As they traveled through the air on the Pelican troop transport, Cortana continued her interrogation of the four dimensional travelers, her natural curiosity gnawing at her to find out more and more. The Chief bore the incessant conversation stoically, though he did keep an ear open for anything of interest.
She primarily spoke to Lara and Harry, the first more than the second. Finding out that they were from the early twenty-first century of their respective worlds fascinated her, as it showed that they didn't only travel realities, but time as well. The differences that she could find between their worlds were intriguing, especially the objects of power that Lara encountered, not to mention the world that was essentially what comic books were made of when it came to Harry and Beast Boy. What shocked her the most, however, was finding out that Alice was literally a literary character.
Honestly, the only reason she hadn't just stuck them in a lab to be studied at her leisure was that they had more immediate concerns.
That and she didn't want Harry to somehow turn her chip into a rubber duck.
Chief's interest was more practical, however. The idea of an entire universe full of people with the kinds of powers Harry described presented an interesting opportunity. If Harry and Beast Boy, whenever they made it back, managed to open a more permanent connection between their worlds, then there was the possibility of the UNSC perhaps striking an alliance with the Justice League if the two teens put in a good word. That would give humanity a valuable resource in the event of another Flood outbreak or formal renewal of hostilities with the Covenant.
Harry and Lara, on the other hand, were learning just as much. They were told about who the Covenant were and what had happened involving him, the group appropriately horrified at the fact that billions had died in the war with the aliens. They also were told who the Forerunners were and why the Didact being one was such bad news. Finding out that one of the beings that the Covenant worshipped as gods had gone bad and apparently hated humanity was more than a bit concerning.
Their discussion was interrupted when Captain Del Rio's holographic image appeared in the middle of the Pelican's hold. "Infinity to Gypsy Company. The air corridor to the gravity well is blocked by a network of particle cannons. Infinity's shields are still down." He said as the troops in the Pelican felt the transport lower its altitude. "Open a lane for us to move up and provide air support."
Chief, standing calmly beside the hologram despite the Pelican's swaying motions, spoke. "Captain, what's Force Recon's assessment of the terrain?"
Del Rio's hologram turned its head to give chief an irritated and more than slightly patronizing look. When he spoke, his voice conveyed just that. "I know you've been off the field for a while, Master Chief, but this is a blowthrough op." Harry and Beast Boy shared equal looks of disbelief with each other as the Captain continued. "Sending in recon would just slow us down!" Then he turned away from the Chief to continue the briefing, ignoring the man as images of one of the cannons appeared as well. "Telemetry indicates that the particle cannons are being controlled from a command post southwest of our position. Roll on that target, and neutralize those guns." He paused to study the various troops in the transport, giving the Chief one last look, before nodding. "We'll meet on the other side, and take the gravity well. Infinity out." He said before the image disappeared.
"Is he seriously sending us in without any intelligence on what we'll face?" Beast Boy asked in disbelief.
"I'm pretty sure the Captain is lacking more than a bit of intelligence himself…" Lara grumbled.
"Yeeeaaaah… I don't know about you, but I personally like a little more intel with my intel." Cortana said.
"We'll make it work." Chief said confidently, despite his own doubts and the grumbles of some of the others there.
As the Pelican landed amongst the rocks of the arid canyon area that they now found themselves in, the group of travelers and soldiers walked out and under a rocky overhang to find an extremely large land vehicle that Cortana told the foursome was called a Mammoth and served as a mobile command and control unit. Commander Lasky was already on board and waiting for them.
"Damn, that's a big truck." Beast Boy said with a raised eyebrow.
"Someone's definitely overcompensating." Cortana agreed with amusement.
As the various Marines and SPARTANS dispersed throughout the Mammoth, Harry's team followed the Chief up to the top of the vehicle, where Lasky stood, looking at the rocky crags around them. He turned when he spotted the group approach. "Unfortunately for us, we've got to manually bring down a couple of particle cannons before we can reach the command post." He said, shifting slightly. "Thankfully we've got a mini-MAC gun on board. As soon as the Pelicans with us can paint the target, we'll blow them out of the sky. Stay alert though. We don't have any idea what else is out here."
"Alright. We'll go down below and prepare ourselves." Lara said, getting a nod from Lasky.
AS the Mammoth started up, shaking as its engines began to power up, the four moved to an empty area of the Mammoth's first floor, near one of the weapons racks. As Lara went and checked if she wanted to switch her assault rifle to something else they had in stock, Harry grabbed one of the sniper rifles and slipped it into his bag.
