In the previous post, Master Chief and Rico Rodriguez fiercely argued their influence in the war on the Covenant in Panau. They did not trust each other and leapt from the building, ending the chapter. Now the Chief and Cortana search above a civilian city in a stolen banshee for their foe.
"I see no trace of him, Chief," Cortana reported. "The trail of flaming debris ends about one click North of here."
The banshee glided past a skyscraper with an angled summit design, one of the tallest buildings in the city. Its smooth, purple contours reflected brightly off the windows of the building.
Suddenly, a black jet moving in the opposite direction screamed past their banshee, initiating an evasive roll to John's left side.
"What was that?" John asked in a surprised, but still monotone, expression.
"Standby...It's an F-33 DragonFly. Probably Scorpio."
"Let's check it out."
The alien aircraft performed a partial backflip and rolled over into a horizontal state, now flying in the opposite direction.
"Where is that jet-"
"Missile Lock!"
The Chief dove sharply and pulled up and right at the last second, but the pursuing missile was not so quick to pull up. A tremendous explosion ripped an empty tour bus in half, and turned the intersection the missile collided with into smoldering rubble.
Then it was John's turn. He spun around and targeted Rico's jet. A barrage of plasma bolts shredded the DragonFly's right wing, melting it to slag. The jet began a rolling nosedive toward a warehouse. Rico bailed out of his plane just seconds before it obliterated the propane storehouse. Hundreds of gas-filled canisters erupted in all directions, miraculously hurting nobody, but giving a beautiful fireworks show.
Then, a loud metal-on-metal grinding noise emanated for a split-second from the banshee's right rear stabilizer. Rico was reeling in. He ripped the cockpit of the banshee open and grabbed the Chief. He tried to pull the pilot out, but found him surprisingly heavy.
Scorpio had a new idea. He tethered the Chief's back to a nearby building, then watched victoriously as the Spartan was yanked out of the craft and swung toward a building. A beautiful blue glow caught his attention - a surprise from the Chief.
"AH, C**P!"
At the last possible second, he fell from the banshee, watching it explode into glorious blue flames. He then launched a grappling hook at the building he tethered the Chief to, in time to see him rappel through a window. He had sliced the cable with an energy sword and swung from it like a vine.
Rico riddled the window adjacent to it with a sub-machine gun and it burst into an uncountable storm of shards. The Spartan simply stood, at some variation of parade rest, with his hands crossed behind his back.
Just as Rico began to speak, the Chief pulled his own M7 caseless SMG and waited for what he knew Rico would do.
As John expected, the grappling hook came to grab the weapon from his hand. He then revealed his left hand with another blue ball in it. The hook grabbed it, and loyally returned to Rico.
"Fetch." John bluntly remarked.
They both waited for the grenade to detonate, shredding Rico's left arm, but to their surprise, this never happened. Instead, the grenade stopped glowing, its adhesive quality repealed. It simply bounced to the floor - a dud.
Both warriors stood, dumbfounded, for several seconds, switching their gaze from the dud grenade to each other, then back again.
Rico broke the silence. He launched the hook again at the Spartan, who appeared off-guard. But to his surprise, it was dodged. The Chief grasped the tether, which was spinning wildly in the air, and pulled Rico, who tripped. He blasted his SMG at the sprawled Scorpio, but his foe rolled and sprung to his feet.
With a new cable, he whipped the Master Chief, cracking his gold visor. The seven-foot mass of armor stumbled backward, but regained his balance. He deployed the energy sword, thrusting it toward Rico, grazing his left side. The Chief's enemy hollered in pain and charged him, the impact making him lose the advanced weapon. They both crashed through a window and plummeted to the Panau soil.
Rico tried to launch a cable, but his grapple system was damaged from a hit from the energy sword he did not know about. The half-ton Spartan fell much faster than him, so he deployed a parachute when the Chief was no longer in reach.
John was in serious trouble. His jetpack damaged from the cable Rico had shot through it earlier, he desperately searched for something to break his fall.
To be CONTINUED.
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