Author's Note

Wanted to get this out on the first, but couldn't finish it in time. I've developed a bad ear infection that's made focusing on writing for the last two weeks unbearable, but I wanted to continue on my work here.

So here we are.

Uploaded

01/02/2023

LEGEND BELOW

"Chief, that's not a good idea..." = Normal speech.

''You're you, don't let it control you...'' = Normal thoughts.

Chapter 8

Rising from the ashes

Rated-M

M rating for blood, eventual entioning of gore and other body parts, and language.

Footsteps echoed out across an empty bloody battlefield, the sounds of war having been quickly and brutally silenced. Now only one remained standing, dragging behind her a half dead corpse that tried fruitlessly to escape the death grip she had on his leg.

They thought this new warrior foolish to leave behind the Demon to face them all alone. They all thought it amusing, and insulting at the same time. That this one warrior of unknown origin, wearing an armor never before seen thought herself capable enough to defeat them all in brutal combat.

There'd been word on the battle net about a few figure seen following the baleful Demon into battle

They all taunted her…

However…

Those that thought that then no longer had bodies to taunt her with now, having been absorbed into her body, their souls fueling her strange power armor and her body. They stood little chance against her when she let loose, and their biggest folly was their cocksure attitude towards their own prowess.

The Demon was a serious threat that posed the real possibility of taking them all on and prevailing victorious, and despite their ego, they knew this. That was why threw so large a number at him, attempting to increase their odds. No one was perfect, and they were sure that eventually, they'd prevail victorious over the damnable Demon in green.

But, nothing they had on them, no skill, no prior knowledge or experience, no new weapon or anything of the sort could help their odds against the monster that appeared on the battlefield before them all.

If the cursed Master Chief was considered a Demon, then this new warrior was a Demon Lord.

Their weapons did little to her superior armor, and they were unable to stop her as she lay waste to their platoons with a horde of missiles that carried the the strength of Wraith mortars, yet she fired them at the speed of a Plasma rifle.

Those that escaped her first barrage were the unlucky ones, as she engaged them in hand to hand. Anything that she got her fiendish claws around was dead and gone within a moment, armor and all. Those that tried to run too had met their end with a burst of hot green plasma to the back.

The damnable Promethean creatures had stood little chance against her, yet they focused her instead of fighting back their forces. Even with their momentary assistance, they still fell.

His pride as an Elite was his downfall, among other things, and now he was laying defeated at her hand, unable to do anything to fight back as she dragged him across the purple rocky terrain.

Jul 'Mdama had sent sent him ahead to inquire of the state of the fleet surrounding the Forerunner planet, and not a week after his arrival the planet had opened. Just before that the fleet encountered the wreckage of a human ship, and he felt the cold sensation of dread settle into the pit of his stomach when he learned of the survival of the Demon and it's presence on the ship.

Worse then, the Demon followed them into the planet and had immediately began ruining their plans. As bad as it seemed, the Demon was without assistance from his fleet, and was alone. That should've given them the advantage.

But…

The damnable green monster was slippery, escaping from them at every opportunity, vanishing through access to portals left behind by the Forerunners that only he could use.

Not only that, but it seemed the Demon had gained dangerous company in the form of this new monster. She was terrifying in a way the Demon could never be, and had proven even far more dangerous. And now it was abundantly clear to them that she was working with him.

He felt cursed. If one demon wasn't enough, it had gone off and made friends far stronger then it…

He supposed he'd never get the chance to warn Jul 'Mdama, meeting his end here in the valley filled with the bodies of his war brothers.

Although most she encountered physically were absorbed, some she didn't go that far on, switching to others instead. It was only by some sick twisted luck that she hadn't grabbed him with her full strength, instead slowly killing him. She'd become distracted at the end of the battle, and has nearly forgotten of him.

A small tinge of hope filled his mind, and he'd gone on to pretend to be dead in the vein hope that she'd leave him be. Although he was half dead already, body having grayed due to whatever magic she'd used upon him, his heart still beat in his chest.

Her distracted nature served only to make her baleful claw's odd power weaker, enabling him to survive as long as he had.

With every body she absorbed, the red lights on her strange armor began to glow brighter, until by the end of the battle she was literally glowing. It seemed to have a side effect of making her judgement making ability worse, and she seemed to become more and more careless the longer the battle went on.

