(Xover I had in mind a while back. First part comes from the Warhammer novel Master of Mankind, followed by the episode 'Homecoming' from Halo Legends)
The War in the Webway has been lost. The fabled Ten Thousand, now a shadow of their former selves, withdraws reluctantly, sealing off the future of humanity for eternity. Yet, even as their Master's dream lay in ruin, a lone scion continues his eternal duty, to give humanity another chance. On the other side of reality, a different humanity suffers a similar fate. The planet of Harvest burns under the genocidal ambition of an alien empire and a daughter of humanity is laid low.
Chapter 1: Golden Gaoler
010.M31
Calastar, The Impossible City
The Webway
Blood burst into the ashy mist. The Emperor arched, the warlord's body taut with the utter unfamiliarity of agony. Five talons, each one the length and width of a spear, dripped red as they stood proud of the Emperor's back. Ra had heard that every man, woman, and child saw a different face, a different skin tone, a different temperament when they looked upon the Emperor. The Ten Thousand had no experience with such an effect. They considered it doggerel from the strains of unready minds when confronted by a true immortal.
To Ra's eyes, the Emperor was a man like any other. The Custodians saw only their master. In that moment, as the claws ran red with his king's blood, Ra saw what the rest of the species saw. The boy who would be king. An old man, cloaked and hooded, life running from his cracked lips. A knight in his prime, manned with dark hair, crowned with a wreath of laurels. A barbarian warlord, barbarous and strong, grinning through teeth turned red with His leaking blood. Images. Identities.
Men who once were. Men He might once have been. Men who had never drawn breath. The Emperor's boots left the misty ground. He barely even struggled as He was lifted, impaled by the five spearing talons. His sword fell from His gloved hands to disappear in the shrouding fog.
"To the Emperor!" Ra screamed the order loud enough that his retinal display blurred for a half-second.
"To the Emperor's side!" He ran, killing faster than he'd ever killed, energised by an adrenal cocktail of loyalty, hatred and the alien touch of something nameless that tasted foul on the tongue. Not fear, no, never that. Surely never that.
I am the End of Empires.
The thought wasn't Ra's own. It belonged to the silhouette in the ashes, the Emperor's killer, speaking by twisting the thoughts of the humans in its presence. A wrenching violation, with crude, cruel fingers pulling at the insides of Ra's skull, forcing his thoughts to form the daemon's words.
"Kill it!" Ra shouted, half an oath, half an order. The man-shape turned in the settling ash, still holding the Emperor above the ground. The warlord clutched at the impaling arm. His telepathic voice was raw.
+Stay back. All of you. Stay back.+
I am your death, the creature promised the Emperor..
+Perhaps one day. But not this day.+ Gold light flared bright enough to blind unshielded eyes. The Emperor manifested at Ra's side, down on one knee, one hand clutched to his chest, hair hanging down to veil his features. Blood, human blood no matter what the legends said, ran in runnels from the Emperor's sundered armour.
+Ra.+The sending was thick with pained defiance. And then, 'Ra,' He said aloud, raising His eyes to meet His loyal Custodian's horrified gaze. A blade ran through the Emperor's body. An ornate sword, as much sorcerous bone as metal, a weapon with writhing, shrieking faces soul-carved upon the steel. The faces shrieked as they drank the Emperor's divine life.
It thrashed as the Emperor clutched it in His hands. It was alive, starving, its form rippling and growing indistinct. With a cry the Emperor pulled the weapon free, unsheathing it from His own body. He hurled it from His grip, casting it aside with a surge of armour-boosted strength and devastating telekinetic force. Ra blinked once with the impact, feeling it as a thunder-crack against his chest.
He swallowed, finding himself unable to breathe. Blood streamed from his mouth, denying the passage of air. It was a blade through his body. It was a daemon embracing him. It was a disease in his blood, eating at his bones. It was there and it wasn't there, everything and nothing. The Custodian fell to his knees, hands curling around the impaling blade. The thwarted rage of the daemon sent nerve pain lightning-bolting through his fingers.
