Chapter 1

Zeta Halo

Banished Outpost

6/22 update- Changed the weapon's fan name to Joy for now.


"It's the Demon! We're all going to die!" Yelled a small, dwarf-like, alien called an Unggoy as it ran away in circles while its comrades were dying to a single, green-armored soldier that was picking them off at a distance. This green-armored soldier was known as a Spartan-II, a class of super soldiers that was considered humanity's finest soldiers. And this particular one was the most famous of them all. He was known as John-117. The Master Chief. Chief was currently sniping the more important targets before engaging the remaining targets, who were all currently running away for their lives. Dropping down from the perch he was using for his sniping and switching his sniper rifle for his assault rifle, he jumped down to confront the remaining aliens, which were all just the Unggoy. Landing amidst them, the Master Chief began to do what he did best. Killing his opponents.

With careful bursts from his assault rifle, he mowed down the Unggoy with peak efficiency. Even as some of them returned fire in a futile attempt to kill the Spartan, it didn't matter in the slightest as the Spartan's shields took the damage and enabled him to kill them all without any impediment. With all the Unggoy dead, the Master Chief proceeded into a prefabricated building of grey and red metal that held three triangles surrounding a bigger one with a more intrinsic design.

As he entered the building, he heard a woman's voice from inside his suit of armor.

"Chief I found the marines. They're being held on the second floor of this building." Said the woman's voice as Chief checked the building for additional hostiles.

"Affirmative, Joy." Said Chief as he walked towards the second floor. "Any additional hostiles?"

"None that I can see detect. I've hacked into the security of this building, but I'm getting nothing. Don't think that means we're safe from hostiles. There are certain cloaking devices that can mask one's presence from even me." Said the now-named Joy.

"Understood." Said Master Chief as he kept an eye out for cloaked opponents. As he did so, he contacted some via his suit's radio. "Echo-216, prepare for extraction. We may need a quick escape along with medivac."

"You got it, Chief." Said Echo-216 as a large military transport aircraft was placing itself near the outpost that Chief just assaulted in case a quick pickup was needed. "Here's hoping that this will be an easy mission for once, but things are never easy for us, huh?"

"It almost never is." Said Joy. "You think we're due on, right?" Chief chooses not to comment on that before entering a room and finding nothing but weapons, both kinetic and energy-based. Finding no marines, Chief moved on to a different room. As he did, the thought about the days after he arrived on Zeta Halo. How he lost his previous AI partner and how he gained a new one.

His previous artificial intelligence partner was a female AI by the name of Cortana. Together with her, he helped humanity against an alien coalition named the Covenant that was determined to drive humanity to extinction in the name of their gods. They helped prevent humanity's extinction and win the war against the Covenant. But that wasn't the end of their story, no. Unfortunately, humanity was always in need of soldiers to protect it from harm, both internal and external threats, and the two were ready to become such defenders. But then things went awry.

Cortana, during the line of duty, sacrificed herself to stop a new grave threat from ending humanity. At first, he thought that would be the last time he would ever see her again, but fate has other plans, and sometimes he wished that she stayed dead. For Cortana ended up becoming the next big threat to humanity after seemingly sacrificing herself to save him and humanity. Why she did so was because she believed that she and other AIs could better protect the galaxy from threats than the various governments run by organics. That AIs could lead the galaxy into a permanent reality of peace of prosperity for everyone, free of corruption and war. Those that tried to understand her actions believed that it was only parts of Cortana that were against humanity. That her sacrifice made her lose parts of what made her Cortana. Pieces that comprised her compassion and common sense, making her a soulless automaton. Others believed that it was rampancy that made Cortana turn against humanity and her creators. Rampancy was a disease that affected all AIs, making them go insane and power-hungry. While Cortana was experiencing rampancy before she made her sacrifice, John didn't think it was just rampancy that made her turn on humanity. He suspected that she also lost sight of what made her great and special. He and her working together.

And as much as it pained John to do so, he was willing to defeat her in order to protect humanity, which he eventually accomplished with Joy, who was an exact copy of Cortana. With her help, John was able to defeat Cortana and end her threat to humanity and all other races in the galaxy. What should have been a celebration and a return to peace in the galaxy devolved into yet another conflict.

