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Halo: Shades of Grey "Tumbleweeds" 343iSSC October


Mr. Wolfy

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Signaling to both Jeanine and Liza, Kaat spread the group out to approach the source of the light from three directions. Slinging his assault rifle, he drew Kyla's LMG and crawling through mud lightly pushed some shrubbery aside to realize the light was coming from inside a small shack at the edge of the town they had been sent to investigate. Liza and Jeanine were approaching the house from opposing sides. The absolute silence of their movements making them like ghosts in the rain. Standing, Kaat made his way to the third wall of the house and, stopping against it, slowly peered around the edge of the window into the shack. Completely empty, the one-room shack sported only the basic necessities of a kitchen with a pair of small cots in the corner and a single light hanging in the center of the room, burning brightly and gently swaying about inside of the room. Signaling twice on the HUD, Kaat moved to the side of the building to regroup with the others. Once there, he had a relatively clear view of the street, which was completely deserted. The pouring rain and the eerie silence of the town was beginning to get to Kaat, and motioning to the next house they proceeded towards it and stacked up on its back door. Getting ready to kick the door in, Kaat paused when he noticed Jeanine motioning a bit wildly. She leaned forward and gently pushed the door, and it swung open quietly. “Well… that saves time…” Entering the building, he swept what appeared to be the kitchen with his LMG. The room was abandoned, a box of some sort of food lay spilled on the floor, and the faucet was running across the room. The radar blipped a warning of movement in the adjacent room and motioning towards the door, Kaat made his way across the kitchen and slowly pushed the door open with the barrel of his gun. A sudden movement down at his feet caused him to turn his gun down quickly only to realize it was a small black and white cat. The cat looked up at the Spartan and mewing softly licked the plating covering his leg. Moving back outside, he leaned against the wall of the house, Kaat turned on his external coms for a second and whispered softly, "This is starting to look FUBAR... We get sent in to help out some civi's and so far haven't seen anything but the buildings that they should be occupying. There isn't even bodies or any sign of a struggle so that rules out Covenant involvement... or else this place would look a lot more....ashy...." Liza glanced up and down the street seemingly analyzing the situation, "Didn't this town have some sort of... mine works or something closer to the mountain? Maybe something spooked them, and they all hid in there to ride it out." Shrugging Kaat stood up, "Worth a shot...Might as well get out of the open anyway."

 

Moving rapidly between the buildings, they quickly reached the entrance to the mine. Disturbingly the front door appeared to have been pried apart rather violently. Scoffing in annoyance and turning away Kaat mumbled softly, "Of course... the only place in the town which is an unknown with a nice dark twisty maze of tunnels, and now...no lighting too." Switching his flashlight on he pointed it into the gap between the doors, "Ladies, looks like we drew the short straw today. Let's go collect these civi's and give them a lesson in how to properly wait for the UNSC before trying to use their mines as a bunker."

 

Slowly pushing through the gap between the doors and scanning the main cavern, Kaat waited for the other two to get through the doors. Liza motioned to the floor where a large number of foot prints and a very light trail of blood were. The trails lead towards the largest tunnel in the room. Moving quietly into the tunnel, the com suddenly crackled to life, "THIS *static* WOLF FOUR *gunfire* *static*NING, HOSTILE *static*ECTION! DO N*static* CIVILIANS COMPRIMISED! *gunfire* ANY OTH*static* COPY?!" Kaat immediately turned on his communications and motioning for the other two Spartans to keep an eye on either direction of the tunnel attempted to reply, "Wolf four where the **** are you?! What's going on, your communication was distorted. Is Wolf three with you?" Waiting for a few seconds, the coms came back to life with the occasional sound of gunfire, "Wolf *static* with me! The **** freaks are everywhere though! We *static* Pelican! Trying to get to it now!" Kaat paced about the small space of tunnel in frustration, "What 'freaks' Wolf four?! What is attacking you?!" After several seconds the com only replied with static, and seething with annoyance Kaat drew back the lever on the LMG and motioning down the tunnel growled, "We're getting those civi's and bugging out NOW...and if any of them starts trying to refuse, you have my express permission to knock them the **** out." Pressing on down the tunnel, they came to a door which had been smashed inwards and badly mangled. Pointing his flashlight at the door, Kaat began to move closer when something flashed past the gap between the broken doors. Nearly collapsing backwards, Kaat dropped down into a crouched position and motioned to Liza and Jeanine to cover him. On his external com's Kaat raised his voice, "We're with the UNSC; we're here on a rescue mission. Any colonists in there, it's safe to come out, we're here to help."

