Disclaimer: None of the characters from Halo, Halo 2, or the Halo books are mine.

A/N: This chapter is slightly longer but it's still relatively short. Anyway R&R please!

Another A/N: This is the rewrite version of Chapter 1: An Odd Alliance.

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Halo 3: The Fall of the Covenant

Chapter 1

An Odd Alliance

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"All right Master Chief, give me some details on what happened in the last few days," said Admiral Hood. John briefly explained what happened on Delta Halo and how Commander Keyes and Sergeant Johnson were captured by the Covenant. He also explained how he had to leave Cortana in High Charity in case the Flood found an operational ship, so she can destroy Delta Halo. He also told him what his current mission is.

"I see. Well, I can't do much about your current situation but I will tell everyone not to fire on that ship your on. It's the most I can do. Contact me if you find anything important and give me regular updates on your progress. If you fail to make contact with me after thirty minutes, I will assume that you're dead and will order the MAC guns to fire upon that ship. Is that clear Master Chief?"

"Yes sir," said John.

"Good, I'll leave this situation in your capable hands Chief. Good luck. Hood out."

The Master Chief snapped off his COM and mentally recalled what he carried onto the Covenant ship. A single pistol loaded with half a magazine of ammunition and a plasma rifle. Not exactly great for tackling Brutes. He then glanced down to his grenade belt, and found three frags and a plasma there.

The Master Chief looked from side to side to get to know his surroundings better. There was a door on his left and another on his right. The ceiling was immensely high and there were no other way out of the room. Dozens of purple crates and boxes were piled in one corner of the room, he checked behind the crates and in some of them but there was nothing in there that he could use. He glanced from left to right; from one door to the next. Now which way to go?

As if his thought has summoned them, the door on his left opened with a hiss and four Jackals walked through. The Master Chief quickly dived behind an empty weapons canister. He landed with a soft ping but the Jackals, despite their superior sense hearing, smell, and sight, didn't notice him. The Master Chief stayed hidden behind the weapons canister until the four Jackals had passed him. He peeked out carefully and quickly took in information about the Jackals' armaments. There one of them was a sniper, armed with a beam rifle, and the other three were normal infantry, and they had standard handheld plasma shields and plasma pistols.

The birdlike aliens continued talking in their native tongue as they approached the only other door in the room, oblivious to the Chief's presence. When they got to the door, the Jackal with the beam rifle pushed a series of buttons on a holo-panel, and the door slid open. John saw his chance at better weapons and took it. He took his only plasma grenade and threw it at the Jackal sniper. The other three gasped in surprise when the grenade latched onto the Jackal's sniper's arm. It threw down his rifle and tried to pry the grenade off, but to no avail. The others stood still, stunned, with their beaks agape, and then realization started to sink in – too late. The ensuing blast turned three of the four Jackals into chunks of meat and ash. The fourth survived with half its shield arm missing. The surviving alien shrieked in pain and anger as it held its stub of an arm in its other hand. The Master Chief unholstered his M6C Pistol, thumbed the safety off, and shot it in the head. A spray of blue blood splashed across the wall behind the Jackal as the bullet tore through its skull. The shrieking stopped abruptly.

The Master Chief walked over to the dead Jackal's body and swapped his near empty pistol for the dropped plasma pistol. He checked the battery and found that the gun was at eighty-nine percent battery.

"Good enough."

He then made his way over to where the Jackal sniper discarded his beam rifle and exchanged his plasma rifle for that. Luckily, the plasma grenade didn't destroy the gun. He then took another plasma pistol from one of the dead bodies. He holstered both plasma pistols and advanced through the open door with his beam rifle ready. Although the rifle wasn't made for close range combat, the Master Chief had gotten good enough with them to use with for close quarters.

He made his way silently though the hallways of the strange ship making no noise. Luckily, all of the doors he had gone through were unlocked. On the way, he encountered a lone Brute, who was patrolling the hallways of the ship.

"Stupid Brute. Never present your back to an enemy."

The Master Chief ran up to it silently and smacked the Brute with the butt of his beam rifle. The spine of the Brute snapped with a crack, despite the thick hide and muscle protecting it, and it dropped its weapon. The massive hulk of the Brute fell to the deck with a surprising lack of noise. The Master Chief then peeled the Brute's body from the ground and collected the carbine it had fallen on. He checked the ammo counter on top of the carbine and it was full. Good. The Chief then tore a bandolier of plasma grenades from the Brute's belt and extracted the grenades from the belt.

He slung the carbine over his shoulder and moved on. The hallway he was in was vast, more like a giant room than a hallway. The ceiling, walls, and the floor were made of the same grey material as the structures on Alpha Halo and Delta Halo. There were alien symbols everywhere, similar to the buildings on the ring worlds as well.

