Routine

Spartan Ikes hit the ground with a thud, and the resonant shattering sound of his shields popping as he impacted the rocks. He shook himself off, stood back up, and faced his opponent. A Brute, clad in crimson armour, weilding a gravity hammer, roared at him from across the cave system.

“Routine my ass,” Ikes muttered to himself.

Spittle flew from its jaws, and it huffed steam from its nostrils in the frigid air of the cave. Spartan Ikes brought a knife out from his wrist compartment, dropping low into a combat stance. His weapons were knocked from his grasp by the vicious backhand, so all he had now was the glinting piece of metal in his hands.

The Brute charged him, and Ikes took a run at the Brute with all his speed. The lumbering ape-like alien swung at his head. Ikes ducked down, dropped to his knees, and skidded on the moss-covered stone, completely bypassing the chieftain and making a grab for the Scattershot he had dropped.

The Brute turned back around and snarled. Ikes brought the weapon up and pulled the trigger. The Chieftain flinched away. A click sounded out, and nothing else came from the gun. Ikes shook it some more, and pressed the trigger again. Nothing but another click, and the mechanical whine of a weapon Ikes didn’t fully understand.

“Oh for god’s sake.”

The Chieftain rumbled a cruel sounding laugh and strode over towards him. The Spartan stood up, aimed again, and pulled the trigger. Click. The Brute took large strides, covering the distance between them in seconds, swinging his hammer again.

The Spartan rolled to one side, barely able to dodge a follow-up backhand and the gravity wave that came from the impact of the hammer on the rocks. He was pushed away from the Brute by the gravimetric force.

Ikes checked the ammo, checked the safety, checked the trigger mechanism. Everything was shiny, everything was decidedly Forerunner, and so everything was an unknown. He wouldn’t even know where to begin diagnosing the issue.

Looking up at the Brute, he had enough time to register a mighty paw swinging for his helmet. Ikes didn’t have time to dodge, so he braced for the impact. The fist crashed into his visor, cracking the silvery surface and launching Ikes off of his feet and over into the sidewall of the cave.

“Dammit.” Ikes cursed, picking the weapon back up. It assembled itself in his hands, and he paused, watching as a single piece tried to slip into a slot it was too mangled for. When the weapon hit the ground, the piece must have taken the impact hard enough to deform.

He collapsed the weapon once more, and reactivated it. When it assembled, he grabbed the offending piece and held it up to inspect it.

Then he remembered he was in close quarters combat with a Jiralhanae Chieftain, and came back to reality just in time to dodge a slash at his midsection with the sharp blade on the back of the hammer. The Brute growled, raised the hammer up, and brought the blade down on where Ikes would’ve been, had he not turned his body to one side. The blade stuck into the rock and held firm as the Brute tried to jerk it out.

Ikes snapped the Scattershot in two and let the piece in his other hand go, watching it slide into the gun. He pried apart two metal pieces to give it some more room to get to where it was meant to go. The strain on his fingers doubled as the weapon resisted, but the deformed piece finally slid home, and the weapon thrummed with ancient, esoteric energy.

The Brute brought the hammer out of the rock with a lurch, and raised it above his head for the killing strike. Ikes brought the scattershot up and snapped it shut, pulling the trigger, and firing lines of hard light up into the Brute’s chest. The force of the impact lifted the Brute from the ground, and threw him back, and he froze in his death throws as the Forerunner energy began eating away and disintegrating his flesh.

Ikes stood up as the simulation paused, catching his breath.

“Wanna tell me what that was, Alexandretta?” He hit the side of his helmet.

A smiling face appeared on his visor. “Weapon malfunctions are common in the field,” she said.

Ikes nodded with a falsely interested tone. “Oh are they, really?”

“Especially with Forerunner-made weaponry.” Alexandretta ignored his snide remark. “You must learn to effectively deal with such malfunctions.”

Ikes narrowed his eyes at the AI and folded his arms; not that she could see that. “You just wanted me to get my ass handed to me, didn’t you?” He asked, packing his gear away as the simulation began to dissolve around him.

The AI ran some numbers and pretended to be busy—the AI equivalent of checking ones nails during a verbal sparring match. Flippant, slightly arrogant, and blithe. ''“Baseless accusations will get you nowhere. I suggest that you take up another profession if you can’t handle a complication such as that.”'' She said, smiling as her eyes focused on Ikes once more.

“Well, next time you can fight the Covenant,” Ikes said, turning around and making for the entrance to the simulation chambers. “And maybe I’ll run the simulation.”

“You said make it challenging,” Alexandretta said.

“Challenging doesn’t mean ‘make my guns stop working mid-fight.’ That’s just cheating.” Ikes replied.

“You’ve fought every combination of enemies there could be,” Alexandretta told him. “Killing Covenant is nothing more than routine at this point.”

“There’s nothing wrong with routine,” Ikes said.

The Brute behind him disappeared into lines of blue and black code.