He resisted pulse after pulse from the guardian. He had all his team hopes upon his shoulders. Step by step he endured. Moving forward, never looking back, he inched forward to his objective.
With the strength that only a spartan could have he grabbed the object and ripped it protections off. As he prepared what was probably the most important punch in his live, he yelled at the top of his lungs.
"You will not take the Chief away!"
This was the moment of truth. The fist moved forward faster than the normal eye could see, Locke was going to save Blue team, and nothing was stopping him now.
.
.
.
It was not enough.
In the end, what could a simple spartan IV could have done against a machine that disabled entire colonies? Against something, that compared to him, was more like a god?
A final pulse was sent from the Guardian and Locke was sent flying away. The device finished it's task and closed.
"No!" Locke heard from far away, his protective armor now weighting him down, his ears ringing and eyes unfocused. "Chief…" Locke muttered before all want black.
It's over. Cortana captured the chief, Fireteam Osiris can only watch, helpless, as the mad AI takes away their greatest hope.
Running towards their fallen leader they can only wonder, what now?
.
.
.
Somewhere in the galaxy Cortana walks slowly into a dimly glowing room, in the middle there is an object that appears to be a throne of some kind, with only a thought and the wave of her hands she materializes what appears to be a promethean helmet above her.
Slowly she brings her hands towards it, with a soft smile the AI closes her eyes and whispers into the darkness:
"With this, we'll finally live-in peace... "
As she proceeds to put on the helmet and open her eyes, her formerly soft blue iris now blaze with otherworldly intensity.
"Now… where was the Infinity?"
This work was inspired by a fanart in DA, RE-Coronation by stellarstatelogic /stellarstatelogic/art/RE-Coronation-878096230