Ok, this is rather a long one, because of an Exposition dump, so apart from that, not much timewise happens, next chapter will see all the good stuff.

I will admit, I basically had to rewrite this chapter, as I forgot to enclude Qrow, and he changed everything from te first time i wrote it, there will be more notes at the end this time beacuse I don't want to spoil things.

Feel free to Review, I am always open to suggestions and queries, but make sure you read the post notes first.

I own neither RWBY or Halo, they are properties of RoosterTeeth and 343 Industries respectively.


The group played for a couple more hours, Qrow surprised at the amount of times Ruby won, but she and Blake noticed that she lost more often, ever since Qrow joined, she seemed to be getting more bad hands than before, making it seem like she was just really lucky before.

It was just Qrow and Ruby left in the game when a surprising sound filled the room, causing everyone to pause. It sounded again as Ruby looked down to see that her tac pad had beeped. She checked it, as a UNSC signal popped up.

"That's strange…" She said, brow furrowing,

"What is it?" Yang asked, asking the question everyone was wondering,

"That can't be right…" Ruby muttered, "I'm apparently receiving a UNSC signal."

"What? You sure?"

"It's using the same frequencies and encryption schemes."

"Well let's hear it." Qrow told her, curious.

she hit play and heard a familiar voice. "Mayday, mayday. This is UNSC FFG-201 Forward Unto Dawn, requesting immediate evac. Survivors aboard. Prioritization code Victor 05-3-Sierra-0117, and Arbitor" She furrowed her brow as Yang and Blake looked at each other,

"Hang on guys, I need to take this." Ruby told the family group before heading outside

"Forward Unto Dawn this is Sierra-Beta-312, hearing you loud and clear, I'm grounded on a non-UNSC or Covenant planet, can you reach me? Over."

"Sierra-Beta-312.We receive you, but we're currently without the ability to change our trajectory due to a slipspace incident. We're currently headed towards a planet with a shattered moon. We have escape pods but the rest of the ship will land in the ocean next to a large continent stretching to the southern and northern hemisphere of the planet. Sending you a beacon, are you there?"

"Affirmative, that is the planet I'm on, on a small island on the west coast of the continent." She replied, looking at the map, right in the middle of the sea between Vale and Vacuo, at least no-one would get hurt. "When is your ETA?"

"Approximately 2 hours from now, I'll try and triangulate your position, are you clear for landing?"

"I'll be clear by the time you get here, see you then."

"Copy that Sierra-Beta-312,"

"What's going on?" Yang asked as they all stood up as she re-entered the house,

"Some friends managed to get themselves stranded due to a slipspace accident, and their ride is landing in the sea between Vale and Vacuo, currently they're trying to triangulate my position to land an escape pod." Everyone stared at her, waiting to explain further, "Meaning, we need to get out of town and somewhere quiet for him to make planetfall."

"When?" Tai asked, unsure about all of this,

"As soon as humanly possible, I don't know how much that construct boosted my signal, but it's gonna take a while for them to lock onto it, and we have 2 hours until planetfall, so, let's go!" she opened the door and gestured to everyone to go outside, Yang and Blake both rushed out with Tai and Qrow still hesitant.

"Come on, we haven't got all day, I'll drive." After a hit more convincing the two of them finally came as Ruby jumped into the front seat of the car, and gave a quick "Hang on!" before the car gave out a squeal in protest as it slammed into 3rd gear and sped down the drive, and out of town.

"Hey! Careful on the gears!" Tai exclaimed as they shot off,

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing dad!

/

An hour and a half later they were sitting in an empty plot of land, watching the UNSC frigate fall to the planet, in all its flaming splendour. It was a massive hunk of grey metal, and as they watched, Ruby noticed that it was only the Tail-end, which explained why they couldn't adjust, no flight deck meant they were sitting ducks.

"It's the Tail-end…" She said loud enough for everyone to hear. "What kind of slipspace accident caused the entire front half to be broken off?"

As they continued to watch, a small cloud of smoke burst off from the rest, heading towards them, when it had cleared, a metal pod, in the shape of a cockpit, with a parachute and windbreaks on its sides was what was coming towards them.

As her TAC pad calculated a trajectory, it said that it was going to land and come to a stop a few feet in front of them, so she gestured to the others, "Move back a bit, it's coming in hot." It slowed down to about the speed of a moped before landing, skidding the last few feet before coming to a halt. The door to the craft opened as a suit of green and black armour with a golden visor, as soon as he got out, Ruby instantly saluted out of habit.

