About This Site
Daily Musings
News
News Archive
Site Resources
Concept Art
Halo Bulletins
Interviews
Movies
Music
Miscellaneous
Mailbag
HBO PAL
Game Fun
The Halo Story
Tips and Tricks
Fan Creations
Wallpaper
Misc. Art
Fan Fiction
Comics
Logos
Banners
Press Coverage
Halo Reviews
Halo 2 Previews
Press Scans
Community
HBO Forum

Clan HBO Forum
ARG Forum
Links
Admin
Submissions
Uploads
Contact

Resplendent- if Tras could scrounge his mind to formulate one word describing the sight he beheld as his magnate landing craft rested on Pluto's surface; this would have been his paramount choice. Now that he'd actually set foot on its icy landscape, he figured he should have chosen impossible. Remnants of failed human colonization attempts were scattered at regular intervals; some items deemed worthy shelters while others were little more than useless paperweights.
"I've set my eyes upon corpses with more taste than this." Weilan muttered. For a scientist, also taken into consideration one basing ideals off logic alone, he was remarkably good natured, and quite emotional, mayhap even going far enough to have some religious choice rammed into his character. Peculiar as he was, he was still Tras's friend, one of his only friends. Needless to say, he intended to keep it that way. Something due left caught his attention.

Shade was holding a small rock, however it seemed more like a crystal than anything else, eerie; misty-snow surface whipping her form and clouding it from view. What purpose she had for such an object he could only guess at, he knew that her means and rituals of being were simply too obscure or too well guarded to comprehend. She was an enigma, an ethereal spirit epitomizing flawlessness of body with simple, yet somehow complex thoughts daring to mix with clouding deceptions. Much similarity could he find in anything she dealt with, such as that pathetically inconspicuous rock. Tras believed such balances were better, left to faults in existence, non-sentient things based purely off needs to exist for everything else. Nothing could correct this pairing.
If vexed enough, Shade would tear his heart out and feed it to him.

He turned and faced Weilan, nodding left in a friendly, conversational gesture. His friend's eyes moved to follow, but his voice kept talking. "I hate this dreary ice cap." He squandered. "Its so... white, feels like an outer rim grave yard." Places you simply didn't want to be.
Tras clapped his companion on the crest of his head and jogged toward their campsite. Upon landing, each allotted space had promptly been divided into areas of best use, and in turn covered with prefab structures. Buildings much like tents in that they could be easily assembled for outdoor use. Weilan and Tras had camped together, keeping close circle to Shade, who'd set up a small energy hub close by. Time to learn what it's purpose contained.
He slipped on a patch of ice whence he topped one of many large snow hills scattered about, still managing to hold his resolute gaze on his monarch. Thankfully, there was no six-meter high dust cloud to announce his arrival. Tras felt that she somehow knew he was there anyway. Shade stopped barely two steps in front of her construct, and eyed it momentarily. He supposed this was what she considered last moment equipment checks, inadequate, as they seemed to be.
Her hands began to pick at the holographic numerals, which composed the hub's surface, bringing up different diagrams on a larger piece spaced above. He couldn't tell what these depicted at current distance, only resolving him to promise himself that he would take closer inspection later.

Shade seemed to be nodding, after several painful moments, the young woman strode away. Peculiar as things might seem, she chose the oddest path possible. An unstable looking patch away from the camp. Tras waited until he couldn't see her, then slid down from his hiding place and looked at her indistinguishable... power hub. It turned out to be a three-dimensional pinpoint tactical map of Pluto's general terrain, specifically, canyons not more than thirty meters away. He headed for them, hugging what little cover he found.
Shade was hauntingly difficult to follow, even when she wanted to be seen. She didn't seem to register his presence, and simply walked where anything might be able to attack and kill her in five seconds flat. Only he couldn't keep a bead on her steadily progressing figure long enough to aim correctly. An indication of what she naturally did. He envied such an instinct, such a competent skill.
He struggled after her with fresh respect in mind, recalling several events when he'd outwitted her mind and senses. She had been little more than six years of age. He had been over seventy times that. Of their sixty some mind games, he'd won two. Accomplishment enough, when you gander recent past.

