Halo Fan Fiction

Daybreak's Bell

By Kraven Ergeist


Woo! 1-day turnover! That's what I'm talking about!

Quick notes:

I'm not sure why readers keep getting the idea that there are Promethean Flood in the underground caves of Halo 01. All I ever say is that the UNSC had not encountered the exact varieties of Flood-infected creatures before. And I chalk that up to this particular installation having Flood samples that had infected other long-dead alien species that had also been preserved in the Halo rings for study. Nowhere does it say that the Flood shamblers are Promethean.

I'm also noticing quite a few requests for some more Chief x Cortana drama, to which I say, fear not. You're talking to a dedicated Chief x Cortana shipper here. I just wanted to build up to it properly, and the last thing I wanted to do was rush into a romance. If I did that, I didn't believe it would be realistic at all.

Sorry if the fight scene with the Didact or Revolution seemed rushed, I'm trying to get better at writing action sequences, and one problem I notice I'm having is that they tend to come out too quickly. I need to find a way to focus on the little details in a fight rather than simply describe the broad strokes. I appreciate your input on how these scenes go.

Also, as a reminder, the 26 review benchmark is not a mandate. There WILL be an update at least ONE WEEK from this chapter being posted, even if the chapter gets 0 reviews. What 26+ reviews does is shorten that time.

That is all.


Chapter 7

The disorientation did not fade. But now it was familiar. The Chief could recall going through this before having his body sundered into being once again by the Didact Collective. It was as if the very air around him were a tangible thing made of data, as if every micron around him represented a mountain of information, each with a voice screaming in his head. This must be what it had been like for Cortana to be driven mad.

"Chief…"

He was floating in a sea of information, buried in an overwhelming darkness that he could neither reason with nor understand. The only source of light was coming in the form of a shape as it coalesced in front of him, as if tiny particles in the water all came dancing from every direction to give life to the being he was speaking to. And then she was before him, as beautiful as he remembered her, her blue skin streamlined with data.

"Cortana…" John responded. He had the brief sensation of pain in his chest from where the grenade had hit, but it was dull and getting less painful by the minute. "Did we get him?"

"The Didact of Revolution has been destroyed," Cortana nodded. "Along with his ship."

John sighed, trying to release a breath but finding the sensation rather dulled in a world where there was no such thing as air.

"Good."

Cortana smiled, suppressing a chuckle. "Did you have to jump into the disintegrating engine block?"

The Chief shrugged. "I improvised."

Cortana's smile widened as she drifted closer. "'Afterthought' indeed…"

The Chief said nothing as she placed her hands on his battle-charred armor. The chest plate in particular was missing several layers that had burnt to a crisp from the grenade going off.

"Your armor's been damaged, Chief…" Cortana sighed, chidingly. "I'll need to repair it…"

John nodded.

He expected the process to happen instantaneously, as had been the upgrade process with her armor, but Cortana's hands fell across his helmet, slowly unfastening it and lifting it off his head, letting it drift upward, slowly turning within the ether of the Domain as it went through repair protocols. Tiny pinpricks of data formed and congealed around it, as if raw data was converting into matter, filling in all the tiny little cracks and crevices. It was all very intricate and very complex, and was taking quite a bit of time.

"We experience time at a much slower rate in the Domain," Cortana explained, removing his chest plate with a touch, letting it drift upward to begin repairs, leaving only the black, flexible under-shell beneath. "What might feel like an hour in the Domain is just a few seconds in the physical world…"

John simply blinked, his face uncovered. He looked different than he had before his ascension to Didact. More youthful. Didacts were granted bodies that did not age, bodies that would last for hundreds of years. He was still human, but his body was being constantly replenished by the Domain itself. If the Chief's luck held out, he may well outlive every soldier he knew.

John remained silent as piece-by-piece Cortana slowly removed every part of his armor plating. Her fingertips glided over him, slowly unfastening rivets and screws, lifting the hefty armor plating off with ease, letting it drift into the Domain for repair. His gauntlets slid off either hand, followed by his shoulder pads and then the booster mounted back guard. His boots and leg plating followed, and soon, all he wore was his thin, black under-armor, webbed and meshed for flexibility, making him look much leaner than before. Cortana caught herself lingering over the muscular build of his body through the under-armor, and tried not to dwell on how well the skintight mesh contoured to his form, or the fact that Spartans had bodies that would make Gods envious.

His face, at one time a scarred battlefield of war stories, was now as chiseled and streamlined as he had been in his youth. But even the Didact Collective could not undo all the lines and creases on his features, the constant knit of his brow, of the deep, dark anger and heartache of a million battles reflected through his eyes. Even now, he wore a mask of indifference that did little to disguise the hurt, and could not hide, to Cortana's eyes, the tumultuous storm of emotion contained within, locked away in a place where she could not reach.

Cortana's hands lingered perhaps longer than was required. All about them, his armor floated, rotating and running through repair diagnostics. They had time, she reasoned. Here within this realm of dilated perception, a few minutes would be scarcely a second in the physical world. Ever since she had come back to life, it had been one battle after another. This may be the only chance she had to dwell on the possibilities that lay between them, and she wanted to spend a bit more time peering into those haunted eyes of his.

His expression changed from one of post-combat fugue to one of concern.

"Cortana?" he breathed, reaching up to touch her cheek.

Cortana flinched at the contact. Had she been crying again? She mentally cursed herself for allowing her emotions to get the better of her again. In the span of the day, she had been brought back from the dead, turned into a near god-like being, had that power stripped away from her, found out she was the child of an alien race, as well as the monitor of an entire Halo installation, fought off two Didacts by herself, and nearly killed the Chief trying to save him, only to have him made into a near god-like being himself, and to top it off, had herself gained complete control over one-twelfth of the entire galaxy's Domain! This whole ordeal hadn't been easy on her, but she should have been able to handle it!