It was almost as if she'd become drunk with power, her movements more sporadic, less predictable. And now, with him as the last on the battlefield, she let him go. She must not have even fully understood what she did, mind far too occupied with something else. The hand that had a death grip around his leg had just, let go, and she stood there.

His one good eye watched her silently, hoping to dredge up the most information he could were he given the chance to escape. The moment her claws left him they went to her midsection, claws pressed against the bulging armor that protected her stomach. For a warrior of her skill and agility, she seemed oddly rotund around her abdomen.

Her odd action was decidedly less alien and more human, but he couldn't deduce what it meant. Nevertheless, he refused to move, didn't even breathe. He lay there akin to a corpse, until she had decided to make her move and leave.

Only once he was sure he was finally alone did he breathe. Gek of the Storm Covenant would not meet his end here, and he was not sure what god he'd pleased prior to escape his sure demise today…

"Infinity, this is Sierra 117 of the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn, do you copy?"

Silence met the Spartan's urgent call, armored hands placed upon the control terminal that would give his suit access to off world communications. His fingers tightened slightly in response, turning behind him for a brief moment as Covenant began flooding into the rooms below, not far from him.

He didn't have much time.

He glanced up to the large floating orb before him, the so called satellite Cortana had lead him to. He felt a sinking sensation settling into the pit of his stomach, the orb radiating his own voice back at him.

He tried again.

"Infinity, do you read?" He called out, the words being thrown back at him. Without a response from the mothership approaching the planet, he had no way of knowing if they ever heard his warning.

However, besides his being left in the dark, something else was happening. The orb had begun shifting, a buildup of energy had been detected, and he knew it wasn't going to be good.

"Chief… Chief let go of the contacts!" Cortana snapped suddenly, picking up on his sudden distress. The man pulled away as if the terminal had burned him, reaching up as he pulled out his assault rifle.

"Find us an exit." He grunted, looking around.

"Don't wait around on my account!" She snarked, seeing as the orb charged up. The man's eyes widened before he ran off, taking cover behind a support pillar as a shockwave spread through the area he'd just been occupying.

The Promethean soldiers that had been rapidly approaching him suddenly came to a stop, staring up in silent observance to the orb. The Covenant that fought them prior stopped in their fight as the orb drew the attention off all in the area.

The Spartan dared a peek from behind his cover, eyes widening slightly as the orb opened, a small pedestal slowly lowering out of the bottom. Atop the floating pad was a tall powerful looking figure. The figure stretched his arms out, armor appearing from inside the orb rushing out to begin armoring its body. The moment it was covered, it turned the Spartan's way, waving a hand towards the hostiles that approached the pedestal.

The Promethean's changed, turning orange and ceasing all hostility. The Elites, seemingly aware of this new figure, bowed down to it.

"Didact…" One such Elite muttered, his tone reaching the hidden Spartan.

"So fades the great harvest of my betrayal…" The figure, seemingly named as the Didact, exclaimed with a tone of finality.

The Spartan didn't move, his grip around his rifle tightening. He kept his head low, out of sight. He hadn't been seen yet, and he wanted to keep it that way.

"Even these beasts realize what you are oblivious to, human." The Didact sneered. "Your nobility has blinded you, as ever."

The wall the Spartan had been hiding behind suddenly vanished, and with no alternative, the man spun around to take aim at the-

"Chief!!" Cortana's desperate cry echoed out from within the back of his mind, the man suddenly yanked from his position by some unseen force that held him aloft. He grunted in exertion as he tried and failed to break free from the mysterious force that held him up, choking the life out of him.

There was nothing, even his Spartan strength was rendered useless against something he could not touch.

"The Librarian left little to chance, didn't she? Turning my own guardians, my own world, against me." He continued to speak, taking a silent pleasure in the Spartan's pained grunts. "But what hubris to believe she could protect her pets from me forever." The alien's sharp words were accentuated by a crushing force on the super soldier, the very life being squeezed out of him.

The Didact glanced to his hand, before turning his attention back onto the Spartan. "If you haven't mastered even these primitives, then man has not attained the Mantle. Your ascendance may yet be prevented."

