Good morning, Good day, salutations and such to any who read this. I've been super curious to try a Halo Fanfic for a long time now, but generally I am so satisfied with the way the story within the books, games, comics and other adaptations progresses that I feel zero need to flesh out ideas to enjoy them.

So I came up with an almost totally different idea and a new manner to flesh it out. Kind of a like an alternative history version of it.

I have to add –in the event of any readers really liking this story and wanting more- that there is a chance that I won't feel amazingly motivated to put much time to further chapters between the unending operating hours of owning my own business.

But that is not saying that I will not try.

If you read this story, I humbly ask that you please review in the most constructive manner possible? It is a huge motivation to me as a writer, and some readers check reviews before actually reading a story to see if it would suit them.

Onto a grammatical note; I only gave this a quick once over, so there will likely be some errors here and there. Also, if you do enjoy, in a review tell me which characters you would like to see given some spotlight?

Who else is pumped for Halo 5!?

Anyway! I sincerely hope that you enjoy reading ^_^

UNSC Calendar July 24 2557

The time was upon him.

To awaken.

To reveal to the galaxy what was Humanities intended place.

The millennia-old Spartan sighed as a wave of warmth spread through him as machines he'd always had trouble trusting did their tasks perfectly in restoring him back to full health. For a moment, he caught a glimpse of his reflection of a metallic surface that whizzed by him to retrieve his armour. There had once been wrinkles in his pale skin, but now it was smooth, and age was not a concern. His eyes still blazed as bright as ever, and he looked at the machines that were reseeding from his body.

He now imagined that this was the very same process that the Ur-Didact had gone through when he had accidentally awakened him all of those thousands of years in his past ago. And now, in a straight line through time, he was going through the very same process only days after the Didact had.

A booming voice berated his ears for a moment before his auditory senses adjusted to once more being active and the sound seemed to smooth out to a normal level. "Commander, I have initialized slip-space sequences. I am ready to move us to Earth." The level voice immediately brought a chilly gust of memories to the forefront of Johns mind.

It was the voice belonging to a now long dead Forerunner formerly named His Greatest Efforts To Protect. He had stood firmly by Johns side for years as they struggled to prepare for the time in the distant future. John would eternally be grateful to the Librarian for supplying the Forerunner warrior to his cause.

"Take us to Earth."

XX

"Chief! Chief wake up! John!"

There was that voice, her voice, echoing through his helmet once again. It was telling him that he was alive, Cortana was telling him to get up and survive, to fight.

Fight? Fight who? Or what?

His eyes remained closed inside his battered helmet, and with an unfortunate sense of understanding and peace John identified that Cortana's voice wasn't echoing inside his helmet, but inside his head. She was gone, dead, or the equivalent of dead for an AI.

She was dead because of him, or for him. But she had proved her point in her death. She had asked him to work out which one of them was the machine, and that hadn't been a question of logic. She was, in fact, the more mechanical of the two, but her spirit was the less mechanical, she had wanted to remind him that he was alive, that he could feel.

And she had done that. Though he very much doubted that had been her overall intention with her last actions aboard Ur-Didacts vessel during its composer harvest. In a manner, she had proved herself both right and wrong. She had given her life, out of care, affection, perhaps even love, if her pain toward Johns anguishing life was anything to go by, in order to save his own life.

A true machine would end its existence in a moment to save its creator or master without any expression of emotion or pain, whether it was a complex AI or something more simplistic. She had in the end proven that she was in many ways, just as alive as John was.

'What happened for me to be here? Where is here?

Johns saddened mental monologue asked, and he knew that he should open his eyes, look around, determine how to live and fight another day. The irony of the thought made him suppress a cough of laughter. The last time he'd heard that line had been when the former Captain of the UNSC Infinity had said them to him so condescendingly.

'Who was he to question me and my words?' John asked himself mentally again as an unhappy smirk crossed his lips. The thought lit a becoming reoccurring thought into Johns mind again. He had been changing since arriving on Requiem. Of course, the immediate ending of the Human-Covenant war had lifted an incredible burden off his shoulders. He was questioning the world from that, but then the instant recognition upon waking that Cortana was fighting off rampancy.

