The space battle above the Earth rages on…

The navy's of the United Nations Space Command, and the Swords of Sanghelios continued to engage the unknown enemy who had appeared from out of nowhere completely. While their ships seemed to have the Reapers outmatched in terms of firepower, managing to destroy a high number of their ships, in terms of numbers the Reaper force was beginning to overwhelm the defense fleet of Earth having of already destroyed quite a few Orbital Defense Platforms and ships themselves. All the while fighters from both sides flew all over the place dog fighting with each other.

"This is Eagle Six anyone want to explain to me who or what the fuck these things are!" the male pilot of a UNSC Broadsword questions over the comms as the pilot looks all around at the Reaper Capital Ships, Destroyers, and Oculus Fighters.

"No idea but there sure is a damn lot of them!"

"Cut the chatter you two and focus on the fight! Doesn't matter who or what they are but we are not letting them get away with attacking the Earth so let's send them back to wherever the hell it is they came from!"

Three UNSC Broadswords flew in formation after five Oculus fighters firing their guns at them, behind them an Oculus fighter can be seen chasing after a Sangheili Seraph fighter while a Longsword fires at another Oculus fighter and destroys it. A Paris-class heavy frigate flew forward firing all its ordinance at the Reaper ships in front of it, the MAC gun's slug slamming into the face of a Reaper destroyer creating a massive hole right in the center as the lights of its "eyes" flash a few more times before finally dying out. However that isn't enough as at least four Reaper Capital ships still remain and begin unleashing their red laser beams from their spinal magnetohydrodynamic cannons as well as from the cannons on their tendrils onto the frigate. The frigate which has already taken damage from other Reaper ships begins to get torn apart even more as the laser beams penetrate and cut across the armor deep into the ship.

"Our shields are down! Repeat shields are down!" a female crewmember aboard the ship continues shouting as alarms blare throughout the ship.

"All hands abandon ship! All hands abandon-"

But an explosion erupts from the bridge killing everyone in the room as outside a massive explosion erupts from within the UNSC frigate tearing it to pieces and killing anyone still onboard.

Aboard the UNSC Infinity...

"Captain Lasky, we just lost the Yorkshire!" a male crewmember shouts.

"The Pendleton's taking a beating and might not last much longer!" a female crewmember yells.

"Keep it together everyone, we can't give up!" Lasky says trying to keep his crew calmed as he stands at the holotable. Just then the ship's AI Roland appears in front of him to his right "What's the status Roland?" Lasky asks.

"Good news is the defense fleet and the Swords of Sanghelios's fleet are battering away at these things. Bad news is they just keep coming and our ships can't keep up with their increasing numbers. Both fleets have suffered at least 25% ships lost so far, and a lot more damaged." Roland reports.

"Any news on reinforcements?" Lasky asks.

"Negative, reports are coming in of more of these things appearing not just here but throughout the entire galaxy. Fleets that haven't already been engaged are being dispatched to the nearest systems under siege to assist the defense fleets there, none of which are coming to us." Roland says.

"Seriously there's more of these things out there?!" Lasky questions in utter disbelief.

Just then a bright flashing light of orange from a nearby explosion brings his attention back to the bridge's viewing window as he sees a Charon-class Frigate go up in flames and to pieces after being overwhelmed by a large group of Reaper ships.

"My God..." Lasky says with wide eyes of absolute shock.

Back outside a squadron of five Reaper fighters form up and perform a strafing run across the top of a CCS-class battlecruiser with only one Oculus getting hit and destroyed by a pulse laser turret. Inside explosions erupt all over the rocking ship from the attack as the soldiers and crew aboard scramble and the alarm blares, one small explosion sends a Sangheili flying while another explosion is more powerful sending many soldiers and crew flying.

"Damage report!" the Sangheili Shipmaster asks, before the ship once again rocks making him and the crew in the control room nearly lose their balance again.

"Fires have broken out in sectors Nine and Two sir, we have men on it now!" one Elite reports.

"That attack run took out more of our Pulse laser turrets! We don't have that many up top left to defend us if one of those ships comes at up from above!" another Sangheili reports.

Lasky continues to look out the viewing window as the battle continues to rage on, off in the distance he could still make out more of these, metallic squid-looking things continuing to come out from that red portal that brought them here from wherever it was they were from. "What the hell are these things?" Lasky quietly questions himself, the Captain then looking down towards the Earth where he knew unfortunately, another battle was raging.

Location: New Mombasa...

Three Longswords fly in formation towards New Mombasa as pillars of smoke rise into the air. Five years ago this city was the initial target of the Covenant during the Battle of Earth, the battle ended with the UNSC pulling out of the city and the Covenant glassing it. When the Human-Covenant war came to an end the entire land of which the city had once been built on needed to be re-terraformed if it was to be rebuilt, it took time but eventually the green grass of the land and the blue water of the ocean returned and the UNSC was able to get to work rebuilding all of New Mombasa as well as Mombasa in general which again took some time. But soon the city was once again thriving with life, the ONI Alpha Site being converted into a UNSC Military HQ due to the military now knowing what lied beneath the city and not wanting to take any more chances. But now, the city has once again become a warzone with buildings destroyed, fires spreading all around, rubble and bodies of both military and civilian alike lying in the streets.

"GET TO COVER!" A UNSC Marine yells as another explosion erupts nearby.

UNSC Marines and ODSTs, along with Swords of Sanghelios Elites, Jackals, and Grunts charge forward firing upon a large group of Reaper Husks coming their way, while at the same time heading for whatever cover could be found. The regular Husks rush forward while the other types return fire at the UNSC and Swords of Sanghelios forces. A Warthog slowly pulls up behind the UNSC and Sword forces, the gunner manning the M343A2 Minigun firing away cutting down many regular Husks as a Marine armed with a MA5D assault rifle fires his gun taking out a Cannibal. Bullets, Plasma, and High-velocity slugs fly through the air as while many Husks are shot dead the UNSC and Swords of Sanghelios forces take a few casualties themselves. One Marine reloads his BR85N Battle Rifle and popping out of cover fires taking out a Husk, taking aim at another Husk before the Marine can fire a Marauder fires its Phaeston hitting him in the head and killing him instantly.

The Warthog's gunner continues laying down heavy fire taking Husks, Cannibals, and Marauders down as they charge forward. Suddenly a Harvester appears flying out from around the corner of a nearby building "Incoming!" a female ODST yells, the gunner quickly changes targets aiming the gun up towards the Harvester and fires. Many bullets impact into the flying creature but fail to do much damage to it as the Harvester flies towards the UNSC and Sword forces, once close enough the Harvester lets loose with its cannons firing towards the Warthog.

"Shit!" the gunner yells quickly jumping off the back as the driver and passenger Marines both also hastily eject themselves from the Warthog before the shot impacts. Causing the vehicle to explode and hop a few feet into the air before crashing back down in flames.

A fellow Marine rushes over to the former gunner "You alright?" he asks kneeling in front of him.

"Yeah!" the Marine replies as he begins picking himself up.

"Come on grab your weapon and-" However a high velocity slug travels through his neck sending him toppling to the ground before he can finish while the other Marine ducks and covers his head back down from the shot. Opening his eyes and looking forward the Marine spots his comrade with blood all over his neck as more of it continues spurting out from the two holes on either side, the man was still alive somehow but was choking on his own blood "Fuck, medic! medic!" the Marine cries out shooting to his knees as he attempts plugging up the holes with his hands to prevent more blood lose.

Just then five massive objects crash into the ground behind the Husks' position, not that long after more Husks reveal themselves from the smoke and charge forward with the Cannibals and Marauders firing upon the soldiers.

"Enemy reinforcements!" Another Marine yells.

"This is Bravo Three does anyone read!? We are need of support, repeat we need support! Enemy reinforcements have arrived, we are in danger of being overrun! Does anyone read me?!" A young male Marine yells into his helmet communicator. "Sarge! I can't raise anyone!" the Marine says turning to his Sergeant next to him.

"Keep trying!" The Marine Sergeant says reloading his MA5D as he then pops up over his cover and fires taking out two Husks.

"I say again this is Bravo Three to any nearby friendly forces, we are in need of support! Repeat in need of-" just then a grenade sails over the two marine's heads, the sergeant failing to notice it as the other marine spots the grenade landing right behind them. "Grenade!" the marine yells launching his body onto the grenade, just as the grenade explodes launching his body a few inches off the ground.

The sound of the explosion attracts the sergeant's attention as well as a few other Marines, the lifeless body of another one of their comrades now lied on the street, a pool of blood seeping out from the hole in his body. "Jackson! You sons a bitches!" another male Marine cries out in anger as he stands up from his cover and begins firing his M395B DMR.

Nearby a female Marine and Sangheili Minor pull out their respective grenades and prime them, the two shoot up from their cover and lob the explosives towards the Husks as the Frag Grenade lands at the feet of a Cannibal while the Plasma Grenade sticks to the head of a Marauder. Both grenades go off taking out a number of enemy troops. An ODST fires his MA5D while the Sangheili Major beside him fires his Type-57 Carbine, another ODST finishes reloading his DMR while kneeling beside cover and immediately aiming back forward continues firing at the Husks. An Unggoy Minor charges forward while firing his T-56D Needler only for a slug to go through his head.

The Marine Sergeant turns his gun and fires again taking out another Marauder, suddenly, as high-velocity slugs continue flying and impacting all around him the marine looks up to the sky to see two more Reaper pods flying towards them. One Reaper pod crashes into the side of a building while the other impacts right in the middle of the other Reaper troops. "Here come more of them!" a female ODST shouts.

"It's only one how bad could it be." a male Marine says.

When suddenly an ear piercing screech cries out into the air making a few soldiers cover their ears and others wince from it "What the hell was that?!" another male marine yells out.

Looking back forward, as the smoke began to clear three more creatures, different from the others could be seen. One a slender and tall female looking Husk, and the other two large, bug-like with orange sacs all over the front of their body. A Banshee, and two Ravagers had appeared before the UNSC and Sword forces.

With wide eyes of shock the Marine Sergeant quietly says to himself "Oh shit…" getting a really bad feeling off the new creatures before him, his men, and their allies.

The two Ravagers open fire on the UNSC and Sword forces with their twin artillery cannons, a few shots fly right over the heads of the soldiers while the others impact around them with some of the explosions and shockwaves sending a couple troops flying. "Concentrate fire take those things down!" the Marine Sergeant yells out.

Two Marines pop up from behind a destroyed vehicle and fire their weapons, the bullets impact into one of the Ravagers but destroy a few of its sacks instead releasing the groups of Swarmers from within which begin scurrying towards the soldiers. The other Ravager takes a few steps forward and fires its cannons, one of the shots impacts close to the soldier on the left with the shockwave being enough to send both marines flying into the wall of a nearby building. A Sangheili and Kig-yar out in the open fire their Carbine and Plasma Rifle respectively at this Ravager, this time aiming directly where its "eye" seemed to be located as they continue hitting it until eventually the Ravager finally falls over dead. The other Ravager responds to this firing its cannons with one of its shots impacting directly into the Kig-yar blasting him to pieces sending body parts and blood flying everywhere, while another shot impacts in front of the Sangheili blasting him back.

The Banshee lets out another blood curdling screech before starting to teleport short distances in a sporadic way towards the soldiers, a few UNSC and Sword troops attempt to get a fix on her but find it almost impossible to do so due to the Banshee teleporting all over the place. One ODST just begins firing his gun at wherever he sees the Banshee barely doing anything but missing and wasting ammo, until eventually the Banshee teleports and reappears in front of a Sangheili Ultra, the sight of it being so close sending the few UNSC and Sword troops around it scrambling away as the Banshee brings back its right arm and drives it forward through the Elite's chest. Lifting the Sangheili into the air on its sharp and long fingernails which now drip with its blood as the Elite coughs up more of its own blood a few times before finally dying, the Banshee tossing his lifeless body aside "Shoot that son of a bitch!" a female Marine yells.

"Bring her down!" a male ODST yells.

Now seeing the big threat of the Banshee many of the UNSC and Sword forces begin focusing their fire on her, bullets and plasma rounds impact right into the Banshee only for her highly durable barrier to protect her from most of the shots "Our weapons are not working!" a Sangheili Minor shouts.

"She must have powerful shields, keep firing!" a Sangheili Major orders.

The UNSC and Sword forces continue pouring bullets and plasma onto the Banshee while the few others continue dealing with the other Husk troops who continue moving forward, suddenly the Banshee lowers her head and seems to take in a deep breath, before suddenly throwing its head up and letting out another, more powerful blood curdling scream which sends out a massive biotic blast sending many of the UNSC and Sword soldiers around her flying back in their respective directions while sending others farther away to the ground.

At this, the tide takes a dramatic turn for the worse as the remaining Husks charge forward while under less fire from the soldiers still standing, quickly closing the distance as the people still downed attempt to scramble back to their feet and rejoin the fight but are too late. One Marine who was still standing begins backing up while firing his M45D Tactical Shotgun, firing his gun into each Husk that got too close to him before pumping the gun to load the next shell in. That is until his shotgun runs out of ammo, forcing the marine to toss it aside as he attempts to go for his pistol only for another Husk to quickly appear and pounce on him as it begins immediately tearing away at him with its claws causing the marine to scream out in absolute pain.

"Dammit, we've lost the momentum. Pull back! Pull back!" The Marine sergeant begins shouting as he begins slowly backing up while firing his gun in short bursts.

The Banshee raises its arms into the air before bringing them down and cutting the Jackal in front of her with her claws. A Cannibal launches a grenade from its arm cannon which lands next to an ODST and two Grunts as they try to retreat, going off a few seconds later taking them out as they are sent flying to the ground. The Swarmers from the Ravagers begin crawling all over two Marines making them cry out in terror as they try swatting them off. Another Harvester flies into the area and fires taking out a group of soldiers.

"Retreat! Retreat!"

"They're overwhelming us!"

"Pull back!"

The UNSC and Sword forces are now in full retreat as the Husks begin overwhelming their position, his gun out of ammo the Marine Sergeant tosses his assault rifle aside and grabs a M739 Light Machine Gun off the body of a dead ODST. Raising it forward the sergeant immediately begins unloading the SAW into the charging crowd of Husks before him cutting many of them down "Come on bastards! You want a piece of me?! Come on!" the Sergeant yells out. Suddenly, hearing something to his right the marine turns to face whatever it is, only to be grabbed by the throat by the Banshee as he is lifted off his feet and brought right into the face of the ugly Husk as it growls at him.

Raising his SAW the sergeant pulls the trigger, only to find the weapon empty as the Banshee brings its other claw back to skewer him "Go ahead you ugly piece of shit, do your worse!" the sergeant angrily says accepting his fate. Just as the Banshee is about to impale the marine, a combat knife suddenly flies in from out of nowhere and embeds itself right into the side of the Banshee's head. Making the Banshee drop the sergeant before toppling over dead "What the hell?" the sergeant questions.

Next thing he knows more gunfire erupts from behind him and Husks begin going down left and right, some of which were close to killing some other soldiers saving a few and leaving a few others wounded but nevertheless alive. A tall figure suddenly walks past the sergeant over to the Banshee stopping next to its lifeless body, the figure stands motionless for a few seconds before pulling out his pistol and putting two rounds into the Banshee's head just for insurance. The figure then kneels down and takes out his knife, standing back up and turning to face the marine sergeant "You okay soldier?

"Y-Yes sir." the sergeant replies as the figure extends a helping hand out, the marine grabs it and is hoisted back to his feet in an instant with the figure's strength being really strong that he practically flew onto his feet.

The Marine Sergeant now gets a better look at his savior, and his jaw drops in shock at who it is "Can you still fight Marine?" the Master Chief asks.

The sergeant is in absolute awe at seeing the Master Chief, the hero of the UNSC and dubbed "Humanity's Greatest Soldier" before him "Sergeant, can you still fight?" Chief asks once again.

"Y-Y-Yes sir!" the Marine Sergeant replies.

"Good, grab a rifle, and lets finish these things off." Chief says turning to face the rest of the Husks that still remained as they continued charging forward.

"Reinforcements!" One of the surviving ODSTs cries out as true enough, UNSC and Sword reinforcements arrive to assist the surviving soldiers, two M820 Main Battle Tanks and Warthogs among them as the Chaingun gunners open fire on the Reaper forces. One of the Scorpion tanks turn their turret and fire the main gun taking out a group of Husks.

