Hello Guys!

I would like to thank all of you for reading this story (which is my first) and giving your feedback. Keep in mind that enemies' names are different from the original in Lilith's POV. Check the UPDATE chapter for more info.

Anyways enjoy the chapter.

Edited on 12/22/16. Fixed minor errors.

Lilith
Mombasa Streets

'This just keeps getting weirder and weirder by the minute' Lilith thought to herself as she walked alongside the mysterious stranger.

'At least I get to do something different'

The two walked down the street, passing abandoned cars and other debris. As they entered a plaza, not too far from where Lilith was found by the soldier, they saw more enemies and began to eliminate them as if they were simply paper targets. The soldier stuck towards eliminating the Apes and larger enemies while she stuck to shooting the Runts with easy headshots.

Lilith went to aim at an approaching Gladiator and pulled the trigger of her pistol and...

Click

"Shit!"

She quickly searched for a new clip and found none.

"Hey, tough guy!" she shouted at the soldier who was currently in a fight with another Gladiator.

"A little help here?"

He quickly dispatched Lilith's Gladiator with a barrage of silenced bullets into the kink in its shield, and then into the creature itself.

Then, as quickly as he had before, he turned back to the other Gladiator and whacked it upside the head.

With both creatures dead, the two began to move along.

RRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGG!

The pair turned to find a phone ringing on a nearby set of wall phones.

The soldier approached with caution and simply touched its silver exterior.

Suddenly, Lilith began to feel her ECHO device vibrate in its holster. Then a message appeared on the edge of her HUD.

New map and mission objectives downloaded

"What the hell?"

She glanced at the soldier, who was blankly starring at the nearby wall, and then back to her ECHO device. She grabbed her ECHO and scrolled to the map section. The map looked different than it did on Pandora. This map showed a jumble of streets, roadways, and red blocks. The red blocks puzzled her. She then saw a pulsing blue light in a building, which wasn't too far from her location.

Lilith then scrolled over to her mission objectives and saw that a few objectives were present:

Investigate Tayari Plaza
Investigate Wildlife Exploration Preserve
Investigate Kizingo Boulevard
Investigate NMPD Headquarters
Investigate Kikowani Station
Explore the city at night

"Looks like we have plenty of exploration to do." she said to the soldier, who was now looking at her. He seemed eager to go to the locations mentioned in the mission objectives log, like he was a bandit going to find stashes of guns, money, or other loot.

"Let's get going."

The pair began to walk down the street once more, passing a particularly large building with stairs leading up to it, though it wasn't a skyscraper.

This was when they hit their first roadblock: a locked door.

The door stretched across the street and had a small keypad in the center of it. Above it, a red sign flashed saying: ROUTE CLOSED.

Lilith was about to force the door with her Siren powers, but suddenly had second thoughts. For one thing, this soldier might not take her forcing the door open with, what he would assume to be magic too kindly. She was pulled out of her thoughts when the soldier then tapped Lilith on the shoulder and pointed towards the left side of the door.

She saw a small courtyard with four pillars, each with signs on them, four small doors, and a row of red lights.

The pair approached the courtyard. As they did, the signs on the pillars switched to things such as detour and pointed toward to a specific door. But as Lilith approached the door, she heard a loud hissing sound coming form her left. She turned to find the soldier standing at the row of red lights. The lights descended into the ground to reveal a garage. Inside the garage, were a pair of ATVs and two racks of weapons. The first contained four small pistols; similar to the one she was given. The other had a set of four weapons similar to the soldier's. They approached the racks and grabbed ammo for their respective weapons. They decided to leave the ATVs for later.

The pair approached the door that the signs pointed to. The soldier pressed the green light, which was absent on the other doors in the courtyard as they had red ones, and the door slid open. The soldier dove into the room, searching for enemies left and right. Lilith followed at a slower pace, checking behind her so that no enemies have followed them. Returning to facing the soldier once more, she saw scattered chairs, tables and other furniture along with wall graffiti scattered all across the small room. Silently, they made their way to the opposite door, which had the same look as the one they entered in, and opened to a grassy courtyard...

...filled with sleeping Runts.

'Well damn.' Lilith thought.

A quick scan of the courtyard showed that there were a few raised planters that could be used as a light cover.

