With Six and INHERIT

It was easy to see why the Spartan's records, the few of them Inherit was allowed to access by him, rated him as Hyper Lethal. Well, no, they learned that during training, however this was different. His abilities in combat were being liberally applied, weapons ringing loudly as he and the rest of Inherit engaged a patrol of Raptures.

Dodging below a scarlet particle beam, the Spartan weaved between bursts of automatic fire while employing his Magnum pistol. Shots struck and pierced the bodies of the leading warmachines while their rotary cannons still spun in their mounts, trying to track him. Beside him, Noah lifted her shields, stopping several bursts while Isabel and Harran provided air cover, with the former laughing maniacally as she sent explosive slugs down range.

Dorothy watched the Spartan as she wielded her own rifle, the Ungrateful OZ, gunning down several smaller fodder Raptures with beams of white plasma. She thanked the maker she had one of the better upgraded weapons added to her arsenal, before gasping and ducking as a volley of missiles struck around them, digging craters in the sand.

Noah shifted her shields into weapon mode, firing a burst of energy at the enemy as she laughed, then she paused, watching the Spartan grab onto the leg of one of the Lord-class Raptures, climbing onto it and twisting one of the two rail rifles that were being aimed at her. When it fired, the shot pierced its side, ripping apart the core within as he jumped off.

She whispered, "Jeeez…"

Then she saw Six immediately spin about, slamming his fist clean through the front of the leading fodder Rapture, cracking the armor plate and grabbing hold of the Oculus Core, which he squeezed into a fine dust with one swift move, before yanking his hand out. His shields visibly flared and flickered around the gauntlet.

He then grabbed the corpse and threw it in the midst of a crowd of other Raptures, watching a flash of orange, followed by the thump of a detonation. Several of the dead creature's siblings staggered just as the Spartan withdrew his long gun from his back and knelt, sniping each in their respective cores before they could train their MGs on him.

Harran landed beside him and grinned, then swept the area with her scythe's blade, cutting the Raptures down like wheat from the chaff. Her little crow-like drone swept in next, its sharpened wings cutting into the center of a Lord Rapture's core with sickening crackles of Goddessium against whatever steel the Raptures were forged of.

Six followed up, sniping several air units that were about to divebomb them, many of which looked to be suicide drones. Each careened away or exploded, detonating against the desert. He slung the DMR onto his back and jumped onto one of the flying units as it dived and fired its beams at Noah. The energy blasts deflected off her shields, splitting into several smaller beams and striking the ground, boiling it to glass.

The Spartan held onto the machine's undercarriage as it floated up toward the rest of its mates. He swung forward, spun and landed on top of its carapace-like form, then drew his sidearm. Four loud bangs filled the air as the SAPHE rounds punctured and detonated within the frames of the mechs, digging holes in their armor.

He drew his rifle again, switching it to full auto and shouldered it to make sure it wouldn't buck too hard, then squeezed. Rounds ripped through the shell, internal synthetic flesh and mechanical parts and the last three shots in the mag struck, pierced and destroyed the core, a sound like shattering glass filling Six's ears.

He jumped off the machine, watching its siblings explode as Noah fired a volley of her own at them, beams of bright green striking in concert with high-explosive slugs, Dorothy's rifle and swings from Harran's blade. Moments later, the group presided over a sandy hellscape of craters, destroyed Rapture parts and glass and sand.

Six sighed, then said, "We might be getting closer to our target. That's the fifth patrol today," as he looked at Johan. The man gave a nod, then rallied the team up, with Six stating, "I'll scout ahead if nobody else wants to fly out right now," before looking around at the others. Harran waved to him to go ahead, while Isabel seemed to go from her usual psychotic-yet-boisterous self to the more timid form she took whenever Six spoke.

Johan asked him, rhetorically and with slight humor, "You really broke her, didn't you?" to which Six shrugged. He drew his rifle and ran down the path to their intended target. He also noticed one dot had broken off from the group and mumbled something to himself about Dorothy's proclivity to follow him even more than Isabel.

