The Ship mistress and the wolf

by possibly Gigan

Grim Reaper, hyper-lethal, Noble six, Erik-B312 has had many names and has killed a lot of people. He thought that the burning husk of Reach was to be his tomb. But fate works in mysterious ways, and loves those who fight for the right causes

1. Chapter 1

Heya

So I just randomly got this idea, and I thought it was pretty neat, so here we are. Oh, I couldn't figure out how to write Six's armor in aside from the chest and shoulders, so here it is

ODST helmet, tac-pad, hardcase pouch, and Gungnir knees

I don't own halo: reach, it belongs to bungee

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Noble six, no noble was gone. Spartan Erik-B312 was staring his death in the face. But just before the elite zealot's energy sword came down, he heard a feminine voice call out in Sangheili. Him, the major holding him down, and the zealot about to stab him look over to see a female elite in golden field marshal armor. She said something else in her language, prompting the zealot above Erik to deactivate his energy sword. This confused Erik, until the elite punched him with the hilt, knocking the spartan out.

Cuso 'Saramai, ship mistress of the supercarrier Seeker of Contrition had been ordered by her fleetmaster to stay behind and make sure the planet they had glassed had no survivors. She knew the chances of a human, even a demon surviving were astronomically low. So imagine Cuso's surprise when a demon was spotted among some ruins and the bodies of its kin. She sent a few warriors with unggoy, thinking that this one was just lucky. Her mistake was shown when the demon killed them all with little effort. So after a few more waves, Cuso stopped sending unggoy and only sent her fellow Sangheili. Eventually, she decided to board a phantom and see the demon with her own two eyes. She arrived just in time to stop a zealot from ending its life via energy sword.

Cuso ordered it to be taken alive, and to a VIP cell aboard her ship. She realized on the phantom that the demon was in fact male and an odd looking one as well. He had short snow white hair and hard features. His eyes were bicolored, one a fiery red and the other a plasma blue. An energy sword scar ran diagonally across his face, starting at the lower right of it and ending on the upper left corner. When the kig-yar stripped him of his armor they found what appeared to be body markers.

Jorge-052

Catherine-B320

Carter-A259

Emile-A239

They also found some around his neck

Erik-B312

She decided to keep them on hand to ask him about when he woke up. When he was delivered to his cell, Cuso went to the bridge and sat down, deep in thought.

Erik woke up and instantly regretted it. His head hurt in a very bad way. Once he regained his situational awareness, he noticed that he was in a… rather nice cell. In the center, on a rug of a likely alien creature was a table and two chairs. At the back, and opposite corner of his position, was what he guesses is a bathroom with a wall for privacy. And his bed, in one word for him, heaven. It was a tub of some sort of gel, but it wasn't cold or wet. It was warm and extremely comfortable. He got up, the gel on him sliding off his bodysuit easily. He then realized that some very important items were missing, his and his friend's dog tags. Suppressing a panic attack, he then decided to look outside the plasma bars of his cell only to see a door. He went to the walled-off section and saw indeed it was a bathroom with a toilet and shower. It was in Sangheili, but just because he didn't understand the spoken language doesn't mean he can't read it.

Erik decided to take a shower and took his bodysuit off. He entered the shower and a hologram of a semicircle appeared. There was a circle inside it at the center and the Sangheili symbols for hot and cold were on the left and right. He turned it to hot and was pleasantly surprised to feel a steady stream of hot water longer than three seconds. The water washed away the dirt and ash covering his body, revealing a large number of scars. From insurrectionist bullets to covenant plasma burns. When all of the grime was gone, he the water off and was hit with a stream of plasma from above. It wasn't harmful, barely hot enough to evaporate the water on Erik really. 'Plasma drying, cool.' (AN: I don't care it doesn't work like that. You try to tell someone that isn't cool) He thought as he put his bodysuit on. Just as he finished getting dressed, he heard the door open and close. Then the plasma bars deactivate and reactivate

He came around the corner and saw the same female elite from before, sans the helmet. She had a hide a few shades darker than normal, making it seem almost black. Her eyes were a bright magenta, but Erik just shrugged it off as a Sangheili thing. "Hello demon, my name is Cuso 'Saramai. I am the ship mistress of this ship, the Seeker of Contrition. May you tell me your name?" She said in near perfect English. Erik thought for a moment before answering, might as well be civil. "Erik-B312, one of the last members of Fireteam Noble." His heart twisted a little at the mention of his friends. He showed no signs of it though, not giving his possible interrogator any leverage. She noticed his tenseness, however. "Relax, I just want to talk." Erik involuntarily relaxes a little. She gestures to the table and chairs. "Come, let's sit." Cuso offers as she sits down.

