Halo:Voice of the Forerunner 4

Halo: Voice of the Forerunner IV</u>

(Fan Fiction of the Halo games franchise. Time: After the events of Halo II, before and during the events of Halo III)


“You know what the most suck-ish part about being here? No music”

”I tell you what, if I brought my music, you wouldn’t be so quick to complain”

”Oh it can’t be that bad eh? Not as bad as the jams the Aussie used to listen to, ha-ha!”

”Screw you, you British piece a…”

”Shh, shh, quiet…”

Being on guard duty anywhere, except for London, California, Munich and Reach, is always a dull and rather boring experience, and can be made better or worse by being on guard duty, with other people. In this particular case, the vote upon worse or better was rather divided. The six marines sat upon metal protrusions from the floor that presumably contained some form of mechanism, for they gave off a quiet hum and occasionally shook slightly. The seventh person in the corridor was a taller individual, who wasn’t sitting down. His comment about there being no music had been somewhat regarded by the marines as a conversation starter, as the eerie silence of the corridor was sapping the already low morale.
The taller individual had on a helmet with an orange one-way visor, and wore a set of armour that looked three times as potent as the other marine’s more selective pads. He held an MA5C Assault rifle at his side, and had a M6G Magnum in a holster on his belt. Not too long after he had started the conversation, he heard a shuffling sound from down the hallway, and beckoned the marines to be quiet. The marines in response silently stood from their improvised seats, and hid themselves in shadowed parts of the corridor. Each of them thanked the Forerunner for being so interested in ornate designing when they decided to build their interiors.
For a few moments no one moved or made a sound, the only movement was the subtle breathing, and movement of the eyes by the statuesque marines. After a while though, no sound, and no movement prompted them to ease themselves a little.

“You sure you heard something, sir?” one of the marines whispered.

“Shh!” he said quickly and sharply. The marine silenced himself, and continued his watch of the seemingly empty corridor. Still nothing happened, the marines watched intently for any sign of movement, but still could see no such thing.
Without warning however, the taller man revealed himself from his hiding spot and fired a rapid stream of ballistics from his weapon. At first the marines were confused at what he was doing, but then they looked down the hallway again; and, sure enough as though from another plane, a tall, muscular being phased into existence, lights shining around it as the bullets deflected from the light’s surface.

“Covenant active camo! Fire! ” one of the marines shouted.

“Kill those Covenant scum!” In a split second, all seven of them were firing rifles of several kinds down the corridor. Several other beings appeared, including two shorter ones who managed to scuttle around the corner before being shot to death. The taller and more muscular ones however, roared in anger at the barrage and proceeded to try and evade while firing their own spray of fire. The marines slid back behind the metal of the jutted walls as blue bolts sailed passed them, the familiar sound of plasma rifles rang and then receded as they heard footsteps becoming lighter and lighter.

“That’s it! Run Covenant scum!” one of the marines yelled, though made sure to stay well behind his cover as he shouted it.
All stopped, all was silent, though none of the marines dared peer their faces around the corner. The taller individual after a while did, however, and took a brief look around the corner, before gesturing to the other marines that it was clear.

“Covenant? Here now?” the Aussie asked, breathing a heavy sigh.

“It would seem so, Elite active camouflage, and if I saw correctly, a few Grunts too” the British marine remarked, eying a small trail of purple/blue blood trailing away around a corner.

“Great, now we got Covenant, and the zombie things, ain’t this just frickin brilliant? Someone kill me now!” one of the marines said, sitting himself atop one of the metallic oddities.

“Stop complaining, it’s like we haven’t enough troubles” the British marine said, taking the cigarette from his mouth and blowing out a small cloud of rancid, grey smoke.

“You know, for a Brit, you’ve got a kinda average sounding name, Dave, half expected you to be call Neville, or Timothy. You know those will kill you right?” the American marine retorted.

“An American using humour, Bill?” the British marine grinned. “Yeah, If anyone’s going to be killing me, I’d rather it be me than Covenant or zombie plague”

“Give it a rest you two” the Aussie said “Put that out, it stinks”

”Yes sir, Robert, sir” Dave jeered, giving a mocking salute and casting the cigarette to the floor, stamping it out lazily.

