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Heart Of Iron

Chapter 8: Confrontation

Part 2

The first thing Six felt was the concussive force of a dozen pointed metal objects impact against the center of his chestplate, causing his camo to wink out. His shield bar dropped drastically to the quarter mark, alarming the spartan. Thinking fast, he dove under the assault, took a knee, and loosed a blanket of suppressive fire, making the saurians hunker down to avoid it. But the effort was futile, these rounds were ment to shred light vehicles, so they made short work of the sandbag like barricade they had set up. Six fired three-quarters of his clip into the saurian made-construct.

The high-velocity ballistic projectiles tore through the bags with little puffs of dust and flew among the attackers. He could hear the not so pleasant roars of the wounded beasts. They clearly did not appreciate his earnest attempt to wipe them out. The lead reptile, supporting a profusely bleeding arm, (that didn't seem to slow it down in the slightest), ripped the gun from its nest, and charged the baffled spartan, firing it wantonly. His two lackeys followed after him, the remainders lay unmoving behind the barricade. The reckless rush caught the spartan by surprise. That's when the horrible truth made itself known, the saurians had more of their number then he had realized. The building right behind the position disgorged three more of the beasts with the bang of a blue door slamming open. Now reinforced, the lizard men charged with greater speed and fervour.

Six emptied the remainder of his spent clip into the closest lizard, its knees buckled and it fell to the ground, the last round blowing the left half of its face of in a greenish red haze of gore. Simultaneously, he snatched his magnum and fired the powerful rounds into the nearing horde. Two more bronze scaled beasts received a lethal dose of lead. He split the eight round clip evenly between the two, the armor-piercing high-explosive rounds sliced through the strange metallic armor of his foes. They continued to burrow into their chests, dicing up vital organs and creating fist sized craters as they exited out the back, shredding the spines of his adversaries. Now back down to the original targets, Six heard a loud groaning cough. The saurian with the HMG in his clawed fingers tried to disembowel him with an inaccurate barrage. The lizard man was going for quantity over quality.

In order to prevent his shield from collapsing, Six was forced to evade the erratic shooting coming from the big dinosaur creature. This was not without sacrifice, because of his evasion, Six was not prepared for the three lizard men, (who had survived the quick skirmish), when they closed in to attack. The spartan latched his rifle to his back, and had the shotgun halfway drawn when an eight-hundred pound slab of armored reptilian bone and flesh brought him to the ground, sending the partially gripped weapon bouncing across the floor out of reach.

As they wrestled, Six realized two things. One, he was in fact significantly stronger then a single one of these beasts. And two, he was not in fact, fighting only one of these things. While he was busy trying to dislodge the saurian on his chest, one other pinned his armored legs to the floor. Now immobile, he was forced to watch, struggling, as the leader sauntered over confidently and brought the stock of his large rifle, (that really should be a mounted weapon), crashing down on his helmet.

The spartan's vision flashed white with purplish dots, as his helmeted head was force to the concrete by the force of the blow. It was strong enough to disorientate him, his recently charged shields went down a full thirty-two percent from that solitary blow. As he thrashed, trying to escape the clutches of his three attackers, the lead one brought the stock down half-a-dozen more times. Almost unconscious and now bleeding from his brow, the spartan tried desperately to escape. Another pound to the helmet, causing an infinitesimal hairline fracture on his black helmet visor, cemented the fact he could die. Six had made a fatal mistake, he had acted as if he still had noble team with him, providing cover, covering his back. Yet in point of fact, he was alone, there was no backup this time. No Carter or Jorge to pull him out of the fire. It looked like this was the end for the noble spartan. He might have been able to fight his way out if not for the debilitating memories that resurfaced, freezing his muscles and bringing with them that feeling of helplessness and fear he experienced years ago.

---

Half an hour ago, Chance and Jake had been in the garage when the news turned in with the dreaded alert tone. The reporter, Ann Gora, had started to talk about a break in and hostage situation at the R&D facility a few kilometers outside the city.