During the entire process of capturing Cortana and locking her down, a mercenary/pirate organization called the Banished ambushed the human supercarrier, the Infinity, and completely gutted her and her escort while they were about to lock down Cortana. The ambush had been so perfect that by the time the Infinity was able to do anything, their primary weapon systems were down and the ship was boarded. John and the crew of the Infinity tried their best to both evacuate the noncombatants and fend off the boarders, but they were simply too many of them and the ship was already lost. To make matters worse, the leader and founder of the Banished, a Jiralhanae Warmaster by the name of Atriox, personally led the boarding of the Infinity and single-handily defeated John in one-on-one combat. He even dropped the Master Chief out of the Infinity out of a hanger bay, leaving him stranded in space for six months. And it would have been longer if he hadn't been found by Echo-216, a civilian contractor by the name of Fernando Esparza working for the Infinity crew as an engineer.

By the time Esparza had found him, much has changed in the Forerunner installation known as Zeta Halo, where the battle took place above. Not only did the installation change its location, stranding every participant of the battle on it or in orbit of it as they have no idea where they were in the galaxy to make a blind FTL jump for friendly space, both for humans and the Banished. As a result, the Banished fortified their position on Zeta Halo while also dealing with any survivors from the Infinity or its escort fleet. With no command structure, as captain Thomas Lasky, the captain of the Infinity was MIA along with most of the other command staff, the remaining human forces were easy pickings for the Banished, who still had a fleet available to them and proper logistics. To make it short, the Banished owned Zeta Halo, and almost nothing could have prevented that weren't it for the return of the Master Chief.

Despite the odds, John managed to turn the tide against the Banished, formed a resistance movement against the Banished, and killed many top officials and leaders, including Escharum, the new leader of the Banished after Atriox seemingly died after he confronted the trapped Cortana on Zeta Halo. No one knows what exactly went down between the two until Chief learned that Cortana, having realized what she had done, destroyed a portion of Zeta Halo to both prevent the Banished from using it, as it was a weapon of mass destruction, and to give the humans a fighting chance against the Banished by killing their powerful leader. She also prevented Joy from deleting herself due to the UNSC, the military organization of humanity, feared that she would become another Cortana and thus had deletion protocols embedded in her once she successfully contained Cortana. The reason was that she saw great potential in Joy and knew that John needed another AI to be with him in order for him to be at his best.

Though some people would have been skeptical and wary of her gift, John wasn't so skeptical. Though at the time he was, admittedly, wary of trusting another AI, especially a copy of Cortana, a part of him wanted to trust her. That Joy will turn out differently than Cortana. That he can…protect her from harm, unlike he did with Cortana in the end. Thus, he formed a partnership with Joy, despite her initial reservation. Since then, he had a partnership akin to what he had with Cortana years ago. Thus, together with Fernando, the three brought the remaining UNSC personnel on the ring back on their feet and fight the Banished on more even terms. At least on the ground.

Despite Chief's efforts, the Banished still hold control of the majority of the ring and, despite the loss of Escharum, were able to recuperate their losses and regroup. For now, the Banished are both looting the ring for any valuable technology as well as wiping out all UNSC resistance groups on the ring before they can regroup with the Master Chief and his resistance movement.

And thus they were here, rescuing a group of UNSC marines and officers from a Banished outpost. After some hacking and identifying the hostages, Joy believed that they knew the location of Captain Lasky. And if they manage to find Lasky, then the UNSC's chances of victory on Zeta Halo will increase significantly. Conversely, if the Banished find him and kill him, then they're in real trouble. Thus, Master Chief was working on getting the soldiers out and to a safe location.

After finding another empty room, Chief finally made his way to the last room on the second floor. Getting ready, Chief entered the room to find it a large room filled with crates and interrogation chambers. Interrogation chambers that were currently empty. Not because the prisoners were removed to a new location. No. They were currently on the floor, dead.

Seeing the dead marines and officers, Chief gave a brief moment of silence for them before going over to them. Kneeling over one corpse, he checked them for the soldier's dog tags only to find them missing. Thus he asked Joy to identify the soldier.

"Working on it." Said Joy as she scanned the soldier's face through Chief's helmet. As she did so, she noticed the cause of death of the soldier was done by a massive energy blade that slashed through their chest. Such blades were common amongst the Sangheili, a warrior race of aliens that were employed by the Banished, except this injury was deeper than normal. Typically, Sangheili were efficient with their kills done in melee. A simple fatal stab or slash was their preferred way to end their opponents. Anything else was either due to the skill of their foes or because the Sangheili wanted their foes to suffer. Judging by the environment the soldier was in, she guessed it was the latter. But such Sangheili were rare as the species placed great emphasis on honor and they shun making their foes suffer, preferring to let their underlings or other races do things they consider dishonorable. So either it was another species within the Banished that did this or they're dealing with a sadistic Sangheili.

