A/N: And I'm back. Raise your hand if you missed me. Blow a raspberry if you didn't.
But I'm feeling better. My friend doesn't need to go to rehab, and her social worker is confident that everything will get better. Special thanks to 1 for letting me know that I'm not alone. I knew I wasn't, but it still helps to hear (read) it from an outside source.
In other news, I didn't get anyone wanting to help with Sarge: The Movie, and I can't (won't) make a whole movie (or just the script) alone. So feel free to adopt my script. If you want to use my words exactly, just cite me, please.
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Microsoft, Bungie, or 343 Industries. This is for my enjoyment and, hopefully, the enjoyment of others. I do not receive a profit.
One Last Time
Day One of Outbreak
John walked away from the escape ship, careful not to look back. He only had two goals: find a nuclear grade explosive and get back to research base Kepler and onto the last transport. To get nuclear grade weaponry, John would have to find a bomb; without Cortana, he couldn't turn the base's fusion reactors into explosives.
Hefting his assault rifle, John broadcast on all frequencies, "Attention 049-Abject Testament. I need high-explosive ordnance to counter the Flood threat. Where can I find some?"
John only had a moment to wait before he got his answer. The monitor floated down from above, babbling. "Of course, Reclaimer. However, in case of rampancy, all weaponry on this ring aside from the Sentinels is inaccessible to me. Furthermore, compartmentalisation requires that I know nothing about the locations of such devices, other than that they are on this ring."
John groaned. "A Cartographer?"
Testament floated up giddily. "Of course, Reclaimer. Be warned, I am detecting numerous Flood biosigns around that area."
"Where aren't there Flood biosigns?"
Abject Testament took the question at face value and answered, "At the moment? Docking station three, the Zephyr Locale, and munitions depot seven. However, the Records Office, signal beacon twelve, the Gaia Imperative, and several others all have negligible Flood biosignatures. Even a class three combat skin such as yours would be enough to visit those areas."
John ignored the ramblings and said, "Take me to the Cartographer. I need the location of these nukes."
"Technically, they are not nuclear devices. Indeed, they utilise a quark-gluon explosive to detonate. This explosion will then make use of the colour force, fundamentally more powerful than your primitive nuclear weaponry. As the quarks destabilise, they will attempt to realign themselves as mesons, since those are the connection of only two quarks, as opposed to hadrons, which require more gluons.
"This shift in fundamental spin renders Fermi-Dirac statistics useless, instead replaced by Bose-Einstein statistics, causing-"
"Yes," interrupted John, "I get it. Stuff goes boom."
Abject Testament jerked back as though offended. "There is no boom, as you put it. Everything simply changes from hadrons into mesons, rendering it-"
John sighed. "Just get me to the Cartographer, and send me some help while you're at it." Abject Testament nodded and his orange eye flashed the colour of the sun for just a moment.
And then John was surrounded by golden rings.
Day One of Outbreak
John landed with a slight thud, assault rifle already up and pointing. But nothing jumped him. So John took a few moments to survey his surroundings.
This Cartographer appeared to be on a mountain, or, as was more likely, in it. Snow buffeted the peak, reducing visibility. Sparse pines grew in the snow with little promise of cover. The mountain rose to John's left; a sharp plummet was only a few metres from his right. Meanwhile, John stood on a beaten, fairly level path. Behind him, a massive rockslide blocked passage back around. John couldn't see any Forerunner architecture unless he looked up at the awesome majesty of the entire ringworld.
John walked cautiously along the slope, following the NAV point Abject Testament had downloaded into his helmet. John was looking for an entrance to the Cartographer.
His suit adjusted itself, but John still felt the stinging cold through it, felt as the temperature increased his lethargy and sapped his energy.
Sadly, the Flood seemed unaffected by the cold. A combat form leapt from above, slamming into John and knocking him closer to the cliff. John collapsed, pushing the Flood form away as he fell. The combined momentum was too much and the beast went sailing over the cliff. John rose gingerly to his feet, checking to see if more Flood showed up.
