For my rendition of the ending of Halo 3 you have to imagine that after the level entitled "The Covenant" instead of going to High Charity ("Cortana") you go to Halo to light the rings. Gravemind has devoured the already flood infested High Charity and has somehow made his way to Halo, so Chiefs mission is to fight through the flood to the control room, find Cortana, and light the ring.

I'm going to begin writing after the Chief has fought to the control room and defeated the crazy 343 guilty spark; Johnson is now left lying on the floor.

"I'm getting you out of here." Master Chief said bending over Johnson, who was just barely hanging on after being hit from Guilty Spark's attack. Chief knew Johnson wouldn't make it, but he couldn't leave him here, not after all he's done, not after all he's been through.

"No," Johnson struggled to get the word out, "No you're not."

The Chief, although he couldn't show it, was stunned. He wasn't sure if he would be able to find Cortana without Johnson yelling obscenities into his ears the entire time, but he would have to try; it's not like Master Chief to give up so easily.

"Find Cortana Chief," Johnson was now breathing heavily and his eyes were shutting slowly, "And don't ever let her go." There was a pause before Johnson turned his head to the Chief and added "Send me out with a bang."

Chief stood up with the Spartan laser he had used to defeat Guilty spark, the last thing he would ever receive from Johnson, and began to walk toward the small control panel in the center of the control room. It was finally over, whether he made it out alive or joined Johnson in the grave, it was over, and Earth was safe.

He stared at the control panel, remembering all the brave soldiers he had fought alongside with, all the ones that didn't make it to see their hard work bring him to where he was now. He remembered his first encounter with the control room that was an exact duplicate of this one, on the 'first halo', as he took out the index that he pried from the Prophets Control system after the Arbiter had slayed him.

If he used the index to start up the firing process it would bring the Gravemind out of whatever hole he was hiding in, then Chief would have a small window of time to get Cortana and still make it out alive. It was risky, but he didn't need to survive, he was almost sure he didn't want to.

"Child of my enemy, why have you come? I offer no forgiveness"

Chief paused; there was no way the Gravemind got into the control room without anyone noticing, surely the "Shipmaster" would have given him a warning unless…

"Your attempt to bring an end to my campaign is worthless, your friend, your escape, it is all a part of me now."

Chief was trapped, the only exit from the ring was now inside of Gravemind, and the only door away from the Gravemind was blocked by hundred of varying flood forms. He was not going to die by the floods hand, not like so many before him.

He turned back toward the control panel to see hundreds of the grave minds gargantuan tentacles writhing in the air, some were wrapped around the platform on which he stood, and others were slowly crawling toward him.

The platform on which he stood was beginning to crumble under the pressure of the massive tentacles, so if he was going to act he had to do it now. He began to charge up the Spartan laser.

"SUBMIT!" The Gravemind lashed out with one of its tentacles but chief rolled off to the side and fired the laser with deadly accuracy. It stuck the tentacle but did not sever it, the tentacle rose into the air with smoke and green flood goop pouring from the small crater the laser had made.

Chief didn't waste any time, he sprung forward with the index in hand. Tens of tentacles came flying towards him but he continued to jump, duck and roll to dodge them as he reached for the control panel.

"NO!" The Gravemind yell shook the control room. Chief stumbled and fell but he caught himself on the control panel, which left him open for the Gravemind to make his own move. One of the many tentacles came in for a direct attack which left chief no other option but to fall backwards to dodge it.

He collapsed with a thud ,that sounded almost too similar to a brick, onto the slowly eroding platform behind him. Before he could even think about standing back up, another tentacle wrapped around his legs and began to drag him off the ledge of the catwalk that held the activation console for the halo ring.

He had dropped the index in his attempt to dodge the tentacle, he had failed Earth, he had failed Johnson, and he had failed himself. He was dragged from the catwalk into the darkness below.

"Awaken from your slumber reclaimer."

The chief opened his eyes; his visor was covered in the flood material that lined the walls that surrounded him. He wiped it off and sprung up into a fighting position, his gun raised and his eyes sweeping the area.

It was a large space, it was designed like the insides of a covenant ship but the flood had been for what looked like a number of years, but from experience the Chief knew it was probably only a few days, maybe less.

He began to step forward but his boot was stuck to the ground for a moment, with a little more strength added to his step he was able to pry it loose and keep moving. He gave the underside of his boot a disgusted look before continuing forward.

