Halo Fanon:Survival of the Fittest/Season 7

Survival of the Fittest: Season Seven

Scoreboard	Characters	Body Count
Map 1: Barrier City

Season Seven

Introduction

Reinforced sliding doors zipped apart with a horrid screech of dried-out mechanisms. Underused and weary, the faint hint of mold could be seen along the doorframe’s cracks. An unassuming though well-dressed gentleman stepped into a cavernous room, past the sliding doors and assessed his surrounding upon entering.

“Two years,” the gentleman stated as he stood atop a set of shallow stairs and straightened his black tie with his white-gloved-hands. “It’s been quite some time since the last celebration.”

The room’s complement of technicians and engineers froze in their work at their workstations and turned to look up at their direct superior. Even as they paused, the colorful displays of battle, carnage, and gore continued to roll on across the many monitors and holographic displays spread through the expansive space.

The suited gentleman looked back at his subordinates. An awkward pause followed, and he narrowed his eyes at them. “Well? Don’t stop at my account, we got a show to run!”

The complement quickly turned back to their work and the combined symphony of feet stepping, fingers clicking away at keyboards, and a mix of other audible cacophony resumed through the room. One of the technicians, a man dressed in a lab coat marched briskly up the small staircase towards his superior, now descending the same staircase.

They met halfway.

“Two years huh? This place looks rather messy for being in storage.” The gentleman pointed out with his right index finger, gesturing up at large concentrations of dust atop workstations and ceiling fans and the rust patches forming in the corners.

“Depends on how you look at the passage of time, sir. It’s relative.” The technician expressed in a deadpan tone before handing over a military-style computer tablet with a series of infographics listed across the screen in a deep blue.

“Ninety-three participants?” The gentleman asked, eyeing his subordinate.

The list was a meticulous all-star roster of faces and names, creatures and beings pulled from across the known galaxy and more than a few from alternate timelines. It’s been a while since the previous seasons were simply pulling from a singular version of the Milky Way, however, times had changed, and the adaptation was necessary to remain relevant. Somewhere, beyond the room, many were in storage and stasis – the contestants being prepped for the exciting festive of battle to follow.

“Yes, sir. A significant uptick from the last program.”

“Could become a problem with how extensive the list is today,” The gentleman stated skimming the list with his finger, “I’m seeing, hmm, what an odd lineup. Is it something to do with us switching sponsors this time around?”

“Probably. The previous party issued a concern regarding the appearances of artificial intelligence, but it seems the current sponsor wants to go in the other direction – he said we’ll wing it.” The technician explained, scratching the back of his head out of slight concern.

“Whatever the new lead wants. We’ll do our best. The rule set the same?”

“For the most part, some things were slightly tweaked and some of the rules may have been bent a little. Especially regarding the big one.”

The gentleman’s finger traced the name and image of the said contestant. “Quite.”

The gentleman and technician descended back down the steps and marched over to a central holographic display table located at the base of the room. The gentleman noted rust patches on the metallic floor that looked like the remains of puddles, he frowned at the sight but decided against saying anything.

“Announcer, sir! We have the first arena up and running perfectly. The delivery team also brought in the collection.” Another technician called from her workstation and pointed to a raised dais to the side of the room where six pilums stood at attention under the glare of harsh light. Three of them stood empty; no object of significance to stand atop them. Another three, however, raised grandiose statues high and mighty and in impeccable detail. Lifesize and lifelike.

These were the first, fourth and sixth columns, each marking the victor of a previous season of their age-long project.

An unnaturally large human male dressed in mighty-green MJOLNIR armor with a BR55 battle rifle pointed skyward. Inscribed at the statue's base, JAMES-G023, VICTOR OF SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, SEASON ONE.

A large Sangheili warrior dressed in deep-dark assassin’s armor was caught mid-lunge with his energy sword outstretched, ready to pierce an unseen foe. Inscribed at its base, SHINSU 'REFUM, VICTOR OF SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, SEASON FOUR.

Another human male of an average stature looked on with a thousand-yard stare. He was dressed in a police uniform intended for riot control operations and cradled an M90 shotgun in one hand and his riot helmet in another. Inscribed at the base, EDMOND DAHM, VICTOR OF SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, SEASON SIX.

