Planet Remnant Forerunner Installation 0360

The battle waged on like a violent tempest that had been trapped inside a nightclub. The loud crack of rifles together with the pained howls of angry alien invaders acted as the sound track. While volley after volley of hot blue and green plasma blasts lit up the narrow corridor like party lights while making the space between the advancing Covenant forces and the human defenders the deadliest dance floor ever conceived.

With each missed shot, the plasma would splash against the smooth reflective metal that made up the walls of the forerunner structure without even leaving a scorch mark half the time, while similarly on the opposing side of the hall, red hot lead would ping off without leaving a dent on the durable material.

"Don't let up, hammer'em boys!" The marine captain commanded his men who were all either perch on small the small ledges that flanked the corridor on both sides or were down below crouched behind makeshift barricades created to block the enemies advance.

All too eager to follower their captain's orders, the marines burst out from behind their cover to let loose another haze of gunfire directly into the heart of the enemy lines. Some using their borrowed alien weapons while others still used what they had left of their standard issue weaponry. Only ceasing their attack once their plasma weapons began to overheat or their clips were completely emptied. Then they would all dunk back into cover just in time to avoid the enemies return fire and ready themselves for the next strike.

It was after one such attack that the Captain called out to Ruby from across the hall. "Alright little lady your up!"

Ruby Rose like many of the marines, was currently perched up on one of the many narrow ledges around the corridor so she could get a better angle with her rifle. And though the marines had called her baby ridiculously bulking and overcomplicated when they first seen her weapon, she was all too happy to prove them wrong.

"Roger that!" The Ruby replied as she signaled her teammates who were taking cover below to get ready and then she hoisted her weapon up and took aim herself.

When Ruby's first shot rang out, her teammates all promptly burst out of their cover to fire on the enemy as well. Ruby's rifle-scythe cracked over and over again. Each time a shell casings clattered on the floor below her it was matched by the splatter of alien blood and brain matter on the opposing side of the corridor. And with each shot that hit its mark she would count allowed almost in sing song. "Thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four hit the floor!"

"This is hardly the time for games!" Weiss shouted up at their chipper leader from her position behind one of the main barricades lining the hall while she took pot shots at the enemy with her magnum pistol.

"What, aren't having fun!?" Ruby asked cheerfully.

Weiss groaned before dunking back down into cover to reload and turn towards her black clad teammate who was knelt beside. "Don't you agree, that this is a waste of energy Blake?!"

Blake shrugged as she snapped a new clip into her weapon. "I guess it's good for moral." She reasoned before popping back up and opening fire. "Twenty-three, Twenty-four!" She called out as two more enemies fell in the hail of bullets.

Weiss let out a loud muffled sigh as she gave her teammate a look of utter betrayal. "This is just ridiculous!" She roared before popping back up herself and rejoining the firefight.

"You should seriously try to loosen up and chill out Weisscream! I bet you're only complaining this much because you're losing aren't you!?" Yang teased from behind the front most blockade that was located directly in front Weiss and Blake's position. "Isn't that right Chief?" The yellow clad woman asked the green armored giant stood beside her with his battle rifle pointed down range and cracking relentlessly. The man in question stopped shooting just long enough to give Yang the slightest of shrugs before returning to firing off three round bursts with deadly precision. For whatever reason Yang took that to mean he agreed with her. "See, told you Weisscream!"

Weiss felt like she was about to have a brainanurism and wanted to snap at her teammate, but she managed to force back most of her hate before responding. "First of all I told you to stop calling me that! Secondly you have no room to talk." She huffed while she along with the rest of teammates disengaged the enemy and dunked back into cover so they could allow the Marines a chance to jump back into the fray.

"What do you mean by that?" Yang asked her white clad teammate.

With them all now out of direct combat, Weiss figured it was a good time as any to clear something up. "Well, you know Yang I couldn't help but notice you haven't been announcing your kill count either. Care to tell us what that is all about?" She inquired.

