-Homecoming-

Blue eyes snapped open in the dark of the pod. Red, titanium gauntlets slamming against the door that sealed her in until it abruptly opened, its sole occupant falling to the floor with a short, but intense, fit of coughing. When she finished, she wiped her mouth and attempted to shake off her dizziness and general disorientation before getting to her feet and taking a look around the chamber she found herself in. She noted that it was empty and featureless, except for five pedestals that each had a weapon or a piece of equipment floating above them, she supposed the pod counted as a feature too. Her gaze settled on the middle pedestal almost immediately, its item was a small teddy bear on a chain, her teddy bear. All of a sudden, the events that led Daisy to this point flashed through her mind. She was supposed to be dead, dead along with everyone else who took part in the battle that day. March 19th, 2528, the third year of The Harvest Campaign, the day she took three needler rounds to the lungs, the day Ralph and those marines perished to fuel rod fire as she lay dying, feebly shooting those elites with her magnum in a desperate bid to save her comrades. In the end, she could only watch as the pelican that was intended to extract them exploded, killing her best friend.

Daisy wiped the tear that formed in her eye. This wasn't the time to think of the dead, Daisy needed to focus on the present and all the weird shit that came with. She tried to make heads or tails of the place she awakened in and utterly failed. Daisy just had no idea what the hell was going on. She decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth though, her being alive and all that Jazz. Nothing to do but look forward and retrieve the rest of the equipment "on offer", so to speak.

Daisy secured her bear to the vent under her combat knife and looked at the far left pedestal. On it lay, or float, her helmet. The last she had seen of it, it had been knocked off her head and the visor had shattered against the concrete, but now? Now it looked good as new, Daisy looked down at her chest plate and saw that it looked like it was fixed too. She put her helmet on, her HUD powering up and running diagnostics, MJOLNIR was fully operational. Her armor complete, Daisy's day had just improved a tiny, little bit. And as she looked at the rest of her, or it soon to be hers, equipment, she felt a bright smile grow on her face. In order from left to right: there was an M90 shotgun, she picked it up and found that it was fully loaded, no extra shells though, she stowed it on her back plate and moved to the next pedestal, on it was an M6D Magnum, fully loaded, no additional magazines other than the two she had on her when she got shot, she holstered it to her thigh plate and moved to the next pedestal, on it was a, 'sigh', a fucking needler! Now, Daisy would argue that she had a pretty well developed senses of humor, the other Spartans could attest to how she would sometimes laugh a little too hard at Fred's dumb wisecracks, but this? No way this was anything other than the universe spitting in her face! A literal insult to injury! With a roll of her eyes she took the alien weapon, she knew firsthand just how well these things could chew through armor, she wouldn't like it though! Same with all the other guns, fully loaded, no additional... clips? Magazines? Crystal footballs? It didn't matter what they were called, point is, she didn't have any extras.

Daisy attached the needler to her other thigh plate, and no sooner than she had, the pedestals sunk into floor, which was promptly pulled out from under her. She fell into the darkness below, she couldn't see, she couldn't tell which way was up, and she had no idea just how deep this hole was. All these questions and more were answered as she soon landed on her ass. Despite weighing over a thousand pounds, the fall didn't hurt all that much, which allowed Daisy to focus on her new surroundings, well, new-ish. This "new" chamber looked exactly the same as last one, except instead of a stasis pod and weapons pedestals, there was a single, weird looking door. And seeing as how there was nowhere else to go, Daisy thought "Screw it!", picked herself up, and walked right on outside!

Her near instantaneous reaction time only barely saved her from falling flat on her face after tripping over a rock immediately after walking out into a desert. Daisy looked around herself, urgently trying to deal with this newest, incredibly jarring experience. She saw that it was dark out and when she turned around she only saw more desert, she could have sworn she had just left a building and she was pretty sure she didn't walk very far... or at all, for that matter. She also noticed that the stars were beautiful tonight, she never really ever got time to just look up and see the world around for what it was rather than just another battlefield. But the stars didn't hold Daisy's attention for very long as her gaze was being drawn to the moon, a shattered moon. It was beautiful in its own way, with its soft, silvery glow and all around uniqueness. Nope, she had never seen a moon quite like that, but it also told her she wasn't on the same planet she was before, which was total bullshit! Her day went from literally dying, to okay, to shit, all in the span of about ten minutes. All in all, just the average for a Spartan.

Daisy really hoped this planet was inhabited, or that this desert wasn't too expansive, but knowing her luck, an atmosphere was all this planet had and it was just another lifeless rock floating about in the cold void of space. "This is probably all ONI's fault." Daisy thought as she scanned the horizon, she found that most problems in her life could easily be blamed on ONI and, to a lesser extent, Halsey, but her thoughts couldn't linger on the organization from which all negativity in her heart originated, she had found a sign of life, smoke, to the west. It could also just be a wildfire, but it did give Daisy a direction regardless. An objective, somewhere to go. She set a waypoint and got moving.

