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Siege of Evil: Part 2- As the Gates of Hell Open
Posted By: Vengeance
Date: 16 May 2004, 6:29 PM
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Five Covenant dropships and five Banshees flew in the murky sky above a dark forbidding swamp on Halo. On one of the dropships Agra Elisee reflected on the last dozen or so hours that had been so incredibly chaotic. Agra remembered that soon after the "Secret Justice" entered area near instillation Zero-Four it had received a transmission for the " Truth and Banishment". The transmission had given the Hellbenders instructed them to a simple mission, an extremely simple mission.
Two squads of Covenant Grunts and Jackals that were guarding a weapons cache in some swamp on instillation Zero-Four had come under attack by something. The message had not been very clear because the transmission had been covered with static, and because the Grunt that was delivering the message had been shot at point blank range ten seconds into the transmission by what sounded to be a M90 shotgun.
In response the Covenant fleet sent nearly fifty low ranking blue armored Elites to investigate. The new group had found a crashed Human dropship, and then continued through the swamp and into the tunnels of the weapons cache to find and eliminate the enemy. But as soon as the Elites had gone two feet into the structure, the Covenant High Navel Command had lost contact with the group. After four hours of silence from the Elites and the original Covenant guard the High Command decided to send the Hellbenders. "It figures," Agra thought to himself irritably, "The moment that anything goes remotely wrong the High Command decides to send the Spec Ops team in."
So now Agra was heading to some God forsaken swamp on a fool's errand with his own personal guard and all of Support Squadron. "Well, not all of Support squad" Agra mentally corrected himself. Moments before leaving on the dropships, Agra's Chief Engineer I'lluth Uldar had asked if he could keep the Hunters from Support Squad for a "little experiment" of his. Agra gave his Chief Engineer permission to take the Hunters, and also the permission to piss off. Agra really didn't care if he had the Hunters with him or not. He was bringing over twenty black-armored commando Elites and a score of Grunts with him. Not to mention the five Banshees that would stay on station with the dropships patrolling above the swamp. And if all of this wasn't enough, Agra's second in command Jalkal (who didn't come for the mission) had ordered the dropships to load up with one Shade Turret each, as well as crates filled to the brim with enough Needlers and enough Plasma weapons to supply an Army for a lifetime.
Personally, Agra thought that the Humans that slaughtered his kinsman had already fled from the area. Or if not that, then maybe the blue armored Elites that had been sent before hand had already killed all the Humans, and were just lost in the tunnels beneath the weapons cache. Agra doubted that the Hellbenders would even see any action any time soon, or even any combat on Halo it's self.
A cry of "Sir!" by the dropship pilot interrupted Agra's daydreaming. "We're descending to the LZ now Sir, might want to wake up." Shaking the sleepiness out of his head, Agra let his stern bad-ass commander ego take over as he leap out of the dropship and onto a small eight hundred meter long plateau in the middle of cold desolate swamp.
"Get the Shade guns in position at each corner of the plateau!" Agra roared at his scrabbling troops, "and put the last turret in the center of the base camp to provide support fire!" Chaos ensured, but it was orderly chaos. Elites were moving around posting the defensive guns at the appropriate positions, Grunts were emptying some boxes of their contents and loading up with Fuel rod guns, Needlers, and Plasma Grenades. A dozen heavily armed Elites jogged into the swamp to do some light reconnaissance and information gathering, and all the while the Banshees patrolled the sky, keeping an alert watch for any incoming foes. The Hellbenders were the best of the best, everyone in the company knew their duty, and performed it to perfection.
"Anything?" Agra asked through his headset after the base camp got organized. The twelve scouting Elites all reported the same message, "All clear." Not surprised in the least bit Agra, called the recon troops back. Agra turned to the rest of his of his men and barked out quick orders. "Half the Elites here are gonna move out with me to the weapons cache. The rest of you better keep on setting up the base camp defenses. And when the damn recon troops come back, tell them that they have a ten minute rest then they better get their asses over to weapons cache too!"
The reaction was instant. Four Elites ran outside the base perimeter, ready to follow their commander into the unknown. The rest of the Elites gave quick orders to the Grunts and had everyone doing something. A few Grunts were chattering on the transmitters, some Grunts were manning the turrets, and the remaining Elites patrolled the perimeter, keeping a watchful eye out for any enemies. Agra looked at his four man escort, and spoke two words that sent the entire five man team into a dead sprint for the weapons cache, "Move out."
* * * * *
"I don't get it, Sir!" One of the black armored Elites exclaimed to Agra inside the room with the main lift down to the weapons cache. "There's plenty of Human, Elite, and Grunt blood scattered about the room, but where are the bodies?" Agra glanced around the room, just as puzzled as his soldier was. One of the other troopers crouched down and felt some of the spilt Human blood. "Sir!" the solider quickly exclaimed, "You might want to look at this." Agra walked over and crouched next to the soldier that had called him.
"See this blood Sir, well it's fresh, it's still wet. Less then an hour old I would say. But look at the Grunt and Elite blood... it's dry. It's probably been laying out here for two or three hours."
