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The Rebel: If you want something done right...
Posted By: Elfster<briane@teleport.com>
Date: 25 October 2003, 2:41 AM


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Colt stood casually, one hand on his hip, the other hanging limp holding his shotgun waiting for the huge forerunner doors to open.
"Any day now, Sparky." He hollered. Slowly the doors were opening and flood began jumping through the small hole.
Without moving any other body parts, he lifted his shotgun up with his one arm and shot. The flood died before it hit the ground. He did it a few more times until the gates opened and a wave of 20 infected combat forms rushed at him.
He crouched down, aimed, and...
Click...
Shit... He thought to himself...
Reaching for his pistol, he realized it wasn't there, and that he must have lost it in the last fight.
Thunder, He began, can you modify the shield energy to a large electrical pulse?
"Yes. However, it will slowly drain your shields and theres a 42% chance tha-"
Shut up and do it... He braced himself as some of the flood jumped over his head to surround him.
He saw two of them double-teaming him, one behind and one in front.
Thinking quickly, he dropped down and donkey kicked behind him. It broke whatever bone was in a flood's legs for sure, sent it flying, and gave it a massive electrical shock, putting some more strain on the shield generators on his suit.
1...
He pulled himself into a crouch and remembered an old dance move... He stuck his leg out, keeping it straight, and swung it around tripping and shocking the second flood, then with his one foot, hopped over his own leg, brought it around and stood up.
2 down.
Two more flood were trying the same tactic but from right and left. They had caught him off guard and he didn't have time to think of anything fancy, so he stuck his elbows out. The flood's heads collapsed in on themselves, and then a surge of electricity went through them and they exploded, sending bits of bone fragments and badly decomposed gray matter and flesh everywhere.
4.
It seemed strange how every time they attacked it was in pairs, as two flood tried to sand which him by jumping in from either side with their sharp whip-like tentacles raised. He rolled out of the way and they sliced each others' upper bodies off. Standing up, there was another Flood in front of him.
Hmm... Metal would probably amplify the electric shock. He thought to himself.
Grabbing his spent shotgun off it's hook on his waist, he grabbed the shoulders of the flood, and brought his knee into it's chest, then swung the shotgun like a baseball bat and slammed into the flood and at the same time delivered a shock that completely cooked the flesh it hit.
Grabbing a plasma grenade off his belt, he ignited it, stuck it on the probably dead flood, and threw it into the rest of the flood, the explosion killed two more flood.
9...
His shotgun was bent now so he dropped it and heard small alarms in his suit:
The shields were down. Not only that, but he was now surrounded by 11 flood.
Thunder, I need power to the light anti-gravity generator. He ordered to the AI.
"But the shields are down, and for a while, I told you there was a 42% chance that they'd overheat, I'll have to take power from vital systems an-"
"DO IT!" He screamed on reflex, instead of thinking it.
"Light anti-gravity unit powering up..." He heard.
The flood were closing in on him, ready to strike.
He looked down to see he has 7 grenades left. He ignited a plasma grenade, then pushed the button to release the grenade belt. He jumped on one flood, then jumped again as high as he could and was raised by the anti-gravity unit and was held in the air longer than normal gravity would allow.
Still it wasn't enough. He was caught in the huge blast and was sent spiraling and flying through the air, but the damage wasn't as much as if he hadn't jumped. The new Spartan suits were also equipped with stolen Covenant anti-gravity technology, but it was only to use when plenty of extra power was present, because it took a massive amount of energy.
He landed hard and rolled. He knew something had to be broken but the elevator with the Index on it was so close, he couldn't stop now. More flood were running at him, and he stood, and a shock of pain surged through him, the energy to activate the anti-gravity unit was taken from life support. He ignored it the best he could and noticed a charred and dented spot on his armor.
"Oh you bastards..." He whispered menacingly to nobody in particular.
He charged forward, and rammed into two flood coming at him, knocking them back like dolls and not slowing down. Then he tried to crouch lower as he ran, and rammed the next flood's legs, sending it flipping over his head and landing on more flood trying to chase him, knocking them over also. He was almost to the elevator, and one flood in his way.
