There. Another chapter, with this one hopefully better than the first seeing as how I get to decide who does what. I CAN DECIDE THE FATE OF ALL THESE MORTALS, JUST IN A FEW PETTY KEYSTOKES. (Please excuse my blissful fantasizing. I just like having pawns.) Thank you, Moon, for reviewing. I'm not positive about the gun thingy, but I think it's actually the M41 LAAG. Oh, and LAAG means light anti aircraft gun. Yes, I am a Halo nerd. :D Another thing, I'm gonna have to make Azeroth quite a bit bigger than it actually is in-game, for obvious reasons.

Oh, and if anyone here knows how I could separate my "sections"( I voiced this problem in the first chapter but now it's really starting to make me angryface) then I would really appreciate it if you could tell me how to do so. Anyway, enjoy.

Two months. It had been two months since the Chief had climbed into the cryo tube and had left Cortana alone. Specifically, it had been sixty-two days, three hours, thirty-one minutes and nine seconds. What had he expected her to do, anyway? Surely the Chief had known that an A.I being bored for long periods of time was not a good idea. It almost seemed selfish to her, the fact that he got to sleep in content silence for so long while she tortured herself running over all of the data that they had gathered over the years. To a normal person, it would most likely seem insurmountable-a war against aliens, hundreds of thousands year old structures, a floating robot that enjoyed humming in its spare time...all quite interesting. Even to Cortana, it was a huge amount of information. But, of course, UNSC A.I were designed to take in huge amounts of data.

She was monitoring all of the ship's scanners at the time when she had first spotted it. At first, she was certain it was another piece of rock or something of the like. That was, until more of it was revealed on the scanners.

It was a planet. Well, that or a really big, spherical asteroid. Either way, however, it was quite small.

After busying herself for a few more seconds by wondering what it could be, Cortana was able to get a more detailed scan of the planet's surface.

Three main landmasses we visible-one was to the West, another to the East, and the last between them both and North a bit, with seas separating the continents. And, it had some form of foliage on it. Foliage meant life. Life meant...life. Perhaps some of the Chief's luck would come into play and

the atmosphere might even be safe for him to breathe, assuming she was going to wake him up. Cortana was still too far out to get any more information, and seeing as how the majority of the sensory equipment was on the forward half of the Dawn that the Arbiter was on, she probably wouldn't get much more than that anyway.

For the UNSC, this would've been a real treasure-a planet, already teeming with plant life that had never been previously discovered. Even if the atmosphere wasn't breathable, terraforming could most likely change that anyway. Of course, the whole UNSC wasn't here, and the Dawn alone was not capable of changing a planet's atmosphere to that extent. They would just have to get lucky. So far however, the Chief had proven that luck wasn't an issue for him.

Given the situation, she decided to wake the SPARTAN. His suit only had ninety minutes of air, but the rooms in the ship(well, half-ship) that weren't near the point where the Dawn was cut did have oxygen in them.

A large mass in front of him. Writhing. Seething. Disgusting. It lashed out. He didn't know with what. Didn't matter. Had to move. Had to evade. Couldn't. Impossible to move. Didn't know why.

Deep voice. Disembodied. Loud. Equally disgusting as the mass in front of him.

"...conquered fleets of THOUSANDS!..."

"Consumed a galaxy of FLESH, and MIND, and BONE!"

"The sins of your fathers shall NOT be FORGIVEN!"

The Master Chief awoke, frost on the inside of the cryotube obscuring his vision of anything outside. The cryotube's door lifted a tiny fraction, before slowly raising up to the point where he could see the section of the ship in front of him, as well as his blue artificial friend's avatar smiling at him from her standing position on a holotank.

"Enjoy your beauty sleep?" Cortana's holographic lips moved, but her voice came over the Chief's Com-obviously, using the ship's speakers wouldn't work due to the lack of air.

The Chief replied with a simple grunt. He may not have shown it, but he was glad she had made one of her usual remarks-he took it as a sign that she hadn't gone rampant.

"Situation?" He asked as he climbed out of the cryotube and into the zero-gee environment.

Cortana's avatar disappeared for a moment, before being replaced by a blue representation of a planet that the Chief didn't recognize. He tilted his head at it.

