The Ground floor of the Scarlet Sanctuary is where the most important rooms are. Including the armory, the shrine, the barracks, and the training hall. The true beauty of the sanctuary is shown in full here as one can tell that the building is made out of rubies, somehow compressed into on solid building. Only a few things are not made out of ruby such as the doors, the keypads, and a few other non-essential electronic items.

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Aaron was so caught off guard by the sheer redness and beauty of it all that he didnt even bother being stealthy, as he stood there in the middle of the hall and gawked. "Mother of pearl. This thing is ridiculous."

The spell was rather broken by Tavish shoving him hard from behind, he was never one for jewelry like this, it was shiny but he didn't care. Jewels were for girls, and he was for girls, the only thing he used jewels for is to get girls. "Come on" he said, wondering if he was going to have to put a foot through the wall to break the spell "We need to move."

Aaron grunted as he took his gaze off the ruby interior. "Its cooler up here according to my HUD, so it must be open to the environment somewhere."

"Ooooor it's full of a gas that's poisonous to humans and that produces a cooler atmosphere" Tavish said, determined to point out every little thing that might cause them to die in stupid ways. He looked around, holding the spear high and frowning "After we've gotten everyone out you can take a wall home or something."

"Cause that wont cause Command to ask questions." Aaron said as he looked down both directions of the hallway. "We're gonna go this way." he added as he started down the directions he picked.

"They won't care, we've brought home a wall of precious jewels. They going to reprimand us for that?" Tavish asked, pretty sure he planned on slamming command's head in a warthog's door when he got back. They sent them in with no idea, again. He followed after Aaron, sighing and looking around slowly; he needed squishy things to slaughter.

As they moved down the hallway, the sounds of combat could be heard. Except it sounded unlike the unorganized chaos of usual combat. "Sounds like...maybe a training fight? Practicing combat moves?" Aaron said as he pointed it out to Tavish.

"Yeah... so might be quite a few of them" Tavish said softly, listening to the sounds around the corner "And we're not THAT decked out. We could try and sneak around I guess. Or I could try slaughtering them while you escape for help, whatever floats your boat. Right now mine is sailing on a sea of pain and bodily fluids."

Aaron looked back at Tavish and shook his head. "Im gonna recommend you get sent on the next assault or something. You have some anger issues to work out." He didnt think that they would be able to sneak past easily, and letting Tavish go in there alone wasnt even an option. "Think we could get a peek in there without getting seen?"

"Let me, I've had the training in advanced observation" Tavish muttered, edging close to where the noise was coming from, but not quite peaking out yet. "Alright..." he said, leaning over carefully, moving slowly and only partially bringing his head out of cover. His helmet was probably as shiny as the walls anyway, no one would notice... He pulled back quickly after giving it a look.

Aaron laughed to himself at Tavish's insistence on being the one to look. "Advanced Observation, huh?" he muttered.

What Tavish saw was a huge room with padded floors and a large amount of weapons along the walls. The room was also filled with Armors of varying colors and sizes, all sparing with each other. It ranged from the Rubies with their spears and the Diamonds wrestling each other to some new Emerald ones with gun bayonettes and some odd, waist high, rock ones with four arms and blades currently coming out of the bottom two palms.

"Ok there are a lot of new creatures in there, but there are also quite a few weapons. Yes, there are diamons, but there are also guns. It would be wise not to make any bad choices here, but the weapons would help" Tavish mulled over what he'd seen; was it worth it? Maybe just try to sneak in while they were practising, or wait until it was over actually, the weapons might not even be stored here.

"Weapons, yes. Trying to grab them from a room full of bad guys, no." Aaron said after Tavish relayed the info. "Those weapons are probably only for training purposes and are toned down. We should try and find out if there is an armory. We can grab some weapons on our way back down to the lower levels and arm a few of the miners for the escape."

"Well then, we're going to need to go explore some more and hope that these robot things don't spot us" Tavish pointed out, taking a step back and frowning at the wall. It was never really a fair fight to stick an armed Spartan against... anyone really, but did they have to keep taking the weapons away? Seriously, it just made it that much more difficult.

"Well, if they do spot us we'll just have to make sure that we can kill them before they run off." Aaron said as he turned around and went the other way down the hall. "We will check this way for a way around this training hall."