“Beautiful as always,” The Announcer nodded in satisfaction.

“There was another thing sir. Regarding Season Six-Point-Five…” The technician trailed off.

“Forget it. That was non-official and under iffy circumstances, the upper echelon is still looking into the problem,” The Announcer waved off the subordinate's concerns. He could be heard just barely muttering under his breath, “How the hell are we supposed to recognize a random bumblebee as a winner…”

“Sir, we’re ready.” The technician in the lab coat quickly spoke, dragging his boss out of a stupor.

“Oh, yes. Very good. Generate the arena please.”

The holographic table flashed away from its dull-white glow of emptiness and pixelated details began to climb their way onto the screen, peppering the flat space into a three-dimensional map displaying topography, geography, and the many small details slipped in, a sign towards a passionate volunteer.

It was a stretch of a city, blocked in by high-security walls to the north and south and between interior districts, and to the west: an endlessly flat desert formed from molten glass. And to the east, an ocean basin with a high carbon count, very little lived in those waters.

The Announcer stroked his hairless chin, “Interesting design choices. A city this time, not an island?”

An environment engineer called from across the table, “The island motif was getting a little old. We decided that given the larger line up that we would try something different and make the field larger to compensate for some of the specific contestants and new features we’re implementing.”

“What’s the map called?”

“Barrier City.”

“Interesting.”

“There’s a dossier regarding the map in your information package, sir. It’s also listed on your announcement script.” The environment engineer explained.

“Good. Go ahead and drop the contestants in. I’ll go ahead and get on the mike.”

“Yes, sir.” The nearby subordinates stated, quickly moving to their workstations.

The Announcer nodded at them before looking upon the room’s entire staff complement. His team. Time to get to work.

“Everyone, we are beginning. Prepare the map, prepare the fighters.”

The room grew quiet as everyone shuffled quickly to their stations, the noise was still there but everyone was moving methodically and talking in hushed undertones now. The show was about to begin.

The Announcer flicked through his tablet, spotting characters piquing his interest. A schoolgirl. A UNSC admiral with a broadsword. How interesting indeed. One of the technicians silently gestured to the table before the Announcer and he quickly composed himself in response, looking away from the tablet and towards the table before him. Words flickered into being on the map.

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, SEASON SEVEN – GAME START.

The Announcer adjusted his tie once more to fill himself with resolve and confidence. Another subordinate made a gesture from across the table, the contestants were now in the city. They could hear his voice. Speakers across the city were coming online.

“Eh-hem. Hello everyone! I am the Announcer. Welcome to the seventh season of Survival of the Fittest, the greatest battle royale project in our current circumstance. I am the Announcer, some of you may have heard of me or heard this speech before, not that any of you would remember it, mind you.”

“Now, you might be wondering how you got where you are and why you are there. Those are questions you do not need to know the answers to. You have a simple order to fulfill but a hard job to complete ahead of all of you. Ninety-three warriors from across the galaxy are here together in a fight for their lives. That means all of you. The mission is simple, kill or be killed. This order is mandatory.”

“None of you can escape or challenge me. All but one of you must die, all of you will fight. Refuse to and you will be terminated, that is if one of the other fine warriors in here doesn’t end you first.”

“You all will find yourselves in a comfortable, or rather, inhospitable locale named Barrier City. As my dossier on the place states, Barrier City is a coastal town trapped between the endless sea and a death-bringing desert of glass. Populated by a multicultural amalgamation of species under the rule of a faction affiliated with the United Rebel Front, this town is home to a post-Covenant society and a stellar example of what living on the Colonial Frontier looks like. Take in the aroma, the sights, the sounds, the energy of the city at the edge of civilization.”

“So, let’s have some fun, let’s make a nice bloodbath, and let’s try our best to survive, shall we? Good luck and good hunting. Season Seven begins now.”

Distant Tide: Hunter - Killer

Stage One: Barrier City

1: Black Sand

Day One, 0804 Hours Location: Toppled Skyscraper, Glasslands, Barrier City

Robert Fisher, a Bluespring resident and Sergeant in the Gilgamesh Free State stared up into the fragile ceiling above him and the minuscule hints of sunlight beyond. He sat atop a small hill of debris made from weathered chunks of metal and lots of graphite-like sand.