The other three marines chose to remain quiet, one of them rolling her eyes at them while reloading her BR55. The other two just continued a conversation they were having before they had been interrupted by the Covenant forces.
The taller fellow on the other hand kept his helmet faced in the direction of the corridor, he leaned against the wall covered mostly in the shadows of the patterned juts of the wall, and seemed to remain there as though he were dead or asleep. The other marines paid him little to no attention.



“Humans? Humans that are not Flood?” Dtar asked, the tone in his voice suggested that he didn’t fully believe what he had been told, which was to be expected since the Flood could easily overrun any human defense in a matter of minutes, to hours, to days, though usually it took minutes.

”Living breathing humans!” one of the Unggoy yelped. “Shooting at us!” he turned around, revealing a dent in the black methane container that was attached to his back. Dtar was not all that interested in the Unggoy’s methane container to be honest, though his daughter seemed quite concerned for the little Unggoy.

“Aww, did it hurt?” she asked, poking her finger into the indent. The Unggoy looked around to his back, and shifted the skin along his forehead so it looked like he was raising an eyebrow.

“It only armour, no hurt me” he said, turning around and turning his head to the side, somewhat confused by the young Sangheili’s apparent interest in his well being.
“You okay? You look like you have run in with Yanme’e claws and lived” he said, indicating her torn clothing.

“That’s enough” Dtar said, stepping forward menacingly. The Unggoy took the hint, turned hastily and stumbled off behind the other SpecOps.

“He didn’t do anything wrong, Father” Yamn said, looking up at her father questioningly.

“He’s just a grunt, he has no place worrying about your well being” her father said simply. His daughter scoffed silently and looked away towards the Unggoy and watched it with some interest.

“What’s your name?” she whispered. The Unggoy looked at her for a moment, and then looked over its shoulder as though wondering who she was talking too. He then looked back at her with a confused expression and pointed at himself.

“You mean me?” he whispered back. Yamn nodded. “Me named Gagad”

“That’s a nice name” Yamn said “I’m Yamn” The Unggoy tilted his head, and scratched where his ear should be, as though the experience of talking with a Sangheilian child were too much for his mind to comprehend.

“Me like your name” he said. Meanwhile, her father conversed with the SpecOps Major.

“How many of them were there?” he asked.

“There were around 10 in number, though I can’t be totally sure, they hid in the shadows of the corridor and somehow saw us and shot at us. We laid down a counter barrage and retreated as you ordered.” The SpecOps Major said, his black armour glinting in the light of the room as he disabled his active camouflage.

“I instructed you not to fire!” the Supreme Commander growled, advancing upon the operative, who stood his ground staunchly.

“They knew it was us already, Commander, there was no point trying to conceal our identity” the SpecOps Major replied.

“How could you be sure?” the Supreme Commander asked, backing up a little and unclenching his fist.

“He shout ‘Kill them Covenant scum’, very loud” another of the Unggoy chimed in. The Sangheili nodded, folding his arms in front of him.

“This makes no sense” the Supreme Commander said to himself. “If they’ve survived this long, why would they not first suspect Flood instead of instantly believing it to be us?”

”The Flood charges in, they don’t employ stealth in strategy” the SpecOps offered. This was a reasonable explanation, the Flood were indeed known for simply rushing in and overwhelming their opponents with numbers and unnatural levels of stamina.

“Perhaps” the Supreme Commander considered. “Though if they can make such observations in battle, they could complicate things. How far into the building did you find them?”

“They were three floors down, standing guard in a narrow…” the SpecOps didn’t get to finish, before he did the injured Sangheili that had been awkwardly standing behind him suddenly fell to one knee and grunted with pain.
“N’rho! Are you alright?” the SpecOps Major asked. The injured SpecOps twisted his head and pressed his hand onto his armour.

“It’s nothing I can’t deal with… urgh…” and promptly he collapsed to the floor.