There was, however, only one door, other than the one he just came from. The door was located at the other end of the hallway. Above the doorway, there were a number of symbols, which the Master Chief didn't understand, but somehow, he knew that something important was behind those doors. He slowly walked up to the door, looking around constantly in case of an ambush, and found that the door was locked from the other side. There was a holo-panel beside the door, but every button he pressed got the same strange symbols scrolling across the holo-screen.

"Door must be locked."

Then he remembered that Admiral Hood ordered him to give him regular updates. He contacted the Cairo and informed the Admiral of what he found so far. After he closed the COM channel, he suddenly wished that Cortana were here to help him. Although Cortana had her little quirks and she can get a bit annoying sometimes, the Chief found her to be a valuable asset. She helped him with tactics, giving him information on enemy troop movements, hacking into Covenant battle net to disrupt the enemy and so on. He shook that out of his mind and began to think about what to do in his present situation.

He then noticed tiny a crack in the structure of the door and then decided that breaking the door down was the best solution, because without Cortana, he couldn't hack into the ship's systems and open the door. He laid his beam rifle down beside the door and drew his two plasma pistols. Even though the beam rifle was more efficient when it comes to eliminating enemies, the plasma pistols were much better at melting things. He fired the plasma pistols and melted the door little by little. At last, after eating away about two inches of the unknown Forerunner metal, the Master Chief decided that it was weak enough to yield to his strength. He aimed a solid and precise kick at the weak spot and the door bent inwards but didn't break. He kicked it twice more and after the second kick, the door broke under the pressure. As soon as what was left of the door hit the ground, a wave of red plasma rushed at John and left his shields completely drained.

"Shit, I should've expected Covenant forces beyond that door."

He quickly rolled to the side to recharge his shields, picking up his beam rifle while he was at it. He fumbled for his optic cable but then remembered that he had lost it during the scuffle on High Charity. The Chief decided to risk sticking his head through the door to see what was going on. He glanced into the room as another wave of red plasma came at him. He took in the way the room was furnished before he quickly pulled his head back to avoid hit. He saw three Brutes running towards him, and a few more at the other end of room, arming themselves. He also noticed a carton of plasma grenades close to the entrance of the room along with a few other weapons.

"Looks like a makeshift armory of sorts." He mentally noted.

After a few seconds of hiding, he heard the heavy footsteps of the Brutes growing louder and louder, signifying that the Brutes were getting closer. He pulled the pin off of one of his fragmentation grenades and he dove across the entrance of the door, letting loose his grenade as he went. The explosion of the fragmentation grenade was could be heard and the Brutes roared in pain and rage as the shrapnel dug into the Brutes' skin and flesh. The Brutes' cries were cut short however, when the enormous detonation of the plasma grenades took place. The three Brutes that were close to the door were immediately vaporized as the crate exploded and even those at the far end of the room got splashed with plasma. Unfortunately, the wall the Master Chief was hiding behind also suffered tremendous damage. The wall wobbled slightly, then collapsed in the middle of the shiny crater the grenades made, leaving the Chief with almost no cover.

The four remaining Brutes roared and charged out of the wreckage and straight at the Spartan. He felled two of them with headshots from his beam rifle while the other two went berserk. They remaining two charged him from either side, hoping to crush him between them. However, the Chief was too fast for the Brutes. As the two Brute approached, he quickly dived, rolled and was on his feet again. The two Brutes however, weren't as lucky. Their momentum carried them together and they crashed with a loud crunch. The first Brute's arm somehow ended up coming out of the other one's throat. The Brute with the arm in his throat, groaned and fell to the ground in a pool of his own blood. The first Brute gasped in horror at what he has done and looked in fury at the Chief.

"Die demon," growled the Brute and he charged again. The Chief fired his beam rifle twice in rapid succession, but failed to hit the Brute's head. Two holes appeared in the Brute's chest, but it didn't even slow down. The beam rifle overheated and the Chief discarded it. He unslung his carbine fired at the Brute. Radioactive projectiles impacted upon the Brute's fur and skin, but it shrugged off the damage as if they were paper cuts, and kept charging.

The beast lunged at the Chief with its entire body. The Chief sidestepped and brought the butt of his carbine down on the Brute head. The Brute staggered slightly and counterattacked so quickly that even with his MJOLNIR Mark VI armour, the Chief couldn't dodge it. He flew across the room and landed with a dull thud. A shrill alarm went off in his helmet but he ignored it, annoying alarms and flashing lights would have to wait. He groaned as he got up but the Brute slammed into him again, this time bashing him into a wall. The slowly regenerating shield around him suddenly gave away as it was wiped out by the impact. The Brute then grasped The Spartan by the neck and started punching the Chief as if he was a punching bag. Fist sized dents appeared in his MJOLNIR armour. He kicked the Brute in the stomach with all his might and was rewarded by a gush of blood coming from the Brute's mouth, but the Brute's brain didn't even seem to register the damage the Chief just did to it. It was too focused on killing the Spartan for the pain to register. It then picked John up and threw him into the opposite wall. A crater appeared in the wall where the Spartan hit as his consciousness slipped away from him.

