Chapter 20 – Immortalem

(7th Cycle, 84 Units – Covenant Battle Calendar)

Aquilla System, Actium

High Mediolanum, Republic of Pavia

:********:

Fear.

He felt it, not from himself but in the very hearts of the faithful flock over which he had been given charge. There was tension in the air, one brought on by fear of what was to come. The humans were almost here. They would fight to retake their city. And so would he also fight to ensure the integrity of the holy warriors that defended the final tier. He would petition the Gods to strengthen them, to prepare their soul to fight and to also be ready to meet their Gods if the divine so ordained it. His purpose was to ensure that fear he sensed in the garrisons stationed throughout the city was abated before the arrival of their enemies. However, his current conditions, were they visible to any and all Covenant forces, would give them the impression that faith alone would not be enough to garner them the victory.

The Minister of Iconography, Avuum Rezzic was not impressed. His sheltering arrangements, those made by Field Marshall Kozon Duracomee, were not helpful to his cause to say the least. They were only helpful in assuring his personal team of 7 loyal Honor Guards that their spiritual defense meant little against the possibility of an external and temporal incursion.

The skyscraper within which he was taking refuge was one of the largest in the 3rd Tier and was consequently established near its center. The angular structure continuously sloped inwards from its base all the way up to the top before cresting downwards to connect with its slightly shorter side, much like a crystal. Its sheer size was rivaled only by a few dozen others that stretched towards the heavens, several of which were in its immediate vicinity and surrounded it on all sides. Those other nearby buildings were the primary concern of those that sought after Rezzic's upmost security. There was always the chance that someone could use them to gain a better vantage point from which to strike him, were there any to begin with. He had his doubts. Nevertheless, Duracomee had decided to put in place a few precautions.

For one, the part of the floor that he was on was being defended by several overlapping energy barriers, more than sufficient to stop any attack. Further, his personal guard was increased. Other than the Honor Guards that actively patrolled the room he was in, there was also the presence of a battalion's worth of holy warriors set both in and around the building. The small square at the base of the structure was occupied by numerous Sangheili, Unggoy, Kig-Yar and Megalekgolo pairs. A majority of the surrounding structures were secured by Kig-Yar snipers monitoring the roads and highways that ran from the encompassing city, many of which just so happened to meet at a critical juncture: the square.

Rezzic had good reason to believe that the major junction was located just on the eastern face of the building simply because the structure itself was important. It had to be somehow relevant to the life of the inhabitant humans, perhaps in some manner of trade and commerce. That theory seemed the most apt since it explained why so many of the skyscrapers in this tier held signs and names that translated to what would amount to different business brands. The one he was in held a particular name: 'The Luna Alta'. It's exact meaning was difficult to discern since its words were derived from several different human languages. It likely bore some affiliation with clerical work. He had already seen the levels upon levels of office and administrative spaces within the interior. Solid confirmation of his theory came from the flying detritus of unsecured documents that flew around when his personal Phantom descended upon one of the two landing pads outside the room. As a matter of fact, this room was little more than a well-kept lounge of sorts, well kept up to the point of the papers that still occasionally sailed across the marble sheened floor. Their movement cast small shadows against the blue light emitting from the four bulky, cyclopean recording devices that observed him, two to his forward-left and two to his forward-right.

Behind each stood one of his Unggoy Deacons, members of his inquisition group put in charge of the recording process. Above them hovered two helmeted Huragok who were meant to stay close at hand in case of any technical issues. He knew they would act quickly in case anything happened. But could they act quickly enough? If what Rezzic himself feared to be the worst scenario ultimately came to pass then he wondered if even the tech-omnipotent creatures could act with the speed that was required. He hoped they could, because they were the only ones aware of his proposed solution to such a catastrophic dilemma.

Then he rebuked himself, coming to understand that he was following the exact same line of fearful reasoning that Duracomee and so many others were adhering to. He needed to be their example, truthfully. If he could not invoke the power of the Gods to nourish their spirits by showing his own fearlessness then certainly no one could, and they would lose this battle. So he focused on his upraised arms, his strong posture and his moving lips. He put everything he had into the first prayer of the final petitioning for the Ceremony of Sanctification: Atonement.

