Chapter Thirteen
September 21st 2552
N'tho darted back the familiar comforting screaming of overstressed muscles rippling across his body as he ignited the short energy knife in his off hand and bisected one of the leaping terrors that scuttled out from the dark corridor as it tried to attach itself to him. Twisting his body as his feet touched the ground he let out a burst of superheated plasma into the teeming mass of monsters spilling into the room and darted back once more.
Far behind him in the back of the great hall just outside of the door leading to the exit was a loose phalanx where the Kig Yar and Unggoy had retreated too. From the gaps in the glowing shield wall bright green bolts of plasma shot into the seemingly infinite mass of horrors. In the middle of the Phalanx stood the Inquisitor and her human prisoner. The mare stood stock still with a look of detached terror on her face while her plasma pistol floated over her head firing slow methodical blasts into the teeming mass of flood as if she were at a practice range.
Outside and far away from the defensive shield wall Griffons and Sanghili danced about the room slicing, crushing and burning away the leaping terrors that survived the withering fire offered by the special operations Unggoy and Kig Yar. Masters of war born of different worlds, N’tho could hardly contain his elation at the battle, he remembered the ancient stories of the Great War of Blindness where legions of Sangheili and Equestrians fought in awesome battles that twisted and deformed the very planets that bore witness to the grand conflict leaving ruin and scares that remained over a thousand years hence.
With a growling shrek one of the corpses laid out upon the metal slabs, threw itself at N’tho from behind casting him out from his fantasies and back into the battle. Its flesh a rotting greenish yellow with organs that spilled out from the surgical cuts along its belly dangling uselessly. The room was filled with a grisly crack as he felt his arm give way under the impossible force of the unexpected attack, the arm of the former human had been warped into a parody of a whip crushing his shields and smacked into him.
N’tho let out a cry of rage and shame as he failed to keep his grip upon the plasma rifle in his hand, he found himself stumbling to the ground and rolling to the side to avoid the impossibly fast followup attack offered by the corpse. Real terrible fear kept in check by a lifetime of drills and training saw N’tho to his feet as he darted back from the impossible enemy before him, its torso had been split apart with exposed broken ribs pressed against the pulsing body of one of the scuttling flood forms filling a void it had no doubt created. Snapping and wiggling pink sensory organs spit out from the middle of the parasitical monster as the host body hung limply, puppeted by the terrible abomination.
Before it could chase him down one of the Griffons leaped with wings flaring to propel him forward and with incredible force crushed the human corpse with the butt of his rifle before darting away again to deal with the thinning trickle of small parasites. N’tho stumbled to the shield wall growling in embarrassment as it parted to allow him entry before rushing back into formation when he was though. He reassured himself that his retreat was to prevent any of his comrades from risking themselves to support him in a battle he had suddenly become unfit to fight.
“Your arm!” Twilight gasped pointing a hoof at the limb that hung limply at his side. N’tho looked down at it dazed and saw a thin spire of bone pushing out from the ruined scales of his wrist the armoured bracer ripped from his combat harness entirely.
“Nevermind me Inquisitor.” N’tho returned his energy knife to its place upon his breastplate and drew his secondary plasma rifle in his unharmed left arm. “It seems the tide is thinning, one of the small ones attached itself to a human corpse and twisted it into an abomination!”
“This Flood, I remember it from the teachings of the great journey. One of the many trials along the path. A parasite, according to what little the Prophets could glean from the texts left to us by the Forerunners. We have to warn the fleet and establish a quarantine, we cannot allow it to escape.” Twilight looked pale and N’tho ignored the bile on the ground out of respect for the mare, she was not a warrior and it was unbecoming to pass judgement upon her in the face of such a repugnant foe.
“A means to absolve humanity and another step on the great journey. Our struggles here will be a legend unrivaled!” N’tho offered the Human a smile and a laugh that was met with a withering stare the room feeling oddly silent with the strange energy felt in all soldiers when a victory was won with suspicious ease. The Flood was beaten back for now but for how long?
When Gilda arrived at the hanger she was shocked at how quiet it was. The ground was slick with blood both the bright red Equestrian and the dark blue Unggoy as well as a putrid rotting yellow slime that congealed into small heaps of pulsing rot. There was a horrible fetid scent of pus and death in the air that persisted even though her suits extensive filtering system.
