A New Path Chapter One: Prologue, a Halo + Star Wars Rebels Crossover fanfic

Hello! I guess I should first just say that I apologise for the Mantle of Responsibility not being updated in such a long time, not only have I started a new job full time but I felt that writing became more of a chore even when I know the ending and have it planned out. Eventually, it will return but for now, it is on a bit more of a hiatus.

Anyway, here is the first chapter of a new Halo - Star Wars Rebels crossover. As of right now, it is just a bit of an experiment after I was playing some Halo infinite and thought about a character that is never actually seen or mentioned, it will make sense in the story. If you guys like it and want me to keep going then let me know, there is no actual lengthy plan or even an ending for it so quite a few possibilities.

As I mentioned though, this is more of just a taster experiment kind of thing so any comments (Real ones) are appreciated. Please don't waste time mentioning that the recording from Infinite (Discover hope trailer and first Echo-216 cutscene) belongs to Fernando Esparza I started this story way back before this was confirmed and it's Fanfiction so who cares that much?

A New Path: Chapter 1

Prologue

"Okay daddy's listening, can you say Hi…"

"Hi"

"Show daddy how big you've gotten…"

"Sooo Big"

"Good and can you sing…"

"Mary had a little lamb"

"Good singing, how about I miss you…"

"I miss you"

"And I love you…"

"I love you, daddy"

"Good, can you say I can't wait to see you again…"

"Can't wait to see you again"

"Okay, now say bye…"

"Bye Bye"

A pair of eyes snapped open, the brusied fist belonging to a man with dark blonde hair and blue eyes clenched tightly as he awoke from an unconscious state. He had no idea where he was or if he was mortally wounded as all he heard was the message…his message.

On complete instinct, he leapt upwards from his laid down position and whipped his right hand out fast enough to smash anything in its way or break his hand trying, toward the small three-dimensional disk that had just finished playing its pre-recorded message. He had found it in his hand in a second and planted his feet on the metal floor, sounding off a quiet clang with his boots dropping against it.

He didn't wave time to waste taking in his surroundings and knew in his mind that if it were not for his instinctive physical reaction in going for his personal affairs before his sidearm he never would have risked his life picking something up that wasn't a weapon. His eyes had only been open for a matter of seconds but he didn't need them in order to know he wasn't anywhere he recognised, or with anyone.

Yanking his M6C from his holster he aimed it at what was standing in front of him before they even knew until he felt a massive force push on him that he had never witnessed.

BANG

Several Hours Earlier

The heavy breathing of the winded soldiers, blaring sirens coming from the speakers and the rumble of gear banging against its wearers. The noises came from an uncountable quantity of sources, everything flooded into the point where it could have actually been purely silent, it was almost completely paralysing.

High up above the charging mass of humans in the ceilings and wall corners, the imbedded bar lights start to lose power and the golden hue they send down below starts to get dimmer and dimmer until there is little more than a faint shimmer of light guiding those below through the silver reflecting hallways and catwalks of the UNSC Infinity.

Captained by seasoned veteran of the Human-Covenant war, Thomas J Lasky who had been the victorious leader in many engagements with both the Insurrection, a militant group of former UNSC colonial territories who used terrorism to try and force the decolonisation of the hundreds of UNSC planets. Covenant, the deadly collective of aliens that tried to exterminate humanity, Created, a faction of turncoat artificial intelligence's led by another former UNSC AI Cortana and now, the Banished.

The Banished, a force thought to be just as deadly to humanity as all her previous enemies if not even more so. Formed during the Human-Covenant war by the rogue Brute Warmaster Atriox, the Banished led a hate-fuelled warpath against anyone and everyone that dared stand in their way, especially humanity.

Infinity, the most advanced and capable ship now found itself as well as what remained of her escort over the years on the losing side of the battle. Salvo after salvo from the Banished ships hammered the Infinity draining her shields and melting the Titanium-A armour to within a literal inch of its life.

Deep within the bowels of the ship, inside one of the hundreds of pilots' barracks, two men desperately throw on their flight suits and flight gear as fast as they can.

"James, hurry up!"

