The rumbling thunder of a nuclear detonation was followed up by the blinding white light of the tactical warhead going off. Around the detonation, the vehicle crumbled and groaned, though the blast had deafened the initiator of the detonation. The man in charge of the weapon that had destroyed the Mantle's Approach wondered for but a moment where fate would lead them. Death was a known and familiar concept to SPARTANs, after all.
It was so familiar, sadly, because they'd lost a great deal of their own to it. Be it by the hand of fate, wherein some had augmentation complications, or by the hand of the enemy, where the Covenant, the ruthless foe that had terrorized mankind for a little over a quarter of a century, had struck continuously against their planets, causing their numbers to dwindle ever more with each destroyed world and each SPARTAN placed on the list of those 'Missing In Action'.
Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 had been avoided by Death up until this point. Whether it had been the spectral Grim Reaper with a scythe and black hood from the tales and depictions centuries old, or just an unseen, undeniable force, it had chosen to avoid him, to deny him a 'peace' of sorts after he had Finished the Fight against the Covenant and ensured mankind's survival. Only six years later, most of which were spent in Cryosleep aboard the ill-fated aft of the Forward Unto Dawn, the Chief would find himself facing death again, against Covenant Remnants and, now, the Prometheans and their master.
The Didact had been a tough foe, an enemy worth mentioning, worth keeping in the back of Chief's mind, even as he went out of his way to kill the treacherous Forerunner and stop him from enacting his plans. It had all culminated here, in the Maw of the Composer aboard the Forerunner capital ship belonging to this strange alien foe. He had won, but at the cost of his life and the artificial life of his comrade in arms, Cortana.
Hence, one would assume the SPARTAN would receive that peace and quiet that Death would give, whatever it was. Chief was never much for the intricacies of death. He just knew it as a constant in human life, so he never really bothered to worry about it, even in his final moments. Most of his friends, himself included, were 'atheist', meaning they didn't believe in gods or the Afterlife. Still, he had expected to see something waiting for him. Maybe the faces of the dead, maybe memories.
No. Instead, the Chief found himself laying on his back, his ears ringing as the blur and bright pallor of his vision faded to reveal a grey sky. Around him, dozens of tall buildings, overrun by nature, stood tall, their windows broken, graffiti faded or hidden behind layers of greenery and neon signs long blown-out. The weight of his armor was there, as was the familiar, intensely quiet whir of the suit's microfusion reactor.
One thing that was noticeable was that one of his senses hadn't properly returned:His hearing. He was still listening to a tinnitus-fueled ringing that irrationally grated him. Night impossible to withstand for any normal human, for a SPARTAN it was close to a massive nuisance that he could just ignore. Even so, he had other pressing matters to attend to aside from a little ringin'. He flexed his fingers, then curled them. Toes and hands, both. He felt the armor move with him. He curled his bicep, lifting his forearms, then nodded, before curling his legs and stretching them. There was little to no sign of armor lock and he could feel the armor's inner gel layer shifting to re-accommodate him.
He pushed himself into a seated position and felt his back. His fingers wrapped around a thumbhole and a grip, his index gently caressing a curved piece of meta. Pulling the weapon off his back, the man soon realized it was his MA5B assault rifle. Quickly giving it a once-over as the ringing began to fade, he thumbed the button to activate the ammo counter and saw a small crack across its glass as it powered on. Racking the bolt, the SPARTAN stood to his feet, wobbling a little due to the nauseating tinnitus.
He locked the weapon back onto his armor, feeling the mag-lock click it into place, before he hit himself in the helmet and shook his head, further clearing out any confusion and the ringing. He stopped, however, when he heard a familiar voice calling out to him, "Chief!? Chief! Can you hear me!? Dammit, did the explosion do damage to your eardrums...?"
"I'm fine, now..." He replied, stunned, while Cortana let out a short yelp.
"Oh," She sighed, relieved, "Chief... I was worried. What happened...?"
"Tinnitus, probably from the detonation," Chief replied as he looked around. He saw the ruins of a city all around him, overgrown and overrun, cracked concrete and broken cars littering the road ahead, vines and roots poking through. He hummed, drawing his rifle again and keeping an eye on his Motion Tracker, before asking, "Any idea where we are...?"