“Quickly, summon one of the Phantoms to bring in a medical matrix!” Dtar ordered one of the Sangheili guarding the main door.
The Domo saluted and made for the door, the Unggoy gunners followed the warrior with their scopes. As he stood by the door, he attempted to contact the Phantoms outside, though apparently he found that he could not do so.
“Keep trying, he needs help!” the SpecOps major shouted over.

“Phantom 1? Phantom 2? 3? Are any of you out there?” the Domo tried again. “There can’t be any interference, this one wall couldn’t dampen communication” the Domo said, puzzlingly.

“Try contacting from outside!” Dtar said impatiently.

“Yes, Commander!” the Domo said, giving another brief salute. Stepping in front of the door, it swiftly slid open and let in a cool breeze from the outside world. The Sangheili grimaced at the flooded light, and stepped into the light, just a foot or so outside of the door.
“I can’t see them, they aren’t there!” he called back.

“What!? Where the hell have they gone!?” Dtar roared angrily.

“Wait… by the Forerunners, those wretched creatures!” the Domo said, stepping backwards into the door, his face was filled with anger and hate, but also a sense of lament and loss.

“What is it?” the SpecOps major asked.

“The Phantoms, they’ve been shot down” the Domo said grittingly, holding his fist up and tensing it so tightly it looked as though the armour were about o pop off of his forearm.
“All three of them are in wreckages at the bottom o-oof!” the Domo fell forward a bit, the sound of several consecutive popping noises was heard from him, as though some kind of gas containing thing had just hit a sharp piece of his armour. His energy shield flashed several times in conjunction with the popping.

“Me… me see enemy!!” one of the Unggoy shouted in terror.

“Brother get away from the door!” one of the red armoured majors called out, running towards the stumbling Domo.
The Domo fell forward onto his hands and knees, trying to pick himself up, but every attempt was faltered by some unseen force in the blinding light of the outside world as the continuous popping noises continued.

“Argh!” the Domo shouted angrily, reaching behind itself and trying to swipe something away.

“RRaaaaayy!!” the familiar sound was far away, but all in the room knew what it presented.
The Domo tried to stand once it had apparently cleared whatever it was that was on its back, its energy shield flickered and sparked, obviously low from the multiple pops from whatever had hit him.

“Brothers! Don’t let me… urgh! Stop me, arrrgh!!” the Domo roared and moaned as he stumbled reluctantly into the room, the door closing behind him. Without the blinding light of the outside upon him, all present saw clearly what had attacked him, for it was still doing so. Upon his back crouched a small, yellow coloured being, its front sensors and legs burrowing grotesquely into the flesh of the domo, having clawed away a piece of the body-suit under its armour, and was proceeding to force itself under his skin. The Domo roared in pain, but for some reason seemed unable to move.

“Get that thing off of him!” Dtar shouted, taking up his plasma pistol. The Major that had rushed to him grasped at the creature, but it stubbornly latched onto the Domo and refused to let go. In a revolting display, its body squelched out of the Majors grip, and sunk right under the Domo’s skin.
The Sangheili scratched at the floor, groaning painfully as if trying to hold back a great scream. The Sangheili twitched and shook, his head tilted backwards, as though being forced by some unseen hand. His left arm shook violently, and struck the Major so hard that it sent the surprised Sangheili flying backwards across the metal floor.

“Ro… Brother… kill me! Arrrrggghh!!!!” the Domo growled, his voice becoming distorted and malformed, his skin began to change hue, turning more and more yellow. His arms, legs and body pulsed with enlarged pustules that grew and grew, forcing his armour outwards, some pieces dropping heavily to the floor and bouncing intot he shadows.
“Kill… raa…. Rrraaaaaayy!!”

“Open fire!” Dtar ordered. The Unggoy gunners tugged at their turrets, unleashing a barrage of plasma fire at the Sangheili. Before they could hit him, in a surprising burst of speed he zipped out of the way and leapt forward towards the frightened midgets, a set of tentacle whips thrusting out revoltingly from the forearm of the malformed Domo, lashing forward only to be narrowly deflected off of the forward shielding of the turrets as the Unggoy retreated.

