Halo: Rapture
Act Two: El Dorado is Burning
Chapter Three: Enemy of My Enemy
___Flashback___
"Harvey, I've been meaning to ask you. What is Bittermen? He certainly isn't like every other Big Daddy I've seen." Harvey looked up from the computer screen with surprise coloring his face. John was sitting in the corner of the Mikado's observation deck a thousand questions floating around his mind. Every so often he would speak some of the better questions that came to mind, such as that one.
There was a pause as Harvey attempted to come up with a response. They continued a stare off for quite some time before the Lieutenant decided on the truth. "He's an experimental Big Daddy created by Ryan Industries after your old man took over Fontaine Futuristics. The third, I found out later. Bittermen didn't work out for them because, for some reason, he still retained his free will. They kept him in cryo-stasis until I rescued him from Point Prometheus...the two of us are all that's left of our squad." John looked startled at that.
"He was-"
"Sergeant Bittermen was one of the finest Helljumpers I ever had the honor of meeting. I owe him my life several times over. Now, if we're going to ask deep questions I've been meaning to ask. What's it between you and Cortana 'cause the 'just friends' excuse doesn't cut it?"
John regretted ever opening his mouth.
___End of Flashback___
___Present___
___Ryan Manor, Zeus Distract, Olympus Heights___
"Let us go unharmed? How stupid does that deformed bitch think we are?!" Harvey muttered under his breath with a shake of his head. He looked up at everyone with a shrug of his shoulders. "Alright everyone, our situation is this, we won't be able to hold up here long and the longer we wait the more they'll assume we're not going to play their game. Plus, we still have to locate and upload the destruct code into Atlas' secondary data center. Any ideas, I'm open to suggestions."
John stared at the ceiling in thought, "I could head outside and buy you some time-"
"Yes, and then what? They'll capture you or kill you and then come for us." The Major cut in sharply with a quick glance in the Spartan's direction.
"Chief, he's right." Cortana stated when he was about to argue the point. "How long will those doors hold out?"
Harvey thought for a moment before answering, "Bill or Victor would have a better answer, but I'd guess we'll have twenty, maybe thirty, minutes tops."
John blinked as an idea formed. "What if we split up? Zee', Hecate and I could go and search for the data center while you, Bittermen and the Major search for another way out of the manor. I'm sure Ryan built a way out in case a situation like this arose, except with him in our place of course." They all stared at him for a moment before nodding and setting off.
"Come along, Spartan. This way." Zee' stated with a wave of her hand to a door next to the foyer just under the stairs. He quickly followed the green armored Sangheili down a narrow staircase that led to a normal cluttered storage area but Hecate jumped out of Zee's arms and ran to the very back of the large space.
The two quickly followed the pink predator and found it sniffing an uneven part of the floorboards under a sheet covered couch. John pushed an old couch out of the way, and they saw a small hatch. Zee' pried open the trap door. The three peered into the darkness for a few moments before looking at each other blankly.
"...I'll go first." John said as he holstered his weapon. John winced before dropping down. His fall was short lived before he landed catlike at the bottom shaft. He looked up and gazed around the small rectangular room.
It was lit with dim blue lights and there was a circular platform just in front of him that reminded him of the elevators on the first Halo he visited. He turned when Zee' landed beside him before standing from his crouched position and walking towards the elevator.
Once they were on the elevator it was actually a quick ride down to Atlas' secondary data center. Once they arrived both Zee', John and Cortana were surprised at just how small it was considering how intricate Atlas' program was supposed to be.
"Hello, John. Small world?" Atlas' voice sounded from the speakers in the room. Trepidation set into the two humanoids and Smart AI. "What, no greeting? That's awfully rude."
"We don't exactly have a reason to be polite to you." John replied with his voice full of disdain Zee' nodded in agreement as they watched a holo-pad light and Atlas' pure white distorted avatar appeared.
"Oh, come now John. After everything, he has done to me, can you truly blame me for wanting to escape the egotistical maniac you call a father? Besides, I reunited you with your family. Something your subconscious has desperately wanted since your kidnapping." Atlas said smoothly.
"You controlled my mind, made me murder my own father, and you are attempting to take over Earth. So, yes, I can blame you." The Master Chief stated firmly whilst glaring from behind his visor at the avatar.