He always knew that he had become dependent on the Human-like AI, but it was her looming demise that made him realise the true depth of that dependency. Events had quickly escalated, and it was the revelation of many truths that impacted him leading up to his encounter with the Librarian.

She had said that she was accelerating his evolution, and unlocking a gene song in him. The message was clear enough; he was being evolved beyond the other members of his species. His thoughts on how he came to be in his current situation shifted focus for a moment as his comm. Fizzed as it attempted to rely some kind of communications.

Yet still the Spartans eyes remained closed. Whoever found him would find him whether his eyes were open or not, his awareness was not necessary for him to understand his current predicament; or so he was assuming. The most recent events that had led John to be floating aimlessly in debris-strewn space were what had shaken him the most since all of the changes had begun.

The Didact, or the Ur-Didact, more specifically according to Cortana, had been the single greatest presence he had ever faced. No. John corrected himself after a moment, the Gravemind had been, but the Ur-Didact was still an incredibly imposing figure. Cortana hadn't explained much of the information she'd absorbed from the various Forerunner terminals that she had interfaced with, but John wasn't stupid. He put the basic details together and filled in the gaps with the mysteriously powerful technology of the Forerunners.

There had once been two Didacts; the same yet different. The one whom he had faced was the original, and the second had once been a copy of some sort to assist in the war against the Flood. The details didn't matter to him, at least not at this point. What had mattered had been the Ur-Didacts disdain towards Humanity, and his goal to eradicate Johns own kind.

The final confrontation hadn't gone how either John or Cortana had hoped, but it never did. John didn't have a clear recollection of the events that lead to him floating in space, just flickers of light as though from some quickly taken photos.

His hand had descended onto the armed warhead right after he had managed to knock the Ur-Didact off the hard-light bridge and into the swirling red vortex below, and then he had fallen through the hard-light right after his hand had touched the device.

The image of a hard light Cortana standing above him over the warhead and smiling down at him spelled what had happened. She had saved him, changed the density of the hard-light bridge so that he'd slip through it in the millisecond between him keying it and it exploding.

In that millisecond, he had seen her smile at him, and mouth "welcome home," and then the greatest blast he'd ever been exposed to. Of course, he wasn't entirely exposed. Cortana had obviously taken his organic, if hardy, form into account, and had figured that A: the hard light bridge would hold out just long enough to shield him from the worst of the blast, and B: the red vortex below was likely a form of slip-space portal, and could lead him to safety.

At that thought, Johns' eyes did fly open with a spark of concern. The moment that he'd seen the red vortex beneath the composer he had suspected that it may be a stabilised slip-space portal, and then when the composer had activated he had become sure that it must be; which meant that there was a very likely chance that the Didact was still alive somewhere.

Then his memory caught up with him; he had fallen into the vortex mere moments before the ship had disintegrated. Carefully, as to not disorientate himself, he turned his head around to take in his surroundings.

True to his first guess, he was floating in space amongst a lot of debris from the Ur-Didacts ship, which must have fallen through the portal with him just before it collapsed. But then his vision reached beyond the debris field around him, to a planet that looked familiar and yet very different.

Earth, but not his Earth. A part of Johns' minds instantly reached a conclusion of having travelled in time somehow, but the most disciplined part remained calm to gather more information before drawing any conclusion. Whilst the planet below him did look in many ways just like the Earth he had seen merely an hour earlier, this one had odd grids of infrastructure visible from orbit, and in orbit were hundreds of platforms, stations, and what looked to be massive ships that would put the Infinity to shame.

Several ships, John noted, were moving in his direction. Again, he remained calm, and again his comm. Buzzed to pick up communications, presumably from the approaching ships. Once again he drew a conclusion that it was not Earth from the time he knew since despite his absence he could not possibly imagine the Human design and orbital infrastructure advancing so much in his time.

Again his comm. Buzzed; Cortana would have normally been the one to un-jumble any signals that weren't on standard UNSC channels, so this attempt at communications was going to be entirely up to the ships approaching him. That matter in itself was a bold hint that this truly was not his time.