Nearby an Elite holds back a regular Husk with his Plasma Rifle, struggling to keep it back as the Husk inches closer and closer to ripping away at the Sangheili's face, when suddenly a Type-1 Energy Sword, this one with its plasma blades colored orange instead, is driven through the back of the Husk killing it instantly. As its lifeless body is then tossed aside revealing the Arbiter, Thel 'Vadam in his gold colored, Kaidon armor "Are you okay soldier?" Thel asks.

"Yes Arbiter, thank you." the Sangheili replies as Thel helps him up.

Sheathing his combat knife away in the compartment on his left gauntlet Chief proceeds to grab the MA5D on his back and charge forward, firing at the Husks in his way in short bursts taking out three normal Husks and two Cannibals. Two Marauders turn their attention towards the SPARTAN-II super soldier and open fire, most of the shots missing him except for a few which are blocked by his energy shield as Chief falls and slides into cover behind a large pile of rubble. The Harvester from before returns to wreak more havoc on the troops, seeing this Arbiter lowers his Plasma Rifle and lets out a roar, throwing his left arm towards the Harvester as a signal to the Yanme'e among the reinforcing Sword forces to take off to engage the flying enemy. The Drones flying quickly towards the Harvester as they begin firing away at it with their weapons causing the Harvester to veer off away from the ground troops in an attempt to deal with or lose the flying insectoids.

Reloading his assault rifle Chief is about to lean out of cover to fire, when he turns his head slightly to the left towards the wall of the building beside him. Suddenly Chief launches himself to the right into a roll, just as suddenly the wall explodes outwards sending dirt and debris flying everywhere as any soldiers nearby this event scramble away. Looking back towards the wall, Chief watches as three Brutes emerge from the hole and look around, the one in the middle turning as its eyes land upon him as Chief stares right back, the Brute lets out a roar of anger. Standing back up Chief aims his gun and opens fire on the middle Brute, his bullets hitting but causing next to no damage to the massive beast due to the metal plating on its body.

Chief's mag soon runs dry, as the Brute then charges angrily towards him forcing the Master Chief to roll once again to his right to dodge the monster as it misses and runs right by. Coming to a stop however Chief looks up to see another one of the Brutes already in front of him with its fists raised up to crush him with, immediately as he sees this Chief launches himself backwards just as the Brute slams its fists into the ground sending dirt and debris flying. A Marine and ODST nearby fire their guns at the third Brute as it charges them, their bullets having no effect on its heavy armor "Pull back! Pull back!"

"Watch it!" the two yell as they start running, the Brute slamming into the destroyed vehicle they were using for cover sending it flipping continuously in the air before crashing back down.

Seeing the trouble the Brutes are causing Thel raises his Energy Sword "Hunters! To battle!" he yells, just as from the back of the reinforcements two Mgalekgolo aka Hunters appear letting out battle roars before charging forward.

One of the Hunters collide with the Brute attacking the soldiers slamming its shield into the side of its face, while the other charges into one of the two Brutes attacking the Master Chief, ramming right into the side of the Brute and pushing it away from the other one and Chief. "Chief!" Arbiter shouts getting his attention as Chief turns his head to see Thel lob an unactivated plasma grenade towards him. Knowing what to do Chief grabs and immediately activates it, charging straight towards the lone Brute in front of him as the Brute roars at the charging Spartan and starts charging towards him as well with its left arm pulled back. Once close enough the Brute launches its fist forward, but Chief anticipates this and jumps up and over the Brute's arm and body, turning himself around in the air Chief then tosses the grenade at the exposed back of the Brute as the plasma grenade hits and sticks to it.

Landing back on the ground and sliding back a few feet, Chief raises his head forward as the Brute comes to a stop following its failed attack, the Brute suddenly raises its head in a confused manner just as the grenade goes off, blowing the entire back of the Brute to pieces as the beast lets out one last roar of pain before toppling over dead. The second Hunter bashes the Brute its fighting in the face sending it stumbling back a few feet as the Hunter aims its assault cannon at the heavy Husk and fires straight into its face, destroying the entire head as the now headless Brute topples over. The other Brute swings both of its fists into the other Hunter sending it flying onto its back, the Brute charges forward forcing the Hunter to raise its shield as the Brute starts pounding away at it leaving a dent in it after a couple hits.

"Hit that son of a bitch!" a female Marine yells out as a few soldiers open fire on the Brute, aiming their shots towards its face as the Brute begins getting pelted by bullets and plasma in the face forcing it to rear back and cover itself with its arms. This gives the downed Hunter an opening as it lowers its shield and aiming its assault cannon fires into the Brute's chest, creating a massive hole in the creature as it roars out in pain and turning around falls onto its arms. The Hunter gets back up and rushes the downed Brute as it attempts crawling away, the Brute doesn't get far before the Hunter uses its shield and drives it right through the neck effectively decapitating the Husk as its head slides off the shield to the ground. In the air after sustaining too much damage from the Drones which the Harvester finds itself unable to evade or even hit with its cannons, after one last shot from a Drone to the face the Harvester roars out in pain before going limp and falling from the air crashing to the ground kicking up a lot of dust and debris, an ODST armed with an M7/Caseless SMG fires his gun before turning slightly to his right and firing again taking out a Cannibal, a Jackal aims and fires its Particle Beam Rifle taking out a charging Husk, a male Marine and Sangheili Major both prime their respective grenades before tossing them, taking out a large group of Husks. The soldiers continue firing until finally a Marine Lieutenant who was a part of the reinforcements lowers his Battle Rifle and starts yelling "Cease fire! Cease fire!" while waving his arm up and down.

Another marine seeing this starts repeating the same process to his fellow soldiers "Cease fire! Cease fire!"

"Hold your fire! Hold! Hold!"

"Cease fire!"

All the UNSC and Sword forces stop firing, their weapons still held high however just in case anymore of the creatures popped out from nowhere, luckily no more did, but the sounds of battle could still be heard echoing throughout the city from all directions. For now, this skirmish was over "Area clear!" one of the male Marines shout.

Taking one last scan of the area and seeing no more hostiles Chief lowers his rifle and turns around walking towards the Marine Sergeant "Sergeant Callahan, Bravo Company 2nd Marine Division. Thanks for the help back there sir." Callahan says saluting the Chief while also regaining his breath from all the fighting.

"At ease Sergeant, what are you and your men doing here?" Chief asks.

"We were ordered to sweep the area for any civilians that might have gotten left behind sir. A lot of people evacuated but we were still getting reports of a few stragglers that got trapped by these, things. The only civilians we've come across though are all dead, don't know if there are any still alive, or what." Sergeant Callahan replies.

"And the Sword troops?" Chief asks.

"Picked them up along the way, got separated from the rest of their platoon in all the confusion." Chief looks at the surviving Sword and UNSC troops, the wounded being looked after by the medics and some other soldiers. "Master Chief sir, you have any idea on what the hell's going on?" Callahan asks.

Chief looks back at Sergeant Callahan "Not a clue sergeant. Whatever these things are, its clear they're not the work of the Covenant, not even Prometheans, or Flood. And if that portal is anything to go by, we may be dealing with something not even from this galaxy."

"Great, new aliens to fight." a nearby female Marine says sarcastically.

"At least their tech isn't that advance by the looks of it, still though they got the numbers over us and that seems to be helping them a lot." a male ODST says.

"The fact that they have the capability to already be waging battles across the entire galaxy shows that they are very capable of utilizing just their strength in numbers to overwhelm and divide our forces. I can only hope that the forces on my planet are holding strong." Thel says approaching Chief. Raising his right hand up and looking down at it Thel clenches it into a fist, angered by the fact that he wasn't fighting on his home planet and leading his men against these, abominations. The only reason he and the forces he had were here on Earth instead of Sanghelios was because of Lord Hood calling him for a meeting here.

"Things may not be looking good now, but as we've seen they can be killed. And if they can be killed, they can be defeated. So let's not give up just yet, the fight's only just begun." Chief says turning to face the Marines.

"Oorah!" the Marines and ODST yell as the Sword troops all roar out in agreement with the Spartan.

"Chief, you read me?" a female voice says over Chief's communicator.

Hearing the voice Chief turns away slightly to his left "This is Chief here, I read you Palmer."

"Chief, don't know what to make of what's in front of me so. Mind coming over here and joining me and Fireteam Majestic? We're a couple clicks west of your position in the Midtown Hotel Lobby."

"Roger that, I'm on my way. Chief out." Chief says cutting off the transmission as he turns back and walks over to Thel "Palmer needs me for something. Take command of these troops and continue searching for any survivors. If you find any you know what to do, there should still be some birds on standby since the enemy doesn't have control of the air yet."

"Of course. Do not worry, I will not let any more of your people die to these things." Thel says nodding his head.

Chief nods his head thanking him as he turns and starts heading off to Palmer and Fireteam Majestic's location.


Five hours, that's how long it's been since this whole fiasco started as Chief remembers. Five hours ago the peace of Earth was shattered once more by the appearance of these giant metallic squid-looking ships and their monstrous ground troops, none of which were of the likes of anything that had ever been seen or encountered before. In just five hours thousands of enemy ships had come through that strange red portal, in just five hours almost the entire galaxy was now at war with these things as these creatures had spread far and wide to many nearby planets forcing the UNSC and their allies the Swords of Sanghelios on the defense. And in just five hours, Earth was close to falling to these things, whatever they were. While the UNSC and Swords ships had the better weaponry, with the high number of enemy ships that continued pouring out from that portal the fleets were beginning to get overrun and would probably not last much longer until they would be forced to retreat to fight another day. All that could be done now at the current moment was evacuate as many civilians as possible to the safety of underground bunkers scattered throughout the planet so that a resistance movement could at least be formed to continue the fight for Earth until such a time at which the UNSC and Sword forces could regroup, find a way to battle these things effectively and close that portal so no more of them could appear.

As for how long it's been since that day, seven months, seven months have passed since the Battle of Requiem, seven months after the Didact was defeated, and seven months since Master Chief, since John, lost her.

"Don't make a girl a promise...If you know you can't keep it." her words, the words of Cortana flashed through his mind.

"It was my job to take care of you."

"We were supposed to take care of each other."

The past months had been hard on him because of his failure to save Cortana, the words and his farewell to her haunted him for a few weeks until eventually they stopped happening, but even then he knew that he had to put his feelings aside if he was to continue his duty as a soldier of the United Nations Space Command. To help them and their allies the Swords of Sanghelios, the former Separatist Covenant who were now led by his old ally Thel Vadam, the Arbiter, in their fight against the Covenant factions who still opposed any sort of peace between the races such as the Storm Covenant.

Not much had changed for Chief during his four year "nap" on the Forward Unto Dawn, as said before there was still a war going on, not as large as before but fighting still continued with the UNSC and Sword forces fighting against the different Covenant factions. The road to peace was still far off, it would take time. A lot of time until that road was reached. After all the scars of the Human-Covenant war was still fresh in many people's minds, especially on many of the planets that were glassed by the Covenant. It would take time for all humans to accept the races of the former Covenant, and the same could be said for the races of the Covenant accepting Humans as well obviously. Small steps would need to be taken if peace was to ever return to the galaxy. But this incursion by an unknown enemy from who knows where, was definitely going to be a setback in that road to peace.

Today was supposed to be a normal day, Chief waiting for his next mission, Thel coming to Earth to have a meeting with Lord Hood about the Storm Covenant who were at the moment the UNSC and Sword's biggest Covenant faction to deal with first before the others. But as soon as the defense fleet reported the sighting of these metallic squids and their sudden attack without warning, Chief had a feeling things were about to get complicated, really complicated. The new enemy, whoever they were, didn't even have to bypass the defense fleet before deploying their ground troops via large pods that looked like nothing more than space debris which is exactly how they were able to get their troops past the fleet without even destroying half the ships to deploy them. Next thing Chief knows, reports start coming in from across the galaxy of more of these things attacking every inhabited planet near Earth and quickly expanding further out, and in just five hours the entirety of Earth was almost all in flames because there was just too many of these damn things and no matter how many were killed, more of them would just take the fallens place.

The suddenness of this whole thing, and their overwhelming numbers was proving too much for the UNSC and what little Sword forces were here on Earth. Chief didn't know what to make of this whole thing, these things definitely were not a part of the Storm Covenant, and when he was on Requiem the only Prometheans he saw were all machines, never any organic like what these things were reckon it did appear there were parts of these creatures with machine parts built into them. And their tech was definitely something that had never been seen before, but it wasn't powerful, as proven thus far this new enemy was mostly relying on brute strength and force to overpower the UNSC and Sword troops, and it was with this knowledge that Chief knew that they had a chance at defeating these things. If they could just find a way to seal up that portal to prevent more enemy troops and ships from coming through, then victory would be assured.

After some time, Chief finally arrived at the building that Sarah Palmer, the SPARTAN-IV Commander of the Spartan Fireteams aboard Infinity was located and entered the building.

Upon hearing heavy footsteps behind her, Palmer in her white with some red markings Scout variant MJOLNIR GEN2 armor turns around to see "Chief." she greets while holding her DMR in her hands.

"Commander Palmer." Chief greets back approaching as behind her was the SPARTAN-IVs of Fireteam Majestic who turned to face him.

"Well, take a look for yourself." Palmer says, gesturing with her right shoulder to the rear as she and Majestic move aside to allow Chief to look at whatever it was they needed for him to see. Walking past them Chief was greeted to the sight of a multitude of strange, white, black, and yellow armored men sprawled out all over the room, some of them with different looking armor from the others "What in the world?" Chief questions continuing to look at the scene before him.

"We were clearing this building of any civilians and hostiles. Searched the whole place and found no one, come back down here and these guys jump us. Luckily our shields held up, and whoever these guys are the majority of their armor didn't have any shielding except for a few. But they didn't look like energy shields, whatever shielding they had definitely didn't look like anything we or the Covenant have. And then, here's the frightening part." Palmer says walking over to one of the bodies slumped against the wall, a trail of blood leading down behind him as she walks to the armored man's side and presses a button on the side of his neck. Opening the faceplate of the helmet as upon seeing the face of the person in the armor, Chief becomes horrified by what he sees.

It was indeed an armored human male, the armor and the weapon being nothing Chief had ever seen before, but what horrified him the most was the fact that this man's face, looked almost like one of the creatures they had been fighting. "What the hell?" Chief questions as Palmer slowly walks backwards to his side.

"Yeah, no idea what to make of it. These guys, they're human, but at the same time they're not." she says exchanging looks with Chief.

"Not only that, but their weapons and armor, never seen anything like it. Maybe these guys were being turned into one of those things? Means they're also from wherever the hell it is these monsters are." Majestic member Gabriel Thorne speaks up.

"Is there anything else you can tell me?" Chief asks.

"Not like we had time to ask them questions since they open fired on us as soon as we walked down the stairs." Palmer says.

"Man just what the hell is going on today? First a portal opens up and giant spaceship squids come flying out, attacking us without hesitation like we did something to them. And now, we got dudes in armor with weapons we've never seen before, also attacking us with no reasons given. Like, this has got to be a dream, right? This shit can't really be happening." Anthony Madsen questions.

"Better believe it, unfortunately it is. As if we didn't have enough on our plate." Carlo Hoya says.

Suddenly a beeping sound begins emitting from the dead soldier against the wall drawing the Spartans' attention to him as a strange looking orange hologram appears on his left arm, a circle on top of his hand flashing continuously alongside the beeps "I didn't do anything!" Madsen says raising his hands up.

"What the hell is that supposed to be?" team leader Paul DeMarco says holding his battle rifle at the ready.

The Spartans continue watching the hologram flash and beep tensely in case it was a bomb or something that was about to go off "Thorne, you touch it." Madsen says looking at him while pointing towards the hologram.

Thorne does a double take looking at Madsen for a second before looking back at the flashing hologram, and then looking back at him again upon realizing what he just said "Wait what? Uh-uh, last time I touched something strange I was teleported from a ship to a planet. I'm not letting this be a teleporter as well and transporting me onto one of those space squids up there." Thorne angrily retorts.