"Here's hoping this one is free of people" Tavish sighed softly as he followed Aaron down the other path. This place was terrible, not only gaudy and a complete torturing nightmare, but he wasn't allowed to run in screaming and slaughter everyone, mostly because he couldn't.

They explored around for awhile, almost running into a group of Diamonds on patrol, before they came across what could only be the armory. Once they got inside there was wall to wall weaponry and munitions. "This is amazing." Aaron said as he looked around the room.

"Yeah yeah" Tavish said, picking up the weapons he could reach and starting to wear them all over his body "Get kitted up alright? We need as much as we can to blow this place up." He twirled a spear around in his fingers before slipping it down to strap it on place in his back, so he could access it easily.

"Dont worry, I plan on taking as much of this as possible." Aaron said as he grabbed what he could see from spears to some guns that Tavish recognized as the ones the Greens were using. It was then that Aaron stumbled upon his gun. "Those thieving bastards! They were going to keep my gun." He said as he picked it up and hooked it against his ammo pack.

"Lets see, lets see... yup, mine too" Tavish pulled out his own maulers and slipped them into place, as well as a pocket or two of cartridges. He looked somewhere between a porcupine and a threshing machine right now, pink death sticking from every hole he could hold it in. He was planning on turning this place into a steaming pit of pain and death.

"At least you can use yours. Mine will have to wait till we get back home, those techs are gonna love this one." Aaron said as he filled his last available slot with weapons and ammo. "Well, now that we are covered with enough weaponry to arm a small platoon, shall we get these miners out of here?"

"Awwwww but I wanted to go on a killing spree" there was an edge to Tavish's voice that was worrying, the kind of edge that was dull from chopping through bones and had blood caked into the cracks "Can I, can I, can I?" He really should see a shrink, but the base would never do that for him, hell even if they did he would never be allowed to discuss his missions or feelings.

Uh...no." Aaron said as he moved back over to the armory door. "We need to get the civilians out and then get back to Command with this info. They can decide if we go after them now or not."

"Damn" Tavish mumbled, slightly disheartened. Oh well, at least he might be able to do some good while he was here. "Shall we go then?" he asked as he clutched a gun close against his chest and checked to see if their form of a safety was off.

"Alright. We still havent really found an exit outta here. So we are going to have to run down there and bring them back up here and then pray those Armors are still going to be in training." Aaron said, running the plan through his head.

"Fun fun fun fun" Tavish muttered as he looked up and down the corridor, holding the weapons close as if they were a child's safety blanket. He was going to go slaughter something and rescue people along the way, mostly slaughter though.

Aaron Let out a very exaggerated sigh. He knew he was going to regret this, but he was going to say it anyways. "How about you stay up here and keep watch over the elevators to make sure nothing comes down to hinder us...can you do this?"

"I get to not go into a trash compactor lift AND maybe kill stuff? Sounds good to me" Tavish said, rattling almost as he walked from the sheer amount of items he was wearing. "Look, I'll be a good boy, I'll watch the door and everything, I just don't want to sneak around not doing my job. If you want someone to do this silently, Spook should have been your choice."

Aaron just shook his head as he headed off out of the armory towards the elevators. "You have to guard the door. Dont go looking for trouble deliberately just to satisfy your blood-lust."

"I'll watch the door only. I'll move if I have to find cover, but apart from that, right here, stabby stabby, pew pew" Tavish let out a small laugh, wondering if he should start kicking in the wall just so someone came to investigate. He looked around as they headed back to the elevator "At least I can drive us all out of here when we find a ship."

"I doubt they have any ships we can drive, especially if they are all like the ones we shot down." Aaron said as they arrived at the elevators. He looked down both directions of the hallway before pressing the button. When the doors opened, he stepped in and turned around. "I am trusting you here, the last thing I want to see when I come back up is lots of weapons fire or dismembered bodies. Covert is the word of the day."

"I won't move from this door except to kill something that might hurt anyone you send up. I'm not going to wonder off, but I don't promise I won't kill anything" Tavish said flatly; he was being asked to guard the door so he would, he just hoped something would come along for him.

Feeling that that was enough Aaron nodded. "Good luck." he said as the doors shut and took him down to Ortega - Scarlet Sanctuary (Lower Levels).

Tavish nodded and turned away from the elevator, holding his weapons close and looking up and down the corridors. He'd probably hear them before they came close, but he still wanted to look out, just incase one managed to catch him by surprise.

