Butcher of Bleeding Faithful 2

[ I ]

There was nothing.

Stars flew, lights dash, and blood flew.

A face, alien as it was vile. It's lower mandibles spat out a few short words.

"You Demon will meet your end, at my hand or the hand of one of my brothers, and the filthy vermin that is your species shall follow shortly after. Suffer, and know your damnation is certain."

Purple blood marred the beasts face, its amber eyes glaring as the slit pupils narrowed in sheer venom.

Then the knife dropped to its neck and the stars were back again.

Worlds, alien and familiar. Gas giants, rocky worlds, water worlds and more.

Then his vision began shaking. Slowly it accelerated, the tremors growing more powerful until it felt as if the very world was shaking...

…

He woke up.

Immediately the sensation of pain shot through his entire body. Aches and pains borne of long hours of battle and many neglected wounds.

He forced himself to ignore it, then assessed his situation.

His surroundings were... alien. A cave, unlike any he had ever seen before. It's walls covered in an odd glowing moss, providing barely enough light for him see. Even Spartans didn't have perfect nightvision, although his augmentations had brought him close. The cave was shaped bizarrely, a long straight hallway marred by rough sections of rock, as if it was both artificial and natural at the same time.

It was almost like someone had grown a cave into the shape of hallway.

His eyes flicked to his cracked visor, readouts lining his HUD.

A contact had been detected by his motion sensor, it had passed by parallel to the hallway.

Perhaps a large vehicle? If it was making tremors... no that was just a dream... There's no way the UNSC have any forces left on... on...

Where was he exactly? What had happened? Had he somehow fallen through, a Slipspace portal? Trains of thought rushed through his head, and panic started to set in, before his training took over. He took several deep breaths, and considered the situation.

He had MJOLNIR, the most advanced piece of equipment in the UNSCs arsenal. Was he still on Reach? Well, he could find that out easily enough. Several interactions with his neural lace later, and he was looking at a readout display showing the suits sensors for various scientific data. Local gravity, atmosphere, gyroscopes, electromagnetic spectrum, a quantum clock and a few things he was unfamiliar with.

The readings for gravity were slightly different from Reach's norm, but it was within the bounds of error, especially if he was underground. The readings for atmosphere however... Oxygen was at 28% instead of 21%, and several anomalous elements were showing up on the spectrometer. They had neutron-proton counts that simply made no sense...

He was definitely not on Reach anymore, but these readings, was he even still in UNSC Space?

It didn't matter at this point. He had to get moving. He was low on food and water, injured and alone. He glanced around and saw the corpse of the Ship Master he had just killed... Looking at his combat footage, 7hrs and 24minutes ago.

There were two energy swords, one plasma rifle, and a couple of plasma grenades. He looked over the white armoured corpse for a few seconds, then quickly looted the weapons and grabbed a small harness on the aliens back.

Popping it open, and a stash of emergency food and water was revealed. He couldn't eat the food but the water would do him good.

Then he heard a tremor. The caves started shaking, the walls almost vibrating. It slowly grew in intensity, then a blip appeared on his HUD, fragmented by spiderweb cracks on his faceplate.

Then another appeared, and another and another.

They were approaching fast. At least 300kmph, if not faster. Yet, the motion sensor was reading them as... Infantry?

Were they using jetpacks maybe? But then why was the cave shaking.

They turned suddenly, and his head shot up.

Their bodies were red. Naked red skin covered a body like a man. The legs were human, the arms were human, even the torso was closer to a normal man than any of the aliens within the Covenant Legions, but...

Their heads, were not those of humans, but those of bulls. With massive horns and glowing red eyes they emanated an unnatural, unnerving atmosphere.

They were all moving fast, right towards him.

His adrenaline kicked into gear barely in time, smashing into his confusion like a train into a car as his Spartan Time slowed down his perception to a snails pace.

They were moving fast yes, as fast as a cheap racing car, but he was a Spartan. He could dodge bullets if was sufficiently prepared first.

He moved into a stance, and drew the first energy sword from his hip. Then his eyes glanced over the area, tracking everything. The Sangheili corpse, the cracks and indents in the walls and floor. The parts of the stone that looked just a little bit more fragile than others.

A plan started forming in his head. In the meanwhile, he activated every sensor in his helmet to figure out just what he was dealing with.

IR lasers showed something intriguing. Their bodies possessed a large crystal shaped object in their chests, all in the exact same spot. Their bodies gave off too much heat to tell if it was a different temperature, but for some reason it was giving off emissions in the Ultra-Violet spectrum. Each creature was precisely 6 foot tall, and their bones seemed rather large and bulky.

He set off several other scans, but he was out of time. He minimised his readouts, and prepared for a fight.