Sighing in annoyance Tedra Grant speaks up "Fine I'll touch the flashing light." walking over to the dead man and without hesitation presses the flashing circle "Zeta Squad, report in." At this the Spartans freeze up "I think we just activated their communicator." Madsen quietly whispers unsure if they could be heard by the person on the other end or not.

"Zeta Squad report!"

With the predicament they now found themselves in, but also seeing it as a way of gaining some information perhaps Chief quickly acts stepping up and kneeling in front of the dead soldier "This is Zeta squad reading you loud and clear." Palmer and the Spartans of Majestic wait in silence to see what the response is to Chief speaking up.

"...Report, have you gotten eyes on the target known as Master Chief yet?"

Upon hearing this person mention him Chief and the rest of the Spartans were taken aback, who were these people and why were they looking for Chief? "That's a negative, we've not gotten eyes on him yet. City is too hot the target could be anywhere at this point." Chief replies.

"Exactly the point, I want you to return to the UNSC headquarters. We'll send out a fake transmission and lure the hero here into an ambush. Once he's dealt with if the Reapers haven't already we'll then deal with the Arbiter. How copy?"

"Roger that, we're on our way. Zeta squad out." Chief says, waiting a few seconds as the orange hologram disappears from the man's arm.

"Okay~, did that make any sense to anyone?" Madsen asks.

"Who the fuck are these guys and how do they know about the Master Chief and Arbiter?" DeMarco questions.

"Who knows, but if they've taken over the HQ then that'll explain why we haven't been able to get in contact with them in the past hour." Palmer says.

"Commander, you and Majestic link up with the Arbiter and continue searching the city for survivors until we get the order to pull out. I'll head over to the base and try to get some information out of whoever these people are. Maybe they can give us the answers we need." Chief says.

"You sure Chief? Shouldn't I send some of Majestic with you?" Palmer asks.

"I'll be fine, besides you heard that. They're also after the Arbiter, if they decide to send some troops after him he won't know what's coming. Get to him, warn him, and then protect him in case it's a large force. Especially since these people seem to be working with these, "Reapers" meaning they might have those creatures provide assistance or a distraction while they attempt to take him out." Chief says.

Palmer nods her head in acknowledgement "Alright, you got it. Majestic, lets move out!" Palmer says turning to Majestic as the SPARTAN-IVs begin to move out, Chief following behind them out the building before the two groups split up. "You sure he'll be alright by himself Commander?" Madsen asks Palmer.

"Madsen, he's the Master Chief. Guy has survived the worst shit imaginable. Whoever these punks are, they're targeting the wrong Spartan, for whatever reason it is they're targeting him for." Hoya says.

"Didn't they say something about a hero? Maybe they're targeting him 'cause they know he's a famous war hero or something and taking him out might lower our morale or something?" DeMarco says.

"Maybe, or maybe it's something bigger. Who knows, but knowing Chief he'll be fine. And if he has his way, he'll definitely get the information we need." Palmer says. "For now let's focus on finding the Arbiter and protecting him since these guys are after him as well."

Former ONI Alpha Site...

Current Designation: UNSC Headquarters of New Mombasa...

Chief carefully crosses the bridge as he heads to the UNSC Headquarters, the former ONI Alpha Site which upon being rebuilt was replaced with a massive twelve-story tower for the UNSC military to use. There was some vehicle wreckage on the bridge to give him some cover as he made his way across it luckily in case the enemy had some snipers watching it. Eventually arriving at the entrance of the outside plaza he scans the area but sees nothing out of the ordinary except for some crashed UNSC and Reaper fighters, a clear sign that he was indeed about to walk into an ambush since the enemy obviously kept any fighting to the inside so as to not draw any suspicion to any unbeknownst UNSC and Sword troops returning to the base.

Looking at the building it was relatively untouched save for two holes from crashed fighters which were still in flames, if there were any snipers watching it was impossible to tell where from since he didn't have any scoped weapons on him to scan the potential sniper spots with. All he could do was walk in and just be ready for the ambush when it was sprung as he stood up and made his way to the entrance to the building with his gun at the ready.

Meanwhile at the Top Floor...

Two Cerberus Assault troopers look through some UNSC weapon crates as they examine the weapons of this universes Humanity "What the hell? These guys are still using fucking bullets for their guns, pathetic! They do have some advance weapons here, but it ain't a whole lot. And yet these guys are years ahead of us?" One of the Assault Troopers question as he looks at the inside of a MA5D magazine.

"It's to be expected at this point that we're gonna be running into humans with either advanced or not so advanced technology. What with us traveling to different universes now and everything, not everyone's going to have the same tech as us." the other trooper says sitting on a nearby metal bench. "And besides, just because they're still using bullets doesn't mean they're going to be an easy enemy. If this Master Chief is one of the so called "Heroes" we're supposed to be hunting down now then we need to be careful since that means he can kick some serious ass. With or without advance weapons."

"Then it's a good thing we're allowed to shoot these heroes on sight. I ain't letting this guy get anywhere near me if I have something to say about it." the other trooper says.

"If there's one thing the boss said, it's not to underestimate these guys no matter what. That'll be the last mistake we make."

Just then a strange sound begins emitting through the air from out of nowhere garnering the two soldiers' attention "What the hell? You hear that?" the Cerberus trooper sitting on the bench says as he shoots to his feet with his Cerberus Harrier in hands.

"What is that?" the other trooper says backing away from the crates with his M-25 Hornet at the ready. Suddenly a blue box materializes right before the two Cerberus troops, shocking and confusing the two as they raise their weapons to it "Where the hell did that come from?" the trooper with the Hornet questions.

"Go check it out." the other trooper with the Harrier orders.

Without hesitation the Cerberus trooper wielding the Hornet cautiously approaches the strange blue box, his gun trained on the unknown object's doors taking notice of the handles as he reaches its side and looks back at his comrade. The other Cerberus trooper nods his head as a signal for him to open the door as the Hornet wielding trooper takes his left hand off his gun and slowly reaches for the door. Until it is suddenly opened from the inside as the left-side door swings inwards and a head pokes out making the Cerberus trooper retreat a few meters with both hands back on the gun as he shouts "Don't move!" to the figure.

The Tenth Doctor turns his head to the voice with his brows furrowed in confusion, which then widens in shock upon seeing the Cerberus trooper "Oh my, don't suppose this is the UNSC headquarters in New Mombasa?" he asks.

"Come out with your hands up, now!" the Cerberus trooper orders.

"Okay came at a bad time I see. I'm just gonna-" without saying another word the Doctor darts back into the TARDIS.

"Hey stop!" the trooper yells giving chase as he runs up to the doors of the TARDIS, only to suddenly get punched right across the face by a black armored gauntlet and knocked down "What the?!" the other Cerberus trooper shouts confused. Just as then Garrus pops out from the TARDIS aiming down his Mantis sniper rifle scope and fires putting a slug right between the trooper's eyes killing him instantly.

Immediately Shepard and the rest of the team pile out of the TARDIS with their weapons raised, quickly scanning the room for anymore Cerberus troops and finding it clear "James, keep your eyes on him, we need some information." Shepard says motioning to the knocked out assault trooper with his head.

"You got it Loco." James replies turning his eyes and weapon on him.

"Everyone else keep your eyes peeled just in case." Shepard says folding his rifle and placing it on his back as he walks over to the Doctor who exits the TARDIS looking around. "Doctor, any reason for why there are two, and probably more Cerberus troops here?" Shepard asks with a serious tone.

"I'm just as lost as you are Shepard," the Doctor replies shaking his head slowly before turning to his right clenching his teeth "How can Cerberus be here they don't exist in this universe. Something's not right, how could they be here they don't have the technology to break the barriers of time and space and even if they did the odds of them being here…" he says walking back and forth in place trying to figure this out.

Just as the Cerberus soldier groans beginning to regain consciousness "Shepard, sleeping beauty here's waking up." James calls over catching his attention as the Commander turns and walks over. The Cerberus trooper knowing what's going on attempts to reach for his gun only for Shepard to kick it away sending it sliding across the floor as Shepard kneels down beside him with James keeping his gun trained on him still.

"Start talking, how did and what is Cerberus doing here? How are you still at large when we destroyed your main base?" Shepard questions.

His hands raised against the ground the Cerberus trooper remains silent "THIS IS DELTA-"

Before he can say anymore the Doctor pulls a small device out of his suits inside pocket and aims it at the trooper activating it as an ear-piercing screech erupts from the trooper's communicator causing him to cry out in pain for a few seconds before it dies down. "What was that?" Tali asks looking at the Doctor.

"Sonic Screwdriver, a Time Lord's best multi-functional tool used for anything and works on everything, well except wood. All I did was disable his communicator so he can't let the rest of his buddies know we're here." the Doctor answers putting his screwdriver away.

"Is that thing also a weapon?" Garrus asks.

"Oh no, no, no, no weapons are not my thing. Weapons are never my solution the most violence I'll ever use is maybe a punch or a kick but never a gun, you know guns don't solve all problems." the Doctor says.

"Well for this situation, yeah, they kind of do since those Reapers aren't exactly one for talking things out." Ashley says.

"Either way thanks for that. So, wanna try that again?" Shepard asks turning back towards the Cerberus trooper.

"Go to hell!" the Cerberus trooper shouts full of anger.

Shepard looks back and calls for "Garrus!" the Turian sharpshooter walking over as he then proceeds to slam the butt end of his sniper into the trooper's stomach, making him cough out in pain. "Not the answer I was looking for. Try again." Shepard says.

The Cerberus trooper groans in pain again and coughs a few more times "You recognize my friend here I'm sure, former C-Sec Officer turned vigilante known as Archangel on Omega, almost took down all three Mercenary groups the Blue Suns, Eclipse, and Blood Pack? If you want I can let him get the information out of you, but expect a lot more pain." Shepard says intimidating the trooper as Garrus helps by placing his sniper away and cracking both of his knuckles.

"Alright, alright! It was around the time the Illusive Man spoke to the Reapers, telling them how the Citadel was the Catalyst, the Reapers spoke through one of our men who was indoctrinated and told us that they would spare us and allow our remaining forces to gather on the Citadel in exchange for helping them. They said that soon they would regain the ability to traverse across the "Multiverse" and that they could continue their mission through the means of these alternate universes. We didn't know what the hell they were talking about until they showed us all that stuff that happened fifty-thousand years ago involving those "First Civilization" people, the Time Lords, and everything else. They told us that if they were going to succeed in wiping out all advance life in the multiverse then they were going to need us to eliminate "certain people". People who were like you and your teammates that would cause major problems for them especially if they were to unite together behind you. They give us a list and that was it, so of course seeing the opportunity of surviving and getting at the chance to find a way to control the Reapers and possibly even take you out, the boss took the offer, and now, our job is to hunt down these so called "Heroes" to make sure that they can't cause any problem for the Reapers, especially since the Reapers knew somehow that you and your allies would come for them in an attempt to bring them and their allies together so you could finally destroy them." the Cerberus trooper says.

Hearing this shocks the group and especially the Doctor "What else is there? Tell me!" Shepard orders, however before the trooper can say anything else a shot rings out through the room and the soldier falls over dead with a hole in his head.

"Sniper!" Javik yells as Garrus turns to where the shot came from, to see a Nemesis break from cover behind a square planter and run towards the destroyed door that leads into the room as he fires a shot from his sniper taking her out.

"Dammit!" Shepard says angered by the loss of some more valuable information.

"Great, so not only do the Reapers somehow know our plan, but now both them and the remnants of Cerberus are working together to make sure we can't unite the heroes and armies together." James says.

"If we don't move fast I feel like our list of allies will start to dwindle, the armies of each universe unable to give enough troops to support us because they can barely hold their own against the Reapers, and the heroes killed by Cerberus." EDI says.

"And with them our chance of fully beating the Reapers and saving every universe." Ashley says.

"How could the Reapers have known? Could they have figured it out for themselves somehow, or what?" The Doctor says to himself pondering over how the Reapers could have discovered his and Minerva's plan since they were the only two to have known about the whole thing. "Then again fifty-thousand years in dark space and discovering what they did could have made them think things over while they were hibernating? Agh it doesn't make sense!"

"Doctor, we'll think about it later, right now finding these heroes and convincing their allies to join us in the fight against the Reapers is what's important right now." Shepard says.

Looking away towards the windows, something catches Tali's attention as she walks over to them and stares out into the city "Shepard." she says getting his and the others' attention as they head over to the window and join around her. Before them, the city they were in was in flames, pillars of smoke rose in the air, flashes of explosions erupted throughout and at least two Reaper capital ships walked through the city causing even more destruction "The Reapers." Shepard says as the Doctor joins beside him.

"It truly has begun. You're right, we can try and figure this out later, we need to hurry and find the heroes. If we can rescue them, we might have a better chance at recruiting their armies to the coalition." the Doctor says turning to Shepard before suddenly turning and running back into the TARDIS.

Shepard and Ashley exchange confused looks with one another and look back at the TARDIS "Doctor?" Shepard calls out.

"Yep, just hold on a moment would yah! Now let's see, where is oh there it is! No wait that's not it um~. AH there it is!" the Doctor could be heard saying inside the TARDIS. A few more seconds pass by before he finally re-emerges with a small handheld device in hand "Here we go!"

Shepard and his team walk back over to him "What's that?" James asks.

"Why, this here is the Hero Tracker! Built it myself just a few hours ago before coming to your ship and all that. After all, if we're going to be looking for heroes we need a way of tracking them down now don't we?" the Doctor says ending with an opened grin.

"You built this device just a few hours ago? Does that not mean it has not been tested meaning it could not work?" Javik questions crossing his arms.

The Doctor looks down at the device with a huge grin still plastered on his face for a few seconds, then looking back at the group says "Well...guess we're about to find out now aren't we?"

This garners some worried and concerned looks from amongst Shepard's group who exchange looks with one another "Oi! I'll have you know not one of my gadgets have ever failed me before...okay maybe a few times but not that much I'll tell you that!" the Doctor says. Just then the device starts beeping making everyone look down at it "Aha! See, according to this, one of our Heroes are right here in this building!" the Doctor says.

"Which also happens to be infested with Cerberus forces. Hope this hero can handle himself until we can find them." Garrus says.

"You mentioned that there were two heroes in this universe, where would the other be?" EDI asks.

The Doctor looks back at this device "Yeah, according to this...Oh my, that's a long way from here. He's in the city a bit of a distance from here." the Doctor replies.

"Which is crawling with Reapers and Husks" Tali says.

"If that's case, we'll have to split up. Doctor your TARDIS can take you to the other hero's location right?" Shepard asks.

"Of course." the Doctor says.

"Good, then here's the plan. I'll look for the hero in this building by myself, the rest of you go with the Doctor and rescue the other hero." Shepard says.

"You are staying here by yourself?" Liara says sounding concerned.

"The situation is a lot more worse in the city, especially if Cerberus is working with the Reapers to take these heroes out. For all we know these people don't even know about Cerberus which means they're in a lot more danger. I can handle a couple soldiers in a building, but if both Reapers and Cerberus target that other hero in a large enough group that hero may not be able to last long." Shepard says.

"Alright, if you say so Loco." James says shrugging his arms up.

"Well if that's the case, hold on just a moment!" the Doctor says running back into the TARDIS again.

After a few minutes of waiting the Doctor eventually comes back out now holding a metallic briefcase in his hands as he places it on the ground in front of Shepard who looks down at it confused 'What's this?" Shepard asks.

"Just a precaution." the Doctor says, stepping back as the briefcase opens up revealing some familiar weapons to Shepard including the M-15 Vindicator, M-76 Revenant, M-100 Grenade Launcher, and finally a couple of Inferno Grenades.

"And what precaution would require me needing all these extra guns exactly?" Shepard asks kneeling down examining all of them.

"Just because I know all about you and the other heroes, doesn't mean they know about me, obviously since you lot didn't know me of course. So, with everything that's going on, once they see you in that armor if the hero who's here is the person I think, he may try to kill you thinking you're with Cerberus. So you may need to, well fight and not kill him but just knock him down so you can fully explain everything and whatnot without him killing you. After all, this hero we're about to recruit, if he's who I think he is, he's going to be of great help in rescuing and recruiting the other heroes and their armies." the Doctor explains.

Taking his word for it, Shepard kneels down and closes back up the briefcase, picking it up and placing it on his back "Be careful out there, and take care of my team Doctor." Shepard says.

