Okay, well cool enough, some of you out there are actually interested in this little tale, and for that I appreciate it. I would like to once again, point out that there are significant canon differences, and that they are intentional for story reasons.
The Halo universe is deeply rooted in lore, far more so than your average first person shooter. I have tried to simplify things, so that people that have only played the games can understand. That being said, expect radical differences to the story and timeline, especially after the events of the first halo ring. This is not going to be Halo: Combat Evolved with Harry Potter tagging along. This, I hope, will be radically different. Mostly because I've always found Do over stories boring, and those that just follow along with the plot with some extra dialogue or an extra scene or two to be very boring and repetitive. If you guys are reading this, you've read Harry Potter, and you've played Halo, why go back and do the same stuff again?
As a final reminder, canon for Halo: Reach has been significantly changed. The Spartans objective is to primarily destroy Sword base, and rescue Doctor Halsey. John is with them and already has Cortana, so Halsey giving her to Noble six is a moot point. Instead, she has information to give John, and to try to convince him, of what she has been shown. Please read this before reading the chapter and calling canonical bullshit on me lol.
Anyway, down the rabbit hole.
Chapter 2: The Enemy of my Enemy... is my Enemy's Enemy
I'm disoriented, confused. I've just traveled through a rift in time, far flung into the future as far as I can tell, and this guy has the nerve to ask me who the hell I am? I didn't have time for that shit. I had to find a way to get back home, if I even could. I looked into the eyes of one of the few soldiers that wasn't wearing his helmet at the moment and delved into his mind as gently as I could.
Year 2552, spartan project, covenant, planet Reach, I was on another planet? It felt like several minutes to me, but less than a second passed outside. Mind magics are funny like that. I got every scrap of info out of the guy that I could without hurting him. So the spartans are a biologically enhanced soldiers, conscripted as children. That's barbaric, but its also extremely effective, I'd know. I formulated a plan as I find the guy's mission objective, and the name of the leader, this Master Chief.
I snapped off a crisp salute, seemed the surprise the big guy in green. "Spartan 13-7 sir. Classified operative. My mission is to assist the Master Chief by any means necessary. Would that be you?"
"Designation 13-7? I've never heard that one before." The green guy looked over at a shorter man in blue armor. "Is he one of yours?"
The smaller man shook his head. "No Chief, we don't have ranks like that. He says he classified, like Noble six here," The man in black armor remained quiet, but I could feel his eyes on me, he was nearly as dangerous as this Master Chief character, I could just sense it. "But, we didn't even know Noble Six existed until just a few weeks ago. Its perfectly possible this guy was selected for a black ops team. I mean, I've never seen that armor before, or that crazy tech he was using, but he's human. Doesn't that mean we're all on the same side here?"
Master chief just looked on him. I'd relaxed my salute and stood with my hands behind my back. Awaiting their verdict. I'd hate to go toe to toe with one of these guys. From what I plucked out of the marine's mind, they were extremely fast, and strong. I might have magic on my side, but that was my only advantage, and apparently this guy was known for being extremely lucky. And I knew from experience, luck could be everything in a fight.
"Cortana, scan his suit, bring up his file." I heard a crackling voice, like it was coming in over a radio, as soon as John spoke.
"On it chief, you know me, I've had my fingers in just about every file the UNSC has ever had, I don't recognize this guy."
"Every record of me was erased as soon as the action was taken. The only proof of my existence is a small stack of papers, sitting in a desk at Oni. Unless you can access those from here, you won't find anything." I'd always hated Snape, but I'd never been more thankful that the evil man had managed to teach me legimency before he died.
Cortana, some sort of 'A.I.', a thinking computer I guess, ignored me and continued to look for me. "I found no files of him, like he said, and I scanned his suit. Its the strangest thing. This suits power sources is built into the armor plating in such a way that it doesn't require a power pack. The energy is similar to covenant energy shields, but it seems to have a broader application of uses than just as an energy shield. Reverse engineered? I'd love to take a better look but it has no data port. How odd. And I can't figure out what its made of, its at least as hard and durable as a Mjolnir Mark IV suit, but that can't be right, my scanners say the armor is organic in origin. Just nothing that they've ever detected before."
"Can he be trusted?" I had a feeling John could have skipped the techno babble of his companion. But she didn't seem to notice.
