Matt-038 (Halo Fanfiction)

Chapter 48: Betrayed

Author's Note: If you have any tips writing tips, please feel free to comment.

Again, I gratefully accept constructive criticism as a means to help me develop my skills further as a writer.

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Chapter 48: Betrayed

Location: The Library

D +65:37:44 (SPARTAN-II Blue Team Mission Clock)

The Spartans left Sergeant Mobuto's body behind and approached one of the large metal doors, pleased to see that it was open. They crouched and passed through. 343 Guilty Spark disappeared on one of his mysterious errands a few moments later, and, like clockwork, the Flood came out to play.

The Spartans were ready for them. The Flood swept into the room—dozens of the bulbous infection forms scuttling along the walls and floor, with another half dozen of the combat forms in tow.

They paused, as if in confusion. One of the combat forms looked up—and Matt dropped from the pillar he'd shimmied up. His metal boots pulped the creature's face. Assault rifle fire raked the leading edge of the cluster of infection forms. The pods detonated in a chain-reaction string.

'That got their attention,' he thought. Matt turned and ran. He jumped up onto a raised platform as he fought, disengaged, and fought again. Finally, as the last body fell, both the Monitor and the Sentinels reappeared.

The two Spartans looked at them in disgust as the duo reloaded their weapons, scrounged ammo off the Flood combat forms, and followed 343 Guilty Spark out onto a lift that was identical to the last one he'd been on.

The platform carried the humans and the AI up to a still higher level, where they got off, paused to let the Sentinels soften up the Flood welcome wagon that waited out in the hall, then emerged to lend a hand. There was a loud boom! as one of the combat forms leaped from an archway and landed right on top of a Sentinel. Its whip-tendril flailed at the hovering machine's back and was rewarded with a series of sparks and a gout of flame. A moment later, the Sentinel exploded, and the Flood and the wrecked drone crashed into the floor in a ball of flesh, bone, and metal. The resulting shower of shrapnel cut three Flood forms down and wounded a score of others.

Matt took another out with a burst from his assault weapon and the Sentinels moved in to fry the remains.

Once that contingent of creatures had been dealt with, the Spartans followed the Monitor down a hall lined with blue screens, through an area that was infested with Flood, and out onto a lift that looked different from the last one they'd been on. Geometric patterns split the floor into puzzle-like shapes, a series of raised panels stood guard around a column of translucent blue light, and the whole thing seemed to glow.

The Spartans stepped on board, felt a slight jerk as ancient machinery reacted to his presence, and saw the walls start to rise. Matt realized they were headed down this time—and hoped that their journey was near an end.

Without hesitation, Matt slammed fresh ammo into his weapon; it seemed as if they emerged into a huge cluster of Flood every time he traveled on a lift.

The lift made hollow, rumbling sounds, fell a long way and stopped with a reverberating thud.

343 Guilty Spark hovered over their shoulders as the Spartans stepped off the lift and approached a pedestal. "You may now retrieve the Index," the Monitor said. The artifact glowed lime green; it was shaped like the letter T. It slowly rose from the top of the cylindrical tube in which it had been kept for so many millennia. A series of metal blocks that encircled the device rotated and spun, releasing their protective grip on the Index.