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Halo 1: The Ring World: Ch. 4: The Hunt Is On...

0175 Hours, September 22, 2552 (Military Calendar)/
Covenant Cruiser: Truth and Reconciliation / Halo Installation 004/
Canyon Environment Area 012/ Command Deck-Vessel Halls-Storage Compartment-Environment: Canyon 012

Wort ran as fast as his legs could go, the textures of purple on the walls and floors became a blur to him as he sped through lines of those 'Flood' creatures. Their putrid, rotting skin rubbing off on him as he past, they started to chase him, but he couldn't stop to fight, he still had no weapon. And he knew he would have to find one sooner or later, or it would be the death of him and the ship. At the far end of the corridor he could see dead end, the left and only intersecting passage was blocked by flaming debris, and the things were still close on his tail, how had that human made it through here? Wort thought angrily, but all his worries then faded away when he saw the small floor panel missing in the center of the room, creating a small, but still maneuverable hole to escape through. He ran around it's edge and looked back, seeing the group of rotting creatures jump for him, hungry for his blood, but Wort was too fast for them, he merly hopped down the passage and their hunt ended, the things above too stupid to figure out were their prey went. But things right next to him, didn't have that disadvantage, they were waiting for him downstairs too! The gastly creatures had cut him off, Wort slowly backed away from them as they continued to analyze him, his back made a metal thud when it hit the storgae compartment doors, they automatically swung open with a loud mechanical noise, the 'Flood' now alert with the fear of their prey escaping, came jolting at him, jumping and swinging a lethary whip of flesh at him at the same time, causing Wort to back-up a few steps and cover his face from the lashing blows, his shields sustained massive damage, but they still held stronge, but that wasn't what worried him; the huge, gapping hole and inch from his foot was what scared him, he had no where to go; he was trapped...

The 'Flood' creatures knew this and continued with their onslaught, Wort almost defenseless from their brutle attacks, swinging a fist here and there when he could, but mostly stood in a defensive crouching stance to counter the blows, until finally his shields deminished to nothing, and went temporarily offline to recharge. Wort was screwed, and he knew it. One of the things came forward again and whiped his arm over Wort's head, knocking him senseless, his vision blured, but the barrage of fists and whips stopped. The creatures seemed to part into two rows, lining an honorary walkway to him as a giant bulbuos creature waddled forward from around the corner, it's upper torso dominated by a huge sack that seemed to be carring something moving inside. It walked right up to him, Wort too anstonished to do anything until it practically fell on him, it's weight could have thrown an average human off balance, but Wort was an Elite, and a damn strong one at that, he thought as he pushed the rotting blob back into the crowd of 'Flood' and just out of the blue, exploded! The sharp, stringy blast rocketed Wort and some slimey shrapnel across the huge hole, and sent him to the floor all the way across deck. Wort got up, his body ached but he would be alright until his shields recharged, he looked back over to the opening; the 'Flood' things started to hiss and gargle with fury as they sat back up and prepared to jump the gap. Wort quickly surveyed the area, the room was stockpiled with weaponry, rifles and pistols scattered all throughout the floors and crates, as well as grenades and hand-held plasma blades too. Wort had no time to choose his favorite as the 'Flood' approached, he grabbed the two nearest things to him; a few Plasma Grenades off the floor, and an inanimate blade and handle of a Plasma Sword on the crate directly behind him. Wort ran to the edge of the hole, pressed the blue ball's activation button, and hurled it into their decaying mass of flesh, it stuck to one of the ones in the back, it's blue fire-like detonation and stick flame sparkled and notified Wort of his hit. A second later a burst of fiery blue consumed the doorway, eradicating the things, but just as their named stated, their was a whole other flood of 'em clogging-up the doorway. Wort squeezed the Plasma Sword's handle as it's gel-like substance covered his hand; shielding him from any heat radiated by the sword's exposed Plasma radiation. The dull aqua of the inanimate blade burst to life in a firey blue and white that completely covered it. The first of the creatures lept from it's jagged metal purch and was expecting to land on Wort, killing him with it's whip-technique, but Wort had an ace up his sleeve, and pulled the Sword out from behind his back and gave a great, big slash at the thing, it's soft rotting flesh was like cutting through butter with an axe, as the thing landed behind him as a whole, but fell to the ground in half. Then there were more of them, jumping in uncoordinated paths that sent some to the depths below, and others merely crashing into each other, but the ones that did make it, didn't really make it that long, as they never caught on to Wort's Plasma Sword's abilities. He never grew tiresome of weiding that sword, but he knew that time was of the essence, and he needed to get that A.I. back before that human got too far away to track. So Wort slowly backed away from the hole, switched the sword off and tucked it away safely, turned and ran, leaving the the creatures behind him for the moment...