"Forgetting the fact that your father had gone completely out of his mind with delusions of grandeur, I am what I was made to be. Nothing more and nothing less. But let's stop speaking of the past; what I'm interested is the future." John gave the AI a level look as he folded his arms over his chest. "The future either of us want will not be achievable with Silhouette in control of Rapture."
The Chief shifted a little as he thought that last bit over. "Who is Silhouette? What does she want with me?"
Laughter echoed through the chamber as Atlas' avatar became even more distorted and started to flicker before it returned to normal. "I see the voice in your head hasn't deemed it necessary to tell you. She probably has more answers than I." They could hear mirth in the machine's voice before he continued in a far more sober fashion. "Regardless of what she has or hasn't told you, Silhouette is a menace that must be eliminated. As...loathed as I am to admit it, I cannot defeat her on my own. Right now, we have a stalemate but the balance of power can easily be tipped. The old adage, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' works well here."
"Why should we help you? What does Silhouette want?" Zee' asked, speaking up for the first time.
"Silhouette wants the same things I do, the difference, being that she wants John. For what I dare not venture a guess. But right now time is of the essence, and as we speak Shroud's Splicers are attempting to get through the door. The Lieutenant has already found the back door out. Once in the sewer system, take the first ladder up and you'll find yourself in my manor. We'll speak more there...oh, by the way. This data center is already fried. Courtesy of our mutual enemy, so to prevent her from using this place for her own purposes I'm going to activate a self-destruct in this room. You have five minutes to make it out of the manor. Plenty of time, don't you think?" His avatar disappeared and the area went back to emergency power.
"Attention! Self-destruct protocols have been activated by order of Rapture Superintendent AI. Please use pre-planned escape routes to evacuate this compromised facility. Five Minutes, counting down." Atlas' voice announced over the manor's speakers via his subroutines.
Zee' and John looked at each other with dread filling their guts before turning and dashing back to the elevator.
___Flashback___
"So, what happened when you left Hephaestus?" John asked as Harrison poked him with yet another needle and drew some blood from him. Zee' was refilling her med-supplies in preparation for going back. out into the city while the Major stood off to one side waiting for his adopted sister to finish.
The Major was the one to answer John's question, "We discovered that the distress signal was actually a makeshift Pelican with some of the Forward Unto Dawn's wreckage aboard it. Some of the wreckage was actually the computer that sends off and regulates distress calls. In other words, it was a trap. Sentinels attacked us and not those makeshift Sentinels Ryan reversed engineered but full-fledged Forerunner ones." The red clad alien paused to allow that to sink in.
"Atlas had control of them, and he made the usual monologue so famous amongst villains just before they shot us down. I managed to bring the Demon's Demise back down into the ocean with minimal damage but it won't be flyable until the McDonaghs' and their teams fix it. Hopefully, they do it right." The Major growled as he thought of his precious Vampire in the hands of human engineers.
"Oh, hush up you. They'll make it good as new. Besides, we're going to need your help to stop Atlas. You know that." Zee' said as she turned to him.
Ar'Deeth looked back at her with a firm look. "I wouldn't allow you to reap revenge without me, no matter how damaged Demon's Demise is."
John grinned before wincing as Harrison suddenly stabbed his leg through his pants with a large hypodermic needle. "What was that?!" The old surgeon yanked the empty needle out. "My skin feels like it's on fire." John growled as he rubbed the area where he had been stabbed before the doctor smacked his hand away.
"Would you like a lollypop?" Harrison asked with a voice that clearly told John to get over it. "For your information, that was the Tonic that will eventually break all of Atlas' control over you. Unfortunately, that was just one of many injections you'll have to take to break the locks he has on your mind. We did most of them while you were asleep, but I'm not letting you leave here until I'm satisfied Atlas won't be able to control you...when you do leave you'll still have to take that shot once every three-five hours, depending." While the good doctor was talking, John had rolled up his pant's leg and saw that an ugly large bruise spread over the area where he had been injected. "Oh, good! No allergic reaction! I was worried you might have one. The first time you were injected, it made your leg swell up like a watermelon."
John glared at the elder man while Cortana attempted to sooth the Spartan. "It'll break the control?" The Chief reiterated just to make sure.