"Scanning..." Cortana replied, "... I can't connect to the satellite network. If we're on Earth, something might be jamming our signal..." She then stated, a hint of surprise in her voice. She murmured to herself, "Could also be the Nuke we set off in orbit that disabled a few of the GPS systems, but I think we were too far away for that," as she brought up some diagnostics on Chief's armor onto his HUD.
He sighed, then decided it was best to pick a direction and start walking. Armored feet thumping against the cracking, ages-old concrete below, the SPARTAN walked, eyes peeled as he moved from cover to cover. He scanned windows, the bottom floors of buildings and also looked at his Motion Tracker to ensure that any enemy wouldn't surprise him. In the meanwhile, he hummed and decided to ask, "Com works?"
"Been trying to ping friendlies for the better part of your little Tinnitus bout... Nothing on any channel." The AI murmured, "It's almost as if we got transposed to some misshapen version of Earth..."
Chief chose to ignore that last comment, proceeding further on foot, past the ruins of what he assumed had once been a mall. What worried the SPARTAN and, it seemed, his AI compatriot as well, was the fact that there weren't even skeletons on the ground, just destroyed cars, some of them half-melted. The AI hummed, curious, then said, "Approach that. Keep your armor seal on."
The Chief walked up to the melted cars and stopped, keeping his rifle close and scanning the rooftops uneasily. He didn't like being out in the open, quite honestly, so whatever Cortana was examining would best be important. She spoke calmly, "That's what I thought... I'm detecting Neutron decay in the atmosphere, especially in this general area... Well above any normal readings, too. Almost as if..."
"As if...?" Chief wondered, tense. The echoing thunder of footsteps filtered through the helmet's enhanced audio sensors, causing the SPARTAN to focus on his Motion Tracker. He really didn't like it when Cortana cut herself off like that. It usually meant something not so good to hear was coming. Like the Halo reveal, or the fact that they were dealing with the Flood on Alpha Halo.
"... As if someone utilized Neutron weaponry..." Cortana murmured in completion, then hummed, "But we ditched the idea back in the 2100s... Too dangerous..." before pausing as she, too, heard the footsteps. She closed her eyes, pinging the target with the suit's sensors at the outermost distance. She gasped as the steps grew close enough to shake the ground, dust kicking up, before screaming, "John, take cover, NOW!"
The SPARTAN's senses went into overdrive as the building ahead of him shook and shuddered. Debris and dust exploded outward as warframes appeared from below. Shards of glass and stone pinged off the man's armor as he moved to take cover. All happened in Slow Motion due to the familiar capability known as 'SPARTAN Time', wherein their senses and processing power grew exponentially. Enough so that the man could see the hundreds of war machines that appeared ahead of him, all of them flickering to life as scarlet dots on his motion tracker.
A larger machine spotted him first, turning on all four of its strangely biomechanical legs, before aiming. Its single scarlet oculus burned with hatred as its side-mounted assault weapon tracked the Chief. It opened fire just as the SPARTAN got into cover, rounds hitting the concrete pillar of the Mall's entryway. Green tracers filled the concrete as more machines stomped forward.
Chief spoke, "Cortana, what am I looking at...?"
"I'm counting at least three platoons of these things..." The AI spoke, her voice strained, "Heavily armed. Combat mechanoids, carrying machine guns... I can't..."
"You okay?" He asked as he tried to peek from behind cover. A round snapped past his ear, forcing him back into cover. Even with his MJOLNIR, that many guns pointed at him at once would tear through the shields and pelt the plates enough to kill him. He could feel her doing something, the cool blue air of he usually felt when she was in his helmet seemed to warm.
"So... Many..." She whined, before gasping for air.
"Cortana!" Chief demanded, taking a knee and opening fire toward the closest mechanoid. Bullets struck plate, piercing. Some rounds sparked off, ricocheting off the angled armor. One bullet struck the oculus and shattered it, sending the machine staggering back before it collapsed. He spun back into cover as more bullets struck where he was. Pilling the pins on two grenades and throwing them past his cover, the man waited for the thump of explosions, before asking again, "Cortana?!" clearly worried as he turned in.
