Mission 4 - GROUND BATTLE THREAD

[hollowsaber]

Arbiter Suliam Quart'ai Blade Of The Prophets The top of the Ancient Structure

“Arbiter!” The pilot cried out, and the phantom listed to the left.

Suliam turned and caught only a glimpse of the incoming threat; a Human craft... The Arbiter smashed into the cockpit and spat onto the glass as he grabbed on tight to the side of it. The Sangheili growled and stared at it’s pilot through his eye-protectors and leaned in close to the window.

“Demon...” He whispered.

The warrior moved up and brought his feet beneath him, effectively balancing himself on the nose of the craft. It was hard to move from the wind resistance and the speed of the aircraft, but he pushed back, leaning up a bit off the glass. Blade in hand, Suliam roared loudly and shoved hit energy sword into the main control panel of the vehicle, cutting through the cockpit window and into the dashboard.

Suliam looked down at where he struck, then up at the Demon. He twisted the blade, then retracted it. The warrior glanced around him quick, then saw a place he could jump to. The Arbiter kicked up onto the glass, and quickly dove to the right, slamming against the peak of the Ancient structure.

Three tall pillars shot upwards from the main building. There weren’t connected, and in the middle a circle-shape was carved in between the three prongs. Suliam stood and balanced himself, but a heavy wind caused by the coming sandstorm made it difficult to stand. The sangheili growled, and redirected his attention to the human in the craft... Where had he gone..

[Spartan 999]

Petty Officer Jethro-097

[/center]

"Move aside, Vic." Jethro said, nimbly hopping onto the back of the still functional rocket hog. "This never gets old..."

Jethro shifted the turret, aiming precisely at the Hunter pair down the corridor. He pulled the triggers, sending a volley of rockets at the armored behemoths. "Open wide, ya bastards!"

Three rockets hit; two slammed into the lead Hunter's shield, making the alien stagger back under the impacts, while the third detonated on the kneecap of the second Hunter. With twin bellows of rage, the Hunters fired their Fuel Rod Cannons almost simultaneously.

Jethro barely had enough time to grab a pair of rocket launchers from the hog, dive off, and roll behind cover before the shots hit. With a double BANG, the vehicle exploded in a fireball of mixed red and green fire.

Grinning wide, Jethro came up, a launcher on each shoulder. He pulled the triggers, one after the other, so that four rockets tailing one another whooshed down the hall. One hit each Hunter dead one, blowing the lead one's midsection out, and causing the second's head to explode in a shower of orange blood.

[Daenerys Targaryen]

Litenant Jessica Mae Collins ONI

While waiting for the brute chieften to fire back one of the Spartans got into the rocket turret and fired at the hunters gaurding the door who fired back. "SHIT!" She yelled before diving behind cover just in time to not die.

[tincanhitman]

Hectus saw the grenade and activated the gravity of the hammer, causing the grenade to fly back. Then his hunters burst forward and put their shields over him to stop the shot. Seeing this Hectus turned and ran down the hall.

As he ran he activated his com. "Special operator i am in need of a pickup! Follow my coordinates"

Damen Sharpee
Special operator

Damen heard the chieftains call and got on his com "Move out, begin strafe!" with that his phantom and the three other phantoms made their decent, they went to the tunnel's end. They fired appon the troops their, forcing them to move or die,

Hectus
Brute Chieftain

Hectus ran, huffing from the sprint, coming in sight of the artifact. it wa speaking, running he went to grab her.

CNV Pyrrhic Victory
DAV-Class Stealth Corvette

Ship master Fej Jelob'ee squinted at the monitors watching the phantoms attack the human forces, the rest of the fleet was in ruin but there was hope yet...

Fexlure and Tasmasa
Hunter Terror troopers

Fexlure fell back wards as the rocket slammed into his front. He looked over in time to see his bond brother's knee explode sending worms and orange blood every where.

Fexlur roared in rage, allowing his horrid scream fill the entire structure. He stood and fired his fuel rod at the human vehicle. Then rushed in to engage them in close courters.

[SuperCommando]

CPO SPARTAN-009 (Silas)

Planet Artifice

The top of the ancient structure

Silas pushed his back into the seat and raised his arms out of reflex as the roaring Elite plunged his energy sword through the canopy. The sizzling blade sunk into his control panel, causing a shower of sparks to fly into the SPARTAN’s face. The cockpit was suddenly filled with a shrill alarm and blinking red lights. Looking up, the Elite had disappeared.

