Commander: The Lost Logs

by Ghost of Los Angeles

These are the logs that Drich wrote after the end of the aborted collaborative Mass Effect Arc done with Drich, faith, Fusou and Tikitau but before Drich rewrote hir version. Crossposted with permission.

1. Lost Logs 1-13

Compilers Note: These are the logs that Drich Wrote between after the end of the aborted collaborative Mass Effect Arc are done between Drich, faith, Battleship_Fusou and Tikitau before Drich rewrote hir version which is by the way awesome.

Lost Log 1

I had never gone back to the universes I'd previously been to. In four cases, it wasn't necessary, as I'd maintained a permanent presence in them. In the universes of Armored Core, Homeworld, and Fafner, everything was going pretty well.

Life continued as usual in Fafner.

The Hiigarans were a rising power in Homeworld, supported by and supporting the Taiidan Republic. The Bentusi watched them, still waiting for the Hiigarans to realize what their Mothership held, but until then wandering around the galaxy as they were wont to do.

In Armored Core, the planet was slowly being purified, healing from the wounds inflicted by rampant use of Kojima technology. A couple warlord still roamed around, but ORCA was taking care of them when they popped up.

The universe I had recovered Anastasia from, the Planetary Annihilation universe, I suppose, was pretty calm. My ships had searched the galaxy, but aside from wrecks, sites of battles, and the occasional bit of organic life that hadn't been wiped out, there was nothing remaining of note.

We had, of course, expanded our search, but...

Well, we checked the entire universe. Progenitors were nowhere to be found. Intelligent life, sure, but the Progenitors? Not even a hint.

Which had raised... a number of questions that we still didn't have answers to.

Either way, the other three universes were the ones where I didn't know what was happening. I had left quite literally nothing behind in C&C, and so I had no idea what was going on over there. In Supreme Commander, the only thing that we had present was a disconnected Warp Chasm, which, as one might guess, did not provide a particularly large amount of information about what was happening around it.

In Universe at War, the sum total of our assets present were five communicators, one for Queen Altea, one for Orlok, one for the Novus, one for General Moore, and the last for whoever General Moore gave it to. Exactly none had been used, because apparently nobody found it necessary to contact me.

Of course, there was also Mass Effect, but I had literally just come from that one, so it was effectively irrelevant.

I kind of wanted to know how things were going in those universes. It would be easy to find out in the case of Supreme Commander and Universe at War, but C&C...

Well, it might be, and it might not be. I wasn't entirely certain whether or not I could get back. Theoretically, setting the Teleporter to point at the bright blue star again would do it, but...

Well, let's find out.

An Asura Commander appeared in front of the Teleporter, already moving towards it. The glowing portal appeared instantly, targeting the star.

It ducked through-

And yes. Yes I could get there again.

Planet looks rather nice, actually. Much less Tiberium, now. Control nodes, based off the designs I had given to the GDI so long ago, were present on the surface, spread out over blue and yellow zones, making sure the Tiberium wouldn't come back.

Well, they seemed to have that pretty well in hand.

Scrin? No Scrin. The GDI seemed to have developed a pretty extensive network of orbital Ion Cannons, pointing away from the planet, along with other satellites.

Kane? In super-high security prison, guarded by the absolute best GDI had. They'd spared no expense in containing him. A number of other high-profile Brotherhood of Nod personnel were there with him.

Probably didn't want him to be a martyr.

Well, they seemed to have everything well in hand.

Good for them.

Time branched. My Commander transitioned in Phase Space, headed to Alpha Centauri, and constructed enough Strongholds to scout the universe in short order. The possible future collapsed a second after it was formed, and my Commander set off to do it for real.

In about four hundred years, an asteroid laced with Tiberium would hit a planet. I intended to deflect it when that happened, as the planet in question was inhabited by beings who wouldn't be able to survive it.

Right, done here. Let's see, next...

Hmm. Do I want to go to Supreme Commander or Universe at War next?

Eh... By my reckoning, it'd be around mid-day on the Atlatea. Universe at War, then. Altea was a good friend.

Let's see...

The day was pleasantly cool. The wind blew, carrying autumn leaves throughout the city, tugging at strands of hair. The sun was warm, the sky blue, and decorated with white clouds here and there. The slow pulse of life in the air was as comforting as the sun, warm and pleasant.

Queen Altea held a book in her hands, reclining in a grand seat, simply enjoying the day. For once, she had no diplomatic duties, no need to act as a leader. Instead, she had a precious gift of free time.

Her clothes reflected the rare moment. Her headdress wasn't present, and the long, flowing garb she usually wore had been replaced with a shorter, though still long and ornate by most standards, dress. The book in her hands was one of fiction, telling a lengthy tale of magic and adventure.

A guilty pleasure, yes. She sometimes wondered if the reason Zessus was so free-spirited today was because she had spent so much time reading such books to him in his youth.

A cheerful tune rang out, startling her from the peace. For a moment, she was confused as to where it came from, before realization set in.

Slowly, daintily, she reached into a hidden pocket of her dress, pulling out a small, chrome, black, and blue device.

The cheerful tunes still rang out, and for a moment, she stared at it.

She had carried this device for nearly two decades. It rarely left her person, never too far out of reach. Still, it had never been used.

She tapped it, softly. The noise immediately stopped, and she felt a very familiar psychic power bleed through.

"Hello, Queen Altea. How are you doing?"

Lost Log 2

"It's good to see you again." I smiled at the Queen.

She gave a slight smile in turn, couple with a nod.

"What brings you here to visit?" She asked.

"Not much." I waved my hand. A pair of cups, and a number of bottles, appeared on the table between us, coalescing from golden energy. "I was just wandering around when I realized that it's been nearly two decades since the last time I saw you."

She picked up and examined one of the bottles I'd created, somehow making the action look elegant. "And so you decided to visit."

I leaned forwards, my smile twisting into something that resembled a pout. "Am I not welcome anymore?"

She smiled again, a faint laugh escaping. "Of course you are."

I grinned, then picked up a bottle and poured myself a drink. "So, how have things been?"

She followed suit, pouring a drink of her own. "Well enough, I suppose. Tense, when it came to Orlok and his followers, but that was to be expected."

I nodded, holding my glass out.

She clinked it with her own a moment later. "Orlok left for Mars not long after you left." She took a sip.

Her eyes widened, and she held the glass out, examining it. "Very tasty."

"Thank you. I had a feeling you'd like it." I took a sip from my own cup, enjoying the sweet, yet cold liquid.

"Zessus has been..." She continued after a moment, before trailing off.

"Zessus?" I offered.

She nodded, an air of motherly exasperation about her. "He is as impulsive as always. He has been wandering the planet in search of adventure."

"I hope he's having fun."

"He seems to be." Altea's head tipped to the side. "The Novus have been helpful, though many of them have retreated to Lieta Novus. Mirabel remains on this planet."

"She's interested in the life here. Until Earth, she hadn't met any form of organic life." I noted. "And the Novus... They're trying to revive the Quyion, aren't they?"

She nodded. "The Humans have been... rebuilding, but it is slow. They lost much of their population, much of their infrastructure, and much of their governments. We have been offering help, as have the Novus, but even so..."

"These things take time." I finished for her.

"We always knew they would. We discussed exactly that, the last time you were here."

That we did.

"Well, that's enough about that morbid topic." I leaned forwards, my eyes a bit wide, and my mouth set in a grin. An air of faux-secrecy surrounded me. "Do you want to see something really cool?"

She let out a noise of curiosity, her head tilting to the side.

I held my hand out, pointer finger stretched out. "Watch this."

A Worm Sphere burst into existence above my finger, expanding to the size of a basketball.

Altea blinked.

"There you go." I smiled at Altea.

Her arm was extended, fingers splayed and palm pointed at a wall. That wall had a hole in it, curtesy of a Worm Sphere that Altea had just generated.

"Fascinating, but odd." She murmured.

"Useful, too." I noted. "You can use it as a weapon, for teleportation, and if you're really good at it, you can shape it into pretty much anything." I demonstrated, summoning a chakram-shaped Worm, like those used by the Diablo-Types. It shifted, changing to a disk, then a lengthy sword, and then began cycling through dozens of simple shapes.

She gave a nod, examining the Worm as it changed. "Where did you learn this?"

"From a species known as the Festum. Very strange beings, but also very powerful." I'd give them that.

I leaned forwards, propping my elbows up on the table and resting my head in my hands.

"Strange?" She looked up.

I nodded. "Yep. They were a psychic hivemind who didn't have concepts of individuality, sensation, or emotion." I quirked a smile. "Understandably, they had a rather unique psychology."

"I see." She held her hands out, as if cupping something. A short moment later, a Worm Sphere bloomed, small, at first, but growing larger as she channelled more energy and focused.

