A Date with Darkness pt. 1/3

A Strident-class Heavy Frigate, the UNSC Catch Me If You Can, drops out of Slipspace in orbit over Oban and make its descent into its cloudy atmosphere. The frigate makes it through the clouds and makes a stop at the front door of an ONI station. From there, a single Falcon launches from its hanger, heading east towards the highlands. “This blows”, said the single passenger, a soldier in steel and cyan-colored powered armor. Her helmet was sitting next to her in the other seat, her black hair flowing free without the cover and her blue eyes fixed on prepping her gear. Clearly, she wasn’t all too amused by her current situation. “Instead of taking some time off to clear my head like I was promised, I’m being dropped off?” She kept on loading rounds into her sniper magazines while a green glared zoomed across her vision. Her AI companion, Zeta, was more concerned about enduring her complaining the whole flight through. “This isn’t the first time you’ve been called in for work during shore leave, Noble. In fact, most of the other times, you’re actually asking…no, asking the wrong word…begging for something to do rather than soaking some rays on some isolated beach. So why is this time so difficult for you?” “You know damn well why this time. Back then, I didn’t have to deal with some twisted shadow in my head trying to steal my body.” A green light lit up on her right palm and slammed the magazine she was working on into her rifle before projecting Zeta’s avatar on her hand. “You only make things easier for her by complaining and worrying all the time. That’s one of the reasons why you’re on this mission, to focus on something more productive than thinking about some maniacal reflection of you roaming in your mind.”

“Yeah yeah, sure. Whatever, Z. Well, if we’re gonna be stranded out here for awhile, give me a sitrep of what were supposed to be doing here. The reps didn’t do too much explaining when they handed us the assignment.” Zeta’s avatar flickered and morphed into a wide seven-story facility in the outskirts of a developing city. “This is the readout of a top-secret L.A.C. heavy supply depot. From the data I’m able to decrypt, this facility is storing a large number of heavy arsenals and weapons.” Noble spun the hologram around with her fingers to get a full three-sixty look of the place. “In this place? Looks more like a regular waypoint outpost to me, or maybe even some outskirt office building”, giving off a slight chuckle to that. Her silence was cut when Zeta displayed what hides underneath the building, a vast tunnel system resembling that of the inside of an anthill or termite mound, with thick corridors looking more like train tunnels. At the southeastern end of the underground sections was a massive silo filled with hangers, well around three-hundred meters in diameter and over half a mile deep from the surface, which apparently opens up in a neighboring quarry. “That’s the whole point. The facility is largely underground, with well around twenty levels making up the main storage areas. This facility is meant to be an emergency fallout station in the event that the Private Military Company or Covenant were to drive L.A.C. forces to this point, thus why it appears like any other structure in the surrounding area and why they’d place it on such a remote world.”

“Ok, you made your point; this place is a big deal, apparently. So why exactly are we being sent here?” Zeta returned to his original state. “Approximately two days ago, the facility reported that they were experiencing off occurrences throughout their systems, believing it to be the “fossil of a generator” they needed replacing, and then suddenly went off the grid not long after that; no word from anyone within the facility, so the L.A.C. took it off as simply power fluxuations.” “Until now”, Noble added on. “Right. Just twenty-four hours right after the facility dropped, a distress beacon activated within the thirteenth level of its catacomb system, yet no reply to contact. The L.A.C. now worry that this silence and then sudden distress beacon coming online might be the result of a PMC or Covenant attack, but nothing from the other surrounding settlements can confirm that yet.” The city can be seen in the sunset, a good four minutes before reaching its perimeters. “So why send us in to investigate? Why not send a team of their own, or someone else working with them?” Noble argued. “It was Uhze and the other leaders who requested your assistance on this matter. They believe that until it can be confirmed that either factions had indeed been the cause to the disturbance, they can’t risk sending in reinforcements into a populated area, what with their focus more so on the PMC and Krosheets. Plus, most of the L.A.C.’s top operatives are already out on other deployments or working on “personal” business. Along with that, ONI’s suddenly taken up an interest in their work on account that several of their own installations are set up on this planet, believing that just one facility gone OTG may be the result of a security breach. Since both sides already have tension in between their relations, they both agreed to send in someone who can work in between the gaps. As a Freelancer and not fully affiliated with either faction at this point, you would simply be sent in as a gun-for-hire to check things out, avoiding crossing any red tape between the two.” She set her sniper aside and picked up her helmet set in the seat next to hers and put it on. “Yeah, yeah, I get it; keep the bureaucrats and officials from tearing each other’s throats out by sending in a merc to do all the dirty work. Oh well, as long as I get paid in the end, it’s just another in-and-out ops.”