Silas grabbed the stick, but it was no use. The controls, what was left of them, weren’t responding. The Hornet began to spin out of control. Holding back a momentary surge of panic, Silas tried to eject. No use, that was fried too. As he felt his stomach lurch as the Hornet bled altitude, he struggled to find some method of escape. Desperately, he grabbed his machine gun. Without even unclipping it from his tac harness, Silas simply tilted the weapon upward and mashed the trigger. Bullet casings bounced around the cockpit chaotically and pinged off his armor as the canopy above him was shredded and rained glass on him. Pulling his feet onto the seat beneath him, Silas pushed off with all his might.

The Spartan shot out of the downed Hornet with a spray of broken glass. A powerful, disorienting feeling of vertigo immediately hit him as he tumbled through the windswept sky. He couldn’t tell where he was, just that he was falling. As the world spun around him, he glimpsed a platform below. He tried to aim for it, over-rotated, and landed on it shoulder-first with a crunch.

Silas’s breath left his body with a wince of pain. He staged onto one knee, his right arm’s muscles locked up and tingling excruciatingly. That was definitely a sprain. Gasping for breath, he looked up.

There he was, the giant elite in the silver armor. They had landed on top of the grand pillars towering over the roof of the alien structure. Holding in a groan so as not to show his opponent weakness, Silas forced his arm to move. He snatched up his machine gun, leveling it directly at the Elite. They stared at each other, motionless as the dusty winds picked up and screeched all around them.

“Who are you?” Silas asked coldly, his voice calm yet forceful, but not without a hint of concealed pain. “And what is that android? Why does the Covenant want her so bad?”

[hollowsaber]

Arbiter Suliam Quart'ai Blade Of The Prophets Near the Exit of the Structure

Suliam looked up as the Demon crashed down onto another one of the pillars. He snarled at the creature and held his energy sword to his side, ready to fight the human, but he remained still and silent as it moved. The Warrior watched the man fight onto his then down at his machine gun as he leveled it to him. Suliam looked down at the weapon, then back up at the golden visor of the Human.

“Who are you? And what is that android? Why does the Covenant want her so bad?”

The Human asked, and Suliam looked down to where they had come from, turning slightly as he looked. Then he looked back to the Human.

“I am Arbiter Suliam Quart’ai. I was sent by our Holy Prophets to this site to recover the Artifact... I know as much as you do about it Demon.” Suliam growled, then took a step forward. The warrior drew its second blade, but simply held it to his side.

“I have many questions to ask it... and I will go through as many of your kind as necessary to get them answered! I care not for my prophets will!” The Arbiter hissed and threw his unactivated energy sword to the humans feet.

“Fight me human... If you win... I shall let you have it peacefully... But if I win, I want a few moments with the Artifact...”

[Daenerys Targaryen]

Lieutenant Aspen "Jade" Watts and Dani-047

"Shit!" Dani yelled as even more phantoms descended in on them. So with a quick draw the spartan took the rocket launcher strapped to her back and fired two rockets toward one of the incoming phantons, cuasing blue fire to ripple along the outside, yet it still trudged along, damaged though. "Grizzlies, get those fucks!!" Cried Dani into comms' it seemed like they completely forgot about the grizzlies that shot the first incoming phantoms down and revenged was swift. Two grizzlies opened fire on two of the incoming phantoms.

A large BANG was heard as one of the two Phantoms in the air imploded to it's right side with the other half exploding outward into the desert. Most of the depresse battered the first damaged pelican sending it into a sand dun, still npt that damaged. It was amazing how the heavy lasma fire soon disspated.. leaving the arcid smell of melted rock in it's wake. The Two pelicans in the air continued to circle in wait for a hot rescue. It was going to be now or never soon so Dani, followed by 12 ODST and at least 2 Marines spinted toward the hallway from the rocks, covering the shot distance almost imediatly. Dani arrived in the entrance just as hectus attempted to make a grab for C3.

[z]

Lucifer-077

Leaping off the hornet, and making a roll on the ground, Lucifer came up on her gut, overlooking the entrance. The Phantom firing on the entrance is what Dani needed gone, so pressing her COMM she yelled out to the heavy support.

"This is SPARTAN-oh-seven-seven calling in heavy support to fire on hostile air!"

"We hear, oh-seven-seven, firing..." A loud crack met the air and the Phantom blew outward in a large flash of blue plasma. The heavies then turned towards the other Phantom and began firing.

077 was on her feet a moment later, running towards the entrance, looking up she saw the "ghosts" of the few she had just killed fade away with smoke. Focusing now, she followed Dani and the other UNSC inside.

Lucy Grey

The phantom exploded near the objective, Lunar squad was crouched on a vantage point, Jackson and Cox were doing their thing while Anders covered them, and Alex had his sniper up. hell even Lucy was firing short bursts from her MA5C.

They were waiting on Isin to give the order, otherwise they would just play the support role for a while.

[tincanhitman]

Damen Sharpee
Special operator

Damen flew forward out of the phantom from the force of the explosion. He had enough time to register the forunner structure before he smashed into it, and began his great journey anew...

