United Republic Frontier
627 km from Republic City
8:50 AM
"This is Pelican R-415 to United Forces units on the ground, requesting LZ!" The Heavy Raptor swoop through the air as hard light shells exploded in the skies. United Forces AV-14 Hornets and UH-144S Falcons flew pass the pelican, some exploding as the Promethean batteries struck them. Aircraft fell towards the ground wrapped in fire and death.
"This is Staff Sergeant Amaru, LZ is hot, I repeat LZ is hot! Position overran by the enemy, do not land there! Proceed to coordinates alpha-kilo-iota! Sending information to your pelican's HUD! We need back-up, hurry up!"
Tanks rolled over crevices as they fired towards hordes of Promethean Crawlers, trying to prevent the infantry from getting massacred. But it wasn't enough, as they too fell one by one. The Heavy Raptor landed in the newly designated landing zone, out of its troop bay came out the Avatar alongside ODST Gunnery Sergeant Mako and the legendary Master Chief. "You think Bolin will be able to evac the people in Torcher's Landing in time? The city is way too close to this area." Korra said to Mako.
"Don't worry, if I know my brother as well as I do then he'll do anything to get attention." Mako replied as the two of them followed the Master Chief towards an encampment that was under fire. Promethean Soldiers were fighting a group of armed United Forces troopers. Fire and ice spikes were being hurled at the armingers alongside bullets. "Spartans!" One of the troopers shouted.
"At long last!" The Staff Sergeant said as he ducked under cover avoiding getting his head pinned by a lucky Promethean Soldier. He joined the trio behind some erected steel cover. "We never thought we'd be reinforced so fast!"
"Captain Lasky received the message from the camp back in Republic City, they're not having a good time either." Korra informed the sergeant, "But we can't help them until we secure the border, Kuvira could attack at any moment."
"I think Kuvira's the least of our problems, ma'am! These devil machines overran Outposts E-55, E79 and Spearhead-1050A in a matter of seconds! We're the only defense between them and the villages surrounding Republic City!" Amaru said, he took out a holomap, "And that isn't all, look at this."
Korra took the holomap and analyzed the highlighted areas, "These are all outpost in the north and south of the frontier…its an organized attack!" She realized, "The Warden isn't just crippling our heads…he's taking all of us out at once!"
"Leonidas, we need options, now!" Mako ordered the AI in his TACPAD. The AI Greek Spartan appeared in a blue hue.
"The fleet is destabilized; all ground forces are cut off from each other! I can't contact the Infinity or any of the other ships!" Leonidas informed.
"Dammit." Korra murmured to herself. "Alright, Mako we're going to clear this area and reunite the scattered United Forces units after that we can contact the UNSC ground units for back up if they're not occupied!"
"Better than nothing!" Mako acknowledged. The Master Chief jumped out of cover, grabbing a Promethean Soldier by its metallic head and smashing it into rocky ground destroying it. He quickly swapped to his M6D Magnum and shot at another incoming Soldier. The armiger's head exploded from the impact of the bullet and fell limp on the ground.
"Let's go." Master Chief said looking back at the Avatar, the ODST and the UF sergeant.
UNSC Infinity
Requiem's Orbit
9:00 AM
The ship was mostly offline, its powerful engines not responding. Several sections of the ship's maintenance and technical tunnels and conduits were damaged by the intense EMP wave that hit the Epoloch Defense Fleet. Asami Sato, proud owner of Future Industries, was crawling inside one of the wrecked service tunnels that had shafts that gave power to Sector 88B of the vessel, one of its many cryo chamber areas. Accompanying her was Commander Sarah Palmer and some UNSC technicians. They couldn't do anything; the Infinity's defenses were compromised, and the ship was still in orbit. The only thing they could do was wait.
"Pass me the plasma torch." Asami said to one of the techs. They handed it over to her, the plasma heat of the torch welded an opened panel shut. Asami crawled out one of the many shafts, she cleaned her sweaty forehead with a piece of cloth she had in her left pocket.
"Handy with tools." Palmer dryly stated, she hadn't had many conversations with the business owner beyond greetings. Asami was a bit surprised that Palmer would even think of striking conversation with her, but the businesswoman simply smirked.
"Yeah, spent most of my life inside a workshop." Asami replied, opening another shaft. "The Infinity's service tunnels and circuits aren't too different from what I'm used to."
"Is that so? I remember your planet not being too advanced before we arrived." Palmer said, looking at her assault rifle. "I bet you couldn't tell the difference between a toaster and magic before then."
