When the two entered the beam of light of the gravity lift, they were pulled upwards into the cruiser. What awaited them looked like hell came through.

Ruby gasped in horror at the state of the gravity lift chamber, where many of the vehicles and consoles lay in ruin, smashed or burnt. Blood covered the entire room, and corpses of various shapes littered the floor. Several infection forms were crawling about, seemingly ignoring the pair. Oddly enough, The parasite appeared like it was busy preparing something as the infection forms darted to several corpses with the intent of converting them.

Ruby shot Flood that was near along with Chief as they heard Cortana spoke soon enough. "We should be able to get into the ship's control room from here." The two then go as they go through an opened door. Well, open was a very loose term as the door had basically been ripped open and was covered in both Covenant blood and Flood gunk. "The Covenant Battle net is a mess. I can't access the ship's schematics. My records indicate that a shuttle bay should be... here."

As the two readied their weapons moved to the next section of the ship. Only stopping when encountering the Flood. The two humans noticed that some Flood forms were dragging dead bodies somewhere rather than infect them on the spot. Entering a cargo bay, they saw a few deactivated vehicles that recently seen combat. One Wrath had a Flood infected human pulling a dead elite out its driver's hatch.

"Oh god...what are they doing?" Ruby asked, disgusted by this as they watch some Flood combat forms drag bodies and leaving behind blood trail on the way.

"The Flood are gathering bodies," Cortana answers grimly. Thinking why these undead alien zombies were doing this. "Just look in the corners.

"Why are they doing this?" Ruby asks, trying not to throw up at this.

"I'm not sure, and I don't like it," Cortana lied. She did know from the records in Halo's control room. But didn't want to say it to horrify Ruby more.

The two stopped talking when they heard a gunshot. Ruby saw it came from Chief, who just shot and killed the Flood that tried to run and attack them. "We would half to fight our way through anyway." Chief simply said as he puts his pistol away.

"Yeah," Ruby nodded, agreeing as she readies the shotgun she traded her simper earlier form. The Flood forms below stopped what they were doing and attacked them.


On another part of Halo, a group of Covenant soldiers held off a large Flood gathering with everything at their disposal. Things were looking grim, for their Phantom had yet to come into view to extract them. Grunts holding Fuel rod cannons and Jackals needlers or plasma pistoles while the three Elites, two miners, and a Major fired plasma rifles and a carbine.

One Grunt began to panic then. "There's too many of them! There's too many of them!" He yells while firing desperately at the combat forms.

"Shut it and fight!" The Elite Minor yells as he fires still. Like the others, he refuses to be one of the undead threats turning both the Covenant forces and the humans into these abominations.

A flood jumped high and was about to kill the said Minor, but three needles from the needle rifles hitting the Flood, killing it.

The Major looks to see who fired and saw a Zealot in red armor approaching them. It was Mraso'Haramai, joining their fight with more Grunts supported by a single Jackal with a needler rifle.

"Zealot, you have our gratitude in coming to our aid." The Major Elite says and bowls slightly in respect before going back to shooting the Flood attacking them. Their combined forces began to fire at the Flood, holding them back for the moment.

"Your welcome." The Zealot says. "How long till the transport you ordered to arrives? I lost many coming here, and the parasite is everywhere!" Mraso'Haramai warns he had to put down some of his brothers on the way here since they got infected.

"Should be soon." The Major says, but then large plasma fire came from the sky upon the Flood.

The Zealot looks up and smiles. "Good." The Zealot says pleased, as he fires at more combat forms. He was relieved the Phantom came since he witnesses many of his troops running out of plasma charges for their weapons. A few more minutes would have been dead to become one of the parasites.

The Phantom came over them and activated its gravity lift to pick them up. The Pilot was not risking landing since it did not want the parasite to board.

Seeing this, the red Zealot acted. "To the ship, move!" He orders as he and the Major provides covering fire for everyone. The Covenant forces quickly entered the gravity lift one after the other fast. As Mraso watches his troops withdraw onboard the Phantom, he spots a lonely Grunt trying to make a run for the lift only to come up short when a shot in the leg, causing him to fall and yell in pain.

