A Game of Gods: A Multiversal Challenge

Ravage tinkered with his vehicle's controls, making certain that he understood how they worked. A second explosion rocked the entire ship as another plasma conduit ruptured violently, and part of the roof caved in behind the gravity lift.

"We can't afford to wait any longer; this place is coming apart! Move, move, move!!!"

With these words, Ravage leaned forward and put the throttle to maximum. A cushion of blue light formed beneath the Ghost as it shot forward, howling down the corridor like the damned escaping from the Pit. Secondary explosions continued to rock the corridor, tearing loose large sections of scaffolding and pieces of the ceiling which fell to the floor in deadly hails with deafening clangs; one piece of the superstructure slammed to the deck less than ten metres in front of Ravage, and it was all the startled Predacon could do to throw his weight to one side and steer his stolen hovercraft into a swerve that barely managed to avoid slamming into the debris.

"Hang on tight!"

Craft's Revenant followed close behind as the Reploid floored whatever passed for an accelerator, blasting away any debris that the machine was unlikely to scale easily. Surprisingly for such a comparatively large machine, the Revenant easily caught up with the Ghost.

Time was certainly running out...Yuuka sighed.

-BLA-VROOOOOOOOOOM-

A searing laser came tearing out from the wreckage of the grav-lift, Yuuka floating rather casually out of it.

She sat herself surprisingly well- on the left wing of Saren's Ghost. She gave a nod to the Spectre. No way in hell can she fly one of these things things herself; there was no one else going to drive a Revenant..." I'll take to the air as soon as we're out.." She just didn't want to admit she couldn't fly fast enough.

edited 27th Dec '10 2:49:43 PM by DaveScooter

From engine matinence, there was a defeaning purple-blue explosion that tore up through the hull.

Raz fiddled with the controls of the Ghost. He had absolutely no idea how to work this thing. He finally got it to start up, then rammed it into a wall. And another wall. And another. And another, before following Ravage and Craft out the door.

Mal-Keshar slithered after Rey, apparently deep in thought.

The entire corridor was wrapped in maddening pandemonium. Grunts, Jackals, Elites and other aliens ran about in a panic as they attempted to reach the hangar or the life pods; some of them had the good sense to leap out of Ravage's way as the Predacon came barreling down the hallway in his stolen Ghost, and those that didn't were quickly cut down by its repeating plasma cannons or splattered across the hovercraft's smooth bow as he ran them down.

Ravage glanced at the video display on the Ghost's cockpit and grimaced. Thus far, they'd managed to cover maybe a quarter of the distance to the hangar, but there was still plenty more to traverse...and they were running out of time.

The jaguar was half-tempted to simply kick in the purloined hovercraft's afterburners and rocket to the hangar in the blink of an eye, but what happened next put paid to that plan. Yet another explosion rocked the cruiser, and before the Predacon's startled optics the floor began to warp and tear like wet tissue paper.

The ship wasn't just about to crash; whatever had just happened in engineering was tearing it apart!

Ravage leaned back and hit the accelerator, streaking forwards and up as the floor suddenly heaved upwards before him with a deafening shriek of tortured metal. His Ghost barely made the jump, clipping its right stabilizer on the jagged edge of the torn deck, and he fought wildly to control his craft as it nearly flipped end over end. Behind him, the deck was dropping away at a very sharp angle, and startled Grunts squealed in dismay, infuriated Elites howled in defiance, as they slid inexorably to their doom in the streets of New Alexandria dozens of metres below.

The Predacon regained control of his vehicle and pressed on, not stopping to see if the others had made the jump. He couldn't afford to waste any time in saving them; if his calculations were correct, they had at most a minute and thirty seconds before the Light of Absolution would impact the city and crash into the bay.

Craft noted what was happening, and with his usual calm demeanour he pressed on ahead, boosting at the last second. For a few seconds the Revenant hung in uncomfortable freefall before slamming hard into the deck, seemingly scrabbling for purchase as it swooped after Ravage's Ghost.

"Are you alright, Naoto?" he yelled to be heard over the engine noise and general chaos, swerving past a severely deformed beam that had collapsed in the most recent explosion.