He'd been grabbing weapons and other odds and ends around the Infinity and storing them to take back to his world. So far he had grabbed one of each type of weapon he had encountered, including a couple of Covenant ones, plus some ammo, grenades, and body armor. He was sure that they would come in handy, and even if they didn't, the League might be interested. Some of the members used firearms, after all.
He'd need to see if he could get any blueprints to their tech. He was sure that Batman's contacts in Wayne Enterprises would be interested in technology several hundred years more advanced than what they had at the moment. At the very least, space travel would be easier.
Watching his friends get ready, Lara checking her weapon, Beast Boy eating a protein bar, and Alice having a sip of water, Harry decided he wanted to be outside and see what was going on. He made his way back out to where they'd met Lasky to find the Chief standing there, rifle in his hands and what appeared to be a jetpack now on his back, looking forward as the Mammoth started moving, rumbling forward slowly yet gaining speed. He took a spot beside the soldier, watching the terrain begin to pass by without a word.
They both looked up when a trio of Pelicans flew slowly overhead, getting ready to pain the Mammoth's targets. That was when Palmer's voice came over the com in the earpiece Harry had. "Captain Del Rio, Pelicans are in position near the particle cannons. Waiting for the Mammoth's mini-MAC to take them out." After a couple of seconds her voice came again. "Seven-six-six, lose some altitude. You are inside the kill box." She ordered.
"Almost got target lock." Came a male voice, presumably Pelican seven-six-six. "Just a little more…"
The particle cannon came into view, and the image they'd been shown of it didn't do it justice. It was huge. At least three times the size of the Mammoth. Its main body was a sphere with a large opening, presumably the barrel, and it had three prongs around it spaced evenly around the sphere and pointing in the direction the barrel was pointing in.
And it was powering up.
As orange light coalesced in the cannon's gaping mouth, it oriented itself to aim at the Pelicans. "Pelicans, fall back!" Palmer ordered, but too late, as the cannon fired a stream of light that engulfed two of the aircraft and severely damaged the third, which went down and crashed out of view.
"Well… fuck." Harry said with feeling.
"Infinity, Pelican is down!" Lasky called over the comm.
"Get to the crash site and retrieve that target designator, Gypsy!" Del Rio barked. "We've got no chance of clearing those guns without it."
Harry and the Chief glanced at each other before the soldier lifted his rifle to aim at something that had appeared around the bend in the road.
Lasky quickly informed everybody of what it was. "All squads, we have Covenant forces on the ridgeline. Weapons free, people!"
Harry quickly drew his revolver and began firing as the Chief did the same beside him. Several other soldiers came out of the Mammoth to take firing positions, Lara among them, all beginning to shoot at the Covenant as the Mammoth continued making its way passed the aliens' position.
When the Covenant troops had been eliminated and the Mammoth had moved passed them they saw the crashed form of the Pelican a little over a hundred yards away. Palmer chimed in to confirm. "There's Gypsy Seven's pelican out in the muck. Anyone still alive?"
"We're here!" Came a strained voice. "We're alive! We have the target designator!"
As Harry, Lara and the Chief quickly made their way below Chief spoke over the comms. "I'll get to them and retrieve the designator."
"We'll come too." Harry said to him, Lara nodding in agreement. Chief simply nodded back. Unfortunately, they got more bad news from Lasky.
"Heads up, dropships on approach!" The Commander said.
Harry hurried to his friends, who had been listening in on the radio. "Lara, you're coming with me to get the targeting designator. We're the ones with range. Alice, Beast Boy, stay and protect the Mammoth."
Alice and Beast Boy nodded as Lara made sure she had ammo before she and Harry ran back to the Chief, who was in the driver's seat of a Warthog. Lara quickly got into the passenger seat, while Harry got in the back, taking hold of the mounted chaingun, a small smirk on his face. "Ready to go, Chief!"
As the ramp at the front of the Mammoth opened to let them out, the Chief floored it, racing out of the transport and turning sharply, almost dislodging Harry from his perch. Then they were in the middle of the fight.
Lara managed to keep herself seated despite the crazy driving the Chief was forced to perform to avoid shots from Covenant vehicles, which included Ghost bikes and Wraith tanks. She quickly began to shoot her weapon, aiming for the drivers of the Ghosts, more than one falling to her skill.