He pulled the Spartan in close, inspecting him with baleful narrowed eyes, taking a sick pleasure as he slowly killed the man. "Time was your ally, human, but now it has abandoned you. The Forerunners have returned." Following his words, the final part of his suit assembled over his face. "This tomb is now yours."

The Spartan couldn't possibly react nor stop the following actions, as the Didact threw his hand to the side and sent the super soldier flying off into the distance. Chief grunted in a sharp pain as he was flung into a supporting pillar, back bending around it momentarily before he fell to the ground. His body bounced unnaturally off of a second pillar, sending him spinning before he was planted firmly on the ground.

He didn't immediately get back up, a wet cough escaping his lips sending red across his visor. His HUD flashed warnings across the board, his vision blurred with red.

His suit was suffering multiple major damages, many subsystems malfunctioning or disabled entirely from damage.

"Chief! Chief get up please!" Cortana cried out, her voice panicking. Despite his pain, he quickly went to stand. His HUD warned him of damage suffered from the attack, and how much of his body had suffered due to the unknown attack the Didact had used on him.

Despite that, he stood up, gaze drawn to the orb the Didact had come from. He watched as the alien disappeared into it once more before it closed up.

"Slip-space rupture! Chief, move!" Cortana cried out in desperate alarm.

The Spartan barely had enough time to make it ten steps in the opposite direction before everything went white as he was violently flung far from where he stood...

She was sure something was wrong the moment she saw the satellite object begin moving off its own accord. She did pick up the Spartan's distress call he sent to the Infinity, so she was sure that they must've gained his warning.

But something else was wrong. The few remaining Promethean's that lingered on the battlefield had changed suddenly, shifting from blue to orange. More than that, they left the battlefield immediately, leaving her alone.

Nothing about it sat well with her, and she made a beeline for the portal the man used before. The thrusters on her back powered on as she ran, propelling her forward at blinding speeds, far faster than any human could achieve, even a Spartan.

It didn't take long at all for her to reach the portal, and thankfully it was still active. She dove through it with little thought, appearing on the other side.

The moment she appeared on the other side, she had to react quickly to avoid getting flattened. Thrusters propelled her to the side as a massive rock came crashing down where the portal once stood. Her eyes widened as she Flash Stepped forward, avoiding being crushed by another multi-ton pile of rocks, the woman sent stumbling over her own feet.

She had no time to gain proper footing as the entire mountainside that acted as a wall of sorts came down, sending thousands of tons of debris everywhere. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head when it began to come crashing down atop her, a hastily charged Flash Step in reverse saving her from death.

Left, she snapped, only for more rubble to block her path.

Right she flashed, appearing twenty feet in the opposite direction.

The Forerunner platform she stood upon caved in underneath her, the mountain taking it down as it crashed. She pushed off of the ground, flying into the air with use of her Space Jump to save her from a dangerous fall.

Deciding that it would probably be better for her to remain airborne to avoid the rest of the rocks that proceeded to come crashing down around her, she held herself aloft via continuous use of her space jump boots. Now momentarily clear or the debris, she started scanning around the area.

Everything around her had suddenly gone to hell, and the Spartan must've been nearby. She ascended rapidly, gaining height to properly assess her situation.

Everything was falling apart, the entire subsystems collapsing in on itself. She felt gravity beginning to shift, everything pulling in one direction before shifting towards another.

She needed to find the Spartan and get the hell out of here before she was taken out.

"Chief! Chief do you copy!" She called out over coms. Since the disruption beams had been shut off, their communication systems should've been working properly.

She spun around, trying to track him down. She tired her thermal visor, but with the gravitational disruption and the heat from the surrounding lava made that piece of technology useless.

"Shit…" She cursed quietly under her breath, looking around in a rapidly increasing panic before-

"There!" She hissed, spotting the unmoving form of the Spartan laying face down a small distance from her. Her heart sank when she noticed his lack of movement, and didn't hesitate to move his way.

She sped through the air, avoiding more falling rocks before landing near him. "Chief! Get up!" She called out, sliding to a stop next to him.

He wasn't moving.

She felt her pupils shrink to points, the earthquakes behind her nearly deafening.

Her eyes zeroed in on Adam's case that was still attached to the Spartan. "Adam! Adam what's wrong? What happened?" She hissed in question.

…

But she got no answer.

Not even Cortana was responding.