"Why?" Ra asked his king. The Emperor stood tall once more, looking down, eyes cold. At that moment, Ra knew. The Emperor's words, spoken what felt like an eternity ago, flashed through his blackening mind, infusing his thoughts with red revelation.
"To illuminate you," the Emperor had said, as they looked upon the wonders and sins of the galaxy's past. "You will fight harder once you understand what you are fighting for." And now he knew. Ra Endymion, the one living soul, was shown the entirety of his master's dreams and ambitions. An enlightenment not gleaned for the purpose of waging war, but… for this. To know the truth when all others believed in shadows and fragments, and to suffer that truth until it tore him apart. Ra rose on shaking limbs, leaning on his spear for support.
The sword was gone now. The daemon was within him, caged by his flesh, bound by his agony-drenched will.
He felt its tendrils circling his bones, wrenching at them, thrashing in its need to reach the Master of Mankind. The creature tunnelling through his blood would never stop, never die. It couldn't be destroyed, only imprisoned. The Custodian didn't meet his sire's eyes. He didn't demand any explanation or apology. Ra was born to serve, raised to obey and chosen for the greatest illumination preceding the darkest duty. Inside him raged a beast even the Emperor couldn't kill, the daemon destined to end the empire. Every step he took away from the Emperor, separating this daemon from his master, would mean another day that the Imperium stood unbroken.
The Emperor still bled, still clutched His wounded chest with one gloved hand. Blood flecked His lips.
"When all that remains is ash and dust," He said, strained, "Be ready." The sword rose, and once more it fell. Fire tidal-wave from its killing edge, immolating all in its path. Clearing the way. The Neverborn dragging themselves over the ashen remains of their kindred tasted the same destruction. The Emperor spoke to Ra one final time, a single command heard by no other.
+Run.+ Ra Endymion, Drach'nyen golden gaoler, the son of a water-thief, obeyed the last command he would ever be given. He ran.
2531
Harvest
Epsilon Indi System
Daisy-023 staggered, slipping to one knee. The world seemed to sway, knocked from its axis. She looked up, and the entire bridge was burning, crumbling. The screaming and shouting were no more, save for the distant roaring of the varied Covenant forces.
They were all gone. Hauser, Ralph and all of the remaining marines. Engulfed wholly amidst the smouldering remnants of the downed Pelican, courtesy of a fuel rod cannon. Yet, she kept firing, her magnum finding its mark through the skull of an elite, the first round breaking its shields and the second taking off its head.
The wounded Spartan casted her head backwards, now lying flat on her back, both her armour systems and imperious reserve broken open. Daisy clenched her fist to the heavens, and howled out her anguish and her rage, emptying the rest of her dwindling ammunition onto a jackal and two grunts and for a sparse moment there were no more sounds, no more thoughts – only the deafening thunder of a Spartan II's final resolve.
Click. Out of ammo.
Daisy-023 looked up weakly. The cool relief of injected biofoam pushed back the excruciating pricklings of the Needler's damage for a breath, but very last amounts left could not stop it entirely and it surged back anew. Her pulse slowed as coloured spots whirled around her eyes. Blood ran between her teeth. At least one of her lungs was punctured, and her heart had been injured. Her flesh burned with the efforts of her enhanced physiology which attempted to mend her, but her wounds were graver than the marks on her armour suggested.
Swathes of Covenant infantry descended rapidly on her position, no doubt eager for the easy kill and the prospects of spoils. A Sangheili Ultra spearheaded the charge, followed by his various officers and subordinates, who in turn barked unintelligible orders to their respective lances while herding hordes of shambling Unggoy and Kig-Yar onwards. Even a few stray packs of Jiralhanae trailed not far behind, not wanting to be left out of the slaughter.