"AHHHH! THAT HURT!" The Said Grunt says in pain. He looks back to see a Flood spore crawl to him to pounce. The Grunt screams and braces himself on his death. Which never came when a blue energy sword appears in his vision. He saw its wielder slice through the Flood in half. The grunt saw that it was The Zealot.

"Come on." The Zealot used his free hand to pick him up and put the shocked grunt over his shoulder. "No more shall be left behind for the Parasite," Mraso'Haramai declared. He rushed for the Phantom and disposed of the wounded Grunt in the Gravity Well.

Once all the soldiers were on board, The Phantom lifted off as the Flood tried to shoot them with the various weapons they posted. One had a human rocket launcher and managed to blast off one of the Phantom's turrets. Still, the surviving Covenant ground troops had got away to fight another day. The Zealot activated a comlink in his wrist as he contacted the Spec ops unit.

"This is Mraso." The Zealot spoke. "Did you retrieve it?" The Zealot asks, he was talking to his forces he sent to Truth and Reconciliation.

"Affirmative," the Spec ops officer responded. "We have it. We are getting it out now, but we will need a pickup." The Spec ops Elite reports.

"Understood, I will have a phantom sent there personally." The Zealot says as he deactivates his comm unit and then turns to the Pilot. "Pilot, land our forces to one of our outposts, then head straight to the Truth and Reconciliation." The Zealot orders to the Pilot.

"Yes, sir." The Pilot responds as he increases the speed of the Phantom.


Back in the Truth and Reconciliation, the Spartan and Huntress duo fought through the ship's endless corridors till they entered another shuttle bay. "Looks like another shuttle bay. We should be able to reach the control room from the 3rd level." Cortana says while still having a lock on Keys.

Captain Keys heard their voices. Barely having any humanity left from whatever this thing sucking out of him. It took a lot out of his mind and began to turn entirely into one of them. He still tried to be defiant with that last of his humanity as a tentacle slithering into his eye.

As they reached the hatch, a message came in from the CNI link that Cortana was following, one from Captain Keyes. The message conveyed a weak and slurred voice.

"I... gave you an order, soldiers! Now pull out!" Keys ordered, sounding like he was suffering while giving that order to them. But through it, he was more worried for his soldier's safety than his own. In Ruby's option might be a better military man, if not better than General Ironwood himself.

The hatch opened, revealing the first level of the shuttle bay. On a raised platform connected to the first level was a shade turret, manned by an elite minor, along with two other elites and a jackal sniper. The sniper called out a warning, alerting the Elites to the presence of Ruby and John.

"Oh no! What's going on with him!" Ruby asked worriedly as she and Chief were taking cover

"He's delirious!" Cortana says in the most worried tone since finding out about halo Chief, and Ruby heard. "In pain! We have to find him!"

"Yeah! Come on, we can't leave him!" Ruby shouted as she throws a grenade at an Elite. The Elite only saw the explosive for a moment before killing him and making him fly off the edge to the bottom floor with a splat.

Chief threw a plasma grenade that stuck to a grunt's head. Before it blows up, the grunt panics, killing him, flipping the shade turret, manned by an Elite minor, along with two other Elites and a Jackal sniper.

"Good toss!" Ruby complements before going back to fighting.

Chief bearly spares a glance at the girl before training his rifle on a group of grunts. He wishes Kurk was here with him. He had a thing for smelling out a trap and feeling for when something wrong was going to happen. What may be happening to Keyes worried him and What Ruby's reaction to what they might witness.

They fought through two levels of the shuttle bay and the surrounding corridors fighting through Covenant fire teams and Flood forms. Each step brought them closer and closer to where Keys was being held. Then, they heard Keyes scream over the radio.

"The control room should be... this way! Hurry!" Cortona sets a Nav Marker on a nearby hatch.

"Come on!" Ruby runs forward, shotgunning any Flood that jumps in her way as Chief follows suit, firing a pair of captured plasma rifles. The hall was filled with gunfire as they kept advancing to Captain Keyes's location. Still, as they were nearing the ship's Bridge, Keyes was losing.

The Voice in Keyes's head chuckles then as Keyes now getting hard to breath as blood leaked from his mouth as the pain was unbearable.

"You held well...but it was...for nothing."