The falcon landed right at the front of the installation and Noble jumped off, her sniper in hand. She walked up to the cockpit and its pilot. “This’ll probably take awhile. Head back up and circle the nearby settlement for anything suspicious. I’ll call you for pick-up when I finish up here.” The pilot nodded and the bird rose back up in the air, slowly shrinking in the distance as it made its way for the buildings nearby. Noble walked over to the closed doors, sealed tight and large enough for something like a phantom tank to fit through. She noticed an access terminal to the right and went up to activate the doors, only to find it offline. “Zeta, see if you can revert a bit of the station’s power to this terminal” A green hue glowed from the screen and the words reread “ONLINE”. “Done”. As the blast doors slid open, light penetrated the inside of the entryway. This was the first thing that caught Noble’s attention; no lights, at the entryway and further in. The emergency lighting then suddenly sparked on, giving off a dark-red hue spreading throughout the halls with the automated voice going “EMERGENCY LIGHTING ONLINE”. “Emergency lighting? What about the main lights?” Noble asked. “It appears that over ninety percent of the facility’s power has been shut down. The only systems that are online at the moment are emergency lighting in the corridors, a few automated sentry dispensers in the more vital sectors deeper down, and the main generators.” “Well, guess we’re going in blind, then.”

The halls themselves were massive, well around thirty feet in diameter and big enough for something as big as a scorpion to cruise through with ease. Judging by the sheer size needed in just the hallways, it’s clear that there must be a lot of large equipment spread throughout the facility. Noble spent about ten minutes walking down the wide, swirling pathway, now getting the picture as to exactly how vast this facility is and the value it hold. What gave her suspicion to rise up, other than the lack in power, was the lack of faculty: there’s supposed to be over a hundred troops her, human and alien alike, and yet she hadn’t spotted a single soul. Or a corpse for that matter. Did they all get up and leave at the same time, or are they all hiding out in the lower levels? She’d have to worry about that until she goes a bit deeper in this place’s bowels. She noticed most of the doors were closed off and locked down during her trek down, but stopping to a single opened door on the twenty-sixth floor, the only one open out of the rest. “Any particular reason why this is the only one open?” “Uncertain at the moment, but I am detecting a faint signal coming further down from this corridor, possibly our distress beacon.” Noble checked to make sure nothing was off further down and headed in through the open door, missing a strange black tendril squirm a distance behind them.

The corridor ended to a doorway with a sign over it labeled “Mess Hall”. Strangely, like the door that led here, this one was just partially open, with nothing but pitch black on the inside; the only light emitting from the room was the flashing of the distress beacon, about four feet from the inside of the door. Noble walked up to the doors and tested them for motion; seeing that they could be pushed open with a bit of force, she pried them fully open. She walked in and picked up the beacon. “Found what we came here for. The only question is, who activated it?” Even with the emergency lights from the halls, they only managed to illuminate the very entrance to them, not even her visor could see through the shadows. “Switching to night vision.” But right as she switch visions, all she could see was static, all sight blurred to the lowest level of visibility before blindness. ‘Zeta, what’s up with my helmet? I can’t see shit in here.” Zeta’s face appeared in her vision. “I’m not quite sure exactly, but there seems to be something lurking in this room that’s somehow disrupting sensors and most visibility.” Noble turns her sights all around the room, trying to get some visibility to no avail. “Wait. Turn back to the right really quick.” Noble turned back to the right corner of the room and an energy signature showed up on her motion-tracker. “What is that?” she asked Zeta. “The emergency lighting to this room. Not sure why that’s the only thing I can detect, but it looks like that may be our best bet to lighting up the room, maybe even find what’s trying to hide in here.” “Got it.”