The grenades seemed to have disorientated the machines just enough for Chief to be able to gain the initiative. Opening fire, the SPARTAN started aiming for the obvious weakpoint:The oculus. Meanwhile, his AI companion had taken a moment. She breathed, then said, "Sorry... I tried accessing their Battle Net. There's so many voices speaking simultaneously..."
Chief ducked under a swipe from one of the Machines' legs and sprung up, sending a fist clean through the bottom of where the oculus was. Armor plate buckled and gave way under the weighted punch of the man, the machine scrambling as its oculus was torn out. It collapsed as soon as Chief removed his hand, exploding. Shrapnel rang off his armor and shields as the SPARTAN hefted his assault rifle and opened up on the other machines. He then ducked into cover behind another pair of crashed cars, dropping the empty mag from his rifle and slamming in a fresh one.
Racking the bolt, he asked, "Did you get overwhelmed?"
"Yeah... For the first time in my life, there was too much information to even process..." She replied, her voice soft, quiet. She then spoke, "Only word I got out of my brief stint in their heads was 'Rapture'... Keep running. I'm detecting more of their energy signatures coming in... Plus maybe four unknown contacts?" she seemed dumbfound, "Keep moving!"
As the Machines figured themselves out and reorganized, the SPARTAN soon found himself under a whittling barrage of fire, his shields flaring as bullets ricocheted around him and the car he was using for cover. He stood up and fired a burst into one of the beasts, before charging off toward the safety of a building at maximum speed. He wasn't Kelly, but he could still practically dodge bullets at the speed he was running.
He jumped and rolled forward, punching through glass as rounds snapped above and around him, before he pushed himself into cover behind a stone counter and opened fire again, in bursts. He aimed for the Oculi of the war machines while Cortana was still running scans, it seemed. He was as accurate as SPARTANs came, nailing the beasts in their eyes and sending multiple toppling down with each salvo. Once he managed to suppress them, he ran deeper into the building, feeling the rounds impacting his shields.
He punched through the other side of the building, barreling through another glass front and out into an open street parallel to the one he'd been ambushed in. He aimed his weapons around, then asked, "More of them?"
"North of us, flying, about three dozen. Run southward. It's where the other energy sigs are coming from," Cortana said. The SPARTAN spent no time dilly-dallying, simply running south as instructed, just as several flying variations of the enemy drones, machines with no legs that resembled crucifixes with smoothed-over surfaces, appeared overhead. Behind them, several more strange-shaped drones followed, these ones looking like large eyeballs with wings.
Beams laced the ground behind the Chief and some even cut across his back, his shields flaring and draining. The bursts of fire were clearly Neutron-based in origin, as even Cortana seemed dumbfound by the hits. She spoke, "Neutron weapons. Short burst beams..." as they ran, "Dodge them as best you can, John. Else we might wake up with a very brittle suit of decorative armor once our shields are out."
"Got it," Chief replied. He looked ahead, noting that a support to a building's facade was ready to fall. Throwing a plasma grenade at it, the SPARTAN managed to stick the exact point as he rushed forward, the plasma detonating and melting the surface. The facade collapsed under its own weight without support, crushing several drones and narrowly missing the SPARTAN that was running at full-sprint.
The remaining drones, however, poured through the debris and dust kicked up by the collapse and fired. He dodged, feeling a beam sear far too close to his helmet for comfort. Cortana spoke, "Keep going forward. New contacts should be right up ahead... Let's hope they're friendly, at least. I'm, not detecting the same energy sigs out of them as I got out of these Raptures."
"Raptures?" John asked, though his voice was strained. He jumped on top of a car, denting the front, before running over it and past, toward another set of buildings. The drones were trying to catch up. One of them was far too close for comfort, from what the Chief could see on his Motion Tracker, however, the new contacts, painted grey for 'unknown' on the Motion Tracker, appeared ahead.
