Chapter 19

Guest 1- MS 08th team is making appearances with the Banished.

Redrat8- So you're saying Gundam has better technology than the Forerunners and Covenant as well? Because if you are, that's silly. I agree with the UNSC, but not the aliens. Although thanks for your review.

ZILLAFAN- Not really. In fact, I don't think I can even do an even fight between them on account of what both sides have at the moment.

Warmachine375- Wrong episode, I'm afraid. It's that Doan episode. Just with everyone dead and eaten.

Austin- I think I do need to see that to some extent.

Guest 2- Can't. They're dead.

Dragon-XZero- Actually, apparently Halo does have space colonies like Gundam colonies. Granted most of them are probably just relay stations or founded in asteroids, but that probably still counts. Even then, humanity in Halo does have space stations so it's not like the Gundam colonies are that special compared to Halo. Plus, I honestly think terraforming is just plain better than just making a space colony because they literally terraformed some of Jupiter's moons along a bunch of other planets and moons in the Solar System of Earth. And this wasn't around the 2500s. This was apparently around the 2200s in Halo timeline. Though they likely took centuries to complete, Mars was said to take centuries to completely terraform, that's still an impressive feat.

We'll probably go to Cyber Newtype territory when Zeta comes in. Will probably stop around Double Zeta or something. That's up to me to decide.

Well, that's what near endless war will do to a people. That and Bandai's need to sell new Gunplay models and also Japan's need to just constantly seemingly always raise the power levels of things. Even if it's kind of silly at times.

I didn't take offense to it. I know you're likely just wanting to point that out as people tend to forget that sometimes some franchises have better tech than others in certain departments. Like Mass Effect has medi-gel that's just plain better than Halo's Bio-foam. Granted, it's probably because most people don't want to delve into the tinier details or just fanboying or fangirling their favorite factions too much, but honestly, I don't mind Gundam beating Halo in some aspects of technology because this isn't a contest of which franchise is better than the other. It's just a fanfic for people to read and hopefully enjoy.

Amuro Ray

"C'mon." Thought Amuro as he tried to break free of his bindings to no avail. "I got to get out of here. Away from these things!" Amuro then heard a sickening breaking of bones and thus turned to see one of the bird-like monsters ripping the arm of a child, much to his horror and disgust, and began cooking it under the fire it and its companions made. As it cooked its food, Amuro thought back to how he got into this situation in the first place.

Before all this went awry, he had been training with Ryu in midair conversions with the Gundam and the Gunperry, a transport ship for Mobile Suits, specifically the Project V prototypes. The reason was that the Gundam, Guncannon, and Guntank were divided into three pieces. Two of those pieces were the upper and lower parts of the Mobile Suits and the last was the cockpit, which was a module-like fighter that can serve as the cockpit for all three Mobile Suits and, if necessary, serve as an escape pod should the Mobile Suit be taken out of action. Because of the modular nature of the White Base's Mobile Suits, the parts can be removed and taken apart for whatever reasons, mainly maintenance reasons. This also meant they can do a midair conversion with the various Mobile Suit pieces should they need it as there were times when using a Mobile Suit was impractical and fighters were preferred over the large mechs. But then circumstances may change that may force them to use their Mobile Suits. Hence, why they were practicing such conversions. To prepare for those circumstances.

It was during that training that the White Base received a nearby distress beacon of Earth Federation in origins. Because of this, Bright had sent Amuro to investigate the distress beacon. Amuro, following those orders, halted the training and began tracing the distress beacon to its point of origin. Following the distress beacon, Amuro found it was coming from a fertile island with grass and waterfalls. Noting the natural beauty of the island for a brief moment, Amuro soon uncovered the location of the distress beacon and landed near it. Grabbing his pistol and a small medical kit that he had in case of emergencies, Amuro got out of his fighter and walked to the emitter of the distress beacon, a crashed Federation fighter.

Upon arriving at the fighter, Amuro found the two pilots of the fighter still alive but injured. Seeing the state of the pilots, Amuro tried to comfort them while getting his med kit out to treat their wounds when it happened.

As he was getting his stuff out, a sudden gunshot rang out from nowhere, but it didn't sound like a typical gun. It sounded more like a futuristic ballista being fired. And the effect was similar. One moment Amuro was going to apply some morphine to one of the pilots and the next he had a massive metal rod going through his head that punctured right through it to hit the next pilot's head and just kept on going until it went out of the fighter itself, hitting the ground, creating a sizable hole in the ground.

