Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, they are property of their own owners. I'm just borrowing them.

Chapter One

The day was cold and dark as Marcus and Dom stood over the mass of bodies, both covered head to toe in Locust blood. Still lingering in the air was smell of the gasoline from the chainsaw guns, both used beyond their limits yet again.

"Guess that's in then." Dom stated, glancing over the street that was now paved with the carcasses of the horde battalion.

"Hell yeah." Marcus gruffly replied. "Damn time too."

Dom nodded to himself in agreement. "Let's get the fuck out of here." He had places to go, people to see and a nice cold bottle of beer with his name on it waiting for him back at base.

The duo had barely made it fifty yards down the road when the ground beneath them began to violently shake, their feet faltering beneath them.

"C'mon!" Dom screamed, annoyed. "There cannot seriously be more Locusts!"

Marcus, however, wasn't convinced that was what it was. "I don't think so, whatever it is isn't coming from the ground. It's coming from the sky."

Glancing over, Dom noticed Marcus starring up and something and following his line of sight he barely caught glimpse of the giant ball of fire before it crashed down to the ground.

"What the hell was that?" Dom questioned, barely having the time to register what he saw.

Marcus shrugged. "Only one way to find out. Whatever the fuck that thing was, it can't be more than a mile up the road." Knowing that Dom would follow him regardless, Marcus slung his gun behind him and started off weaving through the horde remains towards the smoking landing sight.

"Space junk?"

"How the fuck should I know? It wouldn't surprise me though with the amount of shit floating around up there." Anything was possible, the existence of the Locusts more than proved that.

It took them ten minutes to reach the crash sight- a giant hole in an already crumbling building. It didn't take long for the two men to draw their weapons, Marcus with his shotgun and Dom choosing the more conservative option of a handgun.

Standing at the entrance, Marcus nodded at Dom who quietly slipped inside the door, sweeping for anything out of the ordinary before pushing forward. Not long after, Marcus followed suit and took in his surroundings. They seemed to be in a main room of sort, and off the far left the could see tell tale signs of smoke.

"Look's like whatever it is decided to park itself just on the other side of the room there." Dom pointed out, walking over to the half opened door and pushing it lightly with the butt of his gun. What Dom saw next stopped him dead in his tracks. "Marcus!"

Quickening his pace in order to join his partner, Marcus glanced into the room and immediately his eyes focused on the same thing that Dom had.

There, in the middle of the crater, was the body of what looked to be a man clad in a dark green armour. His body was still, possibly lifeless.

"What the hell is that?" Dom questioned, an eyebrow raised as he glanced over at Marcus.

"Damned if I know." Marcus honestly had no idea what he was looking at. Whatever the thing was wearing certainly wasn't COG armour, nor was it the armour of anything he knew to be on Sera. "M01" he quietly added, reading the writing on the suit of armour.

Dom was just about to slip down into the hole when the thing in green twitched slightly.

"Dom…" Marcus warned, his shot gun already poised in front of him. Dom however hadn't needed the warning, his gun was already trained on the skull of the thing in crater.

The thing continued to slowly move, before turning to look at both of them.

"I'm not here to hurt you." It finally spoke, voice clearly being reverberated through a microphone in the helmet. It slowly turned until it was lying on it's back, slightly inclined thanks to the crater.

"You can talk, and you're not a Locust. Right now that's all you have going for you." Marcus pointed out, half in realization and the other half in warning. Neither one of them knew if this thing was a threat to them yet or not, despite what it had already told them.

"So what are you?" Dom added, still not displacing the aim of his gun.

"Who is probably more appropriate." The thing corrected, resting his head back for a moment. "I am Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 though to most I am known simply as Chief."

"Fine then, Chief, care to explain to me what the fuck you are doing here and where exactly you came from?" Last time they had come across something out of the ordinary, it ended up evolving into a battle for mankind.

"I'm based out of the planet Reach from a UNSC base."

"UNSC?" Marcus questioned. "Look, I know of a lot of strange things, but there ain't no such thing as UNSC."

"Not now, no. But I've come from the future. 2000 years in the future to be more precise." Chief explained, though it was more than obvious that both Dom and Marcus were still sceptical about the entire situation.

Lowering his gun just slightly, Marcus gave the thing in front of him a better inspection. "Okay, so we know who you are, but just what the fuck are you exactly? No way in hell should you have survived a crash like that."

"I am a cybernetic humanoid - human body with nanite technology coursing throughout my veins." He continued on, realizing that there was so much more he would have to explain. "What city is this?"

Dom laughed. "Jacinto, or at least what is left of it."

"Welcome to the last remaining city on this damned planet. We call it hell." Marcus quickly added. Hesitating for another moment, Marcus decided that the thing in front of him had yet to give him any trouble, so there was no reason to be wasting precious energy holding a gun to his head.

Dom, noticing Marcus' actions out of the corner of his eye followed suit, holstering the gun back on his waist. "If you are from the future, then why are you here?" Dom finally questioned. Something about the entire situation still seemed off to the both of them.

Pulling himself up into a sitting position, Chief watched the both of them for a moment before replying. "I'm here on a mission to find something crucial. Something that is key to the entire future."