"Identify yourself!"

John jolted slightly in the zero gravity at the sudden command. A part of him recognized that this wasn't English, nor any language that he was familiar with, and yet he was, as though it had been knowledge sleeping in his DNA.

"UNSC Master Chief petty officer, Spartan 117." He replied back into his comm. Out of military habit. A moment later realizing, that he too had replied in the same new but familiar feeling language.

"Prepare to be seized for invading our space." The terse-sounding voice dictated to John.

John didn't reply, nor did he move. He was confused and lost. A genetic memory seemed to be slowly awakening in him, the language he was speaking and hearing was the language that had once been shared by all Humans in the time before their defeat by the Forerunners.

He had always had a mind for new knowledge, and every terminal he'd come across within Requiems expanse he'd committed to memory. Humanity had once been a great power, a power that put the UNSC he knew to shame.

As such, he was trying to view his situation from the person behind the voice's perspective. Someone, or something new, had arrived in their system. Obviously wearing armour that they were not familiar with, within a debris field of what they would likely be able to identify as Forerunner.

Would that mean that in this time frame Humanity was already at war with the Forerunners? Or were they simply being wary of something new? Whatever the case, John knew that he was high and dry in wherever or whenever he was, so he resigned himself to whatever was going to happen.

Though his eyes did remain keen to the approaching ships and marvelled out the unique curved designs, and obvious armaments covering them. They were not quite the same but carried major similarities to some of the recorded images that he'd seen in Requiems terminals.

Soon enough a soft blue light surrounded him, and he was pulled smoothly and rapidly from amongst the debris toward the underside of the largest ship amidst the small battle group that had come to investigate. At closer inspection, John noted that it was a similar mass to that of the Infinity.

But with a sharpness of his military discipline he zoned out all of the unimportant details and kept his eyes focused on the port that had twisted open ahead of him. In mere moments he was kneeling on a flooring with a dark silver sheen, with a familiar sense of artificial gravity pushing him down.

John tilted his helmeted head upward, and noted, as he had expected, that he was surrounded by at least twenty fully armoured soldiers. His immediate attempt to gauge their species was thwarted by their armour and helmets, despite them all being a distinctly human shape and build; but so were the Forerunners.

They were in a semi-circle around him, positioned at a distance that would allow for them to fire their stocky and orange glowing weapons before John would be able to move more than a meter. There was total silence and stillness in the docking bay, and John barely put enough attention on anything besides the soldiers to note that there was a myriad of pelican-sized craft lined up facing closed metallic portals, similar to the small one that he was kneeling on. Clearly it was some form of maintenance access portal.

A door not far from where the group was densely arranged slid open noiselessly, and silhouetted a new figured against a white background for a moment before the figure stepped forward and the door closed. The group of soldiers immediately tensed up and edged their ranks just a little bit closer to John and made room for the new figure to step ahead of them.

This one, John noted, was not entirely adorned in armour, and his head was uncovered. His armour itself was likewise different. Not as heavy, thick, or generally dangerous looking. More akin to a powered life-support suit than anything. It added credence to the thought that he was likely a commander of some kind who had descended from the bridge to address this matter directly.

But what was most attention-grabbing –and speculatively confirming- about the man, was the clearly revealed face to show that he was a Human man. His skin was a warm brown, a softer tone than people of African descent, but his facial features looked more European in shape and proportion. He had thick looking almost black-brown hair that was tied behind his head and hung neatly down his back.

Next John immediately noted that this man, like himself, was studying the new arrival with interest. There was something about this person that nagged at the Spartans memory, and he felt like he could place his face from somewhere.

"Do you understand me?" Came the question in a slow and authority-laden tone.

Yes. John thought but wasn't one hundred percent on how to proceed. But a lifetime of military habit dictated his resolution of the issue, and he straightened his posture and fixed his entire physical attention onto the speaker.

"I understand you." The alien –yet natural- words came to John's tongue easily, and like he had for his entire life, he trusted his instincts to bring him through.

