Spartans Never Die

Speed Limit Enforced by Aircraft

Stark Tower

Vorn, snarling, ordered the Covenant strike team, "KILL THIS BLASPHEMER!"

Loki, unwilling to concede defeat to the technologically superior Covenant, accelerated his Chariot and rammed into their line, breaking a Zealot's shields and pushing him all the way to the back wall of Tony Stark's penthouse suite. The other five Chariots followed his lead, with one unsuccessfully trying to splatter the Hunter pair. Instead, it was split down the middle by the mighty Mgalekgolo's shield-arm. Another of the Chariots rammed into two Elite Rangers, splattering them against the bar. A third had its driver sniped by the Kig-Yar and plummeted to the ground below, the fourth aimed to ram the marksmen but was evaded as they dodged it with startling agility, and the fifth was blasted back by a Sangheili Ranger's concussion rifle volley.

As the fight moved into Stark's penthouse, Erik Selvig crawled behind the Tesseract's former prison, hoping to avoid stray plasma shots.

Vorn shouted into his communicator, "We have the relics but need extraction NOW!" The Phantom's pilot gave no response, however, and Vorn, dragging Targ, took cover behind the Hunter pair after killing the passengers of the broken Chariot with his plasma rifle.

Loki had leapt out of his Chariot and, upon noticing the Zealot he slammed was barely alive and had drawn its sword, quickly snapped its neck and picked up the shining blade. With this new weapon in hand, the scheming Asgardian faced three enraged Zealots with their blades drawn. Desan, angered at the death of his comrade, roared, "A WARRIOR AT BIRTH!" before leaping forward and assailing Loki. "A WARRIOR IN DEATH!" the other two roared as they joined the melee.

Loki, although agile and a skilled fighter, was unable to make much headway against the coordinated attacks of the three crimson-armored Zealots. Their numerical advantage and swordsman training allowed them to dodge, deflect, or parry any blows that their overshields could not safely absorb. Another disadvantage the already-dethroned tyrant had was the disparity of weapon proficiency: This was the first time he had held an energy sword, while the Zealots had trained with such blades for many years.

However, the Asgardian did still have a few tricks up his sleeve. Each time he moved to dodge an attack, he conjured several image-clones to dive away in separate directions. The Zealots, while not entirely untrained against fighting hologram-wielding opponents, still lost their much of their tactical advantage; they made far fewer coordinated attacks as they were often distracted by the harmless after-images.

The Chitauri that flew in with Loki were quickly dispatched without further Covenant casualties, however, as even the Skirmishers had been granted overshields thanks to the Huragok's presence. Loki was holding his own in the melee, but was still unable to make much progress while fighting the Zealots; even in a one-on-one fight, the Zealots weren't slouches compared to the Asgardian prince. Loki leapt away to get some distance between himself and the Zealots, but glanced to his right just in time to see one of the Rangers taking aim with his concussion rifle.

He only had time to mutter "Ah, Hel" before he was blasted behind the bar by several concussive plasma shots.

Long Night of Solace - Bridge

The Fleetmaster, beginning to worry that the barbarian and human resistance was getting dangerously close to overwhelming the Zealots' escort, ordered, "Send every squadron from hangar 31 and Banshee squadrons 71 and 72 to reinforce the Zealots immediately! The Holy Relics must be recovered! Have the rest form a perimeter about the Solace."

The starfighter group commander affirmed, "It will be done Fleetmaster. Battlegroup, on me! Fear not pain or death, we carry out the work of the gods! We shall cut down all who seek to hinder us, barbarian and human alike!"