First-Class Petty Officer James Matthews, a descendant of British sailors in the old navy, looked his eyes upward for only the briefest of seconds to see his co-pilot and friend, Second-class Petty Officer Jack Clayton. The two had met during basic training and thought themselves two of the luckiest pilots in the entire UNSC when they received notice that they were to be posted aboard the Infinity, the powerhouse of human achievement.

"Oh shut your gob, Jack!" He yelled back as he snapped together the last of his webbing.

"Catch!" Jack said, tossing an M6C sidearm, infamously used by the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers its fast fire rate and compact size meant it also found a home with the pilots with both the Navy and Army air forces where the cramped space of a cockpit would welcome even the tiniest amount of saved space.

James caught the sidearm with both hands and slid it into his leg-mounted holster that already contained two spare magazines in addition to another 3 on the right side of his hip. He had a total of 90 rounds on him for his sidearm alone. Over the last several decades the combat training of flight crews had increased dramatically to the point that they were on par with the standard UNSC infantry.

Grabbing the last of his 9.5x60mm ammunition for his BR55 Battle-Rifle, which was always assigned to the crews of light manned craft within the UNSC such as fighters and bombers, he packed the munitions into his flight suit pouches, picked up his rifle from within the weapons locker and gave it a thorough but rapid check.

Content that his weapon was fully functional and ready he slammed a fresh magazine into it and yanked back the slide. The rifle clicked and pinged as the charging handle slid back forward into place and the bullet loaded into the chamber.

"Bloody hell man, you trying to kill me before the Banished do!" James exclaimed, not happy with the fully loaded handgun being so carelessly hurled towards him.

Jack only smirked and rolled his eyes, between the two of them he had always been the wild one that had a much more relaxed attitude when it came to the strict rules and regulations of the military. An attitude that got him noticed by his superiors more often than not. If it were not for the distinct lack of skilled pilots available he would have had multiple disciplinary notices on his record.

Packing the last of his ammunition and supplies into his pouches the pair quickly marched to the exit door of their barracks. In front of them, the large groups of soldiers hadn't ceased in their movements. Running all over the ship in an attempt to repel the enemy boarding parties. Even within the several-mile-long ship, the two pilots had now been stationed on it for so long that they knew their way to the hanger bays like the back of their hand and quickly dove out into the hallway heading towards it.

Explosions both internal and external could be heard throughout the ship, from where they were running it was impossible to truly tell how the battle was going but the constant sounds of internal gunfire and external ship-to-ship weaponry didn't fill anyone with increasing confidence.

Trying not to let themselves become winded James and Jack kept themselves at a brisk steady run through the near highway-sized catwalks of the ship, however, it was just then that they turned a corner and the ship's PA system which somehow was still working pulled their attention.

"ALL PILOTS REPORT TO HANGER STATIONS IMMEDIATELY!"

"Bollocks! Well, you heard him mate, double time it!" James said assertively as the two of them picked up their pace to a full sprint.

Up ahead the signage for the hanger become more and more clear, James and Jack had become so concentrated on their goal of simply making it to the entrance alive that they had nearly even noticed the near entire battalion of soldiers mixed in around them. James' thoughts had started to come back to him and serious worry popped into his mind when he realised that the only destination ahead of them was the hanger.

He knew that this could only mean one thing, the two of them were about to run straight into a hanger filled with hostile infantry. It was less than a second between James' sudden realisation and the doors to the hanger sliding open in an instant but there was no going back as they charged head first into the fire in front of them.

Bursting out into the gigantic open hanger, First-class petty officer James Matthews was met with a scene he had encountered multiple times during the war but one that never got any easier with time. An endless sea of Grunts and Jackals raining down hails of plasma fire onto UNSC marines with both the Brute and Elites leading them forward. He didn't stop to count but he guessed there must have been hundreds of troops on both sides in this one hanger alone.

The hanger itself was nearly unrecognisable, catwalks and metal pillars had come crashing down from above and were either melted or burning in up in fires while there were Forerunner artefacts that had been waiting to be catalogued scattered about the floor. It was all the mess but above all else though, the one thing that gave the two pilots the most dread was the fact that when they finally did make out their Longsword had been completely split in two.

