(3rd Pov)
WRAAAAAAA
The lone Hunter shouted as its posture flared with its arms back. It and its bond brother had been searching carrying out their "Hunter-Killer" role in the forest. They'd even come across a small group of ODSTs, they along with other infantry had eliminated the group. Only bones and ash remained, regardless of the fact they wore their shock trooper armor plasma burnt through it all the same.
BING-BING-BING-BING
They were the heavy assault troops of the Covenant. Only the elites of the Sangheili and best of the Jiralhanae could tend with them in single combat.
BING-BING-BING
When the San-Shyuum and the Sangheili of old had happened upon their planet, even they were unable to break them on their homeworld. They only managed to "tame" them through their superior starships that rained down plasma threatening them with complete extinction.
BING-BING-BING
And now these humans were in a not-so-unfamiliar position to the one they had been millennia ago. Despite that the Lekgolo had no qualms with their eradication, to the vast majority the humans were lessers just as the Kig-Yar, just as the Unngoy, and even like the Jiralhanae. They were nothing more than vermin to be squashed.
BING-BING-BING
Yet why can we not hit this one
In front of the Hunter was a human, different from the ones it had seen so far. It was bigger, more heavily armored than all the other ones, but faster, stronger. It carried a weapon the same size as its own and moved far faster than it did.
WRRRR
The colony of worms snarled as it was forced to bring its shield up again as .50 caliber rounds ricocheted off of the nanolaminate. But just as suddenly as the human had begun firing it stopped instead opting to cover uncomfortable amounts of terrain closing the gap between the hunter and itself.
Let us see how it manages this
The large assault cannon on its left limb began to glow, bright green light illuminated the surrounding forest. The human as if sensing the danger the cannon now possessed brought its weapon up, the chaingun's electric motor whirred as it spat out more rounds.
This time instead of pausing to avoid the incoming rounds it simply stood still having had enough of defense and decided to place all of its eggs in one basket to get rid of this pest. The metallic dinks of the bullets ricocheting off of the other armored portions remained but even the mighty colony felt pain as bullets dug into the gaps of their armor and embedded them into the unprotected torso. Orange blood splattered onto foliage but finally it was ready to unleash its attack.
BSSHSHSHHHHHHHHH
A solid green beam of superheated and radioactive plasma shot out aimed directly for the human.
The Spartan immediately took off sprinting in an arc around the Hunter as its beam tracked him with the Hunter's turning. Fortunately for the Hunter because it was not made of flesh exactly it could have its feet remain rooted in place while the upper body turned a full 360 to follow its target. Unfortunately the Spartan remained incredibly agile, leaping over logs dodging branches, all while moving in a spiralling arc toward the Hunter.
After a quarter of a minute of sustained fire the beam disappeared. In its path was now the beginning of an inferno, the superheated plasma having ignited the plants. It had done so in a full 360 degree circle, and now fire had begun snaking up the trees from vines torching the area around the two.
Inside the ring of fire the Spartan with his chaingun and the Lekgolo now looked as if they were engaged in some form of ritual combat. Yet neither seemed to notice or care, killing what was in front of them was the only thing on either's mind.
The Spartan struck first, springing forward; he needed to get past its shield and hit the weak points; that was only possible by getting close to the heavy alien. The Hunter needed to crush this human or scorch it with plasma, a single direct hit from either would most certainly be enough.
At the same time the Spartan came forward the Hunter swung its shield arm down over head, attempting to bisect the armored human from top to bottom.
But the human slipped to the side completely evading the strike as it sliced into the ground. Having already spooled the chaingun the moment he had a clear shot he sent a few rounds into the unarmored midsection, orange goopy blood splashing onto the end of the barrel.
WURRR
The Hunter, now enraged, slung its shield haphazardly attempting to hit the Spartan with a sideways attack. This time the Spartan's reflexes kicked in allowing him to bend under the blow as if it were a limbo bar. Yet the next attack came immediately after another strike for his torso, forcing him to jump backward.
The Hunter, having missed the third attack in a row, jolted forward with new found speed. It planned to tackle the human before crushing it beneath its shield. THe human backpedalled until it came to the edge of the flames. The colony would have sneered if it had a face and pushed forward with all of the grace of a stampede.
Unbeknownst to it the Spartan also had a plan. So just as the Hunter neared he kicked off his feet and fell into a slide slipping past through the Hunter's enormous gap between its feet appearing behind it. The Lekgolo continued only to realize after the Spartan was clear that a tree was now blocking its way. The tree's trunk snapped as the force of 11000 pounds moved faster than a human slammed into it.
