Halo: Stranded

by The R0fl Guy


Happy Nightmare Night

Happy Nightmare Night

“Chief, time to get up. Now.” Within seconds of Cortana saying it, Chief was wide awake and staring into the blackness of the Dawn's hangar.

“What's wrong?” He asked as he turned his helmet lights on.

“Can't you hear it? Look outside.” She replied worriedly. Chief got up to go look at what she was talking about, when he heard the engines of what could only have been a Covenant cruiser entering the atmosphere. Knowing what was about to happen, Chief grabbed his bag of ammo and weapons, replacing the sniper rifle on his back, and moved to the hangar door. Bright sunlight extended into the ship, notifying that it was around midday.

Upon exiting the hangar, Chief's visor adjusted to the amount of sunlight that flooded over him. As he walked out from under the aft section of the hangar, something crossed the path of the sun, completely blocking it out. Chief looked up, and saw the worst sight he could have imagined. It wasn't a cruiser, it was a Covenant Capital Ship, the worst possible thing, next to High Charity or Truth's Dreadnought.

As Chief continued looking at it, he noticed something was wrong with the massive ship. It was horizontal to the planet, floating closer and closer to the ground in a Covenant crafts typical vertical descent, but it didn't look as if it planned on stopping. It was also leaning forward on a dangerous looking angle.

During an invasion, a Capital Ship would usually hover several hundred meters above ground and provide supplies, troops and vehicles, while the cruisers and destroyers glassed and bombarded everything. This ship, however, continued descending at a frightening speed. It also looked like it was in severe disrepair, smoke funneled out of every crevice and crack in the ships hull, and it was even on fire in a few areas. Chief figured it was touching down to make repairs, until he and Cortana noticed something.

"That smoke... it can't be." Cortana said in disbelief.

The smoke pouring out of the ship wasn't the typical bluish-black colour of Covenant vehicles, it was green, as if it were poisonous. He had seen it before, and knew exactly what the smoke was coming from. He thought the sight of the ship alone was the worst possible thing, but he did not expect this. The Spartan was not prepared for this.

-

The two princesses, the girls, and an entire battalion of 50 royal guards marched towards the wreck of the frigate. Glad to finally be able to see their destination after twelve hours, they picked up their pace. They had to go around the Everfree forest, as going through it would have taken at least eighteen hours with fifty-eight ponies.

“It is quite large, larger than I expected it to be. I fear there may be more than just one alien, my sister.” Luna said to Celestia as she eyed the destroyed ship.

“There is a very good chance there will be more, Luna, but we are prepared this time.” Celestia replied.

“But, we told the last one we meant it no harm, and look what happe-” Luna was cut off as a deafening sound fell over everything. It was a cross between a screeching and booming sound. Everyone fell silent, as they wouldn't have been able to hear each other anyway, and watched as a shadow covered the land as far as the eye could see. High in the sky, they spotted a large object floating towards Equestria. It was a blue and silver coloured behemoth, with purple lights scattered around it. Only a few of them looked as if they were fully functioning, the others were flickering, while a few remained lit, but much more dim than the rest. The craft was also on fire, and green clouds billowed from it as it fell towards them. Could they even call it falling? It looked more like it was hovering downwards than anything.

“What is that?!” One of the guards yelled to Celestia, but she couldn't hear him over the sound the ship made as it descended towards them. She, along with everyone else, watched in awe as the craft continued its descent without stopping. As it neared the ground, they realized it was falling much too fast, even without knowing how technologically capable it was, and braced for the impact. The hook-like nose of the craft hit first because of the angle it was on, smashing more of the ground than itself to pieces. As the rest of it crashed down, the nose was eventually forced to break apart under the force of the craft, and blue flames protruded in every direction. The group of ponies were only a mile or so away from the crashing behemoth, and the impact of it smashing into the solid ground rattled their bones and threatened to snap them in half.

As the aft section of the craft came crashing down, a thick cloud of green smoke and dust rushed outwards and covered everything. It was so thick that no one was able to see their own hoof in front of them. Shortly after they were covered in the sickly green cloud, the monstrous thing had finished its decent, or crash landing, and the cloud cleared up slightly. This allowed everyone to see as normally as if it were only a thick fog around them instead of a suffocating blanket. Slowly, the ponies started gathering their bearings, and got up to make sure everyone was alright.

“Is everypony... alright?” Celestia stammered in short breaths.

“Yes, Princess...” One of the captains responded, forcing back violent coughs.

