Phantasm

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It was fast, impossibly so, yet it moved more like one of them than any Promethean. Cody-B042 grit his teeth, ignoring the searing pain in his side as he rose up from behind the crate he’d taken refuge behind to let off another burst, the BR85 thumping against his shoulder as he squeezed off single rounds in quick succession into the swarm of crawlers rushing towards the Pelican dropship at the other end of the station’s hangar, it’s engines flaring as the pilot waited for him.

Cody wasn’t going to make it, this thing had him zeroed. Dawes was gone, his husband widowed, his children without one of their fathers forever. Rodger too, all they could do was watch while their sniper fought with a ferocity that instilled Cody with a degree of pride before it reduced him to ash.

Anger churned inside him as it hadn’t in years. How could this be happening again? How could he have let this happen again? Was this divine retribution for his sins, that he could never hold onto something too tightly or it would be taken from him?

The Spartan raged internally, a black anger growing by the second, shrugging off a hardlight round that glanced against his shoulder plate and hammering more of the Crawlers, mowing down the quadrupedal drones in a shower of light. They were all distractions, his eyes danced around the hanger, looking for the enigma that had cut apart his team.

“Cody, where the fuck are you?” The curse was strained, pain rippled through the words as they broadcast into his helmet. Jacob. Aboard the idling dropship waiting for him was the last of Stallion, his own flesh and blood. He’d been sure to see him dragged to safety by the survivors from Fireteam Komodo.

“Go.” He ordered bluntly, dropping the empty magazine from his rifle and exchanging it for a fresh one with the speed and precision only a Spartan could provide. The ammo counter flashed a blue ‘36’ for all of a second before Cody opened up again, dipping out of the way of a barrage of hardlight and returning fire.

“What? No! No not without you!” Guilt washed over him, merging with his fury to create cocktail of emotions that left him wanting nothing more than to fall to his knees in anguish. They’d only just began to trust one another, Jacob had only just began to ask him of what little he remembered of Eirene, of their parents. They’d only just begun to be brothers, and now it was all going to be washed away.

Cody’s eyes darted to the Pelican, and part of him thought to make a mad dash for it. With his augmentations he could make it, he knew he could, he’d made longer distances in shorter times on Onyx a thousand times. But he knew he couldn’t, and when the butcher reappeared, simply standing before him Cody knew that there was no choice to be made.

“Spartan Chandra, secure him and go. Will hold.”

“No, no you don’t get to do this, you don’t get to leave m-” The sounds of a small scuffle came over the COM as Jacob was no doubt wrestled back into the Pelican, as the strange figure stared him down with it’s strange orange-visored helmet. At least he assumed it was a helmet. With a wave of its hands the Crawlers broke off their assault of the dropship and retreated.

“Godspeed B042.” Chandra muttered over the COM just as B042 cut the line, the Pelican lifting away from the station, Jacob’s roars of defiance echoing in the background. It didn’t move on him, instead standing idly, lightrifle hanging in strange arms that in his mind marked it a machine where its behavior said otherwise. Sparks rained down on it from a blown junction somewhere on the ceiling as it stared.

If he weren’t so angry, the Spartan might’ve questioned the behavior, but as he stepped out from behind the crate such thoughts didn’t cross his mind. The hangar was littered with burning aircraft, and the corpses of the station’s defenders who hadn’t been incinerated by the weapons of the Created. The supersoldier and his lone foe each stood with a burning aircraft to their backs, the flames casting an orange glow over their silent exchange.

What did it want with him? It was willing to let the others escape once it seemed clear that Cody wasn’t planning to leave without drawing blood. It wasn’t acting like a Promethean at all, its actions couldn’t be the product of programming.

It wanted him, and him alone.

Cody would oblige. He snapped up the rifle, thumbing the fire selector to automatic and squeezing down. 7.62 rained down onto the aggressor as Cody advanced, dumping the whole of the magazine into the Created’s champion. When the rifle clicked empty he tossed it aside, bringing his M45 shotgun to bear in a flash.

The weapon roared as he fired, slammed the pump, and fire again. Each blast brought him closer to it, and each subsequent impact seemed to somehow have less impact. It simply stood there, advanced shields absorbing the projectiles as if they were little more than the paint rounds he’d trained with on Onyx.