One window shattered on the third floor of the building and a sniper round flew so close to Chief's helmet, he could swear it flared the shields. It punched through the oculus of the drone behind him and sent it tumbling back. An explosion, followed by the screech of failing antigravity systems alerted John to the fact that hit had taken several other drones out.
A figure emerged next from the second window to the right on the ground floor, armed with a grenade launcher. She yelled out to him in a sharp voice, "GET YOUR HEAD DOWN!"
Thunk, thunk, thunk.
Three 40mm grenades flew in, their trajectory almost perfectly straight. They exploded meters behind the Chief and several more drones winked off his Motion Tracker. He painted the figures ahead in gold now, for friendlies, before spinning about, braking by using his heels and taking a knee. He opened fire with his assault rifle, spent casings clinking against the floor.
Behind him, another pair of figures. One of them, on his left, was clad in a strange, tan exoskeletal frame with armor plating and carried a heavy machine gun with a feed tube in its right side, clearly of a higher caliber than normal. She shouldered the weapon and opened up as well, while her counterpart on the right, a girl clad in a black outfit with red accents, a beret, thigh-highs and a heavy assault rifle appeared. She fired.
More and more drones were drilled full of holes by the conjoined fire between the multitude of allies until not one of the flying bastards was left, their remains scattered by multiple detonations or the bullets fired by the people that had just now saved him. John looked to his left and right, noting that both figures were female. Though one wore armor, while the other wore a simple uniform.
The latter of them looked over to the Chief, lowering her rifle, then stated, "New contact. Odd."
"I've never seen anyone like that before..." Another figure, with white hair, murmured as she stepped out from the building. She was clad in a sailor outfit with white and blue accents and carried a white shotgun of some kind. She pushed her rimless glasses back up on her nose and smiled, noting the man's weapon, then stated, "That's a weird assault rifle."
"You think he's the one our objective got changed for?" The last girl, the one who had fired from the first floor, asked as she jumped down to them, leaning her strangely-upgraded rotary grenade launcher on her shoulder as she approached. She, too, had a beret and strangely revealing clothes, not to mention what seemed to be the standard trait of women here.
Legs.
Yes, legs.
Cortana snorted, then said, "Suppose they're the contacts... Odd. They emanate energy."
"Power sources...?" Chief hummed.
"Probably," Cortana replied, "From the looks of things... Yeah. They're not human. Only one human's present."
And speak of the devil, a young man appeared from behind cover, carrying a pistol. He was clad in a dark-brown military outfit and cap, with combat boots and everything. Stepping forward, he spoke with a light Eastern accent, "Well, that's... uh..." as he watched the Seven-foot-tall supersoldier stand up, towering even above the girls around him, which were pretty tall themselves.
"Who are you?" Inquired the 'girl' with the Grenade Launcher, looking up at him.
"Tell them, Chief. I'm trying to see what their Battle Net's like," Cortana stated calmly. Indeed, the young woman was trying to see what made these new artificial beings tick. For the simple fact she wanted to understand who the hell designed female machines to look like that. Thank the lord John wasn't the archetypal male that'd probably go for such girls. Then again, not like he went for anyone at all.
"Master Chief Petty Officer 117..." He replied, calm. The AI hummed and smiled as she went about her work.
"... He a product?" The man in the military uniform inquired, looking between the girls around them. Each shook her head.
"Nope," The one with the launcher spoke, arranging her jacket, "No way in hell any of the Big Three would make a male Nikke. It's just not their style..." and she looked the Chief over, "He looks more like a soldier from the Old World. More advanced armor, though, that much is for sure. His weapon, though? Totally something we'd still be using today, too."
"Hm," The man without armor looked at the Chief, "Well, Chief, welcome to Earth, I suppose..."
The SPARTAN nodded, though he felt shook at the fact that this was, in fact, Earth. He looked around for a moment and was about to speak, but just as he was about to, he noted the multitude of contacts appearing on his Motion Tracker. He spoke sternly, voice emotionless, "We've got incoming. About four dozen. Ground troops, it seems..." as he aimed his rifle.
