TTK Stories: Halo Chapter 7.1

TTK: The Way the World Ends

General Shepard had three things on his mind.

One: Time was running out. They had underestimated the NH Colony's military response time. In almost less than half an hour, they would push him back and claim back their metal wreck and whatever secrets it contained for their own.

Two: The two teams he sent in had finally made contact with them, but their current commanding officer reported that their previous CO and one of her subordinates had remained inside to 'investigate' further. He assumed his special spy would be in there as well, but he could not make personal contact with him to confirm this.

Three: What would be the fate of the structure the worst case scenario were to surface? He had to erase everything even if it meant ...

"General, with the data gathered from your men, I feel it is time for a.. how should I put this, 'tactical retreat?' " Albert Wesker spoke calmly over his monitor. General Shepard shifted in his chair. "Very soon, Wesker. I need to collect my own agents at the least," he responded gruffly. Wesker raised his arms, looking at it as he twirled his wrists. "As with all your other agents, I'm sure you know that no matter how valuable they are, they are still expendable," he said nonchalantly, smirking with ease. Shepard wasn't an angel himself, but he hated Wesker's plain disregard for people. Despite betraying his own Task Force for his personal agendas back then, at the very least he still honoured them as soldiers, not lab rats.

Still, orders were orders. He would give them a bit more time, before pulling the plug on the mission. "Ramius, ready all Helldart and Wombat pods, divert energy for the Gottfrieds and the Lohengrins as well." He ordered her. Ramius proceeded to perform the checklists before turning to Shepard once more. "We are going to abort the mission?"

Shepard looked at the monitor, observing the ruined structure that lay before them. It would be a shame to leave it behind, but a bigger embarrassment to give North High a complete victory by leaving it unscratched. This battle, seemed pointless if they could not hold the Antarctic Circle for a longer period of time then ordered to by the Gensokyo Administration. But his had his other agendas to prioritize, as well as Wesker's. But he would have a kick out of screwing any orders given to him by their Touhou overlords. Something he didn't had for a long time since fighting on the bloodied sands of the Middle East long ago.


------------------------------------------------------


Kuroko stirred once more. She began to wonder what she was doing on the floor when a sharp burst of pain on her right shoulder. In a flash she remembered everything. That North High guy shooting her. He will pay dearly, she thought. Then... him turning into someone else? A small fight, she recalled while she was struggling to remain conscious. Then, Onee-sama falling next to her, and she blacked out for a bit.

Her vision was blurry, but at least she could blink. As she strained her eyes, she saw that guy, Hardy she recalled, struggling against a newcomer... NO WAIT! She surveyed the new adversary. He (or a she, Kuroko could hardly tell) had a small yet muscular build with long wispy hair with a greenish tint. The newcomer was the person Hardy transformed into! It was confusing, but her instincts told her that the North High guy wasn't responsible for her suffering. He seemed to clasping his hands around the newcomers fingers, as if preventing him (or her?) from releasing something out. The long haired guy began to repeatedly kick Hardy's face. His glasses flew off in a spiralling arc onto the floor, but he still had his hands around his assailants fist like a vice. The blue haired man CHIEF, leapt towards them, attempting to knock the evil-looking guy out, but met with resistance. The men were putting up a good fight with one another. Looking to her left, she saw her Onee-sama, sprawled onto the floor, unconscious.
Were they not injured, their partnering would have been a force to be reckoned with.

Suddenly at the corner of her eye, she noticed something sparkling through the window. In the cryo chamber, one of the empty pod's life support indicators had flashed red, and began to blink. Was it a random malfunction, or the machinations of the mysterious Cortana? Still she had to make do with the situation. Using the strength left in her elbows, she inched closer to the ongoing brawl. If only she could crawl close enough to their adversary....

"... I... said... get.. OFF OF ME!!" Envy screeched, furiously struggling to break his arms free of his captors. Hardy wasn't having any of that. Envy had activated the explosives, but the detonator was a made to be a dead-man's-trigger. Only releasing it would initiate the catastrophic chain of events, meant only as a last resort. He wasn't going to let this pungent sicko blow them all up. His arm tighten under Envy's stream of head butts. "Are you crazy Envy?!? We are all going to die if you let go of that switch!" Hardy screamed, face red with streaks of blood.

Envy kicked CHIEF away, and then burst into a fit of laughter. "If I can't have what's in this ship.. NO ONE WILL!!!" He continued to rave.

"You're insane!" CHIEF barked at him, rising from the floor. "I'm not called Envy for nothing dweebs!" he added. There was no way of reasoning to this madman. Even with his powers of immortality, there was no way anyone or anything could escape if the entire wreck was plunged down into the cold, dark abyss. Determined to throw him off balance, Hardy pushed forward with all his might. In surprise, Envy staggered backwards towards a corner, where the two girls laid unmoving. "Enough, twerp!" Envy declared raising his arm. Desperate to break free, his arm morphed into a sharp stake. Hardy stared helplessly at the claw, knowing its intended target

In a jolting movement, a large combat knife flew across the room, hitting him squarely in the claw, pinning it to the wall. Rokiahi, finally sitting upright, smirking at her accurate toss. Envy froze in shock as he felt another sensation on his leg, and looked to see Kuroko grabbing his exposed right ankle. Kuroko yelled at the top of her lungs, "NOW!" CHIEF wasted no time in summoning out a single blade, bearing down on Envy's trigger arm. Envy opened his mouth in pain as his hand bled, disconnected from the rest of its limb. But his screams were short-lived, as he swiftly disappeared, for Kuroko had used her powers to displace him elsewhere. Hardy finally grasped hold of the detonator barely, as Envy's severed hand disintegrated into ash.