Blood on his face, Amuro cried out in shock at the gruesome death of the pilots. Landing on his butt, he made the mistake of seeing the faces of the pilots, or at least what was left, causing him to throw up at the grotesque sight.

After he was done throwing up, he shakily tried to get to his feet. Whoever did that was still out there and he needed to get out of here before they could attack again. Just as he was about to make a mad dash to his fighter, he was suddenly tackled to the ground by something moving rapidly. Yelping, Amuro looked at his attacker and was stunned to see that it was a tall, bird-like alien, which snapped its beak at him before knocking him out.

Fast forward to lord knows how long and here he was in a cave, surrounded by more of these bird aliens, who were looking at him like he was a piece of meat. And judging by their eyes, they looked like they wanted to take a bite out of him. Before that was made a reality, however, a large ape-like being pushed the bird aliens out of the way and grabbed him, hoisting him up so they can see each other at eye level.

Now Amuro had met some tall and big humans before, Ryu amongst them, but this ape alien put all of them to shame with how large and bulky he was. Even Chief was dwarfed by this monster.

Armored in blood red and gray armor that put to shame any personnel armor fielded by the Earth Federation with how thick it was, the alien was intimidating, to say the least. Speaking in a language that Amuro had no idea of understanding, it dropped him back down on the ground before speaking something to the other aliens. It must have been to tie him up as all they did was tie him up with human rope and dragged him to an area where he can see a bunch of human bodies in front of him. Bodies of men and…children.

Amuro felt sick to the stomach when he saw that some of the bodies were missing body parts and organs, causing them to spill out blood. Seeing the decaying bodies, some of them missing pieces of their faces caused Amuro to lose his stomach's contents. It got even worse when the aliens made a campfire and began taking bodies and cooking them for food, causing Amuro to throw up even more despite not having anything left to heave.

After recovering from the trauma of seeing all that he saw in under an hour, Amuro tried to break free of his bindings so he can get away from these monsters and hopefully get back on his fighter and escape. Then he can hopefully forget this nightmare ever happened and go back to his normal routine of fighting against Zeons and being forced into Mobile Suit combat because of desperation. Not being kidnapped by aliens, freaking aliens, and being forced to hear them munch on human corpses.

But the more he tried to break free, the more he began to feel a loss of hope. The bindings the aliens put him on were strong. Stronger than they seemed. Plus, as the situation began to fall on him, the more he realized that it was unlikely he can escape from them.

Even if he could escape from his binds, he didn't know where his Core Fighter was. And who's to say that the aliens wouldn't just shoot him the moment that they realize that he was trying to escape? The cave was not only big but straight enough that the aliens would see him trying to escape the moment they turned towards the exit of the cave. And then there was the fact that, even if he got out of the cave, he had no sense of direction of his surroundings while the aliens probably did. They'll find him in no time at all while he struggled to get away from them. Thus, the only real hope of him getting out of this alive was the White Base sending a rescue party to save him. Though the chances of them being able to save him on time were getting slimmer and slimmer as the aliens eat their food and looked like they weren't getting full anytime soon. And that wasn't counting the bigger alien from before.

As the situation dawned on Amuro's mind, his efforts to escape dwindled. His mind betraying him, Amuro thought what the point was in even trying to escape when his death was all but certain. What was the point in delaying the inevitable? Or worse, just make his suffering last even longer?

As those thoughts began to form in his mind, Amuro shook his head angrily, feeling shame that he would dare think those thoughts in the first place. Hadn't he thought similar things before when he was forced to stay as the pilot of the Gundam? Thoughts of wanting to give up against overwhelming opposition and responsibilities. Like when he was forced to constantly face Char Aznable, one of the Principality of Zeon's best Mobile Suit pilots back when he was just a novice in piloting a Mobile Suit? And even recently against that new Zeon Mobile Suit that thrashed his Gundam good. And yet every time he pulled through and got back on his feet to fight against those that wanted to hurt him and his fellow crewmates.

"That was because you had someone to slap or scold you back into fighting for them literally." Said a voice in Amuro's head. One that very much doubted their chances of surviving this one. "Here, we got no one to save us and no Mobile Suit to get us through this one. We are, for all intents and purposes, doomed. Doomed to be eaten by a bunch of bird aliens." As Amuro tried to ignore the stupid voice in his head, he failed to notice that two people had indeed come to save him from the aliens. And they're going to do it without raising the suspicions of the aliens until it was too late.

As the aliens were gorging on their meat, Lilith Clawthorne was preparing a magic spell that would give the Master Chief the element of surprise that he needed to quickly take them out without endangering Amuro. Having located him beforehand, the two made their attack plan.