It didn’t matter.

He kept coming, and when the shotgun clicked empty, Cody closed the gap between himself and the figure in a single bound, bringing the weapon down at it like a club. Then it moved. One hand shot forward and halted the incoming blow like it was nothing, the other hammered into Cody’s abdomen, his shields shattering instantly in a flash of golden light.

The air left his lungs as he was flung onto his back. It was too strong for him, he should’ve seen that, but anger overwrote any semblance of logic. Not that it mattered anyway, he had nowhere to run. In an instant he was back on his feet, and no sooner had he risen than it was on him again. A fist caught him across the jaw, the blow sending him spinning, pain shooting up in spit of his helmet’s shock absorption.

He tried to right himself, but it was on him again, jumping forward it rocked him square in the center of his helmet. Cody staggered back, letting out a frustrated roar as he weaved past the next strike and let loose a pair of is own blows. Each found its mark, though it failed to make the aggressor so much as flinch. A hard metal knee hammered his stomach again as another punch caught him across the jaw, then another came under his chin.

In an instant he was on his back once again, and in the same instant he was already rolling to get back onto his feet. It kicked him effortlessly, sending him sprawling into his back as pain spread through Cody’s body like a wildfire.

“I wondered how long it would take you to realize.” A voice came from the strangely armored figure, it was young, modulated, and hauntingly familiar. Cody didn’t stop to think about it, instead rolling away from another kick and onto his knees, then launching forward with a roar. He thought about Dawes’ children, of the way they’d smiled up at their father with such admiration, and how they could never do it again because of this thing.

It caught him by a fist, and hurled him aside with nothing more than a cruel chuckle. Cody twisted in the air before firing the armor’s thrusters. His boot hit home across the thing’s faceplate, snapping its head sideways and causing it to stagger. It hadn’t expected that.

“You and your surprises.” It muttered as he descended on it again. In a blur his strikes were batted away, and a swift kick to his side flung him against the hull of a slowly burning Pelican. He bounced off the dropships hull, only to be slammed right back into it by another blow to the head.

Two more followed, another to his stomach left him doubled over, and one to his chest rocked him back into the Pelican. His HUD flashed red, alarms blaring inside the confines of his helmet urging him to seek medical attention. Instead, he felt a small smirk tug at his lips as his adrenal glands went into overdrive, the pain fading away as he brought up his arms to stop the next blow.

In a blink a hardlight shield materialized before him, its blue color changing to red with a single blow from the attacker made contact. Again Cody fired his thrusters, shield breaking under the next blow, but one that came too late to stop his shoulder from ramming the assailant back several feet.

“They’re dead because of you Cody, because of your failures, because of your unquenchable fucking malice.” It seethed, snatching him by the neck and lifting him helplessly into the air.

“Can you even hear me, or are you too much of an animal to understand now?” He understood, and every time the thing spoke Cody found himself loathing it more. His knee shot up, catching it under the jaw before he planted both feet and kicked off of it. Yet instead of falling back to the ground the thing snagged him by the foot, and into the canopy of another dropship. The glass crumpled and shattered beneath him, dropping him into the Pelican’s dark cockpit.

Even as his brain was pumped adrenaline and endorphins at full capacity he could still feel the stinging across his body, yet all it did was make him angrier. It was toying with him. He’d seen it use its rifle and a hardlight blade to deadly effect. It could’ve ended this before it began, yet it hadn’t.

Cody’s roar was a low, angry thing, it spoke of a hundred tragedies, and to many it perhaps even a bit frightening. For years he’d controlled it, containing his hatred, letting his rage be cold and efficient, but now it burned hot. He leapt out of the broken cockpit like a missile, rolling under an attempted grapple and driving his knee up into the thing’s stomach. He unloaded, dipping away from strikes, rolling past uppercuts, and weaving between kicks as he rained down blow after blow.

“There it is, now you’re trying. This must be a change of pace from women and children.” It mocked, stepping back to avoid the last of his blows, letting off a snap kick that caught Cody across the head. This time he didn’t fall, even as blood welled from his lips B042 merely staggered back, then shot forward.