"Th-that's just because I don't want to embarrass you guys!" Yang shot back, her tone taking on a slightly defensive edge to it.

Weiss was less than convinced of course, so she moved a hand over her helmet to activated her intercom. "Hey Penny, could you be a dear and tell us what the current kill count of all team members is?" She asked in the same honey coated tone she usually reserved for important officials. "I know you've been keeping track."

Weiss's sudden unexpected inquiry seemed caused to cause Yang great discomfort, since her posture became incredibly stiff and ridged and she looked like she was about to protest, but her words died on her lips when another voice popped into their heads. That voice of course belonging to none other than their team's ever cheerful AI companion Penny. "Gladly, ma'am just give me a moment! The current standings are as follows. Yang Xiao Long is in fifth place with eleven confirmed kills, Weiss Schnee is in fourth place with twenty confirmed kills, Blake Belladonna in third place with twenty-six confirmed kills, and Captain Ruby Rose in second place with a whopping thirty-seven confirmed kills! Wow, how intense! I hope this response was satisfactory Miss Schnee! Let me know if you need anything else I can do for you!" Penny announced gleefully.

"Yes, it was quite help. Thank you Penny that will be all." Weiss responded dismissively while she carefully watched as the confident attitude of her yellow clad teammate slowly began to grumble. The girl's postured deflating in front of her eyes. It was at this moment that Weiss was truly grateful that she was wearing a helmet. Because if anyone were to see the less than lady like smirk that was currently plastered across her face she might have died of embarrassment, that is if she didn't kill them on the spot. Shaking those thoughts from her minds she continued. "So you got anything to say about that Yang?" She asked in the most condescending tone she could manage.

That last question seemed to finally push the blond brawler over the edge since she promptly broke into an angry rant. "Alright, fine I get it so shut up already! Besides it's not like it's really even my fault! I ran out of dust rounds awhile ago and I don't have anything else but this stupid shotgun to compete with! This things range is terrible! If I'm anymore than six feet away from them, it will barely even tickle them. And I've at least managed to kill all of them that got dumb enough to get to close to us!" She spat, breathing heavily by the end of it.

Weiss just rolled her eyes behind her visor and scoffed. "Blaming your weapon now? This couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that you lack the ability to think ahead and conserve your ammo or that you're just a bad shot right? Come on, we've all seen your range scores Yang. You couldn't hit the broadside of a barn unless it was at point blank range, and yet this is all the fault of that perfectly good standard issue shotgun. Seriously, you do realize that I'm using nothing more than my side arm right?"

Yang groaned in frustration before replying. "I'm not saying there is anything wrong with the weapon. It's just that this isn't the right place for it! And besides isn't your magnum one of the older models? Don't those things have built in smart zoom?! You could probably blow a cockroach off General Ironwood's ass from one-hundred yards away using that thing! How is that even fair!? If I had one of those right now, I'd be in first for sure..." She Yang's rant came to an abrupt end when a thought accrued to her. "Wait, hold on a minute, weren't we just listed as fifth through second? Why was their no first place?" She asked in a curious tone.

"Hey now that you mention it, I think your right. Why was the order mixed up? Was that an error Penny?" Weiss inquired.

After being prompted, Penny's voice once again echoed in their helmets as she begun to explain. "My apologies ma'am, but you said that you only said wanted to hear the teams scores, I omitted Master Chief's score. Was that not your intention? Allow me to correct this mistake. Master Chief's current confirmed kill score is fifty-ni(recalculating), sixty-thre(recalculating), Sixty-five confirmed kills." Penny declared causing all eyes of team RWBY to be drawn to the green clad soldier who was still opening up on the enemy. He didn't seem to be paying the groups conversation any mind.

Watching this odd scene play out before them, one of the soldiers turned to his commanding officer to speak. "Are these girls for real sir?!" He asked.

The officer let out a soft sigh before responding in a tired voice. "Yeah, Ozpin's men are all a little bit odd from what I hear, but they know what their doing. Just stick to the plan and I'm sure we will make it out of here." The soldier seemed to accepting his captain's words at face value and quickly returned his attention to the battle. However, as the captain continued to watch the girl's bicker, he couldn't help but wonder if he had made the right call.