He slowed his speed when he was far enough from the others that their dots only faintly appeared at the edge of his maximum scanning distance, then approached a local dune, climbing past buried skeletons of old Earth soldiers and a metal pipe, presumably a barrel going by the rifling, that was bent inward. He spoke, "You know, I'm starting to think you actually like me."

"As a friend," Joked Dorothy as she approached him, rifle in hand and her strange, angelic armor that wrapped around her white dress glowing in the sun. She added, "Plus, I wouldn't want to get between you and Isabel," before patting him on the back. He gave a half-sarcastic 'ha' as a reply, before stopping just before the edge of the dune. She said to him, "Alva Particle concentration in the AO is relatively high, so it's clear this is both an old battle field and our strange Heretic's stomping grounds."

"Yeah," He spoke as they climbed up to the edge next. They paused, eyes wide as they saw a vast dune sea ahead of them, distant mountains rising high above and into a thick layer of clouds. One mountain seemed to glow, the farthest from them. The most stark thing, however, wasn't it. The dunes themselves, however, were…

Glistening in a fading sun, trails of burnt glass, like the marks of claws against skin, appeared in front of them. Great tracts of the dunes looked like they'd been very recently superheated to beyond the melting temperature of the sand and left to cool. Dorothy remarked, "Seems like a certain Heretic was fairly busy carving herself out a border…"

Six answered, "Or a warning," bluntly as he drew his rifle again.

The rest of the team soon arrived, with Johan probably having ordered them forward the moment they saw the pair hadn't been burnt to a crisp. From intelligence, Six knew who or what they were hunting. The Heretic, Codename:Nihilister. A Rapture officer who really must've loved using fire as a weapon, with clear potency. Johan blinked, staring out at the wide, interrupted tails of glistening lechatelierite.

Six had only seen tracts like that once before, though they had been far more uniform. Dorothy and Johan both saw him visibly tense at the sight of the Glasslands ahead, with the Commander asking him, "Are you going to be able to proceed with the job, Spartan? Or is something wrong? It's just glassed desert."

"I've seen enough glassings to last me a lifetime," Six replied, a bout of dark humor to alleviate his own slightly faster mind and heart. He balled his fist, then pointed forward with his full, open palm, before sliding down the side of the dune, weapon ready. The others exchanged glances, with Dorothy sighing. She was the first to follow him down.

As they reached the dunes of glass and began walking on them, it crackled and popped beneath their boots. They treaded lands familiar only to the Spartan now, a fact noticeable by the way the man's shoulders visibly sagged, even as he held his rifle close. They walked by swathes of the soil destroyed by Nihilister's flames, with Dorothy not far behind Six.

She asked from him, "You told everyone else about your war, correct?"

Six nodded.

"Then they should know what they're seeing here brings back some bad memories," The girl offered, a surprising amount of sympathy shown by the woman who would willingly destroy the Last City of Mankind, or so her boasts went. Six never believed for a second the woman had the balls to attempt a genocide of that scale.

Farther back, Noah spoke with a bit of a boast to her voice, "Heh, what's his deal? It's just a little glass!" only to yelp as she felt Harran's scythe handle poke her in the back. She turned around, eyebrows raised. Harran sighed and shook her head, then sidestepped her shields, which caused the girl to throw her hands up.

"Did you forget to read the reports, pipsqueak?" Inquired Isabel, "Or watch the camera footage? After he talked with Cecil and Dorothy, he showed it all to us. His entire war, his fight on that planet and how it was being burnt to a crisp. Or is your brain so tiny you've already forgotten?" only for the two to glare at each-other. Johan whistled loudly, causing both of them to stagger, before he gave a quick wave to the side with his hand, telling them to cut it off.

They let Six lead the way forward, with Johan grabbing Dorothy by the hand and shaking his head. She sighed and shrugged, before lifting her rifle and keeping it up, just in case the woman who burned this place came back. Six, however, wasn't done. He turned toward Noah and said, "Pray you never have to see the Covenant live, kid."