The Created enforcer made to clothesline him, but he dropped low into a roll, coming up behind it as one hand freed the machete from his back. The blade crashed into the enforcer’s back, blue shields flaring ever so slightly as it wheeled around to face him. Both hands found the hilt as he brought down again against its chest, letting out a roar as he pulled back then drove the blade forward hard at the thing’s abdomen.

The blade harmlessly skidded off the shield, doing little more than weakening the advanced energy field. Then it wrapped a metal hand around the blade while the other produced the hardlight blade from its back and brought it down. The hilt and blade separated as if it were nothing, then the glowing hardlight arced through the air. Cody barely even felt it, but there was suddenly a black gash running the length of his chest piece, undersuit and skin beneath split like wet paper.

It kicked him again, and Cody sailed through the air before crashing to the floor again, rolling to a stop. His arms began to shake as he fought to push himself back upright.

“Come on, is that all? That’s all the Doram Demon can do? No wonder FEUDAL never left Reach.”

“Fuck you.” Cody hissed, eyes narrowing, then setting on the corpse to his right, and the MA5D sporting an underslung grenade launcher that now lay within arms reach. In a flash he’d loosed the 40 millimeter into the thing that dared speak about them.

“So he does still speak, I was beginning to worry. The stories said you’d taken a vow of silence. If only.” It mocked from inside the haze kicked up by the grenade. Cody staggered to his feet, and held down the trigger, spewing lead as the enforcer emerge through the smoke in a blur. The blade bit deep, sheering through armor, flesh and bone alike with ease. Cody barely had time to recognize his leg had been severed at the knee before the enforcer snatched him by the throat and hurled him again.

Cody tumbled head over heel towards the edge of the hangar, landing next to another gathering of bodies, and a stack of fusion cores. He righted himself with one arm while the other scooped up a SPnKR from the body of brutalized marine. As the figure stalked towards him, Cody alternated, using the rocket launcher as a makeshift crutch while the other hand produced the M6 from his thigh.

“You didn’t fight this hard for Bravo, did you?” A round slapped against the enforcer’s helmet as an answer, two more followed in quick succession. It sped towards him again, but while other Spartans might’ve been consumed in agony with the loss of a limb, Commander Ambrose had seen to it that he wouldn’t. “When they needed you, you ran.”

Cody ignited his thrusters, jetting to the side and bringing the rocket launcher to bear. He squeezed, and one tube erupted, its payload streaking into the fusion cores mere feet away from the enforcer as his thrusters continued their hard burn. The cores, the Pelican they leaned against, and the rocket itself all detonated together, coating the thing in fire and shrapnel, it should’ve been dead there.

But it wasn’t, shield’s flickering, it shot up into the air, then down towards him. As he skidded to a halt, Cody squeezed again, and the second rocket sped forward and struck home. Shields shattered, and it let out a cry of pain as it fell to the floor. Cody’s breathing began to become ragged, as he looked on the limp form for but a moment, before falling forward as the SPnKR slipped from his grasp.

Steadying himself he fumbled for his second pistol, thoughts of Rodger’s endless optimism being snuffed out fueling his wrath. He was going to execute this thing, and it would never hurt him again. But as he brought the sidearm to bear, it was standing again.

One of its arms had been destroyed, a mess of strange blue sparks, black scorch marks running up what was left of the prosthetic and onto its torso. “At least Bravo died when you ran. If only everyone who ends up trapped in the path of your savagery were so lucky.”

“Stay the fuck away from them.” He snarled. Jacob, Bailey, who else did he even have left at this point? A round from the magnum bit into the thing’s shoulder, but it hardly seemed phased.

“I waited for you. I waited for you to come. I waited and you never did, too busy being the boogeyman.” It uttered solemnly, and Cody’s finger fell away from the trigger.

“What the fuck kind of game are you playing? Is this some new kind of psych warfare thing? Because fuck you. Fuck your overlords. All of you can eat shit and die.” Cody snapped, wrath flowing freely from his tongue as he brought the pistol to bear on its head. The thing laughed at him.

“No games. Played enough games. Spent that time waiting on you playing games, the kind where an old innie takes you apart for laughs.” It’s helmet shifted, plating moved aside and the visor pulled back to reveal a face. In an instant all the fight left Cody and the pistol fell to the floor.

Confirmed KIA.

Incinerated in the explosion.