Agra's eyes widened at this prospect. "So that means the Humans died here a short while ago, while the Covenant died here a long time ago. But that still doesn't explain where the fuck the bodies are." Agra muttered to himself. "Agra, I think I know what happened to the bodies." A third Elite across the room was speaking this time.
Agra got up and walked over to see what his soldier was pointing at. Blood marks were scattered around the lift, but the way the blood was laying in long streaks suggested that bodies of the dead and dying had been forcefully dragged over to the lift, to go down into the abyss. Even at one part of the lift, Agra could see deep gouges in the glass, probably made by a desperate dying Elite digging his claws into the glass as he was being dragged to the lift. "Dear God..." Agra muttered to himself. He glanced over at the panel that would take the lift down to the deepest depths of Halo and took a deep breath. "Ok men, I need one of you to stay here and report what we know to the reinforcements. The rest of us are going to go down to find out what the hell happened here." One of the Hellbender Elites walked away and stood near to the entrance to the swamp, the other three Elites leveled their plasma rifles at the ready and walked over to the lift with Agra. The commander of the Hellbenders touched a single button on the panel, sending the lift down into the unknown.
* * * * *
The four-man team moved on a plasma bridge through the upper levels of the weapons cache, weapons drawn and ready for any thing. "Where the hell are the bodies?" One of the frustrated Elites asked to himself as the Hellbenders continued through the compound for nearly ten minutes with out the trace of any enemies or corpses. "Shut up soldier!" Agra snapped at the Elite who was muttering to himself. "We need silence, whatever killed the Humans and our kin is probably still around here somewhere, and we have to find it."
Agra turned around then and focused himself back onto the task at hand. Then they heard it, a low slithering sound, as if something was moving on the walls. Agra hefted his plasma sword up and signaled his men to be ready for anything. "Where's it coming from?" One of the panicking Elites cried out. "Shut up!" Agra yelled at his nervous soldier, "Keep calm... and shoot anything that moves!" The four warriors started to move as one towards the other end of the room, the way back to the lift, all of them on edge, looking for the unknown foe. As the four Elites finally reached the last platform on the other end of the plasma bridge, they found out what killed the Humans and the other Covenant.
With the horrid smell of rotting fleash, the door on the other side of the plasma bridge burst open, reviling the horror. Nearly a dozen huge hulking mutated Elites entered the opposing platform. Their skin had a dark yellow hue, and their skin was coming off in flaks, and every one of the monsters was either holding a plasma rifle or an assault rifle. "May the Gods protect us all..." Agra muttered in shock to himself, "It's the Flood..." At that moment the Flood seemed to have spotted the still living Elites, and the monsters opened fire on Hellbenders.
All three of Agra's men dropped down to one knee and launched a barge of fire into the Floods ranks. One of the MA5B assaults rifle carrying Flood took several critical plasma hits to the face, burning a hole in the neck and taking the head off, but the monster fought on. Agra hit the switch to deactivate the plasma bridge as four of the abominations were sprinting across it. The bridge dematerialized right under their feet, heavily dropping the four to the ground below. As the monsters below reeled from the shock, Agra tossed a plasma grenade down to their feet, teaching the monsters how to fly.
All three of Agra's men took their commanders cue, the Hellbenders pulled out plasma grenades and hurled their grenades at the monsters. But before the Hellbenders could view the damage they had done, the door right next to them opened up, bringing six Flood infected Human forms into the fight.
Using his plasma sword Agra thrust his weapon into the first monster in lines chest, then he pulled his weapon up, leaving a deep gouge that guaranteed to keep the monster down. The next Flood in line didn't even get a chance to react; Agra simply cut the monster in half horizontally, leaving the things entrails to spill on the floor. But the rest of the Hellbenders didn't fair as well as Agra in the close quarters clash.
As one of the Spec Ops Elites turned to meet this new threat, he caught a shotgun blast to the face. The only thing that saved the soldier was his shields. As the damaged Elite backpedaled for cover, he took a second shotgun blast to his leg. The Elite went down with a pain-riddled scream.
The other two Elites combined fire quickly took down three more of the approaching Flood. As the shotgun-touting Flood moved to finish off the badly hurt soldier, Agra's plasma sword took the things hand off. With a second well-placed swing, the Flood was in two different pieces.
Agra dropped to one knee next to the screaming wounded soldier and surveyed the damage. Purple blood was flowing out of the badly mangled leg in streams; Agra could also clearly see that the blast had shattered the leg bone to the point that his soldier would probably ever have a chance to fight again.
"Do you want to get out of this hellhole alive?" Agra asked the badly wounded soldier. The hurt Elite nodded his head. "Hold him down." Agra ordered of one of his two remaining soldiers. The soldier held the wounded Elite down by the shoulders as Agra activated his plasma sword, and then swung the sword down right above where the soldiers shattered bone was. The wounded Elites screams of pain filled the air.
Working quickly, Agra held his plasma weapon on the place where he amputated the leg, the shear heat of the blade stopped the bleeding and sealed the wound. Then Agra quickly tore off what remained of a Flood infected Human's shirt, and used it to tie up the wound.
The Elite that had been holding down the screaming wounded soldier quickly picked his comrade up and hefted him up over his shoulders. Agra also got up and looked at both his men that were still in fighting condition and said, "Now let's get out of this Hellhole."
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