- Wolverfrog
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- Fabled Legendary Member
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"I can see transportation," one of the Flood forms drawled out in a monotone voice which chilled Captain Graham Daniels to the bone.
"Good. It shall speed our journey to the Mind," another answered in the exact same tone of voice. It was as if they were all clones of each other.
Graham looked with dread at the Spectre he was being dragged towards, which looked as if were about to explode at any second. Then again, that might be a good thing. Dying would be a preferable alternative to becoming one of the Flood.
They'd covered dozens of miles in only an hour or so, but evidently even the Flood with their super-enhanced strength and stamina grew tired, for they had come to a halt, before slowing down to a slow trudge. Graham had tried to escape, but found he could not break free from the energy manacles restraining him. Even if he could, he knew the Flood would chase him down again with ease.
Graham stumbled on a particularly high mound of biomass, falling to the foul smelling ground with a shout. He cried out in agony when the searing plasma of the manacles burnt into his flesh as pressure was exerted on them. One of the Flood forms, who seemed to be an infected human, turned around sharply, with inhuman grace. Graham could see faint traces of the man the form had once been, although the misshapen head was snapped back at an angle which would kill a normal person, with biomass reaching out of the mouth and forming a separate head, which had the red feathery tendrils of the infection form protruding from them. On the Flood form's armour, Graham could faintly make out the acronym "ODST."
"Get up," it told him flatly, staring at him with dead eyes. Graham gulped, attempting to stand. He found to his horror that his leg was jammed.
"I can't," he protested weakly, giving another firm yank. His limb was stuck fast in the soft, loamy and dead ground. The Flood-ODST regarded his situation for a moment, before raising a razor sharp limb.
"I shall free you," it told him, advancing towards his trapped leg slowly, flexing its blade-like limb. Graham stared at the keen edge in terror, desperately attempting to free his leg. It was no use.
The Flood-ODST placed its sharp limb on Graham's trapped thigh, and he whimpered in fear. Seeing the lack of emotion in the form's mutilated gaze, Graham turned away, shutting his eyes and gritting his teeth. He could feel the sharp limb cutting into his leg, drawing a small trickle of blood. Graham heard air being cut as the limb was lifted up.
The blade came down, with a sickening slice. Graham felt pain, and then nothing. For a split second, there existed nothing to him. Everything was blanked out as his mind struggled to cope with what had just been done to his body.
Then sensation returned, and Graham found himself screaming in agony. He looked behind him, and saw his severed leg move away from him as the Flood form grabbed the rest of him with extraordinary strength, lifting him and throwing him over its shoulder with ease. His leg was bleeding, badly, and he began to feel faint, groaning.
The Flood-ODST noticed this, and touched a lone tendril to the stump where his left leg had once been. Immediately the gaping hole closed over, covered by a Flood biomass.
Graham could hardly think, and merely looked back over the revolting shoulder of the Flood form at his severed stump of a leg, which was sinking in a pool of sticky blood. He'd lost a leg. He'd never naturally walk again.
He was thrown into the back seat of the smoking Spectre, left to quiver and shake. The look the Flood gave him was one of complete indifference; no emotion whatsoever.
The Flood-ODST began to climb into the driver's cockpit of the Spectre, but never made it. Instead, a volley of bullets crashed into the upper torso of it, eventually cascading into its dual heads. Flesh and blood splattered across the area around it.
Graham stared at the source of the shot, and saw three tall figures step out of a golden light, opening fire on the startled Flood, who were attempting to reach for their own weapons. They never had a chance; each was cut down mercilessly before they could even gasp.
One of them collapsed on Graham, its disfigured and bleak eyes staring up at him with shock. Instinctively, he tried to leap out of the Spectre away from the Flood corpse, and soon found himself toppling out of the alien vehicle to the hard ground below. He heard footsteps around him, and winced, thinking the Flood had managed to fight off his rescuers. But instead of rough treatment and a manacling, all Graham heard were concerned words.