Harry, meanwhile, after a brief period to acclimatize to the movement of the car and the gun it had mounted, quickly began to fire as well, focusing his fire on the Wraiths, trying to bring them down through sheer volume of fire.
They weren't the only ones fighting. Another Warthog full of SPARTANs was also driving around, eliminating hostiles and keeping the enemies from focusing their fire on a single vehicle.
Unfortunately, dropships kept coming by to drop off more vehicles for them to fight, which made things longer and more difficult than they needed to be.
Once the remaining enemies numbered less than a quarter of what had initially attacked them, they left the other Warthog to mop things up as they made their way to the crashed Pelican. Sadly, whatever marines had survived the crash had since been killed by the Covenant, but they found the target designator in one piece, the Chief quickly picking it up.
On Cortana's instructions he quickly raised it, aiming it at the Phantom dropships coming in with more enemy reinforcements, and painted the target. The Mammoth proceeded to let out an enormous boom as it fired on the Phantom, blowing it to pieces.
"Alright Master Chief, we're clear." Lasky said over the comm. "Mini-MAC's at your disposal. Take out that particle cannon."
The Chief quickly got back into the Warthog and drove back over to the Mammoth, stopping beside it with a view of the cannon. Without getting out of his seat he aimed the designator at the floating weapon, and almost immediately after the mini-MAC boomed again, slamming its slug into it and making it explode, debris falling from the sky into the canyon below.
Once the cannon was gone the Mammoth began to move again, the Warthogs following behind it.
After some more travelling, fighting, another destroyed cannon, and some severe damage to the Mammoth, the Chief stood back on said vehicle's top deck, watching the scenery pass by as the vehicle rumbled its way over some fast flowing tributaries that wouldn't have allowed anything else to pass.
He was as relaxed as he ever got when suddenly his Heads Up Display began to waver, Cortana's screaming, staticky voice ringing from the armor's internal and external speakers (making Chief glad he was alone up there). "THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU! THEY REPLACED YOU!"
An instant later it was all back to normal, and Cortana's voice came again, normal but full of self-recrimination. "Blast it!"
"It's okay." Chief tried to reassure her.
Cortana's avatar came up on a screen on his HUD, looking frustrated. "How? How is this 'okay'? How is putting you at risk because I can't hold it together 'okay'?" She paused, before speaking more somberly. "Chief, do you even understand what rampancy is? Really? We don't just shut down. Our cognitive processes begin dividing exponentially according to our total knowledgebase." She paused, before continuing sadly. "We literally think ourselves to death."
"You know I won't let that happen." Chief said firmly.
Cortana just stared at him for a few seconds. "…And if it happens anyway?"
Chief heard a throat clearing behind him and turned around to find Harry standing there, looking slightly awkward. "You, uh, were having that conversation on the external speakers of your armor, Chief…"
The Chief hesitated, and he could tell from Cortana's silence that she didn't know how to react either. He was berating himself for being so distracted by Cortana's issue he didn't even notice Harry's approach or the fact that the external speakers were on. Thankfully Harry continued reassuringly. "I won't tell anyone what's going on with Cortana. Not even my friends." He paused before speaking. "Let me know if there's something I can do to help though."
"I don't suppose you can magic away rampancy?" Cortana asked rhetorically.
"I… I don't know. If I tried, I'd probably end up killing you outright." Harry sighed. "…I'm sorry."
The awkward silence that followed was thankfully interrupted by Lasky speaking over the comm. "One-one-seven, Lasky."
Chief turned away from Harry. "Go Commander."
"We've got significant blockage up ahead. I think this is about it for the Mammoth."
"The command post for the particle cannons is through that trench." Cortana said, all business once again as she put a waypoint on the Chief's HUD indicating to a narrow passage to the side of the rocks blocking the Mammoth's path.
"Sir, I can move faster alone." Chief said.
"We'll see you back on Infinity, Commander." Cortana said.
"Alright. Lasky out." The Commander responded.
Harry cracked his neck beside him. "You up for some company?" He asked.
Chief hesitated, but didn't deny that the young man's unorthodox fighting style and abilities could be useful. Finally, he nodded. "Fine. But just you."
Harry nodded as they began making their way down. "Alright. I'll go tell the others while you get going. Don't worry, I'll catch up."
Chief nodded back and headed out to follow the path Cortana laid out.
