The Hitchhiker's Guide to

The Legend of

Final Fable Zero:

The Belkan War—

Combat Evolved

Over Normandy

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Chapter the Second

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Author's Note: Tinker Bell is a fairy, dammit, not a pixie.

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When the next chapter began, Amy found himself strapped into the cockpit of a Mitsubishi A6M8c Zero-Sen.

"Um," he said. "Isn't this plane a little… old?"

"Yep," said an unfamiliar voice over the radio. "You're in the Zero-Sen, otherwise known as the 'Zero' or the 'Zeke', a single-seat carrier-based fighter originally built by the Japanese. This model has a maximum speed of three hundred sixty miles per hour or five hundred eighty kilometres per hour, and a service ceiling of thirty-nine thousand three hundred seventy feet or twelve thousand metres."

Bruce leant back in his seat and sighed. "I should have stayed in Albion… Hey, I thought I was going to be destroying the Halo."

"You are," said the radio-voice.

"Well, I seriously doubt this 'Zero' plane can make it into outer space."

"Oh, you won't need to go into outer space."

"What are you—hey!"

There was a blinding flash of light, and out of nowhere, a page break.

- - -

The light faded and the story resumed, and Amy realized the plane was now in flight over a vast landscape. And on the horizon, he could see the landscape stretching up, up, and away. He cursed.

"I'm on the Halo," he muttered.

"Kannst du mich hören, Dieter?" The voice had come over the radio, faintly, but clearly.

"Belkans," Bruce muttered, glancing around in the cockpit. He spotted a Banshee way off to the right, but it didn't seem to have noticed him. He kept flying at a distance.

"Ja, ich kann dich hören. Was machst du?"

"Das weiss ich nicht. Ich glaube… Ich… Damn, man, I'm done speaking German—I mean, Belkan. Too much effort."

"Fine, but you didn't answer my question."

"I don't know. I'm kind of hungry, I guess. The Demon hasn't shown up yet—"

"Why does the entire Covenant insist on calling the Master Chief a demon? Is Amy so hard to pronounce?"

Bruce raised an eyebrow as the conversation continued.

"I would call him 'Amy', but 'Demon' just has more… more umph than 'Bruce'."

"Hey," Amy said, "this is getting kind of annoying, so can we get to the fight?"

"What the—hey!" The Banshee spun around. "I'm going to make you nicht lebendig, you dirty Osean!"

"Okay, stop!" shouted Bruce. "This is too confusing! The Covenant are supposed to be aliens, not Belkans or Germans, which seem to be the same thing. I'm not an Osean, I'm from Albion, and I'm flying a Japanese plane to begin with. And why isn't the rest of the Covenant interested in activating the Halo? They were intent enough on having their 'Great Journey' during the first two games, even though I never heard anything about a 'Great Journey' until the second game. So my question is this: What the hell is going on?"

"I don't know," said the Belkan piloting the Banshee, "I guess the author didn't think this through very well."

Just then, the author realized that the Belkan was right, and decided to try a different storyline. Unfortunately, this meant the chapter had to end prematurely.