“Rraaaarrrggghhhh!!!” the former Sangheili roared in a distorted, animalistic noise that didn’t come from its mouth, in an open chest cavity protruded several red ended sensory tendrils, which twitched and swayed as the corpse it controlled chased after the frightened Unggoy.
The other Sangheili around the room fired off their plasma rifles, blue bolts flew passed and around the swift moving creature, some of them hitting but being absorbed by the apparently still intact energy shielding.
“Feast upon your bones!” the creature uttered in a low and ominous voice. Dtar ‘Zealonf jerked his head at the sound of it, his daughter too widened her eyes in realization, that the sound was not coming from the Flood being cut in half by V’thi, but it was reverberating in their own minds.

“Foul parasite! Rise up and I shall kill you, again and again!” V’thi roared angrily at the remains of his former brother in arms. From the still intact chest cavity suddenly sprung the little infecting being. It turned a few times, briefly scouting the room, narrowly dodging a strike from V’thi’s energy sword. Making a few mumbling alien-ish noises, it ran across the floor from side to side, heading towards the Supreme Commander. The Sangheili and Unggoy opened fire, but the creature was too small to hit at the range they were, and it continued its charge towards Dtar ‘Zealonf.

“Blessed parasite!” the Supreme Commander shouted, stepping forward and motioning to step upon the creature. Bringing his foot down, the little parasite dived out of the way, and continued passed the Supreme Commander, heading straight behind him.

“No! Yamn!” Dtar called to his daughter. Yamn backed away from the thing, but was soon trapped between the wall and the approaching parasite. It weaved towards her, dodging the few plasma bolts that continued to fire, though they stopped once it got close enough to the little Sangheili.
“Ruuuaaaaarrrrgghhh!!!” the Supreme Commander howled, running towards her with the intent of grasping the little alien parasite and tearing it apart piece by piece.

“Father!” Yamn yelled, backing up against the wall as tightly as she could, she watched the little thing crawl at her, many thoughts of the revolting transformation that would occur when it reached her, and then she remembered what her father had said. The little beast was merely feet from her, and in a display of primal determination, leapt with all its might towards Yamn, its dark purpose clear in its menacing yellow eyes.
“No!” Yamn screamed, taking up the plasma pistol and blindly firing a single shot; that, by luck was point blank to the mischievous alien as it sailed through the air. The parasite burst into tiny scattered pieces, burning away in green fire, letting out one last distorted, animalistic squeak before falling in little singed pieces to the glass and metal floor.
Yamn held the pistol in her shaky grip, her two upper hearts pounded mercilessly in her chest, the other two beat slower and harder as she fell back on the wall and slid to the floor, but she refused to let go of her weapon. The Unggoy around the room chattered among themselves at the sight, as the Sangheili looked on in mixed opinion.

“Yamn! Yamn! Are you alright!?” her father said urgently, kneeling next to her. He pulled her into his arms, holding her fearfully in his concerned embrace.

“Rrraaaaaaaayyy!!! Uuuuuuurrrrgh!!!”

All in the room turned to the door, the light shining slightly through the small windows of the intricately designed door began to flash and shimmer as the loud roars and animalistic growls became closer and more reverberant.

“Commander! We must move from here, further into the structure!” V’thi said, now close enough to shake the Supreme Commander’s shoulder, which he did fervently. Dtar tensed, holding Yamn closer, though didn’t immediately move anywhere. V’thi tugged at his shoulder again, which caused the Supreme Commander to give him a deathly look, though the Ultra didn’t seem too deterred by it, and continued to try and pull him along.
“All of you! Follow the SpecOps to the lift they found, Ultras take up the rear!”

The Unggoy were the first to take this to heart, picking up their weapons and turrets, they started off down the corridor towards the lift. Several of the Sangheili also began following them, stepping backwards so as to keep their attention upon the door. The Ultras stayed behind, the one with the energy sword standing ready and almost eager to rend anything that came through the imposing door. The one with the duel wielded plasma rifles stood next to his partner, his hands steady and equally as deadly as he stared unblinkingly towards the door with a strangely cold look in his eyes.