"Are you sure that this will work?" Asked Lilith as she looked at Master Chief getting out a UNSC battle rifle. He didn't want any stray shots hitting Amuro, thus he went for the battle rifle instead of the assault rifle in order to minimize that possibility from occurring. They had just made a plan to save Amuro, but Lilith wasn't sure about certain aspects of the plan. Mainly the one where Chief fights all the aliens by himself while she flies above the aliens to provide magical support if Chief needed it.

"We don't have a lot of options if we want to save Amuro." Said Master Chief as he aimed his rifle at the Kig-Yar, the aliens around the campfire, closest to him. "Once you cast that spell, take Amuro and get out of here while I deal with them."

"But I'll be leaving you here alone with all those aliens." Argued Lilith, not liking that she was leaving the Master Chief to fend for himself from those aliens. "Don't you want any help at all to defeat those things?"

"I've dealt with them before." Said Master Chief simply. "There's no need for concern." Before Lilith could argue with him further, Master Chief spoke again. "We need to strike now. As soon as you cast that spell, we're executing the plan." Lilith frowned at the stubbornness of the soldier before casting the spell. Casting a spell circle in front of her with her staff, Lilith let loose a massive ball of bright light that was sent hurtling over towards the Kig-Yar.

The aliens screeched out in pain and shock as the ball of light was sent towards them, blinding all of them and leaving them vulnerable to attack to the Master Chief. Seeing the enemy was momentarily blinded, Master Chief fired at the Kig-Yar, taking out several of them in rapid succession. Moving a bit forward while Joy polarized his visor to prevent him from being blinded by the ball of light that Lilith made, Chief kept shooting at the aliens while Lilith went above the fighting with her staff, both to avoid getting shot at by either Chief or the aliens as well as the ball of light that she created, which was soon dissipating on its own. Once it was fully gone, Lilith looked down to see that the Master Chief had killed all the aliens, leaving her stunned. The ball of light that she created only lasted for a few seconds, yet he managed to kill half a dozen aliens in that time frame. Stunned, Lilith gapped openly as the Spartan walked over the alien corpses.

"Get Amuro." Said Master Chief before pointing forward. "Leave as soon as you get him. There could be more inside." Upon hearing those words, Lilith shook the shock out of her before nodding. Looking below her, she found Amuro still tied up, but alive and flew down to him.

Inspecting the boy for any injuries or stray gunfire that needed tending to, she found that, aside from a bruise around his forehead, he was alright.

"You came to save me." Said Amuro as he looked at Lilith on her staff, inspecting him.

"Yes, Amuro. We did." Said Lilith as she dropped down from her staff and began undoing his bindings. "Your friend, Fraw Bow, was getting worried for you, so she asked us to try and find you." Silently thanking Fraw, Amuro told Lilith to ignore the bindings and just get him out of here. He told her that there was another alien out on the loose. One bigger and scarier than the aliens they just killed. Upon hearing that, Lilith felt some fear at the possibility of a scarier alien than the ones they saw before banishing it away firmly. Remembering the plan, Lilith helped Amuro on her staff. After making sure that he was secured on her staff, Lilith was about to get on herself when Master Chief suddenly ran towards her, moving at speeds that she never thought possible for someone in such heavy armor.

Then before she could even blink, the Spartan brought out a device from his armor and tossed it in front of him and her. Upon landing, the device let loose a yellow frontal shield of energy, divided into multiple square sections. No sooner did he deploy it, than a massive metal spike hit one of the sections, collapsing them entirely, but stopping the spike in its tracks.

Once the spike was stopped, Master Chief looked at the shooter. Just above them on an elevated position was the other alien that Amuro was talking about. A Jiralhanae chieftain wielding a Banished Skewer and a Gravity Hammer behind his back. Upon seeing the massive alien, Master Chief spoke to Lilith.

"Get Amuro out of here, now!" Said Master Chief, snapping Lilith out of her shock of seeing Chief move so fast and also saving her life as the massive spike was aimed at her head. If that thing hit then…

Shaking her head of such a gruesome fate for her, Lilith ordered her staff to take Amuro out of the cave and towards the skies, where Fernando would hopefully spot him and take him aboard the Pelican. Acting as if it had a mind of its own, the staff took its leave, leaving both Lilith and Master Chief with the alien.

