The Flood - First Encounter - (A Halo Fanfiction) by Duskfall

[Duskfall]

The Flood, - First Encounter was was created under Microsoft’s “Game Content Usage Rules” using assets from Halo 3, © Microsoft Corporation. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/developer/rules ================================= Voi, Kenya Several minutes after the failed attack on Truth's Dreadnought ================================= “Holy crap, there’s dust everywhere!” Sergeant Eric Sanders watched as debris from the arriving Covenant Battlecruiser litter Voi and the city's surroundings. He turned to his squad, “Get ready to move out. They might need us out there.” A marine came from the entrance of the factory. Sanders greet him, “What’s the word Private?” “The lieutenant wants us to head back to the underpass. 2nd platoon found something.” Sanders nodded, “Right. Lead the way.” He waved some marines over. “1st squad , on me! 2nd and 3rd, secure this area. Make sure nothing gets past you. Report on the COMMs if you encounter something.” A few meters from exiting the area, the marines heard a high pitched whirring sound . A large chunk of... something came barreling down toward them. Are large blob of what appeared to be some sort of biomass crash into the cliffside building, separating 1st squad from 2nd and 3rd squad. Sanders rallied 1st squad back and warned 2nd and 3rd squad. “2nd, 3rd, check it out. Stay frosty, we don’t know what it is.” The private from 2nd platoon spoke, “Sergeant, that’s what we found. We don’t know what is it either though.” “Stay frosty, marines.” Sanders repeated. All three squad kept some 20 meters from the biomass, weapons trained on it. With a dull pop, it burst revealing around 10 creatures that looked very similar to Elites and Brutes. Both forms had a light brown... armor, skin? Sanders couldn't tell from this distance. Carbine fire suddenly came from the group. One of the Elite look-alikes was holding a covenant carbine rifle and was shooting at Sanders and his men. He barked into the COMMs, “They’re hostile! Engage, engage!” Automatic rifle fire joined the drumming carbine fire. Several of the creatures charged 1sy squad, attempting to whip them with their long, slithering whips that were protruding from their arms. Fortunately, they were gunned down before they were in range. 2nd and 3rd squad had the same ease in suppressing the threat. Sanders walked back to 2nd and 3rd squad. “Report! Anyone injured?” “No sir.” “I’m green.” “3rd squad is good to go, sir.” “Sergeant! Come over here, you need to see this.” With the rest of his platoon behind him, Sanders went over to the marine to see what he wanted him to look at. It was a corpse of one of the Elite look-alikes. Sanders noticed something was very wrong. The creature looked too alike an Elite. His train of thought was broken by the Private from 2nd platoon. “Sir, I’m looking at vital’s from 2nd platoon. Bioscans say that they’re all KIA.” Another marine called out, “Tracking movement from 2nd platoons location. They’re headed this way.” “Weapons ready, marines.” 1st platoon trained their rifles toward the pathway to 2nd platoons location. These... things weren’t very tough. Compared to the difficulty of dispatching an Elite squad, this was a much easier task. Sander’s boot was already crushing the arm he was crouched on top of. The marines were not prepared for what they were going to see next. Fleshy creatures lumbered from the doorways, assault rifles in their rotten sickly arms. The marines could hear their growls as they got closer. “Oh god... is that 2nd platoon?” The marine’s voice shuddered. None of them wanted to believe what they were seeing. All of their neural implants were showing them the same thing: each of those growling monsters were marked as KIA friendlies. Sanders’ began to sweat heavily. Damn it, stop hesitating! “O-open fire!” Sanders called out. The marines did that, shredding apart what their neural implants marked as 2nd platoon’s 3rd squad. The other creatures responded. Bringing their own rifles to bear, they fired upon 1st platoon. 3 marines took rounds to their arms and abdomens. Another took a round to the head and was instantly killed. “Everyone get to cover!” The marines did just that. A few dragged the wounded marines out of the line of fire and tried to treat their wounded. 