Erik joins her, his foot tapping out of habit. "I just wanted to ask some questions. Nothing concerning humanity, I promise. First I want to know what these are." She asked as she held something out. Erik snatched them away as fast as he could manage. It was his and his friend's dog tags. He held them close to his chest and bowed his head, thanking whatever gods he could think of for his fortune. "I assume those are important to you then?" Cuso asked, snapping Erik back to reality. He mentally scolded himself for showing a psychological weakness in front of an enemy. Well, cats out of the bag now. "Yeah, they're all I have to remember my friends. You would've liked them, they were good soldiers and even better people." He smiled at the memories he had with noble team. The banter with Emile and Kat, talking strategies with Carter, sharpshooting contests with Jun, and Jorge acting as an older brother figure.

"I'm sorry. May I ask how they died? You don't have to answer." She assures. Erik thinks for a moment before replying. "No, it's fine. Carter was the leader of our team. He always knew what to do in a situation. He gave his life by crashing a pelican into a scarab that was blocking Emile and I's path. Jorge was our heavy weapons master. He was a gentle giant and the only spartan two on the team. He died manually detonating a makeshift bomb made from a slipspace engine, taking a supercarrier with him. Emile was our CQC specialist, and he hated covenant with a passion. I don't know the full story why, but apparently, when he was a kid a brute killed his brother in a painful way. When a squad of marines found him he was covered in blood and holding his brother's corpse. A deactivated energy sword at his side and he was surrounded by an entire squad of Sangheili and brutes. He was supposed to be the last man on that burning husk while I escaped on the last ship on Reach. A corvette was closing in and we needed someone to use a MAC cannon to clear us a path. But a phantom dropped two zealots off at the gun, he killed the first, but the second one came up from behind. It ran him trough, but he jammed his knife in the throat of the bastard, taking it with him."

"Kat-." He paused. He took a deep, shaky breath before continuing. Cuso became concerned, this must be a rather painful loss for him, seeing as he remained cool for his explanation of the others. "Kat was our logistics expert, and a damn good one. She was smart, witty, and always knew how to cheer the team up. Whenever we didn't know what to do, Kat always had a strategy, a plan, a hail mary. She was the only one that didn't bully me for my looks during training to become Spartans. She was-." Erik paused and took a deep breath, obviously having great pain at this particular loss. "We were regrouping in a skyscraper in the city when a Covenant ship began glassing nearby. We were going to take cover in an underground bunker, when s-she was s-sniped by a zealot. It burned a hole right through her head, she never had a chance. W-we tried to kill the bastard, but the phantom flew away before we broke his shields. And that laugh, he was laughing at the fact that we would never avenge our sister." A few stray tears began to spawn, but he wiped them away. Cuso put a comforting hand on his shoulder and looked directly into his bicolored eyes. Erik found comfort in her gaze, telling him that he didn't have to continue. "Thanks, but why do you care? I'm a spartan, your enemy." Erik asked. He figured he would be interrogated then killed. Cuso figured that he would ask that, so she had her answer prepared. "No warrior of your caliber deserves to be left to die, even if it's willingly. I've been serving the Covenant for years, even though I don't care for the 'great journey' and I've seen too many great warriors throw their lives away for this stupid cause." Erik was shocked. He knew genocide on the scale the Covenant was performing would cause a few to be displeased, but for some to be this open about their hate for the cause?

"Enough of that though. How are you liking your accommodations? This cell was designed to house VIPs, though the prophets would execute me for taking any of your kind as prisoners." She asked, then angrily muttered. Erik didn't hear the second part, however. He smiled, 'Stockholm syndrome sure set in fast.' he thought to himself. "It's nice, the shower is warm for more than three seconds, the chairs are comfortable, and while it's a gel, the bed is amazing. Most definitely an upgrade from the bunks the UNSC has. If this was known, I know a few guys that would go on suicide missions just to get captured by you." Erik joked, causing Cuso to chuckle lightly. Erik then regaled the story of how he got his battalion to stop bullying him. "Wait, so you ripped a unggoy's head off and beat another to death with it because you ran out of ammo for your pistol? What about your primary?" She asked. Erik sighed at the memory of that cursed weapon. "Ugh, the assault rifle is awful. Sixty round mag, shotguns have a tighter spread, and it fires way too fast. It's more useful as a bludgeon than a gun. I once fired at a innie about three meters away and only hit the guy three times out of the entire mag. I usually just throw it at some poor bastard and grab a better gun or use my magnum. Actually, on the unggoy decapitation mission, I managed to somehow stab my assault rifle through a brute. But yeah, that's how I got people to stop bullying me about my hair and eyes." He explained. They had found that they rather enjoy each other's company.