Grand pires are all that remained of the utility craft and dropships that had filled the grand hanger. Spent casings from human ammunition littered the ground and in places scorches from plasma discharges told a tale of a very one sided battle. Gore, blood and ash seemed to be the only remains of a terrible slaughter that had taken place so rapidly and ended so suddenly.
“It's not the Humans Dash.” Of that she was certain, something was horribly wrong and a part of her brain was screaming at her for missing something obvious. Whatever had done this was executing a plan, storm the hanger then move on to another objective as rapidly as possible.
“What? Who else could it be? Equalists?” Several maintenance vents on the walls had been ripped open, giving a good indication as to where the mysterious attackers went.
“Where in Tartarus would an Equalist cell come from outside of the ship? It looks like whoever we are dealing with is using the vents, so lock everything down, if we can work out where they are we might be able to suffocate them.” Gilda threw herself into a shooting stance with her hand legs planted and her wings outstretched for balance as she pressed her rifle into her shoulder and scanned the jagged mess of smouldering wreckage all about her.
“Way ahead of you, all the vents converge on the biospheres anyway. The layout of this ship is a mess. You know the spheres are several decks deep? Some of them have bucking water tables! Anyway, the only place you can get from the hanger vents is a pleasure garden, but that garden connects to tons of systems and some of the other spheres too.” Gilda was about to reply when it finally occurred to her, she snapped her head about looking at the various patches of gore and blood a deep primal terror clawing at her, forceful programming written into her very bones telling her, ordering her to ready herself for battle.
“Where are the bodies?”
Jacob and Twilight stood silently as they watched the purple flame dance over the putrid flood mass and uninfected bodies. It felt wrong, disrespectful even as he had no way of knowing how the men and women wished to be laid to rest. Regardless he doubted any of them would want to be puppeted around by some alien parasite.
“It makes no sense.” The mare at his side huffed, the Grunts, Unggoy he supposed, had surprisingly offered comforting words in broken english. When he had asked Twilight she had dismissed that as a consequence of an ‘Unggoy savant’ condition.
“What?” The other Covenant seemed to be tolerating Jacob or simply humoring Twilight but even that was an opportunity he told himself. Humanity came first and if the delusional aliens would stop the genocidal war then he would do whatever it took. Surprisingly the Unicorn had proven entirely earnest in her intentions.
“Halsey and the Demon, demons. What happened to make them abandon this location? It looked like a battle had taken place but if it was the Flood surely the bodies would have been infected.” She had a point.
“It could have been a fight over Halsey murdering the poor bastards on the slabs, or something to do with the bug horse.” He shrugged turning away from the makeshift cremation good men and women who did not deserve to die.
“You honestly think she would kill them?” He turned to look at Twilight, her eyes were dull and bloodshot, tired and suffering. He felt an odd sense of gratification at seeing another person look as worn down and beaten as he felt. Not for the first time he wondered if he was entirely mentally stable or if he had succumbed to some from of stockholm syndrome or fallen for some Covenant mental conditioning. That would make much more sense then parasite aliens out of a horror movie and magical talking unicorns.
“What else could have happened here? You said yourself that it was not the Flood.” The mare looked at the ground frowning, no doubt deep in thought. He looked back at the crackling fire, the purple blaze burned with incredible uniformity working through the bodies as if it had a will of its own. It did, the thought was unwelcome but he had seen enough to believe Twilight had some sort of power and decided that magic was as good a name for it as any other.
“We need to get to the surface, a signal cannot penetrate the forerunner metal and I need to contact the fleet, they need to know that Humanity is absolved and the Flood are on the ring, we need to establish a quarantine.”
They stayed for a while until there was nothing but ash left on the ground, just blood and ash. They turned away walking towards the elevator followed by the vicious forms of the Griffon guards, the other Covenant had decided to wait on the elevator, figuring the smell of discarded waste was preferable to burning corpses. Or it might have been out of some alien respect for him it was impossible to tell.
With a flash of purple light Twilight activated the elevator and the party began to ascend, there had not been a single casualty in the fight with the flood but several of them sported lacerations or minor wounds. The group was quiet as they carefully stepped off the elevator and made their way towards the transports inside the mouth of the structure.
Without warning the deep muddy puddles just outside of the structure began to bubble and froth as mud drenched flood scuttled out from them in formidable numbers. The swamps treeline lit up in a dazzling display of green and blue bolts as well as bright yellow flashes and dozens of lumbering infected bodies began to discharge scavenged weapons wildly into the structure.
