Hal's Story

Summary: You've all seen and heard about Hal's armour, with its legendary green plating and golden orange visor. But what of the man behind the armour? This is Hal's story, or, as known by a select few, John.

Yo. Chindu POD here. Second story up. A new record. Whoopee...... whatever. Well, I dunno how many of you know about Hal's Armor from Fable 2, but I've gotta say, it's a totally awesome cameo or whatever it's called from Halo. I also want to point out that I haven't played either Halo 3 or Fable 2, 'cuz I don't gots an Xbox 360, something that makes me sad...... very, very sad...*sob*. Anyways, this here's a crossover between the two games, and explains the origin of the armor. And yeah, I know, I should probably focus on my other story, but, man, this, this,...I just gotta write this, man! And so, without further adieu, I present Hal's Story, in all its glory! (Hey, that rhymes! =D).

Disclaimer: Okay, I lied. I still have this to do. *Ahem* I do not own Halo or Fable. If I did then I would give myself copies of the games and play it... ... wait, I can't 'cuz I don't have a 360!!! Grrrrr, CURSE YOU, MICROSOFT!!!......... Okay, NOW we can begin.

Chapter 1: Anomaly

Year 2553, on board the Forward Unto Dawn

In the far reaches of space, a lonely ship drifted in the emptiness. The hulking metal corpse was severed neatly in half, where its counterpart resided was unknown to its current inhabitants. The ship held no signs of life or activity, but tucked away within was a sleeping Demon. Or at least, that's what the other side called him. No, this was Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan 117, a biologically-enhanced super soldier feared by the Covenant and saviour of the human race. And the Chief right now was having a wonderful dream involving sugarplum fairies and drumsticks…wait, what? The Master Chief doesn't dream about those! Well, maybe drumsticks, but not fairies…or does he? Back to the story. This legendary Spartan was currently slumbering in a cryo tube, awaiting the day when he will be needed again. Keeping a constant vigil over him was his ever faithful partner and friend, Cortana, an AI with limitless capabilities and one who had been with the Master Chief through countless bloody battles and wars. Her advanced systems allowed her to process and calculate things in a fraction of a second, an ability that saved her host's hide on more than one occasion. Capable of hacking into alien mainframes and bypassing secure government firewalls, this smart AI was the pinnacle of human technology. And right now she was bored.

It has been six months prior to the day she and the Chief were stranded in this desolate corner of the universe. Six months since she sent out that distress beacon. Six months since anything interesting happened. Cortana ran another scan with her sensors. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Just dust and echoes. And junk, lots of junk. She sighed. It was just another one of those days where she really wished to bring the Chief out from his hibernation just to have a chat. But of course, the result of that would be a very irate Spartan at being woken up prematurely, and for something as trivial as a bored AI. No, she would endure this like a good little construct and keep watch over her host. Cortana's holographic image flickered to life on a platform beside the cryo tube. She gazed at the figure sleeping within it. How long would they have to wait until help arrived? How long before her remaining life span ran out? She did a quick calculation, and frowned. According to the statistics, things weren't looking good. It showed that with the amount of time that she was in service for, coupled with the corruption that took place during her period of captivity by Gravemind, she had a little over two years or so to function. And that was at minimal capacity. Smart AI's like her could only last so long, and even now, she was pushing it. She hated to think what would happen to the Chief without her guidance. In their long history together, John had become a friend to her, someone she wanted to protect, and she was 99.9874% sure that her creator, Dr. Catherine Halsey, felt the same way towards him.

He was special. Out of all the others, she had chosen him. There were others that were stronger than him, faster than him, and smarter than him. But she chose him to be her partner. Why? Luck, of course. A lucky streak that defied all possible odds in the face of danger. But, Cortana often thought, was it luck that chose him to be selected in the Spartan II program, or was it fate? Or was it something else? What would have happened if he wasn't selected? If he had lived a peaceful life with his original family? She often wondered if he remembered his past life. She, of course, had extensive files on his background and family, but she never felt comfortable in sharing that information with him. Would he want to know, or would he simply disregard it as an unwanted luxury? Cortana looked at the frosted, polarized visor of her protégé's helmet. It concealed everything from the public, creating the desired image of an emotionless, invincible warrior that staved off humanity's enemies. A tool. But she had seen his real face, the face that was marred in grief every time a comrade or friend was killed in battle. She had seen the face that was human, contrary to popular belief by the masses. No matter what titles were given, honours or medals, they could not hide from her the fact that the Saviour of Humanity, the Demon of the Covenant, could be hurt.