"At ease, B312," The cool voice from the distress call dismissed as she relaxed, "You're officially KIA, no need for formality… And yet here you stand before us, taller than when I last saw you, might I add, and with company. May I ask who they are?" A hologram of a blue woman appeared on the man's upturned palm with a data chip inside. Though the avatar was naked, no inappropriate parts were present, as if she was modelled not to have them.

"You're the AI that I gave to Keyes."

"Yes, I am, CTN 0452-9 or Cortana, It's nice to finally meet you properly."

"Yes, it is." came her reply, and she was about to say something more before Qrow intervened.

"Whoah, whoah, whoah," he began, waving his hands, "Ruby, you mind telling us who these people are?" He asked looking at Ruby,

"Right.." Ruby nodded, "Sorry, Everyone, meet possibly one of of not the most well decorated member of the UNSC, The Master Chief Petty Officer of The Navy, Sir, this is my family." She gestured to each of them in turn, "My uncle Qrow, Taiyang Xiao Long, Yang, and her partner Blake,"

"I thought the Spartan III candidates were all orphans…" Cortana said, digital face scrunching up in confusion.

"Well, turns out this is my home planet," Ruby began. "My mom was something known here as a huntress, kind of like government run mercenaries, and died on the job when I was really young.

Being a toddler and not realising the true implications of this, I ran away looking for her, when I was found by this weird floating orb, from that civilisation you were studying, actually." She told the AI, causing both her and the Chief to flinch slightly, "And he said something about 'reclaimers not supposed to be here,' and the next thing I knew I was on new Harmony with my adoptive family."

"You mean you discovered a monitor," another voice was heard, this time deep, and gravilly, which could only be the Chief's

"If that's what they're called, yeah,"

"Perhaps they're not Halo exclusive," Cortana suggested, looking up at the Spartan II,

"Halo exclusive..?" Ruby asked confused, "What do you mean by that?"

"A lot has happened in the 4 months after Reach," Cortana told her, "We learned a lot more about the race I was studying, and quite probably put an end to the war."

"You mean we won?" Ruby questioned, trying to make sure she heard the AI correctly.

"Kind of, yes. The prophet Higherarks that ran the Covenant are dead, and their capital, High Charity has fallen."

"Well, what do you mean kind of then?"

"It's a long story,"

"Right," she paused for a moment, before asking, "The distress beacon mentioned, 'The Arbiter', Who is that may I ask?"

Cortana and Chief looked at each other before Chief sighed, "Before you meet him, know that he was instrumental to saving Humanity against the Covenant, and another threat that we will explain when we go into more detail."

"Well, with all due respect sir, if he's so great, when can I meet him?" He nodded as there was another set of footsteps in the pod, as an elite clad in silver armour climbed out.

Immediately, Ruby pulled out her DMR on him, and Yang and Blake reached for their weapons, having put them on in case they encountered Grimm. The Elite froze as Chief called out just as Ruby was going to pull the trigger, "Stand down Ruby!"

Yang, Blake, and Ruby were holding the elite at gunpoint, while Chief and Tai tried to hold everyone back.

"Sir…" Ruby began, "Give me one good reason why you're asking me to stop from blasting this Elite to hell!" she spat bitterly to Chief.

"Because he is The Arbiter." Cortana almost yelled.

The Arbiter spoke then, in a very deep voice, and all four mandibles moved as he did so, "I can understand your anger human, but I have changed. I realise that the Covenant was feeding us lies."

"And why should I trust you?" came Ruby's venomous reply,

"I do not expect you to, but as my friends say, I fought alongside your forces to take down the Covenant and The Parasite. Along with all the Elites of the former Covenant."

"Lieutenant, Stand down." Came The Chief's voice as Ruby lowered her gun a bit, but still held it tightly. "Let us explain."

Cortana took charge. "After The Autumn left Reach, it found a mysterious Ringworld construct known as Halo. Because we were pursued by Covenant forces, we had to make an emergency landing on the ring. Upon reaching there, we discovered that it was made by the same civilisation as the structure beneath SWORD, known as the Forerunners to combat the Flood, a parasitic race that targets all sentient life." Ruby nodded as she continued. "When the Covenant attacked us on Halo, they discovered a facility with the Flood inside, accidentally releasing it and causing widespread panic throughout their forces. We used this to our advantage, getting back Captain Keys, who was captured shortly after landing, but then we realized the danger of the Flood, it is a species that gathers all the knowledge of that that it consumes." A weird, almost squid-like creature with tentacles and feelers was summoned up next to Cortana.

