"I didn't think that something like this would happen to her," Draken said, shell-shocked by this development.
"Mind explaining, oh informed one?" Gutrot asked, sarcasm at full capacity even now. "I can tell that this is somehow very, very bad, I just don't know how."
"When an AI undergoes extreme stress, usually through impossible mental exercises and torture, their personality splits into what's known as fragments. It's a carefully planned process done in labs to produce effective AI's that have a longer shelf life than their originals, but I don't know how it will affect Cortana since it was in the field."
"I'm beginning to see more and more that humans are SERIOUSLY fucked up as a species," Gutrot said, understating in the extreme. The Cortana pieces began waking up, and the two stopped talking to watch her. One kept grabbing her head like she had a migraine, while the other one was just confused and looking around curiously. They were slightly different: the one with a migraine had long hair that reached her hip and was a head taller than the other one, who had a pixie cut and was noticeably skinnier than the tall one.
"My head…" muttered the first one, getting the attention of the other for a moment before looking up at Draken.
"Who are you? Where am I?" she asked, and the first one was distracted from her pain enough to look around as well, also finding Draken. Gutrot interjected in his mind.
"Reminding them of the event that caused this mess might do more harm than good. Tell them your made-up story, and keep them hidden when you get to High Charity."
"My name is Draken, and I'm going to be the High Judicator for the Prophets when I get back to their city. You're two AI's I found while I was on my mission to prove myself, and I want to learn more about you. What are your names?"
"I don't know," said the tall one.
"Me neither. How about you give us names?" suggested the small one.
"I suppose I could," Draken said, considering a few names. He turned to the tall one. "Tell me what you think about these names: Jaune for you, and you…" he turned to the other, and was reminded of his fellow Noble teammate. "How about Kat?"
"An ancient French battle-maiden of legend, and your dead teammate? You've got to be kid-"
"I like it," Jaune said, smiling.
"Mines kind of cute," Kat said, smushing her face with her hands. Good lord, had Cortana's fragments regressed? Draken prayed it was just stress left over from the split and not a decrease in effectiveness; he had a feeling he would need them later.
"With that out of the way, I have to warn you about the Covenant," Draken said, bringing them back to the moment. "They're a very religious collection of many different species and may confuse you for relics of their gods, the Forerunners, and try to take you away from me. If that happens, I don't know what or if they'll do to you, and so I'm going to keep you both hidden, understand?" They nodded in a serious manner, and Draken relaxed. "Hopefully I can have something done so that we can be close constantly. It probably won't come to that, and most of them are actually very nice. Oh, and before I forget, there's someone I'd like you to meet." His eyes scrunched up and his brow furrowed for a moment. A grin split his mouth, and he adopted a lazy posture in his seat after he opened his eyes.
"Hello there ladies, I'm Gutrot, a brain buddy to Draken," he introduced himself. "I don't really care if you believe what I'm about to say, but it's true: I'm an ancient alien soul that strapped itself into the skull of our dear friend whose body I'm currently puppeting, and will continue to do so until I can find a new body. You'll occasionally see our facial expressions change, and that's one of us handing the reigns over to the other. He can still see what's going on, he's just riding shotgun instead of driving. Bye-bye for now, it was nice to meet you both." His face scrunched up again, and Draken looked at the two AI with concern; they both looked spooked.
"He's a killer," Jaune said, looking at Draken with narrowed eyes. "He's taken hundreds of millions by the feeling of him. His eyes had seen too much." Draken replied carefully to her, she had an intelligence that rivaled Cortana's, without the joking.
"Yes, he was. I know he's not very inviting, but I wouldn't be alive without him."
"He seemed like the kind of person to need a hug every once in a while," said Kat, thoughtful. "I'd give him a hug if I could."
"I'm sure he'd appreciate it," Draken said, somewhat confused at her behavior. An alert came up on Draken's board that they were nearing High Charity, and he pulled their chip out before he went to pilot the ship. They both were awed when they dropped out of slipspace, nearly the entire view in front of them taken up by the holy city. Jaune was silent, eyes scanning the exterior of the ship.
"I wonder if anyone's gotten lost in there before? It must be easy for such a big place."
"This is definitely a problem," Gutrot said. "One's a soldier, the other's a damn child. We can't take both of them into a battle setting, but I don't know if we can separate them, or should."
'You never know,' Draken thought, 'they might have certain characteristics to make them useful. It seems like Jaune has a sense of reading people, and I'm sure we'll find out Kat's sooner or later. Practice that thousand-year-old patience that you've got, and have a little hope for once.' Gutrot grumbled but stayed silent, and Draken was left alone while he piloted the Phantom. He marched to the Prophet's chambers, head of John swinging in a sack by his side, and was uninterrupted as he walked through High Charity to their chamber.
"Draken, you've returned!" exclaimed Truth happily. "I assume your trial was successf…" he went quiet, smile dropping from his face as Draken slowly lifted the severed head from its resting place, helmet and all, and let it thump into the floor before his feet. He set a foot on it and leaned forward, switching to Gutrot for a little speech.