In silence, his jaw hung open, slightly agape as his mind attempted to process the creeping fear and uncertainty forming in his gut. His current circumstances were simply, unknown. He didn’t know where he was, he didn’t remember how he got here.

The demands of a disembodied voice that seemed to resonate from everywhere left him feeling shaken. A battle royale? Kill or be killed? What was happening? Where was he? ‘Barrier City’ or whatever that was didn’t count as an answer.

He was supposed to fight ninety-two other people, if the voice had been speaking to him that is? Who, what, why?

So many questions, endless questions. The training of the Free State never prepared him for whatever this was. So, instead of acting, doing anything, he sat there, frozen in his uncertainty and confusion.

The room, or rather chamber, around him, was clearly a tall building, or whatever was left of it. He and his pile of black sand were at the center and the hallways and walkways that zipped through the larger chamber or connected into it were tilted a ninety-degree angle on their side. A toppled skyscraper maybe.

A football field away, an intricate though worn tile floor plan appeared to mark the former ground level of sorts, seemingly fourteen-floors away. And in the other direction, he could see what used to be a fixture for large glass panels, like some sort of glass roof. The glass was long gone, and more black-sand had seeped into the chamber. However, beyond the sandy knoll was a flat gray-colored plain, a bright blue sky, and what possibly looked like a towering security wall. Maybe that’s where this ‘Barrier City’ was?

Uncertain what to do, he looked back down at his lap – examining the all too familiar weight of his Free State battle dress uniform, his plate carrier, and the exterior load webbing. In his lap, he cradled a MA5C service rifle, his very own in fact given the familiar scratches and creases he’d come to know from carrying it through basic training and the long nights of patrolling the Gilgamesh wilderness for UNSC sympathizers.

As a so-called Insurrectionist state, the Gilgamesh Free State wasn’t the richest planet in Human space and that nature carried on to its soldiers. They made do with what they had, and they were taught in training that their weapon was to be given the utmost familiarity and care, and just like that, he could tell that this was his MA5C, right down to the two sets of serial numbers, one from the Free State and another from the weapon’s manufacturer. The same could be said for his other equipment: the rifle bayonet, the holstered M6H sidearm, his magazines, and the grenades strapped into their appropriate pouches.

Only a few minutes ago, these weapons had been strewn across the sandy hill he sat upon, however, he collected them quickly and did his best to inspect them without field stripping – assuring they were in working order. Gilgamesh had its deserts, but not quite like this. The graphite-like sand grains were soft, thin, and fine. The kind that could slip through any crack and stick onto any surface if not careful. They could lead to any number of jams or malfunctions if he wasn’t careful.

Fisher huffed to himself and moved his body to stand up, taking precaution to not slip on the shifty sand beneath him for fear of falling face first and caking his rifle and other equipment in the nightmarish environment he was in. A black desert, of what did the voice, the Announcer, call it? A ‘death-bringing desert of glass’?

Clack. Clack. Clack.

Fisher paused and looked behind him then up at the skyscraper’s other side above him. Small particles of sand descended from above, but nothing substantial. The wind outside continued to howl, and the ruins of the skyscraper groaned as it settled further into the sandy environment. That was the sixteenth time he heard the clacking now, in a ruined dump like this building, it could have been anything, but it also paid to be cautious.

There were ninety-three fighters spread out across Barrier City, probably including himself. He couldn’t get complacent. The Gilgameshian Sergeant grasped his bullpup rifle and marched slowly down the sandy knoll, again, trying not to fall face-first and create a whole lot of problems for himself.

But he froze again when his eyes caught a tall shadow standing atop the pile of sand entering the skyscraper from the ceiling entryway. The shadow hadn’t been there before, and it was leveling a submachine gun at him, a visual-light laser directed at him.

“Fuck,” Fisher grunted and snapped his MA5C up in the direction of the unknown gunman. He hoped to any higher power out there, not the Announcer, that he would be able to pull the trigger in time to outmatch the threat above him.

“Sergeant, get down!” The figure shouted in a crackly voice from external speakers, an individual in combat armor.

Fisher didn’t think, the voice sounded vaguely familiar, one that made his trained instincts seize control and he hit the deck, getting a face full of that fine black sand. Had it not been for his selective-hearing earplugs, he’d be completely deaf from the sniper rifle crackle behind him.