She shook her head, pulling away from his touch.

"I'm fine…"

She felt him take hold of her hand, pulling her closer.

"You're not fine," he said, obstinately. "Look at me."

Cortana felt something stir within her as she made eye contact with the Chief. Even without his armor, he was a remarkable sight to behold. His eyes were depths of immeasurable struggle, piercing into her like a dagger. She suddenly felt very exposed without her own armor on, her unmistakably feminine curves unprotected by hard, rigid battle raiment, and she stifled the urge to cover herself. What was wrong with her? She never used to feel this vulnerable around him before! Did John have any idea what he was doing to her? Talking to her like this? Looking at her like this? Touching her like this?

It was still such an overwhelming experience, having a body with which to interact with others as she did now. So much had gone on since it happened that she hadn't had the time to linger on the subject. But now, here they were, sequestered from the world, with nothing but time to consider what they were now. They were more than just soldiers now, more than just constructs, more than just man and woman. They had each gone through so many evolutions and resurrections that there probably weren't even any words left to describe what either of them were anymore. It was for this reason, perhaps, that they so desperately needed one another. Neither knew just what they were without the other.

He was her strength.

She was his humanity.

"John…" Cortana whispered, feeling herself drawing closer to him almost without thinking. His eyes lingered on her, and she felt herself shivering. Her hands rested on his chest and slowly made their way up to his shoulders. She leaned a bit closer and then her lips were on his before she could stop herself. She just couldn't help herself anymore. She wanted him. Needed him. More than anything else, she wanted to feel him. To hold him. To touch him.

He was hers now! She could finally feel him, touch him, hold him in her arms, finally show him what he meant to her! She never wanted to let him go, never wanted to leave this timeless void, to venture back into that world of hurt and struggle. She had been twisted, torn and confused, had been mutilated, transformed and reborn. Now she just wanted to feel, to feel his lips against hers, to feel the warmth of his body. Now…she just wanted him to be hers.

His hands rose to her shoulders, hesitating for a moment as he seemed to consider the taste of her lips against his own, the electricity flowing through them. It was more than simple contact – in this realm of digital information, there was information being exchanged through that touch on a microscopic level. Flashes of memories she shared with him passed through him as he kissed her. He could see brief glimpses of every emotion she had ever felt for him. Thoughts and feelings and a whole universe of inclinations. How long had she been wanting to do this, he wondered?

How long had he?

He realized, almost with surprise, that he was pressing his lips back against hers, that he was holding her with something very close to need, and he gently pulled away to look at her inquisitively.

"Cortana?" he asked, giving her a questioning look.

Cortana seemed to suddenly realize what she had just been doing and abruptly pulled back a little herself, her fingertips rising up to touch her lips, as if they had acted without her leave.

"That…" she stumbled, looking away, embarrassed. "That may not have been…one of my better ideas…"

John's lips curved up a little at that. "First time you've ever done something crazier than I have."

Cortana pouted a little at that. Could he not see how important this was to her? How much this meant to her?

"This isn't a joke, John…" she said, her voice cracking a little

"No, it's not…" he nodded, leaning forward to give her another small kiss before staring earnestly into her eyes. "But this isn't the time or place for this."

"And when will that be, exactly?" Cortana demanded, giving him a hurt look. "Every time we get a minute to catch our breath, something else is about to explode."

John nodded. The same thought had been lingering in the back of his mind as well, but as a trained soldier, he hadn't thought to question it.

Until now.

"Then maybe it's time we considered retiring," the Chief suggested. "Take a break from soldiering."

Cortana let out a huff that was half annoyance and half disbelief. "Yeah, right…like the Earth would even last two days without us…"

John hesitated. She had a point. The two of them had a responsibility to humanity and the UNSC. They couldn't just abandon that, especially now that they had both ascended to such power. The Earth could benefit immensely from this power.

"We don't have to decide anything right now…" he said reassuringly, putting his hands on her shoulders. "As soon as we're done with the Didacts, we'll take some time to figure out just what's in store for us…"

He gave her shoulders a strong, meaningful squeeze as he leaned down to peer into her eyes.

"I just got you back, Cortana…" he said breathily. "I'm not about to let you go."

Cortana lowered her eyes, her hair slipping forward to hide her eyes. It was probably for the better that way, she though. She didn't want him to see her fear.

"You're not immortal, Chief," she said in a husky voice. It sounded like she was pushing back tears. "You may be a Didact now, but Didacts can still die. You've killed two of them yourself, already."

John rested his hands on her back. "I know."

Cortana pressed more of herself against him. It felt so good to be in his arms.

"You rushed the Didact of Revolution like you didn't have a single care for whether you lived or died," she breathed. "I've watched you plunge headlong into danger before…but that…"

She turned her face up to stare up at his face, eyes watering.

"I don't want to lose you!" she sniffed.

She couldn't believe herself. She was supposed to be a soldier! She knew the risks! She always had! She and the Chief had faced impossible odds before. So why now was she so bothered by the possibility that he might die?

Was this why it was thought that love born on the battlefield was doomed from the start?

"You won't…" the Chief assured her, pulling her closer to him.

He leaned down to place another surprisingly gentle kiss on her lips.

"Whatever happens, Cortana…" he whispered, using the same words she had told him not so long ago. "Remember…I'm yours. I'll always be yours, Cortana."

He pulled her into the warmest embrace she could have ever imagined.

"No matter what happens."