"As best as I can figure? Well, he certainly hiding something, his heartbeat spiked nominally several times during your conversation, but he's human chief. And we're in the middle of a war zone. He isn't a civilian, not with crazy tech like that, and he doesn't seem to be an insurrectionist, they've been quite for decades with the covenant war raging. I say take him with us, use him if we can, and interrogate him when we're able." I nearly snorted at that. I think the damn robot had more emotion than the human does.
John just nodded his head slightly and handed me a strange assault rifle from his back. "You're coming with us, make one wrong move and I'll put a bullet in your head. Understood? I don't know you, and I don't know what tech you were using that caused damage like that, but when this mission is over you will be interrogated to discover if you're who you say you are. Behave yourself and help us and I'll make sure you're not shot on sight at least."
I just nodded and using the memories of the spartan, poor bastard was probably a little disoriented; at least he'd put his helmet back on strait, and expertly checked the magazine of the gun, reloaded it, and flicked the safety off. Seemed like guns still worked the same in the future. Point the barrel at the bad guy and pull the trigger, don't miss. Seemed about right to me.
"I'm taking the rear, noble six, take point, everyone else stay in the middle but fan out. 13-7, you're staying right next to me. I'm not letting you out of my sight." I watched as these spartans formed up with perfect military precision. This planet, Reach, was a desert. From what I could see anyway. Apparently the Spartan IIs like this big guy that's right next to me, were trained and grew up here. It must be horrible to see your home decimated like this. I preferred to use my magic over a gun, better control, wider variety of effects, but I'd play by their rules for now. I don't know if I'll ever be able to get home, if there's even a home to get back to. I'll try, if I can find some way back to Earth. I'm just glad that it even existed still, after everything that had happened. I just had to wonder where all the wizards were? Were they all hiding in some hole? Unable to cope with the insane increase of technology that humanity had made? I'd try to find out at a later date. Right now I needed to focus on the here and now, and get to this Sword base, it needed blowing up, and I've always been good at that.
The ground around Sword base was frozen, a desert tundra, and seemed mostly deserted, the Spartans had taken out something that had been preventing them from entering swords base, the anti air towers, and I'd fallen into their laps right at the gates of the base. We entered quietly and made our way through the choked atmosphere.
Some of the covenant, a nasty collection of ugly aliens, blocked our way, but between all of us we managed to kill them. The sound of gun fire in close quarters made my ears ring, and even the biggest of the alien bastards, Elites I believe, didn't stand much of a chance. With the addition of an extra gun in the group, we were able to make quick work of the monstrosities. John stayed silent, unless he was give a direct order, he didn't say a thing. My armor wasn't linked up like there's was, different kind of communication network. I'd have to work on that later if I ended up sticking with them much longer, so for now I just followed them to the supposed coordinates. They found an elevator and seemed to think this was the right way to go.
I was the last one on, but I didn't complain. I can't blame them for not trusting me. I just hoped there'd be some way to get me back to my own time. I had a fight there that needed finishing.
"Halsey should be down below us, we'll grab her, rig this base to blow and high tail it out of here to the last extraction point." John said nothing, Just remained stoic, and eyed me the entire time. I wondered if he could speak to Cortana without the rest of us knowing about it?
2.
Dr. Halsey, the woman responsible for the abduction of children, and raising them to be spartans. She didn't look like much to be honest. Just an old woman, huddled in the dark. She seemed scared, not that I could blame her, aliens had invaded the planet after all. Her eyes widened as she saw me. Like she knew me from somewhere. I was instantly on alert, especially as she begins to speak.
"You're here, you're actually here. And I'd thought I'd finally lost my mind." The spartan IIIs stood off to the side, looking confused and aggrivated over the whole situation. John seems upset, but its hard to tell with that damned helmet on.
He looked at me and adjusted his gun slightly before he turned back to Dr. Halsey. "Ma'am, what do you mean?"
Halsey is distracted, looking off into the distance, like her eyes have been opened for the first time. "John, This man here is very important. I need you to take him with you."
John looked back at me and walked toward Halsey, It was almost comical, how much larger he appeared than her. "He dropped out of the sky, about an hour ago, and used fire to kill a group of covenant."
Halsey stared right at me and smiled. I tensed, a feeling of ominous dread filled me whole body, when she uttered the words. "The one with the power to defeat the dark lord, shall be born as the seventh month dies..."
I stagger back and raise my weapon, aimed right for her. I don't know how she knew that. But she's obviously not what she appears to be. John pulled his gun up and stepped in front of Halsey, ready to shoot me and save her all in one go. "How do you know that! Who are you really?" I felt a dark fury fill my veins, my magic itched, wanted to be free to wreak havoc.
