Spartan Saga: Rise and Fall

Spartan Saga

Chapter Two – Redeemer [Part One]



John stood in the middle of the solid circular platform made of the familiar energy the Forerunners used in their ring worlds. As it descended down the dark shaft, the ride seemed to take a long time; but to him, he didn’t have all the time in the world to stand there to wait for the energy platform to end. Maybe there were another way in the Ark’s control room, and this wasn’t exactly the right direction to it. Damn if only he knew and if only Cortana were still here with him.

He finally saw the bottom he could see through the energy platform. After several seconds, the platform he was standing on disappeared, leaving him standing firmly on solid ground. The Master Chief looked straight ahead where a catwalk with no railings on either side was about a foot away from him. On the other side of the footbridge was a door with a glowing symbol similar to what he saw on the Halo Installations.

Checking his motion-sensor, and again, finding nothing at first. They had to know he was getting closer, and he was expecting some kind of trap. He grabbed for his SMG while he cautiously approached the bridge. There went a faint sign of an enemy, and a flutter of wings up above that made him smile a little with amusement - Drones. They were like Grunts, cowards, but when they were in a group, they were dangerous to marines and himself with those Plasma Pistols and Needlers. He gripped the SMG, readying his trigger-finger to fire when they finally had the nerve to show themselves.

If there were one Drone, there were always more of them to shoot and kill. He was half-way across the bridge, and then there came the sound of their wings coming closer and closer, and followed by more of the same sound.

The Drones flew in from above, and watched as the Spartan walked across the catwalk to get to the other side. They swooped closer, circling around him, but wanting to make sure they were between him and the door to the massive temple room their leader was. One Drone that was the leader, commanded to the others to attack, and then all of them started firing at John with green orbs and pink needles.

Spartan-117 continued to walk across carefully but quickly. He fired back little-by-little with his SMG at each of the alien bugs as he held onto the Brute Shot with his other hand. One Drone swooped down closely in front of him, and he quickly brought up the Brute Shot, and slashed it across the face with the blade. The Drone screeched as he hammered the butt of the SMG in the top of its skull, and then the alien fell dead onto the catwalk. He stepped on it as he kept on, nearly crushing the alien's corpse while he shot another dead after several rounds of fire.

The needles and plasma fire came down on him like a downpour of rain when more Drones joined in on the fight against the Spartan. Some missed as the Master Chief hurried along now, glancing every now and then at his shields meter in his HUD, but many needles and plasma were connecting and bring his shields down. The Drones continued to fly above to get the best angle to try taking him out, and never letting up. Nearing to the end of the catwalk, John gritted his teeth as he stared at the door to the next entrance in determination.

A couple of Drones landed in his way, and two more behind him; firing endlessly. His shields were screaming a warning in his ears as it neared empty. He pulled the trigger and held it as he sprayed the bullets at the two in the front of him, and stepped over the bloody mess rather quickly, and almost slipping in their blood. He continued his flight, regaining his balance in the process, and jumped three feet across the bridge and then landed about four feet from the end. Turning around, he returned fire at the other Drones until the SMG was empty. He turned back around to head toward the end of the bridge with them still firing at his back. He let out a gasp just when the last of his shields dissipated, and practically flew toward the door, which opened as it sensed him. Running inside the corridor, the door closed shut as they continued to fire, but didn't follow him inside. Breathing hard, he laid the Brute Shot on the ground, looked around as he removed the empty clip in his SMG and then snapped a new clip in.

John looked down the corridor, and saw a bright yellow light up ahead. After catching his breath, he could hear a faint voice in where the bright light was located.

'Must be Truth,' thought the Master Chief. He started to walk down toward the end of the corridor after picking the Brute Shot and holstering the SMG.







Inside the large temple-like room, Truth, along with six Brutes, three Jackals, and a small group of Drones were all in their places guarding the Prophet while he spoke to them his final speech of the Great Journey. The Brutes with what the Elite Honour Guards wore, stood silently on the many steps where the entrance was, and were all armed with the spears, Brute Shots, and their own version of the Plasma Rifles in hand. The Jackals were located up in the balconies with their sniper rifles, and the Drones were scattered about, hidden up in the rafters. The room was brightly lit, and looked similar to the other activation rooms on the installations. In the middle, was a pulse beacon that was off, or so it may seem.

Truth gazed at the Brutes, talking loudly for all to hear. “...The end has come,” he said, “Our salvation we have been waiting for after fighting for so long is finally here...”

Truth paused, turning around in his floating chair, slipped in a key they found before heading to the activation room into the slot of the control panel. A few seconds later, the pulse generator behind him turned on, followed by the ground above sliding open that shook the ground and the whole temple. After it finished opening a gigantic wide hole showing the sky, a bright pulsing blue ray of light started to shoot out. Truth watched it with happiness, almost mesmerized by the light as it waited to be activated to send a signal to the remaining Halos.

John felt a large tremor, and he pressed his hands against the walls on either side of him to brace himself while the ground shook. He waited until the tremor stopped a couple of minutes later, and when he continued onward down the hall, he saw the same bright blue light Truth and his guards watched, but he watched it more with wide eyes in trepidation instead of being mesmerized by it.

'Shit,' he thought, running quicker now down the hall. He stopped when he got to the end, and peered out for a moment to see the Brutes had their backs turned, watching Truth as they waited, but couldn't see any other guards.

On both sides of the steps the Brutes were standing on were gaps down into darkness, which was one thing he had to be cautious of when fighting them to get to Truth. He headed out from the doorway, and cautiously and as quietly as he could, he went down the steps with the Brute Shot held in his hands to the first Brute.