Mission clock read five hours, not a problem, she expected a long walk. The sun was rising, again, not a problem, Daisy wouldn't even feel it through her suit. No, the walking and the climate weren't her problem, but they were factors that directly tied into the problem. To put it simply, she was bored, not exactly the end of the world, but still, it wasn't a feeling that Daisy had a whole lot of experience with. Normally, she was busy being shot at, or evading detection, and even in her rare moments of downtime, there was always training or there was someone to talk to, but this? This was the first time she had ever just simply walked from one place to another, no danger, almost no objective, just walking. This was also only the second time she had ever been alone, only this time she wasn't being hunted by the UNSC. She looked the horizon once more, she couldn't see any smoke, but judging by her waypoint and by how fast the sun the sun was moving across the sky, she would reach her destination by sometime tonight if she didn't stop moving.

"It's pretty convenient that this world has a similar rotational period to Earth." She thought, never once slowing her pace.

The sun had just gone down, mission clock read 18 hours, 13 hours of daylight wasn't too bad. And even better than that? Daisy's constant, relentless pace was paying off. She could hear waves gently lapping at a shoreline, she could see trees, and if she strained, she thought she could hear some shouting as well. She quickened her pace to a jog, eventually working her way up to a run. Daisy kept up her ground eating pace until she saw a blip on her motion tracker, she immediately drew the shotgun from her back and dropped to one knee, halting her momentum, the terrain was almost completely flat, whatever it was, she should have seen it a mile away. She kept scanning in the general direction of the blip as it got closer, right, left, she even looked up. Daisy didn't even think to look down until it was right on top her, no, not on top, below. She rolled out of the way just in time as a strange creature burst out the ground where she just was. And when Daisy said strange, she meant strange. It had black skin, a bony face plate, and a stubby tail, all in all, a weird little thing. Unfortunately, it was hostile, weird thing, a point that was made crystal clear by the fact that it just tried getting the jump on her by burrowing towards her not even a second ago. So, seeing as it was too close for her shotgun, she stabbed it through its skull with her combat knife, it went down fast enough, but, as if triggered by the death of their pack mate, more of the little bastards began showing up on her motion tracker.

Daisy holstered the shotgun and drew her magnum, she had a lot more ammo for it and its M225 SAP-HE rounds packed more than enough punch to deal with these creeps, "Designating hostile fauna as 'creeps'". It looked like the rest of the creeps were going to be a little smarter than the first when they began surrounding her. Daisy watched her motion tracker and got ready to move, three were converging on her position while the rest kept moving around, probably to wait for any weaknesses in her defense to make themselves known. Daisy leapt out way just before the three aggressors could launch themselves out of the ground and knock her off her feet, she assumed that was the strategy, the Spartan shot them all dead before the even got all the way out their holes. She saw two red blips break off from the rest and slink out of sensor range, that left ten. They were all coming to her now, more than likely trying to overwhelm her, she wouldn't let that happen. When the next wave was on her, she only made small adjustments to her position, when the first of the little beasties burst from the ground, rather than shoot it, she stepped around its attempt at a kick drove her knife through its throat. Three groups three leapt from the dirt soon after, they were further away than any of her previous attackers, but not by much. They were far enough out to be safe from her knife as they emerged, but near enough to be able to quickly close that distance, and each group was on a different side to divide her focus. Time slowed for Daisy as the creeps started running towards her, she fired her pistol twice at the nearest group, dropping the pair she shot at and slashing the survivor as it came up on her, the other two groups were slower than the first, but they got plenty close in the short time it took Daisy to kill the fast group. Daisy dodged as the leader of group two swung at her with its tail, she then shot it and both its partners through their heads, she then did the same with group three.

Daisy checked her motion tracker for contacts and, seeing none, proceeded to replace her now empty magazine with a fresh one, she even had one extra round already in the chamber. Daisy looked around at all the bodies and noted that they appeared to be dissolving. "One more weirdness point for this planet." She thought, but despite the relative safety of the moment, Daisy thought it best to get moving, she didn't want to waste any more of her precious ammo on the local wildlife. With that thought, she restarted her run to the jungle, and broke into a sprint when she heard gunshots.