"You got the hang of it pretty quickly." I complimented. "Alright, I'll teach you how to teleport with them."

"Nice place you got here, Mirabel." I examined the building.

As typical of Novus design, the building was tall, bright silver, and filled to the brim with electronics. Strings of bright blue light connected it to the dozens of other Novus constructions laying around. The occasional cloud of disassembled Novus nanomachines rushed along the Flow Network, robots in transit to different locations.

The location was in the wastes of Russia, one of the areas that had been hit by the Hierarchy in the first stages of the invasion. Radiation, plasma, and heat had shortly rendered the area uninhabitable for Human life, and what little that remained after the Hierarchy was through with it had shortly fled.

The Novus was cleaning it up. Mirabel had been the one to establish the operation, and, now, it the most expansive site of Novus construction on the planet, with the Flow Network stretching halfway across Russia.

"Thank you." Mirabel herself hadn't changed a bit. Granted, neither had Altea or I, but in her case, she wasn't ageless like the Masari or myself.

Or, not naturally so, anyway. The reason she hadn't aged was because Novus gene-therapy had kept her young and strong.

"Hello, Viktor." I greeted the mech, currently standing guard.

I got a garbled greeting in return. Viktor, it seemed, also hadn't changed a bit, still speaking in Quyion language.

"Have to say, I was surprised to hear you came back." She smiled, though a bit of worry tinged her features. "Bad news?"

I chuckled. "No, just a visit. I wanted to see how you were all going."

The worry vanished, and, for a moment, she seemed a bit wry. "Ah. Well, that's good."

I smiled. "So, how have you been?"

Lost Log 3

"Hello again, Founder." I hummed to myself as I walked forwards.

The moon was not where I had expected to locate the Founder, but then, it wasn't all that surprising, either. The Novus maintained a large amount of stations and constructions on the moon, most of them meant for resourcing operations. A couple resource rich asteroids had been towed into orbit by the Novus, pulled from the asteroid belt, which was where Vertigo currently was.

The resources they harvested went mostly to rebuilding Earth, though a significant amount flowed back into the Novus' own operations. Even now, they were still expanding, constructing starships for various purposes.

A few Masari buildings were also present. Monitoring stations, mostly, connected to other stations around the galaxy, all employing the Masari's powerful technology to keep a watchful eye on the events that were occurring in the galaxy. Perhaps a wasted effort, as there wasn't anything actually happening, but hey.

If they wanted to put down dozens of monitors all over the place, who was I to stop them?

The other bits of Masari construction kept the area liveable for Masari. Gravity had been heightened in the local area to about ninety five percent of Earth's, while a large, golden energy field kept the atmosphere in.

"Drich." He greeted, levitating slightly above the ground. "A social visit?"

"Yep." I nodded. "So, how have you been doing, lately?"

Not all that different, it turned out. The Founder still oversaw operations on Earth, and on Lieta Novus. He told me that the project to revive the Quyion was proceeding slowly, but they had some promising results.

Hoped that worked out for them. The Novus deserved a bit of hope.

But aside from that, all he'd been doing is play the political game with Human governments, and keep a watchful eye on Orlok's forces. So, business as usual.

Speaking of Orlok...

"Well, you seem to have done well for yourself, Orlok." Despite having retreated to Mars, they hadn't set down permanently.

They still lived on their ships, keeping to the closed archologies where it was easiest to sustain them. Still, they'd set up some mining operations on Mars' surface, extracting what resources they needed.

Orlok had made sure that they didn't fall back into the Hierarchy's insatiable lust for resources. They'd kept a significant stockpile, but aside from that, weren't pulling up too much.

Granted, they also didn't have many things they could do with those resources. The Hierarchy didn't exactly have much in the way of culture, and Orlok's renegades weren't all that different. Still, most of them found not having to fight endlessly to be a relief, even if, at times, it could be boring.

"Greetings." Orlok's head turned slightly. He was sporting a new coat of paint, his chassis now more red than black.

"So, how have things been?"

Tense, it seemed. Still, Orlok kept everything together by being a good ruler. There had apparently been an attempted coup a while back, a few soldiers wishing to seize power. Orlok had reminded them, politely, that he had been the Hierarchy General for a very, very good reason.

There had been no more attempted coups after that. Which might or might not have been because Orlok had bludgeoned the attempted coupers with his crusher arm in front of half the ship. That, combined with the fact that he was still a fairly reasonable leader, lead to most deciding that it wasn't worth risking Orlok's fury.

Personally, I wondered what possessed them to think they could possibly win against Orlok, who's about five times the size of the average soldier, without the support of far more troops than they actually had.

Oh well. Their mistake.

I knocked on the door.

Hawaii was nice this time of year. It hadn't taken all that much damage in the Hierarchy attack, all things considered, so it was rebuilt rather quickly. The house I was in front of seemed to be a fairly normal one, with nothing out of the ordinary.

That was even true, with the exception of its occupant.

A few thudding footsteps later, and the door opened. "Who are you and what do you..."

The man trailed off, seeing me. "Oh. You."

"Good morning, General Moore."

He straightened up, waving his hand in the air. "Not a General. I'm retired now." He opened the door wider, inviting me inside.

Randal Moore had aged fairly well, all things considered. The man was over sixty, yet he was still fit. His hair was grey, and he had some spots on his skin, but he was doing well.

He grabbed a bottle of beer from his fridge, before taking a seat at the table.

"So, what's this for?" He asked.

"Just a social visit." I took a seat at the opposite end of the table. "Simply curious to see how things were going."

"Same old, really. Rebuilding, politics, other crap." He took a drink. "Getting old, relaxing in retirement."

"Nothing much then." I nodded. "You've been doing well, then?"

"Not my problem anymore." He grunted. "Not having to deal with the political crap is nice enough, I suppose."

I laughed. "Preaching to the choir."

About three hours later, I said goodbye and walked out again, wishing him a nice a day.

He hadn't changed much, he'd just gotten older.

Not much longer after that, I left that universe again. There wasn't much to do, and after I'd talked to everybody I'd wanted to, I'd simply left as suddenly as I'd came.

Which, of course, meant that it was time to check out how things were going in Supreme Commander.

Not... entirely certain if I wanted to use the Asura Commander for that, however. The Omega Commander chassis was fairly different from it, after all, though the colour scheme would denote it as mine. A familiar sight would probably help against misunderstandings.

Then again, I could also go full bore and bring something really impressive.

Hmm.

What to do...

Lost Log 4

I'd ended up going all out. A new Commander Chassis, designed to make full use of all the things I'd picked up since I'd developed the Asura Commander and its Festum Core variant.

Mark Nicht served as the main inspiration for the new Chassis, though by the time I was finished with the design, there wasn't all that much resemblance left.

Much like the Asura Chassis, this one was relatively thin, eschewing thick and heavy armour plates in favour of extreme manoeuvrability and powerful shields. Also like the Asura Chassis, and unlike Mark Nicht, its proportions were closer to humanoid, instead of having extremely long arms like Nicht. This one was a bit taller than the Asura, however, being a solid fifty meters in height.

Mark Nicht's wings, laser canisters, and propulsion system were all present, though modified to fit the aesthetic. The wings were slightly large, including another pair of spikes for a total of five on each side. Another set of joints had been added, allowing the wings to shift and fold, though aside from saving on space, it didn't serve much of a purpose besides looking cool. The canisters the wings attached to were also sleeker, more powerful too.

The legs and arms had a very wide range of motion, naturally, as did the rest of the Chassis.

While the Chassis did have fabricators and weapons built into both arms, I'd equipped it with hands instead of full blown arrays. Mostly, that was because it was unnecessary, as the psychic power that could be channelled through it would allow me to far and away eclipse what I could with those devices.

This Chassis was far more powerful than any of my others, in fact. Reason for that was simple; I'd taken a page out of Walker's and the Tatsumiya Mir's book. Both of them had transformed their cores into water and air, respectively, and hadn't actually lost any of their power in doing so.

I'd done similar, except instead of air and water, I'd shifted the photon-crystal into metal.

The entire Chassis was constructed out of transformed photon-crystal. Everything, from the armour, to the circuits, to the Resource Cores, to the sensors... All of it was transformed photon-crystal.

All that power, hidden in plain sight.

I called it the Denken Chassis. German name because you can't not have a German name when you're talking about Fafners, and the Denken was close enough to count.

Anyway, that was what I was showing up with.

Though I didn't simply show up out of the blue. I gave a slight warning; activating the Warp Chasm and leaving it open for five minutes before sending the Denken through, thus giving them enough time to react to the sudden activity in at least some minor manner.

But the moment those five minutes passed, I walked through.