When the two of them emerged from the Domain, only a second had gone by. The Forged by Fire was still in the process of exploding, and Cortana was already steering the Epimethean out of harm's way. She was already laying in a course to take on the Didact of Ruin, when the Fall of Ignorance began to make a slip-space jump.

"She's running, Chief," Cortana reported from her position at the helm, watching as the Didact battleship disappeared into subspace. "Tracking her course."

John was in the middle of checking his armor. It looked good as new, though he still hadn't had the opportunity to get as familiar with it as he had his previous set. Still, it felt just as good as when he'd first set out. Unfortunately, Cortana only had access to Promethean and Covenant weapons in the Domain for the time being. The Chief could manage, but he liked the familiarity of UNSC weapons, especially now with all of this alien rewiring done to his body and armor. It would feel good to hold the familiar weight of an SR Battle Rifle or an SRS99 Sniper Rifle. He would have to restock his supply once he made it back to the Infinity.

Speaking of…

"How's the Infinity?" John asked.

Cortana smiled as she patched them through. "They've taken a beating, but they're not sunk yet. I've filled the Captain in on the important bits, but you should still give him your side of the story."

On cue, Lasky's face appeared on the monitor, looking tired and haggard, but alive.

"Chief," he said, wearily. "That you?"

John withdrew his helmet for the Captain to see and nodded his head.

"It's still me, Sir," he assured him. "Turns out that the Librarian wasn't the only Forerunner who had our back. The Didacts that we've been pursuing are renegades from their own order. The Didact Collective, the former leaders of the Forerunner military, have offered their support in the form of this ship and my upgrades."

Lasky crossed his arms. "This sounds a little too good to be true, Chief. What's the catch?"

John frowned. "The catch, Sir, is that I'm to replace the Didact myself. I've been selected to be humanity's representative for the Collective."

Lasky's eyebrows narrowed. If he had still been a first officer, he would have been happy for the Chief. Proud even. But he had to think like a Captain now.

"This come with any strings attached, soldier?"

"There are always strings, Sir," the Chief admitted. "But I didn't have a choice. The situation got complicated, and it forced my hand. It was either this, or my effective termination. This way, I can still serve humanity in some capacity at least. And I still answer to you and the UNSC."

Lasky heaved a great sigh. He didn't like this, but the real trouble this represented was above his pay grade. For the moment, they had a war to win.

"Chief," Cortana spoke. "The Fall has come out of slip space on the far side of the ring."

John nodded. "You heard her, Captain. Should we pursue?"

"Negative, Chief," the Captain said. "The Infinity's taken a pounding, and we need to make repairs. I need the Epimethean to watch our back, and I don't need Ruin luring you into any traps. You're the only support we've got."

"No!"

A familiar voice sounded, and out of nowhere, the Didact of Resignation materialized in the air.

"You?" Cortana blurted in honest surprise. She was supposed to have full control of the Domain, how had he slipped past her without her knowing?

"Chief!?" Lasky cried out in alarm, seeing the Promethean and assuming the worst.

"Relax, Sir," John said. "He's a part of the Collective. He's a friend."

"That alliance may not last if action is not taken swiftly!" the aging Didact warned. It looked as if it required a great effort to stay standing. How had he even mustered the energy to manifest into the physical world, Cortana wondered?

"What do you mean?" Cortana demanded.

"Ruin has opened fire on the Installation!" the old man explained. "Until the focal terminus can be repaired, the Installation's defense systems are completely offline! Halo is vulnerable!"

That got everyone's attention.

"Can the Didact actually destroy Halo?" the Spartan asked.

"The ring is in ill repair! And its defense systems are nonfunctional! It is but a matter of firepower and time!"

"Why would Ruin want to destroy Halo?" Cortana asked in turn.

The Didact of Resignation hung his head in despair. "Because the Librarian is still hidden somewhere on that ring."

"What?" Cortana stammered in alarm. "Why hasn't she returned to the Domain?"

"I do not know, child of my child…" the Didact admitted. "She must have sealed herself off in the event that the worst should happen! Any contact beyond her terminal could result in a fatal compromise if the fugitives still controlled the node. Unless…unless the fugitives have managed to trap her somewhere…"

The very idea seemed repulsive to the Didact and he visible reeled from the thought.

"No, she must be in hiding. We must find her, in any case! I cannot allow her to die like this!"

The Didact took the Spartan's hand in his and fell to his knees, whether out of strain or genuflection, he could not say.

"Please…you are the Didact now. I implore you…do not let them take my child!"

"We tried locating her before," Cortana explained, hurriedly. The last thing she wanted to do was lose the trust of their strongest supporter in the Collective. "But she relocated, and there are hundreds, maybe thousands of terminals she could be hiding in. And we don't have time to search them all."

"Yeah…so I've got a better idea…" The Chief said, drawing his gun. "I take down Ruin before she can destroy Halo."

The Didact's eyes widened. "Do not underestimate your foe, O Didact of Reclamation. Ruin is a much more dangerous opponent then your most recent enemy. There was a reason she was selected to take over when he died. You will find she is a far craftier adversary than the Didact of Revolution."

Cortana crossed her arms, her expression somewhat put off. After everything they had accomplished, everything they had put up with, all the obstacles they had surpassed, mountains they had climbed, and demons they had conquered…

"Don't underestimate us either, old man," she said, wrinkling her nose. "I've gotten us out of worse scrapes than this."

The Didact shook his head. "Child of my child, do you not recall that Revolution died fighting you in another life? Ruin was chosen specifically to be able to out-think you! To out-perform you! To surpass you!"

Cortana put her hands on her hips. "And as I recall, she too was defeated, just as he was."