In the distance now, her figure faded far and beyond, trailing on moonlight mist. That was... odd. He pursued, unwilling to loose sight of his quarry for such a long period of time. He cleared the odd angle and crested a rise. In plain view as he was, he tried to move. Something stalled him. The canyon walls shook with a lively thunder! The soils of Pluto shook, the ice caps began to melt and the rocks to fall!

Ka-Crack!

"Shade!" He exulted in wonder. Small boulders began to clash with unyielding mineral about him, some even going so far as to drive into his full body shields, which protected his atmospheric suit from being punctured. An equally protective web of fleshy tentacles surrounded him, preventing the word from even exiting his mouth as he was hauled back.
"Tras, are you alright?" The looming eyes floated over him.
"I'm fine, aid me, I must stand... Shade is alone."

Weilan's tone could have been sarcastic, but with the dust still clearing Tras had no way of knowing what it sounded like. "I'm afraid that's going to be quite impossible, my Lord." He'd almost asked why, when a fleshy apparatus poked his head up. His legs had been buried underneath authority knew how many tons of rubble. His shield was weakening, thankfully at a snail's pace.
"Follow her." He grimaced, before (thankfully) collapsing into unconscious rest.

The ecstatic Intejii bobbed up and down; floating over what holds his natural flux of gravity could claw onto. Unlike his friend, he needed not worry about rubble crunching underfoot. He did not have a heartbeat or, even breath when he did not want them. Over and done within seconds like a random flash flood, Weilan figured. Pluto was a most interesting climate zone of the universe. He might have continued to study it, had it not been that his new target was even more so interesting.
Rather involuntarily he shivered, pulsating physique staggering with every breath taken. "I hate... frigid temperatures."
Stones ahead sheared from their perch. She'd stopped. "You may reveal yourself, Weilan." He stepped out of his enclosing shadows, into plain starlight. With an insolent wave of her hand, he'd been tugged through his own atmospheric manipulations and left to float aimlessly close aside her feet.
"How long have you been following me Intejii?" No anger reflected on her tone?

"Not long, my Lady. Seconds at most." He replied truthfully. Dishonesty now would only buy him a ticket to an early grave, which needless to say he would rather not have. His fearful quiver was apparent even to him. Disgusted with himself, eyes would wander toward the Queen's-
"Nagh!"
Glittering silver sparkle, which always flaked the cruel beauty of those seductive emerald eyes flared to him now more than ever. "You dare follow me, ret!" Her voice clamped about his throat, choking off his air supply, his eyes bulged inches from her own, drilling into his soul...
"Your life hangs in the balance, Intejii. Pray thee answer Theta, mayhap you've chosen Zeta?" The ribald Queen sneered. "I prefer to toy with my prey, watch it suffer. How do you like your quarry, Intejii?"
He gagged on his own words, saliva filling his plushy throat.
"Weakling!" She snapped. "Follow my heel like the vermin you are."
He obeyed unquestioningly, having been dropped from considerable height; Weilan was in no mood to be resisting those invisible hands, which grasped him. There was no denying they were there, either. Humans had called the phenomenon... spell casting.

Shade lead, he followed. Paths crossing where neither wanted to go. He suspected she still had some use for him, otherwise he would currently be choking on his own heart. This seemed both comforting and disturbing; not many beings broke away from her dealings with whole form in mind.
"A scientist wishes to speak, Lady."
Eyes turned toward him, features delicate, aloof, with ethereal complement. Her scrutinizing gaze ate him, yawning through very maws of hellfire incarnate. Weilan stared right back, laughing death into reality as it smiled to him. He smiled back, though in less obvious manner. "Very well, Intejii." She allowed a small ammonia cloud the freedom her pressurized helmet provided. Humans were the only known creatures to carry ammonia in their breath. Some had gone so far (well out of earshot) as to call her human. He knew different. Human mammal species did not possess silver flecks inside their eyes.