"Please, Harry, relax. I am not your enemy." How could she possibly know who I am? Everyone I know is dead in this time, I haven't even taken off my helmet. This shouldn't be possible.
"How do you know that name?" I lowered my gun, in spite of the situation. Far above us a rumble began and dust settled from the ceiling. "You can't possibly know who I am."
She just smiled at me and placed a hand on John's rifle arm and pushed it down before she stepped around him and approached me. "Your destiny is tightly bound to my John's. What you can do is an incredible thing, something I would never have believed possible, if not for the source of the information. You were meant to come here. And you're meant to fight by his side. This has been in the works since before the beginning of our civilization, and will continue long after we are all dead."
She turned back to John then. "You must trust him, I have spoken to a remnant of a forerunner." John stiffened at that. I'd picked up that term earlier when I was rooting around in Carter's brain. Some kind of gods to the covenant. "Their reach is far, much farther than any of us could possibly imagine. They foresaw this meeting, right here in this room, they planned it to happen, from a hundred thousand years in the past, the saw it, and made it be." She placed both hands on John's arms and smiled up at him, as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. "Its not my fault John, not my fault that you ended up as you are. They did this to all of us, but they had a higher purpose, a reason for it to happen, to save the entire universe."
The rumble grew louder and shook the entire room. I'm bloody confused, and pissed off. So if it wasn't fate that did this to me, its a group of ancient aliens? Just what the fuck had the world come to?
"Give me Cortana John, quickly, there's something I must give her. And then you and Harry must leave, find the Pillar of Autumn. Its in the Azod ship dock." The hulking man handed over the data chip without complaint. It struck me as odd that this imposing figure was at the beck and call of such a tiny old woman. Without pause Halsey had Cortana plugged into the terminal at her work station and a small hologram of a blue woman popped up. Is its wrong to think of a computer as being hot? Guess it doesn't matter, I'm probably going to hell anyway. I swear Cortana looked over and winked at me when I thought that.
"Are you sure about this doctor?" I realized Cortana had the exact same voice as Halsey, a little strange to say the least. Maybe she created the A.I., who knows. "we'll be going into uncharted territory. Anything could happen."
Dr. Halsey looked between John and I for just a moment before she nodded her head. "Yes, they'll find answers there. Another clue that could end this war, once and for all."
Halsey gave Cortana back to John and approached me. I was still wary of this woman, but I didn't bring any magic to my hands. I had to admit I was curious. "I know you're far from home. And quite confused over everything. All I can say is that I'm sorry. I didn't want this, but I'm afraid it necessary. The forerunner, the Librarian remnant, she told me that if I did anything right in my life, I had to convince you to go with John. So, will you go with him? I believe you'll find answers there. Answers to questions you might not have even asked yet."
What did I have to lose? Five hundred years in the future, all my friends dead, and Voldemort supposedly gone. I didn't have a clue on how I'd get home. Maybe these forerunners had something that could help me. I just nodded my head to her and snapped off a salute. I don't know why I did it, it just felt important, to show this little muggle some proper respect.
"By the way, 13-7? Magic numbers if I've ever heard them." I'm glad she couldn't see my blush from beneath my helmet. "You've very much like my spartans aren't you Harry? And yet, so different in so many ways." The room shook once more and this time I could hear the sound of alien voices on the other side of the door. "Its time for us to part ways." She turned back to John. "Go with Harry to Azod. Board the Pillar of Autumn and let Cortana do the rest. Good luck John."
He just nodded his head and muttered. "Ma'am." One last time.
Halsey turned back to the Spartan IIIs, I got the feeling she didn't care for them very much. "You lot are with me, let's get out of here."
3.
John watched at the pelican holding Halsey faded off in the distance. He was driving and I was sitting in the back. I might have got a lot of relevant information out of Carter's head, but that doesn't mean I could fly one of these damn things. It didn't take long before we ran into trouble. John hollered over his shoulder, "Banshees on our tail. take them out or we're gonna crash, this pelican isn't the most maneuverable that that ever flew." We're in a life threatening situation and the guy can make it sound like he's talking about the weather.
I turned and attached the rifle to my back with a sticking charm before bringing fire and ice to my palms. I roasted one ship, and froze another before a stray bolt struck one of the engines and sent us hurdling toward the ground. John and I made a jump for it. We hit the ground and rolled, sending up dirt and rocks. I was a bit dazed from the landing but the magic shield in my suit protected me from any real harm. We staggered to our feet and made a run for Azod.
