Hello everybody! Phantom with a revised version of my Halo fanfiction, featuring Arby, Chief, Cortana, and a normal Marine. Prologue has been extended and rewritten, and Chapter 1 is in progress. Hope you will find this version an improvement from the last one. Enjoy!
Prologue: The Assignment
It was simple: get in, make friends with the entire split-lip species, get out. Easy, right? Well, not for the Chief, hero of the universe, and all of humanity. He was a soldier, a war machine, a harbinger of death, The Demon; not some interrelations diplomat. But that's what Lord Hood, ONI, and the UNSC War Council wanted; the legendary Spartan-II to become a diplomat/ambassador to the Sangheili homeworld of Sanghelios.
But he wasn't the only one who was upset. Private Tristan Andrew Smith didn't like it either. He had just joined the UNSC Marines, hoping to fight some Covies. Then the war was over, a truce was signed with the Sangheili, and Smith's first 'non-combat' assignment was to accompany the Master Chief on a diplomatic mission. The split-lips even gave 'The Demon' a new nickname: 'The Diplomatic Demon'.
A little inside joke that was shared among human and Sangheili alike, 'Diplomatic Demon' never failed to being chuckles, smiles, and so on to both species whenever the nickname was uttered. And Chief hated it, a lot. Cortana thought it suited him, much to the Spartan's annoyance.
But Chief's mission wasn't the only news that shocked the UNSC and Sangheili. The Arbiter, Thel 'Vadam, wasn't who she said she was. That's right: she. Arbiter was a female Sangheili who defied Covenant tradition and laws, and became the first female to serve in the Prophets' false army. She used a hidden scrambler to disguise her voice, and wore a bodysuit that cleverly concealed her feminine figure. And what's more, no one knew her true identity until she revealed it when she returned with what remained of the Sangheili force of the crumbling Covenant back to Sanghelios.
Surprisingly, however, Arbiter wasn't disgraced any further than she already was when she bore the armor of her ancestors. Rather, she was hailed as a hero to her people. Because of her actions, Sangheili culture changed to allow Sangheili females, when they are of age, to fight 'for the glory of Sanghelios'. But many traditional Sangheili military leaders, especially those who still believed the lies of the Prophets (including Jul M'dama), strongly disagreed and sought for ways to remove Thel Vadam, even assassinate her if they needed to. That was the true purpose of this 'diplomatic assignment', but neither Chief, Tristan, nor the Arbiter know about it. And that's how Lord Hood, ONI, the UNSC War Council, and the Holy Sangheili Supreme Court want it and have it stay that way.
So, I am doing better now, and I am back in business! Whoo!
Phantom out.