The pain had become almost unbearable now as Daisy attempted to prop herself up. And yet, despite all her efforts. Daisy crumbled back down with a groan. Her heart ran so fast something gave out inside her. Blood pooled in her throat making it a gurgle, she spat a mouthful of her own blood onto the ground which bubbled. It hurts. It hurts more than the agonies of all her past training and augmentations. It hurts to her core, beyond her pale flesh, hurting past the aches in her bones and into something deeper and truer and infinitely more vulnerable. Her very soul.
Daisy-023 was no fool, nor would she ever be accused of being an optimistic soul. The Spartan II knew she was dead. In her ears, over the roar of the flames and the screeches of a thousand plasma bursts, a voice forced its way through the scramble of her mind, imploring her to run. But where would she run to? Even if her injuries did not impede her, what was the difference of dying there, rather than here?
Brief flashes brought her into the past. There was Joseph-122, the unfortunate first one to be caught after their escape; she did not know what became of him, likely dead now or wiped from all memory banks. There was Ralph-103, who rejoined the war effort as a marine despite being discharged due to psychological problems, and now lay buried beneath the burning remains of the destroyed Pelican. Then there was John-117, the Chief himself, born to lead the Spartan IIs, her fellow brother, and a dearest friend. There were not many of them left, out of the thirty-three who made it through the augmentations, more would perish in the opening months of the Human-Covenant War. Hardly any Spartan IIs would remain to defend Harvest, and of those few almost none still drew breath.
Smoke rises all around the fallen Spartan II, though the wind steals the worst of it. Daisy-023 can no longer move. She cannot feel both her legs. Jagged wreckage lies strewn in every direction as the Covenant forces draw nearer.
Push through your pain, Daisy-023 willed herself. Just a bit further, a bit longer so perhaps more help might miraculously arrive and perhaps more of the Covenant will burn.
With the last ounce of her strength, Daisy-023 unsheathed her M5 combat knife, still clinging onto her teddy bear chain with a vice grip.
Let them come. These Covies would be going nowhere.
Then her irises went white, blazing with cold fire as a cascade of golden light shone upon her fallen form.
010.M31
Beyond Magnus' Folly
Deep Within The Webway
The Tribune of the Hykanatoi advanced forward, alone now, his battle demeanour changed from his usual artful bladework to a blood drunk menace. Ra swung his great spear about him languidly, loosening up, cutting the air into whispers, and the Neverborn hung back, their cackling snuffed out, bravado shaken into back feral hatred.
Then he started to pierce through the hordes. The Custodian broke into a run, first heavily, measuring his strokes, then accelerating, faster and harder, until he had moved into the Martial Ka'tah stance of Dacatarai, where it takes the form of an aggressive fighting style, that has been adapted for the Custodes' use. It allows the Custodian to deal with hordes that vastly outnumber them, by effortlessly managing their foes' ebb and flow, preventing the user from being overwhelmed by the hordes. Where the distance between intention and action was made nothing, and where vengeance became a living thing with both extension and immanence.
Under a gathering shroud of elemental vendetta, Ra killed them again and again. If he had slain freely before, now the carnage was so complete that it scraped the boundaries of both the divine and the diabolic.
The daemons never laid a blade or claw on him. Ra moved now, not with blind rage, but with dreadful perfection. They faced up to him, and they were cut down. They tried to parry, and he cut them down. They tried to combine, and they were ripped into whimpering slivers. He danced through their numbers and built a corridor of blood around himself, slaying like some spectre of the endless dark, silent as a grave-mark.
End Of Empires. End Of Empires. End Of Empires.
The ancient malice wormed further into the Tribune's mind, grinding its tendrils upon the Custodian's psyche.
Defiance Is Futile. Yet. Admirable.
The imprisoned entity further mocked its jailor.