 

Suddenly the lights came on through the tunnel and inside of the room; through the gap in the door Kaat saw the entire floor was coated in blood; a mangled corpse on the other end of the room sat propped against the wall, torn apart beyond recognition. "Holy....." a startled exclamation came from behind Kaat as he stared, wide-eyed. Liza replied over the coms, "I don't think this is a rescue mission any more..." The coms came on and Chris could be heard clearly, "We just got a small generator running and a local communication array up. Did you all get out of the town safely?" Kaat slowly keyed his communication on and stated, "Wolf four.... be a dear and turn the lights back off..." A strange guttural chortling sound came from behind the door and all three Spartans trained their guns on the doorway. With a shuddering groan the lights lost power again, and Kaat mumbling angrily keyed his com back up, "I WAS KIDDING WOLF FOUR! TURN THE ****ING LIGHTS ON!" Chris replied through the static, "Ge*static* out of *static*." Suddenly a strange shape slammed through the hole in the door. Screeching loudly the creature snapped at the Spartan wildly, it appeared humanoid, but covered in some sort of strange substance. Unloading his LMG into the creature as the other two Spartans behind him fired wildly into it, Kaat bellowed a sort of warcry at the thing as its head twitched and folded beneath the barrage of bullets. It slowed its movements and standing up on a small blanket of smoking shell casings, Kaat leaned forward a bit pointing his flashlight at the creature and growled, "Flood...." Suddenly the room behind the creature was filled with the sound of footsteps and growling, and turning Kaat stated in a cold and detached voice, "Run..."

 

Sprinting down the tunnel as the sound of metal being pounded on echoed from the broken door behind them, the Spartans made it to the main chamber of the mine and, turning as the girls squeezed through the opening Kaat fired his LMG into the shadow forms pouring out of the tunnel behind them. The flashes from the gun lighting up the interior of the cavern, Kaat noticed one of the creatures vaguely resembling a half decayed dog crawling on all four up the wall and across the ceiling towards him. “What the-“ following the creature with his LMG, Kaat finally hit it and watching it drop to the floor and twitch still trying to move but nearly incapable of doing so due to the damage it had just received. Turning and crashing through the gap between the main doors, Kaat dropped a grenade and kept running. The other two Spartans were sprinting towards a nearby building, a small one story shack with minimal windows but sturdy looking structure. Liza crashed through the door with Jeanine right behind. The explosion of the grenade nearly drowned out the noise of the guttural yells and moans which were filling the air with increasing volume, and glancing behind himself as he reached the building Kaat noticed a massive horde of flood stumbling their way across the ground relatively far behind them. As soon as he was inside of the building Liza pushed the door back into its frame and Jeanine slid a heavy metal table against it. Kaat glanced around at the windows, “Well… if they want to get in, that barricade isn’t going to stop them.” Moving quickly, the Spartans began to rip up any possible furniture they could and jam it against the windows and the door. The sound of a door opening and closing came from the further inside of the building and quickly raising their rifles, the Spartans all aimed for the doorway to the back. Liza flicked the flashlight on her assault rifle on illuminating Chris and Trey who both jumped in surprise. Trey crossed the room quickly, “We were followed by a small horde, but we lost em for a bit. They probably will pick up our scent soon enough so we need to barricade that back door now.” He started to drag one of the metal tables towards the back. Chris grumbled, “We almost had that pelican but there was a group of them nearby, and we had to ditch it… It’s got to be clear now, but we’re stuck in here.” Glancing up at the ceiling, Kaat noticed a skylight and smirking he glanced over to Liza, “So… you’re an ONI badass right? Jumping around on roofs work for you?” Following his gaze, Liza slung her rifle and motioning Trey over as he came back into the room, she climbed up on his hands and pushing the skylight open pulled herself up onto the roof and reclosing the skylight disappeared from sight. One of the windows across the room smashed in and the sound of growling and moaning became very loud. Sliding his assault rifle between some of the barricading furniture, Trey fired a burst into the window that had been smashed. Jeanine was raising a hand on the other end of the room and motioning to a small gap between the barricading furniture. Looking around for something to plug the gap with, Kaat noticed an old soda machine across the room which Chris was staring at. “Juggernau-“ Kaat heard him reading as he grabbed the machine, “Excuse me, we have need of this.” He jammed the machine into the gap just as the window began to break next to it, and sliding his LMG between an upturned table and a sturdily built stool which were forming the blockade for this particular window, he fired a long burst which resulted in half decayed spatter covering the window frame.