Right in the middle of their ship was what remained of a Covenant Phantom troop transport. Used to carry troops into battle it was one of the main enemy transports the UNSC faced alongside the Spirit.

"Shit!" Jack shouted. They both knew that standing in the open would have been a death sentence. Ducking needler rounds and plasma bolts from the Jackal's carbines they managed to get to a large stack of crates to use for cover.

Jack went to upholster his sidearm when James put his hand on his, "Don't bother wasting your ammo" He said as he reached down and grabbed one of the standard issue battle rifles on the floor. Dozens of them and other weapons laid on the floor from fallen soldiers or racks of weapons that had been seriously damaged causing the weapons stored in them to go flying everywhere.

With nearly all fighters and military transports containing the BR55 Battle-Rifle for its pilots, it meant that at least half the ammunition they were currently carrying with them was for the rifle.

"Longswords gone to shit, what do we do know?" Jack asked his friend and more importantly, his superior.

Briefly scanning their area of coverage through the scope of his rifle he looked back towards Jack. "We fight our way to another ship, they still need us out there more than in here. I'll lay down suppressing fire while you move up to that elevated position and look for a ship that isn't scrap metal" Jack ordered as he pointed out to one of the sets of stairs leading up to the secondary control room for the hanger.

"Got it, Sir" He shouted out. Under more favourable circumstances Jack would never have bothered to call his friend Sir. In the heat of battle though, he was still a soldier and was following an order from a fellow comrade, one of a higher rank that he truly respected.

"Go!" James ordered loudly as he rose up still in his crouched position lifting his rifle to open fire on any Banished forces that were aiming in Jack's general direction. The bullets shot out from the muzzle of the rifle several bursts at a time, slicing into any unshielded organic matter, tearing it to shreds. With every burst of fire, he took the number on his rifle's ammo counter display and it got lower and lower.

While he hadn't been trying to take out any units in particular, only draw the fire away from the ones aiming in Jack's general direction, James did see more than a few Grunt's blood splatter across the floor and walls behind them. Whether it was his own gunshots that hit them or the marines firing from all sides around him, he didn't care. Then as the last 3 rounds left his magazine, he saw a Jackal drop dead from atop one of the destroyed Broadswords. He allowed himself to feel a small amount of pride in his kill.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jack had made it to the raised platform and gained entry to the control room which luckily had not yet been destroyed in the ensuing firefight and collapsing debris from both the inside of the ship and destroyed transports that littered the hanger bays.

Meanwhile, up in the secondary control room, Jack used all the resources at his disposal to try and find an undamaged and unassigned Longsword that the two of them could acquire. He had already scanned his surroundings while he sprinted away from cover and up towards the control room, knowing that there was no functioning craft within visual distance he pulled himself towards the manifest display on one of the computers.

Laying against it with blood on their formally grey and white overalls and what little armour was attached to a UNSC crewman, Jack assumed it was a warrant officer, one who got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time but he didn't have time to waste. Gently, he pulled them by the chest upwards and back leaning against the ground bolted chair, it was not a kindness he would have shown to any of his deceased enemies in the same position.

Immediately, he went to work on the manifest, desperately trying to locate their target. Of course, there was plenty of intact craft they could use, at this point they would have settled for a combat-equipped Pelican or Condor but every single one was too far, it would have taken countless hours of hard fighting and pushing to get to them by which time the enemy would have either been pushed back or the ship destroyed. Jack knew this and started to get more and more frustrated.

He didn't look up, he didn't need to in order to know the battle was still raging hard and fierce just outside. Occasionally a rogue plasma bolt or ricocheted bullet would scatter into the control room and Jack would flinch and instinctively duck. Soon though his eyes hit what he was scouting for. "Bingo!" He shouted audibly in celebration.

An intact GA-TL Mark 2 Longsword. It was tagged as being currently unassigned, undamaged and fully armed to the teeth. It was only two hangers across from them. Their luck was holding out, Jack thought to himself. There was no time to go through the channels to request permission to have the Strike fighter reassigned to them, he wasn't even sure if there were any superior flight deck officers alive to authorise the request. They would have to use the manual override next to the hanger door and hope they made it out.

