Master Chief sat in his unusually large room staring at his armour. He wasn't looking at it with his normal content. He knew that something, no someone was missing in there, every time he wore it since... He looked down at his hands which held a computer chip. They had searched for a long time and Lasky was right when he said "There is nothing left of her, no remnants of who she was."
The problem was they found her chip. Her core, if you will. It wasn't anything to show who she was, but more what she was. He stared at the chip in his hand for a long time. He hadn't a clue what to do with it. It had a large hole in the center which would normally be filled with controlled Plasma; hers was always kept at a cool blue. Now it was empty.
He looped a small steel-balled chain through it making it look vaguely like dog tags. He stared at them right as two women walked in. Kelly and Linda, He could tell by the way they walked. That and they were also wearing their own MJOLNIR suits. They were still in the usual olive green colour.
"Chief." They said in unison. "The commander has asked us to the bridge. All of us." She said making the gravity known. It was involving all the Spartan II's. Something big was going on. "Tell her I'm on my way." He said as he looked over at his now 'old' armour. He got a fresh suit when he finally took his off in the Infinity. It didn't feel the same as before. He walked over to S-Deck for suiting up.
As soon as he got there, everybody fell silent. It always happened. It was like everybody wanted to see his face before it was hidden under the helmet. It got annoying when one time he had to get the scientists to leave and get others so that they would stop gawking at him instead of putting on his armour. It had happened twice so far. But at least when his armour was on they didn't stare as much. Granted it was still happening but really, it wasn't as bad.
His armour was different now, on the outside as well as the inside. His helmet was the same, but that aside, everything else is different. Now he had a TACT-pad on his arm, a new active camo that was integrated into the suit, and a stronger shield. He was happy that the outward appearance was relatively the same as before, although he missed the scratches on his armour. It was unusual to see that they made this suit have most of the deeper abrasions. It still had the large dent near his shoulder.
The internal HUD was different, a bright orange rather than the usual cool blue. He'll talk to the Palmer about it. Hopefully there was a way to change it back. It was meant to be semi see through. Orange wasn't able to do that. It reminded him of the Prometheans. They had a usual orange colour when they were under the control of the Didact.
"Chief." Palmer said, taking him out of his thoughts. "We expected you up at the Bridge almost an hour ago." She tells him. "I'm being lenient here for you, but you need to get there sooner." John nodded and followed her to the bridge. "Commander, unless you find me some people who will do their job before staring at me without my armour I will have no choice but to be late." He stated to her as they walked.
"Complaint noted Chief. Nothing I can do about it till we get back to Earth. We've already asked for some competent workers to be exchanged when we get there." She told him walking into the Bridge.
"Chief, welcome aboard." Captain Lasky said calmly as John walked onto the bridge. Palmer glared at Lasky, mostly because he was being lenient again. Rules were to be followed, not broken or bent, no matter who or what it's for. Trust the system. That's what it's there for.
I'm being a hypocrite. She thought. I didn't trust the system; I didn't trust Lasky, when Halsey left. Now I've caused a problem. A problem for every SPARTAN. She was glad for the helmet that she had on at the time. It was hiding her annoyed face. If Lasky saw that, she wouldn't hear the end of it. For some reason he was good at seeing through people's faces into their actual moods. Maybe that's why he can be lenient without getting into trouble. She figured as Lasky began addressing all of the Spartan II's.
"Chief your mission is to retrieve and make sure you have the remaining piece of the map. You will be using a retrofitted Phantom to drop out of Slipspace similar to your trip on the Unyielding Hierophant. The ship will have an automatic translator to make sure you know what is being said at all times. Chief will assign two people an A.I. for this mission. Each A.I. is to do something different once in the base, so please decide who will be doing which part." Lasky said showing a hologram representation of their trip from the hanger to normal space.
