A/N: Yes, this was supposed to be a one-shot, but I came with more stuff to write about, so, here it is. Should I leave it as a second chapter or just merge it with the first?

As before, I have avoided using names so that we stay in the parallel halo-verse.

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Microsoft, Bungie, or 343 Industries. This is for my enjoyment and, hopefully, the enjoyment of others. I do not receive a profit.


Σοφια


"A man far wiser than I once said, 'Religion is the opiate of the masses.'"

A man, balding, but with enough vigour to run a marathon, crossed over to the mantel and set down his glass. He turned to look at the man who had first spoken. He was sitting in a plush red armchair with his legs crossed. His hair was black and his face was clean-shaven.

The bald man nodded and said, "Yes, religion is indeed an opiate. But it is also a nail. And we are the hammer. Strike at it, and it only goes deeper. What we must do is wait. Ignore the nail, and it falls out."

The sitting man nodded and took a sip from his own glass. "So be it. The Red Revolution is already underway. Not even the strength of God shall stand in the way of freedom."


Halsey sat down in the room. A tall man with grey hair sat opposite her. A metal table lay between the pair. "I heard that you have been working on a project to make super-soldiers."

Halsey held her head high. "Yes. The insurrectionists have grown brash. You built your Magnetic Accelerator Cannons to punish insurrectionists, but that, that is far too much. You've shown your inability to effectively resist the insurrectionist threats, and they have gotten more powerful as a result.

"What you need is a weapon that isn't a weapon. You need to walk among them, silent and invisible. You need a weapon that can uproot the entire organism, a warrior above the rest. You need a SPARTAN."

"And what makes a SPARTAN better than a MAC blast?" the man asked.

"The insurrection is a nail, and firepower is a hammer. You need wraiths, shadows, to remove this infection. And it is an infection. It convinces people that their government is corrupt. It turns them. You need the insurrectionists' bogeyman, a supernatural predator that kills by striking fear into the hearts of prey. You need SPARTANs."

"We'll take seventy-five." The man pushed back his chair and walked out of the room.

A week later, she was several billion dollars richer.


O.N.I. had contracted her, so why were they punishing her?


The questioner asked again. "Why did you do it?"

She responded as she always had. "Because you asked it of me. I sat at a table very like this one, and you sat opposite me. We talked, and then you left. I was given enough funds for seventy-five, the same number that you had ordered." She took the interrogation quite calmly for an old lady handcuffed to a table.

At last, the interrogator changed tactics. "So why did you use children? And I don't want any of that 'more accepting of augmentations' bullshit. Of the seventy-five you 'recruited', thirty-three survived to become SPARTANs." She flinched when he mentioned the deaths of her children. "Plus, we have a nearly perfect system for augmenting new SPARTAN-IVs. Just be glad that we aren't discussing Kurt-051's SPARTAN-IIIs. Although it all connects to Ackerson, we'll find your fingerprints eventually. And then you'll be down a rabbit hole."

She ignored the mention of Kurt and his SPARTAN-IIIs. That hurt, but it couldn't be helped now. "Do you know the story of Demeter and Demophon?" She sighed long and heavily. "I suppose your knowledge of it doesn't really matter. Know only that even the gods could only do so much.

"Demeter, wrapped in a mist of mortality, was given hospitality by the monarchs lf a small Greek state. To reward them, she took the family's son Demophon and bathed him in ambrosia and fire and wove godly songs all around him.

"From these, he grew strong. So strong that his mother began to question what Demeter was doing, disguised as she was. One night, she laid awake and saw as Demeter put her child into the flame. She cried out and prevented Demeter from burning away his mortality.

"And so Demophon died a mortal death. This is the result of your meddling. I would have given these children that I have raised as though my own fame and immortality. Instead, all but those destined to become legends anyway have perished.

"Remember well that even gods have limits. To truly become a god, or even a SPARTAN, one must be anointed from birth."

The questioner was silent for a moment before asking, "Are you implying that Reach was our fault?"


Reach. The final bastion of humanity before the fall of Earth. And it had fallen. She was still alive and still on Reach, yes, but most of her SPARTANs were dead. She had no illusions as to the survival of her children, of her loved ones. Miranda was probably the only survivor.

Jacob, John, Jerome, the rest. They were noble and she loved them all for it, but their loyalty to Reach had probably killed them all. RED FLAG was a failure before it had officially started, but that wasn't what she cared about.

She cared that they had died. She knew that they would have died, because Reach was not just some planet. It was their home. It was also the home of humanity's hope. And SPARTANs were humanity's hope. They fought for all places, the survival of all humans. Anywhere lost souls cried for justice, her SPARTANs were needed. So they would have died as humanity's last hope died, as the last bastion against the Covenant died.

She knew this, but still she hoped.


Halsey watched as her body jerked and screamed in pain, but she did nothing. It was hard to stand there, separated only by a glass box, but she had to. The compiler was almost complete, so disrupting the process now would only hurt the child inside.

So Halsey watched as her clone was stripped of the thoughts and ideas that made it an individual. She listened to its every scream, knowing that this was just one of the things she would have to do to atone. To create a life from one still alive, even if it was a comatose clone that had been alive for only two weeks, was illegal.

But she needed the artificial intelligence, and the only way it would be good enough was if it was her. So she had stolen cloning technology and cloned herself. She had put the clone in an incubator and then the matrix compiler. It had begun screaming, but Halsey watched. She had to see its pain, know her guilt, and still be able te reassure herself that it, or she, had not died in vain.

So when she writhed for the last time, she felt some sort of perverse relief in her death. A new entity could now emerge, a phoenix from the flame that had consumed Halsey.

"When the game is over, the king and pawn go into the same box."

Its name was Cortana. Her child. Cortana even looked like Miranda. But she had done wrong by Miranda. She would not estrange Cortana, her second daughter, her second chance.

Yes, her SPARTANs were her children too, but they, they had grown up too fast. Humanity had needed them, so they had been sent to answer the call. She loved them, but they were still developing. They could not become truly human until they had become heroes. And once they weren't needed, they could step off of the pedestal and return to eye level. They would be her last children, though.

This was her vow. Pain was the only thing that followed in her footsteps. The writhing of the clone had taught her that.


A/N: Well, should I put this in the first chapter?

And yes, I am well aware that Halsey edited her Demeter and Demophon story a bit. I do my research.

However, I don't speak Italian, and don't trust GoogleTranslate. If someone wants to tell me how to say 'When the game is over, the king and pawn go into the same box.' in Italian, that would be much appreciated. Thanks.


Again, for those of you who don't understand my Greek, the title is Sofia, or wisdom, for obvious reasons.