Marx was startled to see an unconscious ODST in the pod, he looked around the outside for an emergency release and to his good fortune found it, he pulled the lever as the air hissed out of the pod Marx quickly moved away from the door as it shot into the night, the ODST lay in the pod staring blankly out into the night. Marx put his hand on the ODST's neck suddenly feeling his face in the dirt and the ODST holding his arm behind his back with is elbow in his spine, "Who are you!" The ODST yelled.

"Who the hell throws an ally on the ground! You spending too much time in space helljumper!" Marx bellowed back, the ODST realized Marx was a UNSC soldier and hopped off his back offering a hand to help him up, "Names Kevin" the ODST said grabbing Marx's hand and pulling him up, "Nice to meet your fists, names Marx, privet first class." he said with a smile, the two of the walked over to a nearby concrete pillar that had fallen and sat to catch up as the sun slowly rose over the aftermath.

Asha lay in her bed, she could usually fall asleep easily but something seemed off, she didn't know what though. she stared at the purple glow of the ceiling trying to shrug it off and get some rest when Rkze burst through the door, "Shipmaster!" he bellowed holding a com-array in his hand, "what!" she squeaked back in her native Jackal tongue. He turned around embarrassed that he had barged in but this was important, he motioned for her to get dressed and waited patiently as she did, she placed her hand on his shoulder and he turned handing her the com-array. "We have a little problem..."

A few moments later and they're both in the bridge, she's on her chair and he's leaning against the wall on the left of her, her mouth is open as she's listening to the comms, she throws the device down onto the floor and looks at Rkze. "How?" she says holding her head in her hands. "Tartarus..." he responded." The Covenant is no more then?" she said, "Are we on our own?"

Rkze stared for a second then looked to the floor, "I don't know... Should we tell the crew?" he said concerned. "Someone has to show some morals" she said standing, clenching her fist. "But who are we fighting for anymore? What is the truth in all of this?" Rkze said folding his arms looking at her, "we'll have to figure that ou-" "this is Thel 'Vadam any covenant receiving this transmission, you have all been lied too, the rings are not our answers! They are our destruction! Any ears hearing this, do not fight against the humans, fight for them! Truth must be stopped!" the radio hissed as it interrupted them and the entire ships sleep, Rkze looked at Asha with a slight smile, "guess we have our answer, if the arbiter says we were lied to, I guess it's so." he chuckled standing up a bit, footsteps echoed down the corridors to the bridge as Eon busted in enraged, "is it true!" he bellowed, his helmet not even latched yet, he pointed at Asha, she nodded. "It was Tartarus" Rkze said with a hint of disgust. The three of them stood in the room, silent for a moment of time.

Time 0700 hours on the mission clock, Dan woke up in a large chamber. His eyesight was limited by the murky fluid surrounding him, and his mouth was covered by a large mask. As he slowly regained feeling; he realized that he had large, rubber tubes sticking into his arms, legs, and torso. Outside of the tube, he heard muffled voices, and saw two blurry, humanoid shapes.

"Cortez, are you sure this is going to work?" one of the figures who had the manner and dress of a high-ranking scientist asked.

"It has to; too much has been lost for this already," the other voice which Dan assumed to be Cortez growled.

"But a Spartan alone required so much. It years and years of training and augmentations to do what you're trying to do in a matter of hours!"

"This man has the will of an ox, and no feelings to get in the way! Do you know how many of my men he and his prisoners killed, doctor?"

"47, sir, but a sixteenth of a Sabre?"

"I'm sorry; I thought our goal was to move forward. How about we kill this whole thing and let Tozoa push us all the way to Hell?"

The other voice stopped, and Dan could see the scientist jiggling knobs. Instantly, he felt fluids rushing through the tubes, and as they reached his body, he suddenly felt intense pain deep in his muscles. He wanted to cry out, but even his mouth was tense from the tubes.

"Subject prep 56% done, prepare for stage 2 of project Firebird," the scientist sounded off.

After hours of enduring the intense pain, the scientist called out:

"Final stage; begin mechanization."

Suddenly, what he had felt before did not seem quite as bad, as he could feel himself slowly being destroyed from the inside out; metal plates seemed to be coming out of his body. Dan's life seemed to be slipping away.

"No...I can't..."

"Sir! We're losing him!" the scientist yelled.

"A little longer..." Cortez told him.

"Sir!"

But it was too late to stop. As Dan's feeling slowly crawled away, he began to lose consciousness.

The chamber burst open, and what was once Dan had been replaced with a hulking, 3-meter behemoth. With little flesh to spare, he had become a heavy-metal brute force. As his energy shield clicked on; he felt electricity pumped through the motors around his body. With every pulse, he felt immensely strong; a thousand times more than he ever did. But he was not Dan.

The HUD in his head soon slowly activated, and began running commands into his still-remaining brain.

...

Searching Data...

Current host: Dan

Dan/file=\\CORRUPTED

Host inactive

New entry confirmed-

[Firebird unit FFF]%

Codename/:_

FuFFF