Author's Notes: This one took longer to write than my other chapters, probably because I was distracted with other things. I enjoyed this one the most however, especially at the last part.

Earth's Orbit
10.21.2552(Military Calendar)
22:40

"Admiral, what orders do you have for me?"

"Well Master Chief, I suppose it's pretty obvious. But command will look upon it more favorably if I say it out loud. You need to eliminate the covenants onboard. Capture the Prophet of Truth if you can, but that will probably be more than a little difficult given your circumstance and it's not exactly top priority anyway. Contact me when your mission has been achieved, or if you need to tell me anything else important."

"Yes sir." Master Chief surveyed the area around him. It was all empty and bare; there was nothing around him but the empty metal walls, and a door at the end. As he approached it, the door automatically opened. It was a very narrow space with a ladder on the wall, and when Master Chief gripped the rungs it automatically began to run upwards as if it were on an invisible conveyor belt.

"If Cortana were here" he thought, "She would have a fit over the technologies and mechanics behind what made this run." When the ladder reached the ceiling, the chief looked behind him to see another door. When he stepped off, the door opened and with a sigh of relief, he saw that there were no soldiers waiting for him. There were sentinels that patrolled the room in a circle, but they took no interest in the Chief when they saw him. There were large amounts of covenant weapon crates around, with weapons of all kinds.

Master Chief checked the two weapons he had on him. The battery on his plasma rifle was almost dead, and his Brute shot was out of ammo. He vaguely remembered opening fire on all of the Flood in his way as he rushed on the final stretch to the Fore-runner ship. He decided on picking up two Brute rifles, but he wanted a third weapon on him first. As he looked around, he saw a weapon he hadn't seen in a long time. It was a Fuel Rod Cannon, but not the ridiculous golden kind he had picked up in High Charity. It was the kind he had the Special Ops. Grunts carry back on the Halo. These were a lot more effective, so he decided to keep it. So he picked up the two Brute rifles and kept moving on through the next door.

He found himself standing in some sort of makeshift sleeping quarters; the beds were made of metal, and the mattresses out of some synthetic material. The Brutes and Jackals were sound asleep on these beds. Apparently there were some Grunts that weren't brave enough to defect, because on the ground were sleeping Grunts curled up in their usual sleeping position. There weren't any Drones in here, Master Chief assumed that they probably didn't need as much sleep, or maybe not any sleep.

He decided to spare them, since stirring up trouble would probably alert everyone to his presence sooner. The next room was a long hallway, and running horizontally was a long glass window. He could see the dog fights happening all around the ship. The colorful, vibrant Covenant ships outnumbered the grey military ships easily. The sooner he took out the last Prophet and stopped this genocidal war, the better. Ahead of him were two huge double doors, this had to be where the Prophet of Truth was. But before he took another step; Brute royal guards and Fore-runner Sentinels came pouring out of the door. Then out came the Prophet of Truth himself, followed by a golden Enforcer.

"I see that you have followed us even as we stand at the very entrance to the Ark, Demon. Though you may have killed Regret yourself, and Mercy lies dead because of the Flood infection your allies have brought to High Charity, you won't stop the Great Journey! Kill this Demon!"

The Prophet of Truth retreated back to the room, as Brutes and Sentinels opened fire. The golden Enforcer merely turned to its left, and shot at the glass. As the glass blew open, the shots of plasma from the Brutes were sucked out into the vacuum of space before they had reached the Spartan. But as the shots of plasma were sucked out into the vacuum of space, so were the Brutes, and Master Chief. The sentinels and the Enforcer managed to use their propulsion systems to avoid being sucked out of the ship.

There was no ship to catch him, and there was no plan. As he felt himself being thrown into that void of space; the Spartan once known as John in long time ago, relaxed and let fate take him.

Entering slip-space
10.21.2552(Military Calendar)
23:15

"Miranda Keyes, I have a lot I need to inform you about. You need to retrieve me or the person in this ship needs to do it. The last Prophet is heading towards Earth; they want to 'finish what they started'."

"I know" Miranda Keyes replied, "There's something on Earth they want, called the Ark. We can't get you now, we're about to enter slip-space with that huge ship you're in pursuit of. We're sure they're allied with covenant. "

"Well not anymore Keyes. Unless the crew is extremely lucky, they're all probably Flood by now."

Before Miranda could reply (probably with disbelief), they all began to enter slip-space. Cortana snapped at the AI running the ship, and told it to quit moving the ship around so much while they were in slip-space, it was dangerous. The ship shook with a strong force of turbulence, which was normal for one this small to enter slip-space. Samus would probably wake up from this soon, which was good. Cortana needed to be reunited back with Keyes as soon as possible. After that, their next objective would be to blow the Gravemind and its army of Flood to hell as soon as possible.

Much to their surprise and disappointment, they weren't at Earth. Cortana was the only one who could immediately recognize where the slip-space jump had really taken them. They were at Planet Reach, or at least what was left of it. The Covenant had destroyed all the human forces here, and had gassed the planet. Now they were at an empty space station, named REACH-15. REACH-15 was one of the only space stations in Reach's orbit that had been successfully evacuated when the covenant had invaded. Since it wasn't completely destroyed by the Covenant like everything else, Cortana guessed they had used it as a base during the operation.

