" Another asked as Rtas shrugged.
"Their bunker is fortified against the usual ordinance so we need to go higher." Rtas replied as he faced the Keep. "Any casualties so far?"
"None from our side yet but the enemy has sustained quite a few. They went for quantity over quality."
"Quantity only works when you have the numbers to continuously replace what you lose but in this case they failed at that." Rtas finished with a huff of irritation. "I would rather wipe this entire place from the face of our planet. It has been an eyesore of dishonor for too long."
-With the Chief-
"I swear your a danger magnet Human." The Arbiter said as she and the Chief huddled behind a wall with the rest of the team on the opposite wall.
"I could say the same for you." The Chief replied as more plasma came from the hallway. "Put it this way, the more we run into the closer we get."
"I am seriously going to shove my hoof in your ass." The Arbiter growled as leaned around to the Chief and fired a few shots.
"This isn't the time to be on your damn honeymoon!" A Spartan shouted as the Arbiter growled.
"Seeing as how we weren't able to have one I say this qualifies." she shouted back.
"So getting shot at is your idea of a honeymoon?" The Chief asked curiously as the Arbiter shrugged.
"Not every female likes fancy dinners and dates. I prefer combat and sparring." The Arbiter replied calmly though the Chief could tell that she probably wouldn't mind a nice night out. He would have to take her on one later.
"Chief we need to leave, the Sangheili are about to use a Scarab to take this place down." Cortana said urgently as the Chief went wide-eyed.
"Everyone back to the evac zone now!" The Chief ordered as the other's began to fall back. "A scarab is about to take this place out."
"Rtas..." The Arbiter said with a huff.
"Yep."
"Then remind me to kill him before I kill you."
"Will do."
-Scene Change-
A loud explosion was heard as the UNSC forces felt the ground shake beneath them and rumbling sounds became prevalent when the Keep started to explode. Many Marines were confused and little shaky when the Scarab appeared from the crumbling Keep.
"So it's a take none alive kind of thing." Hood said as a Sangheili limped towards him.
"We had always wanted to take this place off our world and this seemed like the best time." The Sangheili replied as Hood turned to him.
"Was this place that bad?"
"Worse than you would think, they had a hand in almost every bad aspect of the Covenant that you could think of. Many of us willing gave up their fighters locations to you during the war and we didn't regret it in the slightest."
"So you all were the tip-offs." Hood said calmly though if half of the things he heard about were true then he did understand why they would sell their own.
"Yes and we have no respect for this place or its inhabitants." The Sangheili replied evenly.
"I thought your race were suppose to be honorable." Hood said as the Sangheili growled.
"They brought dishonor on our entire race. They still backed the Prophets even to this day and were conspiring to sell all of us out to the Brutes." The Sangheili replied while clenching his fists. "They deserve nothing less than to be left to rot in a sewer."
"And now you get the chance." Hood finished as the Sangheili gave a nod as they watched the Scarab aim it's main weapon at the ground and fired, tearing a hole in the ground.
After a few more minutes the ground was completely blackened and the hole revealed a large staircase leading into the planet.
-With the Chief and the Arbiter-
"Time to go." The Chief said as he stood up next to the Arbiter.
"Seems like it, try and keep yourself alive and end his." she replied as she gave him a short nudge.
"Only if you don't go sword crazy." Was the Chief's reply as he hesitantly gave her a short hug.
"All down who's going down!" Hood yelled as the Chief and the Arbiter were the first down, followed by a platoon of Sangheili. The stairwell went down for quite a while until they came to a large door that kept them from their respective prey.
"Shall I or shall you?" The Chief asked as the Arbiter grabbed on of the doors. "Ok same time." he finished as he pulled on the other door and they both heard a large screeching sound as they pried the doors open and the other Sangheili rushed to help. Under the combined force the doors finally gave way and slid open s they all pushed into the room while taking fire.
"Stop!" A familiar voice was heard as Kevam stepped in the middle of the room. Various members of the Keep's guards stood on the second level with Carbines as the Elders of the Keep sat near the back wall; Selmon was beside them.
