Chapter 2: Familiar Faces
/STORY START/
The fragment of the ring on which Six and Kureha stood had crash landed near the Zelletelio forest, not far from the city where Sinon and the others GGO players were teleported.
As for the ring itself only the initial fragment where the single player campaign took place in the original version of the game had landed on the ground.
The rest of the ring stood approximately 1 kilometer above the forest, it's shadow was so big that encased nearly all the forest except for the eastern side of it where pieces of new aincrad had landed when the event later known as Unital Ring point 0 had happened some minutes earlier.
Along with the parts of new aincrad that landed in the forest was present the twenty second floor on which stood Kirito and Asuna's log house.
[Remnant of Zeta Halo 17:50, one hour after Unital Ring point 0 happened]
Six and Kureha stood in what remained of FOB charlie the section of the ring they were on was splitted in several fragments during the fall to the ground, in the distance they could see that the larger island on which were located the house of reckoning and the silent auditorium had crashed several kilometer from their position in what they supposed was the center of the forest.
With a loud alarm sound the main terminal of FOB Charlie sprung to life, ''alert, enemy aircraft detected! alert enemy aircraft detected! '' shouted the fob bumb AI, and with a ferocious roar the two saw a banished warship that was crashing inside the forest.
''We should keep an eye out for banished recon teams, i'm sure that they will search the area near the crash site before anything else, check your gear we need to find an operational fob to understand what's happened to us'' said Six ''I'm right behind you'' said kureha as she checked her ammo reserves.
As Six opened his TAC map he noticed that the forest where the parts of the ring had crashed was named Zelletelio forest, this was strange because in halo there isn't a place with such a name, when Six reduced the map size he discovered that the map was way bigger than he could imagine, there were big gray areas labeled as UNKNOWN and the only information available was ''reach the destination the discover it''.
''Hey K, is your map the same as mine?'' asked Six to Kureha, ''yes i have large areas with the UNKNOWN label on them'' answered Kureha.
While the two were checking their maps they heard the familiar sound of a phantom approaching their position, and in an instant banished troopers were attacking them.
''Get to cover they are coming!'' shouted Six as he was taking an M9 HE-DP grenade out of his belt, ''I see grunts and jackals with a few brute captains coming to our position'' said Kureha as she was fiering precision shots with her MA40 assault rifle.
''Attention Spartans enemy reinforcements incoming'' chanted in unison their personal AIs
As the phantom unloaded his troops Kureha noticed 2 elites ultra activating their active camo before disappearing into thin air.
''Camo elites pay attention to your motion tracker!'' shouted Kureha, as Six was gunning down grunts he heard footsteps behind him.
As Six checked his sides the elite ultra deactivated its camo and with a ferocious battle cry swinged its energy sword towards Six whom managed not to get a direct hit but was still hit in the side, the hit consuming all of its energy shields, ''I'm hit, need a hand!'' shouted the spartan, ''Six hold on I'm coming'' said kureha as she started sprinting towards her partner while laying some well placed ar shots on the elite, as the elite was stunned by the cover fire of Kureha and now unshielded Six took the opportunity and unholstering his combat knife he performed an assassination move on the disoriented elite.
''That was a close one, the bastard took out my shields and i felt what is like to be nearly stabbed by an energy sword'' said Six, ''next time pay more attention you moron, you almost got yourself killed!''said kureha, ''I'm lucky i have my warrior princess protecting me'' said Six with a smirk under it's helmet, ''You are unfair!'' said kureha pouting, ''now let's get moving FOB Echo seems to be operational and It's only 700 meters from here'' said Six.
[Outskirts of Zelletelio forest, near Zeta Halo Remnants 18:07]
Sinon had been walking in the forest for half an hour and to her surprise she encountered very little monsters ''maybe those islands crash landing in the forest scared them'' she said to herself.
After getting out of the town sinon wanted to check one of the islands that had fallen from the enormous ring that was over her head, she was curious to see what was inside of those giant artificial islands, and judging by the tray of gigant metal looking pillars that was near the road she was crossing, she was going in the right direction.