The relevant symbol appeared over him from a nearby projector.

"May the faithful in heart rejoice, may their mouths and hands be blessed as to the fruit of their words and the reward of their labor. May the Gods be so willing to judge and bring forth righteous judgement on a deserving flock. For a deserving people have been found, two of numbers untold. May there be rich blessing bestowed upon the one that is steadfast." Rezzic began to fold in his hands in accordance with his words. "But may there also be a gift of forgiveness for this place, upon this city, for the land and its glory given by the Gods has been defiled and skewed. May the divine who, in their wisdom, have endured this indignity until now, show grace, for regret is found in these lands, and much sorrow. It has endured the sin of bearing shelter to a disgraceful kind, heretics by their very nature that deny the holiness of the Gods and the justness of our cause. On each world they seek only their own enrichment, only their own amusement and beneficence, nothing else. Not anymore. May forgiveness be lavished on this land for the sin that was forced upon it, and may it be so pleasing to the Gods as to cleanse it in their judgment, and bring forth from that pure regret, mercy."

In finishing the prayer of Atonement, Rezzic closed his hands into fists and balled them tightly. He then brought his arms down to hold his fists outward, one to the east and one to the south, his hands tightening even more as if they held in their frail grasp a sword. Then he began the prayer of Partitioning and Affliction, prompting the next symbol to appear.

"And yet, let there be no mercy. Not for the humans. May they be hunted like the vermin they are, cast down from the lofty perches upon which they blinded themselves with their own glory and denied the holiness of the path. Let their punishment be first of separation. May they be judged apart from the land out of mercy for its repentance that we so assisted when we first arrived. Let them be cut out and cut off from all aid. Then may it be so pleasing to the Gods to bring them their second punishment, affliction by fire." He slowly uncurled his hands and stretched them out in an offering gesture. "May they leave this world in torment to enter another of torment, that the longsuffering of the Gods in patiently enduring their arrogance will be brought to an end, and that the suffering of the defilers that desecrated their holy relics might be everlasting."

Rezzic bowed his head nearly to his lap as he brought his hands in front of himself before stretching them out towards the ceiling and the heavens beyond. He felt the weight of his headpiece settle on him with greater pressure. Yet it was nothing compared to the palpable heaviness of tens of thousands of the rightfully converted undoubtedly watching his every move. He would bring them the hope they needed.

The last symbol appeared above him.

"And let truth reign. Let the lies of these defilers which they believed wholeheartedly be shown for what they are as they themselves are brought low by truth. Even now the heavens set their sights against them, to expose them in their corruption so that they may see that they chose a lie over the truth. But allow them, oh enlightened ones, to see fully the error of their course, that they may come to regret their wrongdoing. But do not let them, in your abundant mercy, repent of those wrongs. Wrap them back forever in the rags with which they clothed their souls to blind themselves from truth, that the truth itself may blind them in their own lies. Then they shall be doomed as the claws of their damnation drag them into the very darkness which they had so desired and embraced all their lives, that it may embrace them for all eternity with the penalty due their heresy. And may the Gods strengthen their servants with the truth of the rightness of our covenant, of the righteousness of our walk along the path, so that we may send them to that fate."

In his fervor, he felt his hands begin to shake as he clasped them together, raising them towards the heavens in a manner befitting a humble beggar requesting the favor of a merciful passerby. "May it be so by the will of the Gods whom we worship, by the will of the prophets whose prayers they have sanctioned, and by the will of the warriors whose hands they have blessed."

With those last words he ended the final Prayer of Strengthening, and with it, finished the first part of the ceremony. Then he raised himself upright in his throne and floated closer to the recording devices. As he did, out of the corner of his eye he saw the Honor Guards move with him. They watched him as they patrolled the main level of the room as well as the upper floor separated by four mid-decks along the corners.