When they heard that, they had stopped their halfway restoration of an old junker and bolted down to the hanger. After sliding down their respective ladders they suited up and headed for the Turbokat. With practiced ease, the duo equipped themselves and launched the jet in record time.

"It's gotta be Dark Kat." Razor deduced as he ran a systems check on the Turbokat, deftly tapping away on the board with rehearsed movements and experienced paws. The nefarious purple Kat was the only villain that went for technology or weapons research. He wanted it to destroy Megakat city and rebuild what he wanted out of the ashes. No doubt, no upstanding or noble Kat would want, or find a place there.

"It would have to be that sleaze-ball wouldn't it?" T-bone grunted angrily. The bulky tan tabby had a serious grudge against the large purple Kat. He was responsible for getting them both kicked out of the enforcers, and was the reason they had to slave endlessly in the workshop day in and day out. So you could say out of all the villains, T-bone hated Dark Kat the most.

"He does seem to be the culprit." Razor muttered in agreement, finishing up his fine tuning. "Well the Turbokat's ready to go, and so are we."

"Yeah." T-bone chuckled, "Dark Kat won't no what hit em." He throttled the joystick, sending the Turbokat screaming through the skies towards the lab. "Time to kick some tail!" He whooped, followed by Razor.

---

While the heroes sped to save the day, a certain villain was currently basking in triumph. Even now, his lesser minions, those pathetic creeplings, were hauling invaluable tools and technology aboard his recently refurbished Fear Ship. It had taken awhile, but now it was back and better then ever.

He stared contemptuously at the frail little winged creatures. He had to suffer the use of them for too long, but now! He had much more suitable warriors. Even as he thought that, one of the said warriors stomped over to him and barked a sentence of growls and snarls at him. "That demon, here?...interesting." He mused to himself. He would very much like to see what this demon was and how it would fair against his new ravagers. "Let us go deal with this...disruption."

With a flourish of his cape, Dark Kat stalked away from the diminutive loading crew and headed for this "demon" with his own personal handpicked ravagers. "We shall see who will win this time!" He chuckled darkly. And the Kat had a feeling he knew who would come out on top.

---

Callie, Felina, and the officers that had not elected to stay behind to tend to the wounded chased after the spartan. They were not nearly as fast, and so had to take a long time to catch up. When they rounded a corner they were met with a terrible sight.

The seemingly invincible spartan had been toppled, his arms and legs constricted by two massive reptilian beasts. A third was repeatedly bashing His helmet with the end of what looked like a HMG. Six was unable to escape, and sat there getting brutal pounded, his helmet making a crater in the floor, its size increasing with every hit. They could see that he had put up quite a fight before he succumbed to the numbers, a smattering of bodies led up to his current position and another pair of corpses were sprawled over the nest constructed by the far building.

When Callie saw her savior, she let out a faint mewl. It was beyond terrible to see him laid so low. Felina, the warrior, had a different reaction. She aimed her pistol and fired off an angry volley of 9mm rounds, shortly afterwards her fellow officers followed suit with their rifles.

The 9mm rounds did not have much affect on the armor and tough hide of the saurians, only pitting the metal and punching small holes in the scales. The rifles however had a much greater reaction. The 7.56mm FMJ bullets ripped through the arms of the lizards holding the spartan, and knocked the larger one with the heavy machine gun backwards. As soon as they loosened their grip, the furious charcoal-black MJOLNIR clad demon soared into action with feral rage.

His ebony gauntlet wrapped around the throat of the one that had his arms, and he yanked violently to the side. The beast's head twisted with a sickening wet crunch and went lifeless. He tossed the corpse to the side and snatched his knife out if its sheath, ramming it deep into the second reptile's gut, dragging the serrated blade up through the chest, sawing into soft fragile organs and straight through its chest to lodge it into the lizard's under-jaw. Six left the squealing scaled victim and tackled the leader to the ground.

