A/N: As I said at the end of Drifting By and By, I was out of ideas. I might do something about Sif a little later, but until recently, I was uninspired. The xBox 1 looks kind of stupid, but that Halo 5 trailer did look really neat. Rather sad.

So I'm going to try and explain the Halo 5 story. I might be including bits of Blue Team and the Arbiter as well, but their stories might not tie into John's wanderings much. Be warned-I will be showing this in a video game format some of the time, so you can expect quite a bit of gunplay.

If you haven't seen the Halo 5 trailer or finished Halo 4 (Spartan Ops not required), spoilers may appear. Other than that, enjoy.

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Microsoft, Bungie, or 343 Industries. This is for my enjoyment and, hopefully, the enjoyment of others. I do not receive a profit.

Phoenix Soul

Day Three of Required Civilian Reintegration

John sat on the modified bed, head in his hands. He wasn't a Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy anymore. Although the new Admiral Osman had given him an honourable discharge, told him that with the new SPARTAN-IVs, he could try his hand at civilian life, John knew that the discharge was really because of Cortana. He knew that Del Rio's after action report, and probably the reports of several others, would have damned him, considering that he went AWOL for a rampant A.I.

Now that she was dead, he would certainly be marked unstable and unfit for action. So he had been forced into civilian reintegration. Maybe, if John had her, he would be okay. But she had asked which of them was the machine, and he was still mulling over it.

Besides, he had made a promise. John groaned as he stood up. Chronologically, he was in his forties. Because of cryo, his body was in its thirties. Because of the war, his psyche was in its sixties. That was the part that groaned.

John hung his head as he stared the daily routine. Brush, wash, shave. He didn't even eat. He wasn't hungry. John hadn't been hungry for three days now. He wasn't exactly tired, either. John was just empty.

John didn't have his armour. As military hardware, it had been confiscated. So had almost all of his possessions. He hadn't owned anything since he was six. In fact, all he had was Cortana's empty matrix, but that was because he'd hidden it. John refused to give that up.

John supposed that he was just lucky to have a house tailor-made to suit humanity's hero. But not for long. John put on an undershirt and shirt and dragged a pair of pants over his boxers. He'd hidden ever since he'd arrived. John assumed that the survivors from CASTLE base and the assault on the Unyielding Hierophant were still around, but he didn't know. John didn't know where to look or who to ask. He'd heard that Doctor Halsey was in prison. On a spaceship. He couldn't find her. He couldn't ask her.

This was the turning point, the point of no return. The emptiness had consumed him, and John couldn't get out. Not on his own. And the SPARTANs, his brothers and sisters, Halsey, his mother; he couldn't find them. They couldn't help him. But maybe, just maybe, he could find Cortana, and on the journey, find himself.

This, this was his penance. John had spent twenty-seven years fighting an enemy that was not evil. Just blind. He had failed to save them, had killed millions. The deaths hadn't bothered him, and they still didn't. Not really. He had killed them in the defence of Earth and all of her colonies. The problem wasn't that they were dead. It was far less tangible, far more difficult than that. But the problem had still killed out his soul, removed any shred of humanity he'd once had. Cortana had given that back. Well, sort of.

John would have to reforge his soul as a phoenix, let it rise out of ash as he burnt away his dead husk of a soul. And there was only one way to do that. Cortana had told him that once. Legend had it that this is a realm of forges of soul. A journey with a purpose, climbing the peak to salvation, that would burn away the dead and smelt a soul, a true, human soul, out of an old one. Man could not live on a journey forever, but soul thrived and came alive and in a journey that meant something, something personal, a journey to find loved ones once lost, soul could be entirely reborn. So ran legends. They spoke of heros whose souls were murdered by the violence, the needless pain, the senseless slaughter. The legends spoke of war heros whose only purpose was to begin anew, to, in the fires of a dying soul, smelt for themselves a new one, a better one. John wanted to be one of those, a legend who found his humanity.

For the first time in three days, John had purpose. He startled his neighbours as he opened the front door. They were doing normal, mundane things like watering and weeding gardens; they all stopped and crowded around to meet their new, reclusive neighbour. John figured they had no clue of his identity. He was polite, telling them he had business to attend to, but still they pressed him. At last, he had to resort to pushing through the requests to dine and offers of a casserole. It was how normal people acted when they met other normal people, John supposed. But then again, he wasn't normal.

Judging by the sun, it was about 10:30. John walked around the side of his new house and climbed into the modified Warthog. Although it masqueraded as a civilian car, civilian cars couldn't sustain his weight. If he drove quickly, John could get to the base before the night crew arrived and all access was restricted. John gunned the engine and pulled out of the driveway and onto Greenhill Street, causing his new neighbours to scatter before they were hit. John ignored them and started driving toward his MJOLNIR suit. All he had was the shirt, pants, and, of course, Cortana's empty data matrix on a chain on his neck. He wouldn't put it in his head. Not until Cortana came with the matrix. Still, what he had was not enough to set off on a trek to find Cortana and himself. He at least needed his armour, battered and worn as it was.

A/N: Short, I know, but this is a just a bit of set-up. How did it go? Should I continue to detail John's journey? Remember that reviews help me to write better.