He stopped a short distance from the devices for those watching to see the lack of fear on his face. He held an empathetic hand to his chest. "Know that we will triumph here this day. We shall claim victory. Do not doubt. Though I may not fight alongside you, I shall fight with you in prayer to offer you the confidence you need. I will intercede on your behalf so that your hope may hold firm for what is to come."

Rezzic felt a fire rise in his chest, increasing his fervor. The spirits were with him. Even he could feel that the blessing of the Gods was resting upon him, clothing him in confidence, assuring him of the truth of his words. He felt a new message of courage well up inside of his heart to tell his faithful flock. He raised a triumphant fist, opened his mouth...and gargled his own blood.

He never got to hear the words that he wished to say. There was only the sound of a loud CRACK and the feeling of something stabbing through his throat in a burst of air and blood that threw him clear of his throne.

As he tumbled away, time slowed. He saw the recording devices recording his fall and the faces of the Deacons behind them that were slowly melting from strong assurance into horror.

Rezzic crashed onto the floor with such an impact that it knocked the remaining wind out of him, blurring his vision. He found that he couldn't breathe. There was a growing pain in his neck. He reached for it, touched something wet and brought his hand to his face. For the first time in his life, he saw his own lifeblood. It was blueish purple, thick but with a loose enough viscosity that it dripped from his fingers and pooled in his palm.

It seemed unreal. He felt as if he were drowning within himself, a fact that became clearer as the Honor Guards came rushing to his side, stopping short of the expanding pool of blue blood that surrounded him. He could see little other than their boots. Then slowly they too became blurry images in his hazing vision. Their shouts of alarm and anger grew distant.

His eyes felt heavy, heavier than anything he'd ever felt before. Slowly, he let them close and darkness embraced him.

:********:

Throughout the 3rd Tier, throngs of Covenant warriors looked on at holo-pedestals lining the streets with shared expressions of horror and dread. Before their very eyes lay the holographic image of a prophet, a Holy One, lying upon the floor with his lifeblood gathering around him. Reptilian, avian and arthropodal eyes widened in shock. Sharp screeches and increasingly enraged growls arose.

What was at first a growing clamor became a great outcry of many voices demanding blood and vengeance on those that had dared slay an anointed one.

Before long the recording cut out, leaving tens of thousands of the minister's adherents to search angrily for the object of their enmity.

From one of the several more level plains of the Luna Alta's slanted rooftop, R'tas could see part of the battalion that was stationed around the base of the building. The Sangheili officers were commanding their contingents to different parts of the area in order to secure it and search for the perpetrators of the heinous crime they had witnessed. However, R'tas was not so blind as to search in every given direction. His position had granted him a front-seat view of what had happened right below. The prophet was dead, and he had personally seen the bullet that had killed him.

"Where did it come from!?" Zuka growled from a dozen meters away, searching angrily through his own beam rifle.

R'tas recollected the trajectory of the flash of human ordinance that he'd seen between hearing it and seeing the minister thrown clear of his chair on the street-side holo-pedestals. He knew exactly what must have happened, and it terrified him.

The Prophet's position was surrounded by energy barriers in every area where he was believed to be most exposed. That left only the areas of least exposure, the rooms and hallways where little security was put in place because no one thought it possible for any long-range threat to stem from there. Regardless of that supposition, he knew what he saw.

The bullet had shot clean through one of the windows of the rooms on the same floor as the minister but was still a good distance away from him. So how in the name of the Gods could it have reached him? There was too much internal infrastructure, walls, ceilings, furniture and bends in the architecture that would have stopped it the moment it passed through the glass. Unless...

R'tas felt a cold chill settle in his stomach like a block of ice.

Unless the ordinance had somehow managed to ricochet throughout the interior. But that was impossible. There would be long hallways, closed doors, something to stop it. It was impossible, or so he had thought, until he had seen it firsthand and found his mind rejecting what his own eyes had observed. No. It was possible, just improbable, at least for a normal human.