"You had managed to locate my presence and call me to you, how?" This physic had perplexed him long enough. "I even went so far as to conceal my breath and heartbeat!"
She frowned. "Human canine creatures, when smelling gruel, are capable of locating and sectioning off every individual component within the smell's composition. Human warriors also use light amplification devices to gain sight about nightfall's domain. I do not need any such treatment. Yalan..." She seemed to choke on this word. There was emotion within her after all...
"The dead one had said that my vision merely compensates naturally to any changes in lighting extremes. As such my sense of hearing is attuned. I hear the very fibers of my atmospheric suit working about my body- their every sliding motion. I've grown accustomed to these things. None vex me any longer."

"This does not explain your-
"Human canine creatures, as I stated previous are good in their smelling domain, comfortable with an art. I am better. Whence they had failed I have perfected." Shade proclaimed with arrogant trace.
Weilan's conclusion drew in aside curious gander, which caressed her every feature. "You intend to tell me that you'd merely sniffed the air and learned of us both?"
"No. I simply listened, and heard the Arms Master's heartbeat. You were much more difficult to locate, however I could not resist attempting to smell. Even through the filters of this suit, your scent is rather distinctive."
"What sort of 'distinctive', my Lady?" He pried, now rather interested.
"Much akin to what humanity might call seafood, mingled with raw sewage. Simply putrid, Intejii... in such a close proximity as you currently are, the scent in itself begins to choke me. This statement naturally has seen fit to disregard the fact that your smell has come close to knocking me unconscious. Numerous times." He did not detect any hints of intended humor, only straightforward honesty. Nodding, not quite offended, he continued to grope at her ankles, sliding along with her progress as instructed.

Time passing, she'd paused in the epicenter of a large crater, which opened up its greedy mouth in all-consuming love for stars burning in distant space. Gesturing to him, she'd indicated a large press of heavy boulders. He was to move them. Without protest, Weilan maneuvered into position, and scooped up a pair of the slightly heavy minerals, tossing them aside.
He thought better of displaying any resolve hinting questioning her motives and ideals behind allowing him to perform the tasks resting before her. At this point he wasn't sure whether or not she would accept them as readily as she had the questions former.
"Stop." Shade commanded. He did so, drifting back toward her feet until she simply stepped onto his tentacles. An indication that he was no longer wanted.

Her hand brushed cleanly across the curved glass frames of... doors? There were doors here?
The glassy layers liquefied, and she stepped through. Amazed, he followed dutifully after, gazing in wonder toward his better, who seemed unaffected. In their wake those interesting doors solidified and formed an effective barrier to the atmospheric extremes.
"Intejii... there is an oxygen nitrogen composition here." Her voice echoed through the confines of her helmet. Weilan couldn't help but mark the resemblance between MJOLNIR armor and the suit she currently wore, with the exception of a perfectly clear visor, and violet plate coloration.
Little by little the pitch-black aura circulating the room was cut down as their suit-mounted lights spread about, twining through and dispelling any darkness.
Weilan floated, unconcerned as she released the pressure clamps of her suit and removed the helmet, setting it on what appeared to be an anti-gravity table of sorts. He could see her obviously nonchalant gaze as the helmet piece sank into some unknown storage area. Holographic displays erupted into shimmering glory about her form, twisting an unending multicolored web. Weilan resisted his urge to flee back where he'd come, eyes widening as gentle white glows illuminated spaces surrounding.

"Welcome, Reclaimer. I am 424 Gallant Claw, the designated guardian of Tactical Warstar Orion 02."

We are NOT Bungie, Inc.! Bungie Inc. are bungie.net!
Halo © Bungie Inc., 1999-2012, Microsoft 2012-2024
Intellectual © halo.bungie.org, 1999-2024