He did a flying kick, which hit and threw the flood onto the elevator. He landed on it and it began going down.
Turning around, the flood stood up, and walked up to him, tentacles raised.
Colt grabbed his combat knife, and as the flood swung, rolled under it's legs, turned around and thrust the knife into its back where the chest cavity probably was. The infection form inside the flood popped, blowing out the insides, and decomposed flesh splattered onto his visor. Whipping it off, he heard another squishy plop behind him, and turned around to see a shotgun barrel aimed at him.
He had no shields, no guns, no grenades, and no combat knife, and the flood had a shotgun and was at point blank range.
Colt didn't like those odds... But suddenly heard a familiar sound:
"The energy shield will deactiva-" The small blue AI didn't have time to finish his sentence as Colt grabbed him, used him to deflect the shotgun blast, then hurled it as hard as he could at the flood.
It slammed into the flood and the creature growled in a strange alien growl and fell down the elevator.
Relieved that it was over, he took a deep breath and watched 343 Guilty Spark float back up beside him.
"That was very in-appropriate, we have much more important business to attend to." The construct said angrily.
"The only business I'm attending to right now is staying alive." He matched 343's tone as the elevator came to a stop and the energy shield deactivated.
"You may now retrieve the index."
Reaching over, he grabbed it, only for it to be taken away a second later. He traced a beam of blue light back to GS.
"Protocol requires that I take the Index for transport. Your form is organic and renders you vulnerable to-" The AI was cut off by Colt hurling him into another wall.
"Shut up and give me the goddamn key."
The AI floated back up as usual, but it's voice was replaced with that of Colt's training instructor.
"Is that how you'd act towards something trying to help you save the galaxy?" He asked as everything around him faded back into reality, and his helmet and other connections to the simulator machine were removed.
Colt turned his head to look at the instructor.
"Thats the point, im not giving up something that the galaxy depends on to some little floating prick that blinks blue light when it talks." Hopping out of the simulator as he said it, he stretched and walked over to another simulator that had a Spartan in it still. The Spartan was squirming in the chair, and Colt looked up at the status screen and saw three combat forms mobbing him.
One form jumped from the side and smashed it's hardened arm down on the Spartan's back. He was thrown to the ground as two other forms kicked him across the floor. It looked as if they were playing a sport with the poor kid. He moaned and tried to get up, only to be punched in the jaw by a combat form. There was a snap and Colt almost wanted to shield his eyes. He screamed in pain and held his broken jaw for a second, then the three combat forms began to go in for the kill. He began to fight like a cornered animal. He clenched his fists and began slamming his fists against the first flood as fast and hard as he could in a clawing type motion. His suit was dented and charred, and the shields weren't getting a chance to recharge. With as much strength as he could muster he ripped the flood's arm off and began smashing it into anything and everything that moved, but more flood just kept coming, and the Spartan was slowly overwhelmed and shot in the arm at point blank range with a shotgun.
Yelling in pain as another shot hit him in the shoulder and hit the rather soft joint padding, the clean air leaked out of the suit and was replaced with foul air that smelled like rotten eggs. Another shot hit in the same spot and hit something vital, most likely wiring, and the connection to the arm piece was severed and he gasped as he felt the weight of the now un-responsive heavy metal arm piece.
Then a steady stream of assault rifle bullets slammed into him on the other side, making tiny dents in the armor everywhere. The flood jumped on him and under the weight he collapsed to the ground, and the flood began cutting their way through his armor with various things. Tentacle whips, bullets, anything, and finally the helmet came off, and the Spartan screamed in horror as he felt an infection form crawl onto him.
Colt shielded his eyes as he heard the scream get louder and louder and then stop, and a strange growl was heard. After that it went silent, and Colt heard the familiar sound of a helmet being raised, and other objects being taken out of the young Spartan and the person sighed in relief as the pain vanished.
Colt patted him on the back as he got out of the simulator.
"Hurts to be assimilated, doesn't it?" Colt asked with a smile.
"Like hell and beyond." Was the response.
"Don't worry about it, it's happened to all of us." He said as he walked away from the simulators and drifted into the small crowds of people waiting for the few people still in the simulators to finish up. He quickly found Rob and walked up.
