The Truth of the Rings - A Halo story

Part 10 - Two Betrayals

The pair neared the console, as chief slowly drew the index and put it into the console. Floyd patted his shoulder "you make this work, I'll hold the ones outside. I hear some hostiles."

"Copy. Good luck."

Floyd jogged over the bridge and outside. He heard the monitor pass by, towards chief but for now he didn't think anything of it. Upon reaching the first hallway, it was pure covenant. Surprisingly, he was actually happy to fight them again considering the horrors of the flood. Even better, there were sentinels helping him. As he engaged the group, they began to retreat even further backwards, until they had been repelled from the structure itself. He looked up at the sentinels, almost impressed with how they handled a new enemy. But that didn't last much longer.

The sentinels stared back, as they went silent for a few seconds. Then began charging their laser. When he saw the glow he was confused, until he recognized it as their beam. He ran towards cover, taking a beam to the shoulder as he landed behind the support for the hallway. He didn't understand what the hell was happening, but knew it was them, or him. He opened fire on the sentinels, quickly realizing his rifle was doing little to nothing to actually hurt them. But something then connected in his brain. These things are electronic. They are machines. Quickly, He rolled on his side to a plasma pistol and fired a charged shot at one, killing it immediately. Then, at the other for the same result. He placed the pistol on his hip and re-drew his rifle, running back the way he came. The monitor was with John last time he checked, and Floyd was already concerned.

Lucky for Floyd he wasn't worried for long because as he entered the room, he saw chief approaching with a plasma pistol sidearm. He figured it out too. He linked io at chiefs side as the two made their way out the door "what's the play chief?"

John didn't stop moving, explaining as they ran "pulse generators power the ring's ability to fire. We need to disable them. It should at least slow the Monitor down from firing without us. Coordinates for one are on your hud, I'll hit the other one."

Floyd nodded and kept heading out with chief, the two making it outside finally. The covenant were here in VAST quantities. The building was definitely retaken. So they began moving through it on each side, cutting holes through the covenant as they went until they reached the bottom. Floyd finished off a grunt as he turned to his right... Then immediately rolled backwards as a wraith began firing at him. Luckily, John had found a Rocket Launcher, and quickly He began re-positioning to the side of the wraith. Floyd began firing at the wraith and the infantry near it to keep its attention on him. This was actually a trained technique in Spartan training Called Aggro. Basically, your enemy will focus on whoever is a bigger threat in the moment, so firing at them would make them focus on you, allowing your partner to move in stealth. The tactic worked perfectly, as Chief managed to fire two rockets at the wraith, and then 2 more.... Which was enough to cripple and destroy the vehicle. After that, all it took was a little more pushing through the last forces before they made their way to some banshees.

"You'll need one for your Journey. It's a long flight. We will meet up at yours afterwards." Chief jumped into one and began flying towards an upper bridge.

"Copy. Good luck Chief." Floyd jumped into his, quickly doing a crash course of the controls in his brain because it had been awhile.  Takeoff was a little bit shaky, and his control took a few seconds to work like he used to be able to (and how John currently was) but eventually he managed to get it working optimally.

Eventually he arrived inside the first pulse generator, rifle in hand as he cut through the flood with relative ease to before. He had grown to understand the flood combat style a little more now, and it was becoming easier and easier to fight them the more he did. They relied on horde tactics rather than strategic placement, and didn't care much for their bodies' well being. They didn't dodge, block, or use armor, nor hide. They swarmed their enemy, which was easy to get around if you get smart with your movement. As he entered the generator room, he heard quiet footsteps in the next area. Then she door open, with plasma fire following. Peaking around the corner he saw that the Flood and Covenant were already engaging each other, definitely meaning they were as much of enemies as he was to each group. A small ping and a message in text appeared on his hud, the ping being for something about 500M away. He looked to the text to see that it was titled "Regroup point - Final generator. Already enroute, you are closer."

Nodding to himself he checked back to the combat. The flood, while having suffered losses, had claimed victory with multiple combat forms left standing. Floyd turned the corner and gunned down the weakest one, grabbing an appendage from it and throwing it at a Carrier. It exploded, detonating the grenades from the previous fight as he rolled out of the way to cover. After the explosion, he finished the one remaining combat form with his rifle and approached the generator. Extending a hand, he just...touched it. The generator let out a massive pulse, EMPing his shields immediately and breaking down. Assuming his job was done, he headed back to the Banshee and began heading for the final generator.

Upon arrival, Floyd landed on his feet before the Banshee even touched. Quickly looking around the area outside, he saw bullet holes everywhere, and corpses near them. The show had lightly coated them, but so lightly he knew it was recent. Chief beat him here. Realizing this, he began walking inside, lighting up chiefs tag so he wouldn't accidentally shoot him.

Moving through the halls, he reached a corner and raised his rifle, tuning around the corner as a hand grabbed the rifle and jabbed it backwards into his jaw, turning the corner and swinging a punch for his head. Floyd was concussed for a second but not Long enough for the bunch to connect, as he caught the blow and threw the person backwards.

In front of him stood chief, who hadn't even fallen off his feet. Too strong. He nodded at Floyd, handing him back his rifle "sorry. Can't be too careful."

"No worries. I understand. Did you handle the generator already?"

"Yeah. It's out of commission. Stand close, we are going to attempt to use the teleportation grid to get to the Captain quicker."

"Understood. On your go, chief."

With their mission accomplished, the two stood side by side and slowly vanished into thin air, on their way to find the captain, or what was left of him......