"Once aboard you will find out where Halsey is and work with your A.I. to find her. The other team will be on the search for the remaining piece of the Map. Your main objective is to retrieve Halsey, secondary is the device. If you have the chance to take out Mdama on the way without hindering your mission then do so." Lasky said, an image of Mdama replacing the video of the space transfer stage.
"The A.I.'s provided will be for three different uses. The first will be used to find Halsey and the map fragment. The second will be for technical support. That being said if there are 'any other' problems, she will take care of them. Lastly…" Lasky stopped. He looked directly at John wondering what his reaction would be. "Chief, you will be the escort for the A.I. If you want, we can give her to a different member of the group."
"I can handle it." John replied with no emotion in his voice. Blue team however, knew he was gritting his teeth. There was pain, and anger in his voice that only his brothers and sisters could find. Lasky only took notice of the fact that John referred to an A.I. as an "it". He was one of the many people that mostly treated them as humans, as opposed to a computer chip.
"Very well, Chief. You'll start the mission as soon as you're down in the hanger." Lasky said saluting them and nodding them off to their mission. He had worries about how they were going to get the job done without the Master Chief at his peak. He wondered if they might get hurt because of his lack of good will towards other A.I.'s in his suit with him.
"Blue team, will be Kelly, Linda, and Fred. Everybody else is on Green team. Linda, Fred, you'll be joining me to get the A.I.'s. Everybody else get to work on finding us some extra equipment. I don't want to go down having been underprepared." John tells them turning to go back to S-Deck with Fred and Linda. "Linda, get the A.I. for finding Halsey. I'll get the unmentioned A.I. My guess is it was unexplained for a reason. Now let's find out why." He tells them as Linda goes away quietly responding to her order. Fred however stays next the John his face despite hidden by the helmet showing that he was worried for his 'brother'.
"John, you know you don't have to take one." Fred tells him walking in front of John. "You can have somebody from Green team with her." He says hoping to change Johns mind.
"It won't be the same, but it is needed in order to put me back on the field Fred. If I can't handle a new A.I. then I will likely be removed from duty because of a 'broken mental state.' Lasky has read my file to me and said as such. You of all people should know that we won't know anything besides fighting. I am going to live on the field and die there. That is how I will live and I will not allow anything to change that." John says staring off into the orange glow of his helmet thinking about how he was not going to leave combat no matter what. Cortana was the reason he wanted to stay for as long as he could. He wished for nobody to know what it was like to lose somebody from war. With his 'brothers' and 'sisters' being marked as MIA rather than the most common reality of them being KIA, he knew death very well. Only by his luck was he able to come out on top. "It took Cortana for me to realize how important people like us are for Humanity and what Humanity is to me." He said in finality walking over to get his A.I. implanted, leaving Fred in awe at the way John changed.
Shaking his head Fred smiled at John and slowly jogged over to his suiting rig to get his own A.I. implanted. All Spartans had neural implants for A.I.'s ever since the Chief had such a good rating with Cortana, but most never got an A.I. to work with. So for Fred and Linda the feeling of cold mercury flooding down the back of their necks was unusual to say the best. Linda had to take her helmet off to yack least her helmet get coated. Fred could withstand it but the feeling of another being in your mind was very unpleasant. He wondered how John had handled it without any form of trouble. Then he heard a scream over the mic.
"Don't you dare." John's voice said as he glared at the A.I. in the corner of his Heads up Display. He was currently in his own mindscape, a place Cortana could pull him to when he slept. "You are here for the mission not to torment me. My memories are none of your business." He tells her. The lookalike of Cortana just glares back at him.
"Chief I know what she said, I may look like her but that is only the looks. Do not hate me for how I look. If you feel unpleasant then I can change my appearance to better suit you." She tells him changing to look like Déjà, his old teacher A.I. from reach.
"Do not patronize me." John grumbles, noticing that he was fading from his mindscape he quickly got his bearings and saw on his HUD that he was in armour lockup. "What did you do?" He asked the being in his armour. I simply had you get up. I don't have very good motor skills so you may have bumped into somebody. The A.I. said snickering. John looked around and saw a woman on the ground holding her arm.