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There was a long silence following the Arbiter's words. Then the Monitor finally spoke.

"I'm not sure really. My creators chose not to put that information in our, that is to say any of the Monitors', data banks, in case we fell into the wrong hands," replied 343 Guilty Spark.

"Say what? Are you telling me that we have to search the entire goddam universe to find this "Ark" so we can stop people from activating these Halos?" Sergeant Johnson exclaimed as he discarded his spent beam rifle for a carbine.

"That is correct Reclaimer. We could, however, conduct a thorough search of all former Forerunner planets, as well as all the Halo installations," the Monitor replied.

"Of course, and this will only take how long? Several thousand years maybe?" said Johnson sarcastically.

"Wait, I remember something about this Ark. It was right before I was given the mission to retrieve the Sacred Icon from the Library. I overheard the Prophet of Truth and Mercy talking together about a sacred monument. They said that judging by the evidence provided by the sacred Forerunner crystals, this sacred monument would be on a planet called Earth," said the Arbiter. "But isn't Earth the human home world?"

"Whoa, wait a sec, so let me get this straight. The Covenant started this whole goddamn war because they believed that we held a sacred monument of theirs? Why didn't they just ask us for it?" asked Johnson. Then he pursed his lips and added. "Although in this case, I'm grateful for the fact that they didn't."

"Technically...no. The Prophets made us wage war against you because they believed that you challenged the great Forerunners. They believed that you offended them and stole their sacred technology, amongst other things," said the Arbiter.

"Oh same shit, different hole," spat Johnson.

"We need to get off this Sacred Ring and stop the Prophets from destroying us all!" said the Arbiter, changing the subject.

"But In Amber Clad crashed into High Charity. Besides, the Flood have taken control of the ship, so even if we do have the ship, we'll have no one to operate it," said Commander Keyes.

"You can come aboard one of our ships. I suggest we form a temporary alliance between us, and then we can stop the Prophet of Truth from finding and activating all the Sacred Rings in the galaxy," replied the Arbiter.

"Wait a minute. How can I know that we can trust you? I mean, what's stopping you from blasting us to smithereens as soon as we board your ship?" inquired Johnson.

"You do not trust a Sangheili on his word? How little do you know of us. Fine, I will personally escort you and make sure no one will hurt you. You saved my life several times in Halo's control room," said the Arbiter, and then his mandibles twitched upwards, the Elites' equivalent of a smile. "And I shall do my best to return the favour."

"Fine, but don't you pull any tricks on us, 'cause Sergeant Avery J. Johnson can take a whole platoon of you guys down with him."

The Arbiter nodded. Then he plucked a communications device from his belt and spoke into it in an alien tongue, which the Humans assumed was the Covenant's universal language. After about five minutes, they heard the unmistakable high-pitched while of a Phantom's engine. As the Phantom lowered, an Elite with gold armour, a Zealot, dropped down from the Phantom's gravity lift. As he spotted the two humans, he snarled and his hand automatically went for the sword hilt strapped to his waist.

"Stop," commanded the Arbiter, "they are here as guests. You shall not harm them."

"But Arbiter..." said the Zealot.

"Will you disobey me?" replied the Arbiter, staring the Zealot straight in the eye. After a few seconds, the Zealot lowered his gaze respectfully.

"No, Holy Arbiter."

"We will explain everything once we get back to our ships," said the Arbiter. There was a lot of explaining to do on his part.

"Yes, Holy Arbiter," said the Zealot submissively.

The Arbiter then turned around to speak to Johnson and Keyes.

"Once we get to the Undefeated Glory, it would be wise to not wander about the ship without me, or someone I trust. There might be misunderstandings as a lot of the Sangheili, Unggoy, and Lekgolo population have not heard of this recent alliance," the Arbiter said.

"Fine, but I hope you don't mind that I carry this with me at all times. I might have to protect myself against these little 'misunderstandings'. You know, just in case," replied Johnson, gesturing at his carbine.

"All right, but if you attack any of us..." the Zealot said, his mandibles twitched downwards in a scowl.

"Chill out man. I won't kill any of you if you don't hurt us, alright?"

"Enough talk. Let's go now. The parasite is spreading and if we linger any longer, we may find the entire ship infested and devoid of life when we get back," said the Arbiter.

The Zealot nodded and gestured for Johnson and Keyes to follow. The Arbiter lingered for a second longer before entering the Phantom.

The alien dropship's engines whined as it took off from the platform outside of Halo's control center, and headed towards the Undefeated Glory, which was still docked in High Charity. Little did they know that the Gravemind and his minions also wanted that ship.

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A/N: Sometimes I will make corrections after I put the actual chapter into the story so don't be surprised if the story changes a bit (it won't be big changes. It'll only be things like instead of saying Delta Halo, I might say Halo 005 or instead of saying the Halos, I might say the Sacred Rings, etc.) Also, thanks Justin for editing this and getting rid of all those grammar errors!