Ultimately, there wasn't much she could salvage from the other Spartans. Even Emile's armor didn't have much left, asides from the knife on his chest. As she looked down at Emile's body, she wondered briefly what might have happened if she had been in the gun instead. She shook the thoughts out of her head ̶a̶l̶t̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶p̶ ̶a̶g̶a̶i̶n̶s̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶l̶o̶o̶d̶ ̶l̶o̶s̶s̶. His knife could still taste more Covenant blood, but his shotgun wouldn't be much use to her. Not at the distances she meant to travel, at any rate. Using the GPS on her wrist, she'd head north and stick to the coast until she got to New Alexandria. Usually there would be plenty of wildlife to hunt, but with the Covenant invasion she couldn't be too sure. She steeled herself against the blood loss and started walking, trying to minimize her trail as much as possible. It's a long way to New Alexandria, and she didn't know how much she had left to give.
Her vulpine heritage definitely had some perks to consider. Her teeth were far sharper than any of her Spartan III brothers and sisters, and her senses of hearing and smell were much the same. The functionality of her body was greater, but the structure was lacking. Her elongated skull left her incapable of using most other helmet models aside from her specialized GUNGNIR, which posed a problem especially now. Her ears were jammed close to her head, her nose less than a centimeter from the visor. Her breath puffed fog against the transparent visor, only for the armor to clear the moisture away moments later. It was doing the best it could at recycling her wasted body resources, but the holes in her techsuit were too much for the system to recover. She was losing water, and most rivers had been polluted by ash.
She'd survived so far off of random farmsteads and hunter's shacks she found along the way. There was never much left, but there was always at least a little food. It was a good day when she found jerky or refrigerated meat, but more often than not it was just spoiled. I̶f̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶s̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶u̶n̶d̶ ̶s̶l̶e̶e̶p̶,̶ ̶s̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶e̶x̶h̶a̶u̶s̶t̶e̶d̶. Wildlife was few and far between, and she let it go most of the time because she usually didn't have enough time to cook it between the Covenant that were most definitely trailing her and the rush for New Alexandria. Most of the time. More than once instinct got the best of her, and she was never hungry for long after that. ̶S̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶r̶i̶e̶d̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶b̶e̶s̶t̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶s̶ ̶s̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶l̶a̶c̶k̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶w̶o̶k̶e̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶d̶a̶r̶k̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶c̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶b̶l̶o̶o̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶i̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶f̶a̶c̶e̶,̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶r̶m̶o̶r̶.
Time was getting harder to track, and she forgot more and more of the day. Checking her GPS became the best frame of reference she had. How far had she been since she'd last look? 20 miles? 30? 40? Landscape and interactions became a blur. Each gap brought her closer to New Alexandria.
How long has it been since I saw the same city? Still burning just as it was then, large buildings collapsed under great beams of radiation. Kat died here. I miss her acerbic wit and competence with any piece of tech that didn't have wheels. So long ago I felt her weight fall into my arms, words cut short. The people I helped protect were afraid, some felt despair. My own rage fizzled and died as the Phantom carried her killer away. She doesn't usually remember these moments of lucidity, gaps where I can think of me and not she . At one point the ground had been covered in discarded luggage and clothes. I had changed that pretty quickly. Blue, orange, purple, and a red that wasn't quite the right shade covered the ground, sloughed off of Emile's blade and my own hands. No, she probably wouldn't remember this at all, but I would, just as I remember all the distance I covered to get to here from Aszod. Just as I remember killing brutes and elites alike with my teeth, recompense for their own predation of the men and women I protect.
Before I know it, I'm cleaning off the knife again, walking down the street again, moving towards a waypoint neither of us knew the source of. I had left the security helmet that crushed my ears and sat too close to my nose around the corner so hopefully she never knows what I do.
She does good work, but I think what I do would scare her.
As the two of us walk towards the waypoint I'm at the front more and more. I'm a coping mechanism, really, that she employs when she feels a little too much. My earliest memory, in fact, is needles and wires and restraints. I remember my body growing and stretching and confusion. Had no clue what I was. Know a little more now.
Looking around me, I'm surprised she lasted as long as she did. Hunger was almost as constant as the dry mouth, blood pumping like sludge in her veins, my veins. She must have eaten something bad, only the augmentations keeping it at bay now. Maybe radiation? Suit should protect me, but the suit's almost as bad as I am right now. My armor almost looks like it had been crying, titanium plates beading in rivulets where I had been hit by unshielded plasma fire. The heat had transferred to my techsuit, then my fur and skin. The breeze honestly feels better than the suit until I remember where I am and why I'm feeling the wind in my fur in the first place. I spend almost all my time with the helmet off, my hair long since out of regs.
I could never stand tight spaces.
The waypoint led me to a Condor, presumably with people in it. There's a group of covenant trying to get in, but not much longer. My body's in motion without any forethought, launching into combat. I've already thrown the helmet onto my head despite its ill fit. My energy shields are barely formed by the time I get to the first grunt, golden energy forming a matrix before fading out of the visible wavelength. It almost had enough time to scream before its stupid face was facing the wrong way. I swing my hands so fast that the titanium gloves act like knives against the fodder and in split seconds they're hammers slamming against the lone elite's shields. His snap before mine and Emile's kukri takes a big chunk out of its throat. It's trying to gurgle some last gasp until I crush its ribs in with my boot.
The people inside the ship seemed more than a little cautious about letting me in. I don't blame them, I wouldn't trust me. Holes in my armor and blood drenching my body, fur unfamiliar to anyone expecting me, a Spartan, to be Human. My ONI clearance codes never really cared about what I looked like, though.
The loading ramp opened before my eyes, touched the ground by my feet. I took the first step up the ramp fine. By the second I could feel her start to surface, and by the third I've lost control of most of my body. I could still see myself pitching forwards, noted the spurt of blood that entered my sight as my nose smashed into the visor. I don't feel bad as I slip back behind her, glad I could get her to some kind of safety , glad I get to keep living.