Supplied with the info he needed, Jack picked up his rifle and ran back out of the room, to his relief, he saw James still in position behind cover. Alongside several marines, he was firing at the large pool of enemies several dozen yards ahead of them. Jack stood at the bottom of the stairs with the lower wall of the platform providing his cover, he was still too far from James to relay the information but knew he needed an opening to make it back over to him.

Desperately, he looked around for anything he could use, there were no grenades to throw and no weapons on the ground around him big enough to cause the damage he needed. When one Sangheili or Marine after another fell and neither side was pushing able to break through Jack's eye caught something. It wasn't anything he had found on the ground, it wasn't even ordnance from either side. Two dozen yards in front of the wall of marines and bearly a meter behind more than half the Banished forces in the Hanger was a large deposit of plasma containers.

Used as fuel for their Plasma based weapons, the Covenant and now the Banished used them as storage mediums for keeping their weapons fuel stable in their liquid state. Now though, there was a large collection of them and one of them was…leaking.

Jack knew it would only take a single spark to kick off the chain reaction of the now unstable plasma, He swung his rifle upwards toward the floor of the hanger ahead of them all and got ready to run. Taking aim with his rifle linked to his ECH252 helmet he let loose a 3-round burst knowing that even if the heat of the red hot copper jacketed bullets didn't ignite the pool of liquid plasma that the sparks created by the metal colliding with the floor would.

There was seemingly no time in-between Jack squeezing the trigger and the entire portion of the hanger that housed the spilt and stored fuel, becoming engulfed in the eye-burning flame of what was now an inferno. The shockwave had travelled well beyond the source of the explosion, knocking down several marines and hanger personnel that found themselves in the middle of the firefight whether they were armed or not.

A small pool of marines had managed to make a minuscule breakthrough, their piercing of the enemy line had put them dangerously close when the explosion occurred, due to what was either luck or the ferocity of the Banished forces not allowing them to gain any more ground, the half-dozen troops that faced the worst of it were thrown by the expanding shockwave of the blast several meters back.

Though they were groaning on the floor in pain, they all retained consciousness and the only two that did not get back up onto their feet and back into the fight soon had medical personnel attending to them.

Wasting no time, Jack sprinted the distance of the hanger bay towards James who had been close to the explosion of the plasma containers but was ducked behind cover when the shockwave and fireblast flailed over top. Knowing that at some point, maybe even right then, his friend and superior would lay into him about how stupid his decision to open fire on the unstable explosive compound was and that if it had killed anyone that wasn't a Banished invader he would have no doubt given their commanding officers above them both the excuse they both wanted and needed to court martial him.

Both James and Jack however didn't waste time in pointless debate and discipline as the reckless pilot had covered the distance from the staircase to the scatters of debris used for cover and dragged his friend up before either of them spoke a word.

"Push forward!" Jack yelled out as loud as he could, desperate to regroup the splintered forces left in the hangar and break through to their target.

"You can lecture me later, James!" He exclaimed as even he knew how irresponsible what he did was.

"You're bloody right I will" He shouted as the both of them rushed forward, rifles raised and ready.

For the time being, it seemed to work. With their forces splitting off into multiple locations, the Banished were extremely slow to regain the ground they had controlled previously and the Human forces were able to charge on mass down the hanger while putting down any disoriented or injured enemy troops without mercy.

James could see the Longsword, they were getting closer and closer. Managing to cover nearly the length of the entire first hanger before the enemy fire started to once again increase in intensity to the point where they had to find cover. Unfortunately, there were no explosive containers simply laying around in the next hanger for them to use to their advantage when they were pinned down just as they had managed to reach the cross line between the two hangers.

One advantage every one of them knew that they had however was that the Banished were not entering the next hanger completely unopposed. The hanger floor was devoid of any marines or army but up above, using the catwalks and raised ship elevators was allied fire, not just any either.