Noble walked over to the switch, feeling a glass case over it. She smashed through with a swift jab like it was thin ice. She pulled the lever up and a spark of electricity surged slightly through her armor and an automated voice declared “EMERGENCY LIGHTING ONLINE”. At that moment, she suddenly got a whiff of the room, and smelled something rancid and plainly familiar. “Is that…?” The room was then drenched in low red lighting, enough to see most everything in the room, but as she turned to view the rest of the hall, see had wished she didn’t turn on the lights, seeing what was indeed hiding in the shadows. What she found wasn’t an empty room, but filled with the bloodied bodies of this facility’s occupants, humans, sangheili and everything in between, all set up like they were all having dinner; most of them sat down at the tables, some slouched in a line for stale food, and the cooks and workers scattered in the back of the kitchen (one of them with their head dunked in grease). A sea of blood spread across most of the floor, clearly the origin of the scent she had smelled just recently. “What the hell is this?” Noble asked, having never seen anything so disturbing. “Unknown. I count around one-hundred and eighty-two bodies in here and the kitchen, all having suffered from drastic blood loss. The facility’s faculty count is one-hundred and eighty-two.” Noble steadily waked around the room, stepping past the bodies of the dead and noticing their eyeless faces of distraught. She couldn’t tell what was more frightening; their deathly expressions or their empty sockets.

“What the hell could do something like this?” she asked as she walked around searching for answers. Suddenly, she felt a tainted feeling squirm in her head, a maniacal laughter all to familiar to her. Wrath, Noble’s dark half, was drinking in the scent of death. “Ah, isn’t it all just wonderful? So much death, so much anguish, all gathered in one place. I can’t even remember the last time we found so much carnage piled up for us.” Noble wasn’t in the mood for her shit. “Could you just fuck off until I’m done here? I’m not here to get you wasted on bloody fumes.” A feeling like a shard of glass piercing the back of her head caused her body to stop in place entirely, a prisoner of her Wrath’s own whims. “I don’t think so. Do you know how depriving it is in here? How difficult it’s getting for me to have any feeling in her other than pleasure on a leash? I swear, if I don’t find a way either out of or in control of this body of ours soon, I might just lose my fucking mind.” “Ha!!! Like there’s anything left in there to lose. And as for “our body”, you can just float and sputter in there all you want, ‘cause I’m not going anywhere.” She started feeling Wrath’s influence over her body slowly draining back into her mind, but also felt something else moving in. Something unknown. “No need to get all antsy with me, young lady. It seems I won’t have to wait long to see your words in action, after all.”

With her back in full control of her body, she was met with Zeta’s urgent blaring. “Are you even listening? Movement detected. There’s something in here with us.” She reached down for her magnum and pulled back in preparation of what’s ahead. Something was definitely in there; a path of scratching noises trailed across the ceiling. She looked up only to see the red emergency lighting, but caught a glimpse of something crawling all around them; some kind of large shapeless shadow slithering around like a snake. She fired one shot at one of the lights closest to the shadow’s trail, sending sparks all around and causing the creature to suddenly drop on top of one of the tables, giving off an animalistic screech as it scurried underneath. She sprinted over to the table to catch the creature, but missed a shot when it pounced by her and slithered to the north door. She looked to where the black vermin was last seen, but got an even bigger surprise when a massive two-toed foot materialized from out of the dark corridor, followed by another and a massive black bulk above. A decorated array of bright red lights illuminated from the mass, revealing an all-too distinguishable figure; a Sangheili clad in black general armor. Only one beast matched the description of who she was staring at: Former Fleetmaster Kroudon ‘Rogamee, leader of the Krosheets and among the most hated enemies of the L.A.C. Remembering him from their last meeting, Noble could feel a hint of rage fill her veins. The giant simply crossed his arms and huffed a laugh of amusement. “How interesting. Of all the warriors, they send me just the human I wanted to see.” His voice is what set her off, the confirmation made. “KROUDON!!!”