A few minutes passed as Tavish could hear the sound of the elevator coming back up. He knew that it was way to soon for Aaron to be coming back up.

Tavish grinned to himself, though he wasn't very happy he hadn't seen any action at least they'd get out of there soon. He did bring his weapons around however, aiming them straight at the elevator shaft. Don't relax, it COULD be an enemy using the elevator after all...

The elevator could be heard reaching the door and coming to a stop. When the doors opened it revealed seven of the little waist high armors with four arms. They were chittering to each other as the stepped off the elevator.

One of them found Tavish's foot hard on it's head, knocking it over and almost pressing it down into the floor, definatley making the large man known. "Alright lads" Tavish said slowly, aiming two guns at the seven creatures "You're going to die. But the one who manages to suddenly start speaking in a way I understand just might last a bit longer to tell me what is going on in here."

The others looked down at their fellow armor, currently pinned under an armored boot before looking back up to Tavish. "Human?" one said, barely understandable through a very heavy accent, or speech impediment, it was hard to tell either way.

"Oh look, one with a brain" there was a cracking noise beneath his boot, but Tavish knew it wasn't fully gone, just the head starting to slowly shatter beneath that pressure. "See, I'm going to explain this really simply. I'm crazy. I'm going to kill a lot of you, there's nothing you can do about that. In fact I might kill all of you for what you've done. This is your chance to make it so at least someone can record WHY this happened."

They all looked at each other then suddenly popped blades from their bottom hands and immediately leaped at Tavish, screaming.

The head cracked beneath Tavish's foot and the aliens in the air immediatley found a hail of gun fire mowing through their body. Those that survived that were immeditely met by his right arm swinging across to swat them some of them down while the left hand kept firing his gun into the small lift. They were at a great disadvantage.

The little armors stood little chance against Tavish and died quickly. Suddenly one of the oozes crawled out of the armor that had its head crushed by Tavish, it then took off down the hallway serpentineing the whole way.

Another hail of gunfire chased it down ther corridor, but the gun shook with each bolt and it was almost impossible to aim straight while auto-firing. It was more of the "spray and pray" method of gun fighting than any other.

The creature began to freak out and started running in frantic, random directions trying to avoid the gun fire. It started to flash several colors inside its body, it did this for a few seconds before a round hit the ground next to it and sent it splattering against the wall and smoking from the heat.

"Well I gave them a chance" Tavish sighed, shaking his head and starting to drag the bodies out of the lift. Might as well make it easy fort the others to come up. He looked around at the splattered creature down the corridor... that flashing was probably an scream, or an alarm or something. Some more creatures might just come barreling down a corridor.

It was a few minutes after when Tavish heard the clomp of heavily booted feet heading in his direction.

Tavish sighed, standing admist a pile of bodies and looking down at them at the sound of heavy boots. He reached down and snapped a few arms off of the enemy corpses, wriggling them around in mid-air for a moment to check the blade was still functioning. He was going to beat these people to death with corpses. Fun.

A Ruby and three Emeralds rounded the corner and stopped, surveying that death and destruction caused here. The Ruby looked up and pointed at Tavish, saying something in his language. The Emeralds stepped forward and opened fire.

One was met in the face by a corpse arm, the blade thunking into the head hard. Tavish opened fire at the others while dragging a crushed body up in front of him as protection, shooting beneath the dangling arms to try and get a few good shots in. "I WAS JUST WANTING TO TALK!" he half laughed from behind the robotic corpse "Now I'm gonna have to go kill everything..."

The Ruby stepped behind the Emeralds as they moved forward quickly. Tavish managed to kill two of the Emeralds by the time they got close. Suddenly the elevator door opened and the Ruby was pitted and stuck to the wall by a spear as Aaron stepped out. The other Emerald was ripped apart by a sheer wall of weapons fire. "Got a bit more action then I thought, huh?" he said as he looked over the bodies.

"Not really. They die too easy from their own fire" Tavish kicked a limp body, then handed a spear to one of the members they were rescuing so he could reach down and rip off an arm instead. In fact he began to pick up quite a few arms, and the guns from the Emeralds that had been slaughtered.

