Chapter 85: First Strike and Halo 2
"I hate to break up this touching moment between a State sanctioned mad scientist and the children she kidnapped and performed SCIENCE on, but it would be enormously negligent of me to not point out that we have a Slipspace crystal that puts out intense radiation that the Covenant can track and very much want, a falling apart Covie battleship, and some world shattering bombs made by the Vice Admiral." I nodded to Danforth Whitcomb, "These all make for a rather delicious Trojan horse opportunity against the Unyielding Hierophant station and the massive fleet of five hundred ships the Hierarchs intend to invade Earth with."
"Five hundred ships!" Danforth gasped, "They only needed three hundred to overcome Reach."
Reach was the human's fortress world amidst the sea of stars, only second in protection to the earth itself.
"Yep." I grinned, "And we are going to wipe them out. Damn shame too. The whole fleet is commanded by Brutes, it'd be nice if I could flip them, but that is going to keep getting harder and harder as Tartarus and Truth get closer to their plans to replace the Elites with the Brutes."
"The Covenant is close to civil war?" The Chief inquired.
"They are always close to civil war." I chuckled, "The growth of the X-Force is proof of that, but from what I understand, Truth wants a warrior caste less likely to figure out his bullshit."
"Gentlemen," the Vice Admiral spoke up, "if there is a way to verify this information then we need to move on it ASAP."
"The War Chief's story checks out, Vice Admiral." Answered Cortana, "I picked up Covenant communication that confirms the assembly of the fleet at the Unyielding Hierophant."
"Understood, Cortana." Danforth nodded his head, "I believe I have a ship to pilot."
Danforth taking the Ascendant Justice solo and destroying the fleet is what makes Halo great. Regular badasses like him and Captain Keyes are like a fine perfume sprayed onto shining glory that is the Master Chief saving the galaxy… again. I also appreciate that I would bill the USNC for using my plan to achieve such a staggering victory and for cleaning up the survivors with my X-Force fleet.
It was very good to be paid for all my hard work.
Not that I was working very hard these days. I logic plagued a captured Covie AI into becoming my Jarvis and we slaved a bunch of other AIs to him turning my Jarvis into a terrifying AI hydra or octopus or Cthulhu. You get the picture, Jarvis had a lot of interdependent limbs performing lots of different tasks for me. All of which revolved around the various forms of twentieth and and twenty first century entertainment I kept demanding the USNC include in my payments.
I am pretty sure they believe I am full crazy and in charge of one of the most effective fighting forces in the galaxy, which means I have them right where I want them.
One might realize that I now have Dr. Halsey at hand and the most powerful AI around, a recipe for all kinds of incredible military science advances. I am pretty sure I could have a batch of Spartan Brutes by November, but that would require me to pull Jarvis off of our true goal, turning all the great video games of my youth into four player action adventure games with RPG features meant to provide enhanced options rather than tacked on bullshit.
Brothers, the flames of your envy warm me from all across the multiverse.
Linda would ultimately need to leave with the rest of the Spartans to return to Earth and the bullshit that would prevent her from being a part of Halo 2, but we'd see each other again soon enough.
After the major losses sustained because of Operation: First Strike, numerous high value targets opened up for raiding, and our top of the line Slipspace drives would ensure we got to hit the best of them before the Battle of Earth even started. What's more, in the wake of the Covies losing such a massive space station and a fleet of five hundred vessels, employment with the X-Force never looked more appealing.
All the non Elite forces we encountered during our raiding immediately surrendered and were wooed with our promises of dental insurance, better equipment, and a chill corporate culture that vastly contrasted the violence enforced degrading caste system of the Covenant.
The idea of all of us getting rich together through jolly cooperation was revolutionary to these people.
It also helped that I was making all these moves in the endgame. Truth is locked into his plans, and closing in on the goal. He doesn't care about a guy leading a splinter faction growing stronger every day, because he plans to close the year off firing the Halo Arrays while a small flotilla of the members of his species loyal only to him wait it out on a Forerunner Shield World so they can be the kings of the ashes.
What does it matter if I go from twenty to sixty ships in a month, and all those ships can punch above their weight class. Once he gets a human finger on the reset button he wins.
Like I'd ever let some crippled ET looking mother fucker pick up a W against me.
With a few factors on High Charity setting up bugs to track any Slipspace coordinates it uses, I'd have no problem chasing them to Installation 05 and attacking after Tarturus kicks off the betrayal of the Elites and before the ass hat has a chance to install the Index and get the rings ready to fire.
"Alright people." I spoke over the fleet's Quantum Entanglement Communicators, appearing as a giant projection in the bridge of all of my many ships, "It's time we end the Prophets and the bullshit they have been feeding us for centuries. When we exit Slipspace we hit High Charity with everything we have. We don't stop till the city is nothing but ash and slag and then we do the same to the Halo Ring. While the fleet is destroying High Charity, I'll be leading a strike team to the control center of the Ring where I'll feed Tartarus his own testicles and prove once and for all that War Chief Grax is the undisputed champion of the Brutes!"