When none did, John pressed on, hunting for clues.
And then came the tide.
They were too coordinated to be attacking on their own; a Proto-Gravemind must have been directing the assault. However, without any pure forms to augment their forces, it was clear that Graveminds couldn't form that quickly. Without those pure forms, the Flood had no means to repel any SPARTAN super soldier, much less John-117.
John marched on, wrapping around the mountain. The scenery was much the same; snowy winds buffeted trees, which offered no real protection, and the mountainous cliff still dropped away into a breathtaking valley with sprawling greenery dotting a series of snowy hills and smaller mountains.
Suddenly, something went thump behind John. He whirled around to see a pair of combat forms land after dropping from the trees above. Five more leapt down. John was about to open fire again when a shuffling from behind drew his attention. Three carriers flanked by four combat forms advanced around the ridge. One had an energy sword active and another carried a rocket launcher.
John twisted, jumping over the rocket he could tell was streaking at his feet. Holding the trigger on the assault rifle down, John fired as much lead as he could into the Flood, which proceeded to scatter. Puffs of ice went up as the bullets slammed into nothing but snow.
John changed tactics, throwing a frag at one of the carriers. With its short legs, the little blighter couldn't hope to survive as the grenade detonated, sending it flying.
The sudden confusion must have startled the Proto-Gravemind; the Flood reverted to baser habits, losing all cohesion but keeping their weapons. John charged, mowing down the Flood until his assault rifle clicked empty. Dodging a few plasma bolts, he slammed a new magazine into the rifle before opening up again. It was a massacre, but John's assault rifle had only a half-clip left. Bending down, he swapped it for a pair of spikers before pressing on.
John stepped around the ridge to find what he was looking for. Flood sentries marched sloppily back and forth across a metallic, Forerunner door. John supposed they were guarding the Cartographer even if they didn't seem able to get in. The door had a few dents, but it stood locked against the Flood. After all, they weren't human any more.
John gripped his spikers and ran out firing. Superheated metal spikes quickly buried themselves in the squishy bodies, just as they had buried themselves in Miranda Keyes. John winced microscopically at that analogy.
If only I'd been faster.
But it was no use dwelling on past memories and thoughts. John's weapons clicked empty and the surviving Flood were quick to respond with their own hail of mixed death. Plasma, bullets, spikes, even an explosive fired from a brute shot. Rather than waste precious time reloading, John just threw his spikers, bayonets pointed, impaling a carrier and the combat form with brute shot.
The carrier form exploded, spreading pandemonium, and John took the opportunity to dash close enough to grab the brute shot. The bladed weapon would be perfect for hacking off the limbs of the remaining Flood forms. Augmentations aside, the weapon could dismember anyone. John had seen it happen to marines captured by Brutes. John merely replicated the feat, nearly flying as he leapt around, tearing through Flood with the knife part of his knifle.
Eight swift executions later, John stood triumphant. Wiping Flood matter off of his armour, he attached the brute shot to the mag clip on his back. John walked cautiously toward the door, wary of tricks by the Proto-Gravemind. But there was nothing. John was alone with his thoughts and his misery. Never again would he hear Sergeant Johnson crack a joke or watch Miranda pilot a ship like a madwoman.
Never again would John hear Cortana's comforting, sarcastic voice or feel the liquid mercury that was her seeping through his memories like quicksilver. The pain had been sharp at first, freezing cold and so, so penetrating. And then it had faded into a dull chill. Next, a cool, refreshing aura. He loved that feeling, the change from acute sensation to calm relaxation. But it was gone, dead with her.
John had never had another A.I. in his head, but it wouldn't be the same. Besides, he'd promised her. There would never be another for him.
Which was why he was here in front of a Cartographer rather than mourning lost friends back on Earth. Shaking off such depressing thoughts, John keyed the open button and watched as the door slid open. He stepped through, pistol at the ready.
But nothing attacked. Nothing sounded except John's quiet footsteps, reverberating silently around the chamber.