With an audible roar that seemed to make the very air quake, he brought both of his gauntleted fists smashing down upon its chest, shattering its ribcage and annihilating its internal organs. With his foes thoroughly eliminated Six climbed to his feet, slowly, and ponderously walked over to the still howling creature with his knife speared in its mouth. With contemptuous spite the spartan stomped down on its head, exploding it like a overripe melon, sending grey matter and shards of cranium all over the once pristine concrete.

Six slowly retrieved his knife from the puddle of gore, (the weapon dripping scarlet and emerald colored blood), wiped it off on the flattened corpse, and collected his errant pistol and shotgun, retiring them to their individual homes and sheathing his blade. After that he seemed to stand their, unmoving. Ignoring the horrified looks from the ones who had provided the means for him to release his anger, that is until Callie sprinted over and hugged him fiercely.

---

Six needed to calm down, needed to repress those terrible memories. It had been over eleven years since that test at the camp, he was not back there, there was no scientist, no Doctor Bertrund. Easy breaths, low heart rate, back to normal. After awhile he had reached an emotional equilibrium, back to operational effectiveness. He would not allow his flashbacks to compromise his objective.

A fluffy missile slammed into his legs, almost causing the staggered spartan to loose his balance."Ohmygodareyouokayithoughtyouweregoingtodieiwassoworried!?" A breathless voice asked with way too much breath to speak a stream of words that he could barely comprehend.

He looked down to the erratic fuzzy object that had clung to his chest. "Callie?" He wondered softly, her sudden arrival bringing him out of his painful memory loop.

At the soft spoken sound of her voice her rampant train of thought came crashing to a halt. "Six, are you okay?" She asked, eyes watering as she checked him over with a determined physicians eye and inquisitive paws, feeling his armored chest and body for anything that could pass as an injury.

"I'm fine, just a bruised ego, should have remembered I didn't have my team with me." He muttered sheepishly, it was not easy for the spartan to admit a fault.

"Are you sure?" She asked again, still deeply concerned for her savior's health. The last thing in all of existence she wanted was for harm to befall him.

"I'm sure, takes more then that to kill a spartan." He chuckled lightly, simultaneously burying the memory that still lingered farther down his subconscious. "We should move, we still have an objective to accomplish."

Felina strode up to the pair, her men keeping distance from the massive killing machine that had so brutally destroyed the saurians trying to hold him down. "So soldier boy, hanging in there?" She tried to come off casual, but her posture and tone of voice displayed her worry. "Looked like you were getting your ass handed to ya back there, at least until you broke free..." She stopped and shuddered, she had never before seen such vivisective combat in all her admittedly short time in the force.

"I'm still operation effective ma'am." He replied stoically, even as their eyes were drawn to the hairline fracture crossing down the right side of his polarized visor. Even under the armor that must have left some sort of wound.

"Are you injured?" She asked, hoping that he would take off his helmet, a little bit to make sure he was, allot to see what kind of alien face hide under that unforgiving mask.

"Just a small concussion and slight skin tear, marginal bleeding." He replied efficiently, naming off all the injuries with a clinical detachment. "I'm still able to fulfill the mission parameters ma'am."

"You should take care of that." Callie prompted, once more worried about his health.

"Callie's got a point, can't be having wounded soldiers fighting." Felina backed up. Both women interested in his wellbeing and wanting to see what he looked liked.

"Standard procedure is to never take off your helmet in an active war zone, not until the fight has concluded." Six replied, reciting his remembered rules of warfare, hammered into since his first days of training. Also, he was uncomfortable with taking his helmet off around others, even fellow spartans. It was his security blanket so to speak, a means for him to act confident and strong. Without it he would feel naked, exposed.

Both felines sighed in defeat. "Fine, but first thing afterwards, we are addressing those wounds!" Felina retorted, her tone brooking no argument, even from the massive intimidating spartan.