"I guess we must be graced with your ugly face again." The Arbiter snarled as the Chief bit back a laugh.
"And yet you disgraced us all by agreeing to bed with one of them." Kevam snarled back as the Arbiter shrugged.
"And yet the only ones complaining are your pathetic lot." she said as Kevam growled. "You even conspired with another human and yet you have the gall to say I'm disgraceful."
"We have a mutual agreement and you just have some outdated philosophy." Selmon shot back as the Arbiter looked at the Chief.
"Is that the failed one?" she asked casually as Selmon bristled.
"Yes, and there is no mutual agreement between you. The ones behind him had already pulled their support and left him out to dry. Which means he has no ability to fulfill and agreement anymore." The Chief said as Selmon grunted. "The augments and implants nearly killed him until ONI found him and took him away. It took them almost half the war before they were able to repair the majority of the damage and give his body the necessary support it needed to use them."
"And yet he has proven that he isn't on your level." The Arbiter said as the Chief nodded.
"He was never trained like us." The Chief agreed.
"Then you should have no trouble." she finished as Selmon clenched his fists.
"You were always the one they dotted over, the one they always paid attention too. The rest of us were just leftovers to be used as fodder. I'm going to enjoy presenting Earth with your head." Selmon shoot back as the Chief took his combat stance.
"And I'm going to enjoy making you scream for mercy." Kevam snarled as the Arbiter didn't bother to hide her laughter.
"I would love to see you even attempt to hurt me." The Arbiter said as she stood with the Chief in her own stance.
On an unspoken signal all four charged and met their respective partner in the center before breaking off on their own.
The Chief easily dodged punch after punch as Selmon attempted to land a punch to him. He managed to land a lucky hit that made a small dent in the Chief's gauntlet but it only made the Chief sigh. "We both know that you won't win Selmon." The Chief said as Selmon responded with a punch to the Chief's visor but the Chief grabbed his hand and quickly Judo threw him over his shoulder. Selmon landed on his feet before pulling out a pistol and firing as the Chief dodged around.
"You always had the best of everything! Now I'll make sure you have nothing!" Selmon shouted as he unloaded the entire clip. "You always were the favorite!"
"I had to earn my place! I had to fight harder than anyone else because I was looked up to, I had to be the leader that would lead the Spartans into battle! You say I was given everything but I had to fight for every square inch of what I have now!" The Chief yelled as he rushed Selmon.
The few shots Selmon had left bounced harmlessly off his shields as the Chief reached him and smacked the pistol out of Selmon's hands before grabbing him by the throat. "You made a mistake, because you never took my armor into account."
"How many civilians did you leave for dead when you started. How many Marines did you get killed because you only cared about results? I did nothing of the sort and have no blood on my hands while yours are stained with thousands. I hope you rot in Hell with the rest of your team!" Selmon then spit in the Chief's visor before The Chief crushed his throat.
"I may have the blood of thousands but I have the thanks of a countless more." the Chief said as he tossed Selmon away.
-With the Arbiter-
"No sniper to back you up this time." The Arbiter said as she dodged a punch and countered with a sweep as Kevam jumped back. "I see no knife either so you must be delusional to think you can beat me fairly."
"You might be the Arbiter but you don't have the strength to use that title properly. You would rather make nice with our enemies when we should be crushing them! You aren't worthy to lead us!" Kevam shouted as he got in close and tried to deliver another punch but the Arbiter effortlessly dodged it before launching a punch of her own and hitting him in the chest and knocking him back a few feet.
"And you delude yourself by thinking we are unbeatable. The humans have killed more of us than I would like to count. It was six on one and they managed to to make the war last 28 years before the Schism happened!" The Arbiter shot back as Kevam growled and shot at her again but she side-stepped and delivered a roundhouse to his mid-section.
"We had them backed up to their world!" Kevam shouted.
"And Regret found out that the Humans were more than willingly to throw everything at us to survive at that battle! It only took a few hours before his fleet was torn apart and he had to flee like a coward!" The Arbiter shot back as she grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back, breaking it and kicking him away. "We had every advantage we could ever get and they still held on and we even helped them secure victory! The Humans had lost everything but ultimately they still won the war!"