The sound of a lightning strike punched through the air and shattered glass throughout the toppled skyscraper. Fisher cradled his rifle and kept his head down while shoving his knees and elbows into the sand, digging himself a small foxhole.

Suppressed automatic gunfire puff-puff-puffed through the air as the figure’s submachine gun fired away at an unseen target. Fisher looked up, keeping his head cautiously down, and spotted the unknown gunman sliding down the sand pile into the building with his weapon, directed toward something far off behind Fisher.

“Get up Sergeant!” The armored figure shouted, continuing to let loose with the submachine gun. Upon closer inspection, it was an M7S and the man was dressed in Semi-Powered Infiltration armor, the kind belonging to UNSC Special Forces.

The man who seemingly had come to Fisher’s rescue grabbed the Sergeant by the back-strap of his plate carrier and stood him on his feet before guided him forward to a rusty steel pillar.

“Wha-what?” Fisher dumbly asked, trying to process what was happening. His head snapped behind him, attempting to get a better view of the other assailant but to no avail.

“Switch with me,” The SPI-clad submachine gun user demanded, looking down on Sergeant once they were both in cover. The M7S was pressed forward into Fisher’s chest.

“What?”

“Your rifle,” the armored man stated anxiously, tilting to check outside cover for the unseen threat. He gestured with his open palm, “Come on, we don’t have all day!”

Fisher almost threw his MA5C at the man in SPI, but the person easily caught it and leveled it upwards towards where the sniper rifle shot had come from.

“We can’t stay in one place. It’s a Spartan.”

“A Spartan?”

“Yes, a Spartan. He’s better equipped than we are, we need to get out of here and into a hallway! That one just around this pillar.”

“Who are you?”

“Not right now Fisher, just get ready to run, I’ll cover you.”

“R-right.”

“On my mark.”

“Ready.”

“Go!”

The SPI man stepped out of cover first, but only by a little and seemingly targeted the unseen Spartan, lacing bursts of accurate rifle fire on the threat to the two men’s lives. No sniper rifle fire came so it seemed like it was working. Fisher was already running, four sprinting strides later, he was in the eighteenth-floor hallway and stomping through the broken glass from windowed offices and broken wall portraits that once contained landscape paintings and motivational posters.

“Keep moving!” The SPI-clad man shouted as he barreled into the hallway, running away from the unseen Spartan.

“Okay!”

The two kept going, slipping around a corner and into a small conference room on the left of a hallway adjacent to the central chamber. Fisher took cover behind the SPI-clad man once they had put a wall between them and the open hallway, the man didn’t seem to mind, almost as if it was the sound thing for his fellow fighter to do.

“What now?”

“We wait.”

Distant Tide: Hunter - Killer

2: Expressionless

Day One, 0812 Hours Location: Embassy Tower, Main Street, Barrier City

“I am sorry, Vice Admiral, I cannot do that.”

Sebastian T. Shelby bent his head to his right and rubbed his temple to relieve a throbbing headache – an illness the black-and-white-clothed receptionist was not helping with. He sighed at the partial relief as his ability to concentrate returned.

Satisfied, he dropped his hand back behind his disciplined posture and examined the shiny-white lobby of ONI’s elaborate tower. As he focused back on the seated receptionist, he noted two large recreations of the organization’s iconic logo, the encircled pyramid-eye.

The first recreation ran along the front face of the receptionist’s desk, the other was a much larger icon with various raised surfaces plastered overhead, behind the woman’s seat.

Still, the throbbing continued. Shelby paused and brought his hand up to rub the bridge of his nose before dropping it down again to assess the desk lady. He remained stoic and sharp in his Navy dress blues, despite how he knew his patience was reaching its limits.

“Young lady, all I am asking is to be put in contact with the local UNSC fleet. You said you cannot do that. Fine. Is there any reason why you are unable to tell me exactly what is happening?” Shelby pleaded in his most-calm voice.

“I am sorry, Vice Admiral, I cannot do that,” she replied autonomously as her face remained blank.

It was with that statement that Shelby felt every muscle in his sixty-two-year-old body scream, telling him to smash her face in, and for the tiniest of moments, he almost did. He looked down and bit his lip, knowing she was a lost cause. His eyes spied a pair of elevator doors behind her desk.