3rd squad took blind shots at their attackers. Sanders called to the radioman, “Murphy, we need support!” “Eagle-6, Eagle-6, this is Hunter-2, we are taking fire from unknown hostiles, need support immediately. We have men down, over.” No reponse. “Eagle-6, this is Hunter-2. We need assistance, over. Damn. Sanders! Eagle-6 isn’t responding!” “Hold the line marines! We will not let these things get the best of us!” Their fire intensified, and began to overwhelm their attackers. There were about three of them left when someone called out. “New contacts. I think I’m tracking movement from the rooftops.” “Look sharp Devil Dogs; they’ll be coming in from above!” Some 50 or 60 small creatures dove from the roof of the factory. They were no small than rodents and seem to move on thin tentacles. The marines fired upon these as well. They were exrtremely easy to dispatch, it seems to take only one bullet to kill one. The resulting “pop” would also kill another beside it. They couldn’t kill them all befire they reached the marines though. When they were close enough, they leapt at the marines. “Ah shit! Get it off me!” The rodent sized creatures seem to possess a great amount of strength: 2nd squad had difficulty removing them from their personal space. 1st and 3rd squad, fortunately, were able to repel them. They were horrified by what they saw when the 2nd squad marines’ strength gave out. The rodents embedded themselves into their chest as 2nd squad fell to the ground, clutching their chests and screaming. In a matter of seconds, 2nd squad had transformed into... those things they had just fought. Panicing, the rest of the marines fired into the group, killing 2nd squad before they rose back to their feet. They were quick enough, however. One of them had survived long enough to unload half a clip of 7.62 rounds at a marine, riddling his chest with bullet holes. “Sergeant, more contacts, closing in fast!” “Fall back, everyone, fall back!” Sander screamed. Everyone sprinted for the doors toward the anti-air emplacement was supposed to destroy. With their attention diverted, two infested brutes, as the marines realized they were, arrived at the scene and fired at the retreating marines, killing two. When they turned around to return fire, more of the infestor creatures came from the rooftops again, this time landing directly above them. The situation quickly degraded. Some marines were trying to wrench the infestors off of their bodies, others were wildly firing their assault rifles. Sanders was busying gunning down a group of the infestors that had just overwhelmed their radioman when one of the infested elites whipped him with its tentacles. He was nearly launched off the cliff, stopping barely at the edge of the broken cliff. Two marines in front of him were succumbing to the infestor creatures. Time slowed down. Sanders could heard every half-second of their agonizing scream and they rotted and morphed into those monsters. The infested elite that had hit him was immensely powerful, and Sanders couldn’t find the strength to get back onto his feet. The marines were completely transformed now. They turned to Sanders and he felt their gazes pierce into him. He prayed. Sanders prayed to God that he would find solace in heaven when those monster inevitably kill him and use his body for their undead army. The infested marines were only 2 meters from him now; Sanders squeezed his eyes shut. Then he heard the sound of high caliber bullets. The infested marines took the full force of a volley of high caliber rounds from a dismounted AIE-486H HMG. Their bodies were thrown off the cliff as Sander turned his head to look at his saviors. In his glorious olive drag armor was the Master Chief, wielding a dismounted machine gun turret in his armor hands. He nodded to Sanders before bring the turret to bear on another group of the infesteds and mowing them down. “Hey.” Sander turned to the source of the voice and was meet with a live marine. “Get up, not going to go down like this are you?” He simply nodded as he painfully rose from his feet. “Those bloody things with the tentacles are damn strong.” He followed the Master Chief clutching chest and holding his assault rifle in one hand, and kept pace with the rest of the marines. Whether he lived to see the end of the war or not, Sanders would not forget this day: the day where he witness horrors far more disturbing than the mass murders the Covenant committed on a weekly basis. ================================= Author's Note: Well, I know reading about the Flood might irk some of you, but I really liked the reactions about first encounters with the Flood from various groups. I've also noticed that other than our major characters, no marine has ever lived to tell the tale of the Flood parasite, excluding the marines on Earth. I also want to thank a couple of people, particular, the brony fandom. Thanks you guys! Without you, I would have never gotten into creative writing! I want to thank my friend Gullwasher, for being supportive of me in just about everything I do. The brony community may have jumpstarted my activities as a writer, but you have given me confidence in doing it! And of course, thank you readers! Read and Review, danke!

[Naked Crook]

I tidied up the formatting so it is easier to read on our dark themed forum. Anyway, read the story and I much enjoyed it. Very well written.