It had been a long trail through the halls to get to the Grav-Bay, but he was finally there, he stood on the large gray pad at the center of the room and typed the command in to the vessel to activate the lift area. The room hummed to life and a control booth by the pad activated and projected a holographic activation switch, Wort walked over to it and tapped the air it was floating over, the button highlighted itself and purple started to wash over Wort, his eyes blurred and the room began to spin, the darkness. He opened his eyes, Wort was in a small canyon area, the ground he was on was lifted high into the air by an arch formation, all around him was the sputter of erradicly firing weapons and vehicles, his comrades were all below, fighting off the 'Flood' things and doing what he hoped wasn't what he thought it was; loosing. He quickly ran down the steep gravely ramp-like structure and located the corpse of a falled comrade, he picked up his weapon, a Plasma Rifle and began to search for the human, or other enemies around him. His focus almost got him killed though, as he dove out of the way of a damaged Banshee, crash-landing and exploding into little pieces right were he was standing not a second ago. It was too badly damaged to fly again; just as he had thought, but merely checked the flier just in case, he wouldn't want to give up such an oppotunity that would allow him to quickly survey the whole canyon for the human in the thing. He continued to walk cautiously around the tall arch he was on, to his left was a small hole that led to some coolant pools that the 'Flood' creatures seemed to be crawling out of, he trained his weapon on the dark figures and fired, the blasts vaporizing parts of their decaying skin until they finally fell to the ground. He then turned back around to his right and noticed a small resistance of them on a ledge in the canyon wall, he carefully took aim, and fired, but his shots missed by a long-shot, his aim thrown off by something grabbing at him, it was the creature, it was still alive! Wort shook his leg in pure panic, not wanting to get any part of the slimey, smelly creature on him, he pulled the Rifle around and put it's dual-barrel strait to it's head, careful not to hit his foot, and fired, the shot creating a gapping hole in it's rotting forehead, leaving a ragged corpse behind. Wort continued to run through the lines of fire, ducking here and there, and shooting the things when ever he could. He could see a the canyon forming ahead, it's passageway a tight for any drophips to maneuver through, he ran across the rugged terrain of rock and dirt, leaving the horrific battle behind in search of the human. Running over sharp hills and gullies that jutted out in ever direction, making the passage a rough trip to get through. Wort continued to run through the canyon, destroying any obsticales in his way, he shot at the creatures on another far ledge of canyon area, but his shot was knocked off by the blow sustained from a 'Flood' creature that had jumped from it's perch and lashed at him, Wort immediately shot the creature, but was still in an extreme state of panic, not because of the creature, but because of what it was holding; a human rifle! The things could use weapons! Wort didn't like this one bit, he fell back to the ship's Grav-Lift area to retaliate his loss of knowledge and get his head thinking strait. He passed by one of his comrades just as he was impaled by a barage of the Needler's purple trojectories, glowing and then bursting into an explosion of bright acid-like dust; the things could also handle Covenant weaponry! Wort came back up on the opening of the canyon to the Grav-Lift, he could see the bright purple beam shinning bright still, a good sign. But there was something else up there that got his hopes up, high up, it was the green armor-clad human! Wort had him now, he was actually entering the ship through the Grav-Lift, how stupid could the guy be? Wort had control of the ship, of the guy too, and he knew it, it was all just a matter of time before the task was completed...

Wort ducked as a bright blue ball of light fluttered by him, and sticking to a small, cowering Grunt behind a rock, the thing screamed it's head off before it finally burst into a million pieces as the Grenade detonated. The human was already on the ship, but Wort couldn't get back up to the lift yet, there were just too many hostiles and just not enough cover. He would have to wait for the rest of the Strike Team, if there were any left, he thought. This got him even more impacient, the rest of the team was probably long gone from his position by now, either that or dead. He backed away from the canyon wall as another of the creatures came to life behind him, but not even a second chance was enough to take Wort out of the picture, he thought as he dropped the depleted Rifle and picked up the thing's Needler, not his prefered choice of weapon, but it would have to do for now. He turned the corner sharply again, out into the open of the canyon with the Grav-Lift, and fired off a few rounds at the things still perched on the ledge, the needles stabbed into their targets and imploded, killing one, but the others remained. He jumped back into the darknes, hiding, as lights of plasma and darts of bullets cut through the air where he was a second ago. This was taking way too long, Wort thought, he needed to get aboard of that ship now! His head flooded with anger as he silently counted down in his head, and then finally burst from his cover and ran across the wide, open space to the Grav-Lift above, bullets and plasma rippled the ground behind his every move, he held out the Needler as he strafed the area, and fired, the thing shaking his whole arm, probably because it took up practically his whole arm. The sharp, purple glowing sticks pierced the rotting skin of the creatures above as he exhausted the whole clip, and a second later, the needles imploded in a firey hail-storm of purple dust and shards, melting away at the soft-skinned mutants. And before he knew it, a haze of purple washed over his body as it was lifted into the air, but something about it was horribly wrong from all his previous rides through the lift, his gut seemed to have been repeatedly stabbed by a million knives, the pain extremely intense. Then the purple haze cleared from his eyes, put the purple glow did not, Wort's chest had been impaled by a needle from the one of the Needlers that had been fired at him. He paniced and struggled to free it from his chest, a with success, though the crystalline needle had imploded in his hands, making him suffer from third-degree burns. Wort looked at the wound, he was bleeding, though not as bad as if it had imploded while in him, and for that he was thankful. Wort dropped the horribly weak weapon in place of another Plasma Rifle laying near a dead Ops Grunt by the pad, something the Grunt obviously couldn't handle. Wort reactivated the Personal Holopad System on his arm, the human was in here, and close, if Wort of stayed put, he would've been right where he was a few hours ago; the Command Deck. This time there was no escape...

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