Asami let out a small sigh followed a soft giggle, "We're not savages, Commander." She said as she laid on her back and crawled into the shaft. Asami took out an auto-driver from her right pocket. "Technology is a love of mine, the only thing I share in common with my father."
Palmer looked at the hallway to the right, Naval personnel ran around as they tried to figure out what the hell happened. Trying to re-establish contact with the people below, hopelessly. "I never knew my parents. They died when I was very young, I was adopted by good folk. My adoptive father was the one who encouraged me in joining the brass, if it hadn't been for him, I wouldn't be half the woman I am now." Palmer told the businesswoman.
Asami crawled out of the shaft, "I guess we both wouldn't be here without our fathers. I just wish mine didn't turn out the way he did in the end." She said, standing up and giving a technician her tools. "All done, just restart the main junction and connect it to the ship's secondary engines again and it should be all good."
"Thank you, Ms. Sato." One of the techs thanked the genius engineer, the two technicians left to do what Asami ordered them to do.
"I'm not one to fancy all of this science stuff, but how do you know what you're doing? This technology should be impossible for you to understand." Palmer asked, not comprehending how Asami had been able to quickly understand UNSC technology in such little time. Most technophiles on Requiem hadn't totally come to understand the entirety of the technology that the UEG had brought to them, with them using and employing people from Earth to help them with their newfound tech.
"I guess it's a gift." Asami playfully said as she walked past the Spartan-IV towards a vending column, she pressed the option for a diet soda and a turkey sandwich. "To be fair, human technology doesn't change just because we're worlds apart. The fundamentals are still there, I just applied what I already knew to the technology you brought. The rest I just studied, not that hard once you put your mind into it."
"Hm." Palmer walked next to Asami, her armored footsteps making audible clangs on the clean steel floor. "In either case, your friends must be lucky to have you. None of them strike me as the learned type."
"No kidding." Asami chuckled, "To be fair, I'm lucky to have them actually. If it hadn't been for them, I would've probably followed in my father's footsteps…or worse." The soda can and aluminum wrapped sandwich appeared out of the vending column, Asami took them and sat on a nearby bench. "Things are bit hectic right now, but I know Korra and the others can fix this."
Palmer didn't say a thing, she agreed with the younger woman. While she wasn't buddy buddy with the Avatar, she had seen what Korra is capable of. And now she was a Spartan as well, she couldn't fathom what she could do now…perhaps Korra herself didn't have a clue yet.
United Republic Frontier
720km from Republic City
9:50 AM
Korra ducked into an abandoned shelled out building, it looked like it used to be an apartment. This town had been abandoned for years, maybe decades, it still retained the old workings of ancient Earth Kingdom architecture. The doors were long gone and so were the windows, a likely place for homeless folk to take shelter in and survive the fierce frontier...or so it should've been. Now this small abandoned town was a warzone between UNSC and United Forces troops against the revived Forerunner Prometheans coming out of the crust of the planet. Korra ran into the upper floors of the building, kicking down walls if need be with her armored boots. Armigers were waiting for her inside shooting their Suppressors at her, the hardlight rounds ripped through the wooden and stone walls like a hot knife through butter, the Spartan was forced to roll along the walls to avoid the incoming fire. She approached behind the Promethean armigers firing her assault rifle bringing them down. Korra stood up and communicated via radio, "This is going nowhere, all of the holdout units in the area were overrun before we even got here."
"Leonidas says that we're too far away from the other teams and outposts, the frontier is dust, Korra. We have to fallback to the rally point." Mako replied, Korra sighed. The Prometheans were still shelling the area from distance, they had battery cannons on the Earth Empire side of the frontier.
"All right...everyone left, fall back to rally point omega and..." Before she could finish her orders the entire building shook. "What the hell?!" Korra ran out down the stairs while struggling to maintain her footing as the building began to fall apart from the quake. She got out in time as the roof and upper floors caved in. Korra sprinted towards Mako and the soldiers who had gathered up outside town. "Is that..."
"What...the...fuck..." Mako said as a immense shadow blocked out the sun. The giant colossus steps trembled the earth and sent absolute fears to the minds of the soldiers looking at it. Master Chief approached them, he gazed upon the colossus.
The Spartan-II placed his hand over Korra's shoulder, "We have to get back, now." Chief said snapping Korra out of her trance. She nodded in agreement. Korra climbed up a warthog and brought it to life, Chief got into the turret while Mako rode shotgun. The other troopers saw this and got into their vehicles as well, some mongooses and transport hogs, the entire party rode away from the incoming metal giant.