Ra paid the evil presence little heed, bursting through a shower of severed flesh and boiling blood, an unstoppable force tearing through the ranks of daemons, inviolable and magnificent. For the first time in the entire War Within the Webway, save from the emergence of his Lord, the Neverborn dispersed and fled, to scramble away from the golden figure and the terror caged within that raced to devour them, but there was no space left, no time left, no hope left. Most were caught as they turned, their backs carved open and their heads blown open. The few that managed to get back far enough cowered under the shadow of that greater monster, the Shard of Madness itself.
He had lost track of the duration he had been running, the stimulants and chemicals fed into his systems by his battleplate forced him onwards. Hours? Days? Weeks? Ra Endymion abandoned those thoughts abruptly, as a flurry of psychic bolts threw him back twenty paces.
There was something within the mystic tapestries , something that had met the fleeing Neverborn and struck them with such sorceries that it had sent them screaming into further oblivion. The being was tall, the height of a two-storey hab, and it was barely moving. Ra could see it in the smoke, a grey shadow in the paler cloud. They saw it take a single, slow step. The Custodian heard a long, deafening, rasping screech.
The daemon has a beak. It has a beak and feathers, and hundreds of vestigial limbs that end in hooves. But its body, all thirty tonnes of it, is that of a serpent, a fat, bloated constrictor. A Space Marine could stand with his arms outstretched and not match the diameter of its scaled girth.
Its vast beak clacks. Ra saw the secondary snake-like bodies, dozens of them, form a beard, a frill under the chin of the beak. They writhe like tentacles, like pseudopods. The daemon is a hundred giant snakes fused into one titanic abomination, sharing one beaked head.
'Bearer of The First Murder.' It hissed.
An abomination of the Changer of Ways. It stared at him with eyes like simmering embers and spoke. The words jolted the air and made the smoke engulfing it dance.
'They must not continue!' Hissed one of the heads.
Feathers ripped, and beaks clacked in dissent. Sparks of blue and pink snapped through the realm. The atmosphere itself shifted. Figures screeched and ran as columns of paper dangling from its chest shifted and collapsed. Sheets of undiscovered lore exploded and began to fall upwards and downwards, burning to ash or folding into birds. The snake-like heads of the daemon ignored the disturbance.
It might portend the death of worlds or the fall of endeavours long in the making, but all of it was insignificant compared to the argument at hand.
'He does not acknowledge his place in the greater designs…' spat a figure.
'Stubbornness is worthless,' replied another.
'Only the damned say so.'
'His ignorance is a greater delight than the possibility of his acknowledging the truth of the Eternal Well.'
'It is dangerous.'
'He is weak, a failure at every turn.'
'Is that not because it has been ordained that he will fail?'
'Nothing has been ordained on the matter.'
'You are sure?'
'It is a matter of paradox.'
'Platitudes are not wisdom.'
'Wisdom holds no truth.'
'And he shall serve us nonetheless.' The voice ended the babble. High in the reaches of the daemon's head, the brambles of its making hesitated as the silence fell. It was never silent in this place.
The Custodian primed his Guardian Spear, slamming a fresh sickle magazine into the spent bolt caster before unleashing a torrent of fire. Three left.
His aim was true, but the shells never hit. Golden pain lanced through Ra's body, holding him in place as his refractor fields resisted fiercely. The numerous bolt shells fired from his caster were hung stilled in the air surrounding the daemon, their propellant flames burning furiously and futilely as the invisible force held it stationary.
The daemon lashed out with glowing whips of immaterial energy which snakes out from its hand. Ra was bound within its ethereal barbs and was momentarily flung forward at blinding speed. With a thundering roar, the Custodian surged forth, carried by the momentum of the spell, aiming his great spear as he flew. If the daemon wished to die this simply, then so be it. The ethereal whips which held snapped, scattering into cinders, and the Custodian became a streak of golden lightning, falling towards the illustrious figure of the daemon like a blazing comet.