It was night time on the world that hosted the Coalition Command Center. It was brighter than night would be on Earth, thanks to the twin stars in the system, but not all that much.

It was much colder than before, though. Seemed to be winter on this part of the planet. What else...

A considerable amount of psychic activity, probably from the Aeon Illuminate since the majority of it is happening near that compound. A whole bunch of units nearby, some designs I recognize, some I don't, with aesthetics from all three factions. Most were pointing their weapons at me, but none were firing, so... that was good, I guess.

The three compounds were bigger, more expansive. Small cities rather than compounds, really. The center building was also bigger, having expanded both upwards and outwards. There was still elements of all three factions' aesthetics present, and they were, perhaps, a bit more pronounced now.

Neat.

I paused only a few steps away from the wormhole I'd come through, which faded away as the Warp Chasm disconnected again. I sent a communication request, following the protocols that I'd picked up twenty years ago.

Five seconds later, it was accepted.

A familiar voice came through. "This is Coalition Command, identify yourself."

I smiled. "Well, hello there Ivan."

"Well, well, well. It's been quite some time, Crusader Rhiza." I smiled at the woman.

Aside from slightly more elaborate markings on her face, she hadn't changed. Her hair, lips, and eyes were still bright teal, though her clothing was more complex and bore more marks of station.

"Drich." All business, I see. "This is... unexpected."

I chuckled. "I'm sure. You're here to lead me, then?"

She nodded. "The Princess, Ivan Brackman, and President Hall have gathered."

"Well, we wouldn't want to keep them waiting, then."

"This way." She gestured, turning and beginning to work.

Princess Burke hadn't changed a bit.

Ivan looked a bit older, with more developed and more pronounced cybernetics.

Hall actually looked better. The bags under his eyes had faded significantly, and he didn't seem completely dour anymore.

"You look like you finally had a good night's sleep." I couldn't help but comment.

A miracle happened when the man actually smiled. A small one, sure, but a smile. From William Hall.

"Drich." He greeted. "You haven't changed at all."

"I get that a lot." I nodded. I turned slightly, offering a smile at the Princess. "Elegant as always, Princess."

Her head tipped slightly, and I suddenly wondered what would happen if I were to introduce her to Altea.

The two were surprisingly similar.

"Greetings again, Drich." She offered a slight smile.

I grinned, before turning to Ivan. I made a slight show of looking over him, before speaking. "Doctor Brackman set you up for this, didn't he?"

"My father prefers science to politics." His tone was light. "And Commander Dostya proved very convincing."

I chuckled again. "Well, it's nice you're all doing well, then."

There was a moment of silence, before Ge- President Hall straightened up. "What brought you back?"

"Oh, nothing but curiosity." I waved off his concern, dispelling the serious air that had only just started forming. "I was interested in seeing how things were going with you all." I looked between the three of them. "And to chat, if you have the time."

Lost Log 5

Things were going well for them. Nearly twenty years hadn't been able to get rid of the tension that had come from the Infinite War, but all three had been trying.

And, really, that was enough.

The Order and remaining Seraphim had been hunted down in the first decade. Even still, that shadow hung over the Coalition, and would probably continue to do so for the next few decades. An ACU was a potent thing, after all, more than enough to wage a war, and even if the Coalition had a lot of them, they couldn't be everywhere at once.

Hall was thinking about retiring. He was pretty old, though he could easily live for a few more centuries thanks to the genetic engineering the UEF had done. Only reason he hadn't yet was because he was still putting things back together.

He hadn't liked being put into politics, though he'd dealt with it because the alternative was war and genocide.

Ivan was the voice of the Cybran Nation. He also didn't particularly like politics, but he didn't dislike it, either. His implants made a lot of things easier for him.

The Princess was born and raised with the expectation that she'd have to deal with politicking. She was fine with it. She also had the unwavering loyalty of her subjects, and the powers granted to her by The Way, so... she was fine.

I'd asked where Doctor Brackman was, they told me he was out halfway across the galaxy, doing research on some life-bearing planets.

Five hours later, I arrived at his doorstep. Metaphorically, of course, as he was based inside a ship. It didn't have the facilities to host the Denken inside, but that wasn't all that much of a problem. I'd simply left it floating outside of the ship, making a slow orbit alongside the ship itself.

Dostya was on a nearby moon, setting up the infrastructure required to build and run Quantum Gateways. The ship was more or less on the edge of known space.

Have to say, the good Doctor kept a pretty tricked out science lab. Lots of high tech implements around the place.

I leaned forwards, examining a creature behind a three inch thick sheet of glass. It looked pretty weird, like a furless, six-legged dog, with a serrated tail.

"Why'd you bring this aboard?" I turned around, facing the Doctor's hologram.

Curtesy of being a brain in a jar who interacted with others using holograms, he hadn't changed a bit.

"They possess an interesting neurochemistry, oh yes." He still had that chipper tune, too. "Which I am studying, as it is particularly efficient, in terms of energy usage."

"Taking inspiration from nature?" I asked.

"Oh yes." He nodded. "This could be the tip of the spear for a new avenue of development. Very interesting, oh yes."

"Heh." I smiled. "Well, good luck with that."

Doctor Brackman hadn't been doing much else aside from that. I popped over to the moon to say hi to Dostya, then went back to the Coalition HQ. A couple goodbyes later, I sent the Denken through the Warp Chasm, and then closed it off again.

No reason to stick around for too long, after all.

"Well, that's that." My avatar fell backwards on a lounge. Little1's and Anastasia's materialized shortly, both of them sitting on top of the back. I quirked a smile at them. "So, which one next?"

They looked at each other, debating wordlessly, before coming to an agreement a few moments later. The co-ordinates were inputted, the Teleporter activated, and the Denken flew through not a moment later.

Let's see... Lots of buildings, lots of ships, lots of people, lots of satellites... Lots of weapons being used, too.

Thousands of ships in orbit, the combined fleet fighting desperately against other ships. Lances of light, energy pulses, and bright streaks marred the skies, ships being destroyed left, right, and center. On the ground, warriors, clad in advanced armour, fought desperately against their foe, beams and bolts flying too and fro... It was closer to a war than a battle.

The aesthetic is Forerunner. Not like Forerunner, is. Little bit of mind-reading confirms it, these are Forerunners.

Huh. Halo. Last new place I went to was Mass Effect, and now I'm in Halo. Coincidence?

Who knows.

Whole bunch of psychic activity, but not from the Forerunners. What are they fighting? First scans show that they appear to be organic-

Flood. Of course.

I really should have known, seriously. Forerunners at war? Could only be a few things. Precursors, Humans, and the Flood.

Though, that raised a number of interesting questions. Need to talk to Fusou at some point, because if I was in the Flood-Forerunner War, which happened around a hundred thousand years before the start of the games, and-

Wait, getting sidetracked. Deal with the now, think about that kind of stuff later.

The future split apart.

Worm Spheres of all shapes and sizes sprung into existence throughout orbit, each one appearing in an empty point of space. The shifting blue forms of Festum burst out of them shortly, and those Festum began to move, attacking the infected ships. A tiny piece of photon-crystal appeared in phase space, and began rapidly expanding, out of sight and hidden, for the moment.

That particular plan would take a while to come to fruition. In the meantime...

The Denken vanished, a Worm Sphere consuming it. It appeared again shortly afterwards, under the shields of a Flood infected ship.

It was... ugly. Forerunner construction twisted by the flood, parts of the ship consumed entirely by organic mass, the occasional twisting tendril that connected and ran through the ship. Still, I'd seen uglier from the Beast.

Though the Beast was different to this. This Beast hungered, possessed of such an urge to consume that even the most minor of psychic talent would allow you to feel it. This...

This was closer to the Reapers than it was to the Beast. There was a calm arrogance about it, surety of purpose, a desire to cause suffering...

Of course, unlike either, this one had actual power. Its mind was developed, and even now, I could feel it reaching out, tendrils of the mind twisting towards the Denken.

It made contact, immediately attempting to spill over, reach further-

All that it received was a mental strike, accompanied by a push into its own mind.

It recoiled, surprised, unprepared for the assault. I worked quickly, reaching in pulling out what information I could. I was locked out in a moment, the mind retreating from contact- But I'd still pulled out a tiny fragment of information.

And, really, that was enough.

Lost Log 6

With only the tiniest glimpse into that mind came the immediate and absolute decision that I was going to do to the Flood what I did to the Beast. That mind is a sick, sick thing, and my morals simply won't allow me to let it continue to exist.

The reason why? Simple. And I'll get to that shortly.

That future collapsed. Thousands more timelines sprung up. Then millions. Then billions. I followed them all to their conclusions, gathered the information I would need to actually fulfil my decision.