Aboard the colossus was Kuvira alongside her most elite guard, within the Grammarian's head. It acted as a bridge for the mad empress. "The attack by the Promethean defenses weakened the United Forces along the frontier good enough for a easy invasion." Kuvira stated, "This will make it much more possible to overtake the surrounding cities around Republic City before approaching it."
"A sound decision, Kuvira." The Grammarian spoke through speakers within his head, "Nevertheless these armigers and their attack forces were not awoken by Requiem's systems as I detect this Shield World's intelligence to be inert. This is something far more sinister."
"I see. Our objective is to neutralize the United Republic first then we will deal with whatever is attacking our world." Kuvira responded as she looked out the eyes of the Grammarian. The colossus hummed in agreement as they stepped on the armigers and their cannons as if they were roaches. The Promethean scattered as the colossus swoop through them and the small abandoned town. "Let it be known that the Grammarian walks once more on the open fields of the Promethean world, and will retake his home." The colossus said victoriously.
Rally Point Omega
United Republic Frontier
428km from Republic City
10:34 AM
Korra charged in into the command tent, inside was General Iron and Royal General Zeraldus IV reviewing information on a holodesk. "Kuvira's coming." She said joining the two men. "And she has activated the P-Core."
"Wha...in what way?" General Iroh asked, Korra inserted Leonidas's chip into the holodesk. The small holographic projection of an ancient Greek Spartan appeared on the holodesk. Next to him another holographic image appeared.
"A colossus, powered by the P-Core recovered by Kuvira." Leonidas said, "Preliminary scans on the superweapon indicates high-yields of power in its cannon arm, most likely a super-upscale version of the Promethean Z-390 Incineration Cannon. It has enough power to level an entire city."
General Iroh and Zeraldus IV were taken aback, "Such weapon would mean the end of Republic City in a blink of an eye." Zeraldus stated. Iroh rubbed his chin, a drop of sweat ran down his brow. This was bad, very bad. "What about its hide, does this metallic abomination have a weak spot?!"
"No idea." Leonidas plainly responded, "Scans were done under the panic from being obliterated." Inconclusive data appeared over the colossus's hologram. "I would need to get inside the mech to be able to accurately scan it, or at least close to it. There seems to be interference though, a sort of voice muddled my senses."
"A voice?" Korra asked.
"It spoke in an different language, Commander. Not human nor alien in origin, at least from the catalogued languages from the species of the former Covenant." Leonidas rubbed the top of his helmet. "It almost resembled chanting."
"It must be a defense mechanism." Iroh replied, "Nevertheless, we have to stop it. With the Warden Eternal's attack completely messing our defensive line its most likely that Kuvira is overrunning our far outposts at this very moment and we have no way to reinforce them. We're in a bottleneck."
Korra looked at Leonidas, "Send a message to Captain Lasky, if you can." She said. Leonidas nodded indicating that he could. "Good. Tell him that a defensive line against Kuvira will no longer be possible...tell him and Palmer to initiate Kilo-Epsilon 5."
"Understood." Leonidas then disappeared.
"Kilo-Epsilon 5?" Zeraldus asked. "What is that, reinforcements?" Korra took off her helmet and swung her messy short hair, her bangs fell down over her forehead and she opened her bright blue eyes. She smiled.
"The Ironclad Contingency. Penned by Spartans Palmer, Dalton, Jun and myself. It consists of a complete lockdown of an indicated planetary region by the Infinity's entire contingent of Spartan supersoldiers. In essence, General, you're getting more reinforcements than you might've wished for." Korra explained. Leonidas appeared once again, "I'll need to keep a complete tab on the incoming forces, Leo. You mind if you hop aboard?"
"No issues here." Leonidas agreed. Korra placed back her helmet and took out Leonidas' AI chip from the holodesk and inserted it into her helmet's AI slot. Korra felt a cool liquid feeling entering her head as the chip connected successfully with her Spartan Neural Interface. "Hm, interesting. You're quite the interesting person, Commander."
"Yeah yeah." Korra said, "Now, General Iroh how's the situation back in the city?"
Iroh snapped out of his frozen surprise, "Right. The Warden is gone, several troopers were able to retake the base and several boroughs of the city that were once filled with Prometheans. The thing is that all of them disappeared half an hour ago."
