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

Chapter 7. 1 Poison pt. 1

"Raia, I take it that your lady has a plan for you to follow?"

"She has. She has accounted for me possibly surviving, in which case she will review the abomination's skills herself. And adapt to kill him."

"You would waste your life for her? For this rider? He is just one human. Incapacitate him and be done with it."

"I do not plan on dying when facing him, Durza. I plan to cause him untold misery as I haunt him for the rest of his life. But if it takes my life when doing so, so be it."

~0~

The Spartan looked at his companion while he worked with the rock, trying to get the thing to rise higher in the air with more velocity. He had been practicing with the rock for three hours, trying to get it to do the most impossible things in order for him to learn more about magic. Due to the addition of magical energy manipulation in his arsenal, he had a thousand new ways to change and adept his tactics. But the only words of power –by which the entire magical world seemed to work- that he knew off, were 'stone', 'rise' and 'path'.

Not only that, but he had found that channeling his energy was harder than he had imagined it to be. Lifting a rock was one thing, but sending it plummeting through a stone wall at speeds equal to a bullet was a completely different thing. That only tired him out and it didn't even work–the damn thing lodged itself into the wall and stayed stuck there at least half of the time, while it wouldn't even accelerate properly the other half of the time.

So much for improvised weaponry. He had briefly escaped having to waste ammo on ranged targets, only to run into a completely new problem with his solution. He could by no means fight properly without understanding more of this magic; flinging stones into the dark tunnel-system below when there was nobody looking would only get him so far.

If he wanted something dead, he could conjure up a spell to slit a throat, pinch of a major artery or even destroy local ganglia in someone's brain. But to do that, he needed the words that described such a thing. Had there been a word of power that translated to 'nerve' he could probably lay waste to an entire enemy army, but he had no such words.

He only had a rock.

And even with the words, he might possibly kill himself of exertion if he wasn't careful. To perform magic, one needed the same amount of energy that a mundane way would take. So, he couldn't use magic to stop bullets, as he couldn't stop bullets with his bare hands. The kinetic energy of such a projectile needed to be less than the energy he possessed and if he started experimenting, he couldn't afford a single slip-up.

It was a tricky thing, magic. He would be better off forging bullets or something like that. Either way, he needed to train more. And seeing as he had plenty of time for training, he shouldn't worry about that too much.

The Spartan pried another rock out of the floor and thought of a way to use it as a weapon. If he found a way to completely overheat it, it could explode with the force of a fragmentation grenade. But heating a stone to the point of exploding took too much meat...too much energy. If there was a way of making something explode without it killing him, he would take it. But at the moment, he was out of ideas.

Aeraleth was sleeping. It had been a very exhausting day for the dragoness and the super-soldier did not want to disturb her. Instead, the Spartan decided to scout the city-mountain of Tronjheim some more. He needed answers, and a lot of them.

But each and every person he would encounter in the mountain was a potential hostile...and he held no desire to have more interaction than he needed to.

On the other hand, ten days of pure marching with barely any combat wasn't exactly the best way to stay sharp. He had fought a group of human soldiers, urgal soldiers and then almost dwarven soldiers. That wasn't the best way to pass ten days' worth of time.

He made up his mind and traveled down the oversized watchtower, heading out to leave the city-mountain and scout the surrounding area. If he was lucky, he would find his way to Ajihad again and finally receive some answers to his many questions.

But as the soldier exited the tower, he heard footsteps slowly approaching his position. Thinking that someone was about to attack him, he stepped backwards into the shadows that were casted through the dark tunnel and pulled out his sidearm. He had left his two SMG's with Aeraleth, but he hadn't actually thought that anyone would find them there. Could this just be another dwarf, wandering about?

The Spartan watched the tunnel as the footsteps grew louder and louder, until he actually made visual contact with whoever was approaching him.

It was a girl; one with the same, dark skin as Ajihad had. She was wearing a fine, yet simple dress and she carried herself with such a demeanor that indicated that she wasn't a normal citizen. She possessed a certain confidence in herself...an understanding of her own worth, as it were.

In short, she exuded an aura of command. This could only be a daughter of Ajihad's.

He watched the female walk towards the watchtower, before she looked up at the very top of the tower and sighed.

But when she continued to walk to the one secure place that Aeraleth could rest, he took action. He had had plenty of bad experiences with should-be-civilians turning out to be terrorists in his low-profile operations and even a simple-looking civilian could be out to murder him. He wouldn't take any chances. Not again.

The Spartan stepped out of the shadows and walked over to the girl, overtaking her pitiful walking speed with ease. His footsteps did not echo in the tunnel and he made no noise as he approached the dark-skinned girl.

"Ehm...hello?" The girl softly spoke and hesitantly looked at the entry of the tower, expecting someone to hear her from the front.

He eyed the dress very carefully, didn't spot any electronics or other things that might be hidden underneath it. She had a small knife hidden near her leg, but that wasn't a threat. If her intention was to hurt him, he would find out soon enough.