It was a place apart from the ravages of time, and John did his best not to disturb the settled dust as he made his way down to the computer console several levels down. The cautious motion wasn't just a desire not to stir up curses sleeping in this ancient crypt. It served as a reminder of Cortana's silences whenever she encountered an awesome, magnificent, and truly primordial feat of engineering. With bated breath and in weighted solitude, John advanced mutely and without preamble through the empty, long-dead halls.
In only a few minutes, John had made it to the Cartographer. Walking up to it, he pressed a panel. How he knew it was the right panel, John didn't know. But he pressed it anyway, and three not-so-random pushes later, a hologram of the ring with a pair of glowing dots appeared. The dots were almost on top of each other, but John knew that the scale would fool most. The second dot, the explosive, was at least a kilometre away. John uploaded the data to his HUD and almost groaned; walking that would be incredibly tedious, and 049-Abject Testament was nowhere to be seen.
At least, until he floated down from above. "Hello again, Reclaimer. As I am unable to know the exact location of any high-yield explosives such as the Aquila bombs you seek, I have brought an M12 LRV LAAG variant with me. Please proceed outside. We must find these Aquila bombs so that you can contain the infestation.
"I shall part with you outside, because I am unable to-" Abject Testament twitched. His voice stopped a moment, fluctuated at the speed of memory, doing a total recall of every language he knew. And then it started again. Same voice, same tone, same everything. But with a cold undertone. "I am 049-Abject Testament. Authorisation code approved. New orders received.
"Human, you have trespassed. Prepare your soul and die well." And then Abject Testament fired, roiling death pouring off of his "eye".
John leapt to the side, grasping for a weapon. He came up only with the brute shot from before and his pistol. If Abject Testament was anything like Guilty Spark, John would need the kind of firepower he didn't have. So he rolled, slipping his bulky form beneath the closing door.
Day One of Outbreak
John popped up with his brute shot pointing. A pair of Knights stood in his way. John fired the clip in his brute shot, the explosive impacting the shields and then quickly breaking through them. John reloaded his brute shot and advanced forward.
John went only a few feet before a swarm of Crawlers forced him to reevaluate his position. Jumping back, John pulled out his Magnum and lined up a Crawler and the iron sights. John's finger moved elegantly, depressing the trigger just enough to send a non-ferrous metallic slug into the head of the lead Crawler. The little beast broke, hard light joints dissolving.
John emptied the rest of his pistol into the group, slamming the last survivor with his empty gun. He reloaded the Magnum, swapped to his brute shot, and sprinted toward the ramp up to the next level.
John saw the signs of a Knight teleporting in, so he changed his path, dashing right up to the Knight. As the Knight solidified, John flipped the brute shot around and impaled the Knight on his knifle. The Knight popped, scattering itself as a series of hard light flakes; brilliant rose petals drifting gently in the wind. John took only a moment to swap his pistol for the Knight's incineration cannon.
John scampered up the ramp and discovered why Knights kept teleporting in. There was a massive battle between the Flood and a small army of Prometheans. Knights jumped around, matching the agility of combat forms. Crawlers nipped at heels and chased infection forms. Watchers terrorised carrier forms.
John had neither the time nor inclination to fight a battle that size if the halo was going to be blown up anyway. He fired a shot of the incineration cannon into the crowd, hoping to disperse some combatants. John then continued forward, using his brute shot to keep the path to the door clear.
John almost made it, too. The door to the windy outside on the mountain was open, activated by John's proximity when he heard the voice. "To have come so far, and to have failed so spectacularly." The voice was cold and high, haughty of all beneath. John's feet turned of their own accord. The Didact stood, dressed in his second skin. Abject Testament floated near him, no longer bobbing.
The Didact extended a gauntleted hand to the side, causing a binary rifle to float over into it. John dove through the doorway, feeling searing heat as the air where his head had been was vapourised by a beam of hard light. He also felt as his shields popped, straining to hold up against the heat. And then the shields failed and the heat pressed in and the visor warped just a little, on the right edge. But John didn't have time to worry about that as he tried to dodge the rest of the attack as he flew through the air and crashed into the snow.