"Guess what we stumbled across?" Cortana asked.

"A pink unicorn." He said, hoping to lighten the situation more. He had no doubt that being alone must have been hell for Cortana.

Her avatar appeared beside the planet and frowned. " The answer is right in front of you."

The Chief floated over to the holotank to get a better look at the planet. Although the only color the holotank displayed was blue, he could easily see that the planet had plant life. That was good. Very good.

"Atmosphere?" He inquired.

"I can't tell yet, with the majority of the sensory equipment gone. Still, good news, right? Foliage means something."

The Chief moved away from the holotank and floated over to the rack that he had put his assault rifle on before taking it off and then onto his back. He floated down to a doorway which Cortana opened for him. She closed it once the Chief was through, and then filled the room with oxygen again. The MJOLNIR's internal pressure adjusted to the change.

"...And you?" The Chief asked to an inactive holotank. Cortana's form appeared with one hand on her hip.

"I'm fine, Chief." The SPARTAN continued to float around. He wasn't entirely convinced she was fine, but the fact that she hadn't tried to kill him was certainly worth something.

"So, I assume that you want to go down to the surface?" The AI asked.

"Mhmm." Cortana's form appeared on the holotanks leading to the armory. She frowned.

"You know, the chances of there being anything hostile down there are astronomical." She said, knowing that it wouldn't make him change his mind.

"Doesn't hurt to be careful." He floated into the armory, which was noticeably lacking in weapons-a good portion had been issued to the marines, obviously. It still had a good amount of guns, though. He went over to one of the weapons racks and pulled off a battle rifle, followed by him attaching a combat knife to his right breastplate. He then grabbed a pair of frag grenades as well as ammunition for his weapons.

"Are there any vehicles still left?" The Chief asked Cortana.

"Yeah, a few. Obviously, between what fell out of the Dawn and what was used on the Ark, not very much, but there is something interesting in one of the aircraft bays...according to the UNSC's records, it's a gunship called a Vulture. Apparently, most of them were destroyed during the Harvest campaign. It's pretty beat up, though. I doubt you could fly it."

The Chief nodded towards a holotank Cortana was on. The 'Vulture' warranted further investigation once he had time to spare.

"Besides that, there are three HEV's left, a pelican, two troop Warthogs, two Warthogs with chain guns, four mongoose, and even a banshee. Don't ask me how that thing got in here. I have no clue."

The Chief continued floating towards the Hangars, glad for the "I thought you said not very much."

"I did. Knowing your driving and piloting skills, all that stuff probably won't last more than a few minutes." Cortana said. Her form appeared appeared on another holotank, smiling jokingly. The Chief was glad for her humor. He responded with some of his own.

"As I recall, you were the one piloting this ship when it was cut in half."

She narrowed her blue eyes at him. He smiled behind his visor.

"So, how are you going to get down?" She asked him.

"Pelican." The Chief had contemplated using the Banshee instead. As effective as it was, however, he still preferred UNSC equipment over alien technology, and he wasn't sure if a banshee could survive entry to an atmosphere.

"Aren't you going to bring me?" Cortana asked as the Chief passed by yet another holotank.

"No. I want you to stay on the Dawn in case there's something dangerous down there. And to bring her down once I find a spot to land."

"You know I'm not happy about that." Cortana said,.

"Just don't want to risk you getting hurt."

Cortana frowned, but she knew that it was no use trying to convince him otherwise. He was far too stubborn.

"Alright, fine. I also appreciate your concern." She said.

The door in front of the Chief opened, and he floated into the room where the vehicles were. They were pretty much all piled up against one corner of the room, and not all the vehicles were visible. The Chief spotted what he assumed was the Vulture-it was by far the largest vehicle in the room.

"The Vulture is, apparently, a flying tank. There was an account on Harvest of a Vulture taking on a Covenant Scarab without any support, and almost destroying it as well. Its armament includes Sylver Missile Launchers-air to surface missiles that can destroy a Wraith with just two hits. It also has dual

GUA-twenty three's-thirty millimeter linkless feed autocannons, as well as Argent-Five surface to air missiles-or in this case, air to air missiles. It's armor allows it to take even more damage than a modern Pelican can."

"If they're so powerful, why didn't we use them more often?" The Chief asked.