"Same for you Shepard, be careful." the Doctor says back.

As Shepard turns to leave he suddenly stops in his tracks with a look of realization on his face, making him turn back "Wait, how am I supposed know who the hero is? Just in case there are any other survivors in here?" Shepard asks.

"Oh yeah that's right. Ah, I got it!" the Doctor says as he begins walking towards Shepard "Hold your Omni-tool out would yah?" he asks as Shepard does just that activating it and extending his arm out. Taking his Sonic Screwdriver out, the Doctor activates the device producing another humming sound as the blue bulb at the end lights up, after a few seconds he deactivates it and puts the Screwdriver away.

"There yah go, when you see the hero your Omni-tool should start flashing letting you know you've found the person." the Doctor says.

"Should?" Shepard questions hearing that part.

"Well, may be a bit of a late reaction, hopefully not too long...Remember this is a first time I'm doing all this stuff so just gotta go with the flow and hope for the best!" the Doctor says trying to remain optimistic.

"Right? So long as it doesn't cost me my life…" Shepard says before looking at his team "Be careful, all of you."

"You too Shepard." Ashley says as she, along with the rest of the team head back to the TARDIS along with the Doctor. The doors closing the TARDIS hums to life a few seconds later and disappears, Shepard takes a deep breath and turns around "Alright, let's do this." he says as he pulls his M-8 Avenger out and heads off.

On the 3rd Floor…

A squad of Cerberus soldiers stand about, two troopers sitting on some chairs while an engineer leans against a table. "Has anyone still heard anything from Alpha or Jetson Squads on the second floor?" the Cerberus Centurion questions.

"Still nothing sir." one of the troopers reply.

"Alright then, that does it. You three take the elevator and go see what those idiots downstairs are doing. They better have a good excuse for not answering their comms." the Centurion orders as three of the Troopers start heading over to the nearby elevator.

Just as they reach it the elevator door opens up, before one of the three could even push the button making them exchange looks with one another confused by this. Before they can question it even further, something drops from the ceiling landing and rolling up to their feet, it was a UNSC frag grenade. The Cerberus troopers only had time to look at each other once more, before the grenade went off propelling them back and alerting the remaining five soldiers to the situation as they all began yelling out in shock and confusion as to what just happened. Dropping through the ceiling of the elevator having been waiting outside on top, Chief hits the floor and quickly raises his assault rifle as he begins firing managing to take out the engineer and one of the assault troopers in the first burst, before turning to the right and firing again taking out the last two troopers before they can raise their guns.

The Centurion finally manages to bring his Harrier up and returns fire, Chief seeing this rolls forward to his right dodging the shots as he raises his gun and fires three more shots dropping the Centurion. Standing back up Chief walks over to the dead Cerberus troops to make sure they are truly dead even nudging the Centurion's body with his foot confirming they were KIA as he proceeded to unload his mostly empty magazine and slap a fresh one in. Looking around, Chief was greeted by the same sight that he had already witnessed on the previous two floors as the bodies of UNSC personnel, both combatants and noncombatants alike, were scattered across the floor alongside the bodies of whoever or whatever these men were. No survivors in terms of the UNSC personnel had been encountered thus far, only the remnants of these armored men. The Chief's plan was simple at this point, clear out the building, and capture a few of these men alive so they could be interrogated for information, like what those things were invading their planet, or why they were searching for him and the Arbiter specifically.

"The sounds came over here!" a distant voice yells out, catching Chief's attention as he picked up the sounds of multiple footsteps heading towards him. Moving his left foot a little to the side, he hits something metallic and looks down to see a broken vent by his foot, looking up he spots the opened shaft it belonged to giving him an idea as he quickly jumped and pulled himself into it just as a group of fifteen Cerberus troops arrive.

Chief listened in from the ventilation shaft with his magnum at the ready "What the hell happened here?"

"I thought we cleared this place out." the Cerberus troops were now passing by below him.

"We must have an unwelcome guest. Keep your eyes peeled! I want whoever did this found and killed immediately!" the Centurion of the group orders.

Prepping his last flashbang grenade, Chief primes and drops it to the ground, the clanking of it hitting the floor drawing all the Cerberus troops' attention with their guns pointed at it. "What the hell?" one of the troopers say, just as the flashbang goes off blinding and disorienting the Cerberus troops as they all cry out and stumble back/around.

"It's a damn flashbang!" the Centurion shouts.

Dropping from the ventilation shaft and landing crouched down Chief raised his pistol and fired putting a single bullet in two Cerberus soldiers' heads.

"Contact!" one of the soldier's cries out as he begins wildly spraying his Harrier while still blinded. Chief rolling to his left to dodge this as the trooper's shots instead accidentally hit and kill two of his comrades "Hold your fire you idiot! Don't just fire randomly while still blinded!" the Centurion angrily orders. Rolling up to another Cerberus trooper Chief aims his pistol upwards and fires blowing the back of his head to pieces before turning to the right and taking out two more Cerberus troopers just as they begun to recover.

Taking out and priming a frag grenade Chief tosses it at four Cerberus troopers closely bunched together as it hits the floor and rolls up between them before going off taking them out. "There he is, take him out!" the Centurion orders as he and the four remaining troopers finally recover, aiming their weapons and opening fire on Chief who holsters his pistol and at the same time spins around to his left, getting hit a few times as his energy shields flash as he drops to one knee grabbing his assault rifle again and pulls it forward before unloading on the five remaining soldiers. The bullets impacting into the four Cerberus troopers and sending them to the ground while one of his bullets manage to knock the Centurion's gun from his hands. Before he can take the Centurion out however his magazine runs dry, his last magazine as well due to all the fighting in the city. Taking notice of this the Centurion states "You'll pay for that!" before pulling out and activating his shock baton.

Seeing this Chief places his rifle on his back and unsheathes his combat knife holding it backhanded style as he stands at the ready, the seconds pass by as both soldiers don't make a single move and just stare at each other waiting for the other to make the first move. After a few more seconds, the Centurion makes the first move as he charges forward with a battle cry while Chief stays still. The Centurion cries out another battle cry as he raises his shock baton back and closes the distance between him and Chief, reaching him he swings his baton downward, only for Chief to throw himself forward past the Centurion making the baton fly right over his head as Chief stands up and drives his knife into the back of the Centurion's skull. A few seconds later the Centurion's body goes stiff as his arms drop to his side and the baton falls to the floor, Chief pulls the knife from his head before the Centurion falls over to his side dead.

Taking one last look around and seeing all the Cerberus troops dead, Chief sheathes away his knife and takes his rifle back out, reloading it before heading off to clear the rest of the building.

On the 9th Floor…

Having taken care of only two squads of Cerberus troops so far on the past two levels, Shepard arrived on the ninth floor with his M-8 Avenger raised as he exited the staircase and took a scan of the short hallway before him with an intersection at the center and a hole in the wall directly to his left. Getting up against the wall Shepard quietly made his way alongside it towards the hole wanting to avoid the open hallway if possible just in case it was being watched from the other end. Reaching the hole Shepard peeked into the room to see that it was a medical resting room for wounded soldiers, luckily it was empty but the signs of battle were there as beds were turned over completely or on their sides, bullet holes had torn through the curtains, and scorch marks from explosions littered the ground in a few spots.

Entering the room Shepard raised his gun again keeping his eyes and ears out for anything and everything, Cerberus troops, survivors, or the hero who could potentially be in trouble if Cerberus was planning to ambush him. Suddenly he picked up the sounds of a conversation, the voices sounding very much like two Cerberus troops as it also sounded like they were getting closer and closer to him. Looking for some place to hide, Shepard dove towards a nearby bed that was still standing to his right and turned himself around to get his eyes back on the direction the voices were coming from as he readied his M-3 Predator pistol just as the two Cerberus troopers walked in.

"How much longer are we going to walk around here doing nothing?" the Cerberus trooper on the left questions in annoyance.

"How the hell am I supposed to know? Until we get word of the target arriving all we can do is continue scouring the building in search of any survivors." the Cerberus trooper on the right replies.

"But we've already been through this entire floor five times already! And there's no one left alive!"

Shepard aims his pistol and fires, the shot traveling through the lower right leg of the Cerberus trooper on the left as he cries out in pain and falls down clutching it while the other stumbles back a little out of shock allowing Shepard to fire again striking him in the stomach as he falls clutching it in pain. Quickly hopping back to his feet Shepard walks out from the side of the bed and quickly puts a slug in each of the trooper's heads before they can recover and react. Shepard raises his pistol by his head and listens to see if his shots attracted any attention, after a few seconds however he hears nothing and lowers his pistol, only for suddenly another trooper to pop out from around the doorway to the room and fire his Harrier forcing Shepard to dive to the ground "This is Charlie Six, Shepard's here! I repeat Shepard's here he's on the ninth floor!" the trooper yells as Shepard aims his pistol and fires putting a slug through his head.

Pushing himself up Shepard scans the room again and makes his way to the door, peeking outside to see no more Cerberus forces around "Must have been at the door already when I fired before. Well, so much for stealth. Then again, might help take some pressure off the hero." he says to himself before walking off.

5th Floor…

Chief jumps forward and punches an assault trooper across the face, landing back on his feet he looks forward to see the Centurion charging him with his shock baton as he swings it down at the Spartan who manages to grab his wrist stopping the swing and then grabbing his throat, picks the Centurion up and slams him into the floor. Standing back up Chief backs up a foot and pulling his pistol out fires a single shot right between the Centurion's eyes. Looking down the long hallway a squad of Cerberus troops now littered it, as suddenly at the very end of the hallway two Cerberus Phantoms appeared standing straight up with their monomolecular blades drawn. Seeing what he was now dealing with Chief places his pistol back on his thigh and pulls out his combat knife getting into a combat ready stance, the phantoms following suit as they crouch forward with their blades held backhanded behind them. Taking a step forward Chief begins jogging forward until exploding into a full on sprint towards the phantoms who do the same thing, both groups running at top speeds towards each other closing the distance in just a few seconds as the phantom on the right makes the first move launching herself forward and over Chief's head in a spiral. Swinging her sword around as she does so as Chief quickly reacts pulling his knife up, blocking and knocking the blade away as the phantom soars over him with Chief following her every movement.

The second phantom jumps up towards Chief with her blade pulled back just as Chief turns back to face her, raising his knife once again Chief blocks the phantom's blade and easily pushes her back thanks to his enhanced strength sending her back a few feet as the phantom plants her feet on the ground and slides to a stop. The other Phantom tries to attack Chief while his back is to her, swinging her blade down as Chief picks her up on his motion sensor and throws his body to the right dodging the blade as he then spins around to the right throwing a roundhouse kick into the side of the phantom's head sending her spinning around forward to the ground. The second phantom charges at the Spartan and raising her left arm fires her palm blaster at Chief who sees this coming and manages to dodge the first shot ducking to his left, the Chief rushing forward after this as the phantom continues firing her palm blaster with Chief managing to dodge all the shots as he launches himself to the wall on his right, planting his right foot against it as he pushes off it towards the phantom throwing a punch right across her face sending the phantom to the ground.

Not even a second after hitting the ground Chief is hit in the back by a kinetic energy blast from the other phantom, causing a good amount of damage to his shielding as it flashes and the bar on his HUD drops a little. The phantom fires again at Chief who is hit again sending his body flinching forward a little as he quickly recovers and turning around, throws his combat knife at the phantom which embeds itself right into her face making her body go still for a few seconds before falling down lifeless.

The remaining phantom, while still on the floor, aims her palm blaster and fires it at Chief's left foot hitting and sending him falling onto his left knee as the phantom attempts driving her monomolecular blade into his faceplate. Only for Chief to react quickly enough to look forward and catch her fist stopping the blade just mere centimeters from his face, the Spartan then uses his strength to break her wrist causing the phantom to drop her weapon and cry out in absolute pain as Chief pulls her towards him, once in reach he places his hand behind her head and slams her face straight into the ground. Creating a small crater around her face while pieces of her now broken helmet and the floor go flying into the air. Taking a few seconds to recover Chief looks down at the dead phantom as blood seeps out from her helmet, once his shielding is recharged and his breathe is caught up the SPARTAN-II stands up and walks over to the other phantom, taking his knife out of her head before heading off towards the stairway to go to the sixth floor.

7th Floor…

Shepard finds himself pinned behind a few desks as a squad of seven Cerberus assault troopers fire their weapons at him. Popping out of cover to the side Shepard fires off a quick burst from his Avenger taking out an assault trooper as the others retaliate sending a barrage of heavy fire at the Commander forcing him back into cover as two rounds impact into his cover. Reloading his rifle Shepard places it on his back and powers up his biotics, waiting for the right moment to strike as it comes soon after when the Cerberus troops spend their magazines forcing them to reload. Shepard stands up from his cover and casts Singularity, catching four of them in the orb's gravitational pull making them completely helpless as they can do nothing but struggle in the air while the remaining three while not caught in it, still feel it trying to pull them in and thus try to fight it off. Grabbing his pistol and sliding over the desk Shepard charges towards the Cerberus troopers raising his gun and firing, taking the three Cerberus troops on the ground out first before turning his attention to the floating ones and taking them out with well-placed shots.

The Singularity ending a few seconds after this sending the Cerberus corpses to the ground, Shepard comes to a stop to catch his breath. This doesn't last long however when a flash of red suddenly appears in his left eye for a split second before disappearing upwards, making Shepard peer upward with his eyes to see a red dot on his head. As quickly as he sees this he rolls forward as a shot rings out and a high-velocity slug impacts into the ground behind him. From a balcony overlooking the room a Nemesis sniper ducks back behind the low wall as on the ground behind another desk, Shepard places his pistol away and pulls out his M-92 Mantis. Based on where he heard the shot come from Shepard slowly peeks out over the desk to try and confirm if the Nemesis is on the balcony, almost immediately getting his answer as another shot impacts just mere inches away from his face forcing him back into cover as he wipes a few dirt that got into his eyes away. Looking to his right he takes notice of a small, but big enough crack between the desks for him to use the sniper as he quickly and quietly crawls over to it.

The nemesis continues scanning the desks trying to find out where Shepard will pop out next, scanning towards her left she suddenly takes notice of a gun barrel sticking out between two desks, a scope on top behind it and Commander Shepard behind that. As Shepard pulls the trigger on his sniper sending a round right through the nemesis's head. Reloading his Mantis, Shepard stands up placing it away as he grabs his assault rifle back out and heads off.

Chief bursts through the door to the stairway with his rifle raised, scanning up and down the stairs to see no enemy troops as he begins making his way up the stairs; Shepard reaches the elevator and calls it up, after a few seconds it arrives and he steps inside, hitting the button to the sixth floor the door closes and the elevator begins its descent.


Chief quietly opens the door to the sixth floor with his rifle raised and held in his right hand, scanning the room as he opens the door as he sees no signs of any enemy troops; with the area cleared he fully opens the door and takes off to his left, each room he passes by he checks one by one still finding no signs of any enemy troops making him wonder where they all were. After checking his tenth room, he spots an opened double-sided door and cautiously enters, finding at the back of the room an opened vault, it was the armory room of the building. Inside most of the UNSC, and even a few Covenant weapons remained untouched on the racks, a few opened crates containing grenades and weapon magazines were inside as well. Chief walks into the room lowering his rifle as he looks around "Must have taken the soldiers by surprise." Chief surmises as to why the majority of the weapons were still in here.

Taking this opportunity Chief walked over to one of the crates and began loading up on more ammo, at the same time replacing his pistol and its remaining magazines with a M45D shotgun and its 8 gauge magnum shells since the fighting had been a combination of long and close quarter's engagements thus far. He also loads up on a couple of frag and plasma grenades. Fully restocked and loaded Chief leaves the armory to finish clearing out the building. After a couple minutes Chief soon finds himself walking into what appears to be the main plaza of the sixth floor, the place littered with rubble all around as well as the signs of battle. Shell casings, spent magazines, blast marks from grenade explosions, even a M247H Heavy Machine Gun placed behind the main desk of the plaza with hundreds of casings by its side covered the room. The plaza itself had the main desk sitting at the back of the room where Chief had entered from its left side, ten pillars lined up on both sides holding up the walkways for the floor above, four benches with two destroyed, one flipped, and the other still standing, and a single massive rectangular planter in the center with some grass and two trees growing out from it.