"If one of these infection forms gets inside a sentient host, it mutates it, bending bones and reforming them into combat forms all while rapidly decaying their flesh."

More images appeared, of twisted, morphed marines and elites, appeared next to her, all with feelers sticking out from somewhere. "As they gain the knowledge of the people they infect, they gather biomass into a central location to form what's known as a Proto-Gravemind. This causes the flood to gain intelligence at an alarming rate, and changes them from something feral into something coordinated." A huge bulge of biomass appeared, tendrils sticking out in all directions, while legs of the latest victims hung out from beneath it.

"It was at this point we knew we had to destroy the Flood before they got to this stage, so set about firing Halo. It was only then, that we found out, how, Halo destroys the Flood. It doesn't destroy it, it starves it, by eliminating all life within 25,000 lightyears by destroying their Central Nervous System with Gamma radiation." Ruby nodded, taking this in.

"So we set about destroying Halo, and we succeeded, wiping out the flood as well. Chief and I made it back to Earth, where we were getting celebrations for our victory when a small Covenant fleet suddenly appeared. We fought them off, leading the Prophet of Regret to performing a slipspace jump in atmosphere. Chief and I quickly followed, managing to follow through their slipspace rupture to another Halo ring. it turned out that there was an entire array throughout the galaxy that could all be fired to wipe out all life within the galaxy. The Covenant believed firing them would start the Great Journey, causing them to ascend like the Forerunners, who obviously died when the rings were fired.

We killed the Prophet of Regret, but were forced underwater by a bombardment where we were saved by a Gravemind, the next stage in a Flood's infection. there had been a containment breach on this ring seemingly, and it had accumulated enough biomass from the wildlife that grew there. The Gravemind also pulled down The Arbiter, convincing him of Halo's purpose. It bargained with us to stop Halo from being fired, so we helped it out, seeing as it was in all of our best interest."

It was here that the Arbiter spoke again. "It was around this time, that the Prophets changed their honour guard from Elites to Brutes, saying that we couldn't protect them any longer. This caused a rebellion of The Elites. As I met up with them, we stopped the Firing of Halo only to find out it had been left on standby, allowing the entire array to be fired from Installation 00, Also known as The Ark."

"Chief and I were hunting down The Prophet of Regret, before I had to get left behind on the Covenant station High Charity, which The flood was starting to infect, having hijacked the ship we arrived on, to ensure that the ring could be destroyed.

As Chief and The Arbiter returned to Earth, they found out that there was a Forerunner ship on Earth that could take them to The Ark. After fighting their way there, defeating The Flood that had come through on a Covenant Carrier, I managed to get a message through to Chief saying that this was their only shot to stop the Flood, Which had now migrated to High Charity, and was on their way to The Ark."

"Upon Entering the Portal to The Ark on The Forward Unto Dawn, the Master Chief and I made our way to the Control room of The Ark after retrieving Cortana, where the Prophet of Truth was in the process of firing the rings. We made another truce with The Flood to stop the firing of the rings, upon doing so, however, The Flood stopped us from evacuating, forcing us to fight our way out."

"A Forerunner AI let us know of a Halo ring being built, a replacement for the one we destroyed, so, after making our way to the control room on the ring, we fired it, causing it to shake itself to pieces, and The Flood to be left without a food source on The Ark, quarantined within High Charity. We escaped to The Dawn where we set a course for the Portal to Earth, but as we were passing through, it closed on us, causing the ship to be ripped in two and drift in space, where we found this place." Cortana finally concluded their explanation.

"Ok, How did you end up on Halo?" Ruby asked, gesturing to The Arbiter.

"After becoming The Arbiter, I was sent on a mission to hunt down a Heretic to The Covenant, he had The Oracle, which is to say, The AI in charge of the Installation they destroyed. Upon Interrogation on High Charity, The Oracle revealed how to activate the rings. So I went with a team to secure The Activation Index before The Prophets ordered my execution, and I was knocked into a pit where I was rescued by the parasite."

She finally lowered her gun, and gestured for the others to do the same, as she thought everything over. After about a minute's pause, she finally spoke up again, "You may have saved all life in the Galaxy, but I cannot forgive your kind for what your kind have done."

"Were it so easy." Was all the Arbiter replied with as Ruby sighed,

"I suppose you want my explanation now, don't you, sir?"