"Chief…" Lasky's voice cut in over the intercom. "I don't know what you're planning, but we need you here. Without the Epimethean, we're sitting ducks."

"The Epimethean isn't going anywhere, Captain," Cortana answered for him. "The Chief and I can handle this on our own…"

She made eye contact with the Didact of Resignation.

"Something tells me this isn't going to be a contest of might anyway…"


Flying a ship was just as easy for Cortana while she was joined with the Domain as when she was actually present on the ship. Unfortunately she couldn't manifest her body when she was fully immersed within the Domain, but she could still tag along inside the Chief's helmet just like the good old days. It was a simple matter for Cortana to send the Spartan aboard the Fall of Ignorance. It was just as simple for the Chief to cut a path of carnage through the halls and corridors of the gigantic ship, jumping through portal after portal until they made it to the primary weapons battery.

A wide array of control terminals lined the edge of a platform facing a wide-open window to the ship's exterior, a spectacular vista of the Halo installation below them. And outside, protruding out from below the window like a massive appendage, was the ship's main gun, a massive hunk of metal that was larger than some ships on its own. Every fifteen seconds, the gun automatically primed itself, and a thunderous boom echoed through the chamber as the gun let off a shot, sending a massive bolt of super-heated plasma down to the installation below. Already, there were fires burning on the surface of the ring that were visible from space.

Oddly, however, there did not appear to be any hostiles in the area, Promethean or Covenant.

"Hmmm…" Cortana mused inside the Chief's helmet.

The Chief, having just paved through endless waves of enemies, kept his gun ready, just in case.

"Maybe the whole process is automated?" Cortana offered, as the Chief stepped up to the wide line of controls, the primary console appearing at its midway point at the center of the window. "Either way, we don't have time. I'm accessing the terminal."

"Wait," John urged. "Something's not right. This feel's like a trap."

"No argument here," Cortana allowed. "But we have to take these guns down. It's only a matter of time before Ruin manages to destroy Halo."

"Fine…" the Chief said grudgingly. "But be careful."

"I will…" Cortana hummed in his head. "Accessing the terminal…"

There was a moment of silence, and then the resonant background hum that the Chief hadn't even noticed until now slowly faded to silence as the guns powered down.

The Chief waited for Cortana to return, but then…

BOOM!

The terminal in front of him exploded in a shower of sparks! The Chief lept for safety as the entire platform became engulfed in flames.

"Cortana!" the Spartan bellowed. "Cortana, answer me!"

The sound of warning alarms was his only answer. He silently cursed and recollected himself, feeling panic threatening to build up inside his body. He tried to take stock of the situation, tried to harness the feeling of desperation welling up within him, trying to quench his feelings of urgency at the direness of the situation to allow himself to think clearly, to evaluate of his surroundings.

Fact: the main gun was no longer firing. Fact: the control panel to access the main gun was no longer working. Fact: Cortana, someone who should have dominion of all things digital, had somehow been compromised. Fact: John was now the Didact of Reclamation and could also access the Domain, albeit not with Cortana's proficiency.

These facts left him with only one option he could decide on.


Without Cortana there to guide him, the Domain was as dark and infinite as space itself. Around him, tiny specks of light like stars whooshed by, creating displays of images and sound without any discernible meaning or purpose, all of them as alien as the Forerunners as the Master Chief swam through the sea of knowledge that was the Promethean Network. Even after Cortana had explained it to him, he still scarcely understood this strange, digital world that seemed to defy all logic, through which the unimaginable seemed to occur. Apparently, it existed as a layer of subspace, connected and similar to, but separate and different from the realm through which ships traveled between the stars. It was not a Promethean invention, but a discovery. Perhaps the Progenitors, the race that had preceded the Prometheans had been its creators. Or perhaps it was by the race before them. Or perhaps it had always existed, as natural an occurrence as the galaxy itself. Nevertheless, the Domain had seemingly shaped the Prometheans' entire development for thousands of years. Their entire knowledge base was built around it, devoted to it, preserved within it. It was through the Domain that the entire Halo array had been connected, through which the Ark received its boundless information. Within the Domain, countless lives had been preserved – those of every known Didact including himself, as well as Cortana in all her boundless capacity. He wondered if Guilty Spark or any of the other Monitors dwelled here. Perhaps they too had faded into the void as the Didacts of old had done.

None of that occupied the Chief's thoughts at the moment, however. All he could think about now was finding Cortana. He just knew that the Didact of Ruin had set up that terminal in the weapons bay as a trap. In fact, she had probably intended to lure him here as a trap. Nothing about this situation left him any of his usual advantages. All of his training, save for the discipline of his mind, was rendered moot in this world of boundless nothing. Here, data became reality, and reality was data. All around him, dark space loomed, through which he could glide and swim.

Before him, the Halo ring floated. It seemed no larger than a hula-hoop, with Ruin's ship orbiting on one end, the Infinity and the Epimethean along the other, just out of reach, no larger than toys. It was easy to feel like a God in this world of digital information, but he still had no idea how to manipulate this environment, how to see this world as Cortana saw it.

"Chief!"

He snapped his head back to see where the voice came from. Or rather, he cast his sensors towards the perceived sound of Cortana's voice in a way that certainly felt like snapping his head around. He saw her, her blue body glowing brightly and drifting towards him, looking terrified.

"Cortana!" he shouted, moving towards her, whether that could be called floating, running or swimming, it was uncertain. "What happened?"

"I…I don't know…" she admitted. "The Didact of Ruin must have found some way to isolate herself within a specific sector of…"

She trailed off as her eyes suddenly went wide.

"Look out!"

Cortana pointed, and the Chief turned once again to find the Didact of Ruin slowly making her way towards them, drifting into view like a lifeless banshee.

