An Elite's Tale

They were approaching the steep drop off where the Arbiter had first inquired about the control room. Nimble as a house cat, the hundred-sixty foot titanium insectoid climbed down from the cliff down to the massive beach below. Directly ahead was their destination, a looming and impressive display of Forerunner architecture that rose from the center of a gulf.

Almost time to meet your maker, you filthy ape.

Ludo's anticipation threatened to burst open at the seams in the form of a battlecry, but he managed to keep himself in check and produce his usual calm facade. While everyone else's number one priority was to stop the Sacred Ring from firing, his main concern was killing Tartarus. He wouldn't regain any of the lost Elites in doing so, but at the very least he would avenge them. And he could hardly wait to avenge them.

The Phantom was a perfect chaperone for the remainder of the now crippled Elite convoy. While it swept and cleared the beach of all enemy aircraft and ground vehicles, the two surviving Banshees had finally destroyed their aerial intruder and flew at a safe distance behind the Scarab. One of the Hunter Generals had also been killed in the fight. Its lone brother stayed atop the cliff, valiantly determined to hold off any reinforcements while everyone else pushed to the control room.

Ludo turned at the scraping sound of dragged footsteps. The Imp was coming back up the ramp with the arm of another draped over her shoulders, helping him limp along. This one was an injured male human with darker skin and rope-like hair, the one that Ludo had almost carelessly killed back on the docking platform. For reasons beyond his understanding, this human looked at him and gave a quick upwards nod and grin. He squinted at the human, unsure, then slowly, carefully, reciprocated the inverted version of what he'd always taken as a sign of respect or cue to spring into action. The injured Imp's grin only grew wider, goofier. It was then Ludo noticed the smeared scarlet trail of blood that had followed the duo from the mouth of the ramp.

"See," the bleeding Imp said as the other leaned him up against the wall adjacent to the ramp entrance and eased him to the floor. "We're homies. He had my back earlier."

Ludo had trouble following the human street dialect and surmised that the injured one must be delirious. Too much blood lost.

He isn't going to make it.

Just then, the brusque voice of the human Sergeant Major boomed through the mega speakers loud enough to be heard at the opposite end of the gulf.

"Stand clear of the door."

Message received, the Phantom banked to the left and the Scarab's main cannon whined and glowed hot green as it charged. Here comes the best part of the song. The trumpets.

"Hey bastards," the Scarab pilot shouted to the sealed Forerunner structure. "Knock knock!"

The plasma beam roared like twenty Hunter's arm cannons going off at once as it punched into the door and dented it to hell. The second blast was more than enough, breaking it free from its hinges and slamming it against the back wall.

Finally.

There had been a whole lot of time spent in acquiring the Scarab. Ludo just hoped they weren't too late.

He was still standing at the roofless bow of the Scarab when he saw the Banshees fly over the last Hunter at the cliff's edge on their way to the Control Room. Damned if he wasn't going to be among the first to arrive. He scrolled through the channels until he was on the Banshee crew's TEAMCOM.

"Joha, are you still with us brother?" he asked.

His comrade's dignified voice responded, "Of course, Plague. You won't be rid of me that easy."

Ludo was pleased to hear the swordsman alive and well, but it also answered the discomforting question as to who they'd lost. If he was to make an educated guess, it was Theg. As Rtas 'Vadumee's personal bodyguard, Ludo had been a part of the team assigned to hunt down the Heretic Leader, Sesa 'Refumee. He had witnessed firsthand how well the Arbiter knew how to fly a Banshee. In a turbulent storm, of all places. Ludo found it more likely that Theg, a Bin Son Sangheili who in his opinion shouldn't have been up there in the first place, was the one that didn't make it.

The Plague felt an unusual frustration materialize at the thought of the elder's death. Theg should have died fighting hand-to-hand. It was a damned shame and a waste. But he wasn't as irritated with Theg as much as he was with the Loyalists who'd shot him down. He quashed his spike of anger as quickly as it had come and reminded himself that the mongrels were only digging themselves and Tartarus a deeper grave.

He said, "I need a lift, come pick me up."

"Same as we did the last time?" Joha responded.

"Exactly," Ludo confirmed. "Where there is a will, there is a way."

One of the two Banshees swooped low to the Scarab as it passed and Ludo slightly minimized his Jump Pack's gravity intake, then squatted down, tensing his legs. He sprang himself upwards with his arms outstretched and latched onto the canard of Joha's deformed left wing. Ludo's added weight rocked the damaged flier side to side. Joha didn't seem to mind and simply applied extra thrust to the right wing's booster to compensate.

As he dangled, his other hand panned around with the spiker as if it had a mind of its own. Ludo rained a few spikes down onto the overturned tank, then quietly observed the terrain as it changed from warm beige sand, to the dark brown wet sand near the shore, to the rippling, icy expanse of the gulf glistening in sunlight.

Over the COMs, the Shipmaster was amused by Ludo's usually unorthodox methods of getting things done.

"Haha! Onward my Plague! Kill the Brute, then go with the Arbiter. I must return the Councilors to Sanghelios. We cannot risk them being killed. I will see you on the other side."

"Understood Commander. See you there."

Within seconds, the Arbiter, Ludo, and Joha arrived at the control room's front facing exterior landing platform. The Arbiter opened and slid out of his Banshee, then dropped and landed in a roll to his feet and broke into a sprint. Ludo released his grip and used the Jump Pack to float to the platform as light as dandelion fluff, then chased after him. Joha was thrown off balance from the sudden snap in tension and side flipped to compensate, then leveled out and touched down, parked, and exited.

They all ran through the decimated doorway into a dark, smoke filled corridor. The path was dimly lit by the glow of ubiquitous embers and pieces of door wreckage still ablaze. But as Ludo ventured further inside, he slowed his pace and scanned his surroundings. Something was off to the purple Elite, something didn't quite feel right. Nothing on the motion tracker, but his intuition never made a mistake and right now it was picking up a nearby presence.

The Arbiter, up ahead, had also stopped and turned, peering around through his carbine scope.

"I sense it too," he told the Plague.

Suddenly, from somewhere behind Ludo came a methodically deliberate chuk-chik. Of all the sounds Ludo had come across in his time, this one was one of the most terrifying.

Nonetheless, his next thoughts were: Very impressive. Well done.

He had to hand it to whoever had just made the sound; it was an extremely rare occurrence for him to be snuck up on.

He turned around and saw Joha standing stock still, with both hands on his beam rifle, holding it in the air. Ludo could make out the small, bulky outline of yet another Imp, this one in full armor. Even with a shotgun to his back, Joha held his head as high as if he were being promoted.

The human figure spoke, "Name's Shadow. You can probably tell why. Now, give me one good reason why I shouldn't make a mess."