"Mind explaining your unique look? I've never seen a human look like you." Cuso asked. It was something that intrigued her. Erik shrugged before responding. "I'm both an albino and heterochromatic. Albino humans have white hair and are paler than normal." Now that she looks at him in actual light and not the dark lights of the phantom, she did notice that he was rather pale. "Heterochromia is a condition when a person has two different eye colors. In terms of genetics, you won the lottery capturing me." He explained then joked, causing both to chuckle. They continued to talk for another 15 minutes, revealing that Cuso was an albino as well, it's just that pigments darken on Sanghelios instead of lightning. "You don't need to answer this question, but how many of the crew on this ship actually believes in the prophets?" Erik asked. They had been dancing around the question for a while now. Cuso thought for a few moments before answering. "Everyone on this ship except a zealot named Sydo 'Vufumai just wants to get away from the Covenant. But we would be hunted down as we have nowhere to go, the banished would use us as cannon fodder and the Seeker of Contrition would be hunted down if we just ran." Erik filed the banished away for later research and went deep into thought. He COULD get the UNSC to accept the supercarrier and her crew, but they would have to do something to get on HICOM's good side.

A beeping came from Cuso's gauntlet, startling them both. Cuso taps on it and a holographic screen of a elite general came up. "Vato 'Tanomai, what is it?" Cuso asked, obviously, she left him in charge of something. "The fleetmaster has recalled us. They chased a human vessel and found a halo. The vessel, Pillar of Autumn, has crashed on the ring and they have the captain captive. The demon is there, however." The general reported. 'Perfect.' Erik thought to himself as Cuso ordered to move to assist. When the call was ended, she sighed and began to think, only to feel Erik's hand on her wrist. "Cuso, this is perfect. Getting the crew of the Autumn and the Master Chief back safely and denying the Covvies the halo would get HICOM to give you and your people a chance. And if you give me my armor and a energy sword, you won't have to worry about Sydo." He reasoned. Cuso thought for a while, it could work, but there is one problem, he didn't have a helmet. She pointed it out, but assured him she could fix the error. And with that, they parted ways, well Cuso left and Erik went back to sleep.

(three days later, an hour from the halo ring.)

Erik woke back up and once more appreciated the amazing bed he slept in. He severely doubted he could go back to the UNSC bunks after this. Erik then heard the door open and looked back to see Cuso walking in with something under her arm and a grunt pushing a Covvie crate on a hovering platform. They had done away with the plasma bars on day two, when Cuso knew she could trust Erik. "Aw, you came all this way to give a gift to me? I'm flattered." He joked as he got out of bed, causing Cuso to chuckle and gently toss the helmet on the table. It looked like a zealot helmet re-shaped to fit a human, Erik, more specifically. The grunt opened the crate and it revealed his armor made to look like an ODST, sans the helmet, fully fixed. She then escorted him personally to a cell attached to an onboard arena (AN: think the prophet council meeting room on high charity from Halo 2 but with full 360 seats and a circle) after they put his armor on. He heard Cuso give a speech, he couldn't understand it, as it was in Sangheili, but he got the general gist of 'the prophets are full of shit.' The door began to open and Erik put on his new helmet. It's HUD flickered on, and showed itself to be more circular than his old HUD. He saw the opponent, and recognized him immediately.

"YOU! You're the bastard that killed Kat!" He shouted, pure rage coating his voice and shocking everyone in the audience by the amount of it. He activated the energy sword he got earlier and prepared to gut the man that killed his sister-in-arms. "Ah yes, you were with that whore of a warrior when I put a hole through her head. After I kill you, I'll kill all the heretics here. And I'll parade your and that slut of a ship mistress's heads around high charity." Now Erik was angry, at both the insult to Kat's memory and the insult to Cuso, for unknown reasons, the second one pushed him to see red. Sydo figured his usual tactic of pissing his opponent off, then dispatching them with ease would work. But he made one, vital mistake,

combat in engraved upon each and every spartan's mind.

