//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: A Noble Death // by LSTS Connor //------------------------------// The feeling of consciousness began to return to the sleeping Spartan. The buzz of an empty radio frequency and the crackle of faintly burning embers filling the silence of Six’s camp. Faint sounds of birds flying overhead could be heard as Six gently began to open her eyes. Her visor's field of vision was completely covered in black and white thread. Yawning, Six moved her head upright revealing that it was her tail which was covering her visor. It seems that during that night six had tucked her head right against her barrel and subsequently her tail. Six chuckled slightly at the mental image of a hyper lethal and battle-hardened Spartan sleeping like a common house cat before getting up fully. After briefly stretching the knots out of her body, Six looked towards the glowing embers of her campfire before kicking some nearby sand onto them, extinguishing it. The sound of empty radio frequencies was still audible inside Six’s helmet, prompting her to turn it off. If she hadn’t got any response after 8 hours, she wasn’t going to get one now over her radio. Moving to the edge of her makeshift camp, Six scouted for any points of interest. The smoke was back on the horizon to her south-east and the lights of civilization were no longer visible without the help of a night sky. Six estimated that the trek into the visual range of the town/city would take roughly two hours from what she could tell. Once Six has a line of sight to the town she would scout it out first, making sure it was either A: Filled with a bunch of lazy ass ONI Operatives who couldn’t use a radio to save their lives from behind their cushy desk jobs. Or B: Occupied by Covenant forces. And the unlikely third option. C: Filled with aliens that looked like her or vice versa. Personally she was hoping for option B, oh how she wanted to make the Covenant pay for not killing her properly. Now with nothing left for her to take with, she abandoned her makeshift camp, once again trekking through the desert towards civilization… or the Covenant, either option worked for the Spartan turned alien. Two hours of walking later it became obviously clear that Six’s estimates were off...way off. But on the plus side, however, she had found a river. The sandy environment around her turned into a lush green forest instead. It was a welcome change of scenery for the Spartan, she had been in enough barren wastelands on Reach. Unfortunately, the river was blocking her path. There were no obvious land bridges in visual range and she didn’t want to waste any time looking if a bridge was located somewhere. The river was a clear blue and moving rather calmly. The perfect conditions for a crossing, but first things first as Six hadn’t drunk anything for a while now.  Without her cantine, gathering some water for later wouldn’t be possible but as for right now, Six needed to drink something. Although Spartans are able to be effective longer than normal humans without food or water, they still had their limits and Six was reaching hers. The water was running down from a nearby mountain into presumably a nearby ocean or lake meant it was fresh and as such safe for consumption by the Spartan. Quickly checking her motion tracker and it coming up empty, Six removed her helmet. Another hiss of her armor’s pressure seal being broken, scared a few nearby curious critters into hiding, as Six bent her head down to the running water before eagerly beginning to drink her fill. It might have just been dehydration speaking but it was the most satisfying quenching of thirst Six had ever experienced. Her eyes widening after the first droplet reached her mouth. The freshness of the water combined with the abundance of minerals not found in the standard-issue water rations was simply Dev-. That’s when Six realized something was wrong. It was quiet, deathly so. The sounds of birds chirping in nearby trees were gone. The only sound about being the running water and Six’s eager gulps of said water. A predator was stalking her.  Ceasing in her drinking of the river water, Six swiveled her ears focusing her hearing whilst slowly grabbing her helmet. Six was careful not to make any sudden movements before she got her helmet on. Keeping her head low to the water, Six equipped her helmet. Checking her motion tracker she saw a greyed out marker to her left. Slowly pulling out her knife and getting into a low combat stance, she changed the target's motion tracker marker to red. Now facing the direction of the hostile she saw a rustling come from the nearby bushes. The animal stalking her now realizing it had been made, moved out of its hiding place revealing itself to its prey. ‘The hell are you?’ Thought Six as the creature fully revealed itself to the Spartan. It was big, much bigger than her and looked like a mish-mash of a Lion, bat, and scorpion if the wings and tail were anything to go by.  It growled and snarled aggressively at its prey, it’s claws extended, green venom dripping from its tail, his sharp teeth glinting in the sun at the Spartan in front of it. For the manticore, this pony seemed like an easy kill, as it lowers itself into an attack stance as well. It was a stare off before both creatures began to slowly circle each other, their stances held low. The Manticore growling and snarling in an attempt to intimidate its prey. Six however was as calm as ever, her eyes studying the Manticores every movement and weakness she could exploit. The wind was calm, a few stray leaves falling in-between them before being dragged off by the surrounding breeze.  