And yet… no spell or attack waited for him as the daemon simply vanished, revealing a great emptiness that was not present before.
Darkness lies before Ra, extending through every dimension. Darkness, and his blazing form alone. In that moment the Tribune suddenly found himself adrift – not within the Webway, but without. He was stranded in a near-silent limbo, trapped in the beyond. Apart from the gentle humming of his armour, there was no sound at all. The cool void sucked in its breath at his back. Ra did not look around, for he felt something there, in the darkness. A voice in his mind said should he do so, he would behold the primordial truth. He refused and void released him once more.
The outline of a single falling star cascaded into the great beyond.
2531
Harvest
Epsilon Indi System
Daisy-023 drifted between lost consciousnesses. She jerked awake, breathing sharply in her damaged lungs, suggesting that her heart had stopped beating for a time. That was the most likely explanation for the blurriness which replaced the darkness.
A harrowing cry went up from the leading Ultra. A glow kindled in his open mandible and his eyes, then burst out in hot daggers of light. He fell dead the very next instance as a tremendous force crushed him deep with the concrete.
The Covenant assault came to a screeching stop. Another one of the Elites fell to his knees, a Major, clutching his head, as the burning light encased him. The others in the back of his lance and formations continued to chant, but they were faltering.
The sky itself broke open with a scream of torn atmosphere, hurling the closest Covenant infantry formation to the floor and cracking the concrete structures around. The surrounding areas erupted into eye-burning light, and the various machineries present blew apart in unison. Daisy herself was thrown hard into the far wall, as she coughed out more blood.
The rest of the aliens barely kept their feet, grunts broke ranks and fled, jackals openly wailed as they were blinded and the rest of the elites struggled to even stand, leaning steeply against the hurricane of raw energy.
For a moment, Daisy-023 saw the dreadful blackened portal manifest before her, and felt the screaming insanity of the madness trapped within. She heard the clatter of guns in ancient wars. She felt the wounds of fraternal hatred. She saw the leering face of a treacherous brother. Then it stopped. The energies of the area expanded, then rushed in towards the gleaming figure in a screaming implosion. The crash it gave was a physical blow that crackled the very foundation of the bridge itself, and knocked the advancing Covies back again.
A lone figure, man-shaped, and completely wreathed in balefire, stood amidst the wreckage. The aura of the being burned like the sun, a white hole in the world's fabric, writhing and shimmering, its flaming outline thundering like the planet's winds unleashed. It stood with an incredible stillness, its hands clutching onto a massive spear which was plunged deep within what remains of the Elite Ultra.
Daisy fought hard against her fading consciousness, squinting her eyes to get a better look at the incandescent figure. Even as her augmented senses reeled from the glow.
Then the creature suddenly turned its blazing eyes and briefly locked on to the fallen Spartan II. The flames seemed to swell in size, to grow, as if sucking energy from the splintered tear of reality above. The being roared in pain and fury, threw its fire-wreathed fists out wide, aiming his spear and sent a barrage of explosive force crashing into the stunned Covenant ranks, ripping the front rows of Unggoy and Sangheili Minors to pieces.
The remaining Elites and the Brutes who just now arrived struggled to get back to their knees, their alien faces distorted in disbelief as they bellowed panicked orders to the rest of their forces. The fiery being leapt forward in a burst of speed as if pouring its soul out in a maelstrom of misery and anguish, stripping the paint jobs from nearby vehicles, smashing straight into the Covenant lines. The fires raged, and its eyes sprayed raw starlight, bleaching the concrete as white as phosphor.
The ones who did not possess energy shields were lofted high into the air by the force of the charge, crashing into the nearby railings or were simply launched off the bridge. The figure fought with silent fury, splitting its way into the ranks of the Covenant with its weapon spinning in a blurring figure of eight. It crashed into them without slowing, its gargantuan spear cutting them down. Energy shields were broken by the faint disruption field on its flaming halberd and armour was atomised upon contact.