Still seeing no enemy troops, Chief is about to continue on when suddenly the ding of the elevator arriving on the floor goes off, putting the Spartan on full alert as he rushes to the closest pillar on his left and gets behind it. The door to the elevator opens as Shepard steps out with his assault rifle raised as he scans the room for any Cerberus troops but doesn't see any, nevertheless he keeps his weapon raised just in case as he carefully steps out and begins walking through the plaza keeping close to the pillars on his left.

Chief peeks out from behind his pillar and spots a human male walking past the second pillar on the opposite side of him. He takes note of the strange armor and weapons being a little similar to the strange armored men he's fought thus far, but also notices how unlike their faces which closely resembled those of the creatures he was fighting in the city, the man's face was perfectly normal. "Could be their leader." Chief thinks, after all who else could he be? Nearly identical weapons and armor, he did come from the upper floors where more of these soldiers should be. Chief raises his rifle and aims.

Shepard walks past the fourth pillar, his rifle still held at the ready and as he approaches the fifth pillar, a hail of bullets begin bombarding into and all around him. His kinetic barrier holding as he throws himself against the pillar as more bullets continue impacting into the concrete around him kicking dust and debris up. Once the firing stops Shepard peeks out from around the pillar trying to locate the shooter but doesn't see anyone at first, however upon looking towards the back at the last pillar, for a split second he makes out an armored figure as he pops out with a gun and fires forcing Shepard back into cover. Chief continues firing his rifle in short bursts as he gets out of cover and begins moving forward to try and get a better angle on the enemy soldier, however the enemy soldier pops out with his gun aimed at him and returns fire, three of his rounds hitting the Chief causing a bit of damage to his shields as he gets into cover behind the next pillar.

Reloading his MA5D Chief places the gun on his back and takes out a M9 Grenade, shifting his way along the pillar to his right as at the same time Shepard reloads his M-8 Avenger and waits for the figure to pop back out. "What the hell was that? Some kind of Cerberus commander?" Shepard thinks in his head.

Once in position Chief primes the grenade and stepping out of cover lobs it at Shepard, Shepard turns his head upon noticing the armored man pop out on the other side of the pillar and toss something making him look up to see what appears to be a grenade coming towards him. "Shit." Shepard says as he takes a few steps back before turning and running to his left. The grenade lands behind him and goes off after a few seconds making Shepard flinch his head down as he continues running by the pillars, Chief seeing this raises his rifle and opens fire at Shepard sending bullets impacting into and around the Commander as his barriers take some damage. Raising his rifle Shepard begins returning fire hitting Chief a few times making his energy shields flash from the damage as the SPARTAN-II begins slowly moving backwards past the pillar towards the previous one. Eventually both soldiers' guns run out of ammo making them reload as Chief tosses his empty magazine aside while Shepard ejects his, allowing him to immediately start firing again as Chief finishes loading his new mag in allowing him to fire back.

Turning past the second to last pillar Shepard rushes towards the massive planet and falls backwards sliding behind the low wall for cover as he immediately gets back up and continues firing as Chief gets back behind the last pillar for cover. Taking out and priming a frag grenade Shepard tosses it at Chief's position as the Spartan pops out of cover to fire when he takes notice of the grenade coming towards him. His reflexes kicking in Chief turns and sprints out of cover as the grenade hits the floor and goes off a second after, Shepard aims and fires at Chief hitting him a few times before he jumps and slide over the top of the desk into cover as Shepard continues firing with his high velocity slugs penetrating the wooden desk as the slugs fly all around Chief but miss him. Popping over the desk Chief fires once again at Shepard who ducks behind the planter as the bullets impact into the tiling destroying them and sending pieces flying, eventually Chief's magazine runs dry again making him duck back down and allowing Shepard to pop up again and fire at the desk tearing more of it to pieces as Chief still manages to remain untouched as he crouch walks alongside it over to the right to get a better shot on the Commander.

Once in his new position Chief pops out and fires at Shepard again, the Commander getting hit a few times as he turns and returns fire at Chief with none of his slugs hitting the SPARTAN-II, standing up as his barrier comes dangerously close to going down Shepard hops onto the planter and rushes towards the two trees getting behind them for cover as Chief's remaining bullets impact into the trunks. Once again Chief tosses the now empty magazine aside "Last one." he mentally notes slapping the last magazine for his assault rifle in as he turns his head slightly looking towards the standing M247H machine gun. Shepard ejects his empty magazine also taking note how he was on his last assault rifle ammo. "Whoever this Cerberus Commander is, he's good, and he's got some kind of shielding protecting himself with. This might be a bit of a challenge." he says to himself as he takes a deep breath and pops out of cover aiming his rifle. Only to see the Master Chief standing behind the heavy machine gun as he grabs and aims it down towards him.

At seeing this Shepard's eyes widened in shock as he mentally yelled in his head "Oh shit!" with Chief spooling up the barrels and firing a heavy barrage of bullets towards Shepard who quickly launched himself off to his left off the planter hitting the floor hard as the barrage of bullets tore through the barks of the trees sending splinters of wood flying in all directions and even cutting the trees in half as the upper halves fell to the ground. Quickly powering up his Biotics Shepard pushes himself up to his feet and casts Lift, Chief's instincts telling him to jump aside as he did so without question as suddenly an aura of glowing blue light surrounded the heavy machine gun causing it to be lifted a few feet up into the air. "What the hell?" Chief questioned wondering what just happened as he looked over at Shepard noticing the same glow around him. Not wanting to think about it till after the fight, Chief quickly gets back up and rushing over, pulls the MG from its tripod as the blue aura disappears around it, Chief taking aim at Shepard fires again forcing the Commander to dive behind the planter again.

"Oh come on!" Shepard angrily says as bullets impact into everything around him.

Chief meanwhile slowly backs up towards the doorway while still firing the heavy MG, Shepard takes out and primes an inferno grenade, just as Chief reaches the door his weapon finally runs dry on ammo allowing Shepard to lob the grenade at the Spartan who quickly turns and runs away as the grenade hits the ground and goes off. Putting his rifle away Shepard takes out his Tempest, getting up and giving chase after the Master Chief.

Chief finds his way back to the armory and tosses his assault rifle aside, walking to the racks on his left he grabs a pair of M7/Caseless Submachine Guns and then grabs a Bubble Shield Grenade from the nearby crate as insurance as he quickly exits the armory. Shepard quickly runs down the hallway with his SMG raised as he continues chasing after the Cerberus "commander", just as he reaches the end Chief pops out with his shotgun in hands and fires, the force of the impact enough to send Shepard staggering back a little as his barriers take major damage and nearly deplete. Chief pumps the shotgun and Shepard takes this chance to quickly jump to his right slamming his back against the wall as Chief fires again causing him to miss, allowing Shepard to raise his gun and return fire hitting Chief a couple times causing him to pull back into cover. As Shepard continues pouring fire on Chief's position, Master Chief takes out and primes a Plasma Grenade, getting out of cover and getting hit a few times as he tosses it at Shepard who quickly ducks to his right to dodge it only for the grenade to stick to the wall. Chief gets back behind cover as Shepard, hearing the hissing of the grenade looks up to see it stuck to the wall, his eyes widening in shock again Shepard looks forward and immediately comes up with a plan as he raises his Tempest and lets loose a barrage of slugs into the wall putting at least twenty holes into it as he charges forward and rams into it. Breaking through the wall as the grenade goes off while Chief remains in cover.

A second after the explosion ends, Chief turns the corner with his shotgun raised and scans through the smoke to see no signs of the enemy "commander" or any remains of him, taking notice of the two holes, one where the grenade went off and the other opposite of it, in the walls Chief cautiously approaches the one on his right walking a bit outwards away from it until he gets a view inside to see the office looking room empty and the door blown off. Thinking he left the room Chief begins walking in when suddenly Shepard pops out from behind a cabinet with his M-100 Grenade Launcher at the ready and fires. Striking Chief right in the chest and sending him flying back through the other hole and crashing onto a desk crushing it beneath him down the middle. Seeing the Cerberus commander downed Shepard lowers his launcher thinking it was over as he lets out a sigh of relief, however to his shock the Cerberus soldier begins getting right back up like the grenade didn't faze him at all "Oh you've got to be kidding me." Shepard says.

Chief pushes himself back up, his shield's nearly depleted as his alarms go off in his helmet. Looking forward he sees the enemy commander clearly taken aback as the man raises his grenade launcher again; his eyes darting to the corner of the room he was in Chief takes notice of something on the wall. Shepard fires another grenade at Chief, this time the Spartan is prepared as he takes out his bubble shield grenade, activating and tossing it into the ground as the grenade activates forming a shield dome around him with the grenade impacting and exploding upon contact throwing up a cloud of smoke. Shepard keeps his launcher raised ready to fire again and again if necessary as he waits for the smoke to clear to get a clear shot. As the smoke finally begins dying down he sees what appears to be some kind of hexagonal domed shield just as it also dies away and the shadowy outline of the armored man can barely be seen...aiming something at him. Acting quickly Shepard powers up his biotics and casts a Barrier to increase his defenses, oblivious to the fact that Chief was now aiming a Asymmetric Recoilless Carbine-920 at him as the SPARTAN-II charges the gun up and fires. Striking Shepard in the chest as payback as the impact sends Shepard flipping backwards through the air and crashing through not one, but two walls!

The ARC-920 unfortunately out of ammo Chief tosses the gun aside as it lands back beside the dead marine he borrowed it from and begins walking after Shepard to see if he finished the job. Shepard meanwhile now lies on a pile of rubble, his eyes closed as he coughs a little blowing some dust off his face. His eyes flickering open Shepard groans in pain as he sits himself up "Oh yeah...gonna be feeling that in the morning." he says to himself shaking his head.

Standing up Shepard looks around to find himself now in another medical resting room, the one for this floor by the looks of it. Hearing heavy footsteps approaching him the Commander looks around for a place to hide and spotting one rushes off getting behind a bed on its side. Chief enters the room with his dual M7s out, a M739 Light Machine Gun on his back as the Spartan replaced his shotgun upon coming across a weapon's locker in the previous room. Scanning the room Chief doesn't spot Shepard but knows he's in here as he continues forward, Shepard meanwhile takes out his M-76 Revenant but the movement allows Chief to pick him up on his motion sensor as he turns towards the turned over bed and slowly approaches it. Looking across from him Shepard sees an unbroken mirror, and in its reflection he notices the Master Chief approaching him. Seeing this Shepard drops completely to the floor and begins unloading his slugs through the mattress, the shots shredding through it like butter as Chief is taken aback by this at first but immediately recovers and begins backing up while firing both SMGs at the mattress. The exchange of gunfire causes damage to both soldiers' shields/barriers as Shepard begins pushing himself back with his feet while Chief continues walking backwards.

Eventually Shepard's mag runs dry forcing him to reload as Chief takes this opportunity to look behind him, spotting a metal table just a few feet behind to his left as he rushes over to it and flips it on its side to use for cover. Putting his SMGs away Chief pulls out his LMG and peeking over the table fires at Shepard's position shredding what was left of the mattress to pieces forcing Shepard back to his feet as he fires back a short burst before turning and running for another cover; Chief following after as the bullets fly and hit around Shepard until he slides over another table near a doorway and flips it backwards on its side. Shepard pops back up and fires again at Chief as his gun runs dry on ammo forcing him back behind cover. Taking this opportunity Shepard looks at the doorway nearby and makes a break for it, Chief popping up as he does so as the Spartan fires again only to to miss as the N7 rushes through the door. Putting his LMG away and pulling his SMGs out again Chief gives chase, reaching the doorway he looks down both directions and notices the staircase door to the left close.

Chief reaches the door and opens it with his guns raised, rushing to the railing and looking down to not seeing anyone making him look up to see Shepard fire his Revenant down at him making Chief throw himself back to dodge it as the slugs impact into the railing and ground. Shepard pulls away from the railing and continues running up the stairs, Chief rushes back over and aiming his left M7 up fires a few bursts before giving chase...again.

Meanwhile in the City…

"INCOMING~!" a male UNSC Marine cries out as a rocket is fired from a nearby building taking out another Marine and a ODST.

"Contact! Contact!"

Cerberus troops move in alongside Reaper Husks engaging the UNSC and Sword forces, among them Palmer, Fireteam Majestic, and Thel who immediately return fire with their troops. "These are the same fuckers from the building!" Hoya shouts firing his shotgun.

"Yeah, and it looks like they really are working alongside these things!" Madsen says firing his sniper taking out an assault trooper.

Thel and Palmer run to some nearby rubble for cover as high velocity slugs fly all around them, a Kig-yar they run past gets shot in the head as the two reach the rubble and crouch behind it "Are these the strange humans you told me about?" Thel asks.

"Yeah, that's them alright." Palmer replies getting up and firing a few shots from her DMR before being forced back into cover "And it looks like they brought along some new, and old friends." she says as sure enough a few more types of Cerberus troops were among the enemy force along with a single Atlas Mech.

"Shit, and here I was thinking we were finally going to get out of here. How the hell did they find us?!" Grant says as she fires her DMR.

"Who cares, just keep shooting!" DeMarco orders firing his Battle Rifle taking out a Centurion.

An ODST continued firing his MA5D, when suddenly the Elite to his right is shot in the head drawing his attention. The ODST takes notice of a red dot on his forehead and then notices the red dot travel over to his forehead, after a split second the ODST recognizes what it is and quickly ducks down as a slug flies right over him "SNIPER!" he yells. Madsen hearing this looks through his scope and begins scanning the buildings in front of him, another shot rings out and Madsen is able to see where it came from spotting the nemesis in a third floor window as he pulls the trigger putting a bullet through her head.

"Move forward!" a Centurion yells as Cerberus and Husk forces begin moving in on the UNSC and Sword troops who continue firing everything they've got taking a few enemy soldiers down. A Marine fires her assault rifle at a Guardian but finds her bullets blocked by his shield "Those shields of theirs are too tough!" she shouts to inform the others.

"Snipers, aim between the slits!" Palmer orders.

Any soldier with a telescopic weapon adjust their aim on the guardians and fire at the slits, a small target causing most of the shots to miss but with one Sangheili with a Particle Beam Rifle managing to make the shot as the beam travels through the slit and into the head of the guardian taking him out. Bullets and plasma meanwhile continue ricocheting or impacting into the Atlas Mech causing a bit of damage to it but not enough as the pilot continues moving the mech forward, coming to a stop he lets loose a barrage of rockets toward the UNSC and Sword forces sending many of them scrambling for cover as the rockets begin impacting all over taking a few soldiers out and wounding many others. A couple of Yanme'e take off and fly towards the Atlas firing at it, the pilot seeing this turns the Mass Accelerator Cannon upwards and returns fire, hitting two Drones immediately as their dead bodies fall from the air, a few assault troopers give some assistance shooting many more of the Drones down as the Drones manage to shoot down a few Cerberus and Reaper troops before being forced to pull back.

"Where the hell are our launchers?!" Palmer yells out while firing her DMR as she and Arbiter slowly walk backwards firing their weapons.

"We used them all up already!" a Marine yells back.

"Dammit!" Palmer says.

The Atlas pilot spots Palmer and the Arbiter and turns his weapons towards them "Commander!" Thel yells pointing towards the Mech as Palmer looks to see it facing them "Oh shit!" she says as the Atlas fires more rockets, one of which impacts in front of the two throwing them backward to the ground. "Commander! Arbiter!" Throne yells out.

"Are you alright?" Palmer asks as she is immediately able to get back up, grabbing her DMR and raising it as she shoots dead a charging Husk.

"I am fine. However it appears this battle is not going in our favor. And with no more of any of our forces in the area reinforcements is highly unlikely. We must retreat and find a better position before we are wiped out!" Thel says.

"No kidding. All troops fall back! Repeat, fall-" suddenly a rocket is fired from the building on the left, the shot flying into the back of the Atlas mech and exploding causing enough damage to finally bring the machine down as it falls to its knees and forward before exploding.

"What the?" Palmer says taken off guard by this. Just then a barrage of gunfire erupts from the same building cutting down many Cerberus troops and Husks taking them off guard as well "What the hell?"

"Who's shooting at us?!"

