An Elite's Tale

"The Arbiter? I thought he was dead. Hold your fire!" exclaimed a gravelly voice in shock as soon as the trio entered the room.

An older Sangheili, with purple Special Operations armor identical to Ludo's, stood on a supply crate with a needler in hand, flanked on both sides by two towering orange masses clad in thick, heavy armor. They both had heavy assault cannons affixed to one arm, and a giant, almost indestructible, two part metal shield carried on the other. Hunters. They appeared to be bond mates, judging from the telltale twenty-four inch spikes protruding from each of their backs.

Good call on that 'hold fire', Ludo thought. These things are living, breathing tanks.

The veteran Elite warrior leading them was none other than Theg 'Motanee.

Theg fell in line with the team, the Mgalekgolo pair stomping thunderously behind him, and said, "The Hunters have come to our aid, Arbiter. They will fight by our side."

Ludo followed the Arbiter through the next door and down a narrow corridor, then into a room that was different from the rest of the complex. It had clear paneling in place of the floor, and blinking lights that flashed in a vertical line on the walls. Nearly empty, it was more of an angled room between rooms, like an elbow pipe connecting two straight pipes. Against one of these walls was a lone supply crate containing two beam rifles, which the Arbiter pointed to as he passed. No words needed. Ludo and Joha each grabbed one off the rack, trailing him into the next room.

The Arbiter activated his cloaking equipment, becoming nearly invisible, and the other Elites all followed suit, entering a room clearly set up to halt any intruders. Above eye level, on a platform accessible only by the ramp to the right, a Brute Minor manned a shielded plasma turret, with a small pack of Brutes behind him, all armed with Type-25 Grenade Launchers (aptly nicknamed "brute shots" by the Humans).

The four were able to move in unnoticed, positioning themselves along the wall opposite the door, directly beneath the Brute pack. The Hunters however, at over twelve feet, five tons, and heavily armed, lumbered into the room with considerably less stealth. The Brutes opened fire immediately. The Mgalekgolo crouched down to protect their unarmored areas, bracing, toughing through the explosions.

In all honesty, Ludo thought they were done for right then and there. He'd seen Wraiths blown to burning smithereens from smaller bombardments. Orange blood painted the walls adjacent to the door in freckles and splats. After about ten seconds the grenades stopped and only the plasma turret was still firing. The Brutes, for all their tenacity and firepower, were not the best tacticians. They were all so overly eager to kill the Hunters that they'd all ended up firing at about the same time and thus, all had to reload around the same time.

There was a high pitched whine followed by a deafening roar when the Hunter closest to the door opened up with his cannon. A streaming concussive ray of green radiation enveloped the Brute on the turret. When it was done, the Brute and the turret were both gone.

The second Hunter stormed up the ramp and batted a supply crate they were using as a blockade out of the way like it wasn't even there. It knocked hard and loud against the ceiling and even harder and louder against the ground, where a howl of agony rang out from one of the Brutes. The Hunter disappeared from Ludo's line of sight as it walked on to the platform, and the cannon fired from the one at the door, with its deafening resonance. It was like a brass instrument being played in a windstorm.

The Hunters, thirsty for bloodshed, rushed quickly into the next room clubbing dumbfounded Brutes out of their path, Ludo and the others having to run to keep pace with them. The pair led the way into an artificial cavern complete with walkways suspended high above Gravemind's lair. The Hunters took up positions near the railing at the edge of a walkway, firing at the Brutes that were further ahead, across the cavern, armed with carbines and grenade launchers.

The Arbiter let out a battle cry and flicked out his energy sword and started sprinting down the walkway.

"The Arbiter will take point!" cried Theg, the eldest Elite in attendance, running in to cover him with his trusty needler at the ready.

Joining the firefight, Ludo fell to a knee, raised his beam rifle smoothly to his shoulder and found the Brute pack on his scope. He dropped one with a clean head shot, then another with a piercing beam to the shoulder, then the chest. He knew the gun's faults by experience, so after the rapid fire kill on the second Brute he instinctively ducked into cover, holding the overheated weapon in one hand until it cooled down.

He glanced at his allies and saw one of the Hunters take a particle beam to the head and stop firing entirely. He stood there, trying to right himself, but the rounds just kept coming. A spike grenade thrown from afar stuck to his helmet and sealed his fate. The Hunter crashed to the floor in a hulking bloody mess of metal and worms, and his brother roared in a low grumble, a frightening, reverberating sound more felt than heard.

Joha was taking heavy fire too, but kept strafing back and forth, kept sniping.

"Killed another one!" he cried victoriously before taking a caseless green projectile to the face.

Joha dove into cover next to Ludo and waited for his shields to recharge. It looked as though pure electricity were surrounding his body, Ludo noticed.

"That stung a bit," Joha commented.

Ludo grinned, shaking his head, and popped out of cover and rested the rifle on the railing, scanning for a target. He saw the Arbiter across the cavern on the walkway with the Brutes. A Brute Major sped towards him with the bayonet of its grenade launcher at the hip, but the Arbiter performed some kind of spin move, tripping the Brute and confiscating its weapon in the process. The former Supreme Commander then flung the stolen brute shot off the walkway and executed his foe with a downward stab from his energy sword.

The last Brute, a Minor, saw this and flew into a manic rage. He dropped his gun and jumped high into the air with both fists raised up over his head. He was in the air for far too long. A line of crystalline shards homed in on him and sunk into his chest, killing the beast in a glass shattering explosion that sent him over the railing and down to the depths below. As the post explosion pinkish mist cleared up, Ludo noticed a faint purple glow across the way.

Kig-Yar Snipers, he thought, identifying his target.

He sent an ionized particle beam right through the first one's face, the force of the shot sending the Jackal's legs straight into the air. His head, or what was left of it, was the first thing to make contact with the ground.

Ludo saw the second Jackal pivot almost robotically and take aim in his direction. Then all he saw was green. He took his eyes off the scope and saw the second Hunter firing nonstop. The whine of the charge and overpowering drone of his cannon repeated once, twice, three times. The room fell silent. The Hunter, all bloodied and battered, groaned one last time before finally succumbing to its injuries, collapsing in a heap a few feet from the other.

"True warriors, both of them," Joha noted, bowing his head in respect.

"We need to move," Ludo said, already in motion. "The Arbiter won't wait for us. We must keep up."