When the first alien reached a certain distance, he leapt into action. He rushed forth, timing it so that the dead Elite was between them.

Instead of changing directions or continuing on, the Bull-headed beast lowered it's body and sprung, it's legs leaving cracks in the stone floor.

Just as predicted.

Whatever these were, they weren't particularly smart. It landed on the corpse, and tripped from the unexpected hazard, then before it could recover, Six was in it's face. It didn't even have time to scream before the energy sword had started burning through it's neck.

Decapitating this creature was an odd experience, it's flesh and bone felt far more solid than they should. He was barely able to free his blade in time. But then, well it was clearly no normal animal, was it perhaps actually a machine of some kind?

Immediately, he leapt back, dodging the tackles of two more.

A thought flashed. Should he use the plasma grenades? No, too risky. He didn't know what else he might have to deal with.

His feinted at one, then rushed to the second.

It's telegraphed strike was easily dodged by a hairs breadth even as it sent dust into the air from sheer air pressure, and he slammed its torso with his left shoulder, his energy shield shimmering slightly from the impact.

Yet instead of being sent flying by the half ton Spartan wrecking ball, it was only flung off it's feet.

They were heavy. Very heavy.

He dashed forth, blade splitting it's skull before he turned to catch the next attacker on the sword.

Then he ducked as newcomer struck from his left, and he twisted, strike out with his leg.

Again, the impact did far less than it should have, but it mattered little as his blade found it's neck anyway.

Then there was two.

Just him, and one last Bull.

He flicked his readouts back on, and decided to see what would happen if he damaged the crystal.

He circled the creature, it's hesitation clear even as it seemed to stare in mild fear mixed with pure wrath.

Yet hatred seemed to win out, as it raised its arms overhead and howled, the sound shaking the cavern.

Then it charged.

He stepped forth and jumped, leaping off it's face.

The Beast was sent sprawling back by the impact, yet it was unharmed.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The full weight of a Spartan III on it's face didn't even leave a cut?

His feet then finally reached the ceiling.

He changed the settings on his energy shields and activated a very expensive piece of equipment.

Designed to improve the effectiveness of energy shields by using a heavily modified Grav-plate, several capacitors activated and shoved large amounts of energy into several devices that did a total of two things.

They increased the power and effectiveness of his energy shields by an order of magnitude, and then they increased the effects of gravity on his body by several dozen times.

He fell onto the Bull headed anomaly, energy sword held straight in front of him, and pierced through it's centre.

Then, instead of simply dying as was polite...

It dissolved into ash before his very eyes.

Well... that was unique. What did he just get himself into?

Spartan Tom-B312 stood there in a bit of a daze as he collected himself, trying desperately to work out what he was in for.

[ I ]

He eventually removed his helmet to have a drink and eat some food. The UNSC high energy snack bars were filled with all the necessary nutrition and plenty of calories. Spartans tended to have pretty efficient digestive systems, but there was only so much you could compensate for, especially in high stress battles like this. MJOLNIR tended to cut down on that since he didn't need to use as much force to move, but when he was on alone like this...

He shook his head, and sighed, then picked his helmet back up.

Right before he put it back on, he heard a faint whistling sound.

He hesitated for just a moment, and then to his shock, saw two young girls, humans at that, round the corner the bizarre animals had originated from. At supersonic speeds.

He debated putting his helmet back on, then thought better of it, tucking it under his shoulder.

With a couple of seconds, they had approached to a few metres away, stopping on a dime with seemingly no discomfort.

They had very similar appearances. Both were about Five and a half feet tall. Their skin was well tanned, and their eyes were dark green.

Both had black hair, but while the one to his left had it loose reaching down to her back, the one on the right had it tied up above her shoulders.

There was no mistaking it. They were human. There was no mistaking it, no human alive, Spartan or not could move like that.

Which was it?

"Hey there big guy! Nice kills you pulled off here, I wish you waited for us to see."

The short haired girl spoke first, voice high pitched and seemingly excited. An elaborate golden necklace adorned with blue crystal gems hung from her neck, and she wore a simple wide band of white cloth wrapped around her chest with a sand yellow and brown loincloth around her waist. There was a star symbol her belt.

He stood up slightly straighter, lessons learned from many dead soldiers helping him choose the best action.

As Jorge had always said, Spartans were more than weapons, they were a symbol. But they were most certainly still weapons.

He gave his best smile, and spoke slowly.

"Excuse me Ma'am, I appear to have gotten myself rather lost. I don't suppose you could tell me where I am?"

"Huh? The Dungeon of course?" She appeared thrown off by that simple question.

Then the other young women, presumably a sister, or cousin maybe? She grabbed the girl by the cheek, glaring at her.