It came quickly, and with it, the collapse of the possible futures.

Microseconds after arriving in Halo, I got to work. The first few actions resemble those taken in the first possible timeline- Worm Spheres appearing, ejecting a tiny piece of photon-crystal in phase space where it would grow out of sight, moving my Commander...

But the similarities ended there. Though some Worm Spheres appeared in orbit, the majority instead littered the skies around the Forerunner city below. Instead of taking the Denken in space to deal with the infected ships, I took it to the surface, towards the largest concentrations of Flood bio-mass on the planet.

The Flood's arrival had been sudden, and it had crashed directly into the largest city on the planet. Warrior-Servants were fighting valiantly, supported by scores and score of Sentinels, but they were slowly being overwhelmed. The infection was growing by the second, spreading like the plague that it was.

The Denken reappeared on the surface, in the midst of Flood biomass, and acted immediately. The ten spikes on the wings stabbed downwards, glowing bright blue from the energy channelled through them.

"Are you there?"

The spikes tore straight through the biomass. Assimilation crystals began to spread, consuming the infected ground rapidly, and I immediately cut off the psychic connection it had to the mind that controlled it.

That got the mind's attention. I felt it suddenly begin to pay attention to me, beginning to mentally reach out towards me, trying to analyse me, my assimilation crystals, what I was doing to its biomass.

I rebuffed the attempt easily, bringing my own, growing, power to bear. Where it tried to reach out to study, I instead attacked with lances of thought and disgust, sending it reeling away as it realized I was a threat. Flood bioforms all over the city turned around, most abandoning their assaults, though some remained to continue infecting.

I have to thank the Flood for that. It makes my goal a little bit easier.

The assimilation crystal shimmered, becoming photon-crystal. My available power jumped, and then began rapidly growing even further as more and more assimilation crystal appeared and converted into photon-crystal.

I held my hand out. Assimilation crystals spread out, taking the rough shape of a long sword, before shattering to reveal a Luger Lance, also made of transformed photon-crystal.

Now then... Let's see what I else I can do.

I raised the Luger Lance, pointing it towards the sky. It snapped open, bright blue light shining outwards, assimilation crystals covering the handle.

"Come." I put Sui's power to good use, beginning to summon what Flood biomass I hadn't already assimilated. I started with the far away combat forms, the infected Forerunners and Flood Pure Forms, pulling them away from the battles against the Warrior-Servants.

I said I'd get to the reason why I felt I needed to obliterate the Flood, didn't I? Well, here it is.

The Flood forms materialized, and I assimilated them. And, instead of cutting the connection they held to the mind, I instead tapped into it, attacking mentally again.

It recoiled again, writhing in pain, before shoring its defences and pushing against me.

"Outsider." It hissed.

"Parasite." I made no effort to hide my disgust towards it.

"Why do you fight us?"

"Your goals, of course." I pressed a little bit harder, directing a little bit more energy. I was pleased to note that it felt a bit of pain. "The suffering you cause is reason enough."

"Suffering? We provide sweetness." It pushed back harder. I brushed the strikes away.

"You call suffering sweet." The sensation of me shaking my head drifted to it. "But I know what you are, oh Primordial one."

For a brief, brief moment, attack wavered.

And then it pressed ten times harder. The Primordial's full attention was on me.

I blocked it, pressing back just as hard. "And you are an infection." I sent a thought at it, the equivalent of dangling something on strings in front of its eyes.

"The worst kind, in fact." I showed it the sight of a infected Forerunner. A young one, female, so recently infected that she was still mutating. My assimilation crystals were approaching.

"You're not content just to take the body." The sight shifted. "You take the mind, too."

It was disgusting to look at. The girl, screaming, the infection reaching through her very being, taking and taking and taking, stealing memories and causing her to suffer. She was all too aware of it, the Flood made sure of that. She wasn't the only one, either. Every Flood bioform that had come from the Forerunners- from sentient and sapient beings...

All were suffering, aware of their actions, aware of their infection, aware that the things that were once their bodies were being used to infect others.

"Sweetness." The Primordial enthused. "She joins our crypt, feeling- Sweetness. Pure misery. All that is will feel it."

"Naturally," I began, in a faux-chipper and far too cheerful tone. "That must include you."

The assimilation crystals covered her. I let the Primordial see what I was doing, though not how I was doing it.

I reached in, spreading through her and infection like the Flood had spread through her.

And then-

"NO!" The Primordial screeched, black rage coursing through it. I laughed.

I tore the infection apart, freed the girl of the suffering imposed on her. I granted her peace, encapsulated her mind and buried it deep, far, far, far away from the Flood's grasp. In time, she would be restored completely, every damage undone.

But until then, I used her to mock the Primordial. I laughed, long, and loud, and hard.

"Denied!" I giggled, oh so amused. I threw that amusement in the Primordial's face, taunting it. "She will not suffer. When I get to them, none of them will! I will take them all from you!"

And then, I was silent. Amusement dispelled, laughter gone. All that I let it feel was my absolute certainty that I would kill the Flood. I spoke only one more time before I cut the link.

"Gather your fleets. Build your forces. Spread across your worlds. No matter what happens, I will come for you. I will tear you apart, rip you limb from limb, snatch those bodies from your crypt... Make no mistake, Primordial One, when you die, you will be alone in your grave."

Lost Log 7

Step one, complete. It was angry, now. Furious, that I would dare stop the suffering it tried to cause.

That was fine. That was good, even. It was angry, and so, instead of trying to run away or spread, it would try to hunt me down and kill me. If it decided to run, and it could, it would take an annoying long time to hunt it down.

Couldn't go full bore just yet. Can't risk spooking it. Need to provoke the correct actions, encourage it to hold down, build up in a small space, and then...

Well.

I assimilated more, consuming hundreds of flood bioforms every moment. Not all of them had minds I could pull out, as some had been spawned from pre-existing Flood biomass instead of infected Forerunners, but each one was a blow to Primordial nonetheless. One less combat form to fight with, a little bit less biomass from which to spread the infection...

Though, the bioforms alone weren't the only method. The airborne Flood Spores would have to be dealt with before they could spread far enough to become annoying.

Well, I have just the thing for that.

The air around me shuddered. Thick, heavy mist emerged from nowhere, while the skies above twisted, dark clouds beginning to swirl.

Now then...

Let's see, space.

The Festum I had spawned had dodged the Forerunner fleet nimbly, heading straight to the infected Flood fleet. I ignored the fire from the former to the latter, the Forerunners desperately trying to stop the Flood fleets, though not quite succeeding...

Some of the Flood vessels were fighting back, deploying weapons to batter down shields, attacking with surgical precision. Others, those unarmed, or carrying excessive amounts of Flood biomass, were rushing directly at the fleet in an attempt to board and take over them. Yet more fell to the planet below, dispersing spores and flood biomass...

I looked over the ships, searching for an appropriate target... there. That one would do. Small enough, but it was armed with a beam weapon.

I sent a small group of Festum at it, ten Sphinx-Ds and a Diablo-Type.

The Forerunner Fleet wasn't firing upon my Festum, or me, for that matter, so... that was good, I guess. I had no intention to initiate hostilities, and I hoped that the fact that I was leaving the Warrior-servants and civilians alone while my assimilation crystals spread underneath them was enough indication of that.

But anyway, Festum, Flood fleet.

The group approached quickly, crossing the distance to the infected ships in only a few seconds.

The Primordial apparently didn't like that, as some ships fired at me, scything energy beams aimed at my Festum. The beams met shimmering blue planes of energy, and were promptly consumed by them, then fired back at the ships.

Of course, their shields took the returned blasts rather easily. But then, they were Forerunner ships, and the Forerunners didn't fuck around.

The planes vanished. The Festum came closer, and then ran straight into the shields protecting the ship. Thanks to the rather nebulous way they interacted with physics, they didn't splatter all over the shields like anything moving at that speed coming to a sudden stop should have. Lucky me. The Sphinx-Ds formed a rough circle, the Diablo-Type in the center.

A little bit of focus, and a localised Field emerged around my Festum. I disrupted the stability of the shield inside that area, sapping at its strength. I could feel the systems trying to compensate, but it was a wasted effort. A small hole opened in the shield, just big enough for the Diablo-Type to fit though, and I promptly sent it inwards, on a direct course to the ship.

The ships fired again. Another wasted effort, as the shots were blocked, absorbed, and shot back at the offending ships.

The Diablo-Type glowed brightly as it charged. I knew from experience just how tough Forerunner building materials could be, so I didn't hold back.

My Diablo-Type promptly Kool-Aid Man'd straight through the hull.