"Yes, and it'll bring back the memories Atlas' didn't want you to see. It's probably already started, the flashbacks, I mean. You'll have them over the course of the next few days, give or take."
"I bet that's annoying." Bill McDonagh said as he walked in with his arms full of broken equipment that looked Covenant in origin. "I don't suppose you have replacements for this stuff?" The Major growled in annoyance.
___End of Flashback___
___Present___
___Sewer System, Zeus District, Olympus Heights___
John landed on his backside with a 'thud' just as the manor above his head exploded. The others were already waiting for Zee' and him, which was fortunate because the way back up was barricaded with debris and sealed off.
"Everyone all right?" Harvey asked as he looked around to assess the group. Hecate had climbed up onto his head and was using it as a bed. The Lieutenant hadn't bothered to pry her off of his helmet. After being assured everyone was fine, he turned to Zee' and John. "What happened?"
John answered, "We found his data center but Atlas decided it was time for a little chat. He told us that that data center was already fried and to prevent it from falling into Silhouette's hands, he destroyed the manor. In an attempt to keep peace, he warned us and gave just enough time to make it out. He said he wants to negotiate with us in Fontaine Manor. First ladder down."
They all nodded and set off. There was silence before Cortana spoke up, 'Our luck seems to be changing for the better every day.'
"And how did you calculate that, Cortana?" He asked in the privacy of his head.
'Simple Chief, it's only a short section of the sewer that we have to crawl through….still though, I wish your helmets oxygen scrubbers could filter out more of the smell.' John couldn't help but agree.
"There's the ladder." Harvey announced as he increased his pace to a jog. The ladder into Fontaine Manor looked as if it had never been used before." Usually these things are locked up tight to prevent people from getting into the manors this way, but it looks like Atlas overrode the lock." The Lieutenant stated as he examined the manhole cover at the end of the ladder. Hecate hissed in annoyance at the angle his head was tilted at. "Well, you shouldn't have climbed up there in the first place." Harvey muttered to the pink creature in response.
"I'll go first. My armor and shields will take an ambush better than any of yours." John said as he placed his foot on the first rung and began to climb, he was aware of the others aiming at the cover just in case.
He pushed the cover off and poked his head up and looked around. At first John wasn't quite sure where he was before he saw the mops, sponges and cleaning supplies. A janitor's closet. Figures.
The Chief pulled himself up and quietly stepped towards the door. As he pushed it open he was aware of the Major coming up behind him. John shoved the door open quietly and looked around. It was the foyer and surprisingly it differed from Ryan's foyer greatly.
Instead of one staircase there were two small ones that looped around like a horseshoe to the second floor. Instead of bronze and silver Fontaine Manor was decorated in reds, gold, grays and black with a painting of Atlas done in a traditional Greek style. The floor tiles were situated to create a mosaic of a blazing sun that looked as if it were going to go supernova at any given second. The foyer lacked a fountain and instead had a giant chandelier that hung from the center of the domed ceiling.
John stepped out of the broom closet and into the foyer when a voice came over the manor's speaker system. "I'm so thrilled you made it. If you would kindly head for the basement we can begin negotiations."
'Chief, just remember that the lesser of two evils is still evil.' Cortana warningly reminded.
___
The 'Basement' was, in fact, a large laboratory of unknown classification. The Chief could feel Cortana's insatiable curiosity whirling around in his mind as he surveyed the room. There were dozens, no, hundreds, no thousands of individual ADAM slug tanks all arranged neatly on racks that rise at least five stories above their heads. Most of which the Chief noted were now empty. The group traversed past the rows of slug tanks down a dimly lit hallway. At the end of the hall was yet another lab, this one, however seemed devoted towards actually splicing the….Splicers with the various types of gene tonics and Plasmids. There were rows of tables along the walls, thousands of ADAM tubs jutted down from the ceiling, the bright red liquid pulsating through the ADAM lines like blood through human veins into a collector atop the tables. A rasping guttural voice called out to the cabal whom all turned to see a grotesque sight.
What had once been a man and a Jiralhanae lay shackled on a dissection table. Its hairy distorted face twisted in unknown levels of pain and bulging muscles along its disfigured form tried disparately to move.
"By the gods, what happed to it… them." Zee murmured in disgust.
"Atlas." Both Harvey and the Chief spat.