Keyes screamed in agony as all traces of humanity leaving as he was soon under the Monster control then.

They heard Keyes scream over the radio.

Hearing this, Cortana started to panic, along with Ruby but Chief kept calm, but he had regret as he knows what might happen to keys.

"The Captain!" Cortana shouted out, alarmed, "His vitals are fading! Please...Chief, hurry!"

Ruby yells in defiance as she fires one last shell into an inflected Elite before bursting into a cloud of petals. Speeding to the Bridge fast. Chief raised a handout.

"Ruby, wait!" Chief calls out, but it went on death ears. As if expecting, Chief and Cortana heard Ruby scream, something that echoed down the halls. Chief sprinted as fast as his armor pushed him on to the Bridge. There up the main platform, he saw a shaking Ruby. She had her hands covering her mouth, her shotgun lay on the ground and forgotten as she looks at something in horror. That something was clearly Flood, a new bulbous, immobile form, which seemed to connect itself next to the controls and had tentacles extended to all parts of the room. It didn't react when the Chief moved closer to the pair to see the unknown Flood form and follow the CNI signal.

Ruby was shuttering. She swore by all that she witnesses beforehand. This was the most horrifying thing she's ever seen right now. "He-he-he's-"

"No human life signs detected," Cortana said, then added in a remorseful and regretful manner, "the Captain's life signs just stopped."

Chief lowers his gun while looking at what remained of the Captain. He may be calm, but he wished this did not happen to Keyes.

Ruby felt tears run past her cheeks as she heard Chief ask about the CNI, with Cortana replying that it was still transmitting. Then she saw Chief clench his fist. However, she noticed that it was only a moment after Cortana had spoken and that he was looking at something on the flood form. She followed his gaze and looked upon the partially absorbed and decayed body of Captain Keyes, grotesquely distorted and covered in the pale Flood skin. Despite being mostly fixated on the agony on Keyes' face, Ruby spotted the remains of many other faces, human and covenant, scattered all throughout the surface of the flood form.

Chief knew they needed Keyes neural implants. He clenched his fist and turned to the horrified Ruby. His next orders ere a very commanding tone, more than usual mood. "Ruby...Turn away NOW."

Ruby obeyed immediately and turned away. He drew back his arm and plunged his arm into the face of what remained of Keyes. He punched his way through momentary resistance until he finally felt his hand enter the partially dissolved brain. He then felt for and found the implants that Keyes used to hold his codes.

He pulled out of the wound, making an awful popping sound, ignoring how Keyes' face was now just a hole. After shaking his hand to get the spongy gore off of the implants, John slipped the implants into some spare slots in his armor.

Ruby shuddered at the noise. Knowing what Chief did, she almost empties out her stomach.

"It's done," Cortana said somberly. "I have the code. We should go. We need to get back to the Pillar of Autumn. Let's go back to the shuttle bay and find a ride."

John nodded before turning back towards the destroyed body of Captain Keyes and saluted. 'Thank you, Captain."

Ruby watches this and mimics his moments. "Goodbye, sir."

Then, several doors opened at once, with a host of Flood poured in as if summoned by the unmoving creature. Comprised various flood forms, made up of combat forms, carrier forms, and infection forms.

Ruby waisted no time before burst into petals, only to reappear using her energy sword on any enemy that got in close. While Chief fired them down from the high ground, killing them as they came.

The door they came in opens and reveals a Covenant Spec Ops team.

"For Captain Keyes!" Ruby cries out as she thrusts the sword throw the Elite's energy shield, armor, and skin, killing it instantly. She would make sure she and Chief survive this and make sure the Captain's death won't be in vain.

They engaged by more groups of Covenant spec ops, both Elites and Grunts. What made the spec ops group significantly more dangerous than the remains of the Flood horde in the room was the fact that every grunt was armed with a fuel rod cannon and was blowing up everything they saw.

With them distracted fighting each other, John took the time to reload his shotgun and exchange his spent plasma rifles for an assault rifle. Before meeting up with Ruby, who had fallen back.

"Chief, you trust me?" Ruby blurted out, half surprising the Spartan.

"What are you planning?" John asked, recognizing the facial expressions on Ruby's face as her concentrating on something.