Not a moment later, assimilation crystals sprouted, beginning to consume the ship. I prioritised the infected areas first, coating the biomass and seizing the minds of the crew that had consumed, before spreading over the rest of the ship. I sent another taunt at the Primordial as I took over the ship, simply because it was funny.

I didn't bother to cover everything. I did spread over some internal systems, however, assimilating with them in preparation to amplify its capabilities as much as I could.

All the knowledge I needed to control the ship -ah, a Harrier-Class Light Warship- was acquired from that very same crew I'd stolen from the Flood, and I promptly sent it spinning to face another ship. I coated the beam weapon in assimilation crystals, fiddled around with its internals a little, and then, a short moment later, fired.

Bright blue light lanced from it, the beam striking and piercing the shields of another infected Harrier vessel, before slamming into the hull. It did not pierce the hull like it did the shields, and instead seemed to build up and flow over it.

The beam cut off. I turned the ship a bit more and fired again.

Assimilation crystals began to sprout over the ship I'd just targeted. The writhing Flood biomass tried to fight back, as did the Primordial, but the effort was wasted, and the ship was shortly consumed and converted for my use. Some of the systems had been damaged from the infection, but I could fix that pretty easily.

Let's see, Flood fleet has a tad over one thousand five hundred vessels... Exponential growth dictates that I'll have control of them in fairly short order.

A ship that I had just targeted promptly and violently exploded, its reactor breaching and vaporizing it before I could seize control of it.

Assuming, of course, that I could actually seize control before the Primordial scuttled them.

I gave a mental sigh.

Annoying, yes. But ultimately, not too big a setback. Honestly, I cared more about the fact that I wouldn't be able to pull the minds out of the ships, though even that wasn't too much of a problem.

The Primordial wouldn't let them die. All that the destruction of the mass accomplished was simply moving where the mind was hosted.

I'd pick them up later.

My ships turned. I fired again.

Lost Log 8

I targeted the biomass first this time, attempting to seize control of it before it could detonate the reactors. It even worked; I stopped it from blowing up the reactor.

Then an uncontrolled slipspace rupture consumed the entire thing, exposing it, unprotected, to the exotic physics of the slipstream, where it very promptly ceased to exist.

The Primordial really doesn't want me to have those ships.

Oh well. I had two already, and I could work with that.

Worm Spheres consumed the ships, and I worked quickly, absorbing them entirely and building large masses of photon-crystal, before dividing them into hundreds of thousands of pieces. The glowing blue 'flesh' of my Festum sprung into being around the newly divided Cores, and, barely a second after the Worm Spheres had appeared, hundreds of thousands of Diablo-Types burst out.

They all went off quickly, hundreds of them for every ship in the Flood fleet. They ducked and danced around the firepower being exchanged, using portals to absorb and redirect whatever they couldn't weave around.

More and more infected ships began ignoring the Forerunner fleet entirely in favour of attempting to shoot them down, using everything from energy weapons to particle cannons, to even opening a few uncontrolled slipspace ruptures. Only the latter met any success in getting rid of my Diablo-Types, but they were far too few to matter.

Well, the situation in orbit was under control. The surface...

Pretty much the same, really. My assimilation crystals had covered every bit of infected ground, as well as every single bioform the Flood had deployed. The clouds and mist had spread through the city, consuming the air-borne Flood Spores before they could go on to be a problem. I would very shortly deplete every last bit of Flood biomass, cleansing the planet.

Back in orbit, my Diablo-Types slammed into the various ships composing the Fleet. I prioritised the transports, the ships carrying excessive amounts of biomass, with shields far too weak to stop all the Festum targeting them. Most detonated violently, either their reactors or slipspace drives rupturing and obliterating the ships before I could get rid of them, occasionally both.

But not all. For a few, just a few, I was able to assimilate the biomatter before it could set off the reactors and slipspace drives. Hundreds were destroyed, vanishing into open rifts or being consumed by bright, burning light, but I still managed to steal a few, recover the crews, then use the ships against the rest of the fleet, even as the Forerunner fleet capitalized on the distraction I created, their weapons slicing apart and sterilizing ships...

"Outsider." The Primordial spoke again as I assimilated another vessel. "Make no mistake, your misery will be legend."

I laughed in its face, even as slipspace portal began to open in front of the remaining Flood vessels.

Trying to retreat... Only delaying the inevitable.

But that was fine by me.

"You speak as if you have the power to enforce your threat, Primordial." I let amusement colour my tone. "But please, do try. If nothing else, you might provide me some entertainment while I grind you into dust."

The remaining ships, merely a third of the infected fleet, retreated into slipspace, the Forerunners still trying destroy them even now.

I tutted. Not even the tiniest bit of Flood biomass remained in the system.

I was done here, then. So much more to do than just this one system...

Worm Spheres consumed everything I created, and just as suddenly as I had appeared, I vanished. Needed to prepare, spread, curb the Flood. I had so little time- but all the same, I couldn't go all out just yet.

The worst was yet to come.

The IsoDidact considered.

A constant stream of data, reports, and compiled readings ran through his mind, his Ancilla automatically collecting and collating the information. Dozens of Warrior-Servants were present, though some of them were only holographic, their own duties preventing them from attending in person.

"Whatever these creatures are," A particularly decorated Warrior-Servant, clad in a thick Combat Skin, spoke carefully. "They have expanded extremely quickly. It has been mere hours since they arrived in the Verdant system, yet we have detected them in thousands of systems, every new group larger than the last. They are appearing in the millions now, Didact."

"They have not yet proven hostile." Another Warrior-Servant, a Promethean, responded. "They have, in all cases, actively avoided harming our forces."

"We should not forget the Parasite's reaction to them." A third interjected. "Wherever they appear, the Flood turn on them. Everything the parasite has that can strike at them is used immediately and totally, to the point that it will often ignore our fleets entirely."

"And yet," A fourth began, her armour tinting black and blue to indicate dark humour. "The Parasite's stolen weapons fail it." She made a slight gestured. Data flowed through the minds of those in the meeting.

Captured recordings showed the creatures appearing, emerging from twisting black and blue spheres that defied examination; the creatures themselves oddly and dangerously beautiful, glowing soft blue, appearing in all manners of size and form, though most common among them was a sleek, and powerful form, one of its arms a long blade. They soared through space with ease, rushing towards infected ships, gracefully avoiding ships and weapons fire.

They watched, again and again and again, as beams of energy, blasts of plasma, and bolts of light were absorbed by shimmering planes of energy, then returned to the ships that fired them. The Flood resorted even to throwing pieces of the ships it had infected at the creatures, which met no more success than anything else had.

The only weapon that seemed even remotely capable of hurting them was use of unrestricted Slipstream ruptures. Twisting black voids ripped open space and time, but even those ruptures caught precious few of the creatures, certainly not enough to thin the horde before it arrived at the infected ships.

They broke through shields with remarkable, terrifying ease, then hit the ships underneath. Crystals immediately began to sprout over them, but most would detonate and self-destruct before it could spread too far. Some, however, would be consumed, turning to fire upon other ships in the fleets.

"The parasite scuttles its own ships in favour of letting these creatures have them." The third commented. "I must ask, is that fear?"

"What manner of being can make even the Parasite feel fear?" The fourth wondered. A chilling thought, to be certain.

He deliberated, thought about actions and consequences. There was a simple fact, and as much he didn't like it, he was forced to consider it. They were already in the midst of a war. They could ill afford to start another.

"We shall not attack them unless they prove hostile first."

History/InfoDump here. Be warned.

Lost Log 9

I suppose that I've been... vague, recently. I'd normally do this when I find out what setting I'm in, but I was a little pre-occupied before.

At the same time however, this was Halo, which is not exactly uncommon or unheard of outside of gaming circles...

Well, regardless, Halo.

Sci-fi game. The story of a generic super soldier fighting generic religious nutjob aliens who want to kill generic military sci-fi Humanity and blah blah blah none of that's important.

Because this isn't that Halo. That Halo will happen in a hundred thousand years, this Halo is the story of generic super-advanced precursor race fighting against generic super-advanced precursor killing super virus.

Confused? Well, I'll start at the beginning.

Like, the very beginning, because that shit is important to the current happenings.

Some really, really, really long time, over ten million years, in fact, a generic super-advanced precursor species went around the universe, creating life. The species was called the Precursors, because they're both really fucking old and quite probably the first living and thinking beings to have existed in this universe.

Anyway, they seeded and created life. Most notable among those species were a pair known as the Forerunners, and Humanity (Of fucking course).

For a while, things were good. Then, ten million years ago, the Precursors decided to pass on an ideal known as Mantle onto Humanity. What happened next depends on who you ask; but the results were the same either way. See, either the Forerunners threw a huge hissy fit, because they were a bunch of entitled little shits who believed they should have held the Mantle, or the Forerunners were set to be wiped out by the Precursors because they were unworthy of the Mantle, and so rebelled.