Viscera spilled onto the earth as a mixture of alien blood showered its blitzing form.
More of the aliens fell as the seconds passed, some reduced to bloody mists, others cut into pieces by the bladework of the being. The remaining Elites and Brutes struggled to keep themselves upright as what was left of the Grunts and Jackals openly fled in horror. They levelled their plasma rifles and spikers at the entity before them, but few could shoot. A howling storm of sunfire raced around the tight-knit formation, ripping up everything and sending it whirling into the air.
Alas, what remained of the waning Covenant assault shattered completely. Formations broke and the aliens fled in an open rout. All that emerged from the far side of the bridge now were alien screams, one after the other, overlapped and smothering, a chorus of terror and panic that went on and on and on and never relented.
Not a single one of the Covenant forces who stepped on the bridge escaped back to their vantage points. Seconds of that carnage passed, then minutes, and the screaming just got worse. The spreading flames, as if in sympathy to the apocalyptic toll of life-ending, slapped and blazed against the surfaces of the ruined bridge and foremost Covenant emplacements, grasping futilely at the horror unfolding within and powerless to stop it. After a while, it became impossible to listen to.
Eventually, though, even the screams echoed out.
Daisy's breath was caught in her throat once more as all she could manage was a brief chuckle. She exhaled, a long reedy breath. Something dark is trickling again between the cracks in her Mjolnir and her lips. Her gurgling snickers was stifled by another cough as she glanced at the swathes of Covenant burned and maimed in the wrathful being's wake.
Not a bad way to go.
She looked up, realising that the light got brighter and she was staring at resplendent boots the size of tree trunks that crunched on the debris as they turned. She cast her eyes skywards, squinting in the sun, the unmistakable silhouette of the burning being loomed above her.
Or rather… the once burning outline of the figure.
The being was more than a giant. Standing over ten feet tall with its pointed helm, it was a leviathan, a juggernaut of gold and red, an armour-bound killing construct studded with blades and jewels and plumes. Its battleplate looked heavy, unsullied, carved into swirls and arcane symbology, and palpably crackling with ferocious energies. Massive shoulder-guards, rearing high over a lightning-embossed breastplate, enclosed a tall helm crested with a mane of red hair. In its right gauntlet he held its massive spear, a glaive twice the height of a normal human.
The halberd thrummed with plasma snarls, vibrating down the heavy length of the shaft and making its gleaming armour swim with reflections. A long crimson cloak hung behind it, and for all the carnage it had caused, it was immaculate – untouched by blood or grime, as dazzling as a shard of ancient sun cast into the mire of the world. It also wore two long and curved blades and a shorter one around its waist, equally as stunning as the rest of its wargear.
An Angel. The dying Spartan II thought weakly.
"Have you come for me?" She managed to rasp. It was getting harder to stay awake.
The Angel regarded her briefly with a tilt of its helmet, before lightly dropping down to both its knees. It kept its silence, but shuffled and wrapped an arm wide around her neck.
Daisy squirmed at the gesture but relaxed soon, accepting it was pointless to resist the inevitable. Once again, she saw the mask of the Angel, but this time with greater clarity. Its ruby-red eye lenses streamed with strands of flowing blood, almost as if it was weeping from its enclosed helmet. The Angel shone like a desert sun in the full glory of noon, a bringer of light dangerous in its incandescent power.
"Your heart and your lungs are compromised. My eye instruments have shown me this." A gentle yet firm voice emitted from its crested helm. It was baritone and distinctively male, it made Daisy wonder of the face hidden behind the veil of gold.
"Medicine," The golden being remarked simply as he retrieved a vial of serum from his armour and settled the Spartan II upright. "This is good for you but it will make you sleep, dream if possible." He whispered almost forlornly before injecting a small portion of the fluids into her nape.
"Wait… please." Daisy could only mumble as the being motioned to rise, her body defying her at every turn.