The ground around her shook violently, the building that surrounded the portal she used merely a minute ago gone. Soon the ground she stood upon now too would be gone, taking her and the Spartan with it.

She felt her heart beat rapidly in her chest, a panic beginning to overtake her.

The Spartan was down, neither Cortana nor Adam were responding. The simple answer was for her to pick him up and escape with him in her hands.

But…

Then she would kill him.

She could feel the unborn Metroids inside her pleased with the idea of food, and her own body wanted to betray her and use his incapacitation as a chance to feed.

But she resisted.

She refused to bend to her DNA's demands.

She would not betray him here and now, after what he'd done for her.

But…

Then what could she do?

She felt as if the whole world around her stopped, mind reaching a screeching halt.

There was only one thing she could do, one thing she had to do.

Because if she didn't, then he would die. He would die, Adam would die, Cortana would die.

And then she'd be alone.

No…

She wouldn't let that happen…

She wasn't going to let that happen!

She turned to him again, her left arm blaring with her Metroid urges. She steeled her heart as she stepped forward, only inches from him. She bit her lips until they bled, trying to make her focus on anything but the body in front of her.

Although her arm was swirling with pink energy, she tentatively placed her claws to his body.

Her eyes shot wide, an exhilarating sensation filling-

"No!" She shouted to herself, yanking her hand back. She closed her eyes painfully tight, pressing her palm to him once more. Her body screamed at her, begging, pleading with her, demanding that she give in and absorb him.

But she didn't. Although her palm swirled with the life absorbing energy, it didn't touch one hair on his body. It took everything within her power to not let her claws clamp down and that be the end of it.

Quickly, she scooped him up, supporting him with her left arm underneath his back, and her arm cannon underneath his legs. Her eyes strained and she felt as if she was going to have an aneurysm from how unbearable it was to be in such close physical proximity to him without being allowed to feed.

It made her feel as if she was going to go insane.

Every single part of her dna called her insane, crazy, foolish.

Her conscience belittled her for disobedience, a telling change from the woman she was before becoming the last living Metroid. Everything about her, who she was, what she'd grown to believe, had become tainted by the evolution into a Metroid. It had changed her to the point that her every action was seemingly in constant conflict with her body. The hungry predator inside her, controlling her instincts, demanding total and unwavering obedience and submission, was angry because she refused to feed upon prey.

It was angry because she refused to refer to the man as prey, refused to look at him like another source of sustenance. It screamed at her, demanding she kneel and submit to its urges and whims, ordering her to give in. It tore at her very mind, the fact that she held him in her arms and yet, she didn't hurt a single inch of him.

And yet…

She refused to hurt him.

She took hold of that voice inside of her by the throat, and violently beat it into submission, locking it away in the depths of her mind. She would not break here, she would not falter here and now! He was off limits, and she would never allow herself to harm him.

She refused!

''He's off limits!'' She hissed in her own mind.

She turned her attention to the crumbling world around her, quickly tracking an exit. The portal she used to gain access was out of the question, and the one at the terminal hub she obliterated with a Power Bomb.

That meant there was only one left, and she'd had to run for it.

She sucked in a breath, the thrusters on her back exploding into the fray. Her attention was drawn upwards as Phantom's approached, only to be thrown into each other from the sudden shift in gravity this close to the core of the planet.

Once the smoke of the explosion cleared, she set her eyes on the portal about two miles or so out.

Then, after powering up, she moved.

She took one step, then another, and another. She went from a jog to a sprint, before that sprint evolved into a blistering explosion of speed after a few moments.

One hundred miles an hour, her form flashing past the multitude of Covenant forces that still remained in the area. The mountains came crashing down behind her, flattening any and all Covenant within the area.

Two hundred miles an hour, she sped across the dilapidated broken land that continued to fall apart behind her.

Three hundred miles an hour, she jumped, crossing a chasm that didn't even exist seconds prior.

She landed, accelerating to four hundred miles an hour, a massive energy field forming around her front.

She ran, her body vaporizing rocks and debris that got in her way as she sped up to five hundred miles an hour.

She could see it now, the portal to the outside. She was so close, she was almost within reach.

She almost bit off her tongue as the ground beneath her vanished, the structural integrity of the land caving in underneath the total collapse that effected the planet's core.