"You'd be right," Chief spoke up again,

"Well, after I handed Cortana over to Keyes, and assured The Autumn's departure, I wandered around Reach until I found a bunker, I hid there until the glassing was over, and roamed around the dead planet, trying to find a way off, All the Banshees were too high, and any craft left on the ground was unusable." The Arbiter visibly stiffened for a moment,

"So I kept wandering until I found what I can only assume to be another Forerunner structure, based on what you have told me, and there I encountered an AI, he offered to repair, and upgrade my Armor, while giving me further augmentations to get my body in peak physical condition. After the process, he offered to use the available portal network to send me to another planet, but as they started up the portal, I realised, that something I thought was just a strange dream, had been a memory from my past, taking me through the portal, I wound up here, Remnant, my home planet." she paused before turning to Cortana,

"Since you chose me to be your escort, I assume you've read my file, my strange gifts, 'natural energy shield', 'Ability to turn into a burst of rose petals?'" Cortana nodded, "Turns out there not all that strange here, they're known as Aura and Semblances, Everyone here has an Aura, whether or not it's unlocked however is a different matter, and everyone here has their unique Semblance, my sister, Yang," she gestured to Yang, who gave a small wave, "Can take damage and deal it back double, as long as it doesn't break her Aura."

"Really?" The AI mused, her natural curiosity getting the better of her.

"Anyway, We should probably hightail it before Grimm arrives."

"Grimm?" Cortana asked, perplexed.

"Yeah, a type of creatures that are plaguing civilisation here. While they come in different shapes and sizes, they all share some common traits; they're black, have thick bone plating on various parts of their body, are always feral, and are attracted to negative emotions."

"Interesting…" She hummed, before disappearing as Chief put the chip back into his helmet.

"Uuh, are you sure the jeep will carry them?" Tai asked, worried that the additional weight would cause the car to collapse.

"Yeah, it will just be like your towing a trailer," Ruby assured. "If you want I can go alongside."

"You can keep up?"

"A normal Spartan can run about 34mph in armour. My armour is lighter, and I have a semblance that allows me to turn into a burst of rose petals and move roughly double my top speed. I think I can keep up."

"R-right."

"Actually," Cortana spoke up, "Not only are you not in your armour Lieutenant, but you said this is a Non-UNSC planet right?"

"Yes, they don't even have space travel,"

"Really?"

"Yeah, our main source of power, a product known as Dust, doesn't work off-planet, and we haven't figured out something that is strong enough as a substitute yet," Tai told the AI voice.

"Huh," there was a moment's pause, "Well, I think it would be best that we speak to the governing body,"

"There isn't one body, unfortunately," Ruby replied, "Remnant is divided into 4 kingdoms: Vale, Vacuo, Mistral and Atlas. Patch, the Island were on is apart of Vale, and I just so happen to know a council member for Vale." Her TAC-pad buzzed with an incoming signal, "In fact, that's him now."

She took it out of the strap and held it up to her ear like a scroll,

"Hello?" she answered

"Miss Rose," Came Ozpin's voice from the other end of the line. "Would you have any idea about what I just saw coming falling outside my window into the sea? Seeing as you are much well versed in that area than I am, and arguably, anyone on the planet, is it something we should take as a threat?"

"No, professor, In fact, what you just saw, was the tail end of a Charon-class light frigate from the UNSC, and it had a couple friendlies on board, they would like to meet you, if that would be All right.

There was a pause, before Ozpin responded, "That would be fine, I shall send over a Bullhead, though they are probably going to have to publicly announce their presence before long."

"That's fine, I'll be sure to pass on the message, see you in a few hours."

"Alright, see you then," Ozpin hung up as Ruby transmitted her coordinates, before turning back to the group. "Ozpin's sending a Bullhead to pick everyone up and take us to Beacon," she told everyone, "Should be here within the hour."

"And who is this Ozpin?" Arbiter asked, a little weary of Ruby and her team.

"He's the headmaster of Beacon Academy, a School that trains Huntsmen and Huntresses to fight Grimm, each kingdom has one, and their headmasters are given a seat on that kingdom's council."

"I see…" Cortana murmurs, pondering the new information.


Ok, ok, I know, I know, having Chief is one thing, but the Arbitor too? seems crackish in the case of this fic, but, I did want this to be a part of it, and I have a way for them to be re-established back into the proper Halo Canon, and leave Remnant alone for good, just some minor adjustments to be made to the OG canon. but we needed this to discover some of the secrets I have planted, and Cortana gives the right insentive to dig up those secrets, as well as Ruby being at peace, no longer having to worry about The Covenant coming and Glassing Remnant out of no-where.

That and some good ol' Character groth and acceptance of The Arbiter and Elites in general, still has a grudge against Brutes though. So, look forward to discoving how Remnant is seperate from UNSC control, and what becoming a Sheild world has done to it.