Despite the inaccurate nature of the weapons fire two Unggoy and a Kig Yar were cut down before anyone could react to the sudden and inexplicable flood ambush. Griffon guards grabbed Twilight and Jacob pulling them away from the fire and dragging them back to the elevator as the other guards threw themselves into the air to engage the flood.
N’tho despite his wound charged forward with Zuka 'Zamamee and the other Sangheili in a desperate attempt to secure the transports. Unggoy and Kig Yar threw themselves into a semblance of a defensive formation just barely fighting back the parasites securing time for the two Griffons to drag the Inquisitor and Captain away from the fighting.
“Wait! Wait, I have to contact the fleet!” Twilight activated her holographic display and manically manipulated it before screaming over the desperate firefight. “This is Inquisitor Twilight Sparkle, I have encountered the Flood! Forget about the Humans focus on the Flood! Don’t let any ship leave the surface, don’t let the Flood escape! This overrides Reclamation protocol, this overrides the crusade against the Humans they have been -Aghhhhh!”
Jacob drew his hidden pistol and fired at one of the parasites as it plunged from the shadows to cling onto Twilights back, the surprisingly large parasite form was torn apart the magnum rounds sending it flying away from the mare into a messy wet heap. Her shield had done nothing to prevent its razor sharp feelers from raking along her back and digging in to the gaps between the Nanolaminate thread but the uniform had saved her from more than superficial damage. The Unicorn lit her horn to form a bright purple shield around the four of them as blood pooled under her uniform.
“We have to get down now!” Jacob shouted at the Griffon holding him he watched the parasite forms begin to encircle the Kig Yar and Unggoy while Griffons and Sanghili darted about the battlefield in a desperate battle. A moment passed before the colossal bird nodded and let him go before activating the lift sending the four of them plunging into the darkness below.
“Kore, stop not in front of-” Markus found himself pressed against the wall the petite woman in front of him pressed against him with a giggle while the birdlike alien let out a mocking whistle in the background.
“Mark” The women’s voice was husky as she looked up into his eyes, she had an odd mix of clothes on with dress shoes, naval officer trousers and one of his own green marine shirts that hung loosely on her frame, given the rapid escape from the Pillar of Autumn some of the personnel had to borrow or repair what little clothes the survivors had available. “I need to borrow your socks!” The woman beamed a perfect smile as Markus responded with a groan.
“I only have two pairs!” He tried to keep a stern expression but found the corner of his mouth betraying him.
“Exactly! You only need to put on one at a time and mine have holes in, pleeeeease.” with a giggle his girlfriend pulled his shoulders down to give him a peck on the lips before pressing her head against his chest.
“You are on duty.” Markus almost jumped out of his skin as the imposing form of a Spartan entered the makeshift mortar pool slash prison, the tall form of James one of the engineers following behind the armoured lieutenant. Markus and Kore jumped apart and snapped to attention as the Spartan regarded them, her face hidden by the reflective helmet. “At ease, the Wrecker and I are here to interrogate the alien.”
“There should be someone on the gun at all times.” James strode forward as Kore let out a squeak and rushed to man the Warthog cannon.
Gabby’s head popped up from its position comfortably resting against her body as the pair walked in and gracefully rose to stand on all four limbs.
“Huh, a Demon, thought you would be taller. Nice arm, did a child make it or is it a museum piece?” Kat strode forward while regarding the Griffon her expression impossible to see with her helmet on but Gabby continued regardless. “Why are you bright blue? Do you only fight in tropical water? Do you have wings I can't see? I thought you were all meant to be green.”
“Your not that funny.” Kat braced herself against the long alien rifle she had carried with her.
“That implies that you find me at least somewhat amusing”
“How does this weapon function?” Kat inclined her head towards the rifle she was leaning against.
“Magic” Gabby grinned maniacally and let out a gigglesnort. “Oh no! Oh that is embarrassing, please forget I did that.”
“When the trigger is depressed it fires a blast of focused kinetic energy, the weapon will then cease to function for five secconds before it can be fired again.”
“Sounds about right, upset trigger, cessation of fun.”
“You should take this seriously alien.”
“In what world would I take you seriously cyborg?” Kat’s body tensed in barely contained rage as Gabby’s face morphed from a glare into an expression of twisted glee. “Oh found a way under your skin! If you have skin, might just be circuits and bolts under there.” Kat was about to respond when an explosion rumbled through the room and gunshots sounded out in the night.