It took longer than it should have for them to reach the entrance to the command post that controlled the cannons. The trench that led to it, not to mention the outside of the structure itself, was crawling with Covenant forces led by Prometheans.
The Chief, along with Harry, fought his way through the mass of enemies, using a sniper rifle to take them out at a safe distance as Harry handled anything close by using various tricks such as creating a spike pit under the enemies' feet or launching conjured razor sharp disks that flew around, harassing them.
Finally, they reached the doorway to the installation with no more enemies visibly nearby. As they walked in Cortana contacted the Infinity. "Cortana to Infinity, we are entering the Forerunner structure." They got a garbled transmission from what sounded like Del Rio back, but they couldn't understand any more than bits and pieces, though they did catch what sounded like coordinates. Even so, Cortana responded. "You're breaking up, but coordinates received, Infinity."
As they walked in they saw that the place was illuminated by soft blue lighting. Chief tensed and brought his rifle up when a floating sentinel went passed them, but the machine didn't seem to notice them, going its own way.
"Okay…" Harry said slowly. "I guess they don't mind we're here?"
"Why though?" Cortana asked, wondering why the systems here hadn't turned hostile like the Prometheans had.
"I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth." Chief said as he began walking deeper into the complex.
They approached the door at the end of the hallway they were in, but when they reached it, it wouldn't open. Then they heard the sound of the sentinel approaching and turn to see it fly to them, passing them before stopping before the door, which proceeded to open.
"I guess that means 'Welcome'…" Harry said as they proceeded to walk through the open doorway, the sentinel following them to open another door that led to an elevator.
The three got on it and waited as it started to go down. "This elevator should take us directly to the coordinates Infinity provided." Cortana said before she continued a bit more slowly. "…Almost like those sentinels wanted us to get the particle cannons offline."
"I'm not sure how I feel about that…" Harry said, holding his revolver tightly, just in case.
"This could be a trap." Chief agreed.
"You say that like there's a second possibility?" Cortana said sardonically as the elevator reached its stop, the doors opening for them without prompting.
They proceeded to walk down a long hallway, weapons at the ready, till they reached another door to another hallway. This one had another sentinel that was hovering in front of the far door, moving in a way designed to catch their attention. "I think it's telling us to go that way." Harry said as he resumed walking. The door opened as they approached, the sentinel going through and leading the way.
They followed the sentinel along more hallways and doors till they reached a large room with glowing cylinders. At the end there was a hologram showing what appeared to be satellites surrounding what seemed to be a glowing orb. A control terminal was in front of the hologram.
"Looks like this is the place." Cortana said as Chief approached the console. He quickly inserted Cortana, whose own avatar appeared quickly. "The particle cannon network must use these arrays for targeting and guidance." She said, arms crossed and hand on her chin. "It's an automatic system, so it technically won't allow me to redirect the cannons to fire on one another." She turned to look at them, a small smirk on her face as the place began to rumble and shake violently, Harry quickly spreading his legs for better balance. "Technically." She turned back to the hologram. "Cortana to Infinity. The guns should be offline." Even as she spoke, the hologram turned from golden yellow to grey. "How's it look from up there?" She paused, but there was no answer. "Infinity!"
"Cortana…" Chief began.
"Something's in here…" Cortana said before her avatar suddenly hunched over, as though cowering. "Chief!" She cried before she disappeared.
"Fuck, that's not good." Harry said.
"Cortana!" Chief repeated, but got no answer.
He turned to find Harry looking around, weapon up and eyes narrowed. "Anything?" The teen asked.
"No. We need to find her. We can't leave her behind." Chief said firmly.
"Especially in her condition." Harry agreed. "She could do something pretty bad without meaning to with the systems here, from my guess."
The two quickly got moving the way they came, both tense and ready for an attack. A sentinel appeared in their path, and a light bridge extended off to the side, leading to a door they hadn't noticed on the other side of the drop in the floor.
Harry hesitated, looking at the Chief. "What do you think? I don't like the feeling that I'm being herded."
The Chief considered that. "We don't have much choice. They're our best bet of finding Cortana." He stepped onto the light bridge, walking over it confidently.
Harry sighed before following. "It's always something…"
They walked through narrow, dimly lit hallways, wary of an attack, but nothing leaped out at them. They remained wary nonetheless. Soon they reached another door that opened out into a larger room with a ramp going down downward to another, larger door with four sentinels in front of it. Once they reached the door it opened, revealing a pillar of light in the middle of the next room. They hesitantly stopped in front of it.