Something crazy," Ruby answered. "Give me your hand!" Ruby extended her left hand to the Spartan. The Master Chief looked at it before glancing at the growing number of Flood and Covenant troops pouring into the Bridge. Wordlessly he grabbed hold of the girl's offered appendage. "Hold on!"

Ruby activated and extended her Aura to cover the two before bursting into red and sage colored rose petals. Quickly, the two flower clouds forced their way through the halls again. Confusing more than a few Covenant soldiers along the way.

Meanwhile, two Spec ops elites had an advanced orbed-like object attached to his waist. A few black armored grunts followed behind for support. One of them carried a heavy communicator that radioed the Zealot and made onto the bay with the least Flood force in it.

"Sir, we're at docking bay 12 and waiting for retrieval! How long till your Phantom reaches us!?" The Spec ops elite asked.

Zealot heard him and answered he will be arriving soon. Outside, two Banshees aimed for that hanger with his Phantom following behind. "We're heading to the bay now. Prepare for extraction." He reports.

"Understood." The spec ops replied and slightly relieved. This mission was very high risk in a very undesirable environment. Never thought he missed fighting the humans. But soon turned into worry as they heard weapons discharge on the other end of the hanger.

Moments before.

Like Halo's teleportation grid, John felt light-headed and disoriented when Ruby activated her Semblance. There were some significant differences, like he was aware and could see everything around him. The sight of the shocked looks from the Covenant troops was slightly amusing as they speed past them. He wanted to bring his knife out to slash at them as they rushed past but strangely couldn't for Ruby was driving this...whatever it was back the way they came from.

As quickly as it happened, it dissipated, and Chief felt whole again. He slightly stumbled before getting his barning's and found they were just outside the hanger.

"Well, that was something new," Cortona remarked. Having experienced everything through the Chief's implants. A low groaning caught the two attention to look down to see a down Ruby on her hands and knees. The Spartan was at her side in an instant.

"Rose, you alright?" Ruby nodded her head tiredly.

"Yeah..." Ruby responded as she was out of breath. "Never had to travel with that much mass before...your really heavy Chief, you know that? My sister tells me I need to cut back on the cookies, but your the one in need of losing some weight." Ruby joke.

Cortona openly laughs at the jab at the Spartan while the Chief was unbothered by the insult to his mass. He reached down and lifted Ruby back onto her shaking legs. "You alright?"

Ruby steadied herself. "Yeah, just give me a moment...Today's been rough, and I can feel my Aura is low. Just need a breather and maybe a snack to be back up."

A now familiar roar of horror echoed down the passage they came from, making the Humans turn back.

"All in favor of getting off this nightmare infested ship?" Cortana interjected.

AYA!" Ruby quickly said, suddenly no longer feeling tired as she grabbed her shotgun.

The Spec-ops squad spotted Ruby and Master Chief rushing out of a hatch leaving behind several Flood forms in their way. They raised their weapons and began to fire, with Grunts joining in, firing their fuel rods.

Ruby activated her Semblance once more and turns into roses and goes out, surprising a few elites and grunts still that they stopped firing in confusion. That was a mistake as Chief fired when coming out of cover, killing one grunt while wounding the other Elite. That roared in anger and frustration. He took out his energy sword and charges at Chief, who takes out his combat knife once his gun ran dry.

Ruby turned back into herself and engaged the other Elite on a sword duel. The Huntress glared at her opponent with a calculated before spotting something different hooked on the Spec ops waste. 'What's that?' Ruby thought but had no time to think about it as the Elite roars and tried to behead her. Ducking under the attack, Ruby sent some of the few slivers of her Aura left into her legs, giving herself a boost. She sped past the Elite, taking the weird Device with her...but left something for him as she gave the Elite a smile.

"Bye-bye," Ruby says with the Artifact in hand.

The Elites' eyes widen as he looks down to see an active plasma grenade on him instead of the Artifact and blowing him to ash. Ruby turned to Chief and saw him remove his knife from the Elite he was dealing with, pulling his knife out of his eye. Chief saw a device in Ruby's hands before she put on her belt. Before he could ask Cortona about what Ruby has, a plasma bolt impacts his shields, making them flare in a golden light. He and Rose took cover, huddling behind a few Covenant supply crates for a moment before glancing out to see what was attacking them. They saw the plasma fire coming from a phantom outside the open bay doors.