[Dutch]

Victor's spirits rose as he saw one Hunter get torn apart and the second one charge inside to deal with them in a rage. Perfect, it could only face one of them at a time now. Unloading two slugs at the enraged beast, Victor opened up his COM to Jethro.

"Jethro, I'll distract it, you take it out when its back's exposed."

[tincanhitman]

Fexlur
Hunter Terror Trooper

Fexlur blocked the slugs easily and swung his shield at the human. He then primed his fuel rod for an attack.

[Dutch]

Victor back-peddled furiously, ducking under the swing of the shield while noticing the imminent powering up of the fuel rod cannon. Setting his jaw, he waited until the whining of the cannon warned him of it its firing, then dropped to the ground at the last moment and let the fiery green capsule sail overhead and plow into the wall behind him. Even through his armor, he could feel the heat from the blast burn his skin. Rolling to the side, he snapped back to his feet and fired twice more.

"Jethro, now!" He yelled to his team mate.

[Spartan 999]

Petty Officer Jethro-097

[/center]

Grinning from ear to ear, Jethro drew both his MA5B and MA5K, aimed at the Hunter's exposed back, and pulled the triggers. Armor-piercing rounds slammed into the back of Fexlur, making the behemoth scream in agony. Jethro unloaded both weapon's magazines into the orange worms, blood splattering to the floor. With a loud thud, the Hunter fell.

"Not bad, eh?"

[tincanhitman]

Felur
Hunter Terror Trooper

Fexlur slumped forward and rolled onto his back. He was not dead, but when he tried to move his arm it did not respond. He felt the human that had shot him, he gave a low cry of pain and loss. Then died, his last few worms wiggling only a little before dying.

[SuperCommando]

CPO SPARTAN-009 (Silas)

Planet Artifice

The top of the ancient structure

Silas kept the M247 trained on the Elite as he quickly glanced down. An energy sword hilt…? He returned his attention to the Elite, this “Arbiter”, and grimaced. There seemed to be a lot going on here, but most of it went right over his head. He felt like he was walking the razors edge, almost literally. What was absolutely certain, however, is that he was staring death in the face. And death was speaking to him… politely.

“Okay, deal,” Silas replied. What choice did he have? He could either refuse and possibly die, or accept and possibly die. But by accepting, at least he could be reasonably assured of an honorable fight, which might level the playing field a bit.

He set the machine gun down next to him and picked up the energy sword hilt with his left hand. There was no way his right arm would be able to withstand the kind of punishing blows he no doubt would have to block, but Silas was fairly ambidextrous so it mattered little. Still, it felt extremely awkward to hold – he had to place two fingers on either side of the bump in the middle, and it was unusual to hold a hilt horizontally instead of vertically.

Standing slowly, defiant of the howling winds, Silas faced his generous opponent. With his right hand, he drew his machete-style blade from his side like a short sword and twirled it down into a reverse grip. Then he raised the energy sword hilt up in front of his face slowly, steadily, then flicked it off to the side, activating it with a hissing snap.

[hollowsaber]

Arbiter Suliam Quart'ai Blade Of The Prophets The Top of the Ancient Structure

Suliam waited for the human to get himself ready, and stood silent. The human seemed a bit confused, but as he drew a small dagger, the man seemed to be at least a little versed with swordsmanship. That was rare, but Suliam grinned at it. This could get interesting...

Blade at the ready, Suliam stepped to the right onto the other platform, and began to circle right. He took only two steps, then on his third with his right foot, lunged forward. The warriors eyes shimmered under the protectors as he brought the sword across, swiping hard from the direct right of the human. The Arbiter stepped firmly in front of the man and twisted his torso, bringing the blade fiercely towards the human from the side.

[Daenerys Targaryen]

Dr. Victoria Jean Harper

She knew the forces running into the corridor could handle themselves so after she finished her coughing fit from the fumes of melting plasma covered rocks the woman stood and looked around, no Silas... but with a few minutes of inspection with her field binoculars she looked up and found the Spartan lead of Gold team Silas and the large alien with silver armor circling each other... "Are they having a civil fight? SILAS!! Are you daft!!??" She cried out before spitting several swear words in french. Her words lost in the desert winds.

[SuperCommando]

CPO SPARTAN-009 (Silas)

Planet Artifice

The top of the ancient structure

Of course it came from the right. That was his weak side. At least it let Silas know that his opponent was an observant and clever one.

Silas had been flat-footed, so intent on watching the Arbiter and trying to anticipate his movement that he nearly didn’t react fast enough. The SPARTAN’s left-handed sword sprang up at the last second, twisting his torso sideways to bat aside the attack coming from his right. Keeping that motion going, Silas continued to twist, spinning around with his knife aimed for the Arbiter’s throat. At the same time, he thrust out his right leg at the Elite’s stomach to try and kick him backwards.