Where did all the fucking aliens come from? It seemed we were chased the entire way, a running gun fight. John would drop the shield of an elite and I'd fry it or bury a chunk of ice in its chest. Grunts popped left and right via ruptured methane tanks, those things really hated the fireballs I reigned down on them. I would never have kept up with him before becoming a knight. I could outpace an Olympic sprinter with no trouble at all, but John was giving me a run for my money. I'd say in a long distance run I'd probably beat him, but without augmenting my speed further with magic, he'd slowly pull ahead at this rate.
I buried a conjured combat knife into the back of an elite's head as we made a running jump down a steep cliff and sprinted across an open plain before reaching Azod proper. People immediately drew their guns and held them on me but John waved them off. "This is petty officer Master Chief, this man is with me. We're to board the vessel Pillar of Autumn and speak to her caption, Jacob Keyes. To obstruct us will be in direct violation of a top priority mission for the UNSC." Faced with a legendary spartan, and a man that just happened to look a hell of a lot like one, the military personnel allowed us through. I just nodded to John in thanks. He could have made that a lot rougher on me that it had to be.
Just as we were about the enter the belly of the ship a covenant drop ship crashed the party. It swooped down and fried most of the ground crew before dumping out a fresh batch of troops. John ordered someone to get Keyes, tell him to get the ship ready to depart. The two of us stood at the doors of the ship and blasted away. John had found a rocket launcher from somewhere and fired it into a crowd of grunts. The little bastards squealed in terror and called him a demon as they went airborne.
I conjured a storm of fiendfyre and directed it around the battlefield. The monstrous flames ate everything in sight and I had to focus to keep a grip on it. So much fresh blood tended to make the hell fire unruly. Four elites managed to separate us. I'd never seen this kind yet. Golden armor and large head pieces. I dropped the fiendfyre, it had eaten most everything else at this point, and focused on the two before me.
John had taken off at a sprint to put some distance between himself and the two he was fighting. These guys looked bigger than the others. I conjured fire and threw it at them but it just splashed against their shields, making them flicker slightly. Apparently these two were made of tougher stuff. I let a few of their plasma attacks glance off my shield before I rolled to avoid a glowing blue grenade. I pulled out my rifle and peppered both of them with lead. One staggered as his shield finally popped but I'd run out of ammo. Later on I decided I was enchanting on of these things to have an endless clip, but I didn't have the time to right now. I crouched and cast a disllusionment charm over myself, and blended into the back ground.
I dived to the side while they were distracted and flung out a series of cutting and gouging curses. The stronger lances of magic managed to drop the other's shield, and bisected the one I'd staggered a moment ago. It roared at me in anger and its eyes glowed briefly, lighting up with some kind of thermal technology. It pulled an odd looking little thing from around its waist and with the flick of its wrist, two twin blades of light appeared. It charged and leaped at me, swinging wildly, trying to take off my head.
I ducked under one blow and a second glanced off my chest plate. My shield prevented the suit from being damaged but that one blow completely drained it. I managed to catch the next swing, sandwiching the flat of the blades between my palms. The heat was intense and I pushed it away as fast as I could. The palms of my gloves were mostly unharmed, dragon scales were notoriously heat resistant, but my hands beneath felt like they'd been dipped in boiling water. With a yanking motion I summoned the blade of Griffindor. The ancient weapon had been hidden away in a trunk, shrunken and attached to my belt in a secret compartment. I stabbed the elite through the gut, catching it off guard with the sword appearing out of thin air, and pulled the blade upwards, spilling its entrails all over the ground and my boots.
John came back around the corner just I pulled the blade free and sent it back to its hiding place. His energy shield was crackling around him like an aura of power, covered in just as much purple blood as I was. He stared at me for a moment before he nodded, and I did the same. Showing him the respect he deserved as a warrior. With the last of the covenant dead we boarded the Pillar of Autumn as the engines roared to life, nearly deafening, even inside my armor. John and I were ushered into a loading dock of some kind, and he went off to talk to Keyes and deliver Cortana to the computer. Within seconds I was surrounded by a dozen marines, all of them pointing their guns at me. Well that just fucking figured. So much for trusting me.
To be continued...
Well there you guys go, the second chapter of A Different War, and I've got to tell you, it was a bitch making everything line up okay. I apologize for the canon changes, but like I said above, who wants to see the same old stuff over and over again. On a personal note, I've got a Novella up for sale on Amazon and Smashwords. Its called An Unfortunate Detour. Go take a look if you're interested.
Until next time,
-Harkon.