With a “smirk” on his face, Kroudon turned tail and ran back into the dark halls, his glow slowly dimming. “Come and catch me, little one!!! If you’ve got what it takes!!!” The challenge set her instinct to hunt and kill as she ran out of the bloody mess hall and blindly into the black beyond. Zeta attempted to put reason in this equation. “Noble, listen to me. Your vitals and brainwaves are spiking. Whatever you we’re just experiencing in your little blackout back there, it’s lingering on with your chase and there’s a strong chance that it will only lead to further risks to your health and/or sanity. And besides, you didn’t do so well against him the last time. We should head back up and call in for backup.” But Noble was too focused on the hinge-head. “Not ‘til I have that split-jaw’s head ON A PLATTER!!!” The pursuit led her into one of the facility’s large hangers where a number of vehicles of both UNSC and Covenant origin were being stored. The room was so massive, Kroudon could easily be anywhere in there, even hiding in any one of the vehicles waiting to spring out and ambush her. “Damn. It’s like a mouse in a maze. But who’s the mouse and who’s the cat?” she whispered. “Zeta, see if you can enhance the motion-tracker a bit.” At the bottom left corner of her visor, she watched as the motion-tracker display slightly grew in range. Zeta’s avatar appeared in her visor. “Done. Your motion-tracker should now be able to detect any movement within thirty meters. The only way he’ll be able to hide from you is either by active camo or shrinking down to the size of an ant.” “Well let’s hope he can’t do anything like that.”

Noble slowly walked between a large column of warthogs and revenants, her motion-tracker phasing in and out with her movements. She walked out of the column and into a group of the heavier vehicles, consisting of five scorpions, three grizzlies, a rhino, and then reflected by an equal number of specters, wraiths and shadows. The motion-tracker still wasn’t picking up anything. “Zeta, you sure you modded this thing? There’s nothing here.” “Are you doubting my skills in satisfying your requests? I’ll have you know that I had to crosswire through your helmet’s original systems to add on that additional thirty-three percentage to your sensors.” An annoyed face developed behind Noble’s visor. “Well then why the hell aren’t I finding anything in here? It’s not that hard to lose a nine-foot hinge-head.” “It it when said hinge-head is wearing blackened armor and chose to hide in a massive hanger filled with vehicles.” A few slight creaks came up a distance behind her, but she was slightly distracted by Zeta’s lecture at the same time. “I mean, if he’s not plainly hiding in one of these things, then he’s probably waiting for you in the corner over there. It’s not like he could be...” The sound of an energy blade activating and a mass decloaking gave Noble the moment to finish Zeta’s sentence. “Right behind me.”

She jumped right out of the way just in time to avoid a massive energized scythe blade from hammering down on her, the pulse from the impact sending her rolling into one of the nearby shadows. When she got back to her feet, she saw Kroudon right where she was standing a moment ago, now wielding a huge scythe, its blade emitting in a red energy as it burned through the metal floor from its impact. The giant gave off a menacing snarl as he tore the scythe out of the ground, slamming the bottom of the staff to the ground and echoing in the hanger like a great thunderbolt. “Hehehehehehe. I’m surprised you managed to catch up to me like that. Even more surprised you couldn’t find me with your little tracker in there when I was simply hiding in your shadow the whole time.” Noble groaned slightly out of irritation. “Well, ya know, it is kinda hard to keep track of my own shadow when that’s all you can see in here.” The dark Sangheili began stomping towards her in intimidation. “Then it would seem you haven’t mastered your Darkness yet, learn to hone in to your dark potential. Something I could teach you a lesson or two on.” “She pulled her sniper rifle from her back and aimed it right at his chest. “The day I ask that is the day I let that bitch inside me take over. And that’s not going to happen. Not now, not ever.”

“Then you deny what it means to have true POWER!!!” Kroudon then leaped in the air and prepared to slam his scythe down right on her, but her agility gave her the time needed to evade the blow. His scythe tore through the shadow like it were made of plastic, drinking in the fiery explosion from it. A round drilled right through his left shoulder piece, drawing his attention to Noble knelt near a scorpion, her sniper aimed right at him. “Is that what you call “power” back in there? Over a hundred bloodied and dead, and then put up like some kind of fuckin’ display?!” Kroudon first answered with a beastly roar before rushing towards her. “A simple display of what the dark side can offer. If only you would let your Wrath take over and show you what you can really accomplish. Now, let me demonstrate what I mean.” He leaped towards her again, but she rolled under the tank to avoid his strike, hearing a loud thud follow her under; the tank’s slashed-off cannon nozzle rolled slightly towards her. Then she watched as he latched his scythe onto the tank’s side and flung it sideways on top of another, forcing her to dive under the one next to her. “Come now, little one. Don’t be shy.” Said the giant as he holstered his scythe to his back and grabbed on the tank’s front right tread and pulled it up a bit. “Step into the light.” But all he got from underneath was a well-placed plasma grenade stuck on the gas lines; the explosion totaled the tank and sent him flying into the tank pileup he created just moments ago, recovering quickly and taking his scythe back out. “Oh, so you wanna play a most dangerous game with me, ey? Alrighty, then. Let’s see how long you last.”