Given the uncaring nature the Banished had towards recruitment, they only cared about how useful one is for them, it wasn't in the realm of impossibility that such Sangheili were within their ranks. In fact, Joy and Chief encountered one such Sangheili on Zeta Halo, but they killed him. Right.

As she thought about this, the doors to the room suddenly closed, and the room and was covered in complete darkness. Upon noticing this, Chief was immediately on the lookout for hostiles.

"Joy?" Asked Chief as he fired a portable threat sensor for hostiles. Upon doing so, the two saw they were with a single Sangheili, equipped with advanced cloaking technology that marred Joy's ability to detect them. Upon seeing the alien now, Joy immediately contacted Fernando for extraction. Meanwhile, Chief was looking at the Sangheili, who stared back. Suddenly the alien decloaked and revealed themselves. Upon noticing them, Chief saw that it was an alien that even he was surprised to see.

Clad in the standard military harness of the Sangheili during the Human-Covenant War with slight modifications, the alien was an individual that Chief faced before, but never managed to confirm his death. Although he looked like an average Sangheili, the alien had two of his mandibles replaced with robotic replacements and his left arm was a robotic prosthetic as well. Such things were typically shunned by Sangheili as they find it distasteful, yet this individual seemed to not care at all. In fact, all John can see within the orange eyes of the alien was bloodlust and hatred for him.

When they first encountered each other, John didn't know his name, but Eve eventually found it out after going through Banished intel and made a profile about him with what she gathered, having a feeling that they'll face him again. This Sangheili's name was Jega 'Rdomnai, a Special Forces operative that was now a part of the Hand of Atriox, a group of warriors that were trained to hunt down and kill Spartans. Master Chief had fought the alien when he was on a mission to rescue Fernando from Escharum, something that occurred because Jega himself kidnapped the pilot from under Chief's nose. The fight between the two was one of the toughest fights Chief had to do as the terrain of their fight and Jega's usage of his armor's cloaking technology gave him several advantages over Chief. Eventually though, Chief won, but he couldn't confirm the kill on Jega as he cloaked himself after sustaining heavy injuries from his fight with the Master Chief. Though Fernando hoped the Sangheili was dead, having been personally tortured by the alien during his captivity, Chief was positive they would see each other again. And it appears that was today.

Glaring at the Master Chief, Jega spoke up.

"It has been some time since we last fought Spartan." Said Jega as he looked at Chief with his orange, cat-like eyes. "You certainly live up to your legend. We have lost many warriors and resources because of you. What should be a simple clean-up has become a full-scale war for this ring. You're every bit as impressive as the stories made you out to be. No wonder my friend was eager to face you in battle."

The friend that Jega was referring to was Escharum himself, which caught Joy completely off-guard. Throughout most of their history, Sangheili and Jiralhanae were fierce rivals each other. Since the Jiralhanae were inducted into the Covenant, the Sangheili looked down on them, seeing them as primitive and unworthy to be a part of the Covenant. The Jiralhanae, meanwhile, hated the Sangheili for looking down on them and using them as cannon fodder during the war against humanity. Such animosity increased further when the Covenant leaders betrayed the Sangheili race and had the Jiralhanae genocide them. Though they hate the Covenant leaders for their betrayal, the Sangheili's hatred for the Jiralhanae increased further because of them being the ones that were ordered to genocide their race. As a result, tensions between the Sangheili and Jiralhanae were at an all-time high with various Covenant splinter groups fighting each other because they were being led either by the Jiralhanae or Sangheili.

Because of all this, Joy was surprised to find out that Escharum, a Jiralhanae, had a close friendship with Jega, a Sangheili. It would have been sweet, given the animosity between their species, if the two weren't psychotic killers that had been out to get them. And it looked like Jega wasn't too pleased that Escharum was now dead as he looked rather vengeful.

Chief, meanwhile, was looking at his options. Though he could defeat Jega as he did last time, the Sangheili most certainly learned from their fight and thus adapted and trained himself to avoid another defeat at the hands of the Master Chief. And the terrain certainly benefitted him like last time, just a bit more.

Seeing that there was no point in giving Jega the environmental advantage, Chief decided to try to move the battle into a more even field of battle. Thus, keeping his eyes on Jega, Chief ordered Joy to try and open the doors so he can take this outside. Upon hearing that, Joy did so without much effort. Once the doors were opened, Chief opened fire on Jega while advancing on the door, keeping his distance from the Sangheili all the while.