////////////////////////////////////////////////

The fight had been stretching on for what seemed like forever at this point and everyone was beginning to wear down. RWBY, the Chief, and what was left of the Remnant soldiers were holding out okay, but they were vastly out numbered. And with the seemingly endless number of Covenant warriors coming at them, they were starting to run desperately low on ammo. They were managing somehow though, either by taking advantage of what little cover or height advantage the confined space had offered them and making sure their shots counted.

Unfortunately, the most the human forces could really manage at this point was putting on enough suppressing fire to halt the enemies advance before they had to dunk back into cover and out of their line of fire. They all knew that they wouldn't be able to hold this position forever, but they had no where else to go. And even though the Covenant was known to become reckless whenever forerunner artifacts were involved, they weren't stupid enough to screw up an advantage like this.

Even though the Covenant was generally considered a religious sect, the fact was that at its core, it was really a military power. Their warrior's were well trained, and many of them were quite experienced in warfare. This fact was made ever more apparent to the defenders as the Covenant's siege pressed on, and the Covenant's formations began to change. No longer were the eager glory seekers charging in blindly to be ripped apart. Rather for once the prideful Elite's were taking a back seat and allowing the shield wielding Jackals and Hunters to lead the formation.

With the Covenant shields creating a wall between themselves and the human/faunus forces, they steadily began to gain more and more ground. Of course for the defenders positioned closest to the front of their blockade, this was quite disheartening. "Well crud, that's not good! What do we do now!?" Yang shouted.

"Explosives are our best option. We could blow a hole in their formation and pick off the softer targets in the back." Chief responded as he finally dunked back into cover and began reloading. Then he glanced up to the corner of his heads up display to check his grenade count. He was down to his last fragmentation grenade. Realizing this wouldn't be nearly enough for the job he had in mind, he turned towards Yang to address her directly. "Do you have any grenades left? We will need more." He inquired.

Yang promptly glanced up to the corner of her own visor and cursed under her breath when she remembered that her heads up display was still very much broken. "Hold up." She said as she began patting her self down for explosives. Sure enough, she had two of her own fragmentation grenades left as well as a pair of plasma grenades that she had swiped off of a dead Grunt some time ago. Without being able to see them on her display, she must have forgotten about them. Then she promptly set the explosives down in between her and the Chief for him to inspect. "You think these will do the trick?"

The Chief glanced down at the grenades and gave Yang a curt nod of approval. "This should be enough." He told her before reaching over and grasping both of the plasma grenades. Then he stole a quick glance over their blockade at the approaching enemies and set his sights on a pair of Hunters in the middle of the formation. They were tanking the brunt of their ally's attacks, soaking up bullets and plasma blasts like giant worm filled sponges. The Hunters were also dishing out their fair share of punishment, each taking pot shots with their fuel rod cannons every chance they got, so it was clear that they the biggest threat. "I will get those Hunters out of the way. Then when I give the signal, I want you to put those frags into the center of their formation. Think you can handle that?" He asked Yang.

Though Chief couldn't see it, Yang was now wearing a large snarky grin. "Come on, I got this!" She declared as she snatched up the frags.

With that the Spartan quickly activated both the plasma grenades causing them to pulsate with energy and release an electronic hiss. Then he bolted up out of cover and with a pitchers grace, he threw each of the grenades at the Hunters. One plasma grenade stuck itself to the left most Hunter's fuel rod cannon while the other struck the right Hunter in the middle of what would be considered its face.

Stunned as they were, it took the Hunters a moment to realize what had just happened. When they did realize however, they let out a set angry and desperate roars before the right most hunter was blown off its feet and the left most Hunter felt its arm detonate rupturing the arm mounted fuel rod cannon and releasing a mix of green and blue plasma in every direction. The combined plasma explosion was so intense that it also either injured or killed many of the jackals that were unlucky enough to be close by at the time.