"I have administered the appropriate amounts, as your physiology could handle. Any more will kill you. Now rest." The gleaming figure of her saviour was already moving off, breaking into a sprint leaving her behind.
She was cocooned in the warmth of slumber. The pain had gone from her chest.
All reality's order was disturbed, but this felt like no dream or vision.
The Custodian was alone, and the enemy saw immediately what a prize was within their grasp. Hundreds of these varying looking alien creatures closed in from the breach, their slim plasma rifles blazing and stub weaponry spitting.
His armour sparked with impacts; for the moment it withstood the assault, but even his panoply was not immune to concentrated fire. Ra Endymion lived by one rule of war above all others, one learned the moment the Webway was torn asunder by a Primarch's folly, when endless of legions of daemons and traitor astartes spilled forth, when his Lord's dreams now laid in ruins and borne out in the Ten Thousand's war against the Archenemy. Attack was the strongest form of defence.
The augmented girl he left behind was unconscious but breathing. Ra pondered on staying briefly to examine her curious anatomy and enhancements further but time bided him. He had to continue running. His power armour had archived the readings so there was ample time for contemplation once he figures out which planet and system the void has forced him into.
'Trickery.' Ra breathed as he bisected one of reptilian resembling xenos, its shields giving way to the disruptive fields of his weapon.
For the first few seconds, there was nothing, no mockery, no condemnations, not even a faint whisper. When pain previously blossomed from the impalement wound, it did so like something unfolding cold inside him, the ancient hunger wrapping around his bones. Ra staggered, his gauntlets crushing the windpipe of another ape-like xenos he seized.
There was no Drach'nyen, or at least little feeling of its intrusion. The daemon's absence was a shock many times more painful than the wound. Was it another ruse? To deceive him?
His Guardian Spear came free with a jerk and the crunch of violated meat. Stimuli took the pain with it, flooding his muscles with a pleasant numbness. More aliens tumbled away in droves, shredded into lumps of armoured flesh. The Custodian followed, rending through any of the abnormal aliens unlucky enough to be within range of his landing.
Once in motion, Ra never slowed. He was a blur of gleaming armour and thrusting strikes, carving, chopping, dismembering without effort, mutilating with the barest movement, butchering with an ease that belied his ferocity.
He will have his answers. But these murderous aliens must die first.
"A signal, sir," the pelican pilot began, one hand pressed to his earpiece.
John-117 checked the display. Keiichi-047 is manning overwatch and deep listening as well, monitoring Covenant operations in the hope of intercepting command transmissions.
''Very broken... and very faint, sir." The pilot says.
The Chief switches into the comms system and listens for himself. A reedy, scratchy whisper, like the scrape of twigs. He moves closer, and adjusts the frequencies with expert precision. He listens again, hoping.
"…Enemy movements?" He enquired the other Spartan II in a private channel.
"Negative Chief. Quiet as a graveyard here. Remaining in secure defensive alignment." Keiichi responded back.
"Copy that. Disembarking on Sierra-023's last known position. Standby, Gamma-143."
"Very well sir. Good luck down there." The pilot gave a quick salute as the Spartan II leapt from the declining ramp.
The once-grey skies of the planet burned orange with the reflected glow of the ruined warfront. The firelight bathed the rippling, glassy sands in a warm radiance, and towering pillars of black smoke from the burning corpses filled the air.
John-117 manoeuvred through the dwindling fires, flanked only by his shadow. Around him, decades of Harvest's infrastructure and buildings were being destroyed, filling the scorched air with ash and the empty cries of the evening wind.
"Daisy." The Chief called, using the most heavily encoded channel, the one that was kept clear even when the rest dissolved into shrieking static.
For a long moment, the space of three deep breaths, he got nothing back. And then, just as he was about to give up hope, a hiss and a crackle spat back at him.
