Chapter (23) Stalking and Hunting (7)

[Stick around for a fun rant in my usual author's note]

(Mc Pov)

After watching the Brute and the few other Covenant foot soldiers walk out the door I began making my way back to the elevator shaft. I slowly crawled making sure not to make any sound, but still kept a good pace so as not to waste any time. While crawling I was planning my next course of action, as I always do.

'According to this research center's blueprints, they will most likely be heading for the main elevator on the far side of the 4th floor. Fortunately, the kitchen is on the same side as the maintenance elevator. So I should be able to hide in the ceiling of the kitchen and be able to set up a couple of traps to aid in my ambush,' I mused to myself internally.

I crawl until I find the entrance that I entered from inside the maintenance shaft. Because there is no elevator I have to finesse my body to get out without falling to the bottommost floor. I reach out with my right hand outside the crawl space and grip firmly what seems to be some metal ledge. Slowly I pull myself out and with my free left hand, I reach for something similar in the surrounding area. Eventually, I found it and repeated the process which was like climbing a ladder till my entire body was outside of the vent-like structure.

Again I planned to climb up the metal elevator cable like it's a rope. I jumped and turned my body while reaching out to grasp the wire. Just like my initial leap I bumped into the wall though this time I managed to hit the wall on my bad side.

I winced in pain and looked down at my left abdomen to see if the bio-foam was falling out or if the wound had worsened. Looking down I am given a small sense of relief because the wound doesn't have any noticeable extra damage. However, I am feeling a new sense of burning pain along the outer edges of the wound.

'I gotta be more careful. I can't be reckless now with this deep gash in the side of my abdomen. I keep forgetting that, and if I continue to not pay attention to that wound I am going to end up getting myself killed before I can make those bastards pay,' I think to myself in disdain for my shortsightedness.

After bashing myself for a moment or two over my own stupidity I begin the rope climb up the shaft. I again reached the in-between floors crawl space of the third and second floors and climbed into the ceiling space for the third floor and began my crawl to the area above the kitchen. I then opened up a tile and dropped down onto a counter to break my fall.

Looking around I decided to go with a simple flash bang trap that would be manually triggered by me once I had sight of the enemies. The trap that I thought up was terrifyingly simple and would work well in this area with a wide array of surfaces. In essence, I would tie a string through the pins of the grenades and feed the string through a hole in say a table for example that's big enough for the string to pass through but catches the grenade keeping it dangling from the stream. Once I am ready to set them off I simply yank the string and the pins pop off and the grenades roll into the floor. It takes inspiration from the old-fashioned trip-wire traps.

Now many may ask why don't I just throw the two grenades instead? Well, I could do that but I run the risk of not surprising them leading a couple to be able to close their eyes and not be blinded or concussed by the grenades. Alternatively, the lead brute could just start spraying my hiding spot with plasma and get a lucky hit in. All in all the complexity of the extra steps to set up the trap is worth the hassle instead of just gambling in this scenario.

With those thoughts and justifications running through my head, I got to work setting up my ambush.

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(3rd Pov)

*BANG*

"Wh-What was that sis?" asked Dante concerned about the loud bang they just heard outside the refrigerator door.

"I-I don't know Dante," answered Luna, confused with concern creeping up.

"W-What if it's mom and dad?" asked Dante until his face lit up a bit, "M-Maybe they are planning a surprise party for us, and they forgot something in the kitchen,"

Luna smiled at her brother, "I bet you are right. Let me make sure though. For all we know it could be a bad guy. So stay here and I am going to crack the door open so I only see who it is and not ruin the surprise," to which Dante nodded.

Luna slowly got up from the blankets and crept towards the door. She crawled on all fours so as to not make any sound and not alert whoever might be out there. When their parents told them to hide here and gave them blankets saying 'Do not come out unless we are here to tell you' she understood that something was wrong, unlike her brother. As the elder sibling her parents had told her many times that she needed to look out for her brother and help him so that one day when he was old enough he would be able to reciprocate. Therefore she wasn't going to bring down his hopeful expectations unless she absolutely had to and to be honest she didn't want to hear him cry either.

Once she had reached the door she paused for a moment and took a deep breath. She then pressed on the door hand and ever so slightly cracked the door open. What she saw was nothing at all similar to what she expected.

