Chapter 7

The next day Chris awoke and ran to the Xbox, he pressed on the campaign mode, skipping to the level. Spartan 106, it was still there. He pressed on it, it had to be finished he wasn't done. He paused, they needed them, and he wanted to go back. He awoke inside of the ship, face-down. Noticing this, he got up standing he saw Kelly and Linda lifting talking, he could barely hear them. His vision was right either, everything was dim and Chris's whole body hurt badly. Chris waited and slowly he felt the problems with his suit slowly fix themselves. Now he heard Linda's and Kelly's conversation.

"I mean it," Kelly was saying. "I'm done, the war is over, I am not being turned into a puppet for the earthsiders, if they want to kill themselves leave me out of it, I've had my share of war now."

"If you don't help they are just going to start using the NUKE warheads on one another."

"We can't help that! What good would we do?"

Chris walked forward. "I hate to break up this lovely conversation, but what the crap are you two arguing about?" Kelly turned and jumped about four feet. Linda did a double take.

"Chris? You came back? Why?" Kelly asked.

"You need me."

"Well, I ain't gonna disagree with that. Things here are bad. Earth is in war with itself." Linda said.

"Oh no, you gotta be kidding me."

"I'm afraid not." said Kelly. Chris thought about the situation for a while and figured Kelly was right joining in did no good, the SPARTANS didn't belong in this war. In the end they agreed to put up a small fleet defense to stop any attacking flood or brutes left over from the war, and that Chris would go down for negotiations. When Chris landed on earth (what would be st. charles, Missouri) things were in a complete mess. Several young boys were clad in marine armor, shooting what looked like battle rifles at several Russians. Chris walked over to one man yelling orders.

"I demand to speak with your sergeant."

"Suck it, I know in space you may have you own little pride but this is earth and to be frank I don't give--" Chris held his m7 pistol to the man's head.

"You were saying?" The man took Chris to the sergeant, who after yelling at Chris for a bit, lead him to the high commander. Chris now gave a respectful salute. The man saluted back.

"Spartan."

"Commander. I'm here to force a treaty."

"Force a treaty?! I'm sorry but there's no way we're getting out of this now, we're at war with these dirty russians."

"Those 'dirty russians' are going to kill man of your men unless you let me make a treaty."

"...Do you always make such a...unique offer?"

"Yep, so what's your choice?" An few minutes later Chris (Now having hid his spartan armor in his escape ship which he'd sent to Kelly, Linda and John) walked out on the battlefield and gave the surrender signal. Two strong men bound him and took away the only weapons he had (A pistol and a grenade.) He was thrown hard into a small prison area and later was dragged into a small room. Here they turned on a bright light making Chris see spots for a few moments. They asked him a load of questions, but Chris only said he wanted to talk to their leader. He was slapped, punched and whipped, but he stayed strong and didn't even say he knew nothing. (They'd given him false info to give the Russians but Chris thought it would looked stupid if he gave away anything to easily.)

The men hurt Chris for several hours. They even started to stab him with many needles. Eventually Chris got the threats of brutes across and a treaty called the earth pact was signed. Chris didn't bother to check the papers. He got back in his SPARTAN armor and headed up to where Kelly and Linda were. Entering the ship, he saw two brute captains; one with it's back to him. He quickly assassinated it and stuck the other with a plasma grenade.

"What's going on here?!"

"We don't know, everything just ended up falling apart, we don't know where that ship came from." Three marines came up, Chris waved.

"GO GO GO!" The marines walked, the battle was won easily, few people were hurt. After the battle Chris walked over to John, who pulled off his helmet and looked at Chris. Chris saw the grey at John's temple's and the pulling look at the strong face. A few wrinkles had even appeared.

"How long was I gone this time?"

"...17 and a half years. To the day." Chris smiled and saw that John had gone through the effort of seeing just how long he'd been gone, every day. Linda and Kelly had grown, Fred was now KIA after being killed in a space battle. The SPARTANS were all getting old. Slower then before, even Kelly. More SPARTANS were needed. Chris knew where to get some. He ran back to the time machine John yelled but Chris ignored him.

"Hey Chris." said Andrew. Chris didn't say anything but tossed Andrew and David a controller.

"What-- nah man. I'm too tired right now." Chris punched the Spartan 106 level. This three people appeared in the SPARTAN armory. Chris had a quick talk with the sergeant and soon two more SPARTAN suits were made. Chris coached the two through it, but they didn't like the way he did what he did. After five hours of training, they could easily use the suits and shoot. Chris then left to talk to John. If not much time had passed, they could still have time...