She looked up at John and told the people around her to help her up. Fred, by now had gotten here and was wondering what had happened. Linda slowly making her way here having to get accustomed to the slightly faster reaction time her legs were giving her. The doctor looked over at John sadly as though she knew John would not like being the carrier of this A.I. "Normandy is very childish. So if you give her too much leeway things like this will happen. It was not your fault Chief." She explained as a marine walked over to her with an ice pack for the mean time. Chief nodded glumly as he realized that she would be very different than Cortana.
"Alright blue team, let's go." He orders as Fred salutes and Linda slightly nods getting her feet back under control.
Time skip: Ten hours later, Location Unknown.
"Chief I'm calling for help." Normandy said in his helmet. "We have the situation under control Normandy. We don't need 'help'." He told her as he shot back at some elites that were following them. Linda was having her A.I. close doors behind them and control her new pistol bullets. They were based off of tracking rockets. Once shot the person would use a camera on the bullet to control it to make sure that it made its target. "Chief no matter what you say having your troops following you down a hallway that we don't know where it leads to, while having enemy forces follow behind you is not under control." She told him while sending for a strike team to come and get them.
A grenade blew up behind them and the enemy forces split in two. Linda Fred and John handled one group and Green team handled the other. "OK, so maybe I was wrong, you did have it under control." Normandy said with a huff. "Or with you we just got 'Lucky' and they happened to be here at the right time." She said without getting a reply from John.
"Fred, where're we off to?" He asked ignoring Normandy in favour of Fred. "We're about one klick above her." Fred's A.I. told them. "Green team, go to the Seraph and get it prepped to go." John said thinking out his plan. Linda was better off on her own and John figured that Normandy had already called for some support. "Fred, you're Linda's spotter. I'll go and get Halsey." He said activating his camo and watched as Fred and Linda did the same.
Slowly John made his way down to where Halsey was held captive. The Nav marker that Fred's A.I. had provided was just down the hall. Sadly, it was now that Palmer had shown up. She had team Majestic behind her. "Chief, your mission is out of hand. I have been given control of the retrieval." She said pushing her way past John.
"Hey if you wanted to keep the mission under your command you should have kept the mission under your command. If of course, you have the brains to understand that. From what I've seen you're just a lucky Brute." Normandy said to him as snarky as she could possibly say it. John, scowling at her antics and her lack of use in any form did what he thought was for the best. He unplugged her. This meaning that she was taken out of his helmet. Normally this would be fine as she should be able to make a hologram to talk. But when she was put in his pocket, her voice was muted and effectively ignored.
"Sorry Chief. We're just following orders." Hoya said patting John on the shoulder once before getting his hand shrugged off. "I had things under control." He replied as he started going after Palmer.
Halsey sat in her cell gagged and bound. Her one arm having been tied to the back of the chair she sat on. "You have simply been siphoning all the information you could gather. You have no desire for your revenge that you claim to want." 'Mdama said via com link. As soon as he heard that his ship was boarded he had taken off. The fake Seraph fighter was found and seized but from his information, the Demons were already taking it back. He knew they wanted the woman. She was valuable to them and he had no grief for giving her up. If the arm she was missing was any indication then they wanted her dead. He would be happy knowing that she would be interrogated for several hours to find out what she had told them. He had his half of the key. That was all he cared about. But if by a chance, the ship could take out the demons then and only then would he return to see if they had the key with them. "I hope you have an agonizing death Doctor. The Librarian was wrong to give you the key." He said in finality before the screen was shot and Palmer walked into the room.
Palmer, still angry at Halsey walked/stomped her way over to the older lady and sliced the ties off her hand. "I'd ask what you told them but considering who you are you likely told them everything and anything." She growled turning back to Majestic. "Keep eyes on her at all times. I don't want her to touch anything." She says walking back out to the hallway getting a plasma blast in the face because of it.