"So…" Harry said unsurely. "What do we do?"
The Chief looked at the pillar before slowly stepping towards it.
Harry's eyes widened. "You sure that's a good-"
Then the Chief's body suddenly tensed as it entered the light, floating slightly in place, head thrown back so he looked up.
"-Idea…?" Harry finished lamely. Then he looked down to the other end of the room, where several Promethean Crawlers began running towards them, ready to attack. He quickly raised his weapon and started shooting, peripherally aware that the Chief had begun to glow before he dropped to kneel on the ground, whatever had just happened ending. "Chief? You alright?" Harry asked as he blew the head off one of the Crawlers.
"Fine." He said, quickly picking up his rifle and joining in on killing the advancing enemies.
"Chief, Harry, up here!" They suddenly heard Cortana call. They turned to find her on another control podium, her small avatar waving at them.
Harry rushed over to the podium, yanking Cortana out and tossing her over to the Chief, who caught her and quickly slipped her in the back of his helmet between shots.
"How do we get out of here?" Chief asked immediately as more enemies continued to pour in.
"Elevator, back of the chamber." She responded immediately.
"I'll make a distraction, then we run for it." Harry said, the crowd of crawlers becoming thick and being joined by some Knights.
"What kind of distraction?" Cortana asked quickly.
Harry reached into his bag, pulling out a large handful of small pebbles he'd grabbed for just such an occasion, and threw them at the attacking horde.
Chief was about to ask what that was meant to do when the pebbles suddenly changed into short, bearlike creatures wearing what looked like crude bone armor and wielding weapons of wood and bone.
Chief couldn't help it as he stopped and stared for a couple of seconds in disbelief as the small bears let out a war cry and attacked, bashing their surprisingly durable weapons on the Prometheans.
"I… I can't… I don't even…" Cortana couldn't believe what she was seeing either. Especially as she thought she recognized what the things were.
"Move it!" Harry shouted as he launched himself into the fray, landing on one of the Crawlers, moving towards the door in the back, only firing to clear the way and leaving the fighting to his constructs.
Chief followed behind as best he could, kicking Crawlers out of the way. He saw one of the Promethean Knights raise his weapon to fire, but before it could one of the little beasts jumped on its head, bashing it with a club. He shook his head at the absurdity and just kept running.
They finally made it into the elevator, which began going down. They looked back to see the Prometheans continue trying to pursue, Harry's constructs making that exceedingly difficult.
Once they'd caught their breath (figuratively, in Cortana's case), the AI addressed Harry. "Ewoks, Harry? That's what you came up with?"
"It worked, didn't it? Harry retorted with a small smile.
Cortana simply sighed before her voice turned serious, an image of her avatar appearing on the Chief's HUD. "Anyway, Chief, what happened? Your bio readings are all over the map."
"It's a long story." Chief said simply. "But I know what the Didact's after."
"I know that part." Cortana said. "The Librarian filled me in when she snatched me from the system. But what I don't know is what she did to you."
"Well, I have no clue what you're talking about. Mind filling me in?" Harry groused.
The two paused before Cortana spoke. "The Prometheans we've been fighting were once human. The Didact is after the thing that did that, the Composer, in order to do it to the rest of humanity." The elevator reached its destination. "Obviously, we have to stop him."
"Oh…" Harry said as he walked out of the elevator. "Yeah, we might want to keep that from happening."
At the end of the hallway they'd arrived in, a machine created a portal to another part of Requiem. Harry paused to study it. "Mine are better…"
Cortana chuckled as the Chief walked through, Harry following closely.
After the Infinity destroyed the gravity well generator with a well-placed missile (targeted by the Chief), said SPARTAN, Cortana, Del Rio, Lasky, Palmer, and the four travelers, were all meeting on back on the leisurely flying Infinity's bridge, just as they had before the operation against the gravity well began.
"Infinity cannot handle that kind of punishment. Not again." Del Rio was saying after Chief and Cortana had explained what happened to them, including how the remnant of a Forerunner known as the Librarian managed to contact them and explain to them what the Didact was after.
"This isn't about us, or this ship, anymore." Cortana insisted, frustrated.
"Sir, we've seen what the Didact is capable of." Chief said seriously. "If we let him leave this world, humanity will be at risk."
"Look…" Del Rio began. "I understand what you think you saw…"
"Think?" Cortana asked incredulously.