"I saw only one shot." R'tas said, answering Zuka's question indirectly.

"One, are you sure?"

"Yes." He sighted down the scope of his beam rifle and shifted to where the flash had originated. "It came from-"

He saw a second flash as he his sights centered on the top level of the nearest skyscraper to the east. He felt history repeat itself as his beam rifle flew apart in his hands. A high-caliber human bullet burst through the frame of his weapon with a resonant and familiar CRACK.

R'tas was not as phased as he was the first time. Thinking quickly, he rolled away from his original prone position, down a small flight of metal stairs onto a wider area of gravel roofing. He braced himself against the parapet and glanced back over the concrete platform where the two of them had taken up overwatch. "Zuka!"

"Already on the other side! It's that Demon, isn't it!?"

"What other eldritch creature could accomplish such a feat?" He growled under his breath, furious that he hadn't seen it coming. Now he knew for certain that Nerulee had lied, not only to himself, but to Zuka, to their entire unit and likely to the Field Marshall as well. What made matters worse was that a prophet had paid the price for his superior's deceit.

"I thought Nerulee said they were destroyed!" Zuka hissed.

"Did you honestly believe him?"

"No, not for a moment."

A shadow flew over R'tas. He looked up in time to see another beam rifle being thrown over to him across the platform. He grabbed it out of the air.

"Use it!" Zuka said. "You're a better shot than I am at this range! I'll report their position!"

"Right! Keep your head down, I'll keep it pinned where it is!" Keeping the Demon pinned was all he could think himself capable of doing. Even if he was the better shot out of the two of them there was definitely a skill gap between him and his opponent, especially if it was the same one from before. He would need to move quickly in order to counter that one.

R'tas crouch-walked further down the parapet then rose up to take aim at the adjacent skyscraper to the east. This time he got a better view of the building. It was an octagonal-sided structure with three distinctly segmented sections, each one smaller than the last in order of distance from the base. An off-branching, decorative archway started at the second section before curving and ending at the rooftop of the last.

The shot hadn't come from the rooftop. That position was far too exposed. He shifted down to the top-level and scanned across its transparent windows, searching the darkened rooms and office spaces on the other side. His dual crescent-shaped targeting reticle remained a neutral blue. The Demon must have also displaced, likely out of tactical wisdom in predicting that he had spotted their position and survived to respond.

He saw a shadow move amongst the desks and ducked down to avoid the shot that he sensed coming. His senses proved correct, saving him from another round that flashed just overhead. He rolled closer to the platform again then arose to return a reply, firing a single particle round into the window where he saw the moving shadow. The glass shattered inward at the point of a fist-sized hole punched through its surface, one of two. The other had to be from the Demon. He briefly wondered whether he had struck his assailant when he saw a green-armored figure emerge from the dark, sliding to a crouch in front of the very hole he'd made so that it could aim through it, right back at him.

At that moment, on the other side of their scopes, both Demon and Sangheili saw each other. But R'tas refused to fire. He let the creature shoot first, preemptively ducking away so that the shot impacted the post of the rooftop door a few meters behind him, blowing a solid chunk out of the concrete.

That was the fourth shot.

Those high caliber human rifles only had a magazine occupancy of four rounds. Right now, the creature was probably reloading, which gave him the short window he needed to gamble with his thruster pack. He jetted away from that part of the rooftop. Spotting Zuka out of the corner of his periphery issuing directions on his comms, he refocused on the third most upper floor where he'd seen his opponent.

Sure enough he saw through his scope that they were taking out the spent magazine from their sniper rifle. Since they'd moved closer to the window to get a better shot at him, he could use their own positioning to his advantage.