“Commander, with all due respect…” V’thi began. Dtar looked down at his daughter, who was still holding onto the plasma pistol and shaking noticeably in her father’s embrace. Strangely, his view shifted suddenly until he was looking directly up at his concerned and angry friend. With a sudden and equally strange and unexpected occurrence, the Supreme Commander was sent falling heavily to the floor with nothing but a stinging pain in his left cheek to show what had just happened.
V’thi stared down at him, his tightened fist just beginning to unclench and move back to his side.
“I am sorry, but we must go, now!”

”…You’re right, yes…” Dtar said, as though he were just realizing the danger that was near. Plucking up his daughter from the floor and took up his plasma rifle in his other hand, he followed V’thi swiftly towards the corridor
“Everyone follow the Special Operatives! To the lift before the parasite can catch up to us!”

The main body of the Sangheili forces was already backing up the corridor, the Ultras and the Supreme Commander now bringing up the rear. The sounds from outside were closer, and if the Supreme Commander wasn’t much mistaken, it was more distressed and revolting to the ear. Luckily however they seemed not to be at the door yet, or at least they hadn’t gotten in for whatever reason.

“Where’s the lift!?” Dtar demanded.

“Just up ahead, Commander!” the SpecOps Major shouted back. “It’s that door right there!”

Ahead of them, was a door similar to that of the entrance to the building, small windows, ornate carvings, and the same seemingly invincible metal that all Forerunner structures were made from. The Unggoy had already started hobbling into the lift, which by what Dtar could see was a large room on the inside, he just hoped that all of them could fit into the lift at the same time, or there would be some very unfortunate Unggoy staying behind. Suddenly from where they had come from came a loud grinding noise, metal screeches and whines echoed down the corridor.

“Raaaarrgghh!!” the roar resonated towards them, as the sound of a heavy object being thrown across the room caused vibrations to surge beneath the feet of the retreating Sangheili.

“Everyone into the lift, now!” Dtar ordered. He didn’t see anything yet, but he knew that the Flood were closing in, either by the natural fear and sense of defiant bravery coming from his daughter,  by the rancid smell of rotting flesh becoming stronger and more pungent, or a combination of the two, it was obvious the parasite was not far behind.

”Where’s the control for this!?” one of the Domos asked. The SpecOps Major stood next to it, deactivating his active camouflage and held his hand over the mechanism.

“I have it here, just wa…”

“Rrraaaaaayyy!! Uuuurgghh!!!”

”By the Forerunner! What is that!?” one of the Ultras exclaimed, staring with horrified rage towards the entrance hallway. Down at the end of the corridor, was a large, hulking silhouette that seemed to completely block the entrance to the main hall. It had thick, muscular looking arms, a thin waist, no visible head, two powerful legs, and an oversized upper body. By what the Sangheili could see it moved with surprising speed, using its forearms like an Unggoy does, it ran near on all fours towards the Ultra rear guard.

“Open fire!” Dtar shouted. Immediately the Ultras barraged the creature with a shower of blue plasma bolts, plasma flying through the air and striking the beast on ever possible part of its body. It roared in dissatisfaction, but to the surprise of the Sangheili it still kept coming, seemingly un-phased by the death-shower of their weapons.

“Everyone fall back! Into the lift!” Dtar ordered urgently, beckoning the Ultras in. The Ultras backed reluctantly into the lift, trying in vain to harm the hulking monstrosity, all the while it continued its rampage towards them undeterred, roaring low and viciously as it sped towards them.