"You idiot, we're supposed to apologise!" She then turned to look at him. Her loincloth was shorter, and lacked the brown underlayer. Instead she had a red bikini? With tights? Instead of a necklace she had an utterly massive white pearl connected to her neck and chest by the red bikini.

Oh, and they both had swords. The one in red had a white gladius, and the one in white had a very odd looking double ended greatsword with a rounded end and a brass centre.

"I apologise sir for the trouble. I'm Tione Hiryute of Loki familia and this idiot is Tiona Hiryute my younger sister. These Minotaurs are here because of our mess up, so I apologise for the trouble. Thank you for cleaning up before someone else had to."

"Mouuu, what's the big deal, he seems fine?" The now named 'Tiona' whined petulantly, it was rather adorable. It reminded him of... Kat. Now that was a painful memory.

The older sisters gaze and fingers tightened, "The big deal is that someone could have gotten killed because of us, so we owe this man a favour."

He raised a finger drawing their eyes.

"So could I cash that favour in then?"

Now the older girls eyes grew suspicious, while the younger sister instead looked pensive, almost curious.

"Sure."

"Can you tell me what a Dungeon is?"

The two shared glances.

Then looked at him.

Then shared more glances.

Then looked at him.

Then shared more glances.

Tiona spoke up finally. "I don't get it."

Tione seemed to have a moment of 'Eureka' and hit a palm with an upturned fist.

"Did you hit your head?"

"No." He intoned with finality.

The girl seemed crestfallen, more disappointed at being wrong than not having an answer.

Tiona spoke up again. "So... um mister? How did you end up here if you don't know what The Dungeon is?"

"I fell." He pointed at the ceiling. This was rather amusing, but he imagined that perhaps he had let this go a bit far.

At the frustrated looks the two girls were giving him, he decided to be merciful.

"Let me give you the long version, it seems that we have much to talk about."

Tione shook her head. "It's a bad idea to spend to much time in the Dungeon, how about you follow us to meet the others and we'll explain somewhere safe."

He thought for a few seconds, deliberately raising his hand to his chin to make him seem more relatable.

Perhaps if he had been slightly more observant, he would have spotted the stars in Tiona's eyes.

He raised his head. "Very well, I accept. Ah, I apologise, I forgot to introduce myself. I am Warrant Officer Tom-B312, and I'm the last member of Noble Team. It's a pleasure to meet you."

He hung his helmet off his belt and raised an arm, at the distinct action, both the foreign women finally noticed that Toms left arm was hanging limp. A slight wince was drawn out of Tiona.

Tione grabbed his hand firmly, and they shook. "The pleasures all mine, she admitted with a smile."

Then raised his arm to Tiona as well, and she floundered, thrown off balance. "Um.. ah, oh sorry, nice to meet you too!" She shook his hand very enthusiastically, as if trying to tear his arm off...

His grin faltered slightly.

Well, this would be a trip.

[ I ]

They walked through the cavernous maw of 'The Dungeon, chatting idly'.

Tiona was a rather excitable girl. "So we were fighting this massive horde of Barbarians, so many of them filled in, they were trampling one another underfoot to get us!"

"Wouldn't they have killed each other doing that?" He replied.

Tione was much more silent. "No, they're Level 3 Monsters."

"Okay? What doe that mean?" He was starting to think that they had some way of measuring peoples ability based on Levels. It was a bit odd, but it seemed intuitive.

Tiona answered happily. "Technically they are estimated to be between Level 3 and Level 4. Barbarians have massive physical strength and durability. They can survive having boulders dropped on them! I would know, I've tried it out a few times!"

Her hobby was dropping massive boulders... on inhuman monsters? Well he wasn't one to judge, he'd heard stranger.

"Anyway, they were filling the cavern like fish in a barrel. Then, they broke our Vanguard, and several rushed in to get at our soft mages. So the high level adventurers, that's us by the way! Jumped in and started slaughtering them like so much meat. One of them was going for my friend Lefiya, and out of nowhere the Sword Princess just flashes over there and cuts it into a thousand pieces without breaking a sweat!" She appeared to be enjoying telling this story.

That said, even assuming these Barbarians were weaker than Minotaurs, cutting them into a thousand pieces seemed rather absurd. Then there was the absurd speeds they had showed on their first meeting.

He was slowly starting to figure out this puzzle.

Tione finally spoke up, "Yeah she did, and then she dove into the horde like a maniac."

"Oh don't say that sis, you know how it is. She's not the only one trying to Level up." She responded good naturedly.

"So, what's a Level up?" This was starting to feel like that time he and the rest of Noble Team had been stuck in a bunker full of Marines in preparation for an assault, and some of them had asked him to play some videogames with them.