"For one, the amount of training that a pilot has to go through is quite large. If a pilot can't control it perfectly, then they're probably going to crash into one thing or another. And, late in the war, the UNSC didn't have enough time to train many good pilots for them. They're also terribly expensive, and the UNSC thought that it would be more cost-efficient to just put guns and missiles on Pelicans than to make more of these things."

The Chief looked at the Vulture again. It clearly was not in a flyable state, with armor missing in various places and scorch marks blackening most of the paint. Part of the tail was even chipped off. It probably wouldn't matter much anyway; as Cortana said, they weren't likely to encounter any hostiles.

The Chief then identified the Pelican, upside-down and on top of the pile of vehicles. Thankful that there was no gravity, he floated over to it and righted it in a matter of seconds.

"The planet that you're going down to has three visible continents. I recommend that you go down towards the one to the North-it's probably the least hospitable, but I'd guess that there would be plenty of flat areas on it. We'll need a large area to land the Dawn on." Cortana said as the Chief climbed into the Pelican's cockpit. The pilot's seat wasn't exactly contoured to fit a fully-armored SPARTAN, but he managed to squeeze into it.

"I assume you want to pilot it yourself?" Cortana asked. The Chief responded with an affirmative grunt over the Com.

"Alright, everything's good. Opening bay doors." Said doors opened after a few seconds. The Chief carefully maneuvered the Pelican out of the Hangar, doing his best not to hit the floor, ceiling, or walls. Just as he was exiting the Dawn, however, he accidentally scraped the Pelican against the floor. It wouldn't affect it to any noticeable degree, but Cortana didn't miss the opportunity to comment.

"Smooth."

"I'm no airline pilot." The Chief said as he turned the Pelican towards the planet. He immediately noticed how small it was, compared to a planet such as Earth or Reach.

Reach. The thought immediately brought back emotions that he found difficult to suppress. He always did. Reach was the closest thing to a home the SPARTANS had, and to see it reduced to a sphere of smoldering glass and rock had made a hole in him.

He shook his head. He couldn't let his emotions take over him.

"It'll take a few minutes to get to the surface, so I guess you can just chill for a bit." Cortana said.

"It doesn't exactly look healthy." Trizz Sprizzlenip said to the human in front of her. Hayard looked down at the mug in front of him. Indeed, the black liquid looked less like a beverage and more like some kind of poison.

He had been dared to drink something that Brukut-his dwarven companion-called a "Black Mountain". According to him, it was so strong that even he didn't want to risk trying one. Hayard wasn't exactly looking forward to it, but almost the entire bar- nine or ten people, including the bartender- had bet on it already. Most of those bets were not in his favor.

Still, money was money, no matter who you got it from. Not that he was greedy or anything, but Hayard had been looking forward to a fancy set of armor for the past month. At the price, he knew that he would never, even if he lived for a thousand years, get enough money to buy it. Still, he kept trying to convince himself otherwise. He also had...other motives for attempting the challenge.

Said motives were certainly not the extremely attractive draenei woman who was sitting a few stools away from him.

"Nah, screw it. Might as well get this over with." He said.

"Remember, ye only have to down one gulp, lad." Brukut said to him. He was one of the few people betting for him, one of the others being the draenei. He took her doing so as a good start to...something. He hoped she wouldn't regret her decision in a few seconds.

"Goodbye, cruel world." Hayard said before taking one last look at the jet-black liquid...and drinking it.

He regret it immediately. Hayard had downed strong drinks before, but this wasn't a drink. This was a million punches to the mouth in liquid form. He struggled to stay on the stool, the sounds of the bar both fading and amplifying tenfold. His vision began to fade black...before he remembered that he was being watched by the draenei woman. He clung to that thought, and slowly he came to his senses.

Noise. Lots of it. He soon recognized it as cheering. He managed a smile as he sat up on the stool. Brukut immediately turned Hayard's head toward him, checking to make sure he was alright. He was perhaps the only one being remotely serious, but the dwarf still had a huge grin on his face. The cheering slowly died down into laughter as money changed hands. Before he knew it, he saw multiple small bags being dropped in front of him. He then noticed movement out of his peripheral vision, turned to his right, and saw the draenei sitting on the bar cross-legged with a small smile on her face.