"Whaddaya mean?" Noah inquired, sounding almost offended as she put a hand up to her chest.

He answered bluntly, "Your little shields are cute, but I doubt even they'd be able to survive an excavation beam if I nearly cracked them open," before turning to continue leading the way. Noah opened her arms as if asking what the hell she did, before scoffing and following, too. They walked past yet more glasslands, noting that some old houses in the area had been caught in the heat.

Dorothy walked up again and whispered, "Do you think it was the Covenant? Here?" as she approached her newfound best friend's side. Some inner part of her thought back to someone of old and why making friends in general was an awful idea, but some part of her wanted to see how the Hyper-Lethal Vector, Noble Six, was dealing with what he was seeing.

"If I had even an inkling of it, I'd be superseding Johan's orders and sending us all home," The man replied quietly, "No, the weapons damage is too… Jagged. The lines don't look like any pattern and there's too much open soil. Covenant plasma weapons are a lot more precise. And they don't leave open spots of ground like the sand we're walking on. It's just fields and fields of glistening glass and burning wildfires."

"Good lord," Whispered Dorothy, "I can see why you wouldn't want them around…"

"The night's still young," He seemed to joke, but it was humorless, dry, empty. She had been trading jabs with him only hours ago, before this mission even started. What in God's name had gotten into him? Thought Dorothy. Her eyes scanned the skies, making sure nothing was gonna break through the clouds that even remotely resembled a Covenant vessel.

She told him, "It's gonna be one cold, lonely one for Cecil, then," with a smirk. He snorted audibly at that, this one showing he was still able to laugh normally, then sighed. Good, she still had it in her to actually drag even a pity laugh out of him. She continued, "Oh, what~? Worried about your nerd girlfriend now~?" which caused the Spartan to cast a glance back at her that told her to shut up.

Yeah, she still had it.


With the Counters

Meanwhile, on board a UNSC Pelican, the Counters had decided to go on a little hunting mission just beyond the defensive positions being established around various elevator entrances. The Pelican veered right, its nose-mounted 70mm chaingun thundering as they flew overhead of a really annoyed Rapture formation. They'd left Syuen behind for the time being. Halsey had asked her to come in and answer some questions regarding Missilis's black projects, so, she complied.

Bullets rang against armor as the team actively prepared their weapons, with Anis casting a glance over at Marian. Terrifyingly calm and wearing a mostly disconcerting smile, the red-eyed former Heretic brought forth her two 'turrets', floating arms which acted as the holders of her weapon and an added on energy shield.

The right 'arm' held the weapon. Modified from her standard high-speed magnetic machine gun into a plasma beam weapon based on the data gathered from Alyosha's own heavier plasma gun during Operation Modernity, this gun packed everything into a more compact package, its two prongs visibly arcing with electricity from a microfusion cell mounted at the base of the 'turret' arm. The back of the weapon contained three round prongs that acted as the weapon's radiators, attached just above the plasma cell and ionization chamber.

The weapon visibly shifted, while the left arm held up a new emitter. Though it would have normally been a separate attachment with little use beyond a possible targeting system, Doctor Halsey had heavily modified the arm and the girl's own armor, rebuilding the visor she'd cracked during the fight in MODERNITY as the targeting system.

The visor itself transformed, covering her eyes and activating, various camera systems, targeting procedures and diagnostic data flaring and flowing across the screen, offering the young Nikke a perfect description of the battlefield right down to the IFFs of her comrades. Rapi had noticed she was looking at her and simply gave a nod

The Commander, meanwhile, looked focused. He had his own second prototype plasma rifle with him, this one with a contained power source that wasn't reliant on the MJOLNIR armor's microfusion core. He slammed home a battery pack shaped in the form of a magazine and listened to the weapon hiss to life.

