The fight had been brutal.

Bodies lay scattered across the ruined battlefield—UNSC marines, mangled and charred, mixed with the hulking corpses of fallen Covenant. Smoke drifted in ragged trails over the wreckage, curling through broken trees and collapsed structures. Master Chief stood in the center, his green Mjolnir armor caked in grime, visor cracked, shields long since gone. Blood dripped steadily from beneath his helmet—he didn’t know whose. Probably his.

He was exhausted. Every limb felt heavy. His lungs pulled in each breath like it might be his last. But he didn’t stop. He never stopped.

Then, a growl—low, guttural, animalistic.

A shadow moved behind the haze. The Brute stepped forward like it owned the world. A towering slab of muscle and bone, armored in jagged plates of scavenged metal and spiked leather. Its breath came out in steam. One eye was missing, the other locked onto Chief like a predator eyeing wounded prey.

They clashed.

Chief struck first—elbow to the jaw, boot to the knee. The Brute reeled, then roared and grabbed him, lifting him by the throat with a snarl that rattled the air.

The world narrowed.

Fingers like steel rebar squeezed around his neck, hard enough to make the armor creak. Chief grabbed at the hand, trying to break the grip, but his strength was fading fast. The Brute slammed him into a crumbling wall, cracking stone and denting the back of his helmet.

Chief tried to fight. He drove his fist into the Brute’s gut—once, twice—but the beast didn’t even flinch. Its snarl turned into a savage grin.

The pressure tightened.

His vision tunneled. Static danced across his HUD. Veins in his forehead throbbed from the lack of air. Muscles locked. His hands dropped. Limbs twitching. He wasn’t breathing.

He was dying.

Then something snapped—not in his neck, but inside him.

An instinct. A refusal. A buried, primal rage.

His arm shot up, fingers finding the Brute’s throat—and for a moment, they both just held each other there, shaking, snarling, dying.