"Captain! Are you okay?" the voice was male, and dimly registered somewhere in the back of Graham's mind as being slightly familiar. The words echoed, as if they were being spoken through a helmet. He looked up, and saw what he could only describe as a Spartan looking down at him. But not like the Master Chief or his ilk. He realised this was a Spartan III.
"My leg," he groaned, weeping slightly. He felt a hand grasp his own, pulling him up and supporting him. His blurry vision had cleared, revealing his saviours. Two Spartan IIIs, and the Forerunner -- the Didact. Hovering about ten metres from the ground was the Monitor, 343 Guilty Spark.
"What happened?" the Didact asked tenderly as a father would to a child. Graham winced as the Forerunner gently prodded the raw flesh lining the bottom of what was now a stump cut off slightly below the knee.
"I got trapped. One of those bastards just cut it off. They wanted to interrogate me, they were taking me to the Gravemind," Graham gasped out, ashen faced.
"Really? Well, you're lucky Spark noticed your lifeboat beacon, and then followed the blood particles which were falling on the floor," the Didact replied, regarding his MA5C with amusement before shouldering it.
"Couldn't you have got here a few minutes earlier?" Graham pined, groping with his hand down at the area where his leg had once been. Nothing. He felt a sudden urge to faint. The Didact stared at him apologetically.
"We got here as fast as we could, child. I am truly sorry that we weren't fast enough."
"Hey, it's not all bad," the male Spartan III -- was Tom his name? -- input, looking down clinically at Graham's leg -- or rather, lack of leg. "It was a cut below the knee, so you were lucky there. A skilled surgeon should be able to flash clone you a new one; or replace it with a prosthetic at the least."
That cheered Graham up considerably. But even so, it wouldn't be his leg, and it wouldn't work as well as a normal one would. Tom was already looking at the Spectre Graham had just fallen out of, smiling.
"We need to get to the Vadam Citadel," he voiced aloud, turning to his companions. "And Spark won't be able to access the teleportation grid for a while now. That Spectre should do the job, however."
The Didact was staring at the smoking vehicle with no little apprehension, doubt creeping into his gaze. He stared pointedly at a plasma flame which had sprouted on the front of the vehicle.
"It looks a little unsafe," the Forerunner answered.
"Spark can hold it together, right?" Tom asked the Monitor, who descended down to his eye level. Graham was starting to get a little tired of balancing on one leg whilst being supported by the other Spartan III, Lucy.
"I can certainly do my best," Spark answered modestly.
"That'll have to do," Tom replied, before turning to Lucy. "Lower the Captain into the Spectre, would you?"
"I'm going with you?" Graham questioned, surprised. The Didact laughed.
"Well, we're not leaving you here, child," the Forerunner told him kindly as he was helped into the Spectre by the Spartan. "343 Guilty Spark will look after you."
Graham looked at the Monitor which descended down to him, powering down its anti-gravity thrusters and resting on his lap.
"Don't worry Reclaimer, I shall protect you to the best of my abilities!" Spark chirped happily. Graham laughed, although his chuckle soon turned into a wheeze.
"You'd better," he jested. "Oh, and Spark?"
"Yes, Reclaimer?"
"Thanks for coming back."
"Think nothing of it."
The Didact climbed in the seat just below Graham, frowning at the shape of the vehicle, muttering how it was not as comfortable as it looked. The Forerunner then turned to face Tom.
"Will you be driving?" he asked. Tom looked taken aback.
"Me? Hell no, Lucy's the vehicle expert."
The mute, quite possibly insane Spartan was driving? Oh, God. Graham and the Didact shared an uneasy look as the female Spartan III eased into the driver's seat, clasping the alien steering wheel firmly. Tom climbed into the Spectre, sitting just in front of Graham. He turned back to face them.
"Don't worry, Lucy's a brilliant driver. You might want to hold on though."
Graham had just been about to ask 'why?', when the Spectre suddenly roared into action, and he very quickly found out why Tom had said that.