Marian probably couldn't see it, though, but behind his visor, his eyes were locked on her, too. She seemed strangely eager to get back into battle. He couldn't blame her. She'd lost months of her life being puppeteered by the Corruption and fighting and killing Nikkes and very likely many UNSC Marines during operations.

It was a little worrying to see her so eager to go back to battle, but at least she wasn't exactly trying to kill humans yet. She stood up as the Pelican's light turned red. The Pilot lifted his right hand and raised three fingers to the squad, with Rio grinning as she slid a fresh magazine into her Stanchion. She stood up and said, "This oughta be fun. Show us what ya got, Marian."

"Gladly," The girl replied, her voice sharp. As the Pelican approached its target, bullets struck the armor plate, audibly ringing. Missiles arced after them, too, the Pilot pulling several evasive maneuvers to avoid them and rapidly dumping flares. After two minutes, the rear ramp popped open, with Marian and the others already positioning themselves to jump out.

Below, a horde of Raptures of various sizes stood on guard, firing into the Blood Tray of the Pelican. The moment the Pilot punched the green light, Marian was the first one out, a smirk on her face. The bastards below her had taken her mind, forced her into killing her own comrades, into hurting the Commander and forcing him to face a nightmare… Not only that, but they forced that same nightmare onto one of his friends, a gentle man, a soldier.

The weapon on her right charged audibly, radiating heat and power. They wouldn't touch anyone she cared about again. The air around her boiled, the beam lancing forward with the snap of a whip. When it struck the first Rapture, it heated its core to the point of immediate detonation. She brought the weapon up with her gaze, cutting a gash into the line of enemy drones and splitting many in twain.

The soil below boiled and cooled to glass just as she landed, gaze locked onto the first command Rapture. She dodged to the left as a microwave beam singed her hair, then locked onto it with the plasma beam rifle. The moment the gun hissed again, the azure beam struck like a bright lance of death right into the Rapture's Oculus.

It collapsed, an orange-hot hole drilled clean through its front.

The rest of the Counters landed beside Marian as she lifted her left arm now, powering on an energy shield that stretched forward and angled to provide the squad a front line. Neon, Anis and Rapi all poked their weapons through the shield and started firing to give themselves some breathing room, while the Commander covered Rio as she set up on the rear seat of the Pelican.

She told him, "Heh! She's got a nasty punch!" before tilting her head and saying, "Go! I'll cover you kids from the air! Someone's gotta keep this bird flying, too!" before waving to the pilot. Alyosha nodded with a smile and jumped off, landing on top of a Rapture and stomping it into the ground before opening fire with his own plasma beam rifle.

He cut down a pair of raptures with his own burst, looking over to the right and watching as Anis's grenades landed and detonated, killing several more. Rapi followed up by rushing through the shield and using one of the smaller units, a 'Hard Hat' as it had been nicknamed by soldiers, as a springboard. Her own underbarrel launcher thumped, followed by bursts of automatic fire that raked the monsters.

Neon slid between a trio of Raptures and fired her shotgun with blinding speed, pumping several shells out that each took out enemy units. Alyosha followed up with Marian, the young woman dropping the shield and raising her now-cooled plasma weapon again. She aimed it toward another Lord and his posse, then opened fire. She fired in pulses now, each shot melting one smaller creature through and chopping apart armor.

Rio's rail rifle roared overhead as the Pelican flew in to provide air support. Two more Lords evaporated under the heavy weight of the ferromagnetic projectile's impact, right alongside the units they commanded. Anis commented, "Jeez, how many Lords did they herd in here!? This is getting freaking nuts!" as she kicked down a Crawler.

"I think they're testing us," Marian answered rather joyfully. She paused, her ears slightly twitching, before swiveling about, dropping to one knee and firing a full volley of hate down-range, cutting down a swarm of suicide bomber Raptures, ranging from flying units to ground types. Each molten machine exploded in a flurry of flak-like clouds.

