“Weak.”
Kai shrugged off the hammer with ease. The chieftain stood, astonished, that a human had withstood a direct hit from his gravity hammer. That surprise slowly melted into anger, however; yet another human had stopped his kill.
The admiral dropped the sheathed energy sword to his feet, reaching for his gravity hammer, still attached to his back. He turned to face the foe. With his right arm he unslung the brute shot, shield shimmering in the bathed glow of the floating Forerunner symbols. Kai hissed a threat at his opponent.
The brute, having neared so close to two kills but failed, roared a challenge and swept with the axe end of his hammer. Kai hopped back, just out of reach, before leaping forward with his own hammer. The chieftain twisted away from the attack, then struck him with the butt of the weapon. Kai retaliated with the brute shot, parrying the close-range strike, before firing at point-blank.
The blast sent both of them in opposite directions, shields flaring brightly. No sooner had they hit the ground did they reestablish their stance, and jumped into the fray anew.
Kai fared much better than Viper did; his strikes were able to nick the edges of the brute armor, flaring and chipping away at his shields. The chieftain, however, failed to land any hits on Kai; any that did thudded harmlessly on the brute shot.
Aura, Bertha, Crackshot and Eagle sprinted to their fallen captain. Aura planted a drop shield to heal the wounds; Viper slowly recovered in the blue dome. Eagle, Crackshot and Bertha posted on the perimeter of the shield, suppressing any enemy firing at their position. A grunt tossed a plasma grenade, but shrieked with horror as it bounced off of the drop shield perpendicularly, and had only a second to worry about the blue glowing ball in his face before it exploded.
Eagle commented, “Does that count as a self-teabag?”
Crackshot groaned with disgust at the statement, and whacked the crude lieutenant on the side of the head with her needle rifle.
“Ow!” Eagle exclaimed, cradling his head. “Son of a bitch!”
Viper, still struggling to stand, groggily got to his feet, picking up the disposed energy sword. He glared at the duel occurring at a distance, their weapons clashing, sparks singeing the paved floor, pulses forming small craters upon impact.
“Sir,” Aura said, “you’re still too weak to stand. Please, wait until you’re fully–“
“I am not weak!” Viper growled.
With rage alone, he grabbed his shotgun and ran from the protection of the drop shield, directly into the fight. Slightly stumbling in his sprint, he fired successively and rapidly, hitting both combatants with buck shot in his recklessness. Kai and the chieftain backed away from the gunshots, letting their shields take the brunt of the assault. The brute produced a concussion rifle from his belt, and fired a shot each at Kai and Viper.
Kai deflected it with his brute shot, the shield still unwavering to the barrage of attacks. Viper sidestepped the shot meant for him, his pace unchanged. He got up to the chieftain with blinding speed, too fast for the brute to respond, and pumped two rounds right into his chest, the last two rounds in his shotgun. The first drained his shields; the second sent blood splattering from both the front and the back of the brute.
The chieftain grunted in pain as he weakened, but his eyes still glowed with hate and a glimmer of life; he reached for his hammer and swung wide again with the plasma end. Viper instinctively reached for his sword and parried the blade away with a clash. With one mighty spin, the captain swept his blade around, and cleaved the chieftain clean in two.
The brute roared a dying moan as he dropped into his own blood.
The remnants of the army, a few grunts and jackals littered across the great cavern, screamed at the sight of their murdered leader and ran in every direction. Viper, victorious, slumped to his knees, drained. His breathing was ragged; he removed his helmet, and coughed up blood.
Kai ordered, “Crackshot, Eagle, take out the rest of them.”
“Aye, sir,” was the response, and the two set out in opposite directions.
Despite the shrieks and yells of the frightened ranks-and-files, which resounded off of the far walls of the cavernous room, the team was eerily quiet. Aura and Bertha ran to the captain, and Aura planted another drop shield around him. The blue glow again began to recover his wounds.
Kai fired a warning shot to a small group of grunts, huddled behind a fallen pillar, before walking toward Viper. He dropped the gravity hammer, its lights dim from sparse energy. He stopped short of the healing barrier of the drop shield.
He looked down on the wounded soldier, arms crossed and brute shot slung.
“Well,” Kai stated matter-of-factly, “I suppose you’re not as weak as I thought you were.”
Viper raised his head, a bloody mark on his cheek from an injury clearly visible. He glared into the hollow visor sockets of Kai. The admiral seemed expressionless behind the skull helmet. Viper gasped and doubled over, and gritted his teeth as new pangs washed over his torso.
“Keep him in check.” Kai ordered Aura. He turned to Bertha. “Retrieve the relic.”
Bertha hesitated, looking back and forth between Kai and Viper. She finally stood up, and went to get the Forerunner artifact.
The artifact, a roughly shaped yet elegantly crafted stone, had veins of glowing energy along the length of the rock. It was made of the same faded metal as the structure it was built in, a matte gray. As Bertha picked it up, the light emissions seemed to intensify temporarily. The shields of the six soldiers reacted violently, before flaring out and dying.
“Slight neutrino burst.” Bertha reported. “It’s gone now, but I don’t know if it will trigger again.”
“Should be fine.” Kai responded. He ran to Bertha and took the artifact from her hand, analyzing it. When he was finished, he carelessly tossed the rock back to Bertha, who fumbled the unexpected throw for a second. “Corey, gather the coordinates to base. We teleport in five. We’ll study the artifact back there.” He turned to the scattered troops across the field. By now, Crackshot and Eagle have finished off the remaining resistance, reloading their weapons. “If you want to scavenge, now’s your chance.”
As their shields recovered, Bertha strode back to the captain, whose wounds had been repaired somewhat. After a short conversation with Aura, she assumed a guarded position near the captain, while Aura ran to a cluster of grunt corpses, searching for a new plasma pistol and some needler ammunition. Crackshot picked up more needle rifle ammo from a slain brute. Eagle scanned the cavern for another sniper rifle, to no avail. The admiral retrieved two concussion rifles and an unmodified brute shot, inspecting its condition, before rendezvousing with the others where Viper laid.
“Can you stand?” Kai asked the captain.
With effort, Viper picked himself up off the floor, leaning on Bertha for support. His breathing was still labored, but his bloodied wounds had coagulated and repaired.
“Good enough.” Kai said, shrugging. “Corey, fire it up.”
Bands of golden light surrounded each of them as they were deconstructed particle by particle as they traveled through the Halo transportation system. As the bands of light engulfed Viper, his eyes suddenly widened.
‘My energy sword was depleted before…’ he realized. ‘How did…’ He looked at Kai, but could not discern anything as the teleportation took hold.
In mere seconds, they disappeared, and the only trace of their presence was the scattered remains of an army assigned to guard a Forerunner artifact.