"....I....." He began to say before she gave him the 'eye'. "....yes ma'am." Six muttered sullenly, conceding to her glare. Callie snickered quietly at this, the spartan's audio suite easily picking it up over the open air. He turned to give the tawny female Kat an unamused look, proven ultimately useless because of the one-way visor, thwarting any attempt on his part to convey his displeasure.

"Now let's get moving!" Felina barked to her men, and the turned to Six. "Your coming with us, no argument."

"Fine, but I'll take point." He growled, walking over the corpses of his foes and leading the group to the center of the facility, the only logical place for the enemy to hole up. This time he kept his eyes on his motion tracker and drew his rifle, reloading it and keeping the emptied clip, perhaps he could make more ammo later, if he managed to establish a permanent base.

Felina and her men followed after the armored giant, with Callie in tow. Her thoughts lingered on Six, she would have really liked to see his face. She looked up, trying to think about something else when she saw a very familiar sight. "Look it's the SwatKats!" She altered the group with a smile. With them and Six, this should end up being a walk in the park!

"SwatKats." Felina mumbled, she supposed they could use the help.

"SwatKats?" Six growled, were they enemies? "Enemy reinforcements?" He asked Felina

"No, just some guys who had the smarts and knowhow to make something of themselves." She replied, not making any sense to the spartan.

"So, not hostiles?"

"Yeah, not hostiles." Felina affirmed, "although sometimes I want to treat em like hostiles, cocky bastards." She muttered ruefully.

Six just shrugged his broad ebony armored shoulders and pawed the grip of his rifle. "What's the plan now?"

"I guess we should just wait for them, they have a habitat of making a grand entrance otherwise." The cinnamon colored Kat replied with a sigh, obviously she has had experienced with that in the past.

"Affirmative, holding position." Six grunted, stopping his leading pace and took position, scanning for any hostiles in front of them, while the officers gawked at the approaching aircraft.

Felina have him an appreciative look, she loved a disciplined man, and she didn't even blush at the thought this time. Then she got an idea, a trick she could play on the SwatKats. "Hey Six?"

"Ma'am?" He inquired from his position alongside her, still scanning for threats with his rifle.

"Scout ahead, a few meters around the corner." She ordered with a mischievous chuckle.

"Copy that, moving forward." He replied all business, standing up and walking out of sight to get a good read of the way up front. Unaware that he was being used in a devious plan.

Callie looked at Felina disappointedly, understating her motivation behind all this. "Do you have to play around Felina?" She reprimanded her friend, although a small smile on her muzzle gave her away.

"Yes. Yes I do." She retorted, sticking her tongue out in an unprofessional way, Callie making her a little more loose then she normally would be.

---

Razor and T-Bone finally arrived at the R&D facility after a six minute flight at normal speed. Razor used the camera built into the bottom of the Turbokat to take a detailed view on the compound as they approached. Soon he could begin to make out shapes. "It looks like the gate is broken and there is a busted squad car with three others. I can see two prone Kat's, and two others, most likely they are tending to the two who must he wounded." He reported to T-bone, who was too busy flying to check himself.

"Looks like, we're late to the party." The tabby said with a tinge of anger, he was missing out on all the action! "Let's get going, I'll land the Turbokat in an open spot inside and we'll proceed on foot. It'll be better for us on the ground, too many buildings to use the jet effectively." He concluded after a few seconds of thought.

"Hmm...I suppose you're right, alright then, you up for a little ground action?" Razor asked with a smirk, already knowing the response.

"Damn right, it's almost as fun as flying!" T'bone growled, angling the Turbokat to land just inside the facility's walls. With the help of the VTOL engines, the managed to get a snug landing zone just inside the gate and to the left a few meters. The engines whined down with a petering snarl, until all the noise that could be heard was the ticking and clicking of cooling turbines. The cockpit popped with a hiss and rolled back, allowing the two vigilantes to hop out.

"Ready to rock and roll?" Razor inquired, making sure his Glovatrix was ready for combat.

