Chapter 21: The Enemies

The human sifted through its bag. Fural had no idea what it was doing, but he silently prayed to the Forerunners that it wasn't trying to find something to kill him with. Whether or not the human expressed intent to kill him, he wasn't sure if he could bring himself to trust it.

It pulled something out of its bag, it was some kind of canister. At first Fural thought it was a bomb. He began to raise his rifle, but the human put its hands up again and began waving them, then it shook its head.

Fural thought back to the conversation he had with Dom in the Cartographer. He'd been thinking about Dom a lot, but he had been thinking about that conversation specifically now that there was a human standing in front of him. A human that was trying to help him. A human on his side.

Well, the human wasn't really on his side, nor was this anything like what Dom had talked to him about, but it was still a human that wasn't trying to kill him. A human that would hopefully be actively trying to stop other things from killing him. And if he wanted to keep the human around to do that, then he would also have to actively stop things from trying to kill it too.

Fural grunted, and dropped his carbine onto the floor. I'm dead anyway. The human made a gesture, it flattened its hand with its palm towards the floor and slowly pushed it down. Fural did his best to understand, and he slowly sat on the floor. To his surprise, that seemed to be exactly what the human wanted him to do.

The human approached slowly. The closer it got, the closer Fural could see its features. Its face was both fleshy and hairy, though there wasn't too much hair in it. He thought it was ugly, and he knew the humans probably thought he was ugly too. It wasn't ugly enough to approach violence though.

Fural softly snorted. If the war between the Covenant and humanity was based purely around both sides finding each other ugly, then maybe there would be more moments like this. Fural noticed the human had taken a step back, and was staring at him intently. The snort must have been a lot louder than he had thought it was. He tilted his head towards the bullet wounds in his shoulder, a gesture to tell the human to continue what it was doing.

The human understood. It reached into the holes in his armour caused by the bullets. A sharp pain shot through his shoulder, which caused him to pull away from the human by instinct. The human reacted again the same way it had when Fural had raised his gun at it. It wasn't something Fural had meant to do. He sighed and sat as still as he could.

The sharp pain came again, and it became worse as the human reached in and pulled one of the bullets out. The human continued to pull the bullets out, Fural let out audible grunts with each one.

With all of the bullets removed from his shoulder, he felt like a weight had been lifted. But it was replaced with a new kind of pain. He hoped the human wasn't going to cause him to bleed out, that was not a death Fural would have ever asked for.

The human lifted the canister again, Fural noticed this time there was a nozzle attached to it. The human grabbed the nozzle and pushed it up, and then inserted it into the wound. They then clicked something, and he could feel something cool being pushed into the hole in his flesh. The pain began to subside. It was still there, but he couldn't feel it as much as he could before.

Fural stared at the human as it pulled back and buried the canister in its bag again. The human met Fural's eyes, and Fural gave him a respectful nod. The human returned it, another universal gesture it seemed.

Fural flexed his shoulder. It still hurt, but it felt better. He pushed himself back up to his feet, and stared down at the human. It looked at him eagerly, clearly it had no idea how to get out of the facility. But Fural knew. He grabbed his carbine from the floor, pulled up Dom's map, and tilted his head towards the door that would take them out of there, the same way the human had come from.

"Follow me, human," Fural said, though he knew the human would have no idea what he was saying. "We will leave this infernal place."

Svenson followed the Elite closely, it had begun moving in the direction he ran from. He wasn't looking forward to having to fight the creatures he left behind on his run, but now he had a member of the Covenant to fight alongside.

He still was surprised that he was able to help the Elite. Biofoam was made to be easy to use, and it was a little overkill for bullet wounds, but it was still something he'd never done before. It was impossible not to dwell on the fact that it was an Elite that he'd helped before any member of his Fireteam, or any human at all for that matter.

Every time Svenson looked up at the Elite, he saw hundreds of them back on Reach. He saw the UNSC Army troopers falling in the streets of New Alexandria. He saw the Marines defending the Pillar of Autumn while it was still in dock, and them being torn apart by the aliens. He had seen an Elite stab a Spartan straight through the chest with a glowing sword. The same kind of sword that had killed Kamal.

He even saw the Elite that faced him down on the Autumn before they even landed on the ring. The one that was so close to killing him, the one that he had been saved from by O'Hale. Now O'Hale is gone… The Autumn is gone… The rest of Delta is gone…

Now here he was, saving the life of one of the aliens that wanted to put an end to even the idea of humanity. He tried to tell himself that not all members of the Covenant were the same, but at the same time he told himself that was a lie.