Starring down the alien, Master Chief watched as the Jiralhanae snarled before it tossed its Skewer away and bringing out something that made Lilith gasp in shock at the massive gun that the Jiralhanae brought out. For Chief, however, he simply fired on the Jiralhanae as it aimed down its recently grabbed Scrap Cannon, a Jiralhanae-made weapon, on the Spartan and began to rain down spikes at an increasing rate on him. Moving away from Lilith as the spikes rained down upon him, Master Chief continued to fire his battle rifle at the Jiralhanae. Unfortunately, like most Jiralhanae chieftains of sufficient rank or authority, this one had his armor equipped with energy shielding, providing the alien even more durability than what his own thick skin and armor gave him. So, it was difficult to put down the monster of an alien.

Thus, Master Chief focused on evading the alien's gunfire while also continuously shooting at it. The idea was to drain its shields with fire from his battle rifle before using his more powerful armaments, which were all unfortunately close range as he didn't bring a rocket launcher or sniper rifle when he went into the cave. This was a risk on account of the Jiralhanae's gravity hammer as well as the species' natural prowess in close-quarters combat. Fortunately, Master Chief had fought enough Jiralhanae in close-range engagements to know what and what not to do if he wanted to make it out of such an encounter alive. He just hoped that Lilith wouldn't do anything to send the alien into a berserk rage. It was good fortune that the Jiralhanae didn't care enough about the Kig-Yar under its command to go into its species' infamous berserk rage, making it both easier to kill it and also giving it more opportunities to kill him and Lilith.

A Jiralhanae that entered a berserk frenzy can easily kill anything it gets its hands on. Even a Spartan II can be killed easily by a frenzied Jiralhanae if said Jiralhanae got its hands on the Spartan. So, Master Chief had to make sure that he can keep that Jiralhanae from either entering that state before he could kill the alien or kill it quickly before it could kill him or Lilith when it does enter that state. Thus, Master Chief kept firing at the Jiralhanae even as it fired on him with its Scrap Cannon, which it got increasingly frustrated as the Spartan continued to dodge its attacks.

Roaring out in rage as the Spartan continued to dodge its spikes, despite the increasing rate of fire of its Scrap Cannon, the Jiralhanae chieftain was about to change tactics when it suddenly felt something hit its right arm, bringing down its weakened shields and causing discomfort on the ape-like alien.

Looking at its arm, the Jiralhanae saw that it was covered in fire. Looking around for the source, it found the new attacker to be Lilith, who launched another fireball at it from a spell circle. This one went for its chest, hitting it and spreading fire all over the Jiralhanae, causing it to roar in surprise and anger. While Lilith thought that she had helped the Master Chief, in reality, she didn't. All she did was make his job a bit harder and make herself a target for the Jiralhanae. And she would soon find out why because she just sent the Jiralhanae into a frenzied state.

Roaring out in rage, the Jiralhanae chieftain tossed its Scrap Cannon away and charged at Lilith, despite the fact that it was on fire. Its eyes were red with fury and with no trace of sanity present in them.

Gasping out in shock at this, Lilith was too deep in her shock to move away from the charging Jiralhanae. She would have died as a result if it weren't for Chief launching his grabbling hook at the alien, sending electricity all over its body, immobilizing it, before launching himself straight at it, punching its back, sending it flying past Lilith and towards some stalagmites. Crashing into the stalagmites, the Jiralhanae chieftain roared out in anger as it tried to get up, but Chief was already on him with a shotgun before he could. Aiming the gun at the Jiralhanae's head, Chief began shooting at the Jiralhanae. Pumping round after round at its head, eventually killing it before it could get up and begin thrashing around.

After pumping the last few rounds of the shotgun into the Jiralhanae's head to make sure it's head, Chief reloaded the shotgun before turning around to face Lilith, who was recovering from the near-death experience that she endured. Once she did, she looked at the Spartan, feeling shame course through her body. She had tried to help him and instead, she nearly ended up making things worse and it nearly cost her life.

"I…I just wanted to help." Said Lilith as she looked at the Master Chief in embarrassment and shame. "I was just so sick and tired of not being able to help the others in battle and that thing was upon you. It looked like you could have used the help. I thought that using fire would panic the monster and make it easier for you to fight it. I didn't think that it would enrage it to the point that…"

"Will you make that mistake again?" Asked Master Chief simply, causing Lilith to blink and look at him in surprise. He wasn't scolding her for making a mistake like she thought he would. Rather he seemed to act like he typically does. Processing the question, Lilith just shook her head, realizing that he was waiting for an answer.

"No." Said Lilith. "I'm pretty sure that I won't. I now see that I should be using ice magic on them to prevent them from moving or even immobilizing them completely. Perhaps even plant magic would be more useful than fire on them as it won't enrage them as the fire did."