“It's a Covenant attack!” Markus shouted looking at the Spartan for orders.
“Oh that sounds like my ride.” Gabby reached down to the chain holding the smooth black runestones around her leg and plucked one free, the round stone passing though the silver chain as if it was not there. Around her the Humans took notice and drew weapons or pointed ones they had already drawn to aim at the large prisoner.
“What are you doing?” Kat had drawn her magnum pistol and had it trained on the Griffon in case she somehow found a way past the shimmering Covenant energy shield. Gabby was looking at the rune in her talons mumbling to herself.
“Just checking its the right one, hang on its all in stupid old... Yeah I think it's the right one, won’t do anything if it's not just dust itself.” Gabby smiled at the Spartan and spread her wings as she began to glow the small stone rising from her talons, held aloft by arcane might as it began to shine with awesome grey light. “Prohibere!” As the Griffon shouted out the word a blinding flash of light shot out from the stone and it was reduced to ash, the screeching sound of a gauss cannon discharging filling the room followed by small arms fire.
Gabby chuckled as she pushed through the shimmering field of light before her, the energy shield bending around her form and gliding away like water without gravity to give it form. “Conventional defences, beating though it would have taken me a long time but forcing the little energetic particles to stay still for a little bit?” she sauntered forwards lifting a claw to scrape along the side of the metal slug discharged from the mounted cannon pointed at her makeshift cell, the deadly projectile hung in the air, frozen in place. “You don’t expect Loony to send us out with the savages without a way to make the fight unfair do you?”.
Dozens of projectiles littered the air utterly still as the Griffon rolled her neck and shoulders approaching the stunned humans. The men and women before her lowered weapons and backed away from the large lion-eagle but the single Spartan held her ground. Kat huffed in confusion as she lowered her magnum, she had fired but the rounds had only traveled a few centimeters away from the weapon before stopping, the brass casing holding still in the air where they had been ejected from the weapon.
“This is impossible, why can we still move?.” The Spartan backed away from the Griffon clipping the sidearm to her hip and hefted the rifle on her shoulder slowly circling the massive alien.
“Living things don’t behave when you tell them to stop silly.” Gabby giggled drawing her body closer to the ground in a predatory prowl while simply ignoring the other humans “Even if they probably should.” With impressive suddenness Kat twisted her body and hefted the immense Griffon rifle aiming it at Gabby’s face and discharging the weapon.
“Pfft! Haha, you didn't actually think that would work did you? I mean if you had an enchanted cartridge loaded you might have had good odds at shooting me with the spell in effect but just spitting the rifles charge at me? Hand over the rifle and I will be on my way, no need to get the bolts knocked out of you cyborg.” The Spartan in question simply discarded the rifle onto the ground, only for the colossal weapon to hang in the air and drew her magnum and knife.
“This ‘spell’ stops the round after it has traveled for a few centimeters, I wonder what a contact shot will do.”
“Too clever for your own good.” The pair moved faster then they had any real right too, Gabby rearing up and kicking off the ground to add momentum to a downward swipe of her deadly talons and the Spartan throwing herself forward with enough force to dent the ancient metal floor. The opening move of the fight showed Kat the faster and Gabby was forced to abandon her attack and twist to the side with a magically enhanced flap of her colossal wings to avoid the powerful stab threatening her stomach.
Shedding momentum as she skidded across the ground Gabby threw herself back into the fight slamming an open palmed talon into Kats elbow as the Spartan attempted to keep her away with a quick swipe causing the room to flare a bright yellow as the Spartan’s shielding attempted to bleed away the incredible force of the Griffon attack and almost failed utterly. Forced to twist to the side Kat dropped the magnum pistol and threw her body into a savage punch sending the cybernetic limb into Gabbys face with a terrible crack that sent the bird reeling in a daze.
Seizing the opportunity Kat threw her body forward once more grasping her knife in both hands putting all of her strength and mass into a single attack against the Griffon. Near blind red filled her vision Gabby let out a shrieking battlecry and grasped the arms of the Spartan desperately holding her at arms length, mechanical servos, formidable strength and fading magical enchantments fought each other to a standstill the Griffon and Spartan pushed fruitlessly against each other.