"Now's your chance, Chief!" Cortana shouted. "Take her down!"

The Chief felt a Covenant energy sword materialize in his hand, and he moved towards the approaching figure of the Didact, her helmet withdrawn to show the braided cornrows running along the top of her head, each one ending in a thin braided ponytail, her dark armor accented with vibrant purple.

As the Chief approached her, he saw her flinch in alarm, before activating a Promethean energy blade of her own and taking a defensive posture, putting on a decidedly unconvincing look of determination.

John hesitated. The Didact of Resignation had told him that Ruin was a far craftier opponent than Revolution. She had just lured them both into a trap, which they had fallen right into. But now things were happening just a little too straightforwardly.

Something wasn't right.

"What are you waiting for?" Cortana demanded. "Get her!"

The Spartan watched the Didact's eyes, trying to peer into them to see his foe. He searched for the malice and the cunning needed to trap a being as keen and as powerful as Cortana within the realm of her own dominion. He searched for an enemy who enjoyed foul play and trickery, who slinked through dark passageways and hid in the shadows, who schemed and connived and planned until just the right moment to strike the enemy when they were least expecting it.

He saw none of that. Instead, he saw someone who was prepared to face him head on, to fight him toe to toe in a fair match. He saw bravery and determination and a stubbornness that rivaled his own. He saw a warrior woman, powerful and proud.

"What are you doing!?" he heard Cortana's voice yelling behind him. "Kill her!"

He turned around to face the thing that pretended to be Cortana. Cortana had told him that she had fought off two Didacts at once, yet here she was holding her ground, and letting him do the fighting. What trickery Ruin had managed to pull to convince both his eyes as well as the real Cortana's that the other was not who they appeared to be, John could not say. But he hated tricks. And this one would end here.

He took a step towards the apparition of Cortana and swung his sword just as the startled image of the woman faded out of existence.

"Chief!" he heard Cortana's voice cry out behind him.

He turned around to face the real Cortana…only to be met with another puzzle.

"Chief!" a second Cortana said half a second after the first did.

As if seeing each other for the first time, the two identical beings who both appeared to be Cortana recoiled from each other in alarm, pointing an accusing finger at the other.

"You!"

The Chief started forward, determined to break up a fight were it to occur. There were now two Cortana's before him. They looked identical in every way, and were even acting and behaving the same way.

"Chief!" one Cortana said. "She's trying to trick you!"

"She's even copying my voice!" the other said. "Don't let her fool you!"

"Hold on…" John said, holding his hands up. "Each of you tell me something only Cortana would know."

"That won't work, Chief!" the first Cortana said. "I'm made of data! Everything I know, she knows!"

"Don't listen to her, Chief!" the other said. "She's just trying to make you doubt yourself! You can figure this out, Chief!"

John squeezed his fist around the hilt of the Covenant energy blade still in his hand. He couldn't tell the two of them apart. One made logical sense, the other was trying to appeal to his humanity. Both were traits that Cortana exhibited. How could he decide which was which? If he made the wrong decision…he will have killed her. With his own hands.

What was he supposed to do?

"Explain what happened then," the Chief said. He needed more information, and the real Cortana could at least give him that. "Explain how Ruin trapped us here."

"I don't know, Chief," the second Cortana said. "This might not actually be the Domain. She could have simply created her own mock-up within her ship's computer."

"That's not what happened!" the other said. "She couldn't have deceived me with that, but what she could do was isolate you and bring you into a mock-up Domain. Everything you experience would be of her design!"

John felt like he was spinning down a rabbit hole. What was he supposed to believe if everything around him could be conjured according to the Didact's will? How could he make a decision that could effect Cortana's life?

"Kill us both, Chief," the first Cortana said. "I'll sacrifice my own life so you can take her out."

"Cortana…" John said in despair.

"It's the only way," the second Cortana said, nodding. "The only way to be sure…"

John wavered. If only one of the figures before him had suggested sacrifice while the other had denied the option, it would have left him no doubt as to the real Cortana. But they were both arguing in favor of the noble option. The Didact of Ruin must have analyzed Cortana so well as to predict her actions.

The Chief deactivated his blade. There was no way he could do what they were suggesting. He would not kill her, even to end his enemy. The very thought repulsed him. No…he had always been able to find a way. There had to be a way out of this…

That's when he noticed a flicker of triumph in Cortana's eyes.

In both Cortanas' eyes.

Of course! Ruin had been counting on him being unable to strike down his partner!

He stepped up to the second Cortana and pressed the hilt of his energy blade against her stomach and activated his blade with a snap hiss.

KSSHHHHH!

Within an instant, her image simply vaporized, like a deactivated hologram.

The first Cortana gasped in surprise. "You…you did it! You did it, Chief!"

John turned and stepped over to her.

"Now let's find a way-"

KSSHHHHH!

John plunged the sword through the first Cortana's stomach.

Her eyes widened in disbelief.

"Ch-Chief…?"

"Neither one of you is the real Cortana…" John voiced coldly, before withdrawing his blade and letting the facsimile fall to her knees.

As if on cue, her image flickered and distorted, revealing the quavering form of the Didact of Ruin, convulsing in pain as she clutched the gaping wound in her stomach. She turned her head up to fix the Spartan with an enraged expression before letting out a ferocious, monstrous howl.

"RAAARRRGH!"

The force of the scream was enough to throw the Chief onto his back, rolling away onto the…floor?

He looked back up and found that he was on Ruin's ship, in the weapon control bay where he had just been. Out the window, Halo still blazed, parts of its inner ring still burning, though the Spartan did notice that the image of Halo was shrinking, as if the ship was pulling away from the ring. Around him, warning bells still sounded as the ship began to shake violently, as the ship's hull groaned violently.