The Elite in front of him paused at the door, the one he had locked down in his frantic sprint to get away from the monsters. He took his bag off again and found the spoofer he'd taken off Hanoi. He attached it to the door and overrode the lock he had put in place. The lights on the door shifted to green, and it slid open.

He put the spoofer back into his bag, and he searched through it before they continued. He had four backup mags left in his bag, and two in the pouches on his front. Hopefully he had enough ammo to get out of there. Or at the very least, be useful enough to the Elite so that it doesn't kill him before the monsters do.

He slid the backup mags into the empty pouches on his chest and stood up. The Elite had moved a few steps ahead and was watching him. Svenson grabbed his assault rifle and made sure it was loaded, and then fought the urge to open fire on the alien in front of him. He knew trying to kill the Elite could have been a contestant for the worst possible idea of all time, but sometimes things became instinct. Especially after the aliens had burned countless worlds to glass.

The Elite turned and moved forward again, and Svenson moved to unlock the next door. He pulled the spoofer back quickly, and raised his rifle, because he knew they would be in for a fight the second the door opened.

Monsters jumped towards the door as if they were waiting for it to open. The Elite fired its alien rifle at the nearest one, shooting straight through the thing in its chest. The alien then turned and shot the next monster, and then another one at the other side of the room.

As Svenson moved to the Elite's side, he noticed how much of a hellscape the room was. He hadn't seen much of it during his mad dash. Huge lumps of a fleshy substance coated the corners of the room, and some parts of the floor. Bulbous creatures with tentacles for arms waddled towards them. When Fural shot one it exploded, and what looked like hundreds of balloon creatures flew out. He knew it couldn't have been that many, but he didn't have time to count them.

Svenson fired into the horde of the balloons as they rushed towards him and the Elite, popping nearly all of them with half of a magazine. He saw more of the infected humans and Elites entering the chamber out of the corner of his eye, and he saw them drop as the Elite fired its gun at their chests.

Another burster, as Svenson called it, waddled toward them. Fural was about to shoot it when the Elite grabbed what looked like a grenade from its belt. The Elite tossed the grenade at the creature, and it exploded in a bright blue flash. This time nothing had flown out of it.

Three more infected monsters ran toward them, and Svenson gunned them all down with the rest of his magazine. He quickly slapped a fresh clip into the gun, and then the Elite shouted something. Svenson had little time to guess what it was, as the Elite began sprinting to the next door.

The human took the little device from its belt and attached it to the door. Two more combat forms dropped down in front of him, and Fural dropped them before they had a chance to attack. He glanced at the cylindrical magazine, and it read it had three shots left.

He heard the door slide open behind him and he turned. The halls beyond it were empty. He watched the human move in first, and he followed close behind. He took the small moment of quiet to eject the carbine's magazine and slide a new one in. He kept the last one in case there was a moment when he needed the three extra bullets.

As the human crouched to unlock the next door, Fural wondered if the way they needed to go was the exact route the human had come from. Maybe it's stupid? Or maybe there's something especially bad over there…

The door slid open, and they entered another holding chamber. The tank's glass was shattered. Fural noticed there was a thin layer of liquid covering the ground. He was far from happy to be walking through it, but he was also far from happy about everything that was happening.

Surprisingly though, the room was empty. Empty of Flood anyway. But there were bodies littered all around the place, most of them had been put into piles and stripped of whatever armour they had worn. He wondered if the fleshy lumps in the previous chamber had started out like this. He didn't like the idea of being turned into a combat form, much less being turned into a lump of flesh on the ground.

Fural watched the human move to the next door, he figured the human had an idea of where they were going since it was the way it had come from. He stared down at the pile of bodies. He wondered if he'd known any of the Covenant ones, but there was a level of Flood infection in all of them. At that point they'd become unrecognisable.

The next door slid open, and Fural jogged up to the human's side. He exchanged a glance with the human before he moved in first. Then the human unlocked the next door. How the human had time to lock all these doors while it was running was beyond him.

The next room was another tank chamber, and this time there were more Flood in it. Each of them was an infected human, and unlike the last encounter they had, these ones didn't seem like they were waiting for them.

Fural noticed the human take a step back. There was a look on the human's face that he couldn't quite read. He knew a few human words, but he didn't know any of their facial expressions other than how to tell if they're scared or not. That probably says a lot about me…

He figured maybe the human had known these combat forms before they were combat forms. But he didn't have time to dwell on the human's feelings. If it didn't have the strength to pull the trigger on its former friends, then it wouldn't be of any use to him.

He raised his carbine as the forms began to take notice of them, and he fired.