Whatever the case; the ancient Forerunners geared up and headed off to wipe out the Precursors. This effort somehow succeeded, despite the fact that the Precursors were so powerful that they really should have been able to obliterate the Forerunners with ease. Later on, the Forerunners decided that this was actually a pretty dicky move, resulting in the information being suppressed and eventually lost entirely.

Fast forward... slightly less than ten million years, the Forerunners and Humanity are the two top dogs in the galaxy, though the former is a bigger dog than the latter.

Anyway, Humanity allied with another race called the San'Shyuum, getting some good technology out of the deal. This made them more willing to challenge the Forerunners, though a war didn't break out until much later.

Later on, Humanity, thanks to their constant expansion throughout the galaxy, encountered some Precursor ships that had drifted into the Milky Way, apparently missed by the ancient Forerunners. On board those ships was a dust compound which everybody deemed harmless, so they decided to start having their pets snort it because it had a tendency to promote desirable traits in them.

At some point, they also came across another Precursor artefact, which contained a being known as the Primordial. It was transported to the capital world, because where better to store weird shit than your most important world?

See, this world was super important because it had a lot of Precursor artefacts present, including lots of Precursor megastructures. These artefacts were completely invincible and indestructible, thanks to Precursor super-science.

More on that later. Several centuries after having their pets snort powder, mutations and genetic abnormalities set in. Turns out the presumed-harmless powder was, in fact, Flood powder, and it had been altering the genetic code of those pets over the years, spreading and infecting the species and even their owners and handlers.

A short time later, the Flood popped up and began doing Flood things to the alliance. Because their pets were... pretty much everywhere, the Flood also popped up through Human space, and also on a couple San'Shyuum worlds, though not all since the San'Shyuum weren't as fond of keeping pets as the Humans were.

So, for the next couple decades, the Flood kicked the alliance's teeth in, spreading all the while. Things eventually became so desperate that Humanity decided to start taking over worlds and systems that were already inhabited by other species in an attempt to both contain the Flood and consolidate their power.

Notably, the Humans would cleanse any world of the Flood where they were found. Naturally, this included worlds that already had populations on them. Unfortunately, this included Forerunner worlds.

So, Humanity bombed the crap out of the Flood, killing many and often devastating entire planets. This made the Forerunners really, and understandably, angry.

So, the Forerunners decided to kick the Human's shit in, turning an already desperate situation for the alliance into a practical death sentence, with the Flood on one side and the Forerunners on the other.

The Forerunners themselves were either unaware of the threat the Flood posed, or simply did not care. Either way, Humanity wasn't very forthcoming with information, and the Forerunners had no pity.

As they lost all their new territory to the Forerunners, Humanity got really desperate, and created a plan wherein they would take one third of their remaining population, engineer them with genes meant to destroy the parasite, and then force feed that third of their population to the Flood. They did so, and, against all odds, it seemed to work. The Flood was contained, and it eventually retreated, leaving the alliance to focus on the Forerunners.

Who kicked their shit in. Badly. The alliance had neither the resources, nor the personnel, nor the time to recover enough to fight the Forerunners who were already stronger than the Humans had been at their height.

They lost system after system, and were eventually pushed solely to their capital. Even still, they held out for a little over fifty years, bleeding the Forerunners for every minor victory. At some point, the San'Shyuum government surrendered, and for that, they were stripped of most of their power and then locked in their home system with only a few worlds.

Humanity fought to the bitter end. For that, they were regressed into a primitive state, then dumped on their home planet of Earth, Erde-Tyrene as it is currently known.

The Primordial was also found by the Forerunners during this time. The Didact, the supreme military dude who commanded the Forerunner soldier caste, had a chat with it, and then left it on the capital world for the next nine thousand years.

Unfortunately for everybody, the bad shit didn't stop there. Nine thousand years later, the Flood came back, not having actually been effected by Humanity's supposed 'cure'. The Flood attacked the Forerunners, though the latter managed to hold the former off for nearly three hundred years before shit went down.

Slightly less than fifty years before said shit went down, the Forerunners built the Halo Array, the original version that had twelve rings thirty thousand kilometres wide instead of seven that were ten thousand kilometres.

The assigned an incredibly powerful and advanced AI known as Mendicant Bias to one of these rings, then sent it and the ring to test it in the system that used to be Humanity's capital. It worked, and everything in the system died.

However, the previously thought to be indestructible and invincible Precursor megastructures were also destroyed, because it turns out that the Halo Array has the side effect of counteracting the specific set of super-science those structures needed to continue existing. As a consequence, the Primordial was freed, and subsequently transferred to the ring that Mendicant Bias was on.

All three, the ring, Mendicant Bias, and the Primordial, vanished for the next forty three years. During this time, the Primordial convinced Mendicant Bias that the Forerunners were a bunch of jackasses, and the AI turned on its creators.

Later on, the ring was used to kill the San'Shyuum -they'd launched a rebellion-, which cause the Forerunner government to recall all the rings -turns out the use of Halo for such a purpose was a bad thing and violated Forerunner law pretty thoroughly-, where Mendicant Bias, being the super AI that it was, even by Forerunner standards, took control of the other Halo rings also present in the system, then charged and fired a few before the Forerunners could stop it, thus killing the crews of thousands of ships, every single Forerunner in the capital, and the Forerunner's entire government in one fell swoop.

The Flood subsequently began overrunning Forerunner defences, fucking shit up all across the galaxy.

And that's the abridged version of how and why the galaxy is currently fucked.

And I say currently because it's very much current. This is the time period in which I've arrived, where the Forerunner government collectively kicked the bucket not all that long ago, the Flood were still in the midst of overrunning the Forerunners, and only about ten years before the Forerunners would have activated the Halo Array in canon.

Fun times, no?

Lost Log 10

Ten hours have passed since my arrival. I have thirty two thousand Festum swarms roaming throughout space, each one a minimum of ten million members strong.

Such large numbers are ridiculously overkill, far and away beyond what I could possibly need to purge the Flood, given how frustratingly difficult it was for the Flood to kill them.

At least... for the time being, anyway. In four or so hours, numbers alone will lose all meaning.

There were precious few indications of what was to come, however. The Flood would start employing new abilities shortly, but the jump between those abilities and what would happen in four hours was rather extreme.

Shortly?

No...

That first one had already been realized. The Primordial had progressed further than I had expected.

Still... I had seen it progress quicker than this. My timing was off only by a few minutes. It doesn't matter.

Regardless, the Forerunners will be feeling the effects soon.

Poor bastards.

It wasn't as bad as it could have been, however. I've removed three fourths of the Flood attacking Forerunner space already, and I'd destroy the rest shortly. They'd escape the worst simply because there wasn't enough Flood left to bring about the worst.

Even then, I also already had a solution for what the Flood would do.

I'd just been waiting for a reason to deploy it.

My Festum appeared in new systems in much the same manner as they had in all previous; a sudden explosion of Worm Spheres to hide the fact that they'd transitioned from Hyperspace, followed shortly by a sudden and overwhelming assault on all Flood assets in the system.

Par the course, really.

What wasn't normal, however, was the Forerunner ships and machines fighting against each other.

The battle was as chaotic as it was dangerous, with beams of plasma, bolts of particles, and lasers tracing spider webs throughout space. Weapon-ships were present in the millions, and all of them were dogfighting each other around the other ships of the fleet, making for a chaotic mess not all that dissimilar to a swarming mass of insects.

The fortunate still had shields to protect them from weapons fire. The unfortunate didn't, with some ships bleeding atmosphere into the void, their hulls a mix of shattered, broken plating, and neat, scything cuts, though most fought on regardless. Some ships were simply dead in space, unmoving, their shields deactivated and weapons unpowered.

The cause, of course, was the Flood.

To anything with a modicum of psychic talent, it was easy to sense what the Primordial was doing.

I could see the tendrils of its mind reaching out, towards the helpless, undefended systems of the Forerunners. It targeted Ancilla, the artificial intelligences of the Forerunners, and, using its power, interfaced with their hardware and minds, editing thoughts and introducing self-replicating code directly into their systems, bypassing firewalls and other defensive measures. attempting to infect them and take control of them.

It was succeeding. And each one it took, it used as a conduit to spread the infection, launching attacks across networks. A more mundane, but still no less devastating method, because the Forerunners had not been prepared for it.

I might call it the 'Logic Plague', but this wasn't that. There was no attempt at philosophical corruption here, just mere brute force.

More effective, perhaps. But it came with its own vulnerabilities.

