Title: Forest Spirit

Pairing: John-117/Kelly-087

AN: Wrote this like a year ago after the E3 gameplay, before the game was delayed a year, and when I was theorizing that the open world aspect of the game could lead to a companion system. Thought I'd post it anyways.

John's warthog bounced across the landscape of the Halo, passing by Forerunner structures and the wreckage of UNSC ships. He was trying to ignore the carnage around him, stay focused on his objective and not the loss. Particularly his own losses. He had to keep pushing forward, focusing on the communication towers. He needed to link up to a few more and network them with the head quarter's network. That would allow the pilot he'd conscripted into helping him stop the Banished to sort through the data and find some hints toward the possible location of useful targets and hopefully a cartographer.

"A lot of the same information from that last tower," the pilot's voice informed him over the comms.

John didn't respond, trying to stay focused on the path ahead of him to the next tower. The pilot wasn't the worst ally that John had ever had but he was more cowardly than most he'd worked with. Once informed of the stakes the pilot had been willing to help but he was certainly not a field soldier. He would have preferred to have Linda scanning the data, using her eagle eyes to find key words. He wanted Fred watching the horizon from the rear mounted machine gun, allowing John to focus on avoiding debris. He wanted Kelly sitting shotgun with him, theorizing off of the information Linda found. He had to keep himself of thinking of his lost team. After the events on Requiem and his reunion with his family he'd hoped to never lose them again. He tried to push all the weight that their absence aside and steel himself to push on.

"Oh, here's something new," the pilot said, catching John's attention. "The Banished have a supply storage area north of here and something has been attacking their convoys. Only one soldier has survived an attack by whatever it is. Said it was invisible, attacked from all sides, and killed his team in about a minute." The pilot paused for a moment as he read more while John hit the brakes of his warthog, waiting to hear what else the man found. "The guy said it heard a bang as loud as a mauler and the other members of the patrols just dropped. He ran and I guess it let him run. Get this, they're calling it the spirit of the forest."

"You said north of that tower?" John asked, his hands gripping the steering wheel as he tried to temper his expectations.

"Yeah, in the forest not far north of that one," the pilot answered.

"I'm going to investigate," John informed the other man. He hit the gas and turned his warthog toward the north.

"What?" the pilot sounded stunned by John's choice. "It's probably something forerunner so shouldn't you avoid that area?"

"Sentinels use beam weapons that don't sound like maulers and Promethean enemies use weapons that disintegrate enemies so there would be no bodies to see fall," John informed him.

"So if it's not forerunner but attacking the Banished it might be UNSC?" The pilot theorized.

"If I'm correct then it's a secret weapon that will make all of this a lot easier." John slowed as he neared the forest, searching for whatever path the aliens had been using. If the Spirit was attacking convoys then that was the best way to find it.

"Well then I hope you're right," the pilot said with a light chuckle. "I'll be happy for anything that makes this easier."

John silenced his COMM for the time being, letting himself focus on scanning the forest for any hints of his target. He should have expected there would be nothing but he had hoped. A dangerous thing for a man in his position. He traveled for almost a mile before he found a road that cut into the forest, likely the road the Banished were using to transport supplies. He turned onto the road, being cautious as he could run into enemies at any time. He reached a patch of the road where there were some fading burn marks and John stopped his vehicle. He got out and started to search, finding some splatter of blood and a couple of spent mauler shells. He guessed this was the location of an ambush on a convoy and he moved into the forest.

He searched for any hint of his target but there was not a single hint of anything to give him any leads. He'd almost moved out of view of his warthog when he heard the familiar whir of covenant engines. He turned back to the road to find a trio of hovering cargo mover parked near his jeep. John ducked down, keeping low as he edged his way toward the road to assess the situation. An Unggoy and Jiralhanae had gotten out of the transport and were approaching his warthog.

John eased his way up to the road, watching as the Unggoy approached the jeep's driver side. John checked to be sure there were no other enemies coming from the other transports. When he was sure he'd have the drop on them John raised his pistol and fired, hitting the Unggoy directly in the head. He unloaded shots into the Jiralhanae until it dropped. He turned just as a second Jiralhanae was getting out of the second transport when there was two loud bangs and the brute fell, no sign of what had killed it. John was sure the sound had been from a mauler so he assumed he'd found his forest spirit.

