The Worst of the Worst
Chapter 7: The Comeback
Samus arrived in the year 2309. Her intentions were simple; she wanted to find one of the old members of Team Omega. She wanted to find Captain Jim Raynor. Samus used her old Team Omega radar chip to locate Raynor. Now a civilian, it appeared that he was at his home. Samus stepped out of the Time Machine. A few seconds later, however, she felt a hard smack on the back of her head. Samus tumbled to the green grass onto her stomach. She had no idea what had hit her. She could not get up off the ground. She felt everything slowly fade into the darkness.
-----
The Gravemind bellowed before its army of Flood Combat Forms, as well as Human Marines and Covenenat Soldiers whose minds he was controlling.
"The time has come." It grumbled. "Board the ships. Make way for your destination. I will be watching every move you all make from here. You know what your objective is. Now go."
Gravemind's army piled into the numerous Covenant and UNSC ships that he has commandeered. The Gravemind was heading them towards Earth. The one thing that it wanted to accomplish was to make the Flood the domiating race in the galaxy, above the humans and the covenant.
"Are you sure you want to send out the troops now, master?" Cortana asked. "Our numbers are not great. Roughly 100,000 Flood Combat forms with only a few thousand Covenant and UNSC soldiers."
"Do not doubt the arrogance and the ignorance of the human race, Cortana." Gravemind said. "Once they realize that I am a threat, they will come hunt me down. And when they do, they will meet their untimely death. The entire defences of Earth will be destroyed, leaving their planet open for colonization."
The Covenant ship that Gravemind had taken control of was still landed closely to Installation 05. Gravemind lead Cortana to one of the ledges that overlooked the ring. She was in shock of what she saw.
Millions and millions of Flood. If not millions, then billions. Spores, Carriers, Combat Forms. Brain Forms. Even Juggernauts. Enough to populize the entire planet of earth. Flood spead from edge to edge on the great ring. They had all surrounded Gravemind's location. Cortana was frightened. Even under the control of Gravemind, she feared the future of the human race. The Flood turned out to be much more of a threat that they thought they would be.
Gravemind looked at his army. "The Galaxy will be mine."
-----
Samus woke up, in the same place where she had fallen. She stood up, shook it off and continued her search. Eventually, she cam to Captain Raynor's house. Before she could enter, however, Captain Raynor came to the door, all suited up and prepared for battle.
"Samus, it's good to see you." he said.
She looked surprised. "Did you know I was coming?"
"My Team Omega radar thingy wouldn't stop beeping so I figured something was up. Back to the future?" He asked with a smile.
"Funny." She replied. "Actually, what's not funny is when I arrived here, something hit me in the back of the head, really hard. I don't know what the hell it was."
"Sure it wasn't shellshock from the time travel?"
"No, I'm sure. Something physically hit me."
"I wouldn't worry too much about it."
"Yeah...we should get going anyway. The Chief is going to be pissed that I used the machine without his permission."
Muka 'Mamamee watched the two talking from a distance. He had used his time machine to follow Samus from Planet Zebes to where she is now. He watched Samus and Raynor get closer to the Time Machine, so he quickly activated his active camouflage and hopped aboard with them, unnoticeably.
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"Commander Muka..." Gunther quietly whispered in his sleep. It looked as if he was having a nightmare.
The rest of the team waited patiently for Samus to show up again. The Master Chief was more worried then furious, but he was still both. He noticed Gunther stuggling in his sleep. He went over and woke up the little Grunt.
"What is it?" The Master Chief asked.
"Ohh..." Gunther rumbled, "Me have bad dream."
"Who is Commander Muka?"
"Muka 'Mamamee, Gunther's old Commander. He very mean. He wanted to kill the other Demon. The girl Demon. He ran away though, when the girl Demon started killing everybody. I didn't see him after that."
Gunther was interrupted by the sound of the time machine arriving back at Sector M-9. The Master Chief saw Samus walk out.
"Samus, what were you thinking? Where did you go?"
"I thought we might need some help, so I picked up an old friend." She said, as Captain Raynor stepped out of the smoke.
Muka quickly escaped the pod and hid in the shadows of Sector M-9. He remained in camouflage.
"You could have asked first." The chief said. He looked at Raynor. "Captain Raynor, it's good to have you back."
"It's good to be back." He said.
Muka quietly hid in the shadows listening to Team Omega's plan. The chief knew that something wasn't quite right when Samus arrived back with Captain Raynor, but he couldn't put his finger on it. He chose to ignore this.
"Well, there's only one more member to get before we're ready to take on the new threat. Samus, you're going to have some competition in the female department."
"Another woman?" Samus asked. "Waht other woman besides me could possibly have the abilities to be a member of Team Omega?"
The Master Chief took another look at the woman's file. He tossed the file at Samus. She looked at the year, it read 2023.
Under name, it read: Dark, Joanna.