After some minutes of walk an icon popped up on her hud, ass she opened the map she was greeted with the message new destination discovered with the name ZETA HALO written in english letters instead of japanese kanji, ''this is odd, why is it written in english?'' she thought, but her thoughts were short lived as she heard footsteps coming her way.
On the artificial hill made of the same pillars she saw on her way to this strange Zeta halo location Sinon noticed two figures clad in what looked like futuristic power armor: the first figure looked more carefree, it was wearing a pink armor that had cat ears on the helmet, the second one instead looked more careful, it was about 20 cm taller than its counterpart and had a gray armor with red details, in his arms what looked the biggest assault rifle Sinon had ever seen.
''This is strange, they can't be GGO players. I was the only one to come this way and I've never seen their gear… hmmm, maybe they are npcs but it's rather unlikely, i should approach them'' Thought sinon while loading a fresh mag into her beloved Hecate II.
As the two got closer Sinon pointed her sniper rifle and shouted ''freeze! Leave your guns and put your hands up where i can see them!''The two figures suddenly stopped and watched as the girl with blue hair that told them to stop was aiming a big sniper rifle to Six's head.
''Sinon, is that you? '' said Kureha with a confused tone, ''how do you know my name, who are you!'' gasped Sinon, ''it's me Kureha, we played together in the last squad jam, remember'' said Kureha as she took off her helmet, as her helmet was in her hands her HUD changed, its wasn't the Halo infinite that she had grown accustomed to in the last 3 days of playing the game, this hus was reminiscent of the one from ALO.
Sinon was confused, she recognized her friend from GGO but she was in some strange power armor with a big unknown man at her side, this made her worry for her friend, ''Hi Kureha, why are you in that strange armor and who is the man at your side, also i didn't remember you being online in GGO when we got in this place'' asked sinon with a concerned voice, ''i wasn't online on GGO because i was playing another game the name it's Halo Infinite, and the one at my side is my boyfriend Six, we played GGO together sometimes if you remember, we were playing together when Zeta Halo the big ring above us was teleported into this world and the damaged section where we were lost its integrity and crash landed into the forest.''answered kureha.
''We should get to FOB Echo before nightfall, we can't spot the camo elites without light and we haven't unlocked the threat sensor already'' said Six, ''he is right Sinon we should go to the FOB it's a safe zone and the marines will defend it against the banished patrols''said kureha, ''wait before i forgot, when you log out your avatar remain in the game, and also what are marines and banished?'' asked sinon in a perplexed tone, ''the banished are the main enemy of halo infinite, their leader Escharum is located inside the house of reckoning
That big building you can see at the horizon, our goal in the game was to defeat him and the marines are soldiers of the UNSC, the same faction we are part of, they are NPCs, now we must hurry to the FOB explanation can wait, first we have to sort out this situation.'' answered Six, ''ok lead the way'' said Sinon.
Once at FOB Echo Six and Kureha took their helmets off and started discussing with sinon about how they got into this situation.
The three of them came to the conclusion that all the VRMMO were mashed in a big game and that they would log out for the day and seek information about everything.
''I'll call you as soon as I know if this has happened to Kirito and the others, ok Kureha?'' said sinon, ''sure we will start to search and see if there are any news about this'' answered Kureha, ''are you sure we are safe in the FOB?''asked perplexed Sinon, ''FOBs are equipped with autocannons and a marine fireteam, they will defend our bodies while we are offline'' answered Six.
After that they all logged out.
/STORY ENDS/
To be continued in Chapter 3: Revelations
AN: thanks for reading the second chapter of Halo: Unital Ring, this story is very fun to write but I will be very busy in the next few days so don't expect a chapter at the same speed this came out.
As for lore i buffed up the FOB to be more of a ''safe zone'' where players can rest, in the next chapter i will introduce the more complex stuff from unital ring, such as the progression system and all the other staff, kirito and friends will finally make their appearance, feel free to review of ask a question i will answer as soon as i can
SixSpartan signing out