Aaron resisted the urge to make an "up in arms" joke as he watched Tavish grab stone arms with blades coming out of their hands. "I managed to get a hold of the Stratavarius while we were coming up the elevator shaft. Turns out that thing runs all the way up this building so I got a good signal. They are sending rescue craft with a full military escort to pick us up. They didnt mention what they were going to do about this building, but we need to get outside."

"Fun... fun" Tavish shook his head as he waved a few arms around "Alright, lets head off then. Which way?" He raised an eyebrow slowly at Aaron, whirling the blades around in the air "Maybe you should have found a way out before calling in a tactical strike hmmm?" He turned away, then began to storm off down a corridor "This way! Time to do some slaughtering and find a way out!"

Aaron shook his head as Tavish became insubordinate and stormed off down the corridor. He turned to the group of people following him. "Alright, off we go." he then turned and followed Tavish.

It was less insubordinate in Tavish's head as trying to stay alive, the strike had been called in before they'd escaped, and that wasn't a good thing. He ran long, once actually running into a ruby. The thing had a bladed arm sticking out of it before it realise Tavish had passed. He kept on galloping along, weapons rattling... He was going to kill everything alien in his path.

Aaron pumped a round into the Armor as he passed just to be sure. He was looking down each corridor they passed to try and find the way out. It was during one of these glances that he noticed the temperature in the hallway was several degrees lower. "Shaft! I think I've found the way out."

Tavish screeched to a halt, literally, his armoured foot scratching the floor as he put on the breaks, then turned around. "Down there then" he said simply as he nodded to Aaron, starting to run down the corridor his boss had been looking down. They needed to get clear out of here before the first bombing run came, they always went for the doorways first so it was never a good idea to be there when the first one hit.

Aaron started after Tavish, his hurry was becoming contagious as he started picking up his pace. He followed the increasing harshness of the atmosphere around and through the hallways till they came to these massive double doors that were shut. "Help me get them open!" he yelled.

Tavish didn't stop until the door hit him in return. He was like a freight train, smaller than little scorp but still packing enough wallop to maybe make a difference when tossed bodily against the double doors. If he found himself bouncing off then he'd have to get up and try pushing.

Aaron saw Tavish collide with the door and bounce off. He grabbed Tavish up off the ground. "Lets try this again." He said as he put all his strength into pushing the door open.

"Open up you dumb... arg!" Tavish grunted, glad his boss had picked him up. Not many things could take a direct hit from a Spartan. Crack open a door, that's all they had to do, crack open one damn door. Tavish flexed his muscles, pushing hard, just one door.

The door groaned a bit then jolted before swinging slowly open. Aaron took three hurried steps out and stopped suddenly. Looking around he realized that they just stepped out into the airfield that was full of Armors. "Oh shit." he said as a few of them turned, spotted them, and opened fire. "Back in! Back in!" he said as he waved everyone back inside.

Tavish was firing wildly into the room with one hand, and dragging the door closed with the other. He flung a few of the arms into the room as well just to make some terror spread through the room beyond and cause a distraction as they tried to drag the door back. Too many people around to die if this went wrong, close the door now.

Aaron pulled the door back to create cover as he returned fire. "Damn it all!" he yelled, banging the back of his helmet against the ruby door. "These bastards are really pissing me off." He opened up his comm and tried to hail the Stratavarius. "This is Spartan - 283 requesting update on our evac! We are under heavy enemy fire and cannot move from our current position."

"Spartan - 283 this is Saber Flight Lead, currently escorting your evac. Our ETA is at three minutes and shrinking, we will do a run on the building's perimeter to thin out the enemy resistance before dropping in the evac birds and their ground cover."

"Boss. Look, I run in there, I take out as many as I can, you close the doors after me. We won't risk the civies and we might just get out of this alive instead of going down when the door falls" Tavish swallowed, looking around at Aaron and the civilians "Permission... sir?"

"No game Shaft." Aaron said shaking his head. "We are both getting off this planet along with these civilians. The Sabers will wipe out most everything, then we will both run in there."

"If we don't do something quickly we both know this door will just collapse" Tavish said, gripping hold of the doors they had been fighting with before and trying to keep them still. Enemy forces would be on them any minute, he knew "You need a distraction."

"If anyone has to go out there it'll be me." Aaron said, getting authoritative. "I have the stronger shield and thicker armor between their energy rounds and my flesh, I'm built for this." He popped around the corner and fired a few shots into an Armor that had crept too close.