I reached out with my own mind, disrupting the Primordial's psychic activity. I felt the difference immediately, the Primordial fighting back far more effectively than it had before, making do with the minor amount of power it had available to hold my attempts off for the moment.

"Organic beings weren't enough for you, I see. Now you infect their machines, too. Do you think that will save you?" I taunted.

"Is that ignorance or arrogance, Outsider?" It returned.

"Confidence, of course." I pushed harder, forcing the Primordial to stop fucking with the Ancillas. It wouldn't do anything about those who had already been infected, but that was what the other solution was for. "Here, watch."

His arms raised, bringing his rifle to bear. His finger squeezed, sending bolts of light down the corridor, colliding with the shields of other Warrior-Servants.

He did everything he could to stop it. Wasted efforts; his Combat Skin moved without his will, his Ancilla having taken control. It was silent, disconnected from him entirely, so unlike how it had been only minutes ago.

A strange, horrifying feeling. The warning had come too late to matter.

The Parasite could infect even their Ancilla, now.

Red pulse bolts slammed into his shields. His Ancilla didn't take cover, continuing to fire back, heedless of the danger.

His shields failed. The bolts tore straight through his rifle, rendering it into scrap metal. So, his Combat Skin charged forward, manifesting a Hardlight blade to attack with.

He made it only a single step before another few pulses ripped his legs off. The pain was immense, not dulled by his armour-

And it still didn't stop him. His arms dragged him forwards, though slower than before, even as his blood made a trail across the floor.

His fellows were trying to disable him, though it wasn't working. It was a losing battle, even; Ancillas were still being converted and corrupted, Forerunners trapped in their armour, being forced to fight their fellows, while their ships carved bloody paths through each other.

If he still had the capacity to speak, he would have told them to forget about trying to save him. But, he didn't, as everything that might have allowed him to speak had been disabled.

His Combat Skin crawled forward-

And then, very suddenly, stopped. He realized, a short moment later, that it was because of a weight on his back.

He turned his head- and suddenly realized he could turn his head, his Ancilla no longer locking him out.

One of the glowing blue creatures was on top of him. It was an odd form, quadrupedal, lacking a head, its skin constantly shifting and changing slightly, but still possessed of the same odd beauty like the rest of its kind was.

He equally suddenly realized there wasn't any pain. He twisted his head, looking downwards.

Blue crystals were growing from the remains of his legs, heading away from his body. Several more crystals had spread over the parts of his Combat Skin that had taken damage, and even the remains of his rifle.

"Stand up, Promethean." Something whispered into his mind.

A moment later, the crystals shattered, revealing his legs, regenerated, his Combat Skin, repaired, and his rifle, reconstructed.

He stood up, the creature flashing brightly before vanishing, leaving behind only a few strips of crystal attached to the back of his Combat Skin. His Ancilla reconnected with him, and he felt the burning shame and regret it felt.

He wasn't angry with it. Couldn't be angry with it. The fault laid with the Flood, not it.

Besides, they had a task to do.

Lost Log 11

"How easy it is to undo what you've done." I hummed, mock-considering. "Surely, one such as you can do better than this?"

"I wonder how long you will be able to keep that attitude, Outsider." Was all I received in response.

"Oh, I'd wager quite a significant time. We've already proven that you can't stop me, I'm far too numerous for that." I let a bit of arrogance into my voice.

It chuckled, deep and menacing. "You will meet your end soon enough."

"Oh please, what can you possibly do?" Oh, but I knew full well what it could do- but it didn't know that, did it? "Prolong this war? Run like a coward and make me hunt you down? Bleed on me? Actually, that last one might prove annoying, your blood is rather viscous, and it would ruin my coat."

I got another chuckle.

And then the link between us cut as I assimilated the last bit of Flood biomass in the system.

I smiled. Step two, complete.

Managed to salvage eight ships this time. I idly sent the swarm that had been attacking the Flood to join the other half that remained in the system.

I'd gotten most of the infected Ancilla already, removed the Flood taint from them. There were only a few left now, one corrupted Weapon-Ship, and a couple Ancilla puppeting the Combat Skins of some Warrior-Servants.

Speaking of; my swarm dogpiled that Weapon-Ship, partially assimilating with it in order to access its systems. The Ancilla tried to fight back, but failed by virtue of the fact that it had no method of resisting me. Let's see, remove all code injected by the Primordial, locate and obliterate the changes it had made to the mind by comparing it to previous states, restore said previous state, regenerate mental damage... And fixed.

My swarm left it a moment later, leaving behind only a few twisting strips of Photon-Crystal attached to the hull. Much the same happened for the Ancilla who were in control of the Combat Skins, though the type of Festum that did the deed was different, and the work happened to include healing the Forerunners wearing them.

In both cases, the only things left behind after I was done were chunks of photon-crystal attached to the Combat Skins.

The countermeasure.

They had a lot of uses, actually. The main one was stopping the Primordial from altering Ancilla by blocking its power, but further, they'd be able to prevent Flood infection, assimilating Flood biomatter the wearer came into contact with before it could corrupt them. In case of damage, they'd be able to repair armour and regenerate Forerunners, and in the worst case scenario, they would serve as Gordian Crystals, providing a measure of safety for the minds of their wearers and those around them in case of death.

It was... honestly rather wasted. In a few short hours, they'd become irrelevant- but the deployment of them was also for appearances sake. The impression they'd give was favourable to me, both to the Forerunners, and to the Primordial.

The only reason I hadn't deployed them beforehand was simply because I had had no excuse to deploy such things before now. In too many timelines, suddenly deploying them with no reason had caused the Forerunners to misinterpret, and become hostile. In fewer, but still too many, it had given the Primordial a hint that something was up with my knowledge and counters.

From then, it had only been a short time before it arrived to conclusions. Those conclusions might not have been completely accurate, but they were always annoying. I had risked it a number of times in those possible futures. It made things harder too often for me to deploy them early here, where I couldn't just drop the timeline when I made mistakes.

Reality was unforgiving, that way.

Still, I had my excuse now. The Forerunners wouldn't become hostile -not from just this, at least-, and, more importantly, the Primordial would believe that I had no idea what it was doing in the background, far away from my forces, and far away from everything I could see... It would think that I had no idea how advanced it was becoming, and had so settled in for a long, conventional war.

Honestly, I couldn't wait until it was ready. Then, I could stop fucking around.

"What is it, Lifeworker?" He asked, straightening up as the scanning beams finished their work.

"I do not know." Words that few wished to hear when it came to matters such as these. The Lifeworker herself floated around the table, her form smaller than most of her rate, though still slender and graceful. "Even with equipment such as this-" She gestured around the room, pointing to all the sensor arrays that had been hastily gathered. "- it defies examination."

"Is it harmful?" He asked next.

"No." She answered, before she tensed and continued again, her armour darkening. "At least, not as far as we can detect." She turned to face him, concern written both in her countenance and on her face. "But it is alive, Promethean. I know not of its intention."

She sounded so assured when she claimed that it was alive. He accepted it with barely a consideration; who was he to contradict a Lifeworker when they claimed that something lived? To him, it was a strange crystal, yes, but to her, it was obviously much more.

"It healed me." He noted. "And freed my Ancilla of the Parasite's corruption."

She nodded, acknowledging that. "Yes. You and all other Forerunners who had their armour... controlled, by the Flood. But such things alone are no reason to attach itself to yourself and the other Forerunners. Perhaps it is benign, but this is a new behaviour..." A moment later, she shook her head. "I cannot tell you much more, Promethean. I have only observations and guesses, now."

"I was released into your care, Lifeworker." He reminder her. "I will not be drawn away."

"I- yes." She nodded again. "I shall speak."

Lost Log 12

Ten hours, thirty two minutes, eighteen seconds.

I have finally spread far enough to reach something that had been of considerable interest to me. By all appearances, it was a hulk drifting in space- and truth be told, the reality wasn't far from the impression it gave.

A Forerunner ship, but it was an old one, barely functioning, in such a state of disrepair that it was a wonder it remained intact at all. It was drifting towards a world known as Uthera Midgeerrd, itself on the very edge of Forerunner space- and also a world that had been overrun by the Flood quite some time ago.

Why did I care about this ship? Also simple. It held a rather important passenger.

My swarm appeared in the system suddenly, tens of millions materializing inside the atmosphere of that corrupted world. They all immediately began assimilating, the Flood fought back and blah blah blah what's going to happen over there is entirely too predictable.

Onto the more interesting thing; a scant few dozen of my swarms appeared at the ship, drifting around it. I ran a scan over it, absentmindedly disrupting the Primordial as it attempted to spy what I was doing over here.