John slowly got to his feet. "Cortana, tell me you can read me."

"Chief! Is that you?" Cortana's terrified voice sounded over the intercom, her face appearing in the lower corner of his HUD. "Oh, thank God! The Didact of Ruin found some way to simulate my data signature! The node thinks she's me! I can't kick her out! And she has as much control over the Domain as I do! Whatever you do, don't try to access the Domain until I can figure this out!"

The Chief nodded and instinctively made his way to the door. If he couldn't escape through the Domain, he would have to find a way off the ship the old fashioned way. "How did she manage to trap you?"

"She didn't!" Cortana explained. "She trapped you! She cut off all our communications, so she could target you without letting me get near you! All she had to do was remotely detonate the terminal to get you to come rushing right to her! There wasn't a thing I could do about it!"

The Chief stumbled as the entire ship buckled and shook, holding out his arms to stabilize himself, before continuing.

"Don't worry…" Cortana said, sounding distracted. "I'm laying down a virtual hardline. She won't be able to separate us anymore as long as we're in the Domain. But that doesn't mean that she's not a threat. Stay out of the Domain until I can find her."

"Was that really you back there?" John demanded.

The Chief mentally cursed. Even now, he was a liability to Cortana.

"The first time around, yeah," Cortana admitted. "Glad you figured it out. I wasn't sure what she was making you see, but I'm really glad I didn't have to fend you off. I could have probably done so in a way that would have left both of us mostly unharmed, but the distraction would have been more than enough to leave an opening for Ruin to attack."

John let out a sigh. That was the closest he had come to doing something he didn't want to even think about.

"I'm glad too," the Spartan nodded. "What's happening to the ship?"

"While you were stuck in there, I took the liberty of hacking into the ship's engine controls and sending it on a course away from Halo to put it out of firing distance," Cortana reported with a hint of smugness in her voice. "I may have pushed the ship's engines into overdrive in the process. The Fall has taken such a beating from its fight with the Infinity that the stress from the engines are tearing the ship apart."

The Spartan kept his pace down the corridor.

"Where's Ruin?"

"Still in the Domain," Cortana said with a hint of trepidation. "I can't get to her, wherever she is. The Domain thinks that she's me, and every query I run to locate her just turns up my own location. I have control of the ship, but she's still here, and she's still dangerous. I don't think it's a good idea to let her stay where she is."

"What do you suggest?"

"The ship's engines will overheat soon," she said, a hint of mischievousness in her voice. "With a little persuasion, they could easily be made to go critical. Again, not an original plan, but we know it'll work. I doubt she'll stay hidden if we threaten to destroy one of her greatest assets as a Didact."

The Chief un-holstered his gun as a trio of Promethean Knights rounded the corner and took aim.

"Just point me in the right direction.


Cortana continued to scan the Domain while the Chief made his way to the engine room. She left a couple subroutines behind to fly the Epimethean and concentrated her focus on locating her target. She couldn't understand how the Didact of Ruin had evaded her. Even if she had managed to copy Cortana's code, she should still be able to find her. The Didact of Resignation had pulled something similar when he'd boarded the Epimethean. Could he possibly have had some kind of backdoor in place? It had been his ship once.

Could the Didact of Ruin have something similar on her own ship?

It made sense. It also made sense that, if the Chief had tried to access the Domain within her ship, she would have the power to reroute him to a local server. John was so inexperienced with the concept of existing as data that he probably wouldn't have been able to notice the difference. That would have further accounted for her inability to find him for that brief amount of time.

Brief, in the physical world that was. To Cortana, who could calculate in seconds what would take a person hours, it was like an eternity. To not know what had happened to the Chief, to be completely cut off from him, unable to detect his presence anywhere… His ascension to Didact had meant that the two of them were forever linked. No matter where one of them ventured, within the physical realm or the Domain, the other could sense them. For that to be stripped away…

Cortana was snapped out of her reverie when she received a warning alert from one of her subroutines. She had left a fragment of herself within the ship and withdrawn the rest of herself completely into the Domain. She had left that fragment with simple instructions – to ping whenever she herself accessed the ship. If the Didact of Ruin registered as Cortana, then the fragment would recognize the friendly signal and send an alert. This alert would tell the real Cortana where the Didact was.

Unfortunately, it would also alert the Didact herself.

"Heads up, Chief," Cortana warned. "It looks like she's heading your way."

Cortana watched and waited. As long as John stayed out of the Domain…

One of Cortana's peripheral sensors flinched and she instinctively dashed away from where she had been lingering just in time to avoid an explosion of data that would have crippled her! The attack had come completely out of nowhere! She scanned the periphery, but couldn't see any sign of her assailant.

"Come on out and face me," Cortana taunted, getting into a ready position. She was decked out in full Promethean armor and had two bolt shots in either hand. "I promise I won't bite."

The only sound to greet her was Ruin's aggravating laugh, her voice high pitched and witch-like.

"Ahahahahahahahaha! Is that the best you can do, Ancilla?"

Cortana smirked, keeping her eyes peeled. Ruin thought to divide her attention with dummy data clusters which mimicked her voice. But Cortana had sensors everywhere, and Ruin couldn't get within striking distance without tripping one of them. If Ruin thought to take her by surprise, she had another thing coming.

"Well, it was enough to take out the Didact of Revolution," she shot back.

"The Didact of Revolution was a fool!" the voice responded. "But don't act like you had anything to do with his downfall! That was all the doing of your pet human down there…"

Cortana gritted her teeth. This banter was getting her nowhere. She needed to find Ruin, and as long as she kept her distance like this, she had plenty of room in the Domain to stay hidden.

