When Destiny Burns, Ep. 1: A Halo and Inheritance Cycle Crossover

Chapter 4. 7 Operator pt. 1

Pebbles crunched underneath his boots and each with each stop he took, the sunlight lessened. The mountains were in a perfect position to block out the sun. Had the dragon and its rider stopped here in an attempt to ambush here?

No, he would have spotted them and his own dragon would smell its own kin. Whatever was stalking him could not be human or dragon. It had to be extremely gifted in stealth to be able to hide from his trained eyes.

A soft tickling near the back of his skull –he turned around with his rifle already brought to his shoulder, finger on the trigger and safety flicked off. The moment he caught something in his sights, he would squeeze off a lethal salvo and kill it.

There wasn't anything there.

A rock hit the ground and he spun around, just in time to see a redheaded figure dashing towards his dragon, which was still standing on the ground with its head cocked to the side.

"Move!" He shouted at the dragon, sending it an image of a bird in the sky while doing so. It was what he had thought of when he realized that they might be being hunted; he would the dragon that image only when it needed to fall back ASAP.

The message was understood and as the dragon flashed its agreement, he opened fire. Three bullets exploded out of the barrel of his gun and sped towards the human-shaped enemy, but it was way too fast and jumped away.

Nevertheless, he still managed to score a hit and two of the rounds impacted on the target's abdomen, exploding outwards as they tore right through its body.

The Spartan half expected a thin red trail to splash over the ground, indicating a successful hit. But that didn't happen.

And as the dragon spread its wings and jumped in the air, gaining altitude as the wind got caught behind the thin, black membrane growing over the bones, he tied to get another bead on his target.

The hostile reappeared approximately half a dozen meters in front of him, standing on top of a boulder as it eyed him and the dragon trying to fly away from them.

It –no, she- was very thin and very pale, with dark red eyes and hair. The hostile had a body fit for moving fast, but not at the blinding speeds that it had moved to distract him. Her appearance was as jarring as it was familiar. He knew that slim frame and arrogant expression.

He knew what this was, but that was impossible. He had pinned her body down with one arm and pulled the vertebrae in her neck apart from each other, effectively breaking her entire neck. No recovery was possible from that, as the brain simply did not receive any signals anymore.

She was the woman he had killed.

"You are dead," He told her. He couldn't believe his eyes; was it really her? "I killed you!"

She pouted her lips, her eyes practically oozing malice. "You impaired my corporeal form...forcing me to become disembodied as I reappeared in spirit form. But my body manifested later...stronger than before."

He couldn't believe that such a killing maneuver hadn't killed her. There was only one lifeform capable of such regeneration and that was not this –he knew that this woman could not be like that. Still, the semblance was extremely close.

It made him want to slaughter her. But he could not allow his mind to slip now, as he would lose the chance to save his dragon. She had to be after the hatched reptile and he could not allow that.