However, the Demon must have sensed this as it threw itself out of the way of his second shot before he could land the critical hit. As it rolled it slapped a second magazine into its rifle then came back up to track him along his lateral-moving trajectory. He predicted this as well and stopped his right thruster halfway to his destination, simultaneously using the off-balanced propulsion to swing his left arm and consequently his entire body from out of the path of the Demon's follow-up shot. The bullet whizzed past his left shoulder, close enough to momentarily blind him and slightly rattle his helmet. He used his momentum and partial propulsion to turn vertically in an organized spiral until he was facing downward. By then he was dropping down headlong to a lower part of the rooftop, fast enough for his adversary not to be able to track him, if only briefly. He fell a full 10 meters before reactivating his right thruster and folding his legs in close to his chest. The counterbalance pulled him from his downward tumble so that he landed upright with a slight squat on impact. He sprung back up and sprinted for the corner where the nearby parapet met the rising wall of the roof's uppermost section.

He braced against it then slid around to take aim.

The Demon, once again, was gone. It had likely learned its lesson from trying to engage him in a more open space earlier. He scoped across the next two levels, looking for his quarry. He found a dashing shadow on one of them, zoomed in and fired a particle round that wisped through the glass. There was no movement in the darkness beyond except the falling fragments from the cratered material. A second later came movement on the level beneath that one. He homed in and fired. Again, nothing.

A shadow flashed across the next level, earning his ire. What was this Demon doing, trying to get him to waste his munitions? It wasn't possible that they were moving so fast between each level and each of his shots, unless there was more than one. Had all of the Demons survived then?

The very thought filled him with a brimming rage that made his trigger finger twitch around the firing stripe. Nerulee would have to suffer some terrible consequence for his lies. Then again, if he paid for his actions then it would likely be that all his Shadows would share in it. His entire unit could be punished for failing to protect the minister. Not only that, but the legacy of their bloodlines and their keeps could very well be eternally marred, at which point, unending damnation was a preferable alternative. Nerulee had put all their souls and all those of their houses at risk, all because he refused to tell the truth, to instead have them stay at a distance and use complicated machinations to solve their problem.

Distance.

He felt almost as if he would laugh at that considering what he was doing now. But maybe that was the whole point. With distance he was less able to find his enemy. He attacked every moving shadow in the upper levels with no signs of success. It was almost like a mirror of his frustrations, an embodiment of what he found wrong with the Silent Shadows. Because of that distance he could not effectively face his foe. His enemy or enemies kept evading him, blending better with the darkness than he could with active camouflage. They were, in a sense, and to his great intrigue and disgust, better 'Silent Shadows' than himself.

In that moment he felt something finally give way within himself. It was the last embers of his patience finally dying out, both at his fruitless search for the Demons and his equally fruitless search for satisfaction. The consequences for the former manifested themselves far faster than the latter.

R'tas saw the ammo counter on his HUD drop to '20' by the time of his last shot which produced little more than shattered glass. Then he finally noticed a shape moving in the upper corner of his periphery, his eyes widening behind his visor in recognition of the obscure form. His attention shot up to the building's rooftop where he found himself looking down the sniper barrel of a Demon lying prone at the very middle.

His reticle turned red.

They both fired.

He felt his rifle fly apart in his hands from the bullet that passed through it. Only this time it struck the particle containment vessel inside which effectively blew out his last shot in an uncondensed and uncoordinated blast of azure energy. At least part of it had condensed to several points of plasma that shot into his surroundings, one of which burst his energy shields and pierced his visor. He felt it slice across the top of his head, barely missing a lethal hit so that it blew a hole clean through the back of his helmet.

R'tas threw himself down behind the parapet.

To his surprise there was no attempt at a follow-up to finish him off now that he was disarmed. Whether his enemy was eliminated or not he couldn't tell. What captured his immediate concern was the hole in his visor along with the blood beginning to seep past his eyes.

More than anything, he felt anger over pain. Again, the Demon with the sniper had gotten the better of him. It fooled him into thinking it had gone downwards when in reality it had taken the most effective yet most compromising position from which to fire. Even worse, he was rendered useless. There was no other weapon on his person except for his plasma rifle. He could do nothing more here.

"Brother!" Zuka called over their communication link. "Do you still draw breath!?"

"...Barely!"

"Did you kill it!?"

"I do not know, but we must withdraw!"