It was a Spartan fireteam, James was able to make out what looked like two teams of the elite warriors, he had no idea which of the few remaining Spartan teams on the Infinity they were but to him and the rest of the UNSC forces in the adjoining hangers, it didn't matter. Of the 9 Spartans, 4 of them had dropped to the ground and had engaged the higher ranking Bashed Brutes and Elites while the remaining five rained down fire support from the heavy machine gun emplacements and sniper positions.

Two of the Spartans that were in a prone position providing deathly accurate sniper fire were using what only a few had seen and even fewer had met the opportunity to use Forerunner hardlight sniper rifles. As if the sight of multiple seemingly invincible super-soldiers wasn't enough of a morale booster for the troops and pilots trying to push through, then witnessing them vaporise the enemy with hardlight weapons defiantly was.

It was then James, saw their opportunity to make it to their ship that was miraculously still intact and undamaged amidst the chaos ensuing. There was still one problem in front of them. If they tried to open the hanger bay doors to launch the Longsword, the depressurisation would instantly kill everything in the room that wasn't protected or sealed away from the vacuum. Under different circumstances, it would have been a great way to clear out a room full of hostile targets.

Unfortunately, though, it was not only the Banished that occupied the space. There were too many marines and Spartans in there with them and not enough time to methodically hunt down every last Banished soldier and clear out the hanger so that it could be depressurised for the launch procedure.

On nearly any other type of UNSC ship their situation would have been dire and almost hopeless, the UNSC Infinity, however, was not any other ship. James praised his luck once more that both he and Jack had been stationed on the Super-Carrier.

In addition to Forerunner engines, energy shielding and countless other state-of-the-art advancements added to the ship during its design and construction, every single flight hanger and major viewport was equipped with two-way shields. Clearly visible with a blue hue signifying its activation, the shields allowed ships and other solid matter to pass through them both ways but didn't allow air to be blown out of the hanger when the conventional metal barriers either failed or were opened.

As a First-Class Petty Officer within the UNSC Navy, James was extremely well versed in the workings of everything related to the ships flight systems and even while in the middle of yet another combat battle for his life he could recite any of his knowledge on command and now he found one piece of it that's would not withdraw from his mind.

He knew that the shields would normally activate if the gigantic metal bay doors were opened, even if the room had been devoid of life and gone through standard depressurisation procedure, it was one of the most basic and important fail-safes in use. The ship, however, had been running on a borderline skeleton crew for a while and maintenance had slowly been suffering to a degree. James' head just wouldn't let up and decided at that moment he was not going to run the risk.

"Jack stop!" He shouted as Jack was only a few metres away from the ship's rear entrance.

"What is it!" Jack asked loudly as he hit the magazine release of the burst fire rifle and inserted a fully loaded one.

"I'm going to check the shields!" James shouted back, he didn't even need to think about where the manual access panel for the shields was, knowing that it was always on the right-hand side of the hangers exit.

"We need to get in and launched, are you kidding me right now!" Jack said in loud frustration already several rounds into his new magazine.

"If they're down we're all buggerd!" James yelled out, already moving from cover to cover when he ran out of any more in between him and the target. "Give me some covering fire!"

"You and you're damn regulations, laying down suppressing fire!" Jack shouted as he immediately got up from what little cover he had and started pinning down the Grunts and Jackals.

To his right James had already started his ungrateful charge towards to panel, still having to dodge the occasional purple needle round. He knew he was no Spartan or Hell-Jumper, able to run and vehicle-like speeds without trembling an inch. Having stowed his cumbersome Battle Rifle on his back all he had withdrawn was his magnum sidearm, not even looking to hit the enemy he let lose several rounds during his frantic sprint.

When he finally reached the wall with the surface control pannel he almost slammed into it with full force having not wanted to risk slowing down for even a second. With no time to process his brute forced arrival he immediately used the touch surface interface to access the status of their hangers shields. In the split second between him accessing its status, he felt as though hours were passing.

James wanted to breathe the biggest sigh of relief in his life when the status of the shields came back all green but with multiple points of enemy fire he would have to save his moment of salvation for when the battle was over, or at least until he wasn't in the immediate danger of being killed.