"Around the time we saw the colossus." Korra whispered to herself. "The Warden knows about Kuvira's mech too and may perceive it as a threat. We have to take Kuvira out before the Warden does or it would be mean complete chaos!"
"I'll send out the word to bring heavy firepower to support your supersoldiers, Avatar." Zeraldus said, "As well with the other military leaders across the frontier, we shall not fail."
Korra smiled underneath her helmet, "We haven't lost one battle yet, let's not break the tradition." She walked out of the tent and met with the Master Chief and Mako. "We're going back to meet Kuvira."
"Okay...that's dumb." Mako said, "That thing will vaporize us the moment we come close to it." Bolin ran to join them, he was finished evacuating the surrounding towns with detachment of the 25th Infantry Division of the United Forces. Korra thought...if we can't go directly to it, then we'll force them to us.
"I have an idea, Kuvira pilots a mech that uses a P-Core as its power source. The only thing that could interest her aside from her precious core is another! And there must be one in the Cathedral out in the desert!" Korra said. "Leonidas, how far is the location we found from the last position of the colossus?"
"About 600km." Leonidas said from her helmet's speakers. Mako rubbed the back of his head, this was a longshot but it could work.
The Master Chief stepped in, "Even if it did, there is no guarantee that Kuvira would take the bait, its too far away." A good point, but there was no other way to deter the mad empress from reaching Republic City or the Warden finding her and kick starting Armageddon.
"I heard about a dig site over at Torcher's Landing, said that before the Prometheans attacked they had found several P-Cores deep underground inside some sort of metal bunker." Bolin informed the team, "Thought it was an odd flex, y'know?"
"Bolin! You may just have saved us all!" Korra picked up the earthbender from the arm pits, his feet dangled over the ground and he awkwardly smiled.
Torcher's Landing
United Republic Frontier
About 600km from Republic City
11:10 AM
Eight pelican dropships landed within the city square, marines and ODSTs came out of each except for two Spartans. "Alright everyone, cover the entire city if you must we have to find that dig site!" Korra ordered the squads, they all acknowledged and dispersed across town. "We have around an hour before Kuvira arrives to Republic City, the United Forces and the 8th and 10th Armored Divisions will buy us enough time with the Prometheans so get to finding!"
Korra, Chief, and Mako set up base in the city hall. "Okay, Chief...I downloaded all I could from the city's archives into Leonidas' database. Much of it was still on the process from being transcribed from text to the data columns...but the location of the dig site wasn't marked down. At least not by the city." She explained, "Looks like it was a private operation, maybe by Traxus or some other firm."
"There's the Traxus building here." Mako said, "Saw it when my pelican flew into town. Its downtown, about a kilometer from the LZ."
"That narrows down the search." Korra turned on her comms, "All units proceed towards the Traxus spire a klick from your current positions, you can't miss it. Its a huge tower with the words Traxus somewhere, look for any information you can about the dig site."
"Affirmative, ma'am." One of the ODSTs understood.
Korra then sat down on the former mayor's seat. "Less than hour before hell is set loose." She said as some marines brought in equipment into the building. "Chief, once we get confirmation of the dig site's location we'll have to get inside the Forerunner ruin inside. I don't know what will happen once we find the cores."
"We'll activate them, and force Kuvira's eyes off from Republic City." The Master Chief said confidently, this eased Korra a bit her plan wasn't as insane as she thought after all. Her home run call, but...she remembered, what happened to the Warden Eternal?
The Cathedral
Hidden in the dunes of the Earth Empire
Far away from the combat...
Metallic footsteps echoed across the empty halls of the Cathedral, the Warden Eternal, along with three Promethean Knight Commanders, entered the once locked center of the derelict Forerunner ruin. Within the chamber was an immense hologram of a mechanical being that resembled a bird. "It is true then, the peacekeeper lies dormant in this place. The first of many...the awakening of a Promethean Cryptum is of utmost worry, my friends." The Warden turned to his Knights. "But we're at the precipice of honoring the will of our forefathers, and the continuing of the keeping of the Mantle."
The Warden turned and approached the hologram, "Before tackling the Flood menace, we must unite the galaxy under our luminious sun once more. And that means making them...the mortals understand who are the keepers of the mantle of responsibility...the Forerunners. And how we shall? With the Guardians."
The chamber came to life, it lit up with once long forgotten light fixtures. A holo console appeared in front of the massive Warden. He placed his hand over it activating the Cathedral's true purpose. "Awaken, peacekeeper. You're called to serve the Forerunners once again and soon the rest of your kin will as well."