[Dutch]

PO SPARTAN-126 (Victor)
Planet Artifice

Victor nodded approvingly as the last hunter expired in a pile of its thick orange blood. Kicking one of the slithering worms, he reloaded his shotgun before taking off down the hall towards the entrance.

"Dani, Victor here. We've finished off the Hunters and are en route to the dig site entrance, what's the situation up there over?" He said into his COM, pausing to to empty a slug into the head of a moaning brute.

Speaking of Brutes... That chieftain was still going, and making a run for the android. Victor whirled around the corner and send two more slugs at it with twin thunderous booms.

[tincanhitman]

Hectus
Brute Chieftain

Hectus reached out towards the artifact, when suddenly he felt a horrible pain in his back, when he turned he got hit in the side by the second slug and spun.

his captain jumped out and caught him. Hectus reached down and touched the hole, allowing his blood to pool into his hand. He only coughed at it and looked up at his trusted captain, suprus, touching his face with the bloody hand, then slumped, deign in his captains arms.

The captain sat there, too stunned to even cry out in rage or sorrow, he just fell to his knees.

( )

[hollowsaber]

Arbiter Suliam Quart'ai Blade Of The Prophets The Top of the Ancient Structure

The smack caused Suliam to stop, but the warrior kept his body still. As the human twisted back, Suliam thrusted his blade forward and leaned backwards to avoid the coming knife. Using his long reach, as well as the length of the blade, the warrior jabbed the blade, coiling with hot plasma to the face of the human.

Yet, as he jabbed, the kick of the man connected with his thigh. The Sangheili had been to focused on the knife, that the second strike evaded his vision. The warrior moved with the kick, and brought his other foot to a final resting position near the edge of the peak. The human was turning to him still from the momentum of his strike. Suliam crouched beneath the Human’s knife’s path, and jolted forward, thrusting his blade directly for his mid-section.

[Dutch]

Victor grinned as the chieftain fell, using slugs this time around was turning out to be a good idea. Focusing on the other brute, he squeezed the trigger, and heard the most horrible sound one could her in pitched battle.

Click. Victor's eyes snapped down to see that his shotguns tube had been blown open, and the shells had spilled out. Damn it. Dropping the useless M90, Victor darted for the M7 at his side as the brute captain prepared to charge.

[Daenerys Targaryen]

Dani-047

The female Spartan watched as the brute Cheiftin was struck down by Victor. Now being cradled in the other brutes arms as it died.. She almost felt sorry for the living one as she walked closer to it and leveled her BR55 toward it's head, pulling the trigger twice.

[Spartan 999]

Petty Officer Jethro-097

[/center]

Tailing Victor closely, Jethro reloaded both his MA5B and MA5K as the two sprinted down the hall. As they came up to where the Chieftain was attempting to seize the android, Victor fired his shotgun twice at the massive alien.

Not even pausing, Jethro skidded around the corner, barely losing any momentum. With a harsh scraped of metal on metal, the bayonet on top Jethro's AR sprang out, wicked blade gleaming in the light. He charged at the Captain, firing both the MA5B and masterkey as he did so.

[tincanhitman]

Suprus
Brute Captain

Before the Demon could pull the trigger, Suprus spun and grabbed the barrel, then attempted to flip the human over him onto his dead chieftain.

He was in a rage, he only wanted death, death all around him.

( )

[Daenerys Targaryen]

Dani-047

The female Spartan was cuaght off gaurd as the brute chief grabbed the barrel, she let out a small yelp of suprise before letting go of the gun and pulling out her duel SMG's and firing toward the Captain.

[Dutch]

Too many friendlies in the line of fire, Victor left his M7 and drew the kukri's from their sheathes. Moving like a quicksilver, he charged with the speed only a SPARTAN could manage and leaped at the brute, who was occupied with Jethro.

[tincanhitman]

Suprus slammed backwards, hoping to cause the spartan to release his grip, he then would roll up and draw his spiker.

But to no use, as the smg's bullets would tear into him, he some how managed to stand and roar, before falling back and slumping against the wall....dead.

[Daenerys Targaryen]

Dani-047

"God damn..." Dani mumbled before walking over to the brute and kicking in. She then bent down and grabbed her BR55 and holstered her smg's.

((We should wait for C3 to post since we only need her to follow us now.))

[Dutch]

Victor picked up his M7 and clipped it on his hip. Then picking up his shotgun, he ground his teeth. The tube was obliterated, no way it could hold shells now. Throwing it on the ground in disgust, he sighed and sheathed his blades, then looked to Dani.

"So where's Silas? Last I heard he sounded like he was in a bit of a scuffle."