With his fears partially laid to rest, he started the run back to the rear of the Longsword halfway across the hanger while taking pot-shots at the enemy, hoping that combined with the suppressing fire, it would keep the enemy's aim poor and allow him enough time to escape to the entrance of the bird.

The long-lasting adrenaline that came with most combat battles carried him through as he made it step by sprinting step back, increasing every time a bolt of superheated plasma missed his head by mere centimetres, singing the tips of his hair and every brittle needler round that clipped the surface of his armour and skimmed the paint off of it.

"Damn that was stupid!" Jack shouted as James had dived head forward into the right side part of the Longswords tail just in time as his rifle clicked upon pulling the trigger and his ammo counter read at zero.

Getting back to his feet and a combat-ready stance, James repelled the urge to call out Jack on the irony of his statement regarding what he called his 'stupid' decision.

"One of these days Jack," James settled for saying as he holstered his M6C and re-equipped his much more suitable BR55 battle rifle, yanking it off his back before checking his ammo.

Both him and Jack were loaded and the Banished forces were as weak as they were going to be at their location anytime soon. This was their best but more likely only shot and they both knew it.

James gave the order "Get on the ship, I've got 3 to 9 you cover 10 to 2!" He shouted out, telling Jack that he would cover their rear on the move and ordering him to watch the front.

Ploughing through the small remaining resistance and setting their sights on the open rear ramp to the cockpit of the large aircraft, the two pilots skilfully and tactfully split the amount of space to cover between them making sure that no spot remained unwatched as the last thing they wanted was to be picked off by the almost impossible to spot camouflaged elite or more embarrassingly, by an overly eager Grunt.

James assumed their luck had not abandoned them just yet as they turned the corner and slowly went up the ramp with James still covering their rear. No wandering Jackals or Grunts had found their way inside as Jack confirmed by turning back around so they were both facing the rear.

Jack, however, hadn't even made the complete turn to his behind when in the corner of his eye and the hairs on his neck alerted him to a danger most in his position wouldn't have even sensed before it ended them. In the far end of the corner of the hanger and completely shrouded in darkness was a single lone Kig-Yar sniper, who had laid in wait for the perfect target on a vulnerable target. What was riper for the taking than that of two pilots with no personal energy shields.

It wasn't the presence of the Jackal that had raised Jack's alerting senses though, it was what he had already fired.

A single needle round as long as Jack's arm and razor sharp from his long smooth rifle had already left the end of the barrel. Jack didn't question his muscle memory when he tore his arm away from his own rifle end plunged it with all his strength into the shoulder of his closest friend.

At lightning speed, the luminescent purple needle scorched through the air and was inside the dimensions of the Longsword before James had even fully struck the ground. It was enough, however, as instead of piercing James' stomach and emerging through his spine, what it smashed and fragmented into in its place was Jack's armour padding on top of his shoulder.

It struck at its near peak velocity from such a close range and shattered with a loud crack into two near identical fragments. One of them had flown away from them both and been deflected towards one of the large piles of stashed Forerunner artefacts. Unfortunately, the other one had ricocheted downwards from his armour and sliced into his torso.

James didn't see the Jackal or the incoming fire, all he felt was the violent crash of Jack's arm into his side. Half a second later it had all become so clear and obvious to him that he would instantly open fire in the direction he had assumed the needle-shooting sniper to be in, all the while Jack fell to the floor nearly able to keep a hold of the weapon in his hands.

Jack knew he wasn't a Spartan and wouldn't be able to hit the sniper with a single burst, he thought to himself, no a Spartan would never have allowed the sniper to fire his weapon in the first place, his mind spouted to him.

His time ran out rapidly, he single-handedly kept his weapon in his right hand trying his best to both pin the enemy down so he couldn't open fire again with any hope of hitting them and trying to conserve his ammunition. With his free left hand, he grabbed the nape of Jack's flight suit at his neck and dragged with all the raw strength he could muster. Managing to wrench him back a few meters into the cover of the fighter he stopped and tried to assess the damage the needle round had caused.