"Blast them!" The Zealot yells to the grunt on the turret and Elite Pilot to fire. He saw the ending of the engagement with that red cape human taking the Device off his man. He takes a needle rifle from the Phantom's small armor rack and fires at the Demon and his Red cloth wearing partner.

As for the two Banshees that escorted his Phantom, they flew into the bay. Unknowingly to them, the two banshee pilots were giving Ruby and Chief the perfect means of escape. Zealot Mraso noticed and roars. "Fools!"

Cortana smirked. The two Elite pilots just gave them their ticket out of there. "Perfect. Grab one of the escort Banshees, and we'll use it to return to the Pillar of Autumn."

Ruby looks at the Covenant Phantom and sees a familiar foe. "Chief! I see that Red Zealot! The one that gave me my scar!" Ruby points to at her enemy before turning to Chief.

"Focus, Rose, we can't fight him now. The mission takes priority. We're going to take one of those Banshees that just land out of here," Chief explains to Ruby.

"But-" Ruby tries to counter-argue.

"I'm out of ammo. Your low on ammo, and we need to extract before we're surrounded. Fall in!" Chief orders.

Ruby slightly gritted her teeth but understood where he was going with this and agreed with Chief's point. "Yes, Chief. But, I don't know how to drive one..." She realized the plan and pouted sadly at the Spartan. "I'm going to hold onto the wing again, aren't I?"

"Yep." Chief simply says, unknowingly popping the 'p.' "You will sorry," Chief says, apologizing as he and Ruby go then.

The Covenant pilots the hanger were about to enter the hatch to head up to the upper levels before they heard a voice. "Hey!" They looked up just in time to see the red-caped human jump down and cuts one in half. The other was about to shoot her, but the next second, the Pilot had his neck snapped. Chief got into the banshee with Ruby hopping on the wing. Together, they exited the shuttle bay and into the night sky, avoiding the plasma rounds fired at them. Chief fired a massive green plasma blast at the Phantom. The Zealot avoided the heat while the Grunt gunner was killed and the turret rendered useless.

The Zealot gets up and sees the stolen banshee fly past. Spotting the red cape girl hanging onto the fighter on its wing. A glare of pure determination adores her scared face. Mraso gave one that promised death to the human female. Short as it was, the stare down they gave each other was intense.

"Follow them!" The Zealot angrily orders, he will get that Device back and kill that red-clothed human.

At another Location, Guilty spark was flying with a wing of sentinels with him. It has calculated what the beings will do anything in their power to try and stop his Halo ring from firing.

"They will use the ship to try to destroy my installation...that will not happen." Guilty spark said optic glowing red for a second then turning back to blue.

The Flood was also heading to the Pillar of Autumn, a voice in all their heads telling them to.

"All, Will become us...all Will become one." The Dark voice says as the massive flood force was going to the UNSC warship.

All Major factions unknowingly converge at the Pillar of Autumn. The fate of the future will be fought there. The Huntress Ruby Rose and Spartan super-soldier Master Chief John-117 will have to face many hostiles if they wish to stop Halo from firing and the Flood from leaving.

But in the end, what was it going to cost.

As with Chief and Ruby, hanging onto the Banshees wing, Ruby was thinking. Her mind wanders back to that Zealot. Will he come after them? She was sure he will, and when he does, she will be ready for him and settle the little score with him for the scare he gave her.

"Ruby," Chief says through her com. "We should reach the Autumn soon." He says.

Ruby unclipped the damaged helmet off her head, letting it fall into the darkness below. a look of determination adorns her face. "Good."


Note: Heres the next chapter! And now all the Big Bads are assembling and Chief and Ruby will be through one of the most tuffest battles of there Lives.

Also just asking this for fun, in the Arc of Halo 1 combat evolve of this fanfic who would you all Say is the main antagonist? Guilty Sparks? The Flood? Or The elite Zealot Mraso'Haramai?

Also i like to thank Helljumper206 for helping me edit