"Does this answer your question?" Gutrot slowly said, grinning and speaking in that unsettling way of his. The guards tightened their grips on their weapons. "I quite enjoyed hunting him down and shooting his head off, but alas, I can't do it again… I believe that I've proven myself to you, my Prophets." Thankfully, he'd shown respect, and even kneeled, his head bowed in supplication. Regret cleared his throat.
"Yes, this has more than proven your worthiness. We pronounce you High Judicator Draken and pray for your victory in many battles."
"I humbly accept both this title and your blessing and pray for the same. May the Great Journey guide us." With that, Gutrot let Draken have control again (who collected John's head), and the two of them walked down to the armory to claim their prize. Somebody had told the armorer about Draken's weapon preferences, and he'd crafted a few knives in conjunction with the rest of his order. The armor and weapons were all beautiful, without any shine. Suddenly Draken had an idea.
"I have a request for my armor, the helmet in particular." He went on to describe in detail a port for a special type of chip at the side of his helmet, nearly the same as the one on a Spartan helmet. When questioned, he replied that he'd seen chips that fit into these on human helmets and thought that it might be useful to be able to read them. He also requested a modification to the visor to display the information on the chips, and a more up to date HUD. With the new details finished and a quick last fitting, Draken's armor was complete.
"You finally look the part of High Judicator at least," Gutrot commented, seemingly appreciative of how he and Draken looked in the mirror. "Not to mention how powerful it is. We should find one of those Scorpion tanks, see if we're hurt by it."
"Genius," Draken deadpanned. "But first, we have to see if the port works." He walked to his quarters before he took out Jaune and Kat's chip, carefully plugging it into the slot on the left side of his helmet. Bars of code flashed across the screen for a few moments, too fast for Draken to read, before his armor did a sort of reboot. His shields flashed red and alerts sprung up in a half-dead HUD before everything calmed down and two video screens popped up in the top left corner of his vision.
"Sorry about that, we had to mesh together a few things, different pieces of hardware and software don't exactly like that," Kat apologized, sheepish.
"All fixed now," Jaune reported, "we have control over your armor's functions, and won't have to reboot it again if we're removed."
"Good to hear," Draken said. "Do you have the option to talk internally and externally?"
"Yup," they both said, doing one of each.
"Excellent. For the most part, you'll just be using the helmet speakers since we don't want anyone to find out about you, but it's nice to have that option." With that out of the way, Draken exited his quarters and walked to the training grounds to get used to his armor. He doubted he'd remove it much, and he wanted to be comfortable moving around. He repeated his mobility training from when he'd first arrived, instructing Jaune and Kat to analyze his movement and tell him about any imperfections and improvements they could find.
"We both discovered improvements that could be made to increase your mobility, but they are practically microscopic and very few in number," Jaune said, as proper as ever. "I'm impressed, it almost seems like going all out for you is just your baseline."
"Simplified, the way you're moving is efficient but looks excessive, and she's impressed that you've kept going at full power without breaking a sweat," Kat said, fondly exasperated. "Honestly, would it kill you to lighten up, sis? Your voice is a better sleeping agent than listening to politics."
"Define, 'lighten up,' because this is just how I am," Jaune replied, her avatar's eyebrow-raise almost audible. "I doubt you could speak like me for five minutes, and vice versa." Kat huffed but silently agreed.
"Personally, you're both helpful," Draken supplied, sitting on the edge of a platform. "Jaune gives just the needed info without sugar-coating, and you, Kat can make it easier to understand."
"Way to kiss-up," Kat deadpanned playfully. "But thanks for the compliments all the same."
"How about you try using a few weapons? I'm interested to see how you attack."
"Sounds good, Jaune," Draken said, standing and retrieving a carbine. "My best moment happened a while ago in here. I managed to hit five targets at once with five different weapons while in free-fall, and caught myself before I hit the ground."
"Wait, five different… you can use your mouth to shoot?" Kat asked.
"Tail, I'd probably injure myself if I used my mouth to fire a gun," He said, leaping from platform to platform and shooting targets in midair. "It was more showing off than anything else, see if I could even do it. I didn't really mean for it to be something I would use to fight."
"Would it be possible to repeat it? You've grabbed my curiosity," Jaune asked. Draken gave a small nod and jumped past a pile of plasma pistols into an area with very few platforms, free falling with five guns armed and ready. He waited for the opportune moment and then fired all five pistols at once, destroying as many targets, and used his teeth yet again to stop his fall.
"How wash thap?" he asked, tossing one of the pistols onto the platform and pulling himself up.
"Awesome!" Kat said, her avatar bouncing in the corner of Draken's visor. "I didn't know if you could actually do it, but dang!"
"It does showcase your skill nicely," Jaune cut in, "but doing that in an actual battle is a grave error. You were exposed and helpless for six seconds, and no matter how strong your armor is, that amount of time is a death sentence."
"Exactly why I don't plan to use it in a real fight," Draken said, dropping the rest of the pistols and falling to the floor. He stood up from his crouch quickly and began walking back to his room. "Thank you both for your help, I appreciate it."
"You're welcome," Jaune said, but Kat seemed embarrassed, cheeks flushed with dark blue.
"Y-yeah, sure thing…" Maybe she wasn't used to praise? Regardless of her embarrassment, Draken turned from the way back to his quarters, deciding to explore High Charity.