There was a silence on Zuka's end. "But...we have them right where we want them, behind our lines, within our range!"

"They are beyond our grasp now! Let the others have their way with them! We'll fall back to recon the outside of their building. We'll make sure they do not escape!"

There was a second round of silence from Zuka before he said in the most exhausted voice that he had ever heard from him, "Understood."

R'tas hoped that he did indeed understand. He knew how hot-blooded he could be, and deservedly so considering what they had just witnessed. Nevertheless, what glory was there in dying here where there was no effective way to face the enemy? He'd heard that line of logic from himself before and under very similar conditions.

He bit back his pride that told him to take up his plasma rifle, to stand and fire and reclaim the honor he'd lost in incurring a wound.

It suddenly became clear to him where his troubles began. His logic was not wrong in telling him to run. Neither was his heart which told him to stay and fight. They were both right. The only thing wrong was that he had placed himself in a position where he could do neither one in keeping with his conscience. He had decided to stalk from a distance and fight for the Covenant in this manner in the hopes that it would bring him the honor he sought, to remain in darkness so as to follow after the wishes he made in the light of his youth. He was a Silent Shadow. That was where he went wrong.

He thought back to that youth where he had personally rebuked a Sangheili he knew quite well for once following in a similar path. Yet here he was eating his own words and living against his own counsel. It seemed that he had more wisdom when he was younger than he did up until now.

He was no assassin; he was a warrior. Everything from his own hot bloodedness to his tactical mind told him such. His logic comprehended that he was in no position to fight, not at this distance, and needed to reach one where he could. His honor-bound heart understood that he needed to fight head-on no matter the circumstances. So, he decided that he would act in obedience to both.

R'tas crouch-walked towards the other side of the rooftop, hopping down to the lower sections due to the slanting architecture. He spotted Zuka coming down on the other side and they met at the bottom section of the roofing. Zuka looked him over but said nothing at the fact that he could see his teammate's right eye through his shattered visor.

For once, R'tas wondered what his fellow Sangheili was thinking, at least of the Shadows. He never outwardly complained about much except what he viewed as his superiors' lack of conviction, not knowing that his Second Blade Officer complained inwardly about his own convictions. Maybe they were similar in that regard as well. Even if they were, they were about to take very different paths in this life and he could sense it.

He pointed to a nearby highway that ran from north to south near the Luna Alta. "We'll use this to flank around their position and use our thruster packs to move quickly."

"Understood." Zuka said no less tired of the decision to withdraw. If only he knew that he wasn't the only one.

The two of them stopped at the edge, quickly tested their thrusters with a few short bursts then leaped away from the skyscraper. As they used regular bursts of propulsion to control their descent, R'tas looked back to the ever-distant rooftop. Inside he swore that never again would he put himself in that position of conflict between mind and soul.

:********:

The Master Chief looked out the window down at the hundreds of Grunts, Jackals and Elites converging on the building. They began to storm into the front doors of the ground floor, blasting their way through where the walling limited their influx. He stepped back to brace himself against the wall of the topmost floor.

He only felt free to look outside since Linda had silenced the sniper posted on the target building. She had also taken out the target himself. He saw as much thanks to the Covenant holo-pedestal a few meters further into the floor's office space left here by scouts. He got to see the Minister of Iconography's projection lying dead on the floor. Unlike Kelly and Fred, he contained his own private amazement at the fact she was able to make the shot. She was the best Spartan with a long-range weapon, of course, but that never made feats like a single, well-calculated ricochet that actually worked any less impressive. It took them hours of painstaking maneuvering street by street and sewer by sewer for them to reach this point. Then they spent even more time reexamining schematics of the target building for her to plan what she would do and when, not to mention that they had to wait for the minister himself to show up where they logically deduced that he would.

They got the job done that they came to do. What came next would be a slaughter as a result of the delaying action they would need to pull off in order to withstand the incoming mob.

"We've got company on the way. Fred?"