"Return fire!" various Cerberus troops yell as many of them along with the Husks turn their attention towards the building and fire at where the shots come from.

"They're distracted take them out!" Palmer yells as she and Thel get back on their feet and fire at the enemy troops taking a few of them out and making a few of their comrades turn their attention back towards them. The momentum regained the UNSC and Sword forces open fire on the Cerberus and Reaper troops cutting many of them down as the enemy soldiers find themselves unprepared and unable to counter the attack from their front and rear. The Cerberus troops and Husks that have their attention turned towards the UNSC/Sword troops become easy targets for the shooters in the buildings, likewise for the enemy soldiers shooting at the building becoming easy targets for the SPARTANs, Arbiter, and their troops. One after another the Cerberus troops and Husks continue falling until finally the last one, a Marauder, falls dead after being shot from both sides. And like that everything silences, the gunfire from the UNSC/Sword forces and from the building come to a halt as the UNSC/Sword troops wait to see if anything else happens.

"Is that it?" a male ODST questions.

The soldiers keep their vigilance up just in case things weren't over yet, unknown to one male Marine and an Unggoy, a cloaked Phantom quietly sneaks up behind them. Getting a strange feeling the Unggoy slowly turns around, only for the phantom to de-cloak and slash him across the throat "What the fuck!" the Marine cries out in shock as he turns his gun to fire but is blasted back by the phantom's palm blaster.

"Son of a bitch!"

"Where did she come from?!"

The phantom creates a spherical barrier around her as the soldiers open fire, the barrier absorbing the shots as she reactivates her cloak and the barrier disappears with the soldiers shooting nothing but air. "Fuck! Where is she?!" Hoya shouts as the soldiers go on alert continuously scanning all around them to try and figure out where the phantom went. Thorne looks around, unaware of the shimmering outline of the cloaked phantom appearing behind him as she readies to strike him, when suddenly an orange-colored energy sword is activated behind her and driven through her stomach raising the phantom up into the air as she de-cloaks along with the energy sword wielder, Thel 'Vadam.

Thorne and everyone else turn towards this as with an angry roar Thel tosses the lifeless phantom's body aside and deactivates his energy sword "Well...hope that's the end of that." DeMarco says lowering his weapon now feeling safe.

"So uh~, is anyone going to ask what the hell just happened? Who just shot at those guys I thought we were the only ones left in the city?" Madsen questions.

"It looked like you could use some help!" a voice calls out from the building the shots came from causing the UNSC/Sword troops to raise their guns towards it. From the doorway on the side a blue armored gauntlet shot out with a white flag attached to the barrel of some kind of sniper rifle. "White flag! We don't mean any harm so could you not shoot us when we come out!" the voice says waving the gun and flag from side to side a bit.

"Come out with your weapons and hands in the air!" Palmer orders.

From the building, Garrus, followed by Tali, Ashley, Javik, James, EDI, Tali, and Liara emerge with their hands and weapons in the air. The sight of the two humans in strange armor, alongside the strange aliens that no one had ever seen before made some of the UNSC/Sword troops exchange confused or concerned glances with one another. "Identify yourselves!" Palmer says.

"Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams, this is Lieutenant James Vega, Garrus Vakarian, Tali'Zorah, Liara T'Soni, Javik, and our AI EDI. Take it easy, we're friendlies." Ashley says.

"Give me one good reason why we should trust you?" Palmer questions.

"Wh-How about the fact we just saved your asses!" James says in disbelief at her question.

"Stand down Commander, if these individuals meant us harm. They would not have aided us." Thel says lowering Sarah's rifle. At this the members of Fireteam Majestic exchange looks with one another before following suit, the Marines, ODSTs, and Sword troops following as well cautiously. "Apologies, however given the circumstances you must understand that trusting complete strangers, especially ones of unknown origins such as yourselves is a bit...difficult at the moment." he says turning towards Ashley and the others.

"Honestly, if it were us in your position it'd probably be the same thing." Tali says as she and the others lower their hands.

Just then the Doctor appears from behind Shepard's teammates and runs past them with his Hero Tracker in hand as it beeps quickly in his hands, the sight of the man and the strange device in his hand causes Palmer and a few of the soldiers to raise their weapons again "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" James yells as he and the others raise one of their hands forward shouting various things to stop them from shooting the Doctor.

"Easy, easy there!" Garrus says.

"Don't shoot him! He's not armed!" Liara says.

The Doctor runs up to Palmer with his tracker pointed towards her as it continues beeping, the Doctor bending over a little as he slowly begins straightening himself back up until he finds the barrel of a gun pointing at his face and his eyes meet with Palmer's visor. "Another gun pointed at my face, and it's barely been a day." the Doctor says, sidestepping to his right as he scans each of the members of Fireteam Majestic as the tracker begins beeping quicker and quicker "No, no, no, no, not you. Not you." the strangeness of the man raises a few eyebrows of the present soldiers as a few exchange looks with one another. Just then the Doctor comes up to Thel and the tracker begins going off like crazy beeping, ringing, and making a whole bunch of other strange noises "Aha~! There you are!" the Doctor excitedly says as he looks up. Only to see the Arbiter staring down growling at him with his teeth showing a little "Right, personal space. Let me just back up a little." the Doctor says taking a few steps backwards towards Shepard's teammates.

"Who the hell is he?" Palmer asks pointing her rifle at him.

"Hello there! Sorry should probably have introduced myself alongside Ashley and the others but anyways, I'm The Doctor!" the Doctor says with a massive grin on his face.

"The Doctor? Doctor who?" Thorne asks.

"Don't ask, just, go with the Doctor. That's seriously his name." James says.

"What did you mean when you said "There you are" to me?" Thel questions.

"Well, we were looking for you of course. BUT, for a good reason, unlike those people over there." the Doctor says.

"And what reason would that be?" DeMarco asks.

"Why, to save the Multiverse of course!" the Doctor says.

"To what now?" Madsen questions, a raised eyebrow behind his helmet as he tilts his head to the side.

"It's...a pretty long story…" Garrus says.

Back at the UNSC HQ…

Chief kicks the door to the eighth floor open, finding himself entering into a massive circular room with pillars holding up the walkway above circling that and a security room on the walkway at the back of the room. Chief carefully scans the room with his BR85 which he had picked up along with a Sniper Rifle System 99-S5 Anti-Material from a weapons crate back on the seventh floor after having engaged the enemy commander on that floor a few times before he retreated back up the stairway to this floor. As he looks for Shepard, the Commander takes aim at the Spartan with his M-92 Mantis from the security room behind the mostly cracked window, finally he gets a full view of the armored person he's been fighting this whole time. The man wore a heavy-looking green armor with a golden visor, at seeing this Shepard pulled his head away from the scope, an unsure look on his face as he suddenly got a strange feeling that he shouldn't fire his weapon at the figure. Deciding to go for a wounding shot Shepard looked back through the scope and changed the sight from the armored man's head to his left knee; Shepard pulls the trigger and fires.

The round breaks the window and hits depleting most of Chief's shields as he looks towards where the shot came from spotting Shepard in the security room and retaliates firing his battle rifle at Shepard while sidestep walking towards a pillar. The bullets missing Shepard he quickly reloads the single-shot sniper and fires again just missing Chief between the legs as he fires one more burst before getting behind the pillar. Placing the battle rifle on his back Chief pulls out his sniper and taking notice of the pile of rubble beside the pillar shoots out of cover crouched down and after quickly acquiring a shot on Shepard fires a shot. Shepard throws himself back making his sniper get thrown upwards into the air as the shot destroys his gun, lying on his back Shepard tosses the destroyed weapon aside and grabs his M-15 Vindicator rolling onto his feet as he charges out of the room. Chief fires but is too early as the bullet whizzes just a few feet in front of Shepard who begins running, Chief fires again but the shot misses again, this time just a few inches behind the Commander. Chief calms down and takes a deep breath as he aims at Shepard who continues running, tracking just a few feet in front of him Chief fires his last bullet, hitting Shepard in the shoulder as the force of the impact makes the Commander spin around.

Most of his barrier is depleted but Shepard manages to recover and keep to his feet as he spins fully around and raises his Vindicator returning fire at Chief's position hitting him with the first burst as the Spartan gets behind the pillar for cover from the second one. Looking over to his right Chief spots another UNSC weapons crate and immediately begins sprinting towards it; Shepard comes to a stop and fires at Chief as he runs hitting him a few more times as Chief falls backwards and slides behind the crate for cover. Pulling the crate onto its side Chief opens it revealing a M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle, or more commonly known as, the Spartan Laser.

"Now we're talking." Chief says to himself as he grabs it.

Popping out of cover Chief raises the Spartan Laser onto his shoulder and aiming at Shepard pulls the trigger as the weapon begins powering up. Seeing this Shepard lowers his rifle with a look of shock written on his face as he got a really bad feeling about the look of that weapon "Oh boy…" he says, quickly diving to his left as the M6 fires. Chief however anticipates this and swings the Laser just a second before it fires, hitting the ceiling beneath the walkway causing it to collapse as Shepard falls right through to the ground floor hitting the rubble hard. Lowering the M6 and tossing it aside, Chief grabs his M6H pistol and begins making his way over to Shepard. Reaching the rubble Chief begins scanning through it with his pistol, but finds no sign of the enemy commander; Chief remains cautious until suddenly his motion sensor picks something up behind him making him spin around just as Shepard shoots up from beneath a pile of rubble with his M-3 Predator drawn as both soldiers fire a shot at each other.

The two shots travel through the air and pass so close to each other they practically skid against each other before flying and impacting into Shepard and Chief's respective pistols destroying them. Looking at their destroyed pistols the two soldiers toss them aside, having no more weapons or ammo on him Chief unsheathes his combat knife and prepares to engage the enemy as Shepard upon seeing this powers up his Biotics. In his helmet Master Chief narrows his eyes as Shepard does the same thing, both men stand completely still as the world around them remains silent, both of them waiting for the other to make the first move. After a few tense seconds, Shepard strikes first casting Shockwave towards Chief whose augmented reflexes kick in as he rolls to his right dodging the attack before launching himself forward to his feet as he charges towards Shepard and delivers a jumping kick to his chest sending him flying backwards into the open area. Rolling backwards and onto his side a few times, Shepard comes to a stop as he manages to quickly recover and get back to his feet.

Hopping down into the opened up area Chief slowly approaches Shepard with his knife at the ready, deciding to retaliate Shepard rushes towards Chief and jumps towards him with his right arm pulled back as Chief raises his arms to block the punch. Only for Shepard to activate his Omni-blade catching the Master Chief off guard as he quickly swings his body to the left, just barely dodging the Omni-blade as Shepard comes down at him as the side of the Omni-blade just barely scratches away at the Chief's chest piece. Shepard's blade goes into the ground as Chief stumbles back a few feet; his Omni-blade retracting and deactivating Shepard stands and powers his biotics back up as he throws both of his arms forward and disappears in an orb of blue light. A millisecond later Shepard reappears right in front of the Chief slamming right into the Spartan as the force behind the Charge ability sends Master Chief flying into and through a pillar destroying it. Straightening himself up Shepard stares towards the destroyed pillar, waiting to see if the Cerberus soldier would get back up as sure enough not even a few seconds later does the green armored man shoot up from the rubble with a sharp chunk of rock beneath his right arm. Chief spins around before launching the sharpened piece of rock forward at Shepard who is just barely able to dodge it as he launches himself to his right, the rock just skinning the side of his head as he flies to the right into a roll before recovering into a knelt down position; the rock embeds itself into the wall creating a few cracks.

Shepard stares at this in absolute shock, having never seen a Cerberus trooper, not even the assassin Kai Leng possess such immense strength to be able to throw a large rock like that at such an immense speed. Looking back at Chief and getting his mind back into the fight, Shepard stands up and turns his head around, raising his palm upwards as he casts Lift on a piece of rubble before turning back towards Chief and casting Throw sending the medium-sized rock at Chief. To his surprise though Chief simply charges towards the rock and just as the rubble is about to hit the Spartan, Chief launches himself forward over the rock taking Shepard by surprise as Chief sticks his right foot out and slams it into the Commander's chest sending him flying backwards into a wall, hitting it and falling to the ground. Chief lands down on one hand and knee before raising his head forward.

Shepard groans in pain as he attempts getting back up, the best description of the power behind that kick was like a biotically charged Krogan, maybe even five, or ten times as worse. "Man...this guy could probably give Wrex a run for his money. If these two ever met." Shepard says in his head as he spits some blood on the ground before pushing himself back up. Losing his balance for a bit before regaining it as blood trickles down his nose, lips, and the side of his head where the rock skinned him.

"He's got guts, I'll give him that. A lot more than what any of those other soldiers have shown this far. Too bad he's fighting for the wrong side." Chief says in his head as he stands back up looking at Shepard.

Shepard casts Singularity creating a dark energy sphere behind Chief, immediately Chief takes notice of the gravitational pull behind him and turns to see the sphere's intense mass effect field trying to pull him in. Acting quickly Chief plants both of his hands and feet into the ground, literally slamming them through the concrete to keep himself firmly attached to the ground as the Singularity continues pulling away at the Spartan but to no effect. Shocking Shepard who's never seen anyone not be pulled in by a singularity before as he quickly thinks up of a new plan of attack, charging in with his Biotics powered up, Shepard prepares to Biotic Slam the armored man as Chief sees the attack coming but finds himself unable to do anything or risk getting pulled in by the energy sphere leaving him even more defenseless. Shepard launches himself forward into the air and pulls his right fist back, suddenly without warning, Chief puts as much strength as he can into his legs and then launches himself right out of the ground towards Shepard, managing to escape the gravitational pull of the singularity as he pulls his right fist back. The two soldiers fly at each other with their respective right fist pulled back, once within reach the two throw their punches forward and their fists collide.

The strength behind both soldiers' punch is so strong that a powerful shockwave shoots outwards from between the two, sending small pieces of rubble beneath them flying in all directions. Not only that, but Chief's punch also somehow causes a Biotic explosion between the two that sends both Shepard and Chief flying from each other as they both hit the ground and roll back a few times before coming to a stop. For a minute both Shepard and Chief remain completely motionless, not a single twitch from their bodies as the room falls into complete silence. Then at the same time, both soldiers attempt pushing themselves back to their feet struggling at first and even stumbling around a little upon getting to their feet, but after a few seconds manage to regain their balance. The two men stare straight at each other, completely out of breathe from the long battle as both of their armor's are beaten up, with Chief's showing scorch marks and even a few scratches on it so not bad for the most part. Especially when compared to Shepard's which had scorch marks, scratches, and even a few dents in it from the Spartan's attacks.

"You know…" Shepard begins speaking while still trying to catch his breath "You're not half bad." he found himself saying for no reason at all. In his mind he found it completely strange as to why he was complimenting his enemy on his combat skills, sure this man had put up a better fight than any other Cerberus soldier before but still. He was the enemy!

"Right back at you." is all Chief says, also questioning himself immediately afterwards in his mind as to why he was complimenting the enemy combatant.

"Give up? It'll make things a lot more easier for you." Shepard says wiping away some blood on the side of his lip.

Chief's response, he raises both of his fists and stands sideways ready to engage him in hand-to-hand combat "Same question, for you." he says. Seeing no other choice but to do things the hard way, which had pretty much been going on from the start, Shepard also raises his fists and stands sideways prepared to engage the armored man in close quarters combat. Chief makes the first move charging straight at Shepard who powers up his Biotics and casts stasis, Chief however jumps up into the air causing the stasis to miss as he comes back down towards Shepard with his right fist pulled back, closing in too quickly for Shepard to dodge as Chief slams the punch right into his chest sending him flying. This time however while in mid-air Shepard manages to cast charge, surrounding himself in a biotic aura as he casts himself back forward towards Chief slamming into him with a shoulder charge that sends Chief sliding back as he plants his left hand on the ground and spreads his legs out to come to a stop.