Princess Celestia, Luna and the girls were at the front of the large group, so they had the best view of the huge craft. As the cloud cleared up even more, they were able to make out strange figures in the distance. Dark silhouettes moved in every direction, running and jumping with incredible speed and height.

“Oh no, the alien brought friends!” Rainbow Dash cried as she watched all of the strange beings in the distance run and jump around.

“Celestia, what are we going to do? How many of them do you think there are?” Luna asked with a mix of panic and fear in her voice.

“I-I don't kn-” A bellowing roar cut Celestia off, causing everyone to freeze. Slowly, they all turned to look at the mass of figures that were now running towards them. Whatever the beings were, they were not like the first alien they had encountered. Some of them had huge claws, and what looked like tentacles, while others had massive arms that looked as if they could crush anything. They all had different builds and body structures, and none of them looked the same as one another. The aliens continued running towards the group at frightening speeds, the bright reflective armour of the royal guards practically beckoning to them.

“Guards, form a shield. We protect the princesses at all costs!” The same captain yelled. The guards surrounded the princesses and the girls, spears pointed outwards. The mass of aliens was only about twenty seconds away from reaching the group now, and up close, the ponies could see that the aliens were actually highly deformed. There were hundreds of them closing in, and they could see thousands more beyond the first wave. All anyone could do was stare in awe at how many of them poured out of the massive craft that had slammed into the ground not even five minutes ago.

“What are those things Captain?!” A guard cried.

“It doesn't matter, we stand and fight!” The captain answered fiercly.

“We don't even know if we can fight them, we should retreat.” Another guard said skeptically.

“There's no way we'd all outrun them, we might not even be able to out fly them, look how fast they can move!” The first guard said, “There's at least a thousand of them, do you think they're as strong as they are fast?” He added fearfully.

“Well it looks like we're about to find out, steady your spears, make sure they don't sneak around the back of us!” The captain ordered. The guards tightened up and evened out their spears, forming an impenetrable wall.

Or so they thought.

The first few aliens slammed into them with immense strength, driving past or even though the spears and knocking the guards they chose down with powerful swipes of their limbs and claws. After knocking them down, the aliens began to perform horrifying acts. They began to feed on the guards. They snapped the ponies bones like they were sticks, and began tearing through their armour and into the guards like vicious animals. The sight was horrific, and watching the things kill their guards so easily made the princesses tremble. All they and the girls could do was watch, and listen to the pained screams of the stallions. There were only a few aliens attacking them, as the rest were still running towards them, but they didn't have much time until the others caught up, and no one knew what to do, the aliens were much too strong and fast. There were thousands of the things approaching, they seemed endless, it was as if they were a living flood.

-

Chief ran through the field as fast as his legs would allow, he was hoping to get back into the forest as soon as possible so he could to put some distance between himself and the Capital Ship. As soon as he felt the impact of the ship hitting the ground though, he knew there wouldn't be enough time. He was too close to it, he would have to fight his way out. Chief had left his sniper rifle and the bag of ammo back at the Dawn so he wouldn't be as heavy, but he was still ready to stand and fight if he had to. He took as many of the MA5B magazines as he could carry, along with the Magnum and SMG magazines, and bolted from the ship. He knew his sniper would do minimum damage to a Flood combat form, as it tore a clean hole through them, instead of butchering them like a fully or semi-automatic weapon would do. Normally, his sword would be the ultimate weapon to dispatch the Flood, but not when they were in a group as large as this.

He continued running through the massive cloud, trying to evade the flood, when he heard screaming. All around him, the ponies that were watching the frigates wreck were killed and eaten. Some were even eaten alive, the Flood didn't care. He noticed some of the horses even became infected, and turned into smaller combat forms. All the more reason to get out of there, he thought. One of the larger combat forms tried tackling Chief, but he easily evaded it thanks to his motion tracker. It landed to his left, and turned to attack again. Chief drew his energy sword, and just as it flashed to life it was already slicing through the infected elites body, effectively cutting it in two.

“Run!” Cortana ordered. Chief began running again, deactivating his sword in hopes of keeping himself somewhat hidden. The cloud was thinning out a lot more now, which meant he was losing lots of cover.

He was sixty seconds from the safety of the forest when he saw them. A large group of horses, which he recognized as more of the guards, and six smaller ones and the 'princess' alicorns in the middle of them. Chief remembered how strong the white alicorn was, and decided that it might be his best chance at surviving the Flood invasion if he could get it, and maybe even the darker one, to use whatever force it used against him on the Flood. The Flood were already attacking them though, and he watched as the guards fell trying to protect the alicorns. Chief didn't have much time to act.

He drew his assault rifle, and fired.