The round itself had gone straight through only leaving a few tiny fragments of purple residue. James was no flight surgeon that he knew, he was a pilot who had received basic first aid training to use in the field. As part of their standard issue medic packs, they both had on them small metal canisters that almost looked like flashbang grenades from the twenty-first century and had a small thin spout at the end with a trigger.

Contained within the small canisters was Bio-foam, a chemical foam that was designed many years ago to act as a temporary stabiliser for patients in the event they were badly wounded. It would prevent the patients from bleeding out and its included ingredients kept the wound from becoming infected or spreading poison any further. Sadly though, due to a lack of recent resources, each medical kit was reduced to a single canister per person with each one being enough to seal only a single wound.

In desperation, James reached into both the small medical kits on their flight suits and removed both their canisters so he would have enough to seal both sides of the wound. Not since the shot had he said a word, just trying to patch up his co-pilot as best he could until he could be properly treated.

Snapping the release handle on the first Bio-foam canister he immediately started to apply it to his wound where it expanded to fill the cavity and prevent him from bleeding out.

Jack, who was drifting in and out of consciousness sputtered and groaned as the spray partially solidified and killed off any rogue bacteria that would have otherwise led to an infection and caused death if it wasn't caught. Though life-saving, it wasn't an entirely painless process however and almost always caused a burn-like pain to shoot through the victim.

"Hang in there Jack!" James shouted, throwing the now empty Bio-foam canister behind him and pulling the latch on the second one out before the one he had discarded just a half-second ago even hit the wall and rolled down across the floor of the fuselage. He was only halfway through coating his larger exit wound when Jack tried to speak.

"S- Si-Six," He said repeatedly, struggling to speak through the pain and shock.

"Not now Mate, just hold on!" James said trying to reassure him as he squirted the very last drop of foam and held the large folded pad of gauze to the last un-attended parts of his gash.

Over and over though, Jack kept spouting and trying to get James' attention.

"What is it mate?" He asked him, knowing that he was still lucid but not understanding. That was until he felt something warm radiating behind him and turned.

It was exactly where Jack's eyes had been aimed and it was only when James knew something was behind them he pierced together what Jack had been trying to warn him of.

"Six O Clock" Jack managed to push through one successful time before finally passing out.

Expecting the warmth to have been from an impending plasma grenade or an even worse type of incendiary weapon his weapon was already closer to aiming at the entrance than his eyes were, but when his field of vision finally reached the rear entrance of the ship and the strip of hanger visible from inside, he saw something he never would have expected.

A large coffin-shaped hunk of what looked to be some kind of extremely reflective metal or mineral, something that even when not in the midst of battle would have seemed in the least bit threatening had a pin-sized hole in the middle of it and from within burst out a golden light brighter than anything James had witnessed in his life as a pilot.

James only had a second to make out what he could only assume to be one of the ancient Forerunner objects the white coat-wearing scientists were always bringing onto the Infinity and leaving about inside the hangers. Just below the hole though on the ground in a barely recognisable form, were purple needle remnants. One that had just struck his friend and ricocheted away, one thing he had assumed to not be a threat.

Immediately though, any time James had for theories was gone as the pin-sized hole emitting the golden beam started to grow and chunks of the mysterious and now terrifying slab broke off and vanished into thin air completely.

With no idea what it was, a weapon or not, James had no knowledge of what danger they were in if there was any at all. Only one thing came to mind that might have shielded them from something dangerous. "The Hatch!" He said loudly to himself as he stood up from his crouched defensive position and left Jack, as much as it pained him, to rush over the few meters to the closest control panel where he could raise the hatch to the ship. At the very least, he knew it would keep the ship airtight from any deadly gases.

Upon the control panel, he reached forward for the manual handle that activated the hydraulic system that would close the door.

At that very moment, the Forerunner box of metal-like concrete started visible rumbling and vibrating. It only took a couple of seconds for the hatch of the ship to rise up but it took even less than that for the artefact to start violently shaking and collapsing on itself and with only an arm's length left for the ramp to rise and seal the ship up the entire foreign structure disappeared and the light instantly screamed out in all directions, piercing through the few inches of the unclosed ship.