Raising his head up Chief sees Shepard launch himself into the air as the Commander prepares a biotic slam, Chief quickly launches himself backwards into a jump flip causing Shepard's attack to miss as he hits the floor. Landing back on the ground a few feet away Chief immediately launches himself straight towards Shepard and throws a punch, Shepard however ducks beneath it and retaliates with an uppercut sending him up and back in the air as Chief manages to recover and land on his feet. Looking back forward Chief finds Shepard closing the distance between the two as he leaps at the Spartan with his right fist pulled back. Shepard throws the punch at Chief who simply catches it in his hand, before Shepard can do anything Chief headbutts him straight in the face stunning him as Chief drops Shepard's arm and drops to the ground performing a sweep kick and knocking Shepard off his feet. Regaining his senses Shepard sees Chief lift his left leg up in preparation to slam it down on him, acting quickly Shepard casts lift sending Chief flying into the air as Shepard takes this opportunity to turn and push himself to his feet getting some distance between him and the super soldier.

The effects of lift dissipating off him Chief drops back to the ground and upon landing immediately chases after Shepard, Shepard slides to a stop and powering up his biotics again turns around casting a shockwave at Chief who anticipates this and launches himself forward into the air, flipping over the shockwave and Shepard who follows him in the air. Landing behind the Commander, Shepard turns around only to be met by a fast spinning Master Chief who knees him in the stomach causing Shepard to gag out in absolute pain. Managing to stand his ground Shepard immediately retaliates pushing Chief's knee away with his left hand before pressing his right hand against the Spartans chest and casting shockwave blasting Chief backwards into a pillar breaking it to pieces as he smashes through it.

Catching his breath Shepard once again finds his opponent standing right back up like his attack was nothing as Chief unsheathes his combat knife and charges forward, something Shepard does as well. Getting closer Shepard pulls his right arm back and upon coming to a stop, throws it forward while activating his omni-blade as the silicon-carbide weapon forms on Shepard's arm and closes in on Chief's face. At the last second however Chief drops to the floor and slides right beneath it and past Shepard. Knowing what's about to happen Shepard quickly spins back around and re-activates his omni-tool, at the same time as Chief slides to a stop using the momentum to slide back up to his feet as he spins around and swings his combat knife. Both men's arms are thrown past the other's resulting in both soldiers stopping in their tracks almost immediately. The two now at a stalemate given their current situation, as Shepard's right fist is just inches away from Chief's face with his omni-tool activated and ready to deploy the omni-blade once more, but this time to slice off the Chief's head; as Chief's combat knife is right against Shepard's throat and with any quick movement, ready to slice his neck open.

Shepard and Chief both narrow their eyes at the predicament, at this point any one of them made a move and the other died with them. The two soldiers continued staring at one another for what felt like hours, in their minds both of them wondering what the next course of action was to get them out of this situation without getting killed. As Shepard continued staring at the armored man, he suddenly began getting a, familiar feeling, like he had seen this man somewhere before. But where?

A massive, green and black armored man, his face covered by a helmet with a golden visor who stood probably at least 7ft tall appeared with what looked like an assault rifle in hand as he took a step forward. Like it was answering his question, the flashback to that vision, along with his adrenaline beginning to drop, brought Shepard back to reality as he stared upon the very armored man that appeared alongside so many of the other heroes in the vision. He was even among the wall of heroes that the Doctor had shown to him and his team before they departed.

His eyes widening in realization, Shepard slowly pulls his arm back. The slightest movement of his arm made Chief just about ready to make his move, until he noticed that the man was pulling his arm back and he seemed to have a shocked look on his face for some reason. Even as Shepard took a few steps back Chief remained vigilant just in case he was trying to pull some kind of trick. "It's you...you're one of them." Shepard says.

"What are you talking about?" Chief questions.

Suddenly hearing a large number of footsteps coming from the stairway Shepard turns around while Chief stands at the ready as from the staircase a large number of Cerberus troops come rushing out, "There they are!"

"Open fire!"

The group of at least fifteen Cerberus troops open fire at the two heroes, as Chief prepares to engage he suddenly finds Shepard getting in front of him as the Commander creates a biotic sphere around them blocking the incoming shots.

"What are you doing?" Chief questions now really confused by what was going on.

"Sorry if I hurt you a little, thought you were one of Cerberus' new soldiers or something." Shepard says turning his head slightly.

"Cerberus?" Chief asks.

"The ones shooting at us." Shepard says.

"Aren't you their commander?" Chief asks.

"What? Hell no!" Shepard says.

"If you aren't with them, then who are you? What are you doing here? Do you know what's going on out there?" Chief says bombarding Shepard with question after question.

"Maybe we should discuss this later? You know, when we aren't being shot at. But if there's one thing I will say, it's to assure you that I'm on your side. So maybe we could work together so we can get out of this?" Shepard says.

Chief looks back at the Cerberus troops who begin slowly approaching the two while continuing to fire their guns, he then looks back at Shepard and nods his head "Great. So, got a plan? Since we kind of did use up all our guns and ammo." Shepard asks.

Chief looks back at the Cerberus troops and back at Shepard "Yeah. Sorry." Chief says.

"Wait, what?" Shepard questions confused, when suddenly Chief gives a "light" Spartan kick into Shepard's back sending him flying forward through the Biotic sphere and right into a Cerberus Centurion knocking him to the ground. Caught off guard the Cerberus troops turn their attention towards this, as the biotic sphere goes down and Chief throws his combat knife into the neck of one Cerberus trooper as he begins turning his head back towards the Spartan. Launching himself forward into a sprint the remaining Cerberus troops begin turning their attention back towards Chief who rushes towards the dead Cerberus trooper and takes his knife back, running up to the next nearest Cerberus soldier Chief slices the soldier's throat causing him to begin choking on his own blood.

"Die~!" the next nearest soldier cries out in anger as he aims his gun and fires, Chief however uses the body of his fellow soldier as a human shield making the slugs hit and kill him as Chief pushes the lifeless body forward into the other Cerberus trooper. Forcing him to catch the body of his comrade and push it aside which allows Chief to close the distance and stab him right in the chest making the Cerberus trooper cry out in pain.

Recovering from whatever just happened, Shepard groans still in pain from the battle with that kick not helping in any way as he looks down to see the also recovering Cerberus Centurion beneath him. Hearing footsteps approaching him from behind Shepard turns to see one of the troopers running at him with a shock baton held back, quickly Shepard grabs the Centurion and turns over onto his back pulling the Centurion above him as the Cerberus trooper swings his shock baton hitting his officer who cries out. Pulling his left leg back and putting the foot against the Centurion's stomach Shepard pushes him off into the trooper sending both of them stumbling back a little, upon regaining their balance before the two can even move an Omni-blade is driven right through both of them killing the two soldiers instantly.

As they drop Shepard grabs the Centurion's M-25 Hornet and spins around immediately firing as two Engineers charge him taking them both out. Two Cerberus troopers fire on Chief forcing him into cover behind a knocked over pillar, as the two move in on him and with only his combat knife Chief looks around until he spots a sizeable rock that he then picks up. Standing up Chief throws it at one of the troopers, striking him right in the head with enough force that it actually sends the trooper right to the ground taking the other completely off guard. Chief takes this opportunity to rush the soldier as he closes in almost instantly kneeing him right in the stomach knocking the air right out of him before getting on his side, grabbing the back of his head and slamming it straight into the ground. And before the other trooper can even regain his senses Chief stabs him right in the head.

Shepard fires his gun taking out another Cerberus trooper, before turning to his right and taking another out. Another Centurion charges him from behind with his shock baton, Shepard powers up his biotics and spins around throwing a punch right into the Centurion's face sending him flying. Chief blocks a trooper's arm as he swings it and follows with an elbow into his, breaking his arm causing the trooper to cry out in absolute pain before silenced with a knife to the face. Suddenly Chief begins getting hit from behind by an engineer, immediately turning around he tosses his knife right into the engineer's neck as the Cerberus soldier slowly falls to the ground dead. Just then Shepard notices movement right behind him on his motion sensor, the last Centurion having snuck up behind him aims his Hornet at Chief's head and fires. But at the last second Chief spins around right to the Centurion's back just as he fires, before the Centurion can even react Chief wraps his right arm around his neck and puts his left hand to the back of his head, and in one quick motion snaps the Centurion's neck without problem.

The Centurion's body drops to its knees before falling to the ground. Chief looks down at the body until he hears and picks up Shepard walking towards him from the left as he spins his shoulder forward and around to stretch it out "You know, you could have warned me you were going to, oh I don't know, kick me?" Shepard says.

Chief turns around to face him but remains silent "Okay, can still tell you don't trust me. Understandable given the circumstances." Shepard says.

"Are you going to answer my questions, or do I have to get them out of you." Chief threatens.

Shepard raises his hands up "Easy, easy, I'll talk okay." Shepard says.

Just then the entire building rumbles for a few seconds catching both of their attentions "Great, now what?" Shepard questions. The entire building shakes again, this time more violently making the two lose their balance and stumble around a little. Outside the building a squadron of five Oculus fighters fly towards the UNSC headquarters and open fire destroying more the the buildings lower floors as inside the entire place shakes again from the attack. "Someone's trying to bring the building down." Chief says upon realizing it.

"I got a pretty good idea to. We need to get out of here." Shepard says.

Just then a strange, but familiar sound to the Commander begins echoing through the air catching both of their attention "Now what?" Chief questions.

"That would be our ride out of here." Shepard says as the TARDIS appears off to his right/Chief's left. The doors swing open as the Doctor pokes his head out with the building shaking more violently then before with dust and debris beginning to fall from the ceiling all around "Come on you two! Get in!" the Doctor yells out.

"Look, you can trust me, alright?!" Shepard says turning towards Chief who stares back at him. The Spartan-II remains silent for a few seconds before finally replying "Alright." and with that both soldiers turn and sprint towards the TARDIS doors as debris continues falling all around them.

Outside the Oculus fighters turn around and fly towards the building again and fire, more of the lower half of the building is destroyed which proves too much for the rest of the building's supports to handle as it finally begins toppling down. Inside the floor begins giving out beneath the Commander and Chief who launch themselves forward into the TARDIS before it is too late, hitting the floor hard as Ashley and Garrus shut the doors behind them "We're clear!" Garrus shouts. The Doctor pulls the lever activating the TARDIS's systems as it disappears from the UNSC HQ just as the whole building comes crumbling down.

Shepard is helped to his feet by Ashley, while Chief begins pushing himself up only to have a hand appear in front of his face, looking up at the person it belongs to he finds himself looking upon an alien the likes of which he has never seen before "Need a hand?" Garrus asks. Chief doesn't say a word and just continues pushing himself back to his feet before walking off "Hmph, bit rude don't you think?" Garrus questions.

Chief slowly walks up the walkway taking in the sight of even more strange aliens surrounding the console at the center of the room as Tali, Liara, Javik, EDI, and James gather "Sorry we took so long skip." Ashley says. "We found the other hero but had to deal with some Cerberus and Reaper forces attacking him and some allied troops with him. After that we, pretty much had to explain ourselves to the people everything and then after finally convincing them we were friendly and everything we said was true. We took them back to their capital ship for safety where, we then had to explain everything again to their captain."

"Sounds like you were all busy while I was occupied. How'd you know to come for me?" Shepard asks.

"The Doctor's ship starting making some noises, he checked it out and just told us you were in trouble so we came as fast as we could preparing for whatever it was we needed to rescue you from. Which in this case turned out to be a building going down with you in it." Ashley answers.

"Well, your timing couldn't have been any more perfect." Shepard replies as behind him Garrus walks up to him "Sheesh, you look like you've been through hell. What happened to you?" Garrus asks taking notice of Shepard's beaten up state.

"Oh, right. Well, I met our new friend there." Shepard says gesturing towards Chief, who seems to sense it as he turns his head looking at Shepard. "Bit of a misunderstanding, by the way Doctor. Your tampering with my Omni-tool didn't work." Shepard says turning to him with an annoyed look as the Doctor appeared from the other side of the control console. "Yeah~, sorry about that. Well if luck goes our way for the rest of this mission, I'll be with you so you won't have to worry about that. But, just in case I can try and fix that and add it into all of your omni-tools and it will work one hundred percent! Or...ninety-nine point nine." the Doctor says with an unsure expression.

"Don't go calling me your "friend" just yet." Chief speaks up fulling turning around towards Shepard "You still haven't explained to me just what the hell's going on."

Shepard and Ashley exchange looks with one another and then Shepard with Garrus before looking back towards Chief "May want to sit down. It's...a bit of a story." Shepard begins. Chief crosses his arms and leans against the railing.


Time passes by, as Shepard along with the help of his teammates explain everything to the Master Chief. Where it is Shepard and them come from, the Reapers, Cerberus, and then all the new stuff. Such as Minerva, finding out about the whole "multiverse" thing being real, and her plan that would destroy the Reapers and save his, and every other universe being invaded out there involving the gathering of special people like him and their armies. With the Doctor adding in his own involvement into the thing as that he was just there to help out in bringing Shepard to the other universes and then locating each universes hero or heroes. All the important pieces of information required for him to understand, which was a lot, was given to him.

Chief leans against the railing, his head down as he appeared to be in deep thought as he was probably trying to process all this information, some of which was obviously very, very strange even by his standards. After a few minutes of silence Chief finally spoke up "Is that everything?" he asks.

Shepard nods his head "Yes." Shepard replies. Chief remains looking down "I can understand it's a lot. Even farfetched for obvious reasons, hell me and my friends are still having a hard time believing this is happening. But with all the recent events, it's kind of hard to deny at this point." Shepard says.

Chief turns his head towards Shepard and slowly begins making his way towards him. A little bit on edge due to what he did to Shepard, Ashley hovers her hand close to her pistol as Chief stops in front of Shepard and leans down towards his face "If you're really telling the truth, about the Reapers, and their invasion across the "multiverse". Then what do you expect me to do? So you're just going to, take me, the UNSC, and the Swords of Sanghelios to your universe to help you in this war and then what? Wait around and do nothing while you're off traveling across the multiverse in search of more "heroes" and their armies while the Reapers destroy our worlds? You're asking a lot Commander." Chief says.

"I know I am. Had a feeling this question was going to be brought up a lot when we started this whole thing. I'm not saying we need your entire military force. We just need enough that can help us when we attack the Reapers at my Earth, enough troops on the ground to help us retake the Citadel, and enough ships to defend the Crucible and then hold the Reapers at bay while we activate it." Shepard says.

"And then there's that fact." Chief says leaning and taking a few steps back "You don't even know how to activate this weapon. Meaning if you can't activate it, or something goes wrong, we're all dead."

"No offense, but we're all going to be dead anyways if we don't stand together. I understand your concern for leaving your home universe to fight in another, but unless we work together the Reapers are going to just keep on coming with more and more numbers until they overwhelm you and your forces. With our weapon, and the Doctor's help we can save not just my universe, but yours, as well as every other universe out there being attacked by the Reapers. It's not just your universe that's on the line, by ourselves this war is already lost. They have the means to continuously resupply their army with fresh troops while all ours can only dwindle down till the literal last man. Think about it this way, you may have some better weapons then they do, but how long do you think you're going to last on that until they run your ammo, and your troops dry while they just keep on coming, and coming, with no end in sight. Billions, trillions of lives are going to be lost no matter what, but if we don't work together, if we don't gather our forces then even more lives are going to be lost. There won't be another generation of humanity, or any other race. Every living thing, across the multiverse, every man, every woman, every child, every unborn baby, nothing will be left untouched by the Reapers. All of life as we know, will become extinct." Shepard says, a serious look strewn across his face.

Chief remains silent, turning his head to the left he turns towards the railing and leans forward onto it with his arms crossed. Shepard eyes him but gives him the privacy he needs as he appears to be in really deep thought about it, reaching into one of his armor's compartments on his left hip, he pulls something out, keeping the view of whatever it was covered from Shepard and the others as he opens the palm of his hand a little and stares at something. Curiosity getting the better of him now, Shepard moves his head slowly to the left until he is able to get a view of what appears to be some sort of chip in his hand.

"Something important to him?" he questions in his head before moving his head back before Chief notices.

Chief stares down at Cortana's data chip. He had already lost so much, most of his Spartan brothers and sisters, Captain Keyes, Commander Keyes, Sergeant Johnson, Cortana. He had failed all of them, he had let them all die. At this thought he clenched his fist before putting her data chip away and turning back towards Shepard "Very well. If the UNSC and Swords of Sanghelios choose to stand by your side, then so will I." Chief answers.

Shepard smiles at this before turning to Ashley "Ash, you said you already this to the other hero and some of Chief's friends?" he asks.