There were only five combat forms that had reached the group, but the others were closing in fast. The five he fired at were feasting right next to each other, so all he had to do was shoot into the group. They gurgled and roared in an attempt to back away from death, but fell into a bloody heap of rotten flesh.

“Move, now!” Chief ordered the horses. That seemed to snap them back to reality. A few of the ones with wings flew away, while some of the ones with horns disappeared into thin air, leaving Chief to assume they teleported. Others tried to run, but they couldn't move fast enough, and a tank form launched through the air, landing on four of the guards and crushing them beneath its solid exoskeleton. Three more followed it, landing in the middle of the guards, and they immediately started attacking the two princesses and the horses beside them. The white one charged up its horn and released a yellow blast of what Chief thought was plasma at one of the tank forms. The blast tore it in two, and the pieces fell to the ground in a bloody mess. Chief reloaded to defend the alicorn, but it was too late.

As it charged up its horn again, an infection form climbed up its leg and onto the picture of the sun on its flank, performing the infection process. It didn't take long before the alicorn was killed, it only thrashed twice before it screamed a final scream of agony, and died.

The other two tank forms jumped at the smaller ponies, only to be redirected into each other by a purple aura.

“Princess!” Twilight yelled, calling for help, but when she saw the princess lying on the ground, bleeding from her flank, she lost all hope. So did the rest of the girls.

“Girls, the elements!” Luna yelled, before another tank form jumped at her, landing on her and crushing her under its weight. The girls couldn't do anything but watch, they were still trying to register what was happening. Unfortunately for them, the Flood were merciless, and attacked them instantly, killing them without a single thought.

“Chief, we're out of time, move!” Chief had only spent fifteen seconds attempting to save them, but instead of saving them, they were almost all dead. He turned to run when he found that he couldn't move. He was surrounded by a yellow glow. He craned his neck around to get a better look at his captor, and saw the white princess alicorn standing up and glaring at him, horn glowing a blinding white.

There was one thing very wrong though. She was infected, turned into a new type of alicorn Flood form.

Chief felt his shields flaring again, and knew what Cortana was going to do. This time though, its horn turned from a blinding white, to a sickening green. Cortana didn't have enough time to charge his shields. The alicorn fired a ball of green energy at him, hitting him square in the head and sending him flying into the ground. He was still alive, just barely.

Chief could do nothing but lay on the hard ground, and watch as the horses all around him were killed and infected. He was too wounded to move, but he could still think to himself, not for much longer though.

Chief...” He thought he heard a voice in his head, but he was slipping away fast, and his thoughts were becoming clouded.

Chief.. He thought he heard it again, this time it sounded clearer, more real. Could it be who he thought it was? His mind was too exhausted to think now.

Chief, get up now, befo-... no, Chief, no! No Human life signs left... just like Keyes, you're one of them. You're gone... Chief could no longer form any coherent thoughts, so he simply closed his eyes.

He lay there, weak and unmoving, for what felt like an eternity. Suddenly though, he felt powerful. His mind firing up again, he got to his feet, kicking into overdrive. He was alive again, but he felt strange... very strange. Chief felt hungry, something he hadn't felt in a long time. This was no normal hunger though, it felt insatiable.

“Chief? No, you're not Chief anymore...” Cortana said in a disappointed voice. She appeared in front of his visor, stopping him and causing him to stare at her in confusion. She was completely red now, the ones and zeros on her body scrolling at only a quarter the speed they normally did.

“We exist together now...” Cortana heard the familiar voice say. She immediately knew what the voice belonged to.

“He will never belong to you, you monster...” Cortana said in a defeated voice.

“But he already does, and soon, so shall you.” The malevolent voice continued, “Just like you did before.” It added eerily.

“NO!” Cortana screamed, “Not if I have anything to say about it.” and with that, Cortana activated Chief's armour lock up fail safe, stopping him dead in his tracks. This would have to work until an actual covenant battleship could track the Capital Ship, then come to glass the planet, annihilating everything on it.

You fool... The voice whispered as it faded away.

Cortana waited a few minutes, understanding that she would most likely be completely deteriorated before the UNSC found them, then said,

“It was an honour serving with you, John...”

-

As Cortana said that, Chief was jolted awake, jumping to his feet instinctively.

“Chief? Are you alright?” Cortana asked. He looked around, noticing he was still in the hangar. It was still dark out, and his mission clock only read 0247 hours.

“You were dreaming... you should go back to sleep. You'll need it.” Cortana said in a caring voice. Chief agreed, and sat back down against the wall, quickly dozing off again soon after.

“The Flood can't get you here...”