With creaking bones and screaming muscles Gabby found an advantage and forced the Spartan back a step, with the upper hand the lion eagle snapped her head back and with another predatory screech threw her head forward slamming her beak into the reflective helmet before her.
The helmet gave way shattering, forcing Kat to stagger back and slaken her arms as her nose was crushed. Gabby hefted the stunned Spartan and threw her across the room staggering somewhat as she blinked the blood from her eyes.
“Heh, they call that the Griffon kiss.” Gabby slurred, her left eye was intact but was a stark red around her iris. “Well I do, did, just now. You have quite the arm on you cyborg.” Kat pulled the ruined helmet from her head and threw it away only for it to hang in the air after it left her hands. The Spartians face was ruined, shards from her helmet dug into her skin and she had more of a bloody bruise then a face but with a silent glare she rose to her feet in a single smooth motion and assumed a fighting stance.
Twisting about suddenly a bright green flash filled the room Gabby could only gasp in shock and let out a screech.
“Chan-” a dark green bolt of light struck her it sent the weakened griffon to the ground unconscious. The moment Gabby touched the ground every projectile shot forward impacting the walls and floor in an awesome cacophony of sound and destructive force.
But the world was quiet for Markus. The man shook as he held the rifle to his shoulder aiming where Kore had been standing, in her place was a mockery of the human form. It had two legs, two arms, a head and a somewhat feminine form but its eyes where a directionless glowing blue, long deadly fangs protruded from its mouth. It held up its arms in surrender but one of them still glowed the dark green light that had knocked out the Griffon, pits and holes dotted its arms and light shone through the dull, dark insectoid carapace.
“M-mark, please put down the gun.” The thing had the audacity to use Kore’s voice but with an insectoid edge.
“Where is Kore! What have you done with her!” Markus felt his voice crack as he jabbed the rifle at the thing in front of him.
“I am Kore!”
“Your an alien!”
“No! I am Human! Check my blood, check a computer. ONI general order green three fou-”
“Shut up!” The insectoid thing calling itself Kore squeaked in fear.
“Please don’t kill me, I had to stop the Griffon. Mark please.” Markus could feel warm water dripping from his chin as he shook his head, finger tightening on the trigger.
A huge thank you to PrincessLaLa for helping with editing!
I suppose since Gabby is half lion that makes this a... Kat fight. 
The holey socks were foreshadowing! 
Love at first fight? 
Thank you for reading, if you are enjoying my story please give me a like, If you would like to help out with editing please send me a private message!
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Well that’s just plain tragic. Umm author do you realize that even just an injury from the flood causes complete infection. All it takes is a single flood cell. You just killed twilight.
9842770
Don't worry I did my homework
ONI has changelings? Well this just got a whole lot more interesting. Poor Gabby just had her one chance at escape blown, they'll probably shave her looking for more tricks now.
9842825
I hope Chief is going to blow the ring up just like in the game.
If the humans have been pardoned why is keys still referred to as a prisoner?
Kat fight
[groans]
.....
Lol AWESOME chapter dude. Kinda sucks twilight was not able to get out that humans were absolved, but cant any of the survivors that didn't go with twilight and keys tell everyone? Thou I guess that depends if anyone escaped.
9842770
This is both true and not true at the same time.
Going purely by lore, we know that 1 cell would be enough to compromise anyone who doesn't naturally have an immunity (see sgt Johnson)
But on the other hand as this is played very loosely even within the games, which are cannon. HW 2, the final cinematic of return of the nightmare, has several brutes walking wily nilly in the middle of enough Flood to turn you just from the fumes alone, yet they are completely unconcerned as they take of their masks while literally bathed in Flood biomass.
It is clear that Flood infection while lethal and horrible is not absolute in every case and it varies based on the subject and the will of the authors.
Simply put in Halo artistic license trumps deadly biological plagues
9842770
Hehehe
No! MARK DON'T DO IT!! DAMN YOU CLIFFHANGERS!!!!!!!
9843196
Next chapter soon, sorry for leaving you on the edge for so long!
Thank you for the comment, indeed any survivor could inform others of Humanities absolution but I am sure you can speculate as to how effective that would be.
9848272
9866961
Thank you, I did not set out to tell a conventional Halo story. This idea has been in my mind for so long that it's almost a relief to get it out there. I am having a blast playing around with the power structures, motivations and conflicts. Happy to have you along for the ride and I hope you enjoy the next chapter!
9867047
But there would be some effect, minor as it might be. Xd