Naoto wasn't exactly sure how she was supposed to sit inside the ship and suffered for that as their rough landing bounced her about. She groaned as she sat up and put her hat on her head. "I've been better." She said.

Whatever Blink was working on, along with Blink herself, was gone. Without it, the engines were rapidly destabilizing, the speed and power of the explosions increasing.

Raz shut his eyes and drove recklessly down the hall, afterburners flaring.

As the group rushed back into the main chamber, they saw that just about every soldier and civilian had switched their attention to Noble Team. They clearly wanted to know what was going on. Jun, Kat and Carter were gathered near the entrance.

"Commander, what's going on?" Jorge asked as he reached his team leader.

"You're not gonna believe this," Carter said. He turned to his second-in-command. "Kat?"

The female Spartan nodded once before proceeding to explain the situation. "We've received word from Colonel Holland that one of the Covenant Battlecruisers had stopped glassing the city...and attacked the other."

There was a moment of shocked silence.

"...What the hell?" Emile breathed.

"What could've caused this?" Six asked, sounding unusually composed, considering the circumstances.

"We don't know," Jun answered, "It makes no sense. Why would a cruiser suddenly betray the fleet? Just like that?"

Jorge's mouth stretched into a wide smile. "I know why."

Everyone turned to the SPARTAN-II, confused.

"Jorge?" Carter spoke.

The massive super soldier turned back to Mal-Keshar, Rey, Harry and Isaac. "These aren't the only ones I came with."

"What? There are more?" Jun asked.

"Yes. We split up a little before I linked up with you. This group came with me, obviously. The other group left to hijack one of the cruisers."

"What?!" Jun cried out.

"You must be joking," Kat said, understandably skeptical. Jorge just smirked at her.

"Am I? How else can you justify a Battlecruiser turning traitor?"

"...Okay. Maybe you aren't joking."

"Heh heh, I need to meet these friends of yours!" Emile said cheerfully.

"You know, Jorge, right now, I don't know what to believe." Carter shook his head. "Also, that was the good news."

Jorge's smile disappeared. "Oh."

"The bad news is that both cruisers sustained critical damage during the battle...both are falling towards the city." Carter frowned. "There won't be much left of New Alexandria when they hit the ground...we need to get the hell out of here. I've already called for evac birds."

Jorge's hand curled into a fist. "Damn it..." Then it hit him. "Wait." The Spartan placed his fingers up to the side of his helmet and began transmitting. "Ravage? Ravage, this is Jorge, do you read?"

edited 28th Dec '10 1:30:19 PM by Nimitz

Rey blinked a few times at the conversation. "Coming down right on top of us right NOW? Well shit, this day just keeps getting better and better..."

He stopped, looking back towards the first corridor they'd been in before, then shook his head hard. "Fuck, all right. How are we gonna do this?"

Ravage frowned in confusion as he heard Jorge's voice, taking his optics off the road momentarily. This distraction nearly cost the Predacon dearly, and he swerved to avoid a spar which suddenly jutted up from the floor right in front of him at the last second.

"What is it, Jorge?!" the jaguar snapped as he fought to get his stolen Ghost under control. "We're trying to get off this bird!"

Raz was pretty sure he was almost out of the ship. Pretty sure in that he felt fresh air coming from somewhere nearby. He drove towards it, eyes still shut... and found himself plummeting to the ground.

He woke in the Common Room, standing ankle deep in muck. He turned to Gordon and Narumi. "Hey guys."

— Saren had silently raced after the rest of the party, his mandibles beginning to hurt too much for him to speak. —

"Hello. Who are you?" Narumi looked at Raz funny.

"Just checking if you're still alive. Contact me when you've exfiled. Jorge out."

"Ravage?" Six questioned.

"The leader of the other team. They're trying to escape."

Kat turned to Rey. "Simple. We get out of this bunker and wait for our evac."

"Right," Carter started, "Alright, everyone, listen up! We're leaving right now. We don't have time to waste, so grab whatever you need and start heading out. Single file, we can't afford to get held up. We need people to carry the wounded, as well. Soldiers, keep 'em organized. Let's move!"