“Stay back you stupid monster!” Yamn yelled with surprising anger. Taking up her pistol, she shot a stream of green plasma bolts at the monster, with the same apparently useless effects as the Ultras plasma rifles. Seemingly annoyed by this, she held her finger into the mechanism of the pistol, which caused the gun to glow bright green, a large spiraling ball of green plasma built up at the tip of the weapon, and burst from it as she released her finger.
“Ow!” she almost dropped the weapon, as she had not anticipated how hot the gun would be. The giant bolt sailed through the air as Dtar leapt into the lift, the bolt flew into the creature as it roared again, hitting it directly where in the light from the plasma shot, seemed to be its mouth. Then something curious happened, the creature seemed to trip in full charge, falling heavily forward and sliding across the half glass, half metal flooring, giving a deep and distressed groan.
The lift door shut as the being began to awkwardly push itself up, and as the lift stuttered and began its steady descent, the loud and unmistakable cacophony of a heavy thing smashing into a sturdy surface broke the silence that had cast itself over the group in the lift, complimented by the muffled roars of the enormous creature. The banging sound continued for a while, interlaced with roars and angered groaning, until suddenly it stopped, the last sounds heard being a number of humming sounds, something that sounded like lasers, and a number of pained moans.

“A tough beast, whatever it was” one of the Ultras commented. “Our rifles had no effect on it, hardly a scratch”

”Indeed, the burns seemed to melt away into it somehow” V’thi added.

The Supreme Commander in the meanwhile set his daughter down reluctantly in front of him, still holding onto her shoulders as he knelt down and looked her over. There were no signs of injury, though it was becoming quite clear that her clothes would soon serve her no more.

“Are you alright, Yamn?” he asked with a concerned, soft tone. Yamn discreetly looked at her hand that she had held the plasma pistol, but upon seeing it refrained from showing her father.

“I’m fine, Father” she said, clenching her fist lightly and nonchalantly tilting her head to look in a different direction.

“Yamn, my daughter of words” the Supreme Commander said in a playful tone. “Words don’t serve you when I am shown otherwise” he grasped a hold of her wrist and opened her hand. In her palm and the space between her upper thumb and finger, was a purple bruised looking area, which Dtar recognized as a burn.
“Yamn, you see what happens when you try to play the warrior?”

”But Father, I stopped that monster thing!” Yamn protested, clenching her hands angrily. She gritted at the sting, and used everything she had to not have her father see her discomfort.

“Yes, you did, and I am proud of you for that; but I won’t have you putting yourself in harms way like this. Give me the pistol” Dtar said, holding his hand out towards her. Yamn’s grip upon the pistol tightened, even though her burned hand throbbed, she told herself defiantly that she would not let it go.

“No, Father” she said plainly.

“Excuse me?” Dtar asked, his eyes narrowing slightly. Yamn held the pistol behind her, and stepped back from her father. The Sangheili on the lift looked on disapprovingly, and Dtar did not like the implications some of them were giving it. The Unggoy on the other hand looked somewhat confused, and chattered amongst each other until one of the Majors silenced them.
“Yamn, you are a child, even a male of your age does not handle a pistol”

”No, they handle swords, Father” Yamn retorted. “I am allowed neither”

”And there is a reason for that” Dtar said, standing up sharply and shifting his cape behind him. Yamn had to again admit that her father was indeed intimidating, but unlike last time, she felt no pride in it, for she was now on the receiving end of his intimidation. If she had being paying attention to the rest of those on the lift, she would have noticed that she was not the only person intimidated by her father, some of the Sangheili who had been giving the disapproving glances now conveniently found something else to occupy their time.

“Commander” V’thi interjected, standing beside him. “Perhaps, in light of the circumstances, it would be best that she hold onto it”

”V’thi, you dare to interrupt?” Dtar asked, shooting him a cold look. V’thi seemed un-phased by the glare, and began to explain himself.

“I merely point out that if she is caught alone, she would be an easy target for the parasite” Dtar leaned closer to him, V’thi being so immensely tall, he had to look up slightly to look him right in the eye.

“Have you seen what the pistol did to her? I will not allow her to possess something so dangerous” Dtar whispered with a hiss.

“I could disengage the build up mechanism” V’thi offered. Dtar seemed to consider this, but did not back down; as a Supreme Commander, it was not good to show weakness in front of his men, and by the way things were going, he couldn’t afford to slip up now.

“Fine, but her safety, is on your head as well as mine, understand old friend?” Dtar growled, then pulled his head back and looked down at his daughter.

“Upon my honour, Commander” V’thi said.


- To be Continued