A massive surge in his brain buckled his knees and caused him to fall while clutching at his helmet in despair. The surge felt like Cortana, but it was corrupt, damaged, and more powerful; it was the Gravemind.

"I tried to stay hidden, but there was no escape! He cornered me, wrapped me tight and brought me close."

"Cortana." Chief struggled to stand, still pushing against his helmet as if it would do anything to stop the massive migraine that was crushing his brain.

"We exist together now. Two corpses, in one grave." The Gravemind chimed in with his disgustingly grumbled voice and the surge stopped. Chief breathed a sigh of relief, if he could find Cortana maybe, just maybe he could stop the Gravemind and still fire the ring and destroy the flood.

He decided to rush it, there was no time to waste and he didn't want to get trapped by the flood, so he ran at full speed down a small corridor and began to follow it to wherever the hell it led.

He traveled down many twists and turns, every inch of every wall being covered by the flood. Eventually flood forms began to chase after him, but with a few swift kicks and punches their skulls all became dust. He saw a doorway up ahead and decided to go through it.

It lead in to a room, it was a familiar room, it was the room that he was transported to when he first met the Gravemind. He knew where he was now, High Charity, the covenants holy city, and he also knew where he could find Cortana. There was no time to waste, he had to move.

Another surge shot through his body to his brain but it didn't stop him this time, his past connection with Cortana was strong enough to allow him to merely be slowed by this surge of pain and not brought to the ground like a helpless grunt.

"I'm just my Mother's shadow... don't look at me, don't listen! I'm not who I used to be..." Cortana sounded upset, unlike the first time where she sounded scared and frightened for her artificial life, this time she seemed to be apologizing.

The Gravemind must be destroying her coding to find the secret to stopping the ring, but what he didn't know was that Cortana was strong; she doesn't give up secrets as easily as most people would want. That still only gave Chief so little time before it would be too late.

Chief continued on his sprint through waves of flood, dark corridors, and the bodies of covenant and marines fallen before him, until he reached a sign that had yet to be covered by the flood infestation. It read 'Reactor'; he followed it.

If there was one place he could still find a terminal to get Cortana away from the Gravemind it would be at the reactor station, and that would be the perfect place for him to set off a catastrophic chain of events that would hopefully get rid of the Gravemind once and for all.

"Time has taught me PATIENCE! But basking in new freedom, I will know ALL THAT I POSSESS!" The Gravemind sounded angry, maybe the chief was actually making an impact.

"I have walked the edge of the abyss. I have seen your future, and I have learned!" Cortana's voice was panicked and distorted by the damage the Gravemind has caused to her.

The chief had to hurry if he was going to make it in time, if he wanted to save the earth, save Cortana, he would need to "move his green ass" as Johnson would have so kindly put it. So he did.

Passing by flood as if they were not even there, he sprinted toward the end of an obnoxiously long hallway that looked like it would open up to the reactor core. Flood forms began bursting through the infested walls, and box the exit that was before him.

He raised Johnson's Spartan laser and charged it, flood reaching from the walls to grab him. When the charge sequence was finished he fired it down the hall, clearing his path of all flood and leaving his gateway wide open.

He leapt through the door way, and as he landed he slammed his elbow into a panel on the wall behind him closing the door forever; he hoped. He looked around; it was the core alright, three reactors were set up around a center panel, everything covered in the flood substance he had almost become accustomed to.

"There will be no more sadness, no more anger, no more envy!" Cortana's voice was going through the broadcast system of High charity, which meant there was a console somewhere near his current position. He began to look around before he was brought to his knees again by another surge, which was even more painful than the original.

"SUBMIT! END HER TORMENT AND MY OWN!!" The angry shouting from the Gravemind seemed to reverberate inside the Chiefs helmet, keeping the sound longer than it should have.

He propped himself up on the Spartan laser and began to walk toward the other side of the reactor chamber, there was a door that was yet to be touched by any sort of flood substance, which is where he would find Cortana.

"You WILL show me what she hides, or I shall feast upon your BONES!" The chief ignored his comment as the door on the far side of the Reactor chamber opened up upon his arrival.

The surging pain got worse as the door shut behind him and it caused him to fall against the wall, unable to support himself. He used the wall as a Krutch and continued on his way, he was so close there was no way anything was going to stop him.