The civilians began to line up and make their way out of the bunker, while the UNSC soldiers made sure they didn't cause trouble.

— The rich, deep voice of PHANTOM boomed. —

— An introduction from you would be useful, yeeess.—

Rey glanced around, then down at the sword in his hand, shrugging and taking a moment to fix a pocket, stabbing the sword through it just enough to keep the handle from going through, making it a makeshift holster for the time being, then moving to try and help carry one of the wounded, murmuring quietly to the woman as he did. "Don't worry, we're going to be okay. Those soldiers know what they're doing."

Ravage got his vehicle under control and leaned forwards, keeping a sharp optic on the fragmenting corridor and a tight grip on the controls to avoid getting into another accident like that. "That was too close," he muttered.

He made a quick check of his readout. Three hundred, thirty-three metres and closing, not much longer now...

The deep, throaty roar of a powerful engine caught the Predacon's attention, and he looked up. Bearing down on him from further ahead was a pack of ungainly vehicles, driven by a pair of close-set, spiked metal wheels and sporting a pair of low-slung autocannons. Ravage couldn't see their pilots over the vast frontal bulk, but he could hear their growls, whoops and roars coming over his channel and from straight ahead.

<It is a good day to die, infidels!> the lead Brute sneered as he revved his Chopper's motor loudly.

Ravage sighed, then brought his stolen hovercraft's targeting reticule over the bulky form of the first Chopper. Why can't things ever be simple? he pondered, opening fire with his plasma repeaters even as he swerved to evade fire from the spiky wheeler's autocannons.

Craft immediately slammed his vehicle into a skidding turn, the turret swinging to aim at the ungainly looking machines before opening fire.

"Why can't things ever be easy?!" he rumbled.

There was crackling in the air for a moment befo-

-BLA-VRROOOM-

-re a laser the diameter of Yuuka's parasol was sent in the direction of the choppers.

Subaru had stared at Ravage. He had accomplished the mission and now they had to leave…badly.

She had followed the group when it got to the vehicle hanger but she hadn’t taken one when the others had. She was faster on Mach Caliber and she could fly.

“Wing Road” she said and she was slightly behind the group but up in the air as she maneuvered around the falling debris and sparking conduits.

This is nuts!

She glanced up ahead when the pack of silver colored unicycles appeared and bore down on them. Seeing Yuuka fire at one, Subaru roared around and was near the ceiling as she shot past Ravage to take the lead and she rocketed past the lead chopper.

Swinging around, she chose the last chopper to make her move. Suddenly diving, Subaru lashed out with a cyborg enhanced kick and knocked the Brute off his bike. Dropping into the seat, Subaru gunned the engine and rammed the Chopper in front of her.

Being made of alarmingly durable material's, Ravage volley of rapid-fire plasma packets had little noticable effect on the lead Chopper. The spiky vehicle's pilot, by contrast, made an effort to lean away from the hijacked Ghost in order to protect himself from the lethal hail of searing gas and energy, causing his vehicle to swerve wildly to one side and slam into an adjacent Chopper.

The Chopper Craft had targeted was struck dead-on by the Revenant's deadly energy cannon, igniting its engine and anti-grav systems in a lethal ball of purple-tinted flames that engulfed its Brute rider and sent its wreckage flying across the corridor in all directions.

A third Chopper was severely damaged, but not destroyed outright, as Yuuka's Master Spark struck it in the bulky fore section. The spiky two-wheeler nearly pitched over from the impact, but its rider managed to right the heavy vehicle, and he opened fire on Saren's Ghost in an effort to pump the green-haired infidel full of lead.

The Brute driving the Chopper which Subaru had rammed had had no time whatsoever to react; caught between the bulky fuselage of his own vehicle and the spiky prow of the one the combat cyborg had hijacked, he was splattered quite messily across both Choppers.

Seeing that their lines were in disarray, Ravage gunned his stolen hovercraft's engines and slipped past the Brute line, continuing on towards the hangar. Almost there...