Silent as the night, the soldier and Lilith approached two of the planters that sat directly by the door. With a quick nod of acknowledgement from the soldier, Lilith opened fire on all the Runts, clearing the courtyard in ten seconds flat and with only 2 rounds to spare in the magazine.

Moving across the courtyard and entering another door, Lilith's ECHO began to buzz and beep with all kinds of excitement. Looking at the screen, the words BEACON NEARBY were flashing.

Continuing into the building, the first room that the pair came across looked like a massacre. Blood was splattered on the far wall by a dead soldier. Furniture appeared to have been toppled over and flung across the room. Bullet holes were a frequent sight on the walls.

Along with all of the scattered furniture, there was another weapon on the floor. However, this weapon wasn't like the others Lilith encountered. Instead of a compact SMG type weapon, this was longer and had an ammo counter of sorts mounted on the weapon. She picked it up and followed the soldier to a flight of stairs.

The Rookie
Tayari Plaza

'That seems like a good weapon for you' The Rookie thought to himself as the woman picked up an MA5C Assault Rifle.

The two began to ascend a flight of stairs toward the assumed location of the beacon.

Reaching the second level of the building, the Rookie motioned the woman to check all the doors on one side of the hallway, while he did the other.

"Jeez, you are just a silent one aren't you." the woman replied with anger in her voice.

Their search came up empty handed on the second floor, with the exception of the woman finding a M90 Shotgun and returning the pistol to the Rookie.

With no luck on the third floor, that meant that the beacon was definitely on the fourth and final floor of the building, unless it somehow ended up on the roof.

The pair searched the hallway and found nothing. However, instead of the hallway having a dead end, it lead to another room. Following the path to the room with caution, the Rookie then found the beacon: Dare's Helmet. Feeling along the helmet's surface, he found something jammed into the side of the helmet. Removing the piece, it turned out that it was and audio clip that must have been on Dare's helmet.

'Maybe there's something on here that can help me find my squad.' He thought with excitement.

But he suddenly remembered that he had no place on his helmet to place an audio recording. Audio recordings on ODST helmets had to be downloaded, much like he downloaded the maps to New Mombasa.

"Here, try using this." said the woman as she handed him an odd looking piece of technology.

It had the word ECHO engraved onto it and looked similar to devices used in the late 20th century, complete with large knobs and dials. He found an audio port on the side of the device and inserted the chip into it.

AUDIO CHIP INSERTED BEGINNING PLAYBACK flashed on the screen as the audio began to play.

The audio began with mostly static, but the voice of Buck could eventually be heard.

"What the hell was that?" Buck began, "Have you seen one of those before?"

The movement of a rifle could be heard in the background.

"Hey, Romeo, have your ears on?" Buck asked.

'Why isn't he replying back?' the Rookie questioned.

"Oh! Right! Permission to speak!" Buck exclaimed, adding a quick but quiet "Smartass" at the end

'Oh, that's why' the Rookie thought, remembering the conversation between Romeo and Buck during the drop.

"No, I haven't seen one of those before." Romeo began, "But it was goin' to grease your ass good, just like it did to the Captain"

The audio recording then had a long quiet pause before it began again.

"Did you hear from Mickey, Dutch?" Buck asked Romeo.

"Negative."

"The Rookie"

Romeo didn't reply.

"We need to get above this crap; link with the bee-net, one of our drones must've seen where they hit." Buck commanded.

"We're poppin' smoke on the lady's mission? Did she ever tell you what she wanted?"

Buck mumbles to himself before replying, "Doesn't matter. All I care about now is getting my men out of this city; even you."

PLAYBACK ENDED flashed on the device's screen.

"Who was the rookie guy that they were talking about?" asked the woman as the Rookie handed back the device; keeping the audio chip in one of the suit's pockets. He casually pointed to himself before dropping the helmet.

"How about I just call you Rook; since you won't even tell me your actual name anyway." the woman replied.

The Rookie shook his head in approval before noticing sirens going off in the street. Looking out the singular, rectangle window, a few digital signs had keep right displayed with arrows pointing to another bulkhead door. Readying his SMG, he and the woman turned and began to descend the building to head to the next beacon.

"My name's Lilith by the way." the woman said as they left.

Finally! This chapter is complete.

Just a quick question, how descriptive should I be with the journey in the Mombasa Streets? I don't want to bore you to death, but I don't want to skip any important plot holes either. Let me know!

Thanks for reading!

RNG OUT!