"Well, as luck would have it. The other hero happens to be the head honcho of the Swords of Sanghelios, so all we need now is a thumbs up from the UNSC and we got our next group of allies for The Coalition." Ashley replies.

"The captain of the ship we took them too told us he'd contact their High Command and explain the whole thing to them, hopefully they'll agree to help us." Garrus speaks up.

"Then let's head back. Doctor." Shepard says looking at him.

"Righty-o Shepard!" the Doctor says turning to his console as he begins hitting some buttons and other switches.

Location: Luna

UNSC Infinity…

The UNSC Infinity was in a complete disarray, crew personnel scrambling about as all over the ship damage that had been sustained during the battle was being repaired, fires being put out, and the wounded were being taken care of. On the bridge Captain Lasky starred out the viewing window at the gathering fleet of UNSC and Sword ships that had managed to escape the battle, the battle which had ended in a defeat for the two forces as the never-ending fleet of Reaper ships proved too much for the combined fleets to hold off. Even after destroying hundreds of their ships, with that strange portal remaining open more and more of them just kept on coming until the overwhelming numbers began to take a toll on the UNSC and Sword fleets forcing the retreat.

Just then, a strange, but familiar sound having once heard it before, begins echoing throughout the bridge catching Lasky's attention as he turns around to see the TARDIS materialize off to his right in a corner. The doors opening up Shepard and the rest of his team step out followed by the Doctor, and finally Master Chief "Chief, good to see you back and alive." Lasky says walking up to the group before stopping as he looks at Shepard. "So you must be Commander Shepard. I'm Captain Lasky of the UNSC Infinity. And, if what your team told me is true. Then sounds like we could have a lot of work on our hands." he says extending his right hand out as Shepard shakes it.

"Have you contacted your superiors and informed them of this?" Shepard asks.

"Yeah, I did. Said they would discuss on the manner but, if all of this really is happening then I really hope they come to the agreement of helping you out. We gave those Reapers a fight but with that portal still open they eventually began overwhelming us. If this Crucible of yours really can destroy them then I'd say that's the best bet we have at stopping them before they can do any more harm to our universe. Just, one question though if we do help how exactly are we supposed to get our ships and troops to your universe?" Lasky asks.

"This is indeed the question." a deep voice says catching Shepard and his team's attention as they turn towards the open door to see the Arbiter standing there as the door shuts behind him. Thel begins walking over to the group "Shepard this is Thel 'Vadam, also known as the Arbiter, he's the leader of the Swords of Sanghelios, our allies." Lasky introduces.

"Pleasure to meet you." Shepard says.

"A pleasure to meet you as well, Commander Shepard. However the Captain does speak a good question. I have discussed the situation with my men, and have come to the agreement that helping you would be the most beneficial in dealing with these "Reapers". However, if the Swords of Sanghelios are to assist you the question is, how are we supposed to reach your universe?" Thel asks.

"Ah, that would be where I come in." the Doctor speaks up as he steps forward. "Little something I worked on before I met up with Shepard and his friends. Be right back!" he says before turning and running into the TARDIS, closing the doors before the engines start up and the TARDIS disappears leaving the confused group behind.

"We just met him." James says.

Shepard's omni-tool begins flashing catching everyone's attention as he activates it bringing up a video screen of the Doctor "Now if everyone would turn their attention to the viewing window." he says as they listen and walk over to the window to see the TARDIS floating at the center of the UNSC and Sword fleets.

"Um, Ensign Parker make sure none of our ships fire on the Doctor." Lasky says to one of his men.

Under the TARDIS the bottom of the ship opens up and a strange looking large white gun lowers from the inside attached to an arm crane with various colored wires attached between the two. The TARDIS spins around before the gun comes alive and aims out into the vastness of space, firing a single blue orb which travels some distance out before exploding into a massive blue circle which then remains as that with a swirling vortex inside. "Doctor, mind explaining what just happened?" Shepard asks.

"Well what else does it look like to all of you? It's a portal, one that's linked back to your universe Shepard right where you're Normandy and the New Republic fleet are. And don't worry I already contacted and explained the whole thing to Joker on the other end so he and the New Republic aren't spooked...hopefully." the Doctor says.

Shepard and Chief exchange looks with one another, behind them the AI of the Infinity Roland appears on the holotable "Captain. We got an incoming call from High Command."

"Put them through." Lasky orders as he along with Shepard, Chief, and the others turn around.

A holographic video screen is projected above the holo table as an elderly white man in a white officer's uniform appears on the screen "Fleet Admiral Hood." Lasky says as he and Chief stand at attention.

"Captain Lasky, Master Chief, glad to see you're okay." Terrence Hood says greeting the two, he then takes notice of Shepard and his team "You must be Commander Shepard."

"That's correct sir. Commander Shepard, of the Citadel Spectres and Systems Alliance." Shepard greets stepping forward.

"Commander if what your team told my Captain is true about these "Reapers," then we are all in a lot of danger. Even more so then the previous war we just got ourselves out of not that many years ago. While there are a few in HIGHCOM who are understandably at a distrust of you given the situation, I can just tell by looking at you that you mean us no harm and truly wish to help us." Lord Hood says.

"I understand their paranoia Fleet Admiral, after all if a bunch of strange creatures suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and the same day another group of strangers appeared telling you that they had the means of helping put an end to these things I'd be a little on edge myself. But I can assure you, we are here to help." Shepard says.

"And to do that, you need the UNSC and Swords of Sanghelios to spare what ships and troops possible in an attack on the space station that holds the key to destroying these things?" Lord Hood asks.

"Correct sir. Once the Citadel has been recaptured, all that we need is to attach the Crucible to it and then activate the weapon. And then with the help of our new friend and ally, the Doctor, we should be able to cleans not just mine and your universe, but every other universe out of there of these Reapers. That way they can never threaten any ever again." Shepard replies.

Lord Hood nods his head understanding him "Very well. And do you have the means of getting our ships and troops to your universe?"

"As a matter of fact we do now sir. The Doctor opened up a portal that connects to Shepard's universe, should take us right to where he's gathering his allies if the Doctor is correct." Lasky speaks up.

"Alright then. Master Chief, Arbiter, what are you stances on this?" Lord Hood asks looking at the two.

"I can sense the truth in the Commander's words. The Swords of Sanghelios are prepared to stand by him, so that we may rid our universe of these, Reapers." Thel says.

Lord Hoods nods his head and looks at Chief, Chief who was looking at Arbiter looks up at him "Me and the Commander had a little...scuffle. Due to some circumstances, but once we found the fault in the hostility, and he saved me from death, I believe we can trust him. After all, if what he said is true, we don't really have much choice in the matter. Without him and his weapon, these Reapers will just keep on coming, and coming, until they overwhelm all of our forces. He's the best bet we have right now." Chief says.

Lord Hood nods his head once again "Very well. And after having spoken to the rest of HIGHCOM, and with what the Arbiter said, Commander Shepard. I can assure you, that you have the full support of the United Nations Space Command, and the Swords of Sanghelios for your war against the Reapers." Lord Hood says.

Shepard nods his head "Thank you sir. With your help, the chances of winning this war have gone up tremendously."

"Captain Lasky, I want the Infinity to take part in the attack against the Reapers in Shepard's home universe. You will be taking command of our fleet there, coordinate well with Shepard's forces and his other allies. Show them what the UNSC is made of." Lord Hood says looking at Lasky.

"I won't let you down sir!" Lasky says saluting him.

"As for me, I will stay here and continue to work with the rest of our forces in defending our universe. I will see what ships and troops can be spared to assist in your attack." Lord Hood says looking at Shepard.

"Whatever you can give us will do fine sir. We don't want you lessening your forces to the point where you can't hold the Reapers back." Shepard says.

Shepard's Universe…

In the cockpit of the Normandy, Joker looked out the window as he watched UNSC and Sword ships slowly exiting from the newly created portal "You know, on one hand, I like the size of your guys' ships because bigger, means bigger guns and more troops. But on the other hand, it makes our ships look really bad." Joker says, spinning his chair around to look at Luke and the newly arrived Master Chief as they stare out the window.

"Welcome to the fight Master Chief. Glad you're here to help. I can sense through the force that you are a strong warrior." Luke says looking at Chief.

"Yeah, I don't need some mystical, whatever force thing to tell me that. All I had to do was get a look at Shepard when he returned and hear the story of how you two fought to tell me you're not a hero to be messed with." Joker says.

Chief looks at Luke "The Force?" he asks.

"It's something from my universe. An energy field that connects all living things in my galaxy. It's also a power that I wield, it's what makes me a Jedi, a warrior that fights for peace and justice." Luke says giving a short explanation.

Chief decides to take this explanation for now as he looks back out the viewing window "With all these ships and the number of troops we must have, alongside the forces already in this universe. Surely we could attack the Reapers already, after all, we only need to attack a space station correct?" Chief asks.

"I mean, it looks that way honestly. But with what that Minerva lady and the Doctor told Shepard, he needs to gather a lot more allies before we can attack." Joker answers.

"Perhaps they have their reasons. Or they know something that is about to happen that we don't. After all, they do seem to have some knowledge on future events, otherwise we wouldn't be here in the first place." Luke suggests.

Following their return from Chief's universe, Shepard went to the medical bay to get patched up by Doctor Chakwas while Chief and the Arbiter walked about the Normandy meeting some of the crewmembers along with Luke Skywalker who had stayed on the ship while the rest of his team returned to the New Republic's capital ship Home One. Once he was all healed up, Shepard in his battle dress uniform made his way to the Normandy's Communication room to contact Hackett and the rest of the leaders about the good news, only to receive some bad news following it.

"Wait, what?" Shepard asks.

"The Reapers have closed the Citadel's arms. It happened while you were gone." Anderson says.

"Dammit…" Shepard says quietly crossing his arms and lowering his head with his eyes closed.

"Looks like now more than ever we could use as many allies as we can get. Getting the New Republic, and now the UNSC and the Swords of Sanghelios is great. But now if we're going to win this war, we need to attack the Earth head on, and that means increasing our numbers even more." Hackett says.

"Wait, attack Earth?" Shepard asks opening his eyes and looking at Hackett.

"More specifically London. But if we can get enough allies, it would serve well to assault the entire planet so as to draw as much attention away from the attack on London as possible." Hackett says.

A red holographic image of three towers appears to Shepard's left "There's a beam in London that we've discovered the Reapers are using to transport humans, dead and alive, to the Citadel." Anderson explain. "Right now, this is our only way to get into the Citadel to open the arms for the Crucible."

"I see. But what does that have to do assaulting the entire planet?" Shepard asks.

"It's a guarantee the Reapers will call for reinforcements as soon as the battle starts going our way. So, if we focused all our ground troops to assaulting only London, then the Reapers would spend all their reinforcements there and start overwhelming our forces. Closing off the landing zones so we wouldn't be able to get more troops down there without taking even more heavy casualties just trying to land them. However, if we were to assault the whole planet that would make the Reapers spread their reinforcements out so they could wipe out our entire ground force and regain lost ground. I highly doubt they can resist trying to take our entire Coalition out in one fell swoop." Anderson says.

"I see. It does make sense. Still, this will make things a lot more difficult. It's one thing attacking the Citadel, but now invading Earth. They'll be ready for us. And if Cerberus being allied with them isn't bad enough, it goes to show the lengths the Reapers are willing to go to make sure even our Coalition can't stop them. It makes me worried that we may no longer be the only ones seeking allies." Shepard says.

"Which is precisely why you must continue your mission Commander. If the Reapers are seeking allies of their own, then our numbers must be greater than theirs if we are to succeed." Councilor Tevos says.

"Indeed, especially if we now have the means of gathering more allies and bringing them to our universe. Whatever help you can bring will be most grateful." Valern says.

"Also, from what your pilot has reported to us. The Reapers are not attacking Planet X?" Sparatus asks.

"No sir. Which is a surprise to me as well. It could be that the First Civilization left something here that activated when I touched that machine of theirs that keeps the Reapers away from this planet. And if that is the case, then this really is the best place to gather our Coalition." Shepard says.

"Which is why as we speak, all of our fleets are heading there now along with the Crucible. Planet X will serve as the gathering point for our Coalition until the assault on Earth is ready to commence. And once we arrive we would like to speak with the leaders of the gathered factions thus far." Hackett informs.

"I'm sure they will look forward to speaking with you as well. However if you don't mind, I must take leave again and continue onto the next universe." Shepard says.

"Very well Commander. Good luck, we will see you soon, Hackett out." Hackett says as one by one the Admiral and other leaders end their transmissions.

"EDI, recall everyone to the hangar, and have Chief meet us there as well." Shepard calls out to the AI.

"At once Shepard."

A few minutes later Shepard, back in his repaired armor, arrives in the hangar to see the rest of his team and the Doctor standing around the TARDIS waiting for him. The doors opening up and Shepard is greeted by the Master Chief leaning against one of the consoles "You wanted to see me Commander?" Chief asks.

"That's correct." Shepard says exiting the elevator and walking up to him "Tell me Chief, how would like to join me and my team on the mission in recruiting more heroes and allies? After that fight, I'd say you'd be a great addition to the team. You could really help us out a lot down there." Shepard says.

"You're asking only me? What about Luke, and the Arbiter?" Chief asks a bit taken aback.

"I know it would make sense to bring every hero we recruit along, but at the same time bringing too many people can prove problematic. A smaller group would-"

"Allow us to move faster, and remain hidden should the occasion call for it. Plus, if we approach these other heroes and their allies in a big group, we might frighten them." Chief says figuring it out.

Shepard shrugs his shoulders "Pretty much."

Chief crosses his arms "Very well, if you need my help, I will give it to you. I won't let you down Commander." Chief says.

"No need to be so formal, just call be Shepard. We're friends now aren't we?" Shepard humorously asks.

Chief remains silent "Still warming up, got it." Shepard says.

"If I'm joining you, I will need to gather some weapons and ammo from the Infinity." Chief says.

"Oh no need to worry about that Master Chief! I already got some equipment for yah!" the Doctor calls out as Shepard's team enters the TARDIS.

Chief turns to the Doctor and crosses his arms again "You touched UNSC property and brought it aboard your ship?" Chief asks.

"Well of course. I had a feeling you'd come along if Shepard asked so I got everything already so we could head out." the Doctor says not finding this an issue as he turns and walks into the TARDIS.

Chief looks back at Shepard who just shrugs his shoulders, the two head towards and enter the TARDIS "I wonder what the next universe is going to be like?" Tali wonders.

"Who knows, but we can definitely expect the Reapers and Cerberus to already be there messing the place up most likely." Garrus says.

"Not really helping the situation Garrus." Tali says looking at him.

"True, but he isn't wrong. Now that the Reapers and Cerberus are on the attack in the other universes, we need to be prepared more than ever. We cannot allow them to dwindle our list of allies, and more importantly, we cannot allow them to kill the heroes before we reach them. If we're gonna win this war, we're gonna need everyone we can muster." Shepard says with a serious look in his eyes.

Meanwhile, in another Alternate Universe...

The sky is covered by dark clouds, red lightning bolts streak and crackle across the sky as a Reaper ship descends over a dark land with a destroyed volcano in the middle. Far off from the volcanic land, a massive white city is seen against a mountain with a large open plain before it. A fully bloomed white tree stands tall at the top of the city, however, a single petal falls and slowly descends to the ground.

Sol System…

Planet Earth…

The Citadel…

A large fleet of Reaper ships hover around the captured and now closed Citadel, onboard the colossal space station, the Illusive Man stands with nothing but darkness surrounding him as he smokes a cigarette. Blowing out a puff of smoke and lowering it he speaks "So, we have the remnants of this Empire, and the Storm Covenant fighting by our side now correct? That is very good to hear. This mission is far from over yet though, continue gathering more allies, but above all else, make sure that the heroes of each universe are eliminated. Before Shepard has the chance to recruit them. Do not fail me, you three."

Standing a few feet behind the Illusive Man, three shadowy figures engulfed in complete darkness kneel before him before standing up and turning to walk off.

"My, how things have really gotten interesting for us Commander. Nevertheless, in the end, I will be the one standing victorious. And there is nothing you can do to stop me." the Illusive Man says, a look at his face shows it slightly disfigured, his entire neck and parts of his face showing signs of Reaper modifications as his eyes continue glowing bright blue.