Peeking through the cracked door she saw a tall figure in dark gray armor. The figure was crouched down and seemed to be fiddling with something in its hands. As she looked and studied the figure she was a bit intimidated by its height because even crouched down the figure was taller than her standing straight up.

After a minute of working on something in its hands, it stood up and seemed to run a wire up a wall with its back still facing the cracked door. He secured it to the floor and the wall feeding it into an open hole in the ceiling where a ceiling tile was missing.

As he was setting up whatever he was doing Luna took notice of something on the side of the figure's armor. On the left portion of his stomach, there was a piece of the armor that was not covered in gray armor but instead a white hardened foamy substance. On the pieces of armor surrounding the hole was a stained red color. It took a minute or two before the young girl realized that the red substance was blood and probably from the figure's hole in his armor.

Suddenly the figure began to turn around and quickly Luna stopped observing the figure. Immediately closing the door without making a sound and crawled her way back to her brother and got back beneath the covers.

"Wh-Who was it Luna?" Dante asked with concern seeing his sister's silence.

"It…was…," said Luna, concentrating on finding some lie to say to both keep her brother here and to quell his worries, "It…was…mom! Yeah, it was Mom she didn't say anything but looked at me and told me not to say anything by putting a finger in front of her mouth,"

"Really? Why did she do that and why didn't she want to see me?" asked Dante curiously, tilting his head to the side innocently.

"Because….she had one of your presents! Even though it's not your birthday she figured she would get a toy for you and Dad told me about it a week or two ago. She didn't want me to tell you what it was and didn't want to spoil the surprise so she didn't want you to see her and what she was holding,

"Oh..ok," said Dante as he smiled and nodded satisfied with his big sister's answer.

Internally Luna breathed a sigh of relief that her little brother bought her lie. Her mind eventually turned back to wondering about the figure she saw outside the door.

'What was he doing? Who was he?' numerous questions flooded her mind as her worry began to grow and the most important of the questions being, 'Where are Mom and Dad?'

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(Mc Pov)

'And….there traps are set,' I remark internally, finally done setting up my simple wire traps.

I hop up immediately after checking the traps and pull myself back into the ceiling like some crack addict hiding in an unsuspecting citizen's house.

While I was setting up I felt as though someone was watching me. I didn't pay too much attention to that feeling though. It wasn't a brute in active camo because I would have smelled and heard them seeing how big they are, and it wasn't any other Covenant foot soldier seeing as they wouldn't have hesitated to fire upon me instantly. When I first entered the room I scanned the area and didn't see anyone nor did I see anything out of place. So my leading hypothesis is that there was someone on the cameras which was wonderful. I could talk to one of the scientists and have him be my eyes and ears while I hunt down these bastards.

Now I sit and wait.

…

..

.

Not even 5 minutes later I heard movement outside the kitchen. After a couple more moments in walked the Brute and his small squad of grunts and a single jackal. They were still bantering back and forth as they slowly filed into the kitchen. I waited until all of them had entered the kitchen watching silently and stalking them like a tiger watching a deer before pouncing.

'I will wait until they enter that refrigerator and begin pulling food out. While their hands are full I will make my move,' I thought, deciding on my plan of attack. I drew my pistol and my knife from my hip and collar bone respectively. Holding the knife in my reverse grip with my pistol on top of the hand holding the knife.

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(3rd Pov)

"Don't forget you weaklings, we are getting MEAT only. Otherwise, Rogz will get angry and I WILL NOT be the one throwing the trash away," The lead brute said as he put his hand on the handle of the door leading to the refrigerator.

The group behind him gave some mumbles in agreement as the grunts feared the large hairy alien. The jackal just snorted and said how he wasn't being paid enough for this under his breath in his specie's language.

Eventually, the Brute opened the door and was surprised by the sight he found inside the cool room, "WELL LOOKS LIKE WE MISSED SOME," Announced the Brute loudly to his group.

"OOOO can I have some of the smaller one? I think the small ones taste sweeter," exclaimed a grunt near the front while the others were speaking and claiming which parts of the kids they wanted to eat. Even the jackal was licking its lips in anticipation of its meal.

The children were no longer shaking from the cold but instead were shivering in fear. Both were completely petrified as all color had immediately drained from their face as they saw what their parents had shown them to be a Brute from pictures. The elder female firmly held onto her brother like he was a stuffed animal because even she had lost her composure and the false act of maturity from earlier.