“I see. If you’ll excuse me, young lady, I am going to find someone else on the next few floors,” he stated as he let go of his folded hands behind his back and wandered past the receptionist’s desk.

To his surprise, the elevator doors pre-emptively slid open before he even had to show his identification card. He spun on his left foot and looked to the receptionist once again as she stared blankly back at him, her entire body and chair turned to face him directly.

“Of course, Vice Admiral.”

He gave her a suspicious, crossed stare for a few seconds, then a quick courtesy nod.

“Thank you,” he replied and stepped onto the elevator.

He hit the button for the third floor – the one with the tall balcony he saw out front with the building’s name plastered on it – and waited as the elevator rumbled at his command. He grasped his hands behind his back once again into his favoured posture. The wait wasn’t long, he knew that, but it did give him some time to consider his current circumstances.

The expressionless face on the receptionist was oddly-perplexing as if she wasn’t – all there? He swore that the passing civilians on the street looked just as uninterested as she did, although he admittedly did not pay them close attention. Could she be some sort of machine? He stroked his coarse beard at the question and was briefly distracted by its thickness. He hummed in confirmation and mentally made a note to shave it when possible.

He then tried to remember how he got here, but his mind came up blank. Dementia was never a problem for him like so many others of his age, and he never suffered from short-term memory loss. He recalled the arrogant Announcer telling the participants that they were in a place called “Barrier City,” and how he and ninety-two others had to fight to the death. Shelby summarised that he had been kidnapped for some senseless game. He was utterly disgusted at the idea that it might be true–

The elevator door chimed as it stopped at his destination, pulling him from his trance. He dropped his arms down to his sides and waited for the doors to part. What he found next caused his jaw to drop slack from shock.

An entire platoon of identical Army Troopers stared right back at him. All their equipment appeared the same, person-to-person. They all wore the same standard Army fatigues with orange glasses, three pouches on each of their chest plates, and no other features. They all gripped uniformly-naked MA5A assault rifles. But it wasn't the uniforms or equipment that gave him pause, it was their faces that he was mesmerised with the most. They all had slightly elongated skulls, fair-toned skin, and a single large freckle on their left cheek.

Despite his best attempt, he could not spot a single feature that none of the others shared. Worst of all, they all had that same dead-eyed look that he was growing to hate.

Shelby closed his eyes, grabbed his tilted forehead and stomped down the impulse to yell profanities at them. This is the very last thing I need to deal with.

He instead let out a large sigh and shook his head in complete contempt. He slowly brought his attention back to the Army troopers and prepared himself for the trial of patience he was surely about to endure. “Tell me everything you all know about this building.”

ERROR 343: Requested database has been Severed

3: Hunter's Thrill

Day One, 0816 Hours Location: Toppled Skyscraper, Glasslands, Barrier City

Long minutes dragged by. Leonard Butcher, the SPARTAN-IV Headhunter, took his sweet time, stalking his prey.

Hidden under the cover of his light-bending active camouflage, he waited just a bit longer – eyeing his MJOLNIR radar at its maximum setting for signs of movements from enemies or unknown individuals.

He was disconnected from the UNSC command structure and from ONI. He already tried every practical radio frequency. The only response was either static or some radio station playing contemporary music covers sung in the most unmotivated voice imaginable.

His partner was nowhere to be found, a setback but not quite the worst case. Whatever faction had captured and inserted him here, likely related to the disembodied voice from earlier, had given him a rather easy target – some Gilgamesh Free State lowlife. The GFS soldier had been easy to identify from the rebel insignia on his military fatigues.

Of course, things didn’t go as planned.

Butcher had been careful, first scouting out the edges of the toppled skyscraper he and the GFS soldier found themselves in. It was hard being quiet in a half-ton titanium combat suit, but he managed to only step on crushed glass a few times. The GFS soldier never got a whiff of his stalker. Then Butcher’s luck soured just a little when some unknown in Semi-Powered Armor had entered the fallen tower.

And of course, the combatant had been more in tune than Butcher’s primary target, outing him by his camo’s slight shimmer. Thus, a gunfight had ensued, or rather, a one-sided light show did.