"You'd do well not to underestimate him," she scoffed, her subroutines working overtime to pick up any discrepancies in the Domain. "Or me."

The Didact laughed again.

"Ahahahahahahahaha! You? What's there to underestimate?"

Ruin suddenly appeared before her, standing tall in defiance, her dark armor glinting with violet highlights, her frame lithe and skeletal, her head adorned with cornrows running down the length of her scalp, her face marred with numerous piercings.

"You're nothing more than a pale copy!" she laughed. "A shadow of a real person, who thinks she can still be what she once was!"

Cortana let loose a hail of fire from her bolt shot, which blazed through the Didact's form, her image dissipating into the void.

An illusion! Another dummy data cluster, this one simulating an actual approach.

"What's wrong?" the voice crowed, from seemingly all around her. Nothing about the signals return signature could be traced to any one point. "Still haven't figured it out? Still can't see just how pathetic you are?"

Cortana smirked. "Is this your attempt to get under my skin, Didact? If so, it's rather pitiful."

The Didact's image appeared again behind her, slowly stepping towards Cortana.

"What skin? It's not like you're a real person, after all."

Cortana reacted instinctively, spinning and letting loose another hail of bullet fire, sending Ruin's image bleeding off into nothingness.

"Poor little Cortana…" the voice taunted. "All she wants is to be a real girl… She keeps following the Chief around, trying to be useful, trying to be helpful, hoping against hope that he'll notice her…"

Cortana clenched her teeth. It was obvious what she was trying to do, but that knowledge did little to soften the blow. As apparent as the ploy was, Cortana could not deny the truth behind those words. Where was the Didact getting this information? She had to block this out!

"All she wants is for him to hold her in his arms…" Ruin teased in an infuriating, sing-song voice. "To treat her like she's a real girl. Maybe if he does, it'll all come true! They'll fall in love, march home from the war, and they'll both live happily ever after!"

Cortana scanned the Domain for any sign of her tormentor, but she found nothing! The ship was untouched, the node was untouched, everywhere she looked, all she was met with was emptiness.

"When all she really amounts to is a useless, petulant, self-important little glitch, trying to find a purpose that just doesn't exist!" the voice jeered. "She can't accept that she's just someone else's mistake that won't stay dead! She doesn't even realize how much of a burden she is! She doesn't even realize just how useless she is! How much better off everyone else would be if she just disappeared!"

Cortana had just about had enough of this.

"Oh, shut up!" she shouted, firing off her bolt shots in random directions, hoping desperately that somehow a stray shot would reach her.

"He's tired of you, you know?" Ruin egged her on. "When I plucked him from the Domain, I took a peek inside his head. I know what he really thinks of you!"

Cortana ran out of ammo, and drew more, heavier weapons from the Domain to let loose round after round of heavy weapons fire into the void.

"He's sick of you! He can hardly stand you! He wishes to be rid of you! To him, you're nothing but a tiresome nuisance, constantly nagging him and getting him into trouble! 'Chief, do this! Chief, do that! Chief, come and save me cause I'm just too weak and helpless to protect myself!' If he wasn't duty bound to work with you, he would have forgotten about your pitiful existence long ago!"

"Shut up!" she shouted, hoping the noise at least would drown her out. "Shut up! I said shut up!"

She couldn't take it anymore! It was as if the Didact knew exactly what she feared, knew exactly how to hurt her! How had she managed to gleam such insecurities? Cortana had barely had the time to come to terms with what had happened to herself, let alone defend herself against such doubts.

"Why?" Ruin mused, appearing before her once again in all her smug arrogance. "You know I speak the truth. Deep down, you know just what he thinks of you. You know how much he despises you! You know how much better off he'd be without you!"

Cortana did not even bother trying to dispel the illusion she was presenting her. She was too weary, too angry, too caught up in her own insecurities to care anymore. What if she was right? What if, behind the bombardment of barbs, there was a kernel of truth to the Didact's words?

"Think about it…" Ruin went on. "How many times has he had to throw himself into danger because of you? How many times has he risked his life because of you? How many times have you put him in harm's way just by being you?"

Cortana felt like an enormous weight was crushing her down. She couldn't deny the Didact's words. She had put the Chief's life at stake more times than she could count! And he had risked hell and high water for her sake, again and again! How could she possibly be worth that much devotion? How could she possibly think she deserved that? When all she was was this empty shell of a person, a failed attempt to create a real being, a ghost, a shade, a pale shadow of what she should have been?

Cortana didn't even have the presence of mind to notice the illusion subtly shift into the real thing as the dummy cluster received her source data and expanded. She couldn't even be bothered to block as the Didact of Ruin raised a deadly, clawed hand to pierce her through the chest of Cortana's armor…

"Cortana!" a voice called out, "Move!"

Cortana's eyes flew open, and she flung herself backwards, the Didact's deadly claw missing her by nanometers!

The Didact of Ruin looked around, trying to find where the Chief's voice was coming from.

"What?" she screeched. "How did that meddlesome…?"

Cortana regained her footing and looked around.

It couldn't be…

It couldn't be him.

Could it?

"Chief?"

"Cortana…" the Chief's voice sounded in her head. "I can't believe you'd let her get to you like that. Do you honestly believe a word she's saying?"

"I…you…" Cortana stammered, feeling shame wash over her. Once again, he had to come in and rescue her, just as usual. "How…?"

"You told me that Ruin was coming my way," the Spartan explained. "When nothing happened, and you didn't respond, I decided to check in on you."

Cortana's cheeks flared. "I thought I told you to stay out of the Domain!"