She followed up by sniping another Lord, then another, before lifting her shield up to block several missile volleys, each blast detonating on or deflecting off the shield. She saw the shield's power dip for a moment. Alyosha had never really wanted to worry about Marian again. He wasn't exactly worried per se, more so glad she was on their side…

… But the smile she had on while doing all of this, her eyes concealed by the goggles. It was sort of terrifying…

Regardless of it, he watched her fist punch clean through a Rapture flyer's core. Namely, it was one of the Skimmers, a turtle-like floater with one burning red eye and what looked like visible synthetic flesh pulsing beneath its studded carapace. It slid off her hand, falling onto the floor with a sickening crunch, and had left some blood on her arm.

Rapi formed up with the Commander, murmuring, "Do you think she's okay?" only to receive a concerned gaze from him. He gave a quick, but awkward nod, then lifted up his rifle and sniped a larger flying Rapture, one made up of a series of floating parts. Its constituent parts collapsed as it got split in half from head to toe by the burst of superheated ionized gas.

The two gasped as they watched Marian lift one monster into the air, throw it, then shoot it, before bringing the weapon down and sweeping the area ahead with a four-second burst of plasma. Coolant lines hissed as the gleaming blade of energy cut through the alien machines like a hot knife through butter, sweeping areas clear of them.

Anis asked, "Hey… Has anyone seen The Boys before?" mildly awkward.

"Please, don't," Rapi murmured, before yelping as the Pelican flew overhead, firing its nose-mounted chaingun filled with HE ammo. Rio laughed over the com, cheering as she fired again, her rounds snapping over the team's heads and thundering through several Raptures before stopping in a distant building's skeletal frame.

It was honestly a strange battle. The Raptures weren't coordinated, which implied someone was testing them again. Alyosha wondered if it was because they had Marian with them now, with every bone in his body suddenly filling with worry. He moved toward Marian, attempting to cover her by cutting down several more Raptures and even punching one's literal lights out with his own armored gauntlet.

He'd overextended, though, and by the time he realized a Rapture sniper unit had him zeroed, the bastard was already charging its twin rail rifles to fire at him. He gasped, feeling time slow down around him. He could see the projectiles in the barrels of the weapons, ready to strike at him. As the barrels glowed and the rounds shot out, however, a wall of light would stop them just before impact.

A beam followed, slicing the monster in half. Alyosha soon saw Marian standing in front of him, her weapon hissing as the coolant began to dissipate. She looked back at him and asked, "Are you okay?" with genuine concern in her voice. Though, for a moment the Commander worried that the young woman would never be back to her old, caring self, here she was, proving him wrong…

… Farther away, atop a building, a certain Mech-piloting Heretic smiled a little at the sight as one of her scout drones touched down on her shoulder. She put a hand up to her ear and said, "She's a lost cause, Nihilister. Our little baby bird just flew out of her nest, all thanks to those Tourists, and I don't think we're getting her back any time soon," before pausing and listening to a specific and very, very volatile Heretic yell. She shook her head, then replied, "Well, I told you she wouldn't be easily swayed…" before dropping down atop her mech and climbing in. As she turned it on, she continued, "No, I'm not gonna go there and fight them. Even at half-strength and dealing with the crap that's permeating the Ark right now, they're still dangerous."

"... Oh," She snorted audibly as she flicked several switches, her display turning on as she relinquished command of her formation of Raptures, "Sounds like you've got your own hounds after you, Dragon Lady," before powering the mech fully and engaging its thrusters. She jumped away from the battle, stating, "I'm not gonna back your sorry ass up. I'm sure you can handle Eden's little Guardians alone. See you in Hell, Nihi. Make sure it's warm for me when you get there."

With that, she turned the com off just as the Dragon Woman began to swear up a storm her way, causing her to snort. She shook her head, then cast a glance back toward the Raptures that were being destroyed and mumbled to herself, "One of these days, kids, but not today… We're gonna have a proper chat about how you got her back…"

And afterward, she flew away, rallying her reserves to her before departing…