And it seemed the Unggoy agreed. Three more had gotten out of the second transport and were clearly panicking. "The forest spirit," one of them screamed before he started to run away from the transport. John heard a thud and the body of the now dead Unggoy came flying out of the forest and impacted the side of the second transport. The Unggoy cowered and John swiftly dispatched them with a single shot to the head each. The third transport was starting to back up but he wasn't about to let it go so easily. He tossed a plasma grenade and it stuck to the front of the vehicle and exploded, taking it out. More Unggoy came out of the back of the vehicle and John had taken out two of them while there were a few more blasts of the mauler and the enemies all lay dead in a matter of seconds. John was impressed, even he hadn't seen anything. No wonder the Banished had thought they were under attack by something supernatural.

"Seems they were on their way to salvage and not on the way back," the "Forest Spirit" said from where she was looking into the back of the front transport. John took a moment to look over her armor, noting the scuff marks and slight burns here or there. But beyond some minor damage the light blue EVA armor was better than an entire reinforcement fleet appearing. "I like it when they do the foraging for me." She turned to look at him, cocking her helmet slightly to the side. John didn't say a word, unsure of even what words to say. "I'm glad you survived too," Kelly said, replying to the words he couldn't find. "I hope you've got a plan and I haven't been stock piling loot from these Banished for no reason."

"You've got a stock pile?" John should have expected that Kelly would have been busy.

"This way," Kelly said, walking away from the transport and toward the forest. John moved after her, not surprised when she started to jog. John raced after her, sprinting to try to catch up to her. Kelly started to sprint as well, easily pulling away from John as he tried to speed up to keep her in sight. She moved up a hill and John saw an opportunity to close the gap. He shot his grappling hook up and into a rock near the top of the hill, allowing it to quickly pull him to the top. His feet had just landed at the top when Kelly zipped past him, leaving him still working to keep up. They neared a large field when Kelly suddenly vanished.

John skidded to a stop, looking around for any sign of where she'd gone. Maybe it was a forerunner cloaking device, or one of their more hidden portals that she was using to hide her stock. He was surprised as Kelly suddenly reappeared in front of him. "Sorry, I'm used to using the active camo around here."

"You need active camouflage? Seems like cheating," John teased her lightly for using the tech.

"I've seen drones around here and even if they're monitor controlled I think one tried to kill you a few times so I decided caution was ideal." Kelly turned and started to jog across the field, this time letting John keep pace with her. They reached a thick cluster of bushes and Kelly pushed her way through them, John following on her heels. "I have a few of these around."

John stepped into the small cave and he was surprised to find how much she had stocked. Weapon crates, food supplies, some medical supplies, and even some heavy ordinance. "Banished must be running lower on stock than they'd like us to know if they're gathering human weapons," John commented, moving over to a crate and opening it to examine the MA5B rifles inside.

"So how was your landing?" Kelly asked, moving over to a medical crate and starting to grab supplies out of it.

"I didn't land," John answered as he picked out one of the assault rifles. "A pilot picked me up in a Pelican. It was shot down by some AA guns but I've made a home base. The pilot is running logistics for me using the network of a crashed cruiser."

"Well then I better grab this," Kelly moved over to an unlabeled crate and pulled out a glass bottle. John looked at the bottle, confused as to what it is. "Alcohol is always a good appreciation gift, and I owe that pilot for having your back." Kelly turned away from him and he watched her as she stared at the liquor. "At least someone did."

John attached the rifle to his back and stepped over to Kelly's side. His hand lightly touched hers and she looked toward him. "You have my back now, and this is when it counts. When things are shooting at me."

Kelly shifted her hand to rest against his and she nodded. "That is if they aren't busy shooting at me." John nodded back and moved his attention back to the crate. "Gather useful supplies and we'll head back to headquarters and you can tell me how your landing was." John was curious as to how she'd survived what seemed like certain death. It gave him hope that maybe others had survived. Maybe Fred or Linda were out there somewhere, or Commander Palmer had managed to get Captain Lasky somewhere safe. That could all wait. For now he was just happy to have his Bunny back.