"Do you even have to ask?" T-bone fired back with a sharp grin, he relished hand to hand combat, although Razor was always his better in that field he still enjoyed it immensely.

"Nah, but I do anyways, one can never be too sure." Razor chuckled. "After you, meat slab." He gestured for the much larger Kat to go first.

"Bronze before brain huh?" T-bone remarked before walking forward, waiving gamely to the enforcers just outside the gate.

"Showoff." Razor muttered with a grin, following after his friend, heading deeper into the research base. Their jolly mood was stunted when they came across the graphic location of what must have been an intense firefight. There were eight unidentified creatures that reminded the duo of ancient dinosaurs, well if they had body armor and walked on two legs anyways.

"What in the hell are these?" T-bone muttered, nudging a flattened corpse with one of his clawed toes.

"Must be a new creation of Dark Kat's, he probably got tired of the little creeplings." Razor hypothesized, setting down one of the scaled beasts dagger clawed hands. "Clearly he wanted a much more lethal pawn."

"Whatever, these have got to be some of the ugliest critters I has ever seen." T-bone spat, he was definitely not a fan of the monsters. "We should keep moving, someone killed these things, that means some enforcers are deeper inside."

"Let's go then." Razor agreed, getting up from his assumed crouch at the side of one of these new reptilian foes. A quick jog later they arrived at a crossroads, a kind of intersection between a grouping of buildings. Inside the crossroads were a squad of enforcers, Felina (she must he leading this detachment), and....Ms. Briggs? What was she doing here?

"The cavalry has arrived!" T-bone boasted, strutting into the open. Razor followed behind more subdued, not one for grand entrances.

"I wouldn't call you the cavalry." Felina smirked. "We have our own."

"Really? Who could compare to the SwatKats?" The tabby asked in surprise. What Felina had said sparked a sense of unease in his partner, off the bat there was one thing he could thing of that fit that role, and considering that Ms. Briggs was here, he had a good idea that his hunch was correct.

With an even wider grin then before Felina called out to someone around the corner. "Six, give me a sitrep."

"Who's s..." T-bone trailed off, speechless, when a massive behemoth, a slab of armored bipedal muscle walked into sight, his boots thundering on the concrete, as he strode over to Felina, the tall female dwarfed by his incredible height.

"No targets on the approach, motion scanner indicates that the path is clear." The man growled down to her as his obsidian death-mask turned to regard the duo with...disdain? He almost unnoticeably raised his rifle, to size up the new arrivals. By this time Six had an inkling of why she had done this and decided to play along. "Are these hostiles? Should I...remove them ma'am?" His voice was as hard as steel and held a knee shaking growl.

"I don't know, what do you think Callie?" Felina turned to her friend, who was watching the two vigilantes sweat in their proverbial boots. (They didn't wear shoes when in disguise, the reasons for this are unknown).

"I think...we should let them off the hook." She answered with a snerk. Barely repressing her laughter at the situation and their expressions.

"Very well, stand down Six." Felina waived off, almost royally. As if he was some personal bodyguard at her beck and call.

"Orders received and understood, standing down." Six replied, with his usual strict military tone, moving his rifle into rest position and thudding back to his place at the front of the group.

T-bone and Razor, who had been frozen, finally melted when the giant walked away, his undetectable gaze moving in to different realms. "Who...was that." T-bone gasped, taking a breathe he had not realized he had been holding.

"That, was Six, and for any other information, you would have to ask him yourself." Felina responded with disinterest. As if the armored giant was an everyday thing. On the inside she was laughing her fuzzy ass off, it had been too good! She would have to thank Six later for his additional touch, it had just been icing on the cake!

"Six...huh...big guy." T-bone muttered, that was an understatement.

"So...what's the situation." Razor asked, still partially thinking about the giant who was at the front of the group.

It took a few minutes for Callie and Felina to explain what was going on to the duo, who were half paying attention and half glancing repeatedly at the spartan, expecting him to disappear, as if he had been some elaborate hoax.