Growling as his shields endured the bullets from the Master Chief's assault rifle, Jega cloaked himself before charging at Master Chief, who fired another threat sensor to keep Jega somewhat in sight. Seeing Jega bringing out a Sangheili sword hilt on his hip, Chief rolled out of the way just as a two-bladed energy sword came at him, the blades crimson red. Dodging another swing from Jega, John managed to get out of the room and ran straight towards an exit. Once he did, he was welcomed with the sight of green plains and artificial sunlight. Turning around, he prepared for Jega to come out of the building. It took a few minutes, but Jega did, armed with several ranged weapons, having taken time to acquire some more weapons when he realized the fighting will be outside. Aside from his energy blade, Jega was armed with several plasma-based weapons on his back and thighs. In addition, he has several spike grenades on his thighs as well. Roaring out a challenge, Jega charged at the Spartan while cloaking and thus their rematch began again.

As the two fought, several drop pods crashed onto the base via a Banished Dreadnought, a ship built from the hulls of Covenant warships, both damaged and undamaged. Offloading various Banished soldiers of various species, including Sangheili, Jiralhanae, and Unggoy, the alien reinforcements began to assist Jega in eliminating the Master Chief. Used to being outnumbered, John took some cover before fighting off the aliens while waiting for Fernando to arrive to get him and Eve out of the Banished Base.

Unbeknownst to everyone, however, a plan was in the making that will rid the Banished of the Master Chief forever. Or at least for a while. For the Dreadnought that had delivered Jega reinforcements was beginning to unleash a new weapon on the base in order to take out Spartan-117. On the bridge of the Dreadnought, a lone Jiralhanae was overlooking the battle between the lone Spartan and dozens of Banished warriors and mercenaries. Although his men were skilled and veterans of the Human-Covenant War, the Jiralhanae knew they were all as good as dead. Even the former Silent Shadow, Jega 'Rdomnai, who had slain several Spartans in his life, was unable to beat the legend known as Master Chief. And though he has beaten the Spartan before, the Jiralhanae had important business to attend to. Like finding a way to contact other Banished forces in the galaxy in order to bring additional forces to Zeta Halo and also dealing with the remaining humans on the ring. Thus, what he was planning right now.

Looking down at a screen that showed the Spartan fighting his forces, the Jiralhanae pressed a button and soon a crate within one of the buildings within the Banished base opened up to reveal an advanced piece of equipment that doesn't match either UNSC or Banished technology, though it appeared to have been modified by the Banished. Glowing red, the device soon began to spark and malfunction as it did its work, creating a massive power spike that Joy detected.

Alarmed, Joy tried to find the source just as Fernando came with the transport to get both Joy and Master Chief out of there. Jega growled as he avoided a burst of bullets from Master Chief before cloaking again. A Jiralhanae tried to gain the jump on him, but John just rolled out of the way and killed the alien with a burst from his assault rifle. Reloading as several Unggoy fired their weapons at the Master Chief, Chief saw Fernando coming in with a Pelican dropship. Firing the Pelican's guns at the Banished troops, forcing them to take cover lest they can be blasted to oblivion, Fernando passed Chief with the hanger bay doors of the Pelican open. Seeing this, Chief pointed his wrist-mounted grapple hook and shoot it at the Pelican. Flying towards the Pelican thanks to his grapple, the Master Chief was inside the Pelican just as the device within the base exploded and engulfed the entire base and all its inhabitants in a bright flash of light, including the Master Chief, Fernando, and Joy just as the doors to the Pelican closed.

In time, a dropship of Banished would descend to where the base was to see if the Master Chief was dead and if there were any survivors. When they got there, however, they found not only the base was gone, but a good portion of the environment the base was in as well, replaced with scorch marks.


Meanwhile

Zeon military base

Americas


In a backwater Principality of Zeon military base, a patrol was minding their own business when a flash of light appeared in their vision and something crashed into the nearby forest that sent enough force to have them all sent to their feet. Shocked at what just happened, the patrol got up to their feet and went to find out what caused the shockwave. They would eventually find what caused it and be shocked beyond belief at what they found.


Does anyone have a good alternative name to this fic? I'm willing to hear people's input and takes. Also, is anyone okay with naming the Weapon Joy? I thought it would be appropriate along with Eve. Ultimately I went with Joy because of how the Weapon was throughout the campaign in Halo Infinite.