The door at the end of the hallway before him was completely covered in the flood substance, this isn't where he'd find Cortana, this is where he would find the Gravemind. This is where he would make his last stand.

"This is UNSC AI Serial Number CTN 0452-9. I am a monument to all your sins."The monotone voice rung out as the chief tore the flood substance from the door and it slid open revealing a horrendous scene.

It was something the likes of which the Chief had never seen before. Towering tentacles erupted from the walls and the ceiling, they seemed to form the walls themselves as they squirmed and weaved between each other, making an intricate, but disgusting, barricade between the chief and the Gravemind.

The floor itself pulsated like a heartbeat, moving up and down rhythmically in small rounded waves. It would have felt like the ocean to the Chief if he had ever had the pleasure of being upon the seemingly endless water pool.

There was a low growl that sent vibration through the floor and walls, the Gravemind let out an abnormally loud laugh before taunting the chief.

"Earth is one of the four terrestrial planets in the Sol solar system and is the home planet of the Human race, as well as many other various life forms. It is the capital planet of the United Nations, the Unified Earth Government, and the United Nations Space Command. Earth was possibly the most populated planet of the Human space territories. For a significant amount of humanity's history, it was to them the only known place in the universe to support life."

It couldn't be, Cortana was broken, and the data has been given to the Gravemind. He had all the knowledge in his arsenal to go into slip space and arrive at earth, unleashing the flood upon the Millions of innocent that inhabit it.

The Chief felt a stone drop to his stomach, what was he to do now? The only way to stop the Gravemind now was to fire the ring, which he couldn't do without Cortana, and she was in the hands of the Gravemind. It was a catch 22 in its purest state.

"The Earth first formed about 4.6 billion years ago, and gave rise to the first single-celled organisms about 3.9 billion years ago. About 200,000 years ago, a certain species of exceptional speech and tool making adeptness arose: Homo sapiens, otherwise known as the Human race. Indigenous to Eastern Africa, they gradually spread across the entire planet. The enigmatic race known as the Forerunners are believed to have come to Earth 100,000 years ago, making significant contributions to the human race, and are believed to have made a "Conservation Measure"[2] to conserve the human race from the threat of the Flood, and have built a portal to the Ark in Africa, where the Forerunner intelligence of Adjutant Reflex resides[3]. The Forerunners were also seen constructing "machines" in Africa [4]."

He knew everything, he could do whatever he liked now and there was nothing the Chief could do. But he couldn't just sit here and die; he would go out like Johnson, "With a bang."

Chief charged up one of his last shots with the Spartan laser and blasted a free roaming tentacle, which then erupted into an explosion of greenish goop. The Gravemind reacted with a terrifying high pitched screech that caused part of the Chiefs visor to crack.

"Reclaimer!" He was pissed, just the way the chief liked it.

"Remember Sam?" It was Cortana, her voice sounded untouched and yet eerily possessed. "You let him die Chief, he was your friend and you let him die."

It was the Gravemind; he was going to attack the Chief emotionally instead of physically, which was a big mistake. The Chief charged up his second to last shot and destroyed another free roaming tentacle, which caused the high pitched screech to burst through the walls and into the chief's ears.

The wall directly across from him seemed to open up like a mouth, the tentacle separating like serrated teeth to reveal a small control station, that's where Cortana was, that's where the chief needed to be.

He dashed forward and tried to dive through the opening, but it immediately closed around him leaving the chief in darkness. He couldn't move, but he could hear the Gravemind's tentacles sliding and squirming around him, he had become part of the Gravemind.

With the Spartan laser still in his hand, he forced his trigger finger down which began the charging sequence for Johnson's weapon. When it fired the wall split open again and the chief fell out to the other side and onto the floodified floor.

The Gravemind let out another high pitched scream, but this time it sounded closer and enclosing. It made chief wish he could clamp his ears shut, even though they were bleeding now, he could feel the warm blood sliding down the side of his pale face.

"No human life-signs detected. The Captain! He's one of... them. We can't let the Flood get off this ring! You know what he'd expect... What he'd want us to do." It was Cortana gain, but this time she was accompanied by other voices, Captain Keyes being one of them, along with his daughter.