 

For what seemed like hours they continued firing out of the building and re-barricading the windows until the sound of a pelican approaching could be heard. Dragging one of the tables over from the windows, Kaat positioned it under the skylight and motioned for to the other Spartans in the structure, “Time to leave now. We’ve had enough of this colony’s hospitality for a lifetime.” Trey and Jeanine quickly made their way up the table and out the skylight. As he started to climb the table himself Kaat turned to Chris who was still lying on a table firing out of one of the windows yelling various cheers and slanders at the flood, “Hey you wanna get left behind? Come on, Chris. Move it!” Climbing up onto the roof and turning around to make sure Chris made it up he heard glass breaking and heavy objects being moved as Chris came into view beneath the skylight, firing his weapon towards the opposing wall of the room from where he had been. He scampered up the table and through the skylight just as a flood form swung heavily through the opening and smashed the table away from it. Turning back down the opening Chris yelled, “And screw you too!” Jeanine and Trey had already jumped to the building across the way, the civilian pelican hovering a few feet above the building’s roof as they climbed on board of it. Running across the roof, Chris jumped the gap and started running towards the pelican. Kaat pulled a small satchel off of his hip and dropped the object with a thud down into the diner which was now teeming with flood. Turning, he ran towards the pelican and, leaping over the gap, spotted a small cluster of the flood forming a pile to climb up the wall of the diner. He landed on the other building and, sprinting towards the pelican, heard Chris over the com yell, “Behind you!” Spinning as he lunged through the air towards the pelican Kaat fired his weapon into two flood forms who had managed to scale the building and had started to chase him to the pelican. Landing on his back, Kaat skidded a few feet across the floor of the pelican as its bay door shut, and it began to fly up. Sighing and closing his eyes, he was brought back by the sound of a soft mew, and opening his eyes noticed the face of a cat directly in front of his visor. The cat licked his visor as he sighed, “What the hell is this thing doing here..?” Liza replied over the com, “It was hiding in here when I got this thing working, and I figured we needed to rescue at least one survivor.” The sound of the diner exploding was somewhat audible even though it was no more than a loud thump as they accelerated into the sky. Kaat ran a hand over the cat’s small body, “Some rescue…”

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Unfortunately, this entry cannot be judged.

 

  • Each entry can be a maximum of 2,500 words. No more. We want you to take time to develop characters and build a plot, but at the same time we don't want to have to read for 3 days just to judge the months entries.

Your entry is 2982 words.

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Unfortunately, this entry cannot be judged.

 

  • Each entry can be a maximum of 2,500 words. No more. We want you to take time to develop characters and build a plot, but at the same time we don't want to have to read for 3 days just to judge the months entries.

Your entry is 2982 words.

Heh, you should have seen it BEFORE I shortened it~!

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