The other girls around nodded, with the one with the black uniform ordering, "Return to 08, Commander. We'll hold the line here with the Master Chief," as she dropped a half-empty magazine from her rifle and slapped a fresh one in. She looked to the Chief as the man in the brown uniform slowly walked back to the building, then asked, "How well can you fight?"
"Well enough," He replied rather modestly as he kept tracing the area ahead with his assault rifle. She hummed, nodded and aimed forward as well. They watched as the combat drones emerged down the main street, almost a hundred of'em. Though, behind these mass-produced, common-face drones, a massive one stomped forward. Four-legged, with what looked to be shielded missile launchers on two stubby arms next to its oculus and a generator of some kind at the top, the machine was about twice as tall as the Chief.
"Dammit..." The grenadier murmured, "Rapi, we got one with a shield..."
"Keep it busy, Anis. Break its shield if you can, so Product 08 can snipe it..." The black-uniformed one replied, racking the bolt of her rifle. She looked to the Chief and stated, "We'll flank it!" before nodding to the others. The MG-carrying humanoid machine opened fire, bursts of heavy machine gun fire striking the line of enemy drones, tearing into them like a hot knife through butter. The grenadier girl smirked and fired three of her six grenades.
Chief took this as his starting pistol, Cortana noting, "I think you've figured out by now, but aim for the red oculus! They'll die the moment you break it!" as the man charged forward to the left, while 'Rapi' took the right side, her long, strawberry-blonde hair flowing like waves. She hefted her assault rifle and opened fire, high-caliber rounds striking the enemy line as she and the Chief charged forward at the same speed. The mass of enemy UGVs noticed them and spun about, their guns roaring to life in a staccato fussilade.
Both pincered the machine just as it activated the shields. The grenades landed, flashes of white that washed the enemy vanguard with shrapnel and broke them. The enemy's energy shield flickered in front of it, a scarlet-glimmering, translucent barrier far too familiar to the Chief and Cortana. Rapi hummed as she watched the SPARTAN, then pounced on a wall and jumped over the enemy's shield, firing right at its top.
Its rocket launchers opened and returned fire, a volley of missiles damn near catching Rapi in flight. She landed with a roll behind the machine, rockets impacting and detonating around her, gusts of wind and the heat-blast kicking up shattered, superheated concrete and fracturing the few remaining windows of buildings around. Chief spun about as he made it past its shields, rolled to the side as enemy explosives struck.
Three more fragmentation grenades splashed against the enemy's forward shield, breaking it. A snap-pop echoed through the firing of the enemy drones, Chief tanking bullets as best he could. The bullet struck the machine's armor, giving it a chink, but nothing more. Rapi ran up to the Chief and said, "That's their leader! That Rapture has slaved most of the other drones to it!" As she kicked a drone down and filled it full of lead. Chief nodded and thumbed his last two grenades, tossing them into the crowd.
"So, we kill it..." He spoke, looking at the machine.
"And the entire horde dies. Once linked to a central high-processing power unit, they'll die if it dies..." Rapi replied, then pulled a grenade from her belt and slid it into the elongated launcher tube she had on her rifle. "You take out its legs, I'll put a grenade in its maw..." She stated. Chief nodded, racked the bolt of his rifle, then led the way forward.
Bullets snapped through the air, striking the beast's legs and back. it spun about toward the Chief as the man charged toward it, before aiming what looked to be its oculus at him. A beam of scarlet flared from its maw, striking the SPARTAN's shields. Cortana gasped and redirected as much power as she could into them, before barking, "MOVE!" at the SPARTAN, her voice booming over the speakers in the helmet. The Chief rolled off to the side as his shields finally collapsed, before Cortana stated, "That was a Neutron Beam! If it had broken through your shields, it might've actually melted your armor, or turned you into soup inside it! We need to be careful, Chief! This isn't home anymore!"
The SPARTAN grunted in approval, reeling from the hit himself, his stomach churning. He squelched the thoughts and put aside the uncomfortable feeling, then peeked up over the cover, watching as the machine turned its focus on Rapi. Around it, its comrades exploded in flame or died, eviscerated by bullets and sniper fire. Distracted as the beast was, it meant the SPARTAN could do something a little reckless.
"Chief, what're you doi-" Cortana started, then gasped.