The display of destruction filled Yang and her team with a since of cruel joy, and when Chief dunked back into cover and told Yang that it was her turn, there was no question in her mind about how to respond. She quickly yanked the pins on her grenades and popped out of cover to chuck both of them right into the opening Chief had created in their formation.

Yang's aim was true and the grenades had landed in the middle of the Covenant formation, the Elite leading the formation, quickly noticed them, and began to panic. With control over the men lost, they all began to scatter, and that gave the defenders the chance that they had been waiting for. On that wasn't missed by the marine captain, and he quickly signaled his men. "This is our chance boys, give'em hell!" He commanded causing his men to let out a chorus of battlecries before they all popped out and open fire.

"Everyone, let's move together!" Ruby commanded as she also popped out of cover to begin taking shots at the important looking enemies towards the back of the formation. Of course this also prompted Weiss, Blake, Yang, and the Chief to return to firing along with the marines and allowing them to push the Covenant back.

After a about a minute of this storm of ammunition, clips were running low, and plasma batteries were getting hot. On top of that, the Covenant was beginning to regroup and counter attack. So many had to dunk back out of the fire fight to reload or allow their plasma weapon to cool down. And this gave Covenant forces chance to freeform their ranks and put the pressure back on. "For Monty sake these guys are stubborn! Keep fighting, we can't let them get back into formation!" Yang shouted.

"Roger that!" Chief announced as he retrieved his own lone grenade and promptly hurled it directly into the center of the enemy's ranks.

Spotting the inbound explosive, one of the Jackals holding the front line, hoisted up his energy shield in a desperate attempt to deflect the grenade. And to the Jackals credit, he did manage to block the grenade, and he even got it to bounce it back towards the Chief and his allies. However, before it could travel backward more than a foot, Master Chief had already leveled his sights on the explosive with his battle rifle. Then with a single squeeze of the trigger, a set of three .374 Caliber rounds exited the barrel of the rifle in a flash and in an instant, they had cleared the distance between them and the grenade striking the explosive in mid air.

When the grenade was struck, it did what it was designed to do, and it immediately detonated. The blast echoed through the corridor as it sent tiny bits of hot metal shrapnel in every direction. As a result, the energy shield that had deflected the grenade only a few seconds ago, was now shattered and dissolving, while its wielder, along with just about every other alien that happened to be anywhere close to the blast zone was either torn apart or blown off their feet by the shockwave.

"Yeah that's what I'm talking about!" Yang cheered victoriously. "Do that again!"

"This does seem rather effective." Blake added.

"Indeed, but do we have anymore grenades!? I know I'm all out!" Weiss inquired.

"I'm out." Blake responded before glancing back towards their leader.

"Nope, sorry I got nothing." Ruby announced while she shook her head. Then she turned back towards the marine captain to address him. "How about you guys, you got any grenades to you could spare?"

The captain shrugged in response. "Sorry little lady, but they don't give us the good stuff anymore. It's all that stupid councils fault, them and their damn budget cuts. They think that just because the wars supposedly over, that we won't need new equipment. If it weren't for you scavengers bringing us back supplies, we'd likely be running around in our underwear wielding nothing but our side arms." He explained in a clearly aggravated, yet some how thankful tone.

"Hey it's our job, but I'm glad to know that we're actually making a difference." Ruby replied gleefully. Then her tone dropped down to a far more serious level. "With that said, I don't know how we're going to deal with this situation without more explosives." She pondered as she took in the battle from her perch. "Hey Weiss you got any ideas!?" She called down to her teammate.

Hearing her leaders call, Weiss glanced back to address her. "Well we could always try praying really hard. Maybe a miracle will happen." She deadpanned.

"Wow a miracle, really Weiss?" Yang asked dryly.

"Oh hush up would you, I was being facetious! Really though, it wouldn't even be the craziest thing to happen to us lately! Or rather today even! I say we just don't rule anything out!" Weiss