David, already back on his feet noticed the Hunter's back had an enormous weak point and struck like a mongoose capturing a cobra. He shoved the triple barreled chaingun into the colony, its worm members instinctively flinching away as they burnt by the hot barrel.
'It's made of worms,' the Spartan acknowledged silently before pulling the trigger. The Hunter instantly jolted upright as if it had been electrocuted as bullets began to tear through its insides. It swayed attempting to turn to face the Spartan only for the Spartan to mirror its turns and never letting go of the trigger.
Blood sprayed everywhere becoming a geyser as a buzzsaw effectively was taken to the alien's insides. The worms vigorously replaced the ones destroyed in order to maintain their combined form until none were left to accomplish the task.
At last the hunter fell forward slowly, the Spartan, David, yanked out his weapon before taking a step back keeping clear. Once the dead colony in its armor fell the ground in its vicinity shook, a testament to its massive weight.
David let out a breath that he hadn't known he'd been holding, 'At least this one was more straight forward to deal with,' he thought remembering the gravity hammer the Chieftain had wielded before, 'Though I was surprised when it fired that beam,'
The ammo counter on his HUD read empty causing him to drop the chaingun as it was now dead weight.
WOOSH
All at once a large green bomb of plasma landed incinerating the body of the Hunter and flinging David through the fire circle into the forest. His suit blared as the heat molten globule, though away from him, massively raised the internal temperature of the outer shell.
David pushed himself off the ground and looked up in the direction the blast came from. There his eyes froze as he recognized a massive figure coated in dark armor and one limb fused to a shield and the other with a plasma assault cannon.
'There's a second one?'
Today only seemed to get worse.
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(Lasky Pov)
Chyler moaned in pain as I had to jerk her forward over a stone.
"Hold on, we are almost there, we don't have much further," I said, continuing to move forward.
"I am fine-huff," Chyler said quietly as she muddled through the pain.
We kept along a small dirt path struggling ahead not only having difficulty walking, but due to the thick canopy of the trees it was hard to stay on the path. The distant battle behind them had gone quiet, no longer did the sound of .50 cal rounds rocketing out the end of a M41's barrel fill the air nor did the groans of a plasma cannon.
"Mind if I ask you something?" Chyler suddenly spoke up still stiffly breathing with the pain in her chest and foot.
"If you're going to ask me about my feelings or something like that then please don't," I admitted, "We have more important things to worry about, and I do not feel like talking about that with everything that's happened today,"
She chuckled that bloomed into a slight cough, "No…I just wanted to know if after this. Are you still going to drop out?"
I couldn't help but give her a wry look, "Really? The world is practically ending from a alien invasion, but you wanna ask if I am coming back to school after summer,"
I sighed, " I…don't know," funny enough I didn't feel like everything was so worthless anymore. I didn't expect that I would change my mind in the midst of a warzone, strange how that happens.
'But why? What exactly is the point?'
"That's fine," Chyler said suddenly looking at him with a weak smile, "Take your time,"
BOOOOOOMMMM
They stopped and turned slightly to look in the direction behind them. A sharp flash of light in the distance blinked before disappearing. Notably there was no sound of the chaingun from earlier.
"The fighting earlier stopped- I thought-," Chyler looked worriedly at me while I was looking over sternly thinking while watching as more flashes of light and booms echoed through the forest.
"Chyler began again, "You don't think he-," she paused again, not finishing. I remained silent. Seeing my lack of a response Chyler decided to add on, "Tom leave me here go and help him,"
My eyes darted over, "I hope you are joking," I moved to continue toward the LZ but Chyler resisted.
"You're just going to bail on him and leave him behind?" Chyler asked with a look of disgust that pained me.
"No, that's not what we are doing," I immediately shook my head. He…He'd saved our lives, and that is a debt I doubt I'd ever be able to pay back.
"Everything he's done since we were saved by him has been in order for us to survive. That includes this command," I said looking Chyler in he eyes, "The Captain has stuck his neck out for us countless times over the past couple hours, and now in order to guarantee the best chance of all of our survival's he told us to go on ahead to keep us out of the fight,"
I paused before nodding as what I said seemed correct, " And at the end of the day he has given us our orders, and so we need to follow them,"
I finished and looked to see Chyler's eyes wide, 'I guess granted my head space a couple days ago it would be surprising to hear those words from me of all people,' Granted I've probably lost multiple years with all that has happened.
She stiffly nodded, "..right," and we began moving forward. Not long after she let out a slight chuckle catching my attention.
"So there is someone you are willing to take orders from," she said with a dazzling smile.
I didn't say anything averting my gaze, but deep down thinking, 'If anyone earned the right too order me it was him,'