"We should have never turned against the Covenant, they would've allowed us to stay had we just stepped aside for a little while! We would've proven that we were still loyal and we would've gained it back! We could have wiped the humans out of the galaxy completely!" Kevam snarled as the Arbiter took her sword out and sliced off one of his legs.
As he howled in pain her platoon had finished off the remaining defenders and moved to secure the elders. "That is where you are wrong. They would've killed us all because we were beginning to think differently than them. We were questioning just why the war was taking this long and ultimately they decided we weren't needed anymore."
"Lies, all lies spread by a coward and a heretic. I regret that I wasn't the one who branded you with that mark you will always bear' you were just a female who pretended that she was someone. Your place was beneath the hooves of your better's but you just kept trying to make it seem like you did something worth remembering but you didn't, you will always be remembered as the Arbiter that allowed her own feelings to overrule her honor!" Kevam shouted over his pain as the Arbiter snarled at him. "I relished in running your mother through all those years ago."
The Arbiter began to shake in repressed rage as she gripped her sword tighter. She had the murderer of her mother on the ground before her and she wanted nothing more than to rip him apart but she couldn't. She never stopped when she wanted to kill but this was different, this was a Sangheili who didn't deserve the honor of dieing by her blade. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction, she wanted him to suffer in the worst way possible.
"Bind him and get him out of my sight. When the time comes I want him to face public shaming and humiliation for the rest of days." The Arbiter grounded out bitterly as Kevam screamed at her.
"YOU'RE A WEAK WILLED COWARD! YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE THE STOMACH TO KILL ME AND YET YOU CALL YOURSELF AN ARBITER! I HOPE YOU ROT LIKE YOUR WHORE OF A MOTHER!" Kevm screamed as eh was dragged from the room with the bound elders.
When her warriors were out of sight, she stabbed her sword through the wall with a loud scream of rage. "I had him right there and yet the thought of taking his life disgusted me! God's be damned!"
"Because you decided that it wasn't worth it." the Chief replied as he put his gauntlet on her shoulder. "He came off as too much of an asshole to be killed by you."
"He killed my mother." The Arbiter argued but the Chief brought her into a hug.
"Killing him won't return her, nothing will but you denied him what he wanted. Killing him would've made him a martyr for whatever faction served. If you keep him alive, you deny what power he had over you." The Chief reasoned as the Arbiter brought her hands around.
"This Keep was the first to move for marriage with me when I became of age. They knew that we were growing too powerful for their liking and they saw as a threat to what they have. They wanted to use me as a pawn to force my own Keep to kneel to them. We rebuffed them when I joined the Covenant but they continued to try until Kevam was sent home missing his arm. It was after that when they killed my mother." The Arbiter replied as a lone tear formed on her eye.
"She would be proud at what you have accomplished. Deep down, you know that she is and she wouldn't want you to be like this." The Chief replied as the Arbiter let out a short huff.
"She would be kicking my ass around this room if she saw me like this. She was in the Covenant before I was born. That's why she always the top Sangheili in the Keep, my father is the official leader but she was always the unofficial leader and no one wished to contradict her." she replied as she tightened her hold a bit. Though the Chief had his armor on, he felt a small measure of warmth.
"Then honor her by doing what she would've done." The Chief replied shortly as the Arbiter stared into his visor before removing his helmet.
"I will." she said before she kissed him again.
Wow that was pretty good if I do say so my self. The ending to it was actually fun to write as it allowed me to go wild for a comfort scene but I do admit the good guy not killing bad guy was a bit too cliché and I was sorely tempted to write out a very gory and very detailed death scene but I withheld mainly because the Chief would've stopped her either way. Plus this way allowed me to set up another fluff scene.
One more epilogue chapter to go and I hope you all enjoy this one and I hope you enjoy the epilogue too. It will be released the week after this so stay tuned and stay cool everyone!
Till next time my fellow m-human/f-alien lovers!