Butcher fired off one sniper round to try and finish the GFS lowlife immediately but missed. And then the combatant in SPI had covered his new friend with a bullet hose and dashed down a side corridor, obviously trying to negate Butcher’s long-range advantages.

That was okay, he let them suppress his position and get away – if only for a little bit. They were just wasting ammunition anyway. He could track them just fine, his radar and VISR visual aid would do their job. Because they were in a building, air flow was far staler down the smaller hallways and footprints would be easy to track among the mostly undisturbed sand.

His prey, the two enemy combatants, had stopped moving finally – off somewhere deeper in the building and probably hunkered down.

He waited, shifting slowly behind his battered cover. His eyes traced the circle on his heads-up display, watching for motion or new IFF identifier chips. Seconds passed and yet nothing.

Butcher was alone once again, a cold smile twisted across his lips but failed to reach his hardened, dark eyes. He couldn’t wait for more unexpected surprises – he wouldn’t get another chance like this.

The Spartan rose to his full, stocky height and leaned over the side of his cover to look at the ground level. Several flights down, no big deal. He planted an armored foot against his former cover like a springboard and leaped into the open air in front of him.

There was a second of weightlessness as Butcher’s arms, one gripping onto his sniper rifle, floated at his sides, preparing for the coming fall. His feet landed, thudding hard against the soft floor constructed from fine grains of molten glass. The sand shifted under his weight, creating the bare hint of a newly emerged crater.

His active camo wavered for a moment to reveal jet-black armor and a wide assortment of knives and equipment locked to his armor before disappearing once again. Butcher broke into his sprint towards the hallway his prey had escaped down, his camo continuing to flicker at his rapid movements.

His prey was down here, he could almost taste their blood as a predatory purr slipped from his lips. Butcher was no monster, but he was among the ranks of the galaxy’s deadliest hunter-trackers, bloodlust and the thrill of the hunt ran through his veins.

His VISR scans passively trailed after the deep depressions left by boots rushing down this hallway. The walls around him were insignificant, rows of empty cubicles and board rooms. The footprints, two pairs, continued for a good fifty meters before shifting tact and slipping into a conference room with an ajar door.

“Jackpot,” Butcher whispered to himself as he cradled his modified sniper rifle, one known to the UNSC Infinity’s over-imaginative armorers as the ‘End of the Line’. It was a great rifle but such an amateur move to still be holding it. His tracking had distracted him.

He secured the sniper rifle to his back and unclamped the M20 SMG from his thigh, directing it down the hallway. Slow, steady steps forward. Butcher closed the distance until he was just a few more steps from the open doorway into the conference room.

The Spartan heard the fearful whisper of his weaker prey. “Is he coming?”

The SPI-clad combatant shushed his companion through his external speakers. “Wait, listen.”

Butcher smiled again. Let the battle begin.

The Spartan turned on his active camo’s secondary function with his mind, watching as red dots began crawling over his motion detector – sensory bafflers.

The unknown in SPI reacted immediately, predictably relying on his motion tracker. He whispered, “If he’s coming, he’s coming now!”

Butcher glanced behind him and noted the door to the neighboring private office was also open, only drywall separated the two rooms. Something clicked in his mind and he backpedaled into the office, keeping his submachine gun trained on the conference room doorway all the same.

“Now?”

“Not yet.”

The Spartan Headhunter braced himself, huffing a couple of times as prepared for the fight to come. He wasn’t worried about the GFS soldier; he was focused on the unknown in Semi-Powered Armor. Could it be a SPARTAN-III, maybe a Gamma? It was unlikely they would turn against other UNSC personnel, but it wasn’t unheard of.

Butcher breathed a final time as his suit’s thrusters thundered to life. He leaped, straight into the drywall.

There was a scream of surprise as the Spartan blasted through the barrier with ease, like tearing through some wet tissue paper. The GFS soldier, startled by the Spartan charge, slipped on his own feet, falling on his butt. Butcher went straight for the SPI-clad fighter, slamming into the enemy as he tried to point an MA5 assault rifle at the SPARTAN-IV.

“Hello there!” Butcher yelled, pushing the enemy into the ground, forcing him to kneel. The Spartan’s hand went to the MA5 rifle and crushed its barrel shroud. The two armored combatants wrestled for the weapon before it simply shattered under their combined grips, splinters of metal clattered across the room.