He had been hurt on his first day of school when he accidentally got into a fight with another kid when the latter stole a girl's cookie. He had been hurt in his first race, when he ran so fast that he out paced the other kids by miles until he tripped on a stray pebble and twisted his ankle. But nevertheless, he limped all the way to the finish line, despite the protests of his worried parents, and won first place and a shiny medal, along with the respect and admiration of his peers. He was hurt when he left his best friend to die alone onboard a hostile alien cruiser. He was hurt when he detonated the Pillar of Autumn's fusion reactor core, destroying the first Halo and condemning hundreds of soldiers to their fiery deaths. He was hurt when he left Cortana on High Charity to pursue the Prophet of Truth. He could be hurt, because he was human, albeit a biologically and cybernetically augmented and enhanced human. And one with a heck of a lot of luck.

A faint energy spike appeared on Cortana's scanners, but it was too small to be analyzed and disappeared quickly. Most likely the result of a solar flare off a distant sun. She directed her attention towards John's readings. Heart rate slowed drastically as expected in cryo sleep, the same goes for blood pressure. No cell damage due to freezer burn, which was good because she didn't want him to wake up to discover the absence of fingers. Fluctuations in brainwave activity. Hmm, he was dreaming. Cortana wondered what the Chief was dreaming about. As an AI, she never slept, but simply entered a state of hibernation to conserve energy, so she never dreams. Judging from the wave patterns, the dream must be something pleasant.

Another energy spike emerged, but this time it was larger, large enough to be analyzed. The readings confused her. There was nothing around for light-years, and yet here was this energy residue that came out of nowhere. She checked over her calculations and the result was the same; this unknown energy source was nowhere to be found. What was going on? The spikes became pulses as they appeared more frequently, with increasing power. Again, Cortana scanned the anomaly, and this time pinpointed the source. It came from an area in space approximately 250 000 km relative from the Dawn. The curious thing was, there was nothing there. It was just empty space, devoid of anything that might be capable of producing energy like that. Again and again the pulses appeared, amounting to a point that the Dawn's metallic walls rattled from the force. The energy was overloading her sensors, creating a pain like that of one looking into a bright light after spending a long time into the dark. The stabbing intensity bore into Cortana's very core.

Suddenly, the pulses stopped, and concentrated themselves all to one pinprick spot. The energy stabilized, yet was still present, suspended in space. Cortana took a fraction of a second to check over her systems, to make sure nothing was damaged, then looked to the concentration of energy. One major question was where did the energy come from? It seemed to just suddenly appeared, released some steam, then simmered down to a boil. Cortana studied the area. The unknown energy was localized, focused on a specific area. She wondered what purpose it could possibly serve. Then it suddenly started to become denser, getting heavier and heavier by the second. It was starting to behave like a black hole, sinking into the fabric of reality. This spelt trouble for her and the Chief. Even now, with the advancements in human technology, no one really knew what lay on the other side, if there even is one. Even the information she gleaned from the Covenant mainframe told her that they have not yet explored that field. And although a part of her wanted to explore the possibility of entering the hole, she had to place the preservation of the Chief and herself first.

Although the entire process was a thousand times faster than the actual formation of a black hole, it was quickly starting to become one. Already, light disappeared from the areas surrounding the dense energy. The bulky mass of the ship was slowly but surely moving towards it. Should the ship enter the heavy region of condensed energy, it would be torn apart in seconds, along with whoever was in it. Cortana glanced over to the cryo tube. Well, might as well let him witness this event before he gets turned into a smoothie.

She started the defrosting procedure and watched as the icicles receded, leaving water droplets on the olive green armor. Water trailed off the polarized visor that hid everything. Sensors read everything was okay, no risk of hypothermic shock. The light beeped green and the hatch popped open, a mist gathering around the base. A hand twitched and moved. Cortana turned her speakers on.

"Wake up, Chief. You're needed."

Notes:

.........is it me or does the first paragraph sound like something from Sleeping Beauty? I swear, at the end of one of the sentances you can almost picture putting "Prince Charming" there. Hmm, Master Chief and Prince Charming.............................. oh God! That's disturbing! *retches*...*shudder*...... Whew! Now that that's over, uh...... what was I talking about? Eh, whatever. Review, or Master Chief'll kick your $$...... and please point out any mistakes I've made. It's 4 in the morining and I'm too lazy and tired to edit. Good night, er, I mean, Good Morning...

- Chindu P.O.D.