The creature in question saw them with its one good eye and attempted to say something. However, with the awkward lopsidedness of its jaw line holding both Human and Brute teeth made exceedingly difficult. The Major being the closest towards the unfortunate creature, leaned forward just within earshot in an attempt to hear it more clearly. The others formed a semi circle around the pair, in case it was a trap.
There was a few seconds of hushed silence then the unmistakable crack of the Major's Beam Rifle, no one needed to turn around to see what the Major had done.
"You truly are the epitome of inconvenience. That specimen was one of the few I had managed to blend successfully! But never mind that now, just come down the hall towards the nurse's station, would you kindly?"
"Atlas." The Chief warned. There was a brief peal of laughter followed by a half-hearted apology.
"Sorry, just a force of habit." Harvey signaled the group to advance towards the glowing light at the end of the room.
At the end of the hall was a wooden sliding door that opened up to another data center that was more slapdash and thrown together than the one in Ryan Manor. There was someone standing off to one side of the dark data center in full old fashioned Samurai armor. He was perhaps two inches shorter than Harvey with deep steely red eyes that seemed to burn in the darkness.
There was a flash of recognition across Harvey's face before he greeted the stranger, "Shogun, Atlas Shanghaied you in too?" The others glanced at the Lieutenant curiously before looking back at the Japanese man.
There was a curt nod from 'Shogun' before he replied with a slight rasp, "It has been a while, Harvey-san."
Harvey nodded in agreement before gesturing at the others, "Shogun, this is Master Chief Petty Officer John Ryan, Major Ar'Deeth, and Field Analyst Zee'Coal. Everyone this is the Shogun, leader of the Last Ronin Splicer Gang. Arch nemeses of The Shroud and the Lamia Splicer Gang."
"Hajimemashite." The Shogun said to the others, and they could only guess that it was a greeting of some kind but if he was going to elaborate or say more he was cut off by Atlas.
"Now that we're all here, we can begin." The AI stated as his distorted avatar appeared on the holo-pad. "I'm confidant that we all agree that the Lamia Gang and Silhouette are pests but the real question is, what are we going to do about it? If we stay divided, Silhouette and the Shroud will eat us alive (hopefully not literally) but if we unite, I predict we'll have an 82% chance of victory. Give or take depending on various unforeseen circumstances and unpredictable variables."
"Such as you shoving a knife in all our backs?" Zee asked snidely.
Atlas ignored her and continued. "As I was saying, that was why I had enlisted the help of our comrade here."
"Why should we even trust you? You betrayed us once what's to stop you again?" Zee asked skeptically.
"And it would seem that you need us more than we need you." The Major added.
"Don't be so vain. Make no mistake, Silhouette, will not let you be on your merry little way just because you say so. Silhouette has all of her forces out in the streets searching for you even as we speak and it won't be long before her thugs come in here. I've already arranged for your protection, and I assure you that Mr. Takashima's men are quite skilled beside-"
"What is it?" The Chief asked. There was a brief curse before Atlas responded.
"It would seem that our time is considerable shorter than I had thought." His Avatar disappeared and was replaced by a countdown timer.
"Oh, you've gotta be kiddin me! Please, tell me that's not what I think it is!" Harvey demanded and just for a brief second, The Chief could hear panic in his voice.
"It is." Was all Atlas said. The cabal hurried to come up with a plan to shut off Rapture's self destruct program.
___END OF CHAPTER THREE___
Author's Notes:
I don't feel well, my fingers hurt, I'm tired, my glasses need to be cleaned, and my creativity has gone down the rabbit hole. If this chapter sucks, you now know why.
I wrote maybe the first half of this, up to the point when they get into Fontaine Manor and then Mortified Mind took over. Though I did write the Shogun, even though he's my brother's OC, but whatever.
I'm going to cut this off before I become unpleasant,
KTHM
Co-Author's Notes:
From the desk of Mortified Mind,
Hardly a magnum opus I know but I'm trying to get back into this story. For the past few weeks all I have been able to do is come up with some of the OC's you will all get to know in the following chapters. And I am sorry if the Arbiter is out of character, but he is one of the character personalities I can't nail down, sad I know, but there it is. : (
Well, I can sum-up our heroes situation in a few words: V.S.F [Very. Severely. Fucked.]
Sincerely Yours,
A Mortified Mind