Now there were no Covenant ships, but ships of the same kind that had taken them into slip-space. Most of the docked ships they were departing and taking off for slip-space. If they were allied with the Covenant, these ships entering slip-space were going to Earth then. The AI, Adam, maneuvered the ship to behind the squad of Phantoms accompanying them. Cortana grimaced as the ship filled with Flood docked on REACH-15. Though the ship looked innocent, instead of crew looking to refuel the ship, there were a swarm of parasites looking to feed and infest.

Miranda Keyes came back on the broadcast, "Okay everyone. That ship is filled with Flood, but we don't have adequate firepower in these ships to handle them. We need to dock on there, which will be easy enough, and take a Space Pirate ship instead. Since Johnson and I are humans, we will stay inside to avoid suspicion, but everyone else leave to secure a ship. Then, take out as much Space Pirates and Flood as you can."

Then the AI on the ship responded for the first time since picking up Cortana, "I should wake up Samus and inform her of these plans then." But as the Phantoms moved in, the latch door burst open and the Flood started pouring out of the ship.

"Okay everyone, we'll have to make this quick! We don't have the time to try to sneak our way into a ship anymore! Get a ship and kill as many as possible on the way!" Sergeant Johnson yelled on the broadcast. When the Phantoms descended and stopped, everyone jumped out with their plasma weapons firing as they charged to the nearest ship.

Location: Unknown
Date: Unknown
Time: Error-clock function damaged.

Master Chief couldn't move at all. He didn't know where he was, and all he could see was bright lights surrounding him. Then he heard the sound of an automated door slide open, and a shadowy figure that blocked out the light in front of him.

"Well, this is quite an odd coincidence, but not an unhappy one. Though some of us know you as 'Demon', I'm sure we'll get used to calling you by your appropriate name in time, 'Master Chief'."

Space Pirate ship: "The Crimson Scythe"
2-19 20X9(Cosmic Year)
19.80 Hours

As the rebel Covenant forces pilled out of their ships and the Flood poured out of theirs, he watched with a sadistic grin. The Flood were a useful tool, albeit one that was hard to control. The leaders of this sect of religious nuts had hired them as mercenaries in this war of theirs, that much was true. But he did not keep his leadership status over the now shaky Space Pirate organization by being a fool, even if the position had been handed to him after the death of Mother Brain. The doctrine of the Covenant movement demanded that anyone who did not join their sect be eliminated; they would be no exception if they gave the Covenant the opportunity.

What was the best way to deal with this? The new head of the Space Pirates had made a perfect plan. It would destroy the Covenant without drawing direct attention to defection of the Space Pirates, and it would also take care of the humans so that there would be no backlash once the Covenant was eliminated. His plan was to have an organized outbreak of the Flood. It was a very precise plan, and not even unexpected variables thrown into the equation like these Covenant rebels could not throw it off course.

The Space Pirate ship "Bladed Storm", that had landed on the desolation of High Charity had landed there intentionally. The crew, "conveniently" made up of suspected defects to the Space Pirates and members with a bad record, was told to land there for a rescue mission for the Prophet of Mercy that would surely earn themselves a great reward from the Covenant hierarchy itself. Planning that mission out alone was hard, he had found out about the Flood through pure luck, and discovering the recent location of Flood on High Charity had taken some advanced hacking into restricted covenant databanks.

The crew of the Bladed Storm was doomed, he knew it of course. The Prophet of Mercy was long dead (he had even watched the surveillance video of him dying), and the Flood were too powerful for a rescue team of that size. The Flood certainly weren't navigating the Bladed Storm to REACH-15 themselves either. When enough Flood had entered the ship he activated a program that he had snuck on there to put the ship's controls under his power. That odd, sentient leader of the Flood that called itself "Gravemind" was frustrated when it found it couldn't direct the ship itself of course, but it let the ship run its course. The Gravemind expressed out loud the thought that the ship would make its course to Earth eventually. From there he had sent the Bladed Storm to REACH-15 for the sake of feeding and increasing in number, even if it meant the sacrifice of some troops.

Once the feeding time for the Flood on REACH-15 was over? The Gravemind would direct its disgusting children back into ship so that they could head for Earth. That Gravemind had an obsession with getting to Earth to interrupt whatever the Covenant wanted to initiate; which was lucky, because according the plan the Flood needed to get to Earth as soon as possible. Once the Flood reached Earth, there would be nothing else needed to be done. The Flood would spread, and the humans on Earth would become extinct at the hands of these parasites. With no humans for back-up support on earth, the human forces fighting the battle in Space would finally be wiped out, and the Covenant would descend into Earth, only to be wiped out by the same parasites. Only the Space Pirates would remain.

There was only one thing that could interrupt his plans, and that was the Gravemind. The Flood were mindless by nature, following only their insatiable instinct to feed. This Gravemind that served as the brain for the Flood could bring order and organization to the Flood, which would threaten the mission. The head of the Space Pirates was sure that the Gravemind was probably suspicious of the ship that was transporting them, and would possibly do something to interfere with his plans. The Gravemind would need to be dealt with in the very near future.

But as he looked to the monitor, another thing caught his eye and almost made him choke. There was a purple ship that he knew from the Space Pirate public records. It was the new ship of the Hunter, Samus Aran. That made two potential things that could screw up his plans. He gulped uneasily at the thought that the person he was cloned from was dead because of her.

But he regained his posture and reassured himself of victory. After all, he had something that could not only destroy the Gravemind and the Hunter, but could also keep the Flood in check and make sure that a Flood outbreak never happened to the rest of the Space Pirates. He had the Metroids.