Kroudon simply waltzed around, playfully slicing through any vehicle in his path to draw the little human out of hiding. “Now where, oh where could you be hiding, little one?” Hiding on top of one of the elephants near the right corner of the hanger, Noble hid in the driver’s cabin, watching as Kroudon tore through a good quarter of the hanger’s vehicles as orange and violet flames began lighting up the place. She knew she could hide for long and she also knew she wouldn’t stop him with just conventional weapons in hand. She looked at his pattern, noticing him looping through the lanes like a slithering snake. If she could get him in the right position, he may be set up to be caught in the middle of a massive “pileup”. “Zeta, when I jump out, I need you to jump from each nearby vehicle I run pass and send them flooring towards the center of the room. Got it?” Zeta appeared before her, his avatar slightly dimmed to keep her position safe. “Noble, I’m not so sure about this one. While it may seem crazy enough to work, there is the chance that one of us will be cut off from the other, and I personally don’t want to go out in a massive inferno.” Noble gave a slight laugh of confidence. “You’re an AI, Zeta. You can’t feel fire burn through you.” “That was not very enlightening. Nor funny.” Noble stepped up to the elephant’s controls and began activating its systems. “Whatever you say, Z. Just be ready to start the demo derby.” “Do I have a choice?”

Noble revved up the elephant’s engines and blared the horn, its wail echoing like a monster’s roar. Kroudon ceased his onslaught and glared over at the elephant, slowly making his way towards it. What he wasn’t expecting, though, was for it to come cruising towards him; though not fast, it sure smashed through the mongooses and ghosts with ease. It slowly approached him, and he met it by running through its lower level, jumping out and watching it ram into the collection of wraiths. “Is that the best you can offer me? I rather prefer what your other half can supply.” His complaint was met with a wave of vehicles flooring right at him, forcing him to jump and dodge as many as he could. As he did, he noticed Noble running by the room’s walls, the vehicles going off as she passes by them as if they were possessed. The vehicles began slamming into each other, busting metal and going off in fiery explosions. Kroudon nearly met it when a revenant managed to clip his right leg, sending him rolling towards the growing mountain from Hell.

As he tried to get up, he suddenly felt a sharp pain pierce through the palm of his hand, letting out a roar of agony as he looked and saw a bleeding hole where the pain was. He looked over and saw Noble standing in a similar position from before, her sniper aimed right at him. “About time we get some real lighting in here. Getting kinda tired of running through the dark. Oh, and stay in that position: just makes you look less than trash at the moment.” He simply groaned in irritation to her defiance. “You think yourself clever, human? Think that you have beaten the might of Kroudon ‘Roga…” His sentence is cut by another shot fired straight at his kneecap, roaring once again in pain as he collapsed back to the ground. Noble began slowly walking up to the fallen giant, switching her sniper up for her backed shotgun, cocking it as she approached. “I think that I showed you just what a human can do to something like you. Augmented and trained as a supersoldier, perhaps, but still human.” Kroudon tried reaching for his scythe, but was met with a shotgun blast to his elbow, blood spraying from his arm as he tried to hold in the pain. “YOU BITCH!!!” cried out the monster, but only received a shotgun nozzle inches from his face. “Yeah, I’m a bitch, and I can admit it. But now, you’re my bitch, and I’m gonna make sure you pay for what you did here. You deserve something far worse than what they faced back in there, but I’ll put their souls to rest letting them know their slayer has been given a one-way ticket to Hell” as she cocked her shotgun once more right in front of his stupid face..