"Hey man." He said cheerfully.
"Whats up?" Rob responded.
"Not much besides 226 kills." He grinned.
"I got 192.." Rob explained lamely.
"Ahet ahem.." The instructor cleared his throat.
Almost everyone went quiet, except for a few talkative people.
"Now, we'll be playing a little bit of CTF, two on two. Cobra with Hawk, Cougar with Grizzly. The two bases will be equiped with some things to be used as cover, a tent for the wounded, a jail, and of course, a flag. I'll lead you to the arena." The big man finished as he began to walk through the door.
It was going to be a long day...
____________________________________________________________

It was getting dark and Colt was getting exhausted. He had been hit with a paint ball in both arms, and a beanbag on the leg. So now all he was doing was sitting behind a piece of junk used as cover and lazily sniped with his pistol. He chased a Red with his targeting reticule but they got away before he could fire. Sighing because of the fact that that was the third target he has missed in the last 10 minutes, he scanned the battlefield and noticed someone with the Red flag being chased by four Reds.
Colt grinned and set his sights on one of them.
Bap! Bap! Bap!
He fired three shots, missing each one. He swore under his breath as he realized this was going to be a long, aggravating capture and rolled to the right, out of cover. Now having a wider range of vision he took aim again and fired.
Bap! Bap! Bap!
He was satisfied as the three shots resulted in three Reds being left. He got up, strafed for a second then began jogging forward and shooting. Three shots as always, and another Red was down.
The capturer had a panicked look on his face, and threw the flag like it was a hot ball of pure plasma. Colt, surprised by this, barely managed to pocket his pistol and catch the flag. He fumbled it for a second before getting a firm grip on in.
Seeing the two Reds coming at him, he reflexively ran. As he ran, he noticed another Red with a rocket launcher coming at him. He threw the flag like a spear. It hit his assaulter in the leg, causing them to trip and loose the launcher. Colt caught it and moaned as he underestimated it's heavy weight.
It was then that he noticed he was trapped between the Red base and the two Reds behind him. He wouldn't be taken prisoner, he just wouldn't. He'd die first.
Holding his breath and murmuring a small prayer, he aimed the rocket launcher a yard and a half away from his feet, and pulled the trigger. The explosion slammed into him like a wall of bricks and tiny pieces of shrapnel cut across his skin like a sandstorm as he sailed through the air over their heads.
He slammed into the ground behind them about 15 yards away and momentarily blacked out. As his vision came back it still wasn't fully returned as the sides were completely blurred. He saw two blurry red figures picking up the flag, and with the last rocket left until he has to reload, shot it.
It almost missed, but luckily hit the ground close in front of them as they were sent flying and the flag landed behind blue lines.
There were cheers from everybody but it wasn't over for Colt.
Two Spartans on medic duty ran over to him. One grabbed his legs and the other got his hands. They hoisted him up and tried to scuttle away as fast as possible. However it wasn't fast enough, as a barrage of paint balls slammed into the side of the medic that had a hold of Colt's legs and he was dropped almost right onto his feet.
If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. He thought to himself as he leaned over to pick up the medic but the other one was trying to drag Colt away as five Reds were coming to take them prisoner. Colt was weak but still put up a struggle as the medic frantically tried to pull him away, and he pulled back. He wouldn't want his friends to just leave him there like that.
Two of the reds were taking the wounded medic while three others were going for Colt and the other medic. Finally Colt spun around and punched the medic as light as he could but still making sure they let go. Then kept spinning and high kicked two of the Reds, then rolled to the side and swept his foot around to send the third to the ground.
Satisfied, he eyed the two other reds hoisting up the wounded medic. He got up and ran straight forward then tackled one of them. He landed on top of him and punched him in the throat, then rolled off of him, and pulling out his pistol, shot his remaining three shots at the other Spartan, then threw the empty pistol at the Spartan, hitting him square in the forehead. Running over and throwing the medic over his shoulder, he ran back to the Blue base and, after handing the medic to another medic, collapsed to the ground and didn't awake for a while...





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