But she didn't lose her footing, jumping off of the ground before it vanished entirely. Her form blazed through the portal, only seconds before it too was destroyed.

In a flash, the decrepit rocky land was replaced with bright blue skies and lush green grasslands. She had but a brief moment to realize that the portal had dropped her off atop a mountainside, a mountainside that she was rapidly approaching the edge of.

She cried out in alarm, cutting off power to the Speed Booster. But she still had the momentum of nearly five hundred miles an hour, and there was only a short distance of land left before the edge.

She dug her feet into the ground, creating a massive trench behind her as she tried to rapidly decelerate. Her suit absorbed the insane kinetic energy produced by the Speed Booster, lighting her entire body up orange. She slid to a rapid stop meters from the cliffs edge, taking a breather.

Her heart thrummed underneath her breasts, chest heaving from the influx of oxygen. She breathed heavily, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart.

She was safe.

She'd done it.

She'd escaped from the pits of the planet.

She nearly collapsed to the ground, yet didn't. Her gaze was drawn skyward as the very clouds above the mountain were parted. Her eyes widened as the largest human ship she'd ever seen came drifting down from the skies, rapidly approaching the planet's surface.

She heard the captain of the vessel call out in distress at their situation, likely sending a message back to wherever they came from. The ship had been afflicted with something, and had its power disabled in atmosphere.

She watched with bated breath as it came crashing down, seemingly retaining just enough power to prevent it from crashing into the planet. Instead it came to a rough yet potentially manageable rest within a forest valley miles from her.

Once she was sure it hadn't been destroyed, she turned her attention down to the armored man she held in her arms.

He wasn't moving, and upon closer inspection via use of her X-ray visor, she quickly realized that he wasn't breathing either.

She nearly dropped him then and there, heart in her throat as she roughly lay him down in the grass.

He wasn't breathing.

Why wasn't he breathing?!

Had…

Had she killed him?

She fell to her knees beside him, activating her medical scanners. His whole body was illuminated by her deep scans, rapidly revealing to her what had happened.

He was suffering from massive internal bleeding, hemorrhaging, heart and multiple organ failure. His heart had stopped beating, and brain patterns had all but ceased.

He was dead. Her only in to this universe and its humanity had died on her watch.

She was assaulted suddenly with sense of defeat, dread, and fear…

…

And yet, she was surprisingly calm.

Her eyes roamed every inch of his body, pupils the size of pinpricks.

She breathed in, heart thrumming beneath her breasts, yet she felt calm.

Why? Why was she calm?

He was dead, and she'd failed to protect him.

But…

But she was calm.

She swallowed thickly, slowly glancing down to her hand. Her left hand pulsed with the life absorbing energy, the limb responsible for eating anything and everything it came into contact with…

With that hand, she was capable of sucking the life right out of whatever she touched.

But she was a Metroid…

And if there was one thing besides taking, that Metroids could do…

It was giving.

She'd been saved by such a phenomenon once before, once she'd passed the point of no return. She'd practically been brought back from the dead, and it was thanks to the Baby Metroid.

Her lips tingled at the thought, a strange yet seemingly natural sensation overwhelming her. She blinked, gaining an unusually gentle sense of clarity in this strange hostile world.

She turned her attention back down to the dead Spartan in her arms, reaching out with her claws grasping the front of his helmet. His suit gave resistance, but she easily bypassed his security with her Scan Visor as she'd done thousands of times before to the Space Pirates.

Immediately his helmet hissed as internal pressure was released, the metal armor disconnecting from his head. She tossed the helmet off to the side, knowing damn well it would be fine.

A gentle breeze passed through, parting his bloody dusty brown hair. His eyes were closed shut, blood leaking from his lips. His scarred handsome face was grayed, either from death or a severe lack of exposure to sunlight.

Not a single breath of air left his nostrils.

But she was calm, almost terrifyingly so. With a newfound sense of courage and urgency, she gently scooped his head into her claws, supporting his neck as she leaned in close.

There was a light flash as her helmet vanished, exposing her bright green-blonde hair to the sunlight. Her black lips parted for a moment, breathing in completely unfiltered air for the first time in a long while. Her baleful red eyes began glowing a life giving pink, a soft pink energy radiating from her lips.

Then, she leaned down and planted her lips to his…

Chapter

8

End