The SPARTAN did that something reckless. Jumping to his feet, he opened fire on the remaining Drones guarding the big one, charging through them like a bull through a china shop. Jumping, he slammed his foot on top of one of the smaller drones, utilizing it as a step-off point to boost himself up on top of the beast. Landing on top of it, he grabbed an exposed seam with one hand, then aimed his rifle with the other. He opened up.
The 7,62 FMJ rounds punched through the thin top plate of the machine, digging through what seemed to be both metal and flesh intermixed into a gruesome display of biomechanical body horror. The machine bucked and seemed to let out a scream for help, one that Cortana felt as she whined, stating "So loud..." as she grabbed onto her head, "They're..."
Once Chief saw the Oculus appear, its faint scarlet shine peering at him, he holstered his rifle and slammed his fist through the remaining gunk, punching clean through the machine's central core and shattering it. He dismounted it, jumping off and landing on his feet, before watching the beast collapse, its rocket launchers firing prematurely and detonating inside. Shrapnel washed the confused horde of machines around him as they, too, collapsed without their leader.
Then, all was silence.
The women and their commander walked up to him, sans for Rapi, who was already there. All of them stared, mouths agape, at the Supersoldier that sat beside the remains of his prey. The grenadier girl arranged her exposed bra, then grinned and said, "That was badass, man... Who taught you moves like that?" All while the white-haired girl behind her seemed giddy as hell, her glasses glowing. The two girls in powered armor, one with a sniper and the other with the MG, sat behind them. The sniper girl was more slim, with white hair, thinner armor and a rifle that looked like something out of ONI's Materials Group's better designs.
"I'm with Anis, man! That was awesome!" Their Commander grinned, taking his cap off to reveal a young man with short black hair and dark-green eyes. He added, "I've never seen a human move like that. Hell, Nikkes barely move like that out here. That some kinda limiter you have on that, by the way, Rapi?" and he looked to the girl, who seemed less than impressed. Cortana chuckled at the excitement.
Rapi cleared her throat and the entire group straightened up. She sighed deeply, then looked to the Commander and said, "Commander... It'd probably be best to do introductions first."
"Right..." He nodded, then sighed and looked to Chief, "Sorry about that, Chief, I get a little excited when I see new tech and... Just us doing good in general..." And he saluted crisply, "I'm Commander Alyosha Harris, part of the Armed Forces of the Ark Central Government's multipurpose combat team 'Counters', a newly-formed unit. These are the Nikkes I command and my comrades in arms," and he motioned to them.
"Tactical unit Rapi, from Elysioni. Good to meet you, Master Chief." The black-uniformed girl stated, slinging her heavy rifle over her shoulder by the strap.
"Grenadier Anis. of Tetra Line, Howdy," The girl smirked and gave a mock salute.
"Neon, of Elysion! Squad Firepower provider!" The white-haired one waved, a smile on her face, glasses glimmering weirdly in the light, "I like your equipment, Master Chief!"
"Units 08 and 12, of Missilis. We are mass produced Nikkes," The Sniper stated for both herself and the Machine Gunner. The SPARTAN took in the colorful squadron of characters ahead of him, the most poignantly soldier-like out of the lot being the two women clad in Power Armor similar to him. Whatever Nikkes were, these girls clearly had an odd fashion sense.
"Cortana?" Chief asked, a hint worried about these new contacts, these 'non-human' humanoids.
"Hm?" The AI giggled, "I'm already on it, John, don't worry... Until then, let's just hear out what they have to say, alright?"
"Chief, sorry to ask you this so suddenly," The Commander started, "But we were redirected from our original mission to retrieve you. The Ark's sensors detected a massive radiation spike and pinged you when you came around, so we figured you were what we were sent after... Don't worry, though," He chuckled calmly upon noting the minor change in the SPARTAN's posture, "Another team took over for us. Command already knows about you, seeing as 08 and 12 contacted them and I confirmed... And they wanna talk to you back at the Ark."
He paused. He probably should've expected that the High Command of this military unit of 'Nikkes', whatever they may be, would want to talk...
.... It was still concerning, though....