The signal crackled. "Sierra-Zero-Twenty-Three? Zero-Twenty-Three? Daisy? This is Sierra One-One-Seven, do you copy?"
His friend did not answer. The damage… no, he must not think this way.
Flames licked at his armour as he closed in on the aftermath of the battle, glass crunching underfoot.
Bodies turned to ragged and slagged meat by alien plasma lay splattered across the ground. Four marines lay dead, dropped by kill-shots. Several others were down, pierced by needler fire. Two bore fatal injuries and were given release, their last words dying upon their lips.
A small number of the fallen Covenant troops were not yet gone, but there was no one to come to their aid, nor to drag them to safety. In another scenario perhaps, their lives would have ended in torment after countless hours of agonising interrogation by ONI agents and vivid 'analysis'– but John-117 would have none of that, and they were despatched without ceremony. All that mattered now was finding his wayward sister.
The Spartan II continued on to the last trackings of Daisy's location, where her blip flickered and died shortly after. Evidence of battle and skirmish lay strewn in every direction, from the churned earth of bullet casings to the remains of soldiers on both sides.
Yet, nothing had prepared him for the sight that unveiled upon coming into the view of the broken remnants of the beam bridge.
Corpses. Countless hundreds of aliens dead. Whoever that killed them had left the dead where they had fallen, perhaps as a testament to their victory. The slaughter was unimaginable, even to one who had spent his life at war. So many dead; scores of grunts and jackals lay butchered, littered across the entirety of the bridge and beyond, elites and brutes charred and hacked into bloody pieces, splattered onto the nearby railings. Even a few Ghosts and Wraiths lay destroyed. This was no mere battle, this was something far greater.
Cloaked from view, the Chief wandered amidst the bloodied piles of flesh and shattered armour. He heard harsh groans from the dying and ignored it. He knelt beside the body of a fallen Elite, its chestplate rent open, its burnt ribcage splayed. His red armour bore the markings of a Major, its last expression locked in abject terror.
John-117 had seen untold atrocities and, both in the name of enlightenment and human madness. Of these he was not proud, especially on Chi Ceti IV. War was not glorious, it was a desperate, messy business. But it had been his business, one in which he had excelled. This massacre, it was beyond the pale.
His thoughts were soon derailed however, upon noticing a slim red outline which laid amongst the spectacle of death. The Chief released a breath he did not realise that he was holding in as he rushed to her side.
His sister's expression remained serene and peaceful while he scanned her vitals. Daisy-023's Mark IV was breached apparently by needler rounds yet no superficial wounds or internal injuries were detected. John-117 shook his head. Although grateful for the miracle, nothing in this predicament made sense. Perhaps her helmet might contain the answers however, assuming it was still functional to be recording. No matter, her safety and extraction comes first.
"You've performed the most extraordinary feat," The Chief remarked unexpectedly, surprising even his own self. "Please remember that."
Upon further inspection of the vicinity, he came to realise the grounds he was standing were bleached entirely white, his gaze finding a trail of Covenant dead lingering even beyond the horizon, with no evidence of any UNSC casualties. There was something at play and he intended to get to the bottom of this.
"Local command. This is Sierra-One-One-Seven. Sierra-Zero-Twenty-Three has been secured and stabilised. Requesting evac." The Chief spoke into the open channel.
"This is Charlie-1. Copy that Chief. Sending new rendezvous coordinates. Prepare to disengage."
Hello there! It has been a while since I used this site, life sort of caught up with me, but hopefully now I could spend more time writing stories as this is one idea that I'm really invested in. For those of you wondering about my other story, "Beyond Tamriel: Remnant", worry not as I do not plan on abandoning that story anytime soon. But updates will be slow for the time being as I'm not really invested in RWBY nowadays.
I really want to expand this story in meantime so there's definitely gonna be more to come!
I would like to give thanks to Starhammer5 for beta reading and the support as this story's premise was also partially kickstarted by him.
(Update: Formatting got fucked up)