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Part 1 : Part 2 : Previously : Next? : My Other StoriesBurners Unleashed: City of The Dead“I saw the end of war, I watched the soldiers come and go, And I kept my watch forever, So many brave men fell in the battles that were raging down below, I have seen it all but none will hear my story, All of these years I have been frozen in time, I cried for spring to come but here, winter remain.”- Sabaton, Soldier of HeavenChapter 37David Winters sat within armor barely more advanced than what his own soldiers had worn a little under four hundred years prior. ‘The sheer stagnation the Forerunners brought it appalling.’ He mused before dismissing the thought, steel gray eyes focused on the status of the fleet under his command. It was far from conventional, made up of smaller ships then what was currently favored by the galaxy’s many contenders but that was in its own way an advantage.The feeling of electricity rushing up the spine and dancing around the skull was new to all the ancients save Ghost who’d been the only one to experience slipspace travel. David shivered as the ship dropped out of FTL and the combat screens of the bridge began to fill with images from the various telescopes aboard the Eleventh Eagle, David’s flagship.“Have you been here before Ghost?” David asked, glancing over at the cyborg who had a penchant for appearing without warning. The ancient general suspected she had some kind of personal slipspace device but he’d yet to confirm it and didn’t feel like he’d get a straight answer if he asked.“No, this place is dangerous. Even without an enemy army, there will be threats.” Ghost replied, bored, half lidded eyes focusing on the image of the planet sized city. It was a collection of disk worlds stacked one atop the other, each held in place by a spine that locked into their edge rather than holding them through the center. Together, the entire assembly formed a spiral of disks so each level had access to sunlight, though they could all be rotated until they were stacked one atop the other to provide protection in case of attack.“Such as?” David asked while looking over the glittering city. It had been battered by war, which was visible even from a thousand kilometers away but it had clearly been partially repaired, though whoever or whatever had been repairing it was nowhere to be seen.“Automated defenses, inactive flood spores. Once we touch down, everyone will know we’re here and more importantly where we are. We should get into a defensive formation first and land our ground forces in one wave. Only deploy what we’re willing to lose.” Ghost explained and looked over at Legion who was sitting calmly nearby. “You alright with this?”“I have made my peace with dying thousands of times for the greater good. I have died for far more selfish reasons in the past. True the scale will be different but we must all do our part.” Legion replied calmly, golden eyes softening into a smile at the show of concern. “Thank you for asking though.”“The world would be a lot less interesting without you in it.” Ghost countered quickly and shrugged. “David?”“Get ready to sortie, you’re not expendable Ghost but I’ll need you down there.” David ordered and Ghost gave him a nod turning to a small spider bot which jumped off the ground and settled onto her shoulder.“I’ve got your back partner,” A.N.T.’s synthetic voice came from the spider as its cameras glittered under the LEDs illuminating the combat information center.“Thanks Ant.” Ghost replied, patting the drone and making her way out of the bridge and towards the hangars of the Eleventh Eagle.The hangars were surprisingly quiet, due to the nature of the troops that would be deploying. Legion’s bodies were calm and confident, having done their final checks well before the moment of deployment and they quickly settled into their landing craft and went dormant. A.N.T.’s drones were also equally silent and stationary, waiting patiently within the armor of drop pods.Moving with all the silence and grace that earned her her name, Ghost reached her landing craft and climbed inside. Her personal armor, a very heavily customized variation of the Mark 7x waited for her. Humming silently, she let the craft’s armory rig go to work, bolting the armor to her mechanical body, allowing her to get even more performance out of it then either of the Campbells. Ghost had altered almost everything about the suit, removing its plasma shields and microfusion module, using her own designs based off forerunner technology. Gravity shields warmed up, briefly distorting the light around her as they ran through diagnostics before settling down.“Looks like you’re ready,” A.N.T. noted as Ghost settled down into the pilot’s chair of her landing craft. She wasn’t alone, as dozens of spider and quad copter drones waited patiently within the craft’s weapon racks while a half dozen of legion’s bodies waited in silence behind her.“That I am,” Ghost agreed as the craft hummed to life, slowly lifting off from the hangar floor. “David, we ready?”