And then he realized that, in all his fantasizing and spying, Hayard hadn't actually come up with anything to say. He quickly came up with a compliment.

"Pretty necklace." He said, regarding the large crystal hanging from the woman's neck.

"Thanks. Got it from a friend." She said, smiling again. Hayard paused for a full second. What were you supposed to say? It was that weird period between the introductions and snogging that it seemed he was never prepared for.

"Do you want to, ummm...go outside for a bit?" She asked, relieving him. Maybe he would be able to skip straight to snogging? Hayard quickly pushed the thought aside. Some people might consider that objectifying a person.

"Umm, yeah, sure. Sounds good." The draenei hopped off of the bar, her hooves making a soft thunk as she did so. Hayard picked up his money, and the two made for the door, hoping that the rest of the bar wouldn't notice them. To his relief, nobody did, or at least they didn't comment on it.

"So." He said.

"So." She repeated.

Unbeknownst to each other, they were both thinking the same thing. That thing was...

Crap.

Hayard, thankful for his seemingly small but quick brain, quickly came up with another thing to say.

"Nice night." He wasn't really lying; it was a nice night, as normally Valiance Keep was under attack from one thing or another, but apparently the undead weren't in the mood for bothering the living at the time. The wall guards might actually catch a night where they wouldn't have to kill anything.

The draenei looked at him for a moment and then turned her eyes to the dirt below them and frowned. Hayard immediately took this as a bad sign, a sign that he had done something wrong. He cursed himself at his failure to read body language. Then, thankfully, she looked back up at him and her smile returned.

"I guess I'm not the only one who seems to always be grappling for words at this point." She said.

"Yeah...I rarely...get this far anyway." Hayard felt both relieved and nervous at the same time.

"Say, umm...I don't really want to rush anything, but... how does dinner sound?" The draenei asked, her cheeks turned a deeper shade of blue. Hayard thought he saw her tail curl up a bit too, but she hid it behind her leg.

"...Nice. When?"

"How about tomorrow, right around this time? Here?" She asked as nervously as him.

"That sounds fine." Hayard said. They both smiled at each other before looking down at their feet. Well, for Hayard, it was feet. For the draenei, it was hooves.

"I guess I didn't catch your name yet..." She said.

"Hayard, Hayard Fischer. And you?"

"Belluna." Her cheeks turned an even deeper shade of blue. Hayard had no doubt his own face was as red as...something very red.

"Well, umm...I guess I'll see you tomorrow, Hayard." She said, and began to walk away. He began to walk slowly to the door of the inn when he heard this "Belluna" say something.

"Hey...What's that?" She asked. Hayard turned around as she raised her finger up to something in the sky and turned to make sure she had his attention. He stole another look at her face before looking up at what she was pointing at. Several other people in the Keep seemed to notice it, too. He smiled.

"Looks like a shooting star."

"What's a shooting star?" She asked, confused.

"A big chunk of rock, burning up while from entering the planet's atmosphere. This particular one seems to be moving kind of slow...and it seems rather bright." Hayard thanked himself for remembering that much from his childhood, when he had seen multiple of the "stars" shooting across the sky. He could barely see this one. It looked like it might be somewhere above Dragonblight.

"Heh. Make a wish." He said with a smile. She looked at him with another confused-but-still-cute expression.

"Old tradition for us to make wishes when we see them." The draenei returned his smile and nodded.

He watched Belluna close her eyes for moment before walking away.

Hayard looked back up at the shooting star. It was still there. That was odd...most only lasted for a few seconds, if that. He kept his gaze until the object disappeared behind the wall of the Keep.

He smiled again before heading back into the inn, believing the "star" just seemed bright because he was a kid when he last saw one.

Of course...nobody there knew that it was neither star nor rock, but something much, much more important.

Ominous!

I was hoping to get the Chief's landing in this chapter, but I guess I just went overboard a bit on what is in there. I'm actually rather proud of this chapter. Nothing big, but I just think I wrote it out nicely.

Anyway, thanks all of you for reading. I may or may not go back to Some Shade of Blue next. Not sure. Just be happy with this for a while. It's almost 11 PM right now, the only reason for my awakeness being that I just wanted to get this done for tomorrow.

Bye!