Erik charged, and Sydo prepared for his typical gutting maneuver, but when he went to do it, Erik blocked it with his sword. The spartan then socked him in the face, dazing the sangheilien. He then put the blades of the elite's energy sword in between his and twisted it away from the Covvie. Sydo was angry.

Until he felt relieved of a left arm.

He fell to his knees, held his cauterized stump, and screamed in pain. He saw the Spartan's helmet hit the floor with a thud and looked into the human's dead bicolored eyes. "That was for Carter," Erik said with a dead tone. He then cut off the right arm, causing Sydo's pain to double. "For Jorge," he stated, anger starting to seep into his words. He cut off the left leg, showing how little mercy he had. "FOR EMILE," he was shouting in anger now, pure fury in the augmented human's eyes. He cut the right leg off, continuing his revenge. "FOR REACH," he shouted, before stabbing Sydo in the chest. Erik watched with grim pleasure as life faded from the zealot's eyes. "For Kat." He said with a dead tone, making Sydo's last feeling to be one of fear before he died. He then turned to the crowd, and began his speech. "My team was a group of good people, hell, we were called Noble team. They all gave their lives to protect humanity, and their sacrifices should not be in vain. I personally will make sure to send those bastards that started this war to hell, even if it kills me. They have taken from us, stolen our lives, slaughtered our people, and had done it all in the name of a false religion. I don't know about you, but I'm ready to pay them back for everything they did. So, who will send those bastards to hell, even if you have to drag them down with you?"

The crowd was silent for a moment, before they erupted into cheers. Cuso then raised her hand, silencing them all. "It is time then, we shall break away from the Covenant and join the UNSC." she announced.

(two hours later, aboard a phantom)

Erik checked his now red energy sword, which he had named Kat's revenge, one last time before they snuck onto the enemy ship. The team he was with was made up of three Kig-Jar, seven Unggoy, and seven Sangheili, including Cuso herself. They were given permission to board on the pretense of Cuso wanting to discuss the situation with the fleetmaster personally. They were to go in guns blazing, get to the brig, and get captain Keyes back to the Seeker of Contrition. From there, they would try to get into contact with the Chief and any other survivors, evac them, then blow the halo ring to hell. Erik was shaken from his thoughts when he felt the phantom. He grabbed the plasma repeater he was given for the op, and the doors opened to show ten unggoy, five Kig-jar, and three Sangheili, all very shocked at the sight of their supposed allies armed to the teeth and with a spartan. And then the phantom and its passengers opened fire, tearing through the Covenant forces with ease. They jumped out of the phantom and began the trek to the brig.

(five minutes later, just outside of the brig.)

They had made it to the brig without casualties, somehow, and are now preparing to breach. And then the entirety of the attacking force that wasn't human cloaked as Erik walked through the door. He saw three unggoy, two SpecOps Sangheili, and one zealot. "Hello lads," he announced, gaining the room's attention. "May we make a withdrawal?" Erik finished his quip as five energy swords ran through the guards and his allies showed themselves. Cuso walks over to the panel and begins to type on it, and soon the cell plasma barriers fall. Erik walks over to one in the back, the one with Keyes in it, and holds his hand out to help the smaller man up. Keyes looks up in shock, looks about the room, and says about the only thing you can in that instance as he grabbed Erik's hand. "I have several questions." the spartan chuckled, hauled the man to his feet, and pats him on the back. "Well, they'll have to wait until we get back to the Seeker of Contrition." Erik said. The group walked to the door with the spartan in front. The door opened and Erik found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

An assault rifle, to be specific,

One being held by a spartan in olive green armor,

Master Chief petty officer John-117

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Bum bum buuum! cliffhanger! I'm a dick, I know. Anyway, for those of you that don't know, those are in fact noble team's spartan identification numbers, not random numbers I cooked up. As for him curb stomping a zealot in a 1V1, spartan B312 has the rating of hyper-lethal, same as the Chief, and six's ONI handler (before noble team) called the spartan "his own personnel grim reaper." They've completed a lot of ops that don't exist and their bio looks more like a barcode than anything. Oh, and the fact that an entire supercarrier not caring about the great journey, whatshisname theory of infinite probability. It's the same as things going through a dryer and landing perfectly folded, it's possible, just not probable.