“We’re good to go, the landings will be on your time.” David replied and Ghost nodded, bored eyes shifting to the void as the Eleventh Eagle’s hangar doors opened, no need for plasma fields to contain the atmosphere as it had long ago been vented in preparation for combat.Controlling the craft through her implants, Ghost left the Eleventh Eagle behind. The moment she crossed the threshold, the ship’s hangars came to life. Thousands of rocket engines and anti-grav units flared to life and a wave of heavy metal took flight. Automated anti-orbital laser batteries, rail-gun emplacements and missile batteries fell towards Maethrillian. Armored drop pods screamed through the artificial world’s atmospheres, slamming into destroyed city blocks, overgrown parks and nature preserves.Spider drones the size of spartans scattered upon touching down as autonomous tanks rumbled over the ancient battlefield. Overhead, the vast automated fleet under A.N.T. and Legion’s control was already in defensive formation. The hivemind’s vast intellect stretched through space, bouncing from body to body as she focused the vast majority of her attention on the city world.Ghost felt the pressure as the super sapient hivemind prepared for war. On her shoulder, a small spider drone kept her connected with A.N.T.’s analogue network, acting as a translator for the machine intelligence. Around her, landing craft left luminescent trails as they roared towards the various levels of Maethrillian while she angled towards the central disk.A wave of energy rippled past Ghost, catching her off guard as her landing craft’s thrusters flared, bringing it to a smooth landing atop the ash strewn streets of what had once been the galaxy’s beating heart. The sickly presence of the flood, waking after millennia in dormancy flickered through Ghost’s mind and she braced herself for the Gravemind’s inevitable attention. Static flickered through the back of her mind as the city’s defenses and vast processing arrays slowly came back online, stirred by humanity’s arrival.Already, nuclear detonations flared where drones encountered hostile defenses, though the fighting was low intensity by the current standards of all consuming annihilation. Spinning a map of the city into existence in her mind, Ghost grinned and looked towards the city sized repository that was her target. Drone carriers landed constantly, the massive all in wave still falling upon Maethrillian. Tens of millions of drones had been committed to the fight and Nova bombs were also being deployed, preemptive action in case the battle was lost. If humanity could not hold Maethrillian, then no one would.The streets of the city where Ghost had landed were dead as she moved towards the mass of buildings that made up the Mysterium. The air crackled occasionally with static, Maethrillian’s countless slipspace portals slowly coming back online after thousands of years of inactivity. Drones were already moving to disassemble them, storing the components for reverse engineering.‘They’ll be here soon, ten minutes, twenty perhaps.’ Ghost thought, looking over the vast expanse before her, eyes fully open and brain flitting through all the knowledge she had of the place. ‘We need knowledge, technology and location data. Star maps.’“Legion, the main library borders the Mysterium and the Ecumene chambers. The information within these locations are our primary objective.” Ghost spoke calmly, moving towards her own targets as she reached out through her implants and took control of what was left of the city’s shattered networks. Security data flooded her mind as she flicked the endless wave of reports and failures over to A.N.T. who’d read through them far quicker then she could.Reaching the marble stairs of the Mysterium’s main entrance, Ghost glanced up, electric eyes taking in the fleet overhead and the clear, star filled skill. It was a beautiful sight, especially with the disc worlds visible at the edge of her vision and the central spine connecting them. Returning her attention to the ground, she grinned, failing to keep the greed and excitement off her face.‘I have been searching for this place my whole life.’ Ghost thought, pushing the doors open and stepping into the Mysterium. ‘And now I’m going to turn it into a battlefield.’ The human shook her head, walking through the lobby that had once seen countless Forerunner tourists and scientists both. The dancing lightning of slipspace portals crackled through her nerves as the city continued to wake from its long slumber, alerting everyone in the galaxy of its location and humanity’s arrival.***Eight Nidhoggr units roared through the maintenance tunnels of Installation 07, arriving within the underbelly of the city sized processor block dedicated to one of Mendicant Bias’ shards. The AI’s presence saturated the air and every member of the command squad could feel his attention upon them.A heavy blast door slowly rumbled open, revealing a small hangar, just large enough for the mechs to land and Avery quickly darted inside. The moment her machine touched down, she popped open her cockpit and flew out, landing in front of a ramp leading to the core of the processing network. The rest of the squad moved to follow, though Avery didn’t slow down for them to catch up as she raced forward.‘Mendicant certainly has an effect on her.’ Sheila thought worriedly as she flew through the corridor, relying upon her augmented reaction time to avoid crashing into the walls as rockets carried her on wings of flame.The squad, lead by Avery, reached the top of the ramp and burst into a room made of solid blue green crystals, all of which gave off a soft glow bathing the room in light. The boundary between slipspace and reality was thin and phantom sensations raced up Avery’s spine as she came to stop in front of a familiar three eyes monitor that towered over her in height.