The shadow line of the rising metal door had just passed over his nose when the heaven-like light burst through into the room turning everything from its usual stealthy black colour to a searing hot white. Clutching his eyes with his hands, James fell backwards and hit his head hard on something he never had a chance to see, everything went black.

"Okay daddy's listening, can you say Hi…"

"Hi"

"Show daddy how big you've gotten…"

"Sooo Big"

"Good and can you sing…"

"Mary had a little lamb"

"Good singing, how about I miss you…"

"I miss you"

"And I love you…"

"I love you, daddy"

"Good, can you say I can't wait to see you again…"

"Can't wait to see you again"

"Okay, now say bye…"

"Bye Bye"

A pair of eyes snapped open, the fist belonging to a man with dark blonde hair and blue eyes clenched tightly as he awoke from an unconscious state. He had no idea where he was or if he was mortally wounded as all he heard was the message…his message.

Yanking his M6C from his holster he aimed it at what was standing in front of him before they even knew until he felt a massive force push on him that he had never witnessed and he fell to the ground, same with his gun.

BANG

"Ezra!" He heard an unknown voice say that sounded like a young woman.

James tried to rub his eyes, his version was blurred and slowly coming back to him.

"What? He had a gun pointed in my face!" Another voice said slightly deeper but younger, sounding a slight bit closer.

At first, thinking his vision was coming back to him changed his thought that he must have been hallucinating since there were multiple humanoid beings in front of him but two weren't human and he'd never seen them before.

Trying to get up, one of the two non-humans moved closer to him, his sidearm was too far away from his and he couldn't even feel his rifle on his holster.

"Woah, it's okay we're not going to hurt you," She said, clearly trying to sound reassuring.

"What…What are you? Where am I?" He asked, still vaguely dazed.

The woman chose to ignore his first question, almost looking confused as if she didn't know how to answer him. "My name is Hera, Hera Syndulla, that over there is Ezra Bridger" She answered. There were still 3 other people in the room, one of which was very large and purple but for now, James was still trying to recover too much to ask their names, or what they were a second time.

"Where…?" He tried to say, his voice sounded scratched and raspy. James held his hand to his throat.

"Here…" The woman who had called herself Hera had passed him a small cup. It looked as standard as anything he would normally drink out of yet he was still extremely apprehensive.

"It's just water, I promise," She said trying to get him to drink.

Using what little clarity he did have, he remembered that during his training the subject of what to do when captured by the enemy alive was very lightly covered since it so rarely happened with the Covenant and later, the Banished. It was almost entirely left to the soldier's own choice but since being taken alive never meant anything good, some would hold onto survival hoping for a rescue, while others would refuse sustenance if it was ever provided and die.

Now though, in a situation he couldn't have ever imagined himself in, James didn't feel in the same kind of danger as if he had been dragged off of a battlefield by a pack of hungry Brutes or scavenging Jackals. He took the plain cup, the drink gave off no scent and was perfectly see though.

"Better?" A young woman asked him. She looked human, at least to him.

James nodded.

"Okay good, as for where you are?" She started standing up from where she had been crouched in front of him, "Right now, you're on board the Ghost but more generally, the middle of open space in the outer rim," She explained slowly.

"Now, would you mind telling us who you are and what you're ship is doing all the way out here?" The young man who James would have sworn looked like a kid asked him.

Everything came flooding back.

"Jack!"

—

Okay, wow I actually managed to finish something and post it didn't I? So anyway like I said at the top this is a bit of an experiment to see how people like this story since there are not very many Halo/Rebels crossovers on FanFic and I would know since I've read every single one trying to find the good ones.

If it does take off I have a very vague idea of how the story will go but let's just see how this goes first. In the meantime, I will try and write a bit more for Mantle of Responsibility, unless the impossible happened and this one somehow becomes even more popular and people would prefer more frequent updates on this one.

I'm sure there is probably something I'm forgetting to write here before I post it but I'll just have to get to that when I do. Have fun, leave a review if you want and I will respond to it at the beginning of the next chapter if there is one…? Gotta say though I enjoyed writing it, that's a small first for a while.