Fred nodded from where he was braced behind a large cubicle further along their floor. "I've already setup the party favors for our house-guests at levels 5, 9, 12 and 18. It won't be long before we start hearing them popping off."

"Copy that. Kelly?"

She was further down the aisle of cubicles, using the far wall for cover. She gave the thumbs up. "Levels 21, 27 and 67 through 74 are also set."

"Good. Break from cover. We'll start setting up our final defenses and hold out for our extraction."

The team flashed their green acknowledgement lights.

As they moved, the Chief saw Linda coming down the stairwell in the nearby corner of the office space that led up to the rooftop entrance. She stopped once she saw him and held up her SRS-99, or what was left of it. One hand held the main body of the rifle, smoldering and torn back at the base of the barrel like smelted metal. The other hand held the barrel itself which was nearly split in half down its length and glowed a molten orange along the partition.

Kelly whistled. "Guess Misriah doesn't make them like they used to."

"No." Linda said. "That enemy sniper, he was no pushover."

"Elite or Jackal?" Fred asked.

"Elite. It looked like one of a binary, the same black-armored pair I was hunting two days ago that tried to kill Colonel Garrison...my two rabbits."

Fred's attention shot over to Kelly who looked less than pleased at the allusion made by her teammate.

The Chief interjected. "Were you able to confirm the kill?"

Linda shook her head as she laid her rifle's remains to rest atop a work desk. "No, but I was able to shoot his rifle out of his hands. That was the best I could do with the chances I had to pull the trigger. Figured they would be the biggest threat to the convoy so I went after them, but that back there...I'll admit, one of them is probably the hardest target I've ever had to hit that was trying to do the same to me. He almost never presented a profile large enough for me to target, like he could predict where I was going to aim." She brushed a hand over the body of her former weapon with the care of a mother affectionately touching her injured child. She sighed in acceptance, took out her DMR from her harness and turned away. "Whatever those special forces are, Chief, I wouldn't recommend us running into them more than once, not unless we have a plan on how to deal with them."

"We'll figure things out as we go. For now, we'll stay put. I'll inform Colonel Mentieth that we eliminated our target-"

Before the Chief could finish his sentence, his and everyone else's enhanced sixth senses detected the small burst of electromagnetic energy that made them turn swiftly to the source.

The holo-pedestal was alive and active again, as was the Minster of Iconography.

The prophet was sitting in his throne and looked relatively untouched, even in good condition. He had a look of righteous indignation on his face that soon turned to sympathy. His voice emanated from the device, causing their MJOLNIRs' translation suites to capture and translate what he was saying into UNSC standard English.

"Do not be alarmed, my faithful warriors, for I yet live." He grasped parts of his robes and held them to the screen. "See, there is no sign of the wounds with which our enemies, the Demons, the adversaries of our Gods, sought to use to silence me. The sublime ones, in their wisdom, chose to test our faith to see if we genuinely believed in them by allowing you to see me fall. But look, I am still here."

The Chief heard the commotion outside suddenly begin to subside until it died off in a matter of seconds behind an awe-filled silence. He and Blue Team watched the minister as he raised his right hand and pointed to himself with his left.

"Those that came before us were pleased to bless me with immortality, that I might be an example to you of the truthfulness of our cause and the path we walk. Transcendence awaits us all on the Great Journey. None shall be left behind from the weakest of the Unggoy to the strongest of the Sangheili. All who are faithful to our Covenant will be blessed with salvation just as gloriously as I have been. Now go, and destroy the enemies of our faith! Go, and show them the truthfulness of our cause! Leave none behind to speak of their slaughter!"

In the wake of his pronouncement arose a unanimous cheer of both light and deep alien voices crying out across the city with joy and bravado. The Master Chief could do nothing except stand there watching along with Kelly, Fred and Linda as a content smile crossed the prophet's lips. He clasped his hands together in prayer and closed his eyes.

"I shall pray for you continually that your strength will not waver. May you go forth in the hope and power which I have asked for you, and may we finish the divine work to which our Gods have appointed us."

Immortalem - Immortal