The room quickly fell silent as Hardy and CHIEF dropped to their knees, shaken but triumphant from their ordeal. The victory silence was broken from a sudden muffled scream from the adjacent room. They swung their heads around to see Envy trapped in a cryo chamber, similar to Spartan-117's. He was furiously scratching at the armoured glass, unable to break free. "We beat him..." Rokiahi said as she crawled towards the men slowly. Hardy ran to her immediately  and held her by her shoulders. "Nice knife throw, err..." he began. Rokiahi then remembered that the Hardy before was a imposter, and she had yet to introduce herself to the real one. "Rokiahi," she answered. Hardy's eyes widened with surprise. "Isn't that a Malay name?" he asked as he seized a metal pipe from the floor.

Rokiahi was taken aback. "How did you guess?" she asked calmly. Hardy smirked. "It sounded like one. Just a personal hunch," he concluded, as he pulled out several bandages from his backpack. Using the pipe to straighten her leg, he began to wrap the bandages around them, forming a temporary cast.

CHIEF leapt to Kuroko, and began inspecting her wound. She brushed him aside, demanding him to check on her friend's condition. Attending to Misaka, CHIEF sighed with relief upon hearing her cough.

Rokiahi looked at the struggling Envy, now trapped in a tightly sealed life-support tube. Anyone would feel claustrophobic if they were forced into it. "Would Envy be able to break out?" Rokiahi asked Hardy, watching Envy silently screaming and hammering the unmoving glass.

"Not if there isn't any space of a shape shifter like him to squirm," a sudden voice crackled from the radio.

Just then, the nearby holotank sparked to life, and the light-blue slender figure of Cortana materialized once more. Lines of digitized code and algoritms poured down her body, as if rainwater were flowing onto her. An eerie blue glow filled the room, illuminating all of their faces.

"That should keep him still for a long time," her electronic, yet feminine vocals echoed from the speakers. "He was beginning to annoy me," she said, looking in the direction of the squirming figure in the cryo tube. Hardy stood up and slowly approached the holotank, detonator clasped firmly in his battered hands. Cortana observed his extremely ragged look with a frown. "Sorry I took my time," she said in an apologetic tone. "Most of the ship's primary systems were fried, and I had to spend time rebooting everything meticulously. But I tried my best to help."

Hardy shook his head. "No Cortana, you did fine," Hardy answered. "But a little less jokes and riddles would had made this a lot easier on us."

Cortana flickered for a split second, before her elegant figure reappeared with a friendly smirk on her face. "Sorry, my systems were still messy, and I had the tendency to break into linguistic complexity. So forgive me if I behave... erratically," she said emphasising on the last word. As Hardy picked his glasses off the floor, he recalled her descent into madness back in the events of Halo 3. Even after Doomsday, she was still suffering from rampancy and the events of late have clearly shown that she did not fully trust them. Her actions thus far must have been some kind of test, to see who she could trust in this new, transformed universe.

"Who are you Cortana?" Rokiahi questioned her. Cortana turned to face her, data scrolling down her body. "I am an UNSC Artificial Intelligence, and John's protector," she said, while turning her head to face the Master Chief, frozen and sleeping in his cryo chamber. "You're Rokiahi, and Shirai Kuroko, am I correct?" she looked back, receiving nods. She then turned to face CHIEF and Hardy. "And you," she pointed to CHIEF, "I'm sure you have something to ask our new friend, Envy about a certain girl you care about."

Eyes faced CHIEF who was looking at Envy. Hardy realized the moment he met Envy disguised as her, that Envy must had seen her before, and had also learned of CHIEF as well possibly through her. Which could only mean he knew where she was. And CHIEF would want some answers from him, one way or another. "Let me talk to him now," CHIEF demanded. His voice was slightly raised, more serious than usual. Hardy felt uncomfortable hearing his tone.

Cortana folded her arms. "But not now, you will have the chance to, but I feel we have more important things to attend to..."

Suddenly, they could hear a sharp crackle coming from Rokiahi's headset. Cortana, with an unsettled look, glanced in Rokiahi's position. With a snap of her fingers, the room's speakers burst into life, and began playing Rokiahi's radio transmissions. Static, followed by a deep, commanding voice of a man began his broadcast.

"... this is Gold Eagle broadcasting on the free channel, all Shadow Point squads are to respond immediately if you can hear this broadcast: Operation Ice Storm has been compromised,"

Hardy heard the familiar callsign, 'Gold Eagle', but couldn't make head or tail on who that might be. Rokiahi had stood up, Kuroko supporting her despite the wounds.

"Hammerdown Protocol of Ice Storm is in effect, all Shadow Victors are to evacuate immediately to the fleet in 10 mikes. I repeat: Hammerdown Protocol is in effect! All Shadow units are to respond under evacuation order F..."

Cortana raised her hands to her chin, "Looks like Shadow Company has other ideas for us, Rokiahi."

"Hammerdown Protocol? What's that?" Misaka questioned Kuroko. Rokiahi looked at her with a serious face and said, "It means they're going to carpet bomb this ship into oblivion before the rest of North High gets here! Even if we are left behind." Kuroko realised the gravity of the situation. "We have to get the hell out of here then!" she screamed.

"Are they crazy? I could have done the same here!" Hardy yelled waving the detonator in the air. Could have saved them some explosives too." CHIEF smacked him in the head. "No time for jokes now. Cortana," he addressed the A.I. "You still have a plan, right?"

Tilting her head to the left, and snapping her fingers, a small holographic display began detailing a map of the ship.

Smiling, she spoke with a cool tone, "Naturally."