Svenson watched the Elite shoot a hole into the chest of what had been Kamal. Something inside of him broke. It wasn't watching Kamal die, it was seeing what Kamal had become. The others in the room, Hanoi, Lopes, and…

Faraday.

The one he told time and time again that they would make it out alive. Faraday was twisted, lumps of flesh that shouldn't have been there stuck out, and he could see exposed parts of her bones. He really didn't want to kill her, but she was already worse than dead. The only thing he could do now was put her out of her misery.

The remains of Hanoi that had been put back together by the monsters lunged toward him, and he dropped her with a quarter of his rifle's magazine. The thing that had been Faraday screeched, and launched at him next. He fought the urge to not do anything, to let her kill him.

I promised you'd make it out alive, and now I'm gonna be the one that kills you.

He blasted the thing in her chest with more bullets than he needed to use. The rifle ran out of ammo, and there was barely anything left of her. He looked at her infected corpse and sighed before turning away.

He saw the Elite staring at him. He couldn't read the alien's expression, but he figured it was judging him. He loaded a fresh magazine into his rifle, not dwelling on the one he had wasted, and he wondered. He wondered who the Elite came down here with, who the Elite had killed. He wondered if the Elite had lost anyone close to it to these monsters.

It was at that moment that he realised he truly knew nothing about the Covenant and the aliens in its ranks other than the fact that they hated humanity for some reason. He didn't know what the aliens were truly like, if they had the same relationships with each other as humans did. He figured it was a stupid question. Of course they're like us, he thought.

If humanity was powerful enough, and they hated another species as much as the Covenant hated them, would they do the same thing? Would they burn their worlds until they went extinct?

Svenson of course didn't know exactly why the Covenant hated humans, he'd been told it was for some religious reason. But clearly their religion wasn't so strict that they had to kill every human they came across.

The Elite snorted, and continued to the next door. Svenson brought the spoofer out again, and avoided looking behind him at the corpses of his Fireteam. His friends. The door opened, and they both moved out into the elevator room.

The elevator room was empty this time. There were still the remains of the balloons that had fallen from the shaft, but there was nothing else there. The two stepped onto the elevator, and the Elite accessed the panel next to it. The alien was clearly experienced in the technology of the facility as it pressed a button on the panel once and the elevator moved.

Svenson looked up as they ascended, expecting more monsters to drop down onto him, but there was nothing.

Fural stared up, gripping his carbine so tight he thought it might break. He thought back to the human unloading an entire magazine of its rifle into one of the Flood. He thought it was an extremely stupid move, a move that may cost its life if it ran out of ammo later. But he already figured the human knew the Flood form that it did that to.

He wondered what he would do if he ran into Dom. If life was perfect, Dom would still be out there somewhere fighting. If life was perfect none of this would be happening at all. He just hoped that he wouldn't run into Dom. Would I even recognise him?

The elevator stopped. They had moved one level up, and there was one more elevator ride to go to get to the surface. We are so close now. We.

He looked down at the human as the elevator closed in on the top of the shaft. Even if the human wasn't the smartest creature out there, he had sort of taken a liking to it. He thought he hated humans, but now here he was fighting for his life beside one. If it wasn't for that human, he probably would have died down there.

I have never seen anyone more thirsty for human blood than you, Dom's voice echoed through his thoughts. He'd told Dom that they were the enemy. That's what he always told himself. But this human was clearly not an enemy. Sure they were helping each other for their own gain, but they were helping each other. That was what mattered. Maybe I don't hate humans like I thought I did.

The elevator came to a stop. The room was empty once more. He wondered how much the Flood even wanted to infect them. Some chambers were completely empty, and some were filled to the brim with Flood forms trying to infect him.

As if he had just summoned them by thinking about it, the door in front of them opened. The human was blasting two combat forms that stepped through before Fural had a chance to think. A third one fell to the human's fire, and then a fourth. Fural raised his carbine as the human reloaded, and he took down a fifth. The door attempted to close automatically, but it couldn't with the bodies in the way. Fural moved forward and pushed through them.

They entered into another light bridge chamber. Surprisingly, the light bridge was actually active. Fural stepped onto it with the human behind him. The door on the other side of the bridge opened, and more combat forms hobbled into the room. Fural raised his carbine again and squeezed the trigger. The two combat forms in the lead fell.

A roar sounded from underneath Fural's feet, and he looked down. He could see a larger, more mutated combat form beneath him, but he couldn't do anything about it yet. More combat forms were rushing onto the light bridge, and he couldn't stop firing at them for a second.

Out of the corner of his vision he noticed a tentacle rise above the light bridge. He'd seen a combat form like that before. The thing then squealed after the sound of the human's gunfire rang out, the tentacle fell.