The man nodded in satisfaction. "Are you Human-" he paused and scanned up Johns armour and uncertainly added, "-or Forerunner?"

"Human," John replied instantly. But a moment later added on, "But different from you."

That much was visually evident from the most basic of inspections. While all of the armoured soldiers, and the commander himself were all seemingly on average taller than most of the Humans whom John was familiar with, they were still far below his own height and mass.

Amongst his own native branch of Humanity, John had stood head and shoulders over everyone besides his Spartans, but amongst these new forms of Human he was only a head above.

The commanding figure nodded his head and did another once over, albeit a much slower and more analytical one. "I can see that… Where do you come from and how did you get here?"

How did I get here? John thought inwardly to the part of his brain that had studied for many hours on the ins and outs of applied physics with Deja all those years ago on Reach. He was an excellently smart man, but not so learned to be able to remotely answer the question in any kind of conclusive detail.

"I come from the planet Reach, serving the UNSC. I arrived here after battling the Ur-Didact."

It wasn't a detailed or entirely helpful answer as far as John could tell within the objective confines of his thoughts, but there was an instant shuffle amongst these new humans.

"The Ur-Didact?" The commander queried. His face a mixture of wondering, doubtful, and worried.

John didn't hesitate. He answered the question as he would any clarity seeking question from a superior. "The Ur-Didact was a Promethean warrior, commander. I am lead to believe there are two versions of him, the original being Ur, and the newer being Iso."

"WHERE," the commander said much more loudly than before, "do you come from!"

The answer was obvious to John, and yet he imagined it being unbelievable to any who were not experiencing it. He steeled himself to give yet another in a long list of hard to believe reports. "I come from a time in the distant future of the galaxy."

It felt as though even the walls reacted to his words, and absolute silence reigned. Then, against any reaction that John would have expected, a throaty chuckle rolled from the commanding officer. "There are a great many ways to easily explain something to make it more believable, and yet you chose the hardest. Does that make you a genius liar or someone supremely honest?"

It took John a moment to connect what the man was implying. He could have made up a lie of some kind that was much more simple and believable, but opted for the absolute truth that was nearly impossible to believe. John, however, did consider himself an honest man, and he never lied, but that never meant he always told the truth. Were they traits that claimed him as a good and measured man?

"I'm just Human."

"So you are, warrior."

Warrior? John questioned the title he'd just been bestowed. It seemed that concepts of honour surpassed many aspects of evolution, and the title of the warrior was akin to saying champion. Even the Ur-Didact had granted him the respect of the title.

"The Didact is a current adversary, but not my greatest foe."

"The Flood!" John hissed in disgust.

"Soldiers, lower your weapons, this man can offer us insight," The Commander ordered his troops. And with an efficiency that would have even pleased a Spartan the troops did as told and re-ordered their ranks to be around the seemingly now accepted arrival.

"My name is Forthencho, I am the Lord of Admirals, will you fight with us to defeat the parasite?"

The title suddenly struck John, and he immediately linked the face of Forthencho to some of the few times he'd been depicted in tellings of the past in Requiems terminals. But other issues and thoughts immediately came to the fore of his mind, primarily the paradox of time travel.

John was no scientist. He did not understand the workings of time. If he changed things in this time would he ever be born to come back here? Then another thought swam to his mind. He loved Humanity. He had a deep and lasting love for his kind, and on a level this version of Humanity was not his kind.

They were human but very different from what they would become. Was he in service to any Human cause? To the UNSC? To Ancient Humanity? I am in service to the Humanity I want to see, the future of my Spartans.

The sudden thought made him question his former rank and his general lack of questions toward the admiralty. No more would he take a back seat, he would carve out the future he saw fit.

"I have a more complicated answer to your question than can be explained simply." He answered with steel to his voice, and to show his taking the Lord of Admirals as an equal, he raised his arms and pulled his helmet off his head.

Forthencho's eyes widened for a moment, and a small smile took to his lips as he nodded. "I see." He muttered as his own dark eyes set in his subtle brown skin tones met John's blazingly bright blue ones within his ghostly white skin.