"You'd soak up the damage, but then you'd drop. I'm used to dodging, I'm used to hiding, you might last longer under direct fire" Tavish tossed a long bladed, sword like weapon around the corner, to slice at a few enemies about head height "If you go you WOULD die, if I went I MIGHT survive."

Aaron sighed as Tavish continued arguing, he knew he would never convince him that it wasn't a good idea for him to run out there, but he was sure he had a solution. "We'll both go. Stick close to the building and take refuge the second your shield drops below 15% capacity. Got it?"

"Fine." Tavish frowned, he wasn't going to get a nice glorios murder rampage all to himself... He made sure that the guns were loaded to capacity "But you don't just soak damage alright? I'm going to cover you as much as I can."

"I'm going to be the biggest target out there. Believe me, I'm going to do a lot of it whether I want to or not." Aaron said as he grabbed a second gun from one of the prisoners. "You all stay here and try not to make yourself known. If you can sneak out a few shots you can do that, but don't shoot us in the back." He looked over at Tavish, "On the count of three?"

"On the count of three" Tavish nodded to him checking his weapons again... This wasn't going to be fun for Aaron, but it was going to be great for Tavish. "Lets try and cut down on the friendly fire as much as possible, look before you shoot and try to conserve your ammo. We might meet even more on the way out..."

"As long as we keep our backs against the building, friendly fire wont be a problem." Aaron said, taking a quick peek out and trying to make a quick, mental travel path. "Ok here goes. One, two, three!" With that Aaron burst through the doors and pulled the trigger as fast as he could, dropping one Rock and sending a few others diving for cover. Unfortuneatly the Emeralds were not as easily frightened and lite his shield up.

Their hail of gunfire was cut short as a body spun up towards them, a rock suit being shot to pieces in mid-air as it flew towards them, the body jerking and twitching as the lazors hit it. Tavish ran along behind Aaron, his own guns pumping shot after shot beneath the flung rock suit, trying to take out the feet.

The Emeralds ducked out of the way, except for one that caught the Rock suit full on and toppled over, catching a blade and causing the armor to stick. Aaron skidded into cover behind a medium sized stack of crates. He caught his breath as his shield began to recharge. He pulled out a spear and took a peek over the crates before standing up quickly and pinning a lone Emerald to the wall through the chest.

Tavish wasn't one to stop... or slow. He kept running, going to the left, away from the stack of crates that Aaron ahd hidden behind. He leapt, feet out, and planted them on the crates firmly as they toppled forward. "duh duh duh-duh" Tavish began to sing as the rain of bullets started to come down, hailing into the enemies from a higher point as he crushed a few from the boxes falling "duh duh duh-duh..." It was singing in the rain... an odd choice.

Aaron stopped firing as he heard Tavish's singing come over the comms. He was definitely going to have him submitted for a psych evaluation when they made it back to Earth. "A little up-bear for the situation don't you think?"

"If I'm going out I'm going out with a smile on my face!" Tavish half cackled into the microphone, grabbing a box behind him and sticking it in front. He piled it there, one after another, creating a small barrier just big enough for him as his shield recharged. He didn't like stopping, so he pushed backwards as he waited for the recharge, running over an unlucky Emerald with the stack of crates.

"Spartan-283 this is Saber Flight Lead, we have a visual on the target and weapons are primed. Attack run imminent, get what kills you can now as we will be lighting up the area."

"You heard 'em Tavish. Pull back towards the building so you don't get killed. That's an order too." Aaron said as he could hear the faint roar of the ships' engines.

"Stealing my fun!" Tavish grumbled before digging a spear into a large figure approaching around the corner. If there were diamonds in here they'd be screwed... He dashed forward, putting his body into reverse gear, trying to get back to a safe distance.

Aaron backed up a bit too, keeping himself behind the crates but still able to see the upcoming carnage. He had never been this close to a strafing/bombing run before and didn't want to miss a thing.

The roar of the engines grew loud and the sound of large caliber machine gun fire could be heard. Suddenly the ground and tarmac ripped apart and exploded as bullets came raining down like a swarm of hot, lead death. Armors of all sizes where torn to pieces and sent flying by exploding ships and fuel reserves. It was then that the Sabers flew over and dropped their bombs, creating large blackened, smoking craters in what was left of the hangar. "This is Saber Flight Lead, first run complete. Enemy casualties high, enemies still present but within manageable numbers. Commencing with evac." Several Pelicans flew in quickly and swung around to offload troops and pick up the prisoners.