Butcher threw the first punch in the grapple, aiming to stun his opponent. The hit connected and the SPI-clad fighter faltered back two steps, taking a crumpled crater to his chest plate with a painful groan.

The Spartan didn’t slow down, rushing forward to prevent his adversary from finding breathing room. The M20 formerly in Butcher’s right hand fell to the floor, forgotten for a brawl between armored foes.

Butcher moved like a blur, throwing a low punch directed at his kneeling opponents head. He was surprised, however, when his opponent shifted slightly to the side and the arm failed to connect.

He was even more surprised when the enemy moved even faster and wrapped his arms around the incomplete punch, locking it in place before he could pull back. Well, augmented combatant confirmed.

Butcher drew in his feet, attempting to yank himself free and pull his opponent closer to him. For a moment the augmented enemy struggled in the brief tug-of-war, but something changed, and he went slack – allowing the Spartan to yank the two together.

His arm came free and Butcher backpedaled, now trying to retreat as his opponent continued forward. He gritted his teeth and stomped his rear foot, digging in. It didn’t do much, the man in SPI piledrove forward with all his weight and in another surprise show of strength, lifted the Spartan off the ground and threw him back through the drywall hole he burst from.

Butcher caught himself using his thrusters and kneeling, slowing himself to a halt. Ready to go another round, he threw up his fists in a fighting stance and focused on his opponent now framed by the drywall hole.

“Come!” The Spartan demanded as his helmet’s stylistic inscription of a ghoul's face stared menacingly at his enemy’s own silvery fishbowl-like helm.

The fighter in SPI was unfazed, as something blue, bright, and flashy appeared from his belt to his hand. He threw it straight at Butcher.

“Holy shit!” Butcher tried to shift to the side to dodge the thrown plasma grenade, but he wasn’t so lucky, his opponent had thrown it like a pitcher’s curveball. The glowing ball of pulsating plasma zoomed forward then spun violently in the other direction – sticking clean to his breastplate.

Time slowed to a halt as Butcher’s mind raced to find himself an out. He desperately hoped he would be fast enough, reaching for his MJOLNIR GEN2’s emergency armor release, but it was too late.

The burning blue ball flashed a brilliant white and every part of his body exploded. The Spartan went flying, his entire body ablaze in plasma fire, and crashed through the next drywall behind him, disappearing into a haze of bright light, dust, and paint chips.

The pain racked Butcher’s body as he vaguely recognized his armor’s shield depletion noise droning in the background and that he was lying on his back. The air in his lungs had completely collapsed and somewhere inside his suit, maybe inside his body, he felt something wet.

He didn’t get any more time to wonder. A dark shadow descended into his view in front of his visor. The SPI-clad combatant.

“Holy shit Ulan!” The distant voice of the GFS soldier called from somewhere nearby.

“Fisher, SMG, now!” Butcher’s opponent called back, glancing away from the Spartan toward the Insurrectionist.

Ulan. Jonathan Ulan. Rebel supersoldier, killer of Spartans. A dead man. A million more facts rattled off in Butcher’s brain, memorized from old target dossiers kept by the UNSC.

“You’re supposed to be dead…” Butcher muttered softly at Ulan, he could already feel himself fading in and out of consciousness.

Ulan said nothing, catching an M20 SMG from the GFS soldier. The unmarked visor of Ulan’s SPI helmet glared back at Butcher’s. The Spartan wondered what the rebel supersoldier was thinking, but nothing imaginative came to mind. He was in so much pain.

Ulan waved the M20 vaguely at Butcher’s helmet before pulling it back, thinking better of it. He lightly lifted his boot from the ground and planted it on Butcher’s neck, between his chest plate and helmet, right where the Spartan’s windpipe was located.

“It wouldn’t be the first time…” Ulan muttered to the fallen Spartan. He pushed his foot down violently, feeling the soft but sturdy protective layer bend under his weight. He heard light gasps escape his opponent’s lips until he pressed down on something hard. He kept pushing until there was a nasty pop – then nothing.

Butcher’s chest puffed then deflated, spasming slightly, then went still. The SPARTAN-IV was dead.

COMPETITOR 015 - LEONARD BUTCHER - ELIMINATED.

Distant Tide: Hunter - Killer