Warwig the Unngoy clenched his tiny jaw and sharp teeth and squeezed shut his beady red eyes so tightly that his entire leathery head trembled. Despite this tremendous effort, when the Grunt opened his eyes again, he found himself still hiding behind the same flaming barrel surrounded by the same dead bodies and being yelled at by the same hairy, overgrown ape.

A burst of Battle Rifle fire rang out through the passageway littered with colourful bodies and aqua splatters of blood. The bullets embedded themselves barely under the Jiralhanae’s unarmoured left shoulder. The Brute roared in agony, let off half a clip of spikes and dropped into cover behind a smouldering human vehicle. The Unngoy cursed his luck at having been the last of his kind left alive to die alongside his hideous oppressor-slash-ally in this strange enemy fortress. A moment later, as Warwig savoured his final breaths of Methane, his likely death became a certainty.

‘Curse you Demon!’ roared the Brute, arming a spike grenade and lobbing it over his head. Warwig leaned tentatively out from behind his cover, if for no other reason to satisfy his curiosity. Some said one look at the fabled Demon was enough to make one’s head explode in confetti. The spike grenade landed at the monster’s feet and exploded. Slivers of burning light ricocheted in the corridor, at least one struck its target. A protective shield, not unlike what Warwig had seen on Sangheili, glimmered around the humanoid’s entire shape. Then a circle of flickering gold light orbited its armour and it juked back into cover, unharmed.

The Brute roared in frustration, turning to his last remaining lump of feet-mounted cannon-fodder, “Curse it! Throw a god-damned grenade!”

Warwig looked frantically between the snarling Brute and the mental image of the butt of the Demon’s weapon, attempting to decide which way he’d rather die. The result of comparing a material image with a mental one was furious eye-blinking which led the Brute to believe the Grunt had fallen victim to some form of shell-shock. In a last-ditch effort to fight off the Demon, the Brute leapt to his feet and charged at his enemy, disappearing out of Warwig’s sight. A moment later, a throaty scream erupted from the other side of the barrel and a large, limp body flew past the Grunt, skidded towards a wall and halted in a crumpled, bloodied heap.

Warwig barked in shock and fright, waddling at first in a circle, then towards a Needler, then back into cover, his tiny eyes wide with hopelessness. He thought back to his leader’s last, inspirational words, words of such symbolism that they would be inscribed on tombstones for generations to come and quoted beneath statues, <i>“Throw a god-damned grenade!”</i>

<i>“Well, I’ll go one better for you.”</i> Warwig though to himself, feeling a sudden, ludicrous rush of affection for his dead Jiralhanae master. That outlandish goatee and those fat, sausage sized fingers.

The Grunt waddled into the line of fire determinedly, rolling over the bloodied bodies of his dead comrades until he found two plasma grenades. His thinking was as follows: If the “Almighty” Demon could barely avoid a spike grenade from a Brute, there was no way he’d dodge a pair of plasma grenades both thrown at once by a Grunt. Warwig remembered his days playing sports on his home planet. One such sport was similar to the human’s “Baseball”, except instead of using a bat, the Unngoy would use their muscle-bound forearms.

“Suck it, Demon!” cried the Grunt in his methane-fuelled pitch, activating a grenade in each palm. He lunged forward, his right arm swinging over head, then his left. As he regained his balance, it occurred to Warwig that the two grenades were still in his grip, tightly adhered to his skin. The enraged Grunt had stuck himself. He tried with his right hand to pull the grenade off his left, but it was useless.

With a sickening realisation and more incoherent barks, the creature stumbled on his stumpy legs towards the Demon whose masked face wore a look of surprise. The Grunt charged at his foe, the twin blue lights raised above his head. With one final leap and suck of Methane, Warwig clobbered the warrior to the ground and exploded.