"ALRIGHT, LETS MOVE!" Aaron shouted over the noise to the prisoners as he beckoned them out of the building. He continued laying down covering fire to keep the remaining Armors down.

"LETS GO LETS GO!" Tavish yelled, moving alongside some of the prisoners, making sure they were covered on their way out "PICK YOUR FEET UP! DON'T TOUCH THE SHRAPNEL! LETS GO!" HE was enjoying this a little bit too much... but they were saving people, so everything was pretty alright.

As the last prisoner came out of the big ruby double doors, a large armor made from some dark, rainbow colored material charged out and took him out with a quick swing of his spear that sliced the man's back open cleanly, severing his spine. Aaron spotted the Armor as it killed the man, "Oh shit. Shaft, we got a new target. Just emerged from the building behind the prisoners." He said as he raised his gun and fired several shots at the new target. One round hit him in the shoulder and spun him around, but it quickly turned it into his advantage and dodged the other shots and rolled out of the way behind a few crates. "Looks a to be in between the Rubies and the Diamonds in size."

"Get to the ship! I'll handle him" Tavish glowered as the armour did a twirl away from the hail of fire, trying his own attack. He opened fire with two guns, aiming at a wide sweep either side of it so the armour wouldn't move as he charged at it head on, armour still bristling with weapons.

Aaron frowned under his helmet, he knew that he would do better against the Armor then Tavish would but knew that if he argued with him it would be a huge waste of time. "Fine, don't commit to heavily though. Once we are ready to go you will need to get free."

Tavish didn't think that Aaron would be better against this person... A diamon, maybe, a diamond was big and bulky and on par with Aaron, but Tavish was on this rainbow armour's level. Quick, spinning, sudden, dramatic and very lucky. Tavish slid down into a slide tackle, firing upwards, one leg cocked back to kick away the spear if it came down while the other foot remained straight to try and take out the feet of the damn enemy.

The armor saw Tavish coming at him, firing away. It planted its spear in the ground in front of it and used it as a pole vault to launch over Tavish. As he traveled over and waited till he was directly above the sliding Spartan to slam the spear head down, aiming for his chest.

A gun was dropped, just clattering away, Tavish needed one more hand to save his life. He caught the spear, the tip hovering just above his chest; the staff was grinding between the two, but Tavish kicked upwards at once before anything gave out. He tried to boot the armour off, over his head, hanging on tight to the spear. It would either slam the armour into the floor, or it would snap the spear and send the armour flying away.

The kick caught the Armor in the head and knocked it back, causing it to stagger a few steps before catching itself. That was plenty of time for Tavish to get back into a beneficial position. Now without its spear, the creature let out a deep growl before charging forward.

Aaron watched as Tavish fought the new Armor as the last of the prisoners boarded Pelicans. The soldiers began a slow retreat back into the Pelicans that had brought them. "Just a few more seconds Shaft" He thought as he added to the concentrated fire of several Marines to bring down a Diamond.

Tavish tossed the spear right up, the blade digging it into the ceiling, keeping it there as he spun around and grinned at the approaching armour, standing firmly as he watch the armour. "I'm impressed!" he laughed at the armour, tossing the gun backwards away from the fight, it was empty anyway. "Don't suppose you'd like to come back with us would you lad?" he reached down, picking up a long knife from his belt and holding it up in front of him "I'd hate to wipe you all out." It was hand to hand now... hell, maybe he'd take the legs off the armour and drag it back.

The Armor stopped and let out a breathless huff of indigence as Tavish spoke to it. It shook its body, as if limbering up, and as it did this three long blades slid out of small slits a little above its wrists. They were then sheathed in the same energy as the spear. "Prepare for death." The Armor said with a heavy accent.

"I've been prepared since I carried her corpse from that damn warehouse!" Tavish yelled to the armour, still holding the one knife in his hands and glowering at the approaching armour. "Come on lad! Lets see if you can end me" he whispered, his microphone on without him realising it "I'm not going to fall to someone not worthy enough... you better be worthy you bugger..."

