Desolation

Khazo

[REWORKED]
Khazo clutched his bleeding side with his hand as he ran through the thick maze of the ashy gray trees. After a while, he started to slow down, realizing that the foul humans were not on his trail. He was already in an unpleasant mood after being shot, but his expression soured even more as he looked in the direction where he came from. The foliage and bark of the trees he had passed were smeared with dark purple drops of blood, almost like a trail of breadcrumbs. Khazo knew that if the humans were to come looking, it wouldn't be hard to locate him. He flicked a mandible in frustration, if only his beam rifle wouldn't have ran out of charge when he killed that creature, the humans that injured him would have had no chance. To think that he accidentally saved one of the enemy as well! Trying to calm himself down and ease the stinging pain from the fresh bullet wound, he slowed his trot to a halt and sat down, his back to the trunk of one of the trees.

Unlike most of his fellow Sangheili, Khazo did not believe in the glory of death. When he was given the two choices of either charging the two humans with his bladed gauntlets or fleeing, he chose to flee, not because he was a coward, but because he had a sense of pragmatism others did not seem to have. Reasoning that he had no chance at killing even one of his enemies before he would be reduced to a bullet hole ridden corpse, Khazo chose to live and face them another time rather than dying in an idiotic way.

The Elite looked at the bullet hole above his hip with a pained face. Assessing his injury, he found both the sweet and sour ways of looking at it. On one hand, the bullet apparently had not torn any of his major organs, if it did he would not have been alive long enough to run away to where he was currently. That was the sweet. On the other hand, he was losing a lot of blood, and had nothing to stop the flow. Khazo's purple blood seeped through his fingertips, he was already losing strength, and knew something had to be done quickly. Uneasily, he lit up the blade on his gauntlet, and knew what he had to do. Taking in a deep breath, Khazo glared at the glowing dagger in front of him for some time before he hardened his eyes, and slowly stuck the blade in his wound.

Khoze let out a mighty roar through the jungle as the energy blade entered and seared his flesh, closing his wound shut. After an excruciating few seconds, he pulled it out and looked down at the bullet hole he had just cauterized with his dagger. The blood had stopped flowing, but he was fully aware that only half of the suffering was through with, the same has to be done to the other side where the bullet had entered. Grimacing, he brought up the dagger one more time and sealed the other wound, undergoing the same terrible process.

After retracting the blade, Khazo fell onto one knee, shivering from the intense pain, breathing heavily. He planned to find the crash site of the Phantom to see if he could hail the mothership for any form of support, but he needed to rest, the pain was far too great to continue on.

Unexpectedly, the bush in front of Khazo shook, something was trying to come through. Doing his best to brush aside the pain, he pushed himself off the floor and got behind a tree, activating his armor's camoflauge, causing his body to disappear against the background. The sudden movement made it feel as if someone was holding a hot brand to his skin, but he dared not cry out in pain, for he did not want to risk being discovered.

The bush parted revealing a lone marine carrying a shotgun. He bore scratches on his tunic and armor, and shuffled along quickly with a limp. An emotion unknown to the hidden Sangheili was twinkling in the human's narrowed eyes. "Come on, you maggots!" he exclaimed, turning to face the large mass of the pod creatures that were persuing him. He blasted the crowd once, twice, three times as he backed away from the seemingly never ending tide of enemies. Khazo watched the marine mow down hordes of the foul creatures in awe, but did not interfere, for he was in no shape to help, even if he'd wanted to. Eventually, the valiant human's weapon clicked empty, and his eyes opened in shock. Before he could react, a pod sprung at him and wrapped its tentacles around the yelling soldier. Under the mass of writhing tentacles covering the doomed soul, Khazo spotted the soldier pull out a grenade from his belt while his chest was being torn open, but it didn't go off. Instead, it simply rolled out of the dead man's hand towards the still cloaked Elite, where it stopped against his hoof.