"How to put it... The Falna gives you 5 Basic Abilities. Strength, Endurance, Dexterity, Agility and finally Magic. Now-"

"Did you just say Magic?" He couldn't exactly ignore that one. He stared intently at her.

"Um, yes? Do you like Magic?" Tiona raised an eyebrow.

"Magic you say, is it real?" He had to confirm this.

"Well, of course right? You really didn't know people could use magic? I mean Tione here has magic too so." The girl in question was very pointedly looking at him now.

"I think we should leave this for later... Back to that story?" He concluded.

Tiona perked up a bit at that. "Anyway, after Sword Princess jumped in the herd and we cut through the break-ins like a scythe through wheat, Riveria-sama finally finished her signature spell, then Ais backflipped over the battlefield as the Magic circle formed, and everything burnt to a cinders by a sea of fire! It was awesome!" She explained delightedly.

"That does sound like quite a sight." He admitted.

"See! I told you sis, I'm great at telling stories." Her sister huffed in response, seeming to have caught a headache.

Something caught his eye.

"Contact." He put his helmet back on and grabbed the- his energy sword.

It was a small figure, with mottled green skin, a humanoid shape and a ugly vile looking face. Large ears hung off it's head, framing it's glowing, red, eyes.

"Oh, that's just a goblin." He raised his head at that.

"It is as strong as a Minotaur?" Tiona cocked her head oddly, seeming somehow more confused than before.

"No...."

"Then I'll take care of it." He nodded at them, and stepped forth putting the energy sword back on his magnetic holster.

The creature seemed wary, but approached him all the same. He merely walked up to it. It let loose a piercing scream and charged at him, arms held to it's side with sharp claws.

It swung at him, and he grabbed the wrist, then snapped it in a fluid movement of his thumb, it swung its other arm without missing a beat. He backhanded the arm snapping it like a twig. Then he grabbed the neck and gave it a harsh twist, breaking it without hesitation.

It's body hung loosely in his hand, dead.

"Well that was hardly a fight." Tiona voiced disappointed.

"Was testing durability." He replied.

"Why?"

"To improve efficiency. Wasted movement is wasted energy. Wasted energy is wasted resources. Wasted resources is wasted lives. Lives are important." There was a dull melancholy to his words.

She didn't ask him to explain further.

They settled into a comfortable silence.

Eventually they started passing other people as they journeyed up the Dungeon. Some of them had similar clothing to the two members of Loki Familia.

Many had steel weapons and armour, like out of a history book. Some had absurd looking weapons and armour that seemed impractical. Some carried strange staffs and sticks, wearing flowing robes over their bodies instead of protection.

There was another oddity. Maybe had distinctly... inhuman traits. Long and sharp ears or in some cases, the ears and tail of an animal, often resembling a dog, or a cat or something else.

A small few were short, almost child sized, but were very obviously adults from the gaze in their eyes and the way they carried themselves.

It was a strange experience.

Finally, they reached the entrance to the Dungeon. A giant round hallway, surrounded by a spiralling staircase that reached several dozen meters to the surface. Above them was a ceiling of stone, with a small doorway being the exit.

In front of him was a large group of people. They had large carriages that were... being pulled by people? Odd.

Near the centre was one of those shorter people he had seen before giving out orders. He appeared to be charge. He'd normally think the boy had dwarfism, but there were differences in his appearance to those had the condition. He remembered hearing somewhere that in the long past, many subspecies of humans had existed, some were shorter with the stature of a child, while others had denser bones and stronger muscles such as the Neanderthal.

Surrounding the blonde haired commander was a pointy eared lady with green hair and a bearded man in very heavy armour.

Walking with Tiona and Tione he approached the leadership, his helmet held under arm.

"Hey Captain!" Tione appeared to almost change into a different person at the sight of who was presumably Loki.

The bearded man to the Captains left eyed him curiously, while the women was talking with another girl with pointed ears.

Eventually, Loki managed to untangle himself from the suddenly excitable older sister, and looked at him a stern gaze.

"So who is this, Tione?" He asked. Yet there was a subtle pressure beneath his words.

"Oh, this idiots Tom bee something or other? Anyway, it's probably best if we discuss him somewhere more private..."

Loki seemed perturbed by that. "Was there a casualty?"

"No nothing like that, just... well questions. A lot of questions." She explained without explaining.

Eventually, the blue eyed blonde seemed to accept her answer, and raised his hand.

"Finn Deime, Captain of Loki Familia. You seem to have caught Tione's interest?" He had made a false assumption, this was not Loki after all.

He grasped the hand, shaking it firmly. "Warrant Officer Tom-B312, just call me Six. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise, for now stay with us. If we need to talk in private, Twilight Manor should be more than private enough."

He nodded back.

[ I ]