"Fuck!" Palmer yelled running to the other side of the hallway, her shields flashing gold having protected her. "Majestic, find us an exit. Chief keep an eye on the Package." Palmer ordered as she started shooting the elites that were down the hall, blocking their main exit.
"Halsey." Thorne and John both said before turning back to the fight. Majestic was already making their way down the hall in the opposite direction of the Elites so they could secure the stairs up. John was staying where he was, shooting down the hall. Despite what was going on, he had no desire to disobey orders. That would not do well for him.
Halsey started walking around the room looking for something she could do to help. After a few seconds of looking, she moved Johns shoulder so she could get access to the control panel of the jail. She worked on making the plasma shield that was the jail door shoot outwards into the hallway. After around a minute of tinkering she got it working. "There, that should buy us some time. But it's very thin so we don't have much time. Majestic, have you found us a route out of here?" Halsey asked walking out of the jail as though she was walking out of a bedroom.
"Yes Ma'am. Green team met us half way and are now stationed in intervals down a hall for your safekeeping." DeMarco's voice came through the comms.
"Nice to know I'm still valued." She commented glaring at Palmer before walking down the hallway to the stairs, John right behind her.
Time skip: One hour later, in a Seraph fighter flying in space.
"I do wonder how you got here with none of you knowing how to fly." Halsey said sitting in the cockpit. All the other Spartan II's were buckled in their seats behind her. Majestic had taken their own seraph that they had slipped in once The Chief had caused enough havoc. Currently the Spartan IV's were providing backup for the II's. A beacon was placed on their ship to alert the Infinity that they were ready for pickup. But they were flying out here for the past thirty minutes and had no contact from the infinity as of yet. Which was extremely unsettling. That was until they saw a large opening in space filled with electrical connections flashing before the prow of the five thousand metre ship showed its face.
"Took them long enough." Halsey muttered doing an aerial roll, to avoid being crushed. Of course, in the comms one of the IV's decided to yell out "Do a barrel roll!" That was not amusing for the Spartans II's. They felt like the IV was just making a joke of a serious mission. But either way the beacons on the two Seraph ships made sure that Spartan groups were not shot down by the infinity.
"Nice to know that we have back up." Linda commented looking at the end of her rifle. Fred had done well to stop three Elites from getting to her. But he couldn't hold off four at the same time. Linda had turned around and saw an Elite about to slice her head off when she brought her gun up to his chest and blew it open. Her gun barrel had been coated in blood and sliced in half. She planned on fixing that as soon as she got on board. She also couldn't wait to get the A.I. out of her head. The guy was an annoying bastard and kept telling her what her body 'felt' like inside the suit. She had no idea why but it just made her feel weird.
After docking into the infinity and having, Halsey shipped into a caged room with no electronics everybody went about their usual business. For the Chief this meant he was going into his room and staring at his empty armour and the chip hanging from his neck. After a while of waiting, the Spartans were given a new mission. To go to the Forerunner station that Professor Glassman had found via the key.
The Arbiter was called and had said he would send his Spec Ops warriors to them but would likely be absent for a while as he was dealing with Separatists on his home planet. This now brings us back to where we are now.
A/N: Well that concludes the flashback. I hope everybody is ok with how I have it set up. Any plot holes please tell me. Still looking for more marines to use along with Spartan IV's.
Marines: Antonio Chamera, Adam, James, Jack, Jeff, Jones, Alice². If you have an OC you want added than please tell me.
This is my Disclaimer: I do not own Halo, Star wars, Spiderman (and any other characters in Marvel used in this story), Naruto, Pokémon, Rosario+Vampire, Fairy Tail, or My Little Pony. All are owned by their respective peoples and I have no desire to own them. I'd be over my head with it. Please tell me if anybody is OOC. And flames with be puffed out. So if you like, please tell me so, if not then ok then. (Fade out…)