"With all due respect, sir." The Chief said, sounding angry for the first time most there had heard. "I know what I saw."
"And with all due respect to you, soldier." Del Rio retorted, walking around the table to stand in front of the SPARTAN, his voice aggravated. "I'm not willing to jeopardize my ship because of the hallucinations of an aging SPARTAN and his malfunctioning AI!"
As Harry's eyes narrowed and Alice, Lara and Beast Boy glanced at each other, staying silent, Lasky cut in, trying to be reasonable. "Sir, what if he's right?"
Del Rio turned to Lasky, his look cold before he spoke loudly. "Nav, as soon as we know we're airtight, I want a course laid into Caraway Station. Comm, prepare a warning beacon."
Del Rio's frosty stare at his XO was interrupted when the lights began to flicker, the sound of static electricity building up in the air. Alice noticed the cause first and tugged on Harry's coat, seeing Cortana's avatar flickering red as she looked down, shoulders hunched in what Harry soon recognized (after a lifetime with Vernon Dursley in close proximity) as rage.
It didn't take long for the others to notice as well, especially when she began to speak angrily. "I will not… allow you… to leave… this… PLANET!" The screamed the last word, a burst of energy bursting from her position and making the electronics flicker, the overhead lights sparking.
Cortana went back to her normal blue shade after the outburst, a look of horror on her face as she realized what she'd just done.
"Cortana…" Chief said, stopping, not finding anything to say.
"I… I didn't mean to…" She said, afraid. "I didn't mean to do that…" Her voice wavered at the end.
"Commander Lasky." Del Rio suddenly said, voice hard. "Persuant article 55 of UNSC regulation 12.4572, I am ordering you to remove that AI datachip and retire it for final dispensation."
The entire time, Cortana was whispering that she hadn't meant it.
Harry's eyes became flinty as he glared at Del Rio even as he heard Lara gasp at the realization of what Del Rio meant, along with Beast Boy's whispered curse and clenched fist.
"I don't want to…" Cortana whimpered. "You don't want me to…"
"Remove the chip now, Commander." The Captain ordered again, completely unsympathetic.
Lasky looked sad, but reached down to do as ordered in spite of Cortana's continued whispers of "Please."
The Chief reached down to take the chip first, but he was surprised when instead someone else snatched it from its slot. Everyone there turned to stare at Harry, who held the chip tightly, looking at it thoughtfully.
Del Rio turned to Harry, eyes narrowed and voice hard. "Return that chip now, boy."
Harry looked up at the Captain before glaring. "Go fuck yourself, asshole." As Del Rio gaped at him he moved away, sitting down with the chip in his hand.
Alice to a step forward hesitantly. "Harry, what are you doing?"
He looked up at her. "Something potentially moronic." Then a slightly opaque shield of energy, like a tinted window, surrounded his body in a sphere. He then turned to gaze back down at the chip, his hands beginning to emanate a dark energy.
The Chief felt uneasy. He hadn't forgotten what Harry said about potentially killing Cortana if he tried to help. He didn't know what had changed, if anything.
Unfortunately, it seemed his fears were justified as things progressed.
Harry had been focused on the chip for over a minute, sweat beginning to bead his brow as the energy now emanated from his entire body. They could see he was whispering something, but couldn't hear what. Then, suddenly, his eyes became glazed over and began to glow, and the energy changed in color and flow.
The energy stopped flowing out of him, and instead seemed to flow into him. It also changed color, from inky black that they could still somehow see through to a blue similar to Cortana's, tinged with small streaks of his own black.
Chief's heart felt like it stopped, however, when the sound of glass cracking rang out in the uncharacteristically silent bridge of the Infinity. He looked down to find that Cortana's chip now had a long, jagged crack.
Immediately the SPARTAN drew his sidearm, aiming directly at Harry's head. With only the barest hint of his usual discipline he began to shoot, trying to stop whatever the young man was doing. He barely noticed Harry's companions yelling at him, at both of them, to stop, but he kept firing.
Unfortunately it was too late, and to John-117's horror, in a moment that would join the many nightmares that haunted his sleep for a long time to come, his dearest friend's chip…
Shattered into a thousand pieces with a clear, tinkling sound.
RIP Cortana.
Not much else to say. Hope you enjoyed the chapter, please review, and don't forget I have a Pat A Ron now. /athanmortis
Till next time.