The sudden temperature differential was not without consequences. Where the temperature had been highest, where the polarised visor had warped, the sudden change relesed enough energy for a sickening crack. John didn't have the time to worry about the break in his MJOLNIR armour. He got up from the frozen ground of the mountain and threw his equipment without checking to see what it was in a last attempt to buy time. A red radar jammer flew out of his hand. Useless.
John groaned internally as he leapt into the Warthog idling nearby, exactly where Abject Testament had promised it. The Didact may have taken control of Gamma Halo and its monitor, but he couldn't rewind all the help Abject Testament had given before.
John floored the accelerator, and the Warthog went sailing down the mountain. John found himself swerving wildly to avoid trees, rocks and moguls as he careened down the steep slope.
Thirty-four deadly seconds later, John had made it down the mountain. He started to drive toward the objective on his HUD when he heard a loud $crash$ behind him. Turning his head and cursing the lack of mirrors, John saw the Didact stand up from the crouch he'd landed in and begin to sprint toward the Warthog. John had no idea how he could take that kind of fall without ill effect, but John also didn't know how anyone could survive what had happened last time: grenade to the face, high fall, and then nuclear detonation.
It didn't matter. John sped away.
Day Two of Outbreak
John didn't know how long he'd been driving for. Logically, it couldn't have been too long, because he was still a few hundred metres from the explosives. But the Didact had chased him the entire way, shooting his binary rifle on occasion.
It was tedious, speeding through the beautiful ring and watching as the Flood slowly started to rape the land. In places, John wanted to get out and help rather than allow the Flood to conquer the soon-to-be-destroyed Halo Installation 03, but shots from the Didact's binary rifle soon corrected these urges.
At least John could watch the distance counter tick down from one kilometre to five hundred metres to one hundred metres to fifty metres to none.
John swung out of the Warthog and dashed into the squat Forerunner building, pausing only long enough to shoot the control panel. John knew that, unlike in fiction, high-powered rounds to the lock (like the ones he had) would actually close a door more effectively.
Looking up, John found himself in an armoury. As he walked closer to a stack of explosives labeled in strange glyphs, a cool white voice flowed over John, whispering in his ear. "Hello, child. I have not the time to explain. Meet me here." A burning washed over John, and once again, memories unremembered, never to be forgotten.
"Come. Your ship awaits." Another door, recessed far and away, opened.
A loud banging outside the door. John looked back in time to see a Knight teleport in. It bent down, releasing a Watcher. Three more Knights, one a commander, teleported in.
John grabbed one of the bombs and ran toward the door. Fumbling it in his hands, John tried to activate the device without help. And then the searing in his mind returned.
The pain in John's mind blotted all else out for a moment.
When he came to, he was nearly to the door and the Aquila bomb was pulsing a brilliant cobalt with golden icons flashing. Rather than risk bringing a live bomb aboard the ship, John dropped the device and sprinted through the doors and onto a ship similar to the keyship, from what he'd seen of it en route to Earth.
Dashing to the control room of the Forerunner ship, John let instinct take over. He pushed buttons that felt right until no more buttons felt right. John waited a moment, barely feeling as the ship took off, smoothly lifting out of its hangar.
John watched as the ground lifted away, finally curving upward and linking up to form the entirety of the Halo. A moment of peace in space. A dazzling light. And forever, the silence of nothingness. The delicate ring dissolved in a desperate brilliance.
John entered coordinates into the ship's computer. Once again, instinct and searing pain. And then the infinite darkness of slipspace.
A/N: Yes, parallels should be drawn between this level and the level Halo in Halo: 3. As always, please correct any mistakes, and please, do review. Knowing your thoughts, any of them, is a boon unto me.
Gameplay: Once you get onto the mountain until you enter the room of the computer console. Escaping, including the entire Warthog scene, up until you sprint through the doors to the bomb storage room, with an interactive cutscene during your interaction with the Didact.