But even with that speech, Kroudon began laughing, softly at first but it soon grew in volume and ferocity. His sheer insanity sent a slight shock of worry down her spine. “Even now, you think I was the one who did all that? For once, I can actually say it…….No. You got the wrong killer. And it’s still in here, watching from the shadows as I was. And believe me, this was simply a play on your skills, your potential, to see if you would finally let go of your morals and give in to your dark side; you would’ve easily finished this fight sooner if you had That’s the whole reason I activated your beacon in the first place, a snare waiting for my prey.” This caught her by surprise. “You were the one to sent the distress call?” “Indeed, to draw you here. And still I am…….disappointed that you still held back, even in the face of inevitability. But it’s my own opinion in the long run. Now, I think it’s time that my contact in this arrangement gets its turn to take a swing on you.” Kroudon then began lying down. “So go ahead. Pull the trigger, end this game. For when it does end, another, ever darker one shall begin.” Noble hesitated for a moment, mostly by his most recent words. “No, first you’re gonna tell me everything. Why are you here and why’d you activate the beacon? Who’s your “contact”? Is he the one responsible for all of this?” The sangheili simply chuckled. “Wouldn’t be a good client if I go spilling secrets about my supplier. As for me being here, I was promised a great reward for my “services” drawing you in this far.” “Wasted effort, then. Guess you won’t live long enough to see that reward of your, unfortunately.” He simply smiled, if you could tell a smile from a hinge-head. “No pain can keep me down. You cannot kill off fear so easily. And I will see this TO THE END!!!” he roared as he lunged towards her with the last of his strength. He’s met with a blast from her gun to his face; the shot echoed slightly for a short bit.

Kroudon’s husk limped to the ground with a thud, thick blood spewing from where his head once was. Noble drooped her gun from her grip, cleaning off the blood stains off her visor. Zeta appeared in her vision. “You know you could’ve taken him in alive, handed him over for questioning. You probably would’ve been given a little something extra for bringing in one of their most-wanted criminals.” His avatar looked over to the corpse. “But instead, you let your temper get the better of you.” Tired of the lectures and sarcasm at the moment, Noble tore off her helmet and threw it to the ground. “You think I wanted to just kill him? I could’ve thought of so much more awful things to do to him, to make him pay for what he did. But I wanted to be better than that, better than him, and show that I can hold in that other side of me. And even then, I’m pushed to my limits, and “she” takes over.” Zeta appeared on her shoulder, silent for a few moments, and makes and attempt to cheer her up a bit. “I know. And I know there aren’t that many people out there that know what you’re going through, but they’re out there. And one of them is talking to you.” She looked over at him and stared at him for a moment, a smile of flirtation growing on her face. “You sure do have a way with words.” “Best when there’s someone around to show off to” with both sharing a quick laugh of reassurance.

As she went over to pick her helmet up, she noticed something near one of the burning mongooses; the same black blob creature from before, just staring at her with its single silver eye. ‘What the hell is this thing?” Noble’s visor scanned the creature, but wasn’t picking anything up other than visible body shape; heat sigs, heart rate, brain waves. Nothing. Whatever this thing was, it sure was beyond the word normal. And that was taken up a notch when a sinister smile grew across its face, two rows of sharpened teeth cracked down on each other. Noble heard a sloshing noise from behind and turned to see Kroudon’s body begin to melt away until it was nothing but a big black puddle. “What the f…” Suddenly, the puddle came to life and flowed past her legs and towards the pileup inferno, meeting the strange creature head-on. Both entities merged into a single mass, swirling about like a mini twister then sliding into the debris. Neither Noble nor Zeta could comprehend what they just witness. And just when they thought they saw everything, the mongoose exploded for unknown reason adding on to the rising flames, while something else began rising from atop the carnage; a black silhouette, rougly around seven feet tall, but not in a sangheili form. A human form. Forged in what appeared to be black armor and a rounded helmet, now standing on top of the charred mountain of steel. Its black head turned slightly, facing Noble who was still a good distance away and then did something that managed to frighten her slightly; a single silver visor opened across its helmet followed by a sinister set of jagged jaws as it let out a roar unlike any mad beast she had ever heard and spreading its arms in the air in preparations for its hunt, As it roared, the sprinklers came on, who knows why they weren't going off before, and the beast vanished just like that at the flames settled down. With a new threat lurking in the shadows, she and Zeta were thinking the exact same thought: this was just the beginning of their worries.