Just as the Brute was about to enter the doorway of the refrigerator. A sound was heard as 2 small metal objects fell and bounced around on the floor at the feet of the group of aliens.

*dink*

*dink*

*dink*

After the rolling cylindrical objects came to a stop everyone in the kitchen looked at the foreign objects in confusion. Even the Brute was momentarily perplexed at what the object was and how it fell.

"What is tha-" were the only words that a grunt could say in its high-pitched voice before the room was lit up with a white light and was followed by a loud bang.

*BANG* x2

Every creature in the room was blinded and deafened including the kids in the small room. They couldn't even hear as the gray figure from earlier dropped down on top of the jackal crushing it and began killing all aliens while they were blind.

The figure immediately fell onto the jackal once the grenades had gone off. The jackal immediately had its skull crushed and other bones pulverized from the force and weight of the figure.

After dealing with the jackal the figure pulled back with his hand holding a combat knife and plunged it through the brute's neck at an upward angle and severed his brain stem. Even with the energy shield defending the brute the knife didn't stop nor slow down it pierced through the shield and killed the brute leader on the spot.

The grunts and children were still blinded and the figure continued to take advantage of that fact. Just as quickly as the Spartan stabbed with his arm he retracted with the same speed before tossing the knife up, gripping the blade in the same hand and throwing the knife at a far grunt. The knife embedded itself in the forehead of the grunt killing it as well.

Finally, the gray Spartan finished the remaining two grunts with two precise shots from his pistol. Each reached their mark taking out a chunk of the grunt's head. Scattering blood and brain matter everywhere.

The entire engagement lasted at most 30 seconds and ended with all hostiles eliminated with the utmost efficiency and with no extra wounds.

Slowly the brother and sister began to regain their vision and hearing and looked at the door to find a gray figure standing at the door. He looked around the kitchen and nodded to himself before spinning the pistol in his hand around his finger and placing it back on his thigh. He turned to look at the children and uttered one single phrase throughout the entire engagement.

"Are you alright?"

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So yeah Sam is a bit sentimental like Jorge. Which I don't see as a bad thing. Though the Spartans were molded into weapons and trained to be soldiers and were rarely treated as human. They were always human though they rarely showed it, but there were numerous instances where they showed their human sides. Besides that fact this fic is about remaining human he will show emotion he will be caring and angry frustrated. Sam won't act as just another nameless automaton and his actions will influence other Spartans so that they may be able to have a future that isn't just endless warfare.

Now time for the REAL rant:

Ok So a chapter or 2 ago I asked you guys how deadly you wanted the Covenant weaponry and talked about the inaccuracies of how deadly Covenant weapons are. Wellllll I under sold how annoying the weapons can be in the various sources. Ok so just to run through some of the bullshit Daisy S-023 got killed by literally 3 needler shards and only one of the shards actually remained solid instead of shattering immediately after impact. Cal S-141 was killed by a single gravity hammer hit to the head by a wounded and exhausted Brute chieftain. Dante G-188 a Spartan-III withstood a needler explosion and was grazed by a plasma bolt but only died later on after continuing to run away. Linda got hit with DOZENS of plasma bolts to the point she was burned to the bone in some places and even took a DIRECT hit to the back of the head…AND WAS CLINICALLY DEAD and put into cryo sleep during the events of Halo:CE only to be recovered later on by John and being subsequently revived by Dr. Halsey after being dead for like a week or two and was patched up with some flash cloned organs AND RECOVERED IN A WEEK. LIke bro come on this isn't even talking about the paramount show or Halo: Forward Onto Dawn which depicted Chief both not being affected AND surviving practically all of the above injuries. I could go on and on about some spartans just fucking TANKING some bullshit while others just get shot with like a spiker and are immediately KIA.

For crying out loud all I want is just to have some standard about what would kill a Spartan across the board. Like Emile and Noble 6 die from puncture wounds caused by plasma blades but fucking Linda just stone walls plasma bolts like they are nothing. Lets also not talk about the fact that Noble 6 fell from orbit alone in just armor and was up kicking ass after walking it off running through the wilderness for like a day, but died to stab wounds. What I am trying to say with this rant is that power levels are bull shit and plot armor is real.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

ANYWAY if you have any questions drop them here or at any paragraph.

Sorry for the latish upload this chapter was quite long.

Song of the day is "Running Down a Dream" by Tom Petty

I hope you all have a blessed day and I will See You Star Side