Aaron heard Tavish talk to the creature and shook his head. He knew that this wasn't a healthy state of mind for a Spartan to be in and had seen a few Spartans meet their end due to suicidal actions caused by mental instability. As the prisoner filled Pelicans began to lift off, Aaron commed over to Tavish. "Alright Shaft, you got a minute or two before the Marines are loaded up and ready to go."

The creature roared and charged forward, closing the distance between the two combatants. It initiated combat by bringing its right blades around to slash/stab downwards across Tavish's chest and followed that up with an uppercut with the left that would have impaled him.

Tavish raised the blade at once to lock the blade coming down in place, twisting the knife between the blades on the armour's wrist to try and keep it there. The uppercut was expected, but even then Tavish only just got out of the way, the fist coming up by his side. He reached down and grasped the hand that had tried to uppercut before it even finished the motion, yanking it upwards hard so he moved with the arm. With the other arm locked in place with a blade this would either pull the yanked arm right up or take the armour off it's feet, depending on the strength of the armour. "With you in a minute!" he yelled into his microphone... he had to deal with this first.

Caught off guard by the sudden pull, the Armor stumbled forward and into a pile of crates, knocking them down on top of him. One of the crates suddenly launched from its place on the ground, heading straight for Tavish's head.

"BETTER!" Tavish let out a loud laugh, ducking beneath the crate as it scattered away and crumbled down onto the floor. "Getting better you damn pile of goop! I might try and bring you back alive even!" he laughed loudly, but he'd lost his knife, mangled in that armour's hand. "Come on! You could try and kill me in my sleep!" he reached behind him, to the armoury he was wearing, and pulled out a spear "It'll be fun!"

The Armor was already back on its feet by the time the crate flew past. The creature picked up Tavish's knife and looked at it, he then took the blade and bent it into a "U" before tossing it away. It moved towards Tavish at a slow pace before sprinting the last few feet, striking at him with a back-handed swipe.

"Good speed!" Tavish backed away, but the sudden sprint and backhand swipe took him fast. It knocked him back, spinning, legs and arms outstretched to make sure the armour didn't attack again, and keeping him from collapsing down. He stood up straight after his strange little cartwheel, shaking his head and grinning at the armour, a large scratch in his paint work "Ohhhh... bit of a weak blow though... Too much reliance on blades."

"Alright Shaft! Time to go." Aaron said as he hopped up on the hatch of one of the Pelicans. He choose this specific one due solely on the fact that it had a .50 caliber machine gun mounted just beyond the hatch. He grabbed the handles and immediately sent a torrent of hot lead at the rainbow armor to cover Tavish's retreat.

Tavish looked over at Aaron... then grabbed the armour suddenly as the gun fire hailed at it. It was yanked off it's feet, but the legs took a lot of damage from the gunfire from the Pelican gun. "I wanna keep it!" Tavish yelled, shaking the armour for a moment before throwing it hard down to the floor, trying to stun it so he could start plucking the arms. It would be harmless...

The Pelican Aaron was gunning from lifted off the ground a few inches. "Damnit Shaft! We don't have time to properly disable that thing to get it on board safely. We know where it is and once the orbital bombardment is done I'm sure there will be bit of him left for study. Now get your ass over here our they'll be finding bits of you to study too!"

The Armor hit the ground and rolled to its feet with little to no trouble. It ducked and dodged to try and keep out of Aaron's aim as it charged forward, engaging Tavish with a long series of quick swipes and jabs, hoping to catch him off guard eventually to slice him open.

Tavish was making his way backwards, dodging the blows, letting out a little laugh when his sheild gave a fizz from how close one of the blades had come. "Come 'ere!" Tavish said loudly, he was literally right in front of a pelican's doors now. He waited for a next swing, then grabbed the forearms and jumped backwards, so he was inside the pelican but the armour was dangling from his grip. "Close the ramp!" he yelled back to the others, it they closed it now then the armour would be sliced in half and pretty much disabled.

The armor looked at Tavish, and if it could have looked confused it would have. It solved the problem by quickly twisting its body, this yanked Tavish off the Pelican and made it look like a parent spinning their child around by the arms.

"Woah!" Tavish yelled as he was pulled from the Pelican... damn thing wouldn't let him escape it appears. He groaned, still holding onto the arms. His own armour was getting really beat up in the process. "Dammit man you were going to survive the bombing. Looks like you're going to get blown apart like the rest of your people!"