Four lifeforms, in stasis. There was an Ancilla on board, too, though it was deactivated and unaware. It had been decommissioned, actually, thought whoever was responsible for that hadn't done a good job. The ship was fucked, most of the systems wrecked completely. Even the power conduits were slowly burning out from the energy being passed through them, since they were nothing but backups.

Given a few years, they'd fail entirely, and the four occupants would be released from their stasis bubbles.

I had my Festum close in, and began assimilating with the hulk of the ship. A coating of crystals appeared throughout it quickly, and I started fixing it up, restoring the ship to functional capacity. The Ancilla, I restored from a backup of its personality, bringing it online quickly, though for the moment, I didn't allow it any control of the ship.

As for the stasis bubbles...

A Worm Sphere bloomed, and vanished, leaving behind a four meter high Diablo-Type.

It wandered up to the stasis bubbles, examining the contents.

One female, two males, and the fourth; a Catalog, its chassis heavily damaged. Of the first three, only the female was still wearing her armour. The two males had been stripped of it, but both were Warrior-Servants, and one a Promethean.

They did not need their armour to be dangerous. The female was a Builder, less of a possible threat- though that did not mean she was completely harmless, merely that she hadn't formed herself for war.

But to be honest, only one of them really mattered to me.

And that was the Promethean.

Why? Well, simple.

My Diablo-Type raised its blade.

That Promethean was known as the 'Ur-Didact'.

And then it slashed.

The stasis bubble collapsed with bursts of ultraviolet light, and the scent of ozone. The air around him hissed as the time he hadn't experienced suddenly caught up with him.

He dropped to the floor, gasping, his body trembling, and his eyes unfocused.

I tapped the blade to his chest, sending a burst of rejuvenating energy through him. His muscles, slightly atrophied, healed; his skin losing its pallor; his eyes refocusing.

He blinked as he saw the Diablo-Type, stunned for the barest of moments, before suddenly standing up, scrambling backwards and attempting to examine his surroundings while not taking his eyes off of my Festum.

"Shadow-of-Sundered-Star." I addressed him. The name caused him to freeze, which drew a small amount of amusement from me. "Ur-Didact."

Assimilation crystals suddenly ran along the room, appearing on the floor, the walls, and the ceiling. The Ur-Didact's eyes darted about as he looked at them, and he took a step back when they came close- Unnecessary, however, as the crystals left a circle around where he was standing.

"How strange it is to find one of your standing in such a morbid place as this." The assimilation crystals shattered, fragments launching into the air, where they shattered again, and again, until nothing remained. The floor below hummed with renewed strength, the machinery hidden within now repaired completely.

His feet settled far apart, his hands held out to his sides. The slight tense of his muscles showed that he was ready for sudden combat, should it become necessary.

"And what manner of... being, are you?" He asked, careful.

"Drich." I responded. "I must say, you are quite a long way away from your home, Ur-Didact. You-" The Diablo-Type's head turned slightly, looking at the stasis bubbles of the Forerunners behind him. "- and those three there."

I paused for a moment, giving a considering hum. "Well. I can change that. And you, Ur-Didact, have a task to do, don't you?"

A Worm Sphere consumed the Diablo-Type, taking it away as quickly as it had appeared. But the Worm Sphere didn't vanish there. Instead, it grew rapidly, consuming the entire ship in only a second. I disabled all of its sensors for the moment, and then I punted it through Hyperspace.

In about five seconds, it would arrive in the Forerunner Capital, where the Iso-Didact currently was. The moment it did, its sensors would reactivate, and the Ancilla would regain full control of the ship. The Forerunners would be appropriately cautious, but upon seeing who was inside...

Well. It would be a surprise for most.

More importantly, rescuing the Didact here and now meant that he wouldn't fall into the Primordial's hands, which, in turn, meant he wouldn't become insane from the torment it would put him through, and thus, he could lead the Forerunner military properly instead of drawing away resources and lives for a pointless goal.

It also meant that the Iso-Didact would have his duties effectively halved. Which was important, because in about eleven minutes, I was going to encounter another interesting thing.

And I wanted him to be there when I did.

Lost Log 13

Ten hours, forty three minutes, forty five seconds.

And I encountered the other interesting thing I had spoken about.

My Festum materialized around it suddenly, appearing from Worm Spheres. A single look at it was all anybody needed to identify it.

A ring. A Halo ring, to be exact.

Installation 07, the only remaining Halo of the original twelve rings.

Why did I care about it? Well, aside from the fact that it's a fucking Halo Ring, and thus automatically serious business, it held two occupants that I really wanted to get my hands on.

My Festum got to work quickly, dividing into smaller groups of hundreds of thousands as they went after important parts of the structure. I send them to the ends of each section of the ring, the power relays, generators, control rooms, and every other system of importance. Assimilation crystals shortly spread over those places in short order, and then further as I seized control of more and more of the ring.

There was a considerable amount of Flood biomass present, which I shortly got rid of. Also present, however, was other plant and animal life, which I left alone for the moment. Finally, there were a few sapient beings, who, with the exception of two beings, I left alone.

But those two?

One of my Diablo-Types appeared in the center of the ring, and shortly reshaped itself, assimilation crystals covering it, before spreading and forming a large, wide platform. More matter flashed into existence, and assumed the shape of one of my Envoy-Type Festum, much smaller than it usually was, only eighteen meters in height.

The platform finished growing, and I started adding an atmosphere. A moment after that was finished, I used Sui's power, and promptly summoned the only two things I cared about on this installation.

Both appeared with flashes of light. Both were very different. The first, the smallest, bore a resemblance to a Monitor shell, save for the fact it was two meters across. Its eye was green, and it rotated to face my Envoy-Type after a short moment.

The second was nothing so simple. It was a bit under fifteen meters tall, and eleven meters wide. It had a wide and flat head, rather insectoid in appearance, with a long tail, tipped with a two meter long barb extending from the back of that head. Four arms extended from an over-sized and fat torso, two large upper limbs and two smaller lower limbs, each with hands that had three fingers and a central opposable thumb. Two degenerated legs extend from the bottom of it, with more, smaller legs curled up into itself like a spider. A fine, crystalline powder covered its skin, which fell from its body as it moved. The face bore a resemblance to sea scorpions, with compound eyes, and an insectoid mouth.

The second, of course, was the original body of the Primordial. The first, however, was merely one of two separate housings on the ring, both for the same being; Mendicant Bias.

I did not summon the other. It was incredibly large, a mass of data-crystals and other machinery, the size of a small city. It would have been annoying to host it, simply because of the scale of it.

Unnecessary, too. Remote interaction was what the up-scaled Monitor chassis was for.

"Well then." I ignored Mendicant Bias for the moment, instead making a show out of examining the Primordial. "This was your original form? Inelegant, but perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. It is you, after all."

"Outsider." It clicked, mouth chittering and releasing sounds that were only approximations of the words it wanted to speak. Still, somewhere between it and me, the sounds changed, the way the air vibrated altered so that what was delivered was understandable- if nauseating for most beings. "Strange, you normally destroy my mass wherever you find me."

"I have a plan for this instance of you." I told it, before looking around.

Around us, the Halo appeared to be slowly changing colour, splotches of blue spreading rapidly across its surface. Visible in the sky, but still far away, was a planet, whose surface bore an odd resemblance to the face of a wolf.

"After all, you have been telling quite a few lies, Parasite." I turned my Envoy's head back towards it. "And I do believe that it's time those records were straightened."

"Fascinating." Mendicant Bias spoke, his voice ringing from the Monitor frame. "Teleportation without the Slipstream."

"It used the power of its mind to create a temporary fold in space." The Primordial answered his curiosity. "Zero-dimensional movement."

"Neural physics?" The Ancilla asked next.

"No, though one might liken this and that." There was low clicking noise, before it continued. "It doesn't tap into the universe and alter fundamental physics to do such a thing. It is blunt power alone."

Mendicant Bias hummed. "Thank you."

"Picked up a bauble, have you?" I turned towards it. "And turned it against its makers, I see."

"I-"

"Do not speak, bauble. I am not interested in whatever words you may have. You are but a puppet, dangling on that one's strings." I looked back at the Primordial.

Around us, the last areas of Installation 07 were assimilated. The ring is coated in a shimmering blue, only a few areas of it left alone. That was enough for me.

I seized control of its defensive measures, and then activated one. Quite suddenly, most of the Installation froze in time, caught in stasis. It would not last long, but it would last long enough.

In stasis, energy it would have absorbed was instead reflected. To those who had the sensors to observe it, they would see a suspicious scattering of heat and energy.

The Forerunners had such sensors. The activation of such systems would draw their attention in very short order. They would come soon, because a few would recognize the method through which the energy scattered. The Didact, both of them, would quickly realise the situation.

I wasn't trying to be subtle, here.