The sounds of armored hooves hitting the ground and the manticores snarls filling the air.  They both stopped in their circling, neither of them backing down. A fight was inevitable now, but a question still remained unanswered. Who was the predator and who was the prey? With a violent roar, the manticore pounced at Six at a blinding speed intent on ending this fight in a single blow. Already anticipating such an action, Six waited until the last second before rolling off to the side. Narrowly avoiding the manticore’s attack before slashing at the creature’s hind legs eliciting a howl of pain from the creature. Snarling in rage the manticore swung his tail, catching the Spartan off guard as her shield’s flared from the impact before getting thrown several feet away. Hitting the ground with a small roll, Six used her momentum to land back on her hooves. Her shields had taken minor damage and she would not be underestimating that tail again as the manticore turned to face her once again, limping very slightly from her attack, before charging at her. Dodging, Six once again avoided the manticore’s sharp claws as they slashed against the ground where she once stood.  Not wanting this fight to drag on any longer, Six jumped at the manticore’s now exposed neck using her agility to climb up onto the manticores back. Thrashing wildly, the manticore tried to throw the Spartan off only managing to knock the knife out of Six’s grip causing it to fall to the ground with a thump. Six held around the manticore's neck even tighter,  intent on trying to either break its neck or choke it out. This did nothing as the manticores gave off another enraged snarl before trying to stab the Spartan with his tail.  He hit his mark as the Spartans shield’s flared gold once again, only to immediately cry out in pain as the still intact shield began burning his stinger. With Six unable to choke the manticore out and her shields now at half strength she would need to get creative.  Her knife now somewhere on the ground and the manticores thrashing getting ever stronger she wouldn’t be able to stay up there for much longer unless… Flaring her wings out to their full length Six kicked herself off of the manticores back up into the sky. The combined strength and weight of the spartan jumping off the manticore slammed it into the ground, kicking up dirt and breaking a few of the creature’s ribs leaving it dazed. Now above the manticore, Six reoriented herself head first, before pulling her wings in front of her face, razor-sharp feathers facing outwards. Before long gravity began to take its course, pulling the Spartan back towards the ground. ‘I hope this works!’ Thought Six as she came falling onto the manticore below her, her sharp feathers creating a low whistling sound as air rushed past them. The sound of flesh and bone being cut tore through the surrounding air, as a gurgled roar escaped the manticores bleeding moar before collapsing to the ground, dead. Six let out a relieved breath from atop the now dead manticore before pulling her now blood-soaked feathers from the manticores back. Jumping off of the corpse, Six got a good look at her handiwork before glancing back at her still flared wings.  ‘Well... I guess there is another use for you bad boys after all’ She thought with a small smile and laugh looking at her extended limb, her feathers now no longer black but a dark crimson. She was definitely noting that technique down for later as it basically made her into a living missile. A consequence of this, however, would be the sudden literal bloodbath her armor was subjected to. Now with that out of the way, and thirst now no longer an issue for the Spartan, Six looked for the shallowest part of the river to ford it.  She debated on taking some meat with her for later but decided against it as if she were spotted by someone whilst holding a slab of meat under her wings would be the textbook definition of ‘a bad situation to be in after changing species when dealing with an unintentionally xenophobic race’. She did, however, consider maybe taking some samples for the local biologists as Six didn’t recognize this species and it could be one that had yet to be discovered by the local scientists but decided against it. Finding out which planet she was on came first, before discovering new species. The hum of her shield regenerating back to full strength brought Six’s mind back to the issue of fording this river before picking up her discarded knife as it glinted in the sun nearby. Sheathing it, Six began walking downstream looking for such a path, and after several minutes, she found it in a nice and shallow in a calm part of the river.  Wading into the water Six slowly began to make her way across, making sure her armor was thoroughly soaked by the river washing most of the blood off of her. A red streak was now visible in the water behind her as her armor turned black once again, the blood running downstream. Having now crossed the river, Six continued on her journey once again now no longer surrounded by desert and sand but grass and trees.