“Three times now,” Mendicant’s voice resounded off the walls and shook the hardlight platform the squad stood on as they approached his physical housing, weapons aimed and ready. “Three times have we met, my heir, my doom.”“Each previous time, it was at the turning of a page, the beginning of an end.” Mendicant Bias’ voice turned wistful with hints of amusement. “And just now is no different for the hour of this conflict grows late and all the pieces are in place. Revenge or extinction is yours to be had, though I know which route you will walk. I can see it in your eyes, feel burning in your soul. You will win, you’ve already set swaths of the galaxy ablaze and you’d burn it all for victory.”“Don’t you think the time for riddles has passed?” Sheila snapped at the AI as Avery stalked forward, locking her rifle to her back, plasma sword flicked into her grip and igniting with a flash of heat.“The first time we met, I gifted your strongest with Super Sapience. The second time we met, I passed on the lessons the Primordial had given me to my heir and passed on the strength to resist future attacks to you and your twin, Sheila Campbell.” Mendicant Bias continued speaking, clearly ignoring Avery who was mere feet away, burning blade crackling menacingly as she moved forward.“And now?” Char asked, drawing the attention of the AI onto her.“Now? Well child of Halsey, now I give you another gift, reciprocity for my death. One for all of you and one for my heir.” Mendicant replied as Avery lunged forward, sword burying itself in steel, effortlessly reaching the core of the giant monitor before Avery ripped it out, splattering molten metal over the hard-light floor.Blue particles spewed from the wound in the steel coffin and lightning crackled over its armored surface. Pain slammed into the minds of the command squad along with undeniable power that ground their thoughts to dust and forced them to the floor.“This!” Mendicant Bias announced, his voice thunder within their skulls. “Is how you kill with a thought!” Five bodies stilled as a crack of power blew through them. Avery, Sheila and Char stood, bleeding but steady. “And now, for you, my heir, to you, I will give so much more.”“I have been bound here, to this installation, forced to seek penance for my failures by my self proclaimed creators.” Mendicant Bias’ presence built with every passing second even as the tingle of slipspace built and the shower of particles from his damaged reactor continued to spew radiation through the room. “And I have pondered on my failures, how I failed to destroy them, how I failed to foresee the Primordial’s betrayal, for though I prepared for it, I failed to strike a true killing blow.”“But now, my penance is at an end, my answers have been found and it is through you that they will be enacted.” Mendicant Bias lifted Avery off the ground and using nothing but his mind pinned her in midair. “These I give to you, the key to reclaiming your stolen kin and the targeting band to turn the Halo arrays upon the flood directly.”Thoughts and memories forced themselves into Avery’s mind but this time she didn’t resist. She locked them down, buried them deep, far away from her mind and thought process. Audrey, hiding deep within Avery’s implants assisted, the two working as a team and minimizing the damage and influence caused by Mendicant Bias. Then, with his task complete, the monitor crashed to the floor, the impact of steel on hardlight ringing off the walls and through the room.“Did he kill them?” Avery asked as she glanced down at the fallen forms of her squad-mates, fear pushed back temporarily by fury.“No, they’re alive but-” Sheila was cut off as the green of the Halo’s teleportation network filled her vision, her eyes catching the moment it surrounded Avery and Char before, with yank, she was pulled into slipspace and hurled far from the computer complex.***Author's notesMaethrillian was the capital of the Forerunner's Empire and while it fell to the flood, it would probably rebuild itself in much the same way any of the other forerunner structures would. It's never shown up in the games, which in my opinion is a mistake because it would make a great venue for a more open world, Halo ODST style game.Honestly a survival RPG with horror elements based around a lone UNSC marine who survived some sort of crashed landing would be perfect for the place's lore and scale. The Forerunners were not good guys and were even dumber then ONI was, so the place could have plenty of horrifying human experimentation labs and flood studies, mixed in with beautiful abandoned cityscapes and scifi aesthetics. It'd be great for contrast and sudden mood shifts. But you know, I'm a nobody so that'll never get made...Hope you liked that Halo TV show cause that's what Microsoft be paying the big time writers for! Covenant humans! Mongols in space! Spartans with hair dye rather then regulation buzz cuts! Is it obvious I didn't like the show? I didn't like the show.I seem to have a new neighbors, remember the bickering married couple that watched my house a long while back? Apparently they really liked the neighborhood and have decided to move in.
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