Fortunately, Daisy didn't have to run for very long before reaching the source of the gunfire, unfortunately, the gun's owner was already dead and being chewed on by more black and white creatures. These new animals were different from the other species she encountered earlier, with them, she couldn't make any kind of comparison with other animals she had seen, with these new ones, however, they looked like misshapen wolves, and judging by the corpse of the man they were eating, they were hostile. The biggest one, the one with the most bone plates, noticed her first; it growled and bounded behind a tree, the other two growled as well, but leapt at her rather than taking cover. One died as a 12x40mm magnum round exploded inside its head and the other met its end as a titanium clad fist shattered its skull. The pack leader was nowhere to be found. Daisy went over to the dead man, keeping her pistol out in case something tried sneaking up on her. Poor guy was pretty mangled, but there was some good news to go with this, she now knew there were humans on this planet. Daisy looked over the man one more time and almost missed the animal ears atop his head, she reached out to touch them and found they weren't just a stylish headband. The ears were a part of him, there was no scar tissue to indicate surgery and the set even had ear canals. Gene modding perhaps? No, this was more akin to gene splicing, something beyond modern genetic technology.

Daisy figured she could mull over this discovery later, she was on the right track for now, this planet was inhabited, and by what had to be humans, no less. Sure, the ears were weird, but the rest of the guy looked human enough? He had to be human, right? Daisy shook her head and began running in the same direction she had been going all night. She occasionally looked at her HUD's compass to keep from getting turned around. Her augmentations allowed her to run for about five more hours before she saw lights ahead. She was almost there when yet another species of this planets incredibly hostile wildlife made itself known, this one looked like a big spiky bear. It was able to sneak up on her by hiding behind a rock, one of massive paws striking her and sending her flying a few feet, Daisy rolled with the landing and was back on her feet with her shotgun in her hands ready to send fifteen pellets of 8 gauge buckshot her attacker. The bear thing roared and charged at her, it didn't make it far. Daisy cocked another shell into the M90's chamber as the creature fell dead at her feet. She turned back towards the light and was about to finish her little journey when the thing exploded, she spun around the noise only to receive a bone spike in her side, the rest of the spikes bouncing off of her armor plating. Every other kind of black animal on this world dissolved, so Daisy didn't think it would be a good idea to leave the spike in her, it was probably poisonous or something. Then again, it wasn't safe to take the spike out either, she would start losing blood fast if she did, but she was close to the light source now, that means she should be able to get some medical attention; blood loss was a lot easier to deal with than poisoning after all. She regretted her decision to remove the spike as soon as blood came gushing, Daisy immediately put pressure on the wound and resumed walking towards the light, which revealed itself to be a large, stilted house, the backdoor was up on a balcony and in her current condition, Daisy couldn't jump up to it, that'd also probably be pretty rude. She was losing blood fast, pain meant nothing to a Spartan, but pain wasn't what was getting her, her vision was swimming and she was getting weaker. Daisy maid her way to the front door and knocked as her she was still conscious, but she didn't know for how much longer, she waited a few seconds and knocked again, she could hear footsteps now. She kept herself from collapsing until a very tall man with thick chest hair answered the door. In her delirious state, Daisy decided he looked very helpful, she then realized how tired felt and proceeded to take a nap, right there on the porch.

Salem regarded the strange creature that was looking around her throne room with a curious eye. Watts had found it working in his lab only moments ago, after a brief inspection of his machines, Watts had concluded that the creature did not sabotage any of his work, but had improved upon his designs instead and even went as far as to clean up some computer code he had been working on. It showed no signs of nervousness or distress around Salem, rather it only looked her form with curiosity before that very same curiosity extended to the rest of the room it was now inspecting. She called it over to herself and stroked its neck, the creature made a noise that Salem guessed was a sound of contentment, she then scratched underneath its chin. She removed a scroll from her pocket and watched the creature's eyes light up with excitement as she handed the device over to it. She then ordered the creature to change the scroll's function, the creature obeyed without question, taking the device apart and putting it back together in a matter of seconds. The creature set the new device on her table and waved its tentacles at the camera, the device translated its sign language into one, simple word. Finished. Salem smiled, a strange creature indeed.

Chapter two of Warriors of Remnant finished. This chapter we introduce Chief Petty Officer Daisy-023, I wanted to put her in the previous version, but never got around, and then I read Halo: Silent Storm and immediately knew she was gonna be a blast to write, I definitely recommend the book. I also learned that Daisy is pretty small for a Spartan, "just shy of two meters", or less than 6'6" or 6'7" if you round up, for the sake of story she's gonna be 6'7", which means 6'3" when not wearing MJOLNIR, about as tall as Torchwick. Where and when she died is pretty ambiguous, so I'm saying Harvest Campaign, 2528, so she's the same age as the other girls, again, for the sake of story. Once a week is the schedule. Feel free to present any criticism you may have, I'm a big boy, I can take it.