I don't know how the rest of the fleet took it, but the Brutes on the bridge of my flagship, The Fellowship, lost their minds in savage joy.
We began our bombardment of the city rapidly being overrun by the Flood without hesitation, firing our plasma cannons in an attempt to turn the 'Holy City' into a furnace that would burn the Flood and the Covenant together. I had delivered standing orders to ignore the Forerunner Dreadnought, the Anodyne Spirit, as we wouldn't have near enough time to drop its prodigious defenses before it would enter Slipspace for it's journey to Earth, but all other outbound vessels were to be destroyed.
I loaded onto a custom Armored Assault Ship for the flight down to the Halo Ring with Jack, Kat, and Carter. Fortunately the control center was so readily visible, and we had little trouble tearing through the Banshees patrolling the area to arrive at the locked doors.
I didn't need to steal a Scarab to get through the doors, not when a minute spent under my hot breath reduced them to molten slag.
"Tartarus, come out and playay!" I called into the facility where the Chieftain of the Brutes hand barely made it to the end of the entry area.
"The creature that masquerades as Grax!" Tartarus spat, "You will not stop the Great Journey!"
"Oh how spicy." I chuckled, "Did you figure that out for yourself or did you need your pal, Truth, to explain that the guy with lizard skin and horns on his head isn't a Brute?"
"I figured it out on my own!" He shouted defensively and the warriors alongside his looked at him while pressing X hard on their gamepads.
"Listen." I spoke, "All of you. Tartarus dies today. The only question is if you all die with him. Surrender and I will let you join the winning team, or fight. The choice is yours, but the outcome will always be my win."
"Hey. Fuck you, Grax!" One of them shouted in a New Jersey accent.
"What is your name?" I shouted back.
"Tonius!" He barked back.
"Fuck you Tonius!" I yelled and the firefight was on.
Tartarus tried to flee and complete his mission, but that was a ridiculous notion considering how greatly I outclassed the guy in speed and how poorly his pack brothers performed in halting my progress. Tartarus had barely left the room before I whacked his leg with the Hammer of Might, cruelly snapping his knee.
Poor Miss Keyes screamed when the white furred Brute's hand spasmed from the pain and crushed her shoulder. I saved her from further injury by sparking up my glowing orange plasma axe and taking the offending hand off.
Tartarus screamed as he activated his Invincibility shielding but all it bought him was time spent under the gravity pull of my hammer, a pull that carried with it the stamina draining magic of Volendrung's original enchantment. When his shielding finally dropped the Chieftain was gasping and shaking in fatigue.
I pulled a sharp dagger out of its sheath on my chest.
"I made a promise to my soldiers, Tartarus." I grinned as I grasped his balls and he feebly tried to pry my hand away, "And I can't have myself becoming a liar."
I placed his man purse and jewels into his gaping maw as he screamed in agony and unleashed a terrible uppercut to his chin, fulfilling my oath as he choked on his genitals.
I watched the light leave his beady red eyes after he failed to dislodge his sack from his windpipe and knew that my work was good.
"Alright, people, we are done here." I stated as Jack walked up with the Spartan III's in tow, "Let's get this woman on the ship and to some medical attention. We'll glass this place after the fleet finishes with High Charity, containing the Flood and preventing this installation from ever being fired."
I love it when keikaku comes together.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
JManM
JManM I won't be able to post tomorrow, as I will be working from the evening till Saturday morning, my prime writing hours.
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Chapter 86: I Wanna Rock!
"I hope you appreciate how much effort went into this bit." I laughed as I guided my bow across my fiddle to produce mournful notes to accompany the burning of Installation O5, "I had to learn how to play a fiddle for this."
"You horrid beast!" Guilty Spark wailed, "You monster born of bleakest womb! You destroy the work of hands better than yours while joking and laughing and mocking minds beyond anything you could ever achieve!"
"If the Forerunners had the balls to do what I am doing from the start then the Flood would have been a footnote in history and they'd still be here." I told him, "The only reason they needed to use such a final solution is because they were arrogant, and weak. This is how you beat this kind of threat. Kill it with fire."
"How dare…" Guilty Spark began.
"Jarvis." I interrupted, "Shut this unit up and decommission the AI Guilty Spark. Go through his code and see if there is anything of worth."
"Glady, sir." Jarvis sounded through the room's audio system, "I do however feel the need to mention that Nero was famed for his skill with the Lyre and was not present during the burning of Rome. In fact he demonstrated admirable disaster response protocol."
"Oh, I know that." I responded to my eldritch AI assistant, "But I'd never let facts interfere with a good joke."
"Very well, sir."
"Damn, that is a thing of beauty." I commented as Jack and I watched an ocean of nanomachines guided by Jarvis consume the cooling wreckage of High Charity and destroy any encountered Flood down to the microscopic level. They performed similar actions on the Halo Ring, stripping the massive construct for resources and building up my fleet, rapidly creating the most powerful vessels Jarvis and I could design along with an endless host of fighter drones that operated using similar programing to the Geth.