"I die...with...honor." The armor forced out as it brought its swing into a lift intent on slamming Tavish into the ground, hard.

Tavish grunted, pulling hard on the armour's arms, trying to force himself in to headbutt the multi-coloured thing with his helmet. "You die from someone pressing a button millions of miles above you! There is no honour in that you pillock!"

The armor ducked his head back so Tavish hit its chest. "I die...fighting, not...fleeing like you. Not on...knees...bound." The creature brought up its knee and put it between him and Tavish, pry him off his arms.

Tavish's grip tightened, the fingers starting to dig into the armour, scratching it as he tried hard not to let go. "You die... laying... No one there. No one caring." he suddenly let go of one arm, the pressure the armour had been putting on his chest catapulting it sideways, off balance. Tavish turned, running, dragging the armour back towards the ship. "You know this will only happen one of two ways."

"And you dieing...is what...happens." The armor said as he swung its blades at Tavish's arm that was holding onto him.

"SHAFT! We have to leave now!" Aaron yelled as the fighters could be heard coming back for another run and the Stratavarius could be seen, punching through the cloud cover.

Tavish clambered up onto Pelican, wincing as the knife burst through his shield and scratched his arm. Still he didn't let go though, turning around and grabbing that blade wielding arm with his other one, hauling the armour backwards, trying to drag it onto the ship. "CLOSE THE DOOR AND TAKE OFF!" Tavish yelled; he'd deal with this thing when the ship took off.

The armor simply yanked Tavish off the ship again. "You...will...not take...me."

"Fuck it all!" Aaron said as he ripped the turret off the stand and jumped off the Pelican. He tromped up to the to tug-of-waring men and opened up, point blank, on the armor. The vicinity and power of the bullets tore the armor apart like it was paper, soon it was missing everything below the chest, its legs were laying on the ground. "Lets go, that's an order!" he said.

"I've been in the Pelican three times already! Why don't someone shut the damn door!" Tavish yelled, dragging the armour back onto the ship by the arms and scowling down at it. "There, now you're coming with us without legs. You happy now? You wouldn't die on your feet, you'd die on your belly, wriggling pathetically. Now, are you going to calm down or am I going to have to pull your arms off as well?" Why did it take Aaron so long to do this? Seriously... he just needed to take the legs off of the armour straight from the beginning.

The armor was silent, just laying there as Tavish dragged it back.

"Door doesn't shut that quickly Shaft." Aaron said as he hopped into the Pelican and helped Tavish up as well. He went and took a seat as the Pelican lifted off and the Citadel could be seen shrinking in the distance as the hatch closed. "You should have left it there." he said, gesturing towards the armor.

"These things have been killing people for ages, and EATING them apparently" Tavish gave the armour a small kick, nudging it with the tip of his boot. "I don't even know their names. So, I think we should learn what's going on, don't you? Things came be resolved so much easier when people talk to each other..." He reached over towards the armour and flicked it in the side of it's head "You going to speak, goo? You going to explain why you murdered all those people?"

The armor just rocked as Tavish kicked at it with his foot.

"Are you sure it's even still in there?" Aaron said as he looked at it. "I don't think that they have been around for that long, or we would have run into them earlier."

"Or this is us running into them" Tavish pointed out, giving the armour another poke with his toe "I suppose it could have leaked out... shame really, this was the only chance it had to get it's story told. Really... Oh well, almost got myself killed for nothing."

"The only thing I cant figure out, is how they have gotten this advanced and stayed hidden on such a populated planet?" Aaron said as he put the removed Pelican turret on the floor.

Tavish was slowly prodding at the armour, slowly making it sway back and forth. He was the master of annoying something into attack. "Well we got pretty advanced and remained hidden, right up until we ran into another collection of aliens trying to kill us. MAYBE they're made, MAYBE, but still that means it'll be better for us to take one back for us to look at."

"I still think that it would have been better if you'd just grabbed a dead one from the ground." Aaron said, simply staring at Armor on the ground.

"Where's the fun in that?" Tavish mumbled, shrugging and poking at the armour's head again, letting it bob back and forth, pause, then poke it again.

The Pelican made it to the Cruiser as it opened up on the citadel with its MAC gun. The percussion from the weapon could be heard clearly inside the Pelican. Once it finished its assault the ship exited the atmosphere and made the jump to slipspace.