It was about two hours before they got to anywhere that could be considered safe. During that time, Zephyr focused on regaining her strength. She fell more times than she could count, but eventually she managed to stop falling, until the pelican suddenly took a dive and she was sent flying towards the front. After about a minute, the pelican steadied out and landed. She was still getting up when Falcon and Blade exited the cockpit. Blade looked to Zephyr and asked "Are you ok?"
"Yeah, it's just a bump." said Zephyr, almost sarcastically. The three of them left the pelican to see they were in a hanger is all sorts of airborne vehicles from the various Halos games and a few from books. Various Spartans, marines, pilots, ODSTs and some covenant engineers.
Two ODSTs from Reach walked up to them, one man and one girl. "Blade, Falcon, how was the trip?" asked the man. "Found a survivor, ran into bandits, landed a warthog on the pelican." said Blade. Falcon nodded in agreement and added "The port thrusters took some hits, can you check 'em out?" Both nodded and called for an engineer as the trio of Spartans left the hanger.
Outside the hanger was part a small town made up of various Forge objects in Forge World's canyon. Some buildings were the premade with some attachments, others more complex. "Woah..." commented Zephyr. "Welcome to Morcia," said Falcon, "That's the name of the map at least. No one's quite sure why it was made, probably for a Machinima, but it was a nice place to begin with, and over time we added new buildings and defenses, even stuff from Halo Wars."
Zephyr could only nod as she was speechless. She wondered how all this was possible. A flatbed hog rolled up and the driver got out, saluted, and left. Zephyr looked to the others. "Blade, can you take care of the new girl? I have some stuff to do with Derby and Wraith." Blade nodded and Falcon left. Zephyr got into the passenger seat and as Blade was getting into the driver seat, she asked "Why are we here? How is this possible?"
He didn't answer as he got in and drove away from the hanger. It was about ten minutes of silence before he answered. "We don't know." was all he said, but it was enough for Zephyr. "How many players are here? In Halo, I mean." Blade shrugged. "Last anyone checked, around fifty to seventy thousand."
"What will happen to me?" Blade was silent once again, but only for a moment. "For now, you'll stay here to learn how to survive. Then, it's up to you." Zephyr was silent once again.
Two Years Ago...
Blade limped until he found New Alexandria. He quickly made his way into the city, half hoping it would be empty. Armed with only the Energy sword he managed to keep from burning up in the atmosphere and the magnum he found along the way, he snuck into the city and followed the campaign path as best he could. He found the dead bodies of two Spartans wearing pitch black armor he'd never seen before.
He grabbed the assault rifle one of them dropped and the jet pack off of the other. He continued to watch his step, finding bodies wearing the same armor along the way. After about a half hour of slow stepping, he heard gunfire. About now he was near where the ODSTs with jetpacks come into play. Cautiously, Blade tested the jetpack. It worked, but Blade landed uneasily. Taking a deep breath, he jumped over to the first structure. He crashed, but he made it.
Following the sound of the gunfire, he eventually found a female Spartan wearing a CQC helmet, recon shoulders, and a security chest. Her visor was blue and her armor had a similar color scheme to Blade's. She was being fired at by six Spartans wearing armor similar to what he found earlier. She was fighting back using an assault rifle and DMR and was equipped with a jetpack. Blade, using the sniper rifle he picked up earlier, lined up a shot aimed at the nearest pitch black Spartan.
He managed a head shot, but the other Spartans noticed and looked to their dead comrade. The female Spartan took advantage of this and lobbed a grenade to the center of them. Three were caught in the explosion but one managed to survive. Blade fired again at the survivor and nailed him. The remaining two suddenly disappeared. Startled, Blade got up and grabbed his energy sword, cautiously moving towards the female Spartan, who saw him and did the same, keeping her DMR pointed at him.
"Who are you, what's going on and who were they?" asked the female Spartan when they were within six feet of each other. "Uh, call me Blade, I have no idea and they're probably friends with the elites that tried to blow me up in orbit." She lowered her gun and nodded. "I'm Hunter."
"Is that your real name or shortened gamertag?" asked Blade. Hunter groaned and said "Real name. Someone thought it would be a good idea to make my Spartan a girl." An awkward silence followed. Then all of a sudden the two unknown Spartans appeared, one behind both Blade and Hunter, pointing shotguns at point blank range. "Drop your weapons and prepare for conversion." said the black Spartans simultaneously.
"Hey, they have nice guns don't you think?" said Blade casually. "Yeah, makes me wish I had one." replied Hunter. "Drop your weapons or be neutra-" the black Spartans were interrupted as Blade and Hunter spun around and grabbed the shotguns. Blade slashed his with his sword while Hunter kicked hers back, sending him over the edge of the platform they were on.
"Not bad. How long have you been here?" asked Hunter. "Few hours, you?"
"About the same." Blade nodded and looked around. "So... do you have any idea on where we can go without getting shot at?" Hunter shrugged and said "Not a clue. All I can think of right now is what I'm going to call myself. Weird huh?" Any other conversation was interrupted by the sight of a pelican flying to them. "Hey! Can you two hear me?" said a voice on their radios. Blade looked to Hunter and she nodded. "Yes, we can, who are you?" said Hunter.
"Name's Falcon, and I'm your ticket to a relative safety. Meet me at the pad were you evac the civilians. And be careful, there may be Shadow Spartans in the area."
"Shadow Spartans?" asked Blade. "Pitch black Spartans who kill people like us. Now move!" Not wasting any time, Blade and Hunter began moving towards the rendezvous point. It took them about seven minutes and when they got there, a dozen 'Shadows' came out of nowhere and pointed various guns at them. "Drop your weapons and prepare for conversion." they all said at once. "What's conversion?" asked Blade. "No idea. But I can take out about four of them. You?"
"Five if I get up close." All of a sudden clusters of missiles took out the Shadows. Looking up, the duo saw the pelican as it landed. Falcon came out the back saying "I'm guessing it's a good thing I was delayed huh? You two got names?"
"Call me Blade."
"I'm Huntress." answered Hunter. "Nice to meet you, now let's get the hell out of here." Walking towards the pelican, Blade asked Huntress "Let me guess, not willing to spread the word you were a guy?"
"Yeah. And if you tell anyone, you'll lose your masculinity as well." Blade simply laughed and they boarded the pelican.