"Good." Said Master Chief as he went over to the pile of human corpses that the aliens were eating. "You'll need that if we're going to face more of them in the future."

"More?" Asked Lilith in shock as she went over to Master Chief. "There's more of them out there?"

"Maybe not here, but I wouldn't be surprised." Said Master Chief as he looked at the corpses, counting four children and three adults in the pile of corpses. Two of the adults were military soldiers if their uniforms were any indication. The rest were civilians based on attire. "The soldiers must have been from the distress beacon that sent Amuro here. The rest must have been a local family that was killed by the Banished." Upon hearing the term Banished, Lilith was curious, but that curiosity was outweighed by the pile of corpses that was before her.

Like before, Lilith felt queasy in the stomach from seeing the corpses, especially with how some of them had their limbs and flesh ripped out. Now Lilith was in her late forties. She had seen and endured plenty of things in her home that has desensitized her to certain things that can make normal people throw up or even relieve themselves of even just looking at the things she saw. But she wasn't sure anyone can control their stomachs at all after seeing partially eaten corpses of children and people. Not unless they were complete sociopaths like Belos or Master Chief apparently as he was looking at the corpses with no sign that said what he felt about seeing such a gruesome sight.

Looking at the man as he inspected the corpses, the witch was about to say something when Chief spoke.

"We need to find a good place to bury them." Said Master Chief before reaching toward the corpses of the soldiers and taking their dog tags so Bright could inform Federation high command or whatever the term was for the Federation upper echelons of command about the death of the soldiers. If they were soldiers of the Federation that is. "You find a good place to bury them, Lilith. I'm going to search this cave for any belongings that can help identify the others." Blinking at that, Lilith looked at Master Chief in surprise. Did he actually want to spend time burying these people rather than just heading straight back to the White Base?

"I thought you would want to just head straight back home. Amuro is safe and under our protection, yet you want to spend time burying these strangers?" Asked Lilith, stunned that he would make a suggestion like that. Turning to Lilith, Master Chief spoke.

"These people were killed by complete strangers that ate them. Strangers that were brought with me when I came to this universe." Said Master Chief, stunning Lilith with this information. "While I can't be blamed for them being here, I can do something to their bodies. Give them the respect they deserve. Wouldn't you agree?" Lilith stared at the Spartan for a few moments, stunned at this lapse of character, before nodding.

"Yes. Yes, you're right." Said Lilith as she looked at the Spartan. "It's the least we can do, after…after their deaths. It's the only thing we can do for them now. I'll go out of the cave and find a good spot for them to be buried." Before Lilith could take off, Chief spoke.

"No, we'll do it together." Said Chief, causing Lilith to look at him in surprise. "There may still be Banished here in this cave. If we separate, we'll be easier pickings for them. We're sticking around with each other. It'll take longer, but I'm not losing you if I have anything to say about it." Upon hearing that, Lilith blushed a bit before asking him why he would say such a thing. "You're a valued member of my team as well as the White Base. Like it or not, you're in a team now. A team that can't afford to lose even its weakest link." He then looked Lilith directly in the eye. Despite the visor blocking his eyes, Lilith thought she could see the determination and honesty within them the golden visor. "I failed several close teammates before, I will not fail you or Fernando. Both of you were dragged into a fight that neither of you wanted to be in. I promise." Even though he spoke the words in the same monotonous voice he used all the time, Lilith could feel the care within them. Care that would normally conflict with the tone and character of someone like Chief, yet Lilith saw that it didn't with him. He genuinely cared about her wellbeing, despite not knowing much about her and her life. Not because she was a part of his team, though that certainly had a part to play in her care for her, but because he wanted to protect her from harm and get her back home, away from a conflict that she had no right of being a part of.

It was then that she realized that Fernando was right when she had a conversation with him about the Master Chief some time ago. That she needed to spend time with Chief to truly get to know him as a person. To see who he actually was underneath that stoic personality of his. And, after seeing it, she could see why Fernando had said that. The Master Chief truly was someone you needed to be around for a while before they saw who he truly was.

Smiling a bit, Lilith nodded in understanding before following him as they went further deeper into the cave. Both to search for more Banished as well as to find anything that can help identify the other corpses they found. As they walked, Lilith looked at the Master Chief and couldn't help but smile. While she didn't get what she initially wanted from bringing him along on this important mission, she can safely say that she was satisfied with what she got.

Next Chapter is centered around Jega and the Banished. Just so you all know.