"Definitely Dark Kat then? Huh we guessed so." Razor mused. "He must be here for something in particular."

"It doesn't matter, we need to find him and kick his tail!" T-bone muttered impatiently, he was not one for standing around. They should get moving!

"Slow your horses stripes." Felina ordered, "we need to consider this with level heads."

Callie got bored of watching the the two Kats clash and walked over to Six. She wanted to down spend more time with him. "Hey Six." She greeted, walking over to the spartan's position.

"Callie." He replied, his rifle still sweeping ponderously for threats, even as the enforcer officers started to slack off, more interested in the verbal sparring between that T-bone character and Felina, Razor was staring helplessly between the two. If Six was in charge of these men he would have punished them harshly, slacking was a criminal offense in the UNSC. Humanity could not afford to make mistakes. Vigilance was the key to survival.

"I know I keep asking this, but are you really okay?" She was perpetually worried about him, seeing him so restricted and beaten had been terrible for her. He was her protector, a job he took she reminded herself, for no compensation whatsoever.

"The bleeding has stopped and my suit reads that my concussion has faded." He replied evenly. Not realizing that his uncaring tone upset her further.

"But are you okay?" She stressed the you, clearly, she wanted to know his emotional and psychological condition.

"That was hardly my first encounter with death, and it won't be my last." He replied easily, once again aggravating her.

"How can you be so flippant with your own life?"'she demanded heatedly. His life meant more to her then it did to himself!

"The day I became a spartan I knew I was going to die in battle. It's what they raised me for." He told her, speaking with such certainty that it chilled her blood.

Her mind was swirling with questions. Raised? They had raised him to fight? Why would a society do that? Who exactly was he under that black uncaring helmeted visage? What was his life like before all of this? "Six I have to kn-"

"Get down!" He shouted suddenly, grabbing her shoulder and slamming her to his chest as quickly and gently as he could, turning from some unseen danger. Second later the sound of metal pellets impacting against a wall of lighting reverberated in her head. Her eyes beheld a beautiful and terrible sight. The spartan was wreathed in golden energy, which was the byproduct of his shield being struck by dozens of bullets. He carried her through the hail of gunfire, halfway to cover his shield shattered, allowing the rounds to plink against his armor scratching and scouring the black paint. Finally he reached cover and placed his back on the wall, gently placing Callie down to safety.

She had by this time recovered her wits and was shaking, death had been closer to her then ever before. She turned to look into the emotionless ebony helmet of her savior, once again he pulled her out of he fire, at peril to his own life. "Thank you." She said softly, trying to find her voice.

"I made a promise, and I never break them." Six replied, his tone soft and comforting. The spartan knew that the best tone to address a shellshocked civilian with, was calm and collected one. Now he had to see who had dared to try and kill his charge. He leaned out if cover and saw the biggest and purples Kat he had ever laid eyes on. The would be murderer was standing on the far side of the road with a mass of those saurian creatures, this must be that Dark Kat he heard Felina and that T-bone fellow talk about.

Speaking of them, they were hiding at the opposite side of the structure to his, along with the Razor guy and the stunned enforcers. They had almost not made it, their lack of situational awareness could've killed them.

"You would dare interfere with my plan!" The garishly purple Kat demanded haughtily from behind his dino men. His voice was laced with contempt and righteous indignation, he was not happy.

"Oh we dare!" T-bone called out mockingly, from cover.

"Fools, you think you can stop me? My new creations, my...ravagers, will make short work of you!" He shouted, signaling for his hoard to attack. "Kill them all! And bring me the corpse of this demon!"

As the tide of scales approached, Six moved to grab his rifle, but realized he left it behind in order to save Callie. It looked like he would be doing this Emile style, he grabbed his shotgun and leaped out of cover. Startling his adversaries and horrifying his allies. With a snarling roar, he reached the first victim, the shotgun barked and the cycle of death began.