The Twilight Knight

I pushed off a large shelf that had fallen on me. By the grace of my shields, I was uninjured.
“Rik! Gods, are you all right?!” Trev yelled. He helped me up. His Major armor was marred with plasma burns, scratches, and dried blood that was not his, but was undoubtedly Sangheili. The blood of comrades he dragged away from firefights, only to expire in his arms. I am ashamed to say that my Sub-commander armor was relatively untarnished compared to his.
“I will live,” I answered. The two of us then started off towards the exit of the building we were within. “Status on the secondary defensive line?”
“It’s gone, just gone!”
“What do you mean?”
“The Adversaries… they just smashed through them. They’ve entered the city!”
“Damn… Where is our orbital support?”
“They never came!”
“What?! We put in a request for reinforcements for this system forty hours ago! What is going on?!”
“Apparently, from what I was told, our world was not considered high priority.”
“This planet has twenty-five million colonists on it, why is it not high priority?!”
“I don’t know, do you want me to ask them?!”
I was within my rights to admonish Trev for his tone, but I understood that the stress of the deteriorating battlefield situation was gnawing at us. I controlled myself, sighing deeply as we continued onwards.
“We need to reassess our situation,” I said.
“Yes, we just need to head to the forward operating base at the amphitheater. Come on, I know a short way.”
The two of us stepped out into the wide avenue of the great city of Zibur, on the Sangheili colony of Brakash the Greater. The city’s population took up arms in its defense, but the Adversaries were still a great foe, and many warriors had already fallen to them before they even reached the city limits. As Trev and I moved into the light of the twin suns cast onto the street, we saw lances of women armed with aging plasma weapons led to various defensive positions. Adversary artillery hammered the city, and several shells landed a few blocks to our west. A large missile also struck the urban landscape, quite close to us in fact. The building no less than a hundred paces from us, sat on the corner of an intersection, was blown to pieces by that strike, and scores of warriors, men and women, young and old, and Unggoy and Kig-Yar, were caught in the blast, Numerous others were thrown off their feet and onto their backs by the shockwave, Trev and I included.
“Gods!” exclaimed Trev. “It seems to me the Adversaries are more interested in levelling this city than taking it!”
“More motivation for us to resist! Come on, lead the way, Trev!”
As we got back on our feet, another disturbance caught our attention. To our right, there was a defensive position in another intersection closer to us than the building struck by the missile, containing a Preksheda-pattern turret. Suddenly, what seemed to be a stream of gold light fell from the heavens, onto the emplacement. The gun was destroyed in a dazzling shockwave of pure light, and the Sangheili and Unggoy manning the position were tossed aside like toys. From the dust came a large sword, its glimmer shining in the sunlight. It seemingly had a mind of its own as it sought and struck down any survivors from that position.
I saw a figure emerge from the dust. It was draped in a long-flowing black cape with gold edges, and had donned armor similar to the scales of a fish protecting its chest. Armor superficially similar to chainmail was ringed around its arms, with gray greaves on its legs, and its boots were likewise colored. Its face, the visages of what appeared to be a single-mandibled doarmir, was covered fully in a metallic helm, the eye slits covered in some sort of visor, glowing a brilliant gold. The ears moved with intent, pinpointed on the most prominent noises, but also darting here and there, unnatural and unnerving. The greatsword in its hands was double-edged, of brilliant and sharp metal. Fresh Sangheili blood dripped from the blade.
Trev stepped forward, firing with his plasma rifle at the Adversary, who blocked the plasma bolts with the stretching of his left hand, emitting a powerful shield. Trev’s rifle overheated and cracked open in his hands, with the Adversary’s shields showing no sign of breaking.
I unsheathed my energy sword and pointed the blade towards the Adversary. “Go back to the Abyss!” I shouted defiantly. “Fall into the Void that awaits you and your heathenry!”
“Do you not know divine judgement when you see it, pagan alien?” the Adversary said in High Sangheili, albeit bastardizing that glorious tongue with its hideous, barbarous accent, and its airy, almost deathly voice. How it learned our hallowed language was beyond my understanding. It raised its sword towards the heavens. “Behold, the power of Darkness and Light.” A light emitted from the sword’s hilt quickly travelled up the blade. Once it reached the tip of the blade, another light flashed at the hilt’s center. Then, suddenly, the light of the blade rushed back down to the hilt, and a powerful beam of energy was fired at me. It struck me, and then chained to all others near me. I do not know how many were affected, but all Sangheili shields were overloaded and ceased functioning. The Unggoy and Kig-Yar were killed outright, cooked to death by the intense heat. The pain was terrible, and I fell to one knee. I heard agonized screams behind me, and Trev collapsed to the ground.
The Adversary approached, its tail (even that was armored) swaying idly. The clanking of its armor was accompanied by its raspy breathing. “The time of the Covenant is over. The age of All-Erdellia has come.”
I let out shuddering breaths as I saw the alien raise his sword to stab me. In that brief moment, I quickly sliced at its legs with my energy sword. The attack broke its shields, and it backed away quickly. I swiped again in the reverse direction, but its blade parried the attack. I thought the duel with the Adversary would last longer, but as it put more distance between the two of us, it leaped into the air, then quickly flew off to the south, a brilliant light following it.
“Coward!” I shouted. Only too late did I realize, however, that its mission was not engaging in battle with us. Once said Adversary left, I noticed hostile aircraft in the sky, approaching the city. That Adversary had robbed us of our last anti-aircraft emplacement in this section of the city.
It was less than an hour before the whole district was little more than ash.
Category:The Weekly