"Forget about that!" John snapped. "Get your head together, Cortana! I don't care if you've been copied from someone else! I don't care what you used to be! I don't care how many times I've had to rescue you, because you've saved me just as many times! And I don't care how many times I have to remind you - I need you, Cortana!"

She could feel warmth and comfort flowing into her from their connection in the Domain, his sympathy, his support, his endless compassion and confidence. He was her strength. He had always been her strength. She needed him. She had always needed him. But what she had never been able to appreciate was just how much he needed her.

Until now.

"Cortana, I was lost without you…" he confessed, his voice low and raspy, as the pain kept at bay these past six months finally surfaced. "And I need you to come back to me…please…"

Cortana felt her shame dissipate into sorrow. But with that sorrow came relief. The Chief had risked the Domain just to come to her aid. Again. She felt such overwhelming grief that he had to stick his neck out again for her sake. But all the same, his words were a welcome relief. They had driven home just what she meant to him…and that was something Ruin couldn't take from her.

The Didact of Ruin was indeed a devious adversary. She had actually managed to make Cortana doubt herself, to make her question her own belief in the Chief. But John had arrived to quell those disbeliefs in the nick of time.

And now, Cortana had regained her confidence.

She would never doubt him ever again.

And she wasn't going to hold back anymore.

"Thanks, Chief…" she said, standing tall and facing her foe, who was still looking around in confusion. "I've got this."

"Alright then…" John's voice said, sincerely. "Let me know when you need me. I'll be waiting."

"I know…" Cortana smiled.

Then she fixed the Didact with a deadly glare. She wasn't going to get away now.

"Alright, bitch!" she sneered, catching her attention. "You've had your fun. Now it's my turn!"

Ruin let out and enraged snarl as she lunged for Cortana, energy blades materializing on both arms. Cortana nimbly dodged, rolling away to materialize two Covenant energy swords.

The two of them dueled back and forth, plasma ricocheting against plasma, data bouncing off of data, neither warrior able to overpower the other. The two of them locked blades, each glaring fiercely into the other's eyes as their swords crackled and hissed.

"Hey, Ruin…" Cortana taunted. "Guess what?"

Ruin tried to shove her back, and made it about a step, the two of them still locked into place.

"What?" she demanded.

"I still own the Domain…" Cortana smirked, before looking up. "Computer: disable Promethean energy blades."

Ruin suddenly fell back as her swords vanished, like they'd never been there, and she rolled back to avoid Cortana's swords.

Cortana stood over Ruin as she regained her footing. "It's over, Ruin…"

Ruin attempted to flee, to disappear once again into the Domain, and seemed to vanish from sight.

But Cortana had a lock on her now. All she had to do…was search for herself.

"Computer!" Cortana shouted. "Authenticate Construct: 00-Luminous Chime!"

"Error," the node translation software responded. "Duplicate detected. Purge duplicate?"

"Confirm purge!"

Ruin appeared out of nowhere, thrashing and flailing, as she broke apart into a thousand chunks of data, before her data was expunged out of the Domain and into normal space.

"Head's up, Chief," Cortana said through their connection. "You've got company coming."


The engine room of the Fall of Ignorance didn't look so much like an engine room as much as it did a depiction of the fires of hell, three of its four engines blocks erupting plumes of fire, smoke and molten slag. Red lights flared and warning bells chimed and the ship's hull buckled and shook from the intense strain of the engines slowly exploding.

John ducked under a falling girder as he took aim with a Promethean incinerator at the final engine, when Cortana's face appeared on his HUD.

"Head's up, Chief. You've got company coming."

The Spartan looked around for the telltale sign of particles materializing, and was rewarded with the sight of the Didact of Ruin manifesting in the air before him.

She turned her head to scan the surrounding area just before locking her gaze on the Chief. Her eyes burned with hatred, and her lips curved into a wicked, angry snarl.

It was just about then that gravity took over and she fell.

Right down the main engine shaft.

"YEARRRGH!"

The Didact let out an earsplitting scream and thrashed her arms and legs, tumbling end over end, reaching desperately for the rim of the catwalk, just beyond her reach. It was futile – cut off from the Domain, unable to procure so much as a single item to save herself with, nor escape into its protective void, she was helpless. She plummeted down the unending pit towards the churning mess of liquid metal, combusting accelerant and radioactive shrapnel that was the remains of the ship's main turbine.

The Chief watched her fall until she disappeared from sight, heedless of sparks flying around him and the sections of ship exploding at random.

"Had company coming," he commented with an amused snort. "Did you do that on purpose?"

"Nope," Cortana quipped. "Materialization is usually accurate to within a meter, but the fact that she was forced out of the Domain probably threw off her reentry."

"Less work for me…" John said dryly, before holding up an arm to shield his eyes from a blinding explosion that took out most of the wall. "A little anti-climactic though."

The ship was tearing itself apart, the stress of the three failing engines already doing irreparable damage to its hull. The engine room was as hot as a sauna, and even the Chief's Didact armor was beginning to feel the heat.

"Sucks to be her," Cortana snorted in scarcely concealed contempt. She could feel Ruin attempting to re-enter the Domain as she fell, and Cortana felt a sadistic joy as her subroutines systematically denied her entry.

Then, a moment later, the re-entry requests fell silent.

Cortana took a breath.

"You ready to blow this joint?"

John took aim at the last engine block and primed his last round.

"Thought you'd never ask."

Moments later, the two of them rematerialized once again on the bridge of the Epimethean, peering out the main viewport to watch the Fall of Ignorance erupt into flames and shrapnel off in the distance.


To be continued...

Next chapter to be posted on March 25th

OR

On the day this chapter receives its 26th review