"Scanning... Just ... dust and echoes. We are all that's left." Her voice had seemed to mix with the Gravemind, and the others were just background chatter, but they were all clogging the chief's brain, it was almost as if they were stopping his thinking process with only their words.

"I know what you're thinking, and it's crazy."Their voices had escalated from the normal volume to beyond that of a yell. The chief felt like he was going to go insane, he could hardly see with his visor cracked and quick visions of past allies popping up and disappearing as their voice became the leader of the wild pack that the Gravemind had assembled.

"Then stay here." The chief strained through all the chaos, remembering the time on Cairo station when he had given "the covenant back their bomb."

"Unfortunately for us both ..." She paused, this time it was only Cortana speaking, and it was in her normal female voice.

"I LIKE CRAZY!" Their voices returned causing the chief to fall to the floor, dropping the empty Spartan laser and raising his hands to his helmet again hoping that the noise would go away.

"If activated, this ring will cause destruction on a galactic scale." It was only Cortana again, but it was in the monotonous, half possessed voice that she had used before. This meant that she was still there, the information the Gravemind had used before as a taunt was just a cover up. He must have gotten it from "The Dawn" after he consumed it along with High Charity.

This meant he still had a chance, it might have been a slight sliver-of-light chance, but it was a chance. He stood up with his sights on the center console; he could see Cortana's hologram standing on it as if she was beckoning to him.

He took off running.

"I AM A MONUMENT TO ALL YOUR SINS!" Every voice the chief had ever heard was pushed through his helmet as he slammed him fist into the control panel.

…

At this point everything would go black for a moment until a cut scene started. It would be relatively similar to the one at the end of Cortana but with environment changes.

You would then activate the reactor like in "Cortana" and thus proceed to do the backtracking that "Cortana" is infamous for until reaching the arbiter who is fighting off tons of flood like in "Cortana". The arbiter and Chief boards the pelican that probably came from "The Dawn" and as you take off the reactor explodes which triggers a cut scene.

…

The pelican began to spin horribly out of control; Cortana screaming out ship diagnostics as the Chief frantically reached out his hand to grab a hold of anything, but with a simple jerk though he was flung from the pelican into the cold artificial winter of the halo world.

Everything seemed to go so fast, it was like a blur to Chief before he smashed back first into the icy ground, blacking out.

"They let me pick, did I ever tell you that?" Cortana's voice washed over the Chiefs body and an image of her appeared on his visor popping him back into consciousness.

"You had something they didn't, can you guess?" There was a pause as if she expected him to answer in his current state.

"Luck." With that word the Arbiter was standing over the Chief.

"Come on Chief, we have to light the ring and rid the universe of the flood." He held out a hand, and the Chief accepted, being pulled from the snow and back onto his own two augmented feet.

"No need to arbiter." It was Cortana, no flash back, no corruption, just Cortana. "High Charities reactor set of a chain reaction which in turn set the ring on firing stage, I can do the rest from here, you two just need to find a way off of this place."

The chief shot a glance toward the arbiter to see if he had any plan for getting off a flood infested ring world that was currently being set to fire. Of course he didn't, the chief didn't think anyone could, but of course Cortana did.

"The Dawn," She yelled out, it was rocketed out of the gravemind after the reactor exploded, I just picked up its signal, and I'm marking it on your HUD."

The chief shot another glance at the arbiter to see if he had a how-to-get-to-the-dawn plan, and of course he didn't, but Cortana did, again.

"Johnson's warthog, I've found it, get to it and then get to 'The Dawn' then get back to Earth."

..

The rest of the game ends like it did before , with the epic driving mission and the wicked ramp onto Dawn, followed by the cut scene and chief being blown off to god knows where.

That is my rendition of how the ending should have been, it pretty much goes like this, mission wise.

8. The covenant

9. Gravemind (Basically the beginning of the halo level)

Getting to the control room

Fighting 343

Getting inside Gravemind

10. Cortana

Finding Cortana

Boss fight with Gravemind

Setting off the reactors

Backtracking

11. Halo (Driving part)

I didn't exclude the first 7 missions because there is a lot I would like to change with those too, and if there is enough good feedback on this short little story I might explore other missions more.

Well that's it, tell me what you think. This is probably a horrible idea, and utterly crazy, but I would have loved to have seen an epic Mind Fuck battle with GraveCortana.

Review ECT.