Fural fired the rest of his magazine into the horde of combat forms attempting to cross the bridge, and then the human started shooting into them. Fural quickly reloaded and joined in, the two of them cut through the approaching combat forms like they were nothing.

Eventually they stopped coming, and Fural reloaded again. As he slid the fresh cartridge into his carbine, he heard the human scream behind him.

The tentacle wrapped tightly around Svenson's chest and squeezed. He let out a cry of pain as it lifted him into the air. He still held onto his rifle, but he could barely move his arm as the monster's tentacle began crushing him.

The thing flailed him around like it was waving a flag, everything moved past him in a blur.

"Fuck!" he shouted, knowing the Elite couldn't understand him, "help!"

As if the Elite could actually understand him, the characteristic sound of the alien's rifle firing echoed around the room. Svenson felt the tentacle around him go limp before he crashed into the ground. He grunted before he pushed the limb away from him.

The monster that had grabbed him was still there, and it seemed angry. It screeched and began charging toward him. Svenson tried to push himself back up, but he couldn't. The Elite blasted the monster with seven more shots from its rifle, and then it fell barely an inch away from his feet.

Svenson took a deep breath and looked up at the Elite, who gave him a nod. He returned the nod and took another breath. Maybe we're even now, he thought before climbing back to his feet. That thing had grabbed so fast his life didn't have time to flash before his eyes.

He picked up his assault rifle from the floor, and then the door they had come from opened.

Fural turned around as he heard the door slide open. Three combat forms rushed through, but he dropped them before they could reach the light bridge. He quickly glanced down at his magazine, he was running out of ammo, but he didn't have time to reload.

There was a fourth combat form behind the first three, it was a Sangheili. A weirdly 'normal' looking Sangheili, though it was clearly still a combat form. Fural fired the last shots in his carbine's magazine at the combat form, but its shields shrugged them all off.

The combat form ignited an energy sword, and then it began to rush forward. Fural quickly dropped his carbine and grabbed his sword, igniting it and clashing with the combat form's in barely more than a second.

The infected Sangheili pushed into Fural's guard, trying to weaken it; it was then that Fural was able to get a better look at it. Its armour was the same grey as his, its skin a lighter grey. He could barely see its eyes, but from what he could tell they were yellow.

Fural pulled back, and Dom 'Nasamai lunged toward him with a ferocity he had never used before. Fural parried each blow, and was able to push his brother away. Fural took a few quick steps back and waited for Dom's next move.

Svenson watched the normal Elite clash with the infected Elite, the one that had killed Kamal and Hanoi. He watched how they fought, almost like each of them knew the next blow that would come. Maybe they knew each other? Their matching armour seemed to be an indication of that.

The slithering sound of wet flesh against a hard surface began to sound around him, he raised his rifle. A monster jumped at him, he gunned it down before it could get anywhere near him.

There was another behind him. He jumped to his side as it lunged forward, narrowly avoiding getting stabbed in the back. He turned and gunned that one down, it fell apart into a pile of flesh and blood.

He checked the ammo counter on his rifle, he was running low on ammo. He didn't have much left in reserves either. He slid the magazine out and slapped a fresh one in before another monster tried to attack him, he dropped it just like the others.

The room lit up each time the Elites' swords clashed with each other, the sound was almost ear piercing. Svenson looked up at the bridge, the infected Elite was being pushed back towards the door it came through.

Svenson looked around. There was no immediate danger to him, but he waited. There was no way back up to the level that the Elites were on, and even if he went up there he was certain he would get cut in half. Maybe that wouldn't be nearly as bad as getting turned into one of the monsters.

Fural's blades intertwined with Dom's. Fural grunted as he pushed against Dom's guard, moving him further and further in the direction he had come from. He stared into his brother's eyes, they looked lifeless and empty. They weren't even staring back.

The blades slid apart, Fural turned and kicked his brother square in his chest, and he fell onto the floor. It was strange. The infected Dom fought exactly like how Fural remembered his brother fighting. It was like it was still him. And Fural was able to beat him back, if only for a moment.

Fural considered his blades, he raised them for a killing blow. But he stopped himself. He couldn't kill his brother, even though his brother was already something worse than dead. He now felt the human's hesitation when it had to kill its own kind earlier.

Dom tried to get up, but Fural kicked him back down. It didn't feel good, both physically and emotionally. The texture of the rotting flesh was not something Fural enjoyed. But he kicked his brother again, and again, and again.

The tentacles coming out of Dom's chest went limp, and he stopped moving. Fural now realised how heavily he was breathing, how much he was sweating. He took another deep breath and looked around the room, he spotted the human below him. It was watching him.

