Deep within High Charity, the ancient intelligence Gravemind, sat in wait. Though, that's what the Flood does most of the time. Wait. Waiting for centuries on end for food to show itself. It does, they awaken, and they eat. That is how it has always been, since the beginning of time. However, this particular Command Form had other plans in mind. The others, the infection, combat, and carrier forms only had one thing on their minds. To eat. Gravemind, however, had a bigger appetite. He desired all answers.

Infinite knowledge…

The human AI had come close to this, but she was unwilling to cooperate. Gravemind tried to alter her personality programming and her memory matrix, but she still hid the information he desired. His link with her was sketchy, but now the spunky, snide AI had become impassive, and useless to his desires. The AI was dying, however, only able to hang on to her stored information for a limit of three more years. So, Gravemind settled in to wait. After all, what was three years to a Command form like him…?

Gravemind jerked awake in the main counsel chamber, which had been turned into a sort of incubator for the next wave of infection forms. He had sensed something chilling, something that he had not experienced in almost 10,000 years. Cold panic spread through his body. Could it be…? No. It couldn't. No worry. Just sleep.

Gravemind turned his gigantic maw to the right and looked at the little captured AI. Cortana's hologram had been wrapped in tentacles, with the face left open to the room. She stared out blankly, the fiery spark of life gone from her features. She was cut off from technology and any other form of computer, trapping her to the tiny holo-pad. She still had some spark left in her eyes, if one looked deep enough. Gravemind couldn't really reprogram the AI, but he could suppress the personality like a normal Flood could. He had guessed that the need to protect data was part of her base programming. She surprised him at how much like a human she actually was.

Gravemind settled down and began to think. Nothing could induce fear on him, except one thing, but he dismissed it. That man was long since dead, for he killed him with his own tentacles. The man still continued to scare him with his looming power, as if he could come back from the dead. Gravemind visibly shuddered. No one should have that kind of power to themselves, not even him.

Just as Gravemind had settled down, his sensor net had flared red. His Flood brethren were technically part of him, an extension of his own mind. He could see through their eyes. He felt their pains, and he could use them like a weapon if he wished. He had a sensor net of thousands of eyes and ears. Flood don't technically "see". They have eyes like inferred, except they didn't see amounts of heat, but amounts of energy. The highest energy was white and low energy was a dull red. He tuned his eyes and projected the sight of a combat form hefting a sniper rifle into his own mind and Cortana's, so the little AI would have something to look at other than the exiting door.

Gravemind saw a Pelican drop-ship was flying through a gigantic chamber in the area above them, entering the holy city. Using the flood-vision, he saw the energy of the ship. The hull was a cool blue, the engines purple, but pure white energy leaked out of the back of the ship like a comet's tail. Whatever the humans had in the back, it was leaking like a reactor. This was not very good for Gravemind, who had only seen this once before, where it had ended badly for him.

Just then, the back of the ship burst open and a large round object, propelled by mini-rockets accelerated out of the back, straight for where the Forerunner ship once stood. The energy of object itself was a vibrant yellow, while the energy in the middle was a murky white. Gravemind made a note of this, before he noticed that the Pelican was still leaking white energy. Gravemind became uneasy. He noted to his fellow Flood to follow the ship, en masse to where ever it landed. Combat forms eagerly replied and carriers ambled behind, stumbling quickly to the ship.

The ship had stopped and was hovering in front of a large platform, one that was right outside of the room he was in. Panicking, the ancient creature told all the combat forms to fire all weapons at the Pelican. Fuel rod cannons and the plasma turrets spread fiery plasma along the hull of the ship, but the plasma collected and exploded in all directions as the Asguard shield on the ship sent the plasma flying out in all directions, annihilating all the Flood forms in a two hundred yard radius. The ship aimed its chain gun at the wall and fired a full battery at the wall. The thumps could be heard in the atrium. The gun stopped, making only a tiny dent in the thick Covenant wall. Gravemind calmed down, having the door sealed in living flesh and the wall surrounding him impervious to nothing less than a Nova warhead. Then, the Pelican released a large salvo of Ancient drones, which proceeded to tear apart the wall and blow holes the size of the cars into the wall. Gravemind felt the shattered wall fragments. He switched his vision to his own and had just enough time to see Master Chief jump into the room through the hole and walk towards him.

The Chief had his armor on, but he was a fountain of pure white energy, a firestorm in the dull red room. The armor wasn't the source; the energy was bursting from the seams, like he was made of fire, and was eager to escape. The human had only the energy of a normal person the first time he got this close to Gravemind, but this time, the fountain of energy was almost blinding. Gravemind mentally questioned Cortana about this, but she remained impassive. The AI did show a flicker of her repressed emotions. Was it fear, concern, or surprise? Gravemind couldn't read it.

"Why do you not look at me directly, freak?"

The Master Chief looked up at the ancient intelligence, and asked the creature again, this time more directly.

"Why do you look away?"

Gravemind spoke, "Your power… I have seen it before… It is as old as I…"

Chief glanced at Cortana's form and looked back at the Flood.

"We both know why I'm here." His voice grew steely.

"She is more human then I first thought… You seemed to prove that, just now. But I must know more."

"That's where we have a problem."

Gravemind lifted a tentacle and jabbed it at the Chief's head. It grazed the side of his helmet, shattering it in half and sending one half of it to the floor. The face under it was untouched, with the exception of one scratch under the eye. The eye was a steely blue with a diamond pupil, like that of an enraged animal. His spiky brown hair danced in the wind of energy around him. Gravemind pulled his tentacle back and placed it beside him. Chief grabbed his helmet's remnants from around his head and ripped them off. His other eye was an exact match.

"Why did you not dodge it, human?"

"Your aim was off by 18 degrees. You would inevitably miss."

"You have changed, human. What are you?"

Chief gripped the helmet and shattered it.

"I'm the Reaper."

Gravemind roared in anger and slashed back at him with the tentacle that surrounded Cortana. This time the Chief sidestepped out of the way, grabbing the whip. He twisted and kicked it, breaking it in half. Gravemind roared in pain and opened his mouth wide. Chief jumped into the gapping maw. That was enough to break the bonds holding Cortana's mind down. She snapped awake and screamed at the Chief.

"John, no!"

The Chief faltered in midair.

"Corta- Argh!" He yelled as a tentacle whipped from the side and slammed him into the wall. Cortana yelled to the Chief, but he was just muttering to himself, coughing up blood. Gravemind swung his head from Cortana to the Chief.

"You will both pay for this impudence."

Chief lifted an open hand, which was now crackling with electricity.

"Go to Hell."

The Chief grabbed Gravemind, sending millions of volts through the creature.

Gravemind exploded.