Nothing left to find.

Yet Cody had found him, right here, staring him in the face and in service to the enemy. Jamison. His face was a mess of ridges where scar tissue had been quickly healed, his nose and ears seemed oddly new in comparison to the rest of his face, and his red hair had seemingly all gone spare from his eyebrows and lashes. But it was him, he knew it was.

“How? They told me there was nothing, they told me they’d searched everywhere and even then I-”

“Save it. I don’t have time for your lies, butcher. Say it or not you were glad I was gone, I know it. Couldn’t have done Shinogoro with me on your shoulder could you?” Jamison spat, the innocence and light gone from his eyes.

“You’re a dog. Nothing more than a rabid animal.”

“Wha-, I-.” Cody saw the burning keep in his dreams, saw the anguish in Teka Doram’s eyes as he looked on the pile of young corpses topped with that of his mate, and twisted in anguish every time he woke with a smile on his face. He dreamed of the broken bodies of alien children and woke up smiling, what could be more horrific than that?

This. This was.

“They told me you were gone. I begged them to keep looking but they wouldn’t. I put you on the wall.” Cody was almost pleading, but for what he didn’t know.

“Liar.”

“Jay, I’m not-”

“That’s not my name!” Jamison barked. “I am Adrestan. You left Jamison to die. Or maybe you killed him somewhere between the cubs of the Fervent Crusaders and the children of Doram keep. There were others, but those were the worst weren’t they? Doram Demon. Monster.” Jamison seethed as he looked down on B042 from where he stood, his face rife with pain and anger.

In that moment, Cody forgot all about Dawes and Rodger, perhaps even his own blood.

“Jamison they lied to you, I-”

“So you didn’t butcher those children, you didn’t drag a cub from where she hid and put a bullet between her eyes while she clutched her doll? Because I saw you do it. I watched the helmet cam. What’s worse is I know the girl’s father, clutches that doll like it means more to him than any victory. A Jiralhanae cares more about a blood stained little sack doll then anything, because of what you took from him.”

Not a little girl, a little monster. Did you forget what brutes do with prisoners?

“No, I- Jamison, I looked for yo-”

“Shut the fuck up. Save your lies and pleading for someone more gullible. I came here to kill you, to right the wrongs you did, but now that I’m here you aren’t even worth it. Look at you, pathetic.” The words hurt more than the wounds, as Cody looked up at his former frien-no, brother, he finally noticed his visor was cracked. Through the spiderweb of cracked glass wondered if this was all some sort of twisted hallucination. Some final cruelty for his sins before he died, and went on to the damnation that he was sure awaited him.

Jamison’s gaze was filled with disgust and hatred, and a hint of sadness. How much had he changed over the years? How wretched had the torment he’d suffered been? What had they done to him?

“Die here, with the old order, there’s no place for you in the new world. If I see you again, I’ll finish it, and I won’t let any of them escape. Even that civvie woman on Infinity you’ve gotten close to.” Jamison warned, his expression unchanging as Cody recoiled, wondering how he could’ve known about any of that.

It didn’t matter, Cody didn’t have time to ask. Jamison created a portal, and vanished through it without a word. Now he was alone, the station rumbling beneath him as it prepared to fall apart. He’d all but resigned himself to death when a single thought came to his mind.

''They did this to Jamison, lied to him, at least about some of it. They’d manipulated his anguish and turned him into a weapon.''

Cody let out a bitter laugh, ONI had done that to the both of them, to all of their like.

But he could show him the truth, if Jamison was alive, then he could be saved.

The thought was selfish, would Dawes children want Jamison saved, or stopped? Would Jacob stand for anything less than bloody revenge for Rodger? Cody wouldn’t have if he were in his brother’s shoes. His eyes drifted across the hangar, to a lone Condor that seemed to still be functioning.

Jamison would make good on his threats if he found him again, but if he died here then it was all over. His protege had become nigh unstoppable, and Cody was confident he’d only managed to harm him because Jamison had let himself get lost in his own emotions. He wouldn’t make that mistake twice, he never did. The UNSC had no way to stop him, and Cody had no way to save him.

But maybe, if he left this place, there would be a chance. He had to try, he had to.

Cody let the empty launcher fall to the ground, and he began to crawl towards the Condor.