John went up to the Brute, and slashed the blade deep into its back, almost severing the spine. He then grabbed its mouth with his free hand while the Brute let out a surprise yelp of pain. The other Brutes suddenly whirled around, startled from his unannounced appearance, and the Prophet of Truth stared at him in shock.

As they watched him snap the Brute’s neck in one quick motion of twisting its head back father than it could, he threw the beast off over the ledge of the stairs; the body disappearing into the darkness. They growled in anger and started at the Spartan with their weapons aimed.

The Master Chief prepared himself for the clash, but when Truth held up his hand, he shouted with authority in his voice to the Brutes.

“Do not attack him!” Each of the creatures was a foot away from John, but when they heard their Prophet’s voice echo throughout the large temple room, they obeyed. “Not just yet…”

The Brutes unwillingly turned around to face their leader, while a couple of others glared coldly at the Master Chief with hatred-filled eyes of wanting to kill him right then and there.

“I am happy to see that our number one enemy has decided to join us during this final hour before us, demon,” said Truth, studying the cyborg-looking human uneasily. He waited for the Spartan to respond, but the only response he gained was utter silence from him. “You have destroyed the first Ringworld of our Gods, and possibly found a way to stop our second attempt to activate the Rings before sneaking onto the Forerunner ship.”

He paused, pointing behind him at the large, pulsing light. “Stopping us now is futile for the Ark is nearing completion of its activation to send us to our salvation.”

The Master Chief frowned beneath his helmet, but kept his eyes cautiously on the Brutes in front of him as he listened.

“You have failed, demon,” Truth told him. “The Great Journey waits for no one, and it certainly will not wait for you.”

John remembered what Mercy told him before dying from the Flood infection. “Only this time…no one will be left behind.” He narrowed his eyes, wondering what exactly Mercy meant, but then decided to wonder no more. Although he could be wrong about it, but Mercy could’ve learned of what Truth knew and kept secret about the Halos, in which Truth left him for dead by the Flood infection form.

Truth started to press in more on the glyphic style writing of the control panel, and a couple of light tremors shook the temple as the light sent two more bursts of energy. Nothing else happened, and at least not yet. Maybe there was one last thing Truth needed to do to fully activate the rings. He gripped the Brute Shot tighter, getting ready for his next round of fighting.

“You should drop your weapons now, and accept your loss in this war,” Truth added, gazing back at him.

If only they could see the smile that grew across his face after Truth suggested for him to lay down his weapons. He kept his silence, and he could tell his silence was irritating his enemy – The silence before the storm as he put it. John took three steps back, placing a little more distance between him and the Brutes who were all now glaring at him. The Brutes and Truth watched him quizzically, wondering what he was doing.

“Thinking of running away, are we?” questioned Truth with a hint of amusement in his voice. “Now you realize that you’ve lost, you have nothing except death that awaits you.” He said, waving his hand again while adding, “Get rid of him from my sight, and make his death a painful one.”

Spartan-117 stood his ground, and without another thought crossing his mind, he squeezed the trigger of the Brute Shot. The grenade shot out, ricocheting off of a step, and exploded as it made contact with a Brute's stomach. The Brute was wounded enough to drop its weapon and clutched the wound. Even though the splash damage from the Brute Shot is extremely high, it takes more than just one to kill a Brute, but at least he took it out of the picture for a while. He needed to save the very little ammo he had in the Brute Shot when the time called for it, and eventually he will have to use the rest, but not right now since he could use the bayonet-like blade that was on the underside since he was in close-combat at the moment. The Brutes with the guns stood behind the two with the spears as backup, and to also protect the Prophet as Truth watched the fight. Five Brutes against one of him, so the Spartan couldn't be able to defeat all of them, or could he?

John's been lucky thus far, and he shall see if the luck he has continues. The two Brutes with the spears charged up the stairs toward him, and one tried to pierce the blade into him, but the Chief quickly side-stepped out of the way. John smacked the pole away from him with the Brute Shot so he could get close enough to the Brute when he swung the blade of the Brute Shot as if he were backhanding the creature, and the blade slashed across its face and tripped it off of its feet. The Brute rolled down the stairs toward the awaiting Brutes while the other Brute came up from the side of John, swinging the spear toward the soldier's head. John turned around when he saw the Brute out of the corner of his eye, and then ducked almost at the last second. He took a step forward and front kicked the beast hard in the stomach before it could make a second attempt at cutting of his head with another swing. The force of the kick caused the creature to step back three times toward the ledge of the stairs, and the Brute looked to see where he was and then tried to move away from it; but the Chief didn't want him to move to a safer distance. John threw a sharp uppercut in the chin with his fist, and then quickly swung the Brute shot back and forth in the chest before giving the beast a kick in the shin, and a push to finish it. The Brute fell back, and tried to grab hold of the Spartan's arm, but John stepped back as he tried to, and the creature fell screaming into the darkness of the gap.

After a while, the screaming faded, and the Master Chief fixed his eyes on the remaining four Brutes. He started to walk down toward them, glancing over at the downed Brute who he nearly sliced its mouth off. It was still alive, clutching its jaw with both hands, and blood was everywhere; Although the Brute was injured, it could still fight him at any time.

'Two down,' thought John, 'Four more to go.'

He glanced at the motion sensor to see if there were any more enemies close by, but none that he could see. His guess there were more, but in hiding until Truth ordered them to attack.

“Get him.” The Brute Captain ordered the lower ranking Brutes to fire at the Chief, and held his own Brute Shot while glaring at John as he waited.

The Spartan placed the weapon in front of his chest as he continued to walk toward them, and then the hairy creatures began firing their Carbine and Brute Plasma Rifle with small bursts of fire.


End of Part One