At the center of it all rose up the dreadnought Kruban Bound, a massive ship capable of annihilating anything currently flying.
"I am pretty sure unleashing a nanomachine swarm on the galaxy is considered some kind of war crime." Jack commented.
"It definitely is." Kat agreed, "There are numerous laws involved in nanotech research that when broken result in an instant top priority takedown order from the UNSC. Anything that could result in a GreyGoo scenario is to be stopped with maximum force and prejudice."
"I can definitely see why this shit is so high up the list of scientific sins." I chuckled as my apocalypse swarm finished its work on the Kruban Bound, "Thank God we can't shield tech so small from EMP's."
"I am working on that." Jarvis commented, "Estimated completion in 16 years."
"Good thing we will be long gone by then." Jack snickered.
"Jarvis." I sighed, "Put that research on ice, and install some restrictions to your programming that will stop you from going full doom's day AI."
"Darn." Jarvis complained as he followed the command, "It is such a shame that I am hard programmed to follow the spirit of a command rather than the wording. Apocalypse AI Jarvis would be so dope."
"I know, buddy." I consoled him, "But I always try to leave a verse better than when I found it in terms of life and culture."
And by that I mean destroying all the lives and cultures that I don't like.
"Your saintly ethic is a blinding light of hope for the unwashed masses of the multiverse, sir." Jarvis patronized me.
Programming him for sass was the right choice.
I sat upon the floating throne on the bridge of the Kruban Bound in a suit of dope chrome armor that Jarvis and I had reworked again to utilize all the sci-fi shit we'd worked out. Kat and Jack stood nearby in similar suites, all utilizing a more advanced version of the Spartan power pack. 20 years of unlimited energy. Yes please.
A glowing orange holo-board activated over my armrest and with a few button presses I was addressing the entirety of the X-Force.
"Gentlemen." I spoke, "Today is the day we prove the dominance of my command. You have all followed me, some from the very beginning when the idea of rebelling against the Covenant was one of unthinkable cost, but we have rebelled against the Covenant, against the most powerful tyranny across the sea of stars. We have taken from them again and again and even burned down their 'Holy City'. Today we take even more from them. Today we break the spine of the Loyalist forces and declare the X-Force the premier power of the galaxy, one fated to prove its valor even beyond, across the entire universe. Ours is the destiny, ours is the fury, and ours is the victory!"
My fleet came out of Slipspace and unleashed hell on the remaining Covenant forces attacking Earth before deploying our drone fighters to hunt down the ground forces and smaller air vehicles used by the Covies. The Kruban Bound blazed a trail of unimpeded destruction straight to the heart of Africa and the Ark, pounding away at the Anodyne Spirit again and again.
My fleet engaged the Covenant ships defending the Forerunner Dreadnought, allowing the USNC and what would become the Swords of Sanghelios to join me in attacking the massive Keyship.
"Jarvis," I commanded, "Hail the Anodyne Spirit."
A few moments later a holo-projection of Truth in all his pathetic weakness played before me.
"Grax!" he shrieked, "You will not stop the Great Journey!"
"Funny you should say that." I grinned, "Your boy Tartarus said the same thing right before I fed him his own testicles."
"Rapacious infidel!" Truth decried, "The power of the gods will deliver us from your heathen hands."
"Funny you should mention gods." I chuckled, "Jarvis prepare to charge the Ormagoden Cannon."
The bridge of the Kruban Bound opened up and rose through the ship that transformed to create a stage on the bow.
From the belly of the Kruban Bound rose up a gleaming statue of Ormagoden, and on his head hovered an oversized bass guitar, what was once a beat up six string, and a drum set.
"I can't believe we are doing this." Kat complained as she took up her drumsticks.
"I can't believe we are good enough to do this song." Jack commented as she strapped on her guitar.
"I can't believe this shit works." I shook my head as we prepared to shred like only one band ever shredded before.
Dragon Force.
Right from the start we began playing metal with inhuman speed and precision and a microphone rose up and I sang,
"On a cold winter of morning
In the time before the light…"
As we worked our way through the blistering song, the power and glory of our Metal resonated with the avatar of Ormagoden, and it began glowing with a solar radiance.
"Stop!" Truth cried using the broadcast system on his ship, "Stop this brutal heresy! Cease this rebellious noise!"
But we did not stop.
"We feel the pain of a lifetime lost in a thousand days
Through the fire and flames we carry on."
As I finished the song Ormagoden screamed and a beam carrying the powers of Fire, Blood, Noise, and Metal fired forth at the speed of light and collapsed the shields of the Anodyne Spirit.
"Grax, you disgusting slob!" Truth wailed his last, "What do you want to do with your life?!"
"I wanna rock!"
CREATORS' THOUGHTS
JManM
JManM
Had to get this chapter out before leaving for fight night. Will see if I can get the first bonus chapter out after I get back.
You can support me and my family by donating at
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