Fural sighed and ran back in the direction that they had been heading. He turned and moved to the edge of the platform and got on the floor. He then reached his arm out.

Svenson ran over to the Elite, silently thanking him for not leaving without him. He tried to reach the Elite's hand, but he couldn't. He sighed and stowed his rifle, then braced himself. He jumped up and grabbed the Elite's hand, and held on for dear life. The alien's grip was strong, but not surprisingly.

The Elite began to pull him up, and then stopped. Svenson felt a rush of fear that only became more as the Elite brought out a plasma rifle and aimed it at him. God damnit, why? Why are you doing this now?

Svenson didn't even have time to close his eyes when the Elite fired. He didn't feel anything. He opened his eyes, the Elite was still there holding him up with the plasma rifle. He realised the shot went past him. Okay… Maybe I overreacted.

The Elite fired two more times and put the weapon away. It then pulled Svenson all the way up. Once he was on his feet he grabbed his rifle and looked up at the alien, giving him a nod of respect. One that was returned.

The two then moved through the next door, neither of them wanted to stay a second longer in that room. The next one was empty, but they kept running like they were being chased by something faster than them. The next one Svenson couldn't even tell whether or not it was empty as they moved through it.

And then, they were in an elevator chamber. Five monsters were crowded around the elevator, Svenson and the Elite dropped all of them in seconds. Svenson watched the door as the Elite used the elevator's controls, and they ascended. When they reached the top, Svenson could see the outside world.

Fural breathed a sigh of relief as he smelled the fresh air and saw the foliage of the swamp. He had hated the swamp, but now it was the greatest thing he had ever laid his eyes on. He rushed out with the human close behind him, and fell to his knees as he felt the dirt beneath his feet.

He cut his own celebration short by looking at his motion tracker. There was nothing near him other than the human, who was being displayed as an enemy. Fural almost laughed. He looked at the human next to him. It was still standing, it probably knew taking a moment to sit down and rest was a bad idea. Fural knew it too, but he couldn't help himself.

Fural stood up and looked down at the human. It wasn't his enemy. He wasn't sure if he could call it his friend, but he certainly didn't want to kill it. A part of him wanted to grab it and hug it. As far as he knew, they were the only two to make it out of there as themselves, and that was more than cause for celebration.

But he knew they couldn't stay there any longer. They couldn't even go anywhere together. Fural planned on leaving Halo as soon as he possibly could, and he knew he couldn't just take a human with him. It would be killed on sight or tortured for information. And Fural had to admit, he had grown attached to the human beside him, even if they weren't in the facility for all that long.

Fural looked down. He wasn't going to betray the Covenant for a single human, but he sure as hell wasn't going to directly bring it into harm. His attention shifted as he heard the elevator activate again, and he looked back into the facility's entrance. It was a perfect excuse.

He motioned for the human to go, but it seemed very hesitant. He could tell the human was feeling the same conflict as him. But there was no choice. He beckoned for the human to leave again, and it began to back away.

"Go!" Fural shouted, even knowing the human wouldn't understand.

Svenson stared up at the Elite. His mind was in conflict with itself. It was one of the aliens that were intent on destroying everything the humans have ever known, and here he was feeling attached to it. They had saved each other's lives, but there was nothing left for them now. They were out, and that was that.

The elevator they had taken suddenly started going back down, and they both turned toward the entrance. The Elite began to gesture to him, it looked like he was telling Svenson to leave.

He didn't want to leave. He knew he had to, but he didn't want to. They had barely known each other, and it wasn't even that long ago that they had met, but he trusted the Elite with his life. He had already put his life in the Elite's hands more than once.

But he knew the Elite wasn't going to betray the Covenant, especially not for just him. It would probably be killed anyway by the first other human that saw it. Or they would try anyway.

The Elite gestured to him again. He began to back up, but he couldn't fight himself anymore. The Elite then shouted something, it almost caught Svenson by surprise. He could barely tell what it was, it almost sounded like it was saying 'wort', but he took that as a warning. The only warning he was going to get.

He nodded to the Elite one last time, and the Elite returned it. And then he turned and ran for his life.

Fural turned back to the entrance as he watched the human disappear into the foliage. He breathed a sigh of relief and ignited his blade. The elevator then reached the top, and he was taken by surprise and relief when it wasn't a horde of Flood.

It was one combat form. It slowly limped away from the elevator, like it was dragging its own body behind it. It slowly crept up the ramp leading to the outside world, and that was when Fural could clearly see it.

The shape of a Sangheili, the grey armour. Fural's relief immediately faded as it ignited its energy sword. Fural took up his stance, and Dom launched at him.