Chapter Twenty

We were in two warthogs, driving through a leafy green forest on the southern border of Avaris. Our target was a Forerunner structure somewhere in the forest; the exact coordinates had been shared to Blue Team's visors, and Ellen had requested them for her datapad.

I liked this forest. It wasn't humid, it wasn't freezing, and the trees didn't remind me of Requiem. They were thin and spindly, with stiff grey vines and pale green leaves. The drying leaves rustled against each other and birds twittered from everywhere around us.

And the forest was safe enough for us to go in on our own, unlike the jungle that had required guides.

But no one was resting easy. During the briefing we'd been told that a science team somewhere north of us had been threatened by Insurrectionists. It had been resolved, swiftly and with no injuries, by Arcadia's safety officers. No one on this planet really liked Innies.

But the knowledge that they were here made everyone a little antsy. Understandably. If they'd managed to set up base here, and gotten so bold that they attacked a team bearing ONI's crest, then where weren't they?

I swallowed, looking down at my lap. I'd worn khaki shorts with a grey and blue tank top, and I liked the outfit. I felt Arcadian with the outfit, like I stood a better chance of finding something when I dressed like the locals. But the feeling of encroaching failure hadn't lifted. John felt it, too.

We needed to find a terminal.

The dirt road widened into a parking lot. John pulled the hog off to the side and Kelly parked beside us.

"The ruins are along a hiking trail," Ellen said. "I hear it's scenic."

We were in a national park. This area had been closed down for us to work, but normally it was bustling with people. That was what Ellen said at least, and I believed her.

Apparently it had been no small feat to close this area of the park. August 18th was a holiday in Avaris, and today was the 17th, so there was a small hoard of potential trail-goers who'd been told their holiday plans would have to change. Ellen didn't seem too concerned about it.

Linda was the first one on the ground; she'd been on the machine gun behind me and jumped down as soon as we stopped. Fred, who'd been on the gun in the other warthog, was a close second.

By the time I was climbing out John had hit the ground and walked over to me. He offered me his left hand and scanned the area around us. I gratefully accepted his help - warthogs just seemed to keep getting bigger, and I certainly wasn't, and it felt more like a climb each time I tried to get in or out of one.

John pulled his rifle off of his back. "Let's move."

We filtered into the forest. The path was a soft bed of mulch and stones, and it was wide enough for us to walk three across. Even the SPARTANs.

Kelly was the first one to say, "It's beautiful here."

I nodded, staring up at the delicate canopy above us. My eyes fell to John beside me; the dappled sunlight made his skin look warm and his eyes glow. I felt my heart jump, as if it was surprised just how amazing he looked.

He glanced down at me, his eyes soft and fond. "I love you, too."

I wrapped my arm around his elbow, as if we were an old-style couple and he'd offered me his arm, and tapped his bicep twice.

Since no one had sensed anything dangerous, he was okay with me holding his arm. It limited his movements but he didn't mind.

We were both trying to ignore the sense of impending doom. The Domain was going through a phase where it refused to be helpful, but it was insistent that we do something. In this case it was screaming at us to find a terminal but it was not helping us find one.

I wanted to say I was certain we would find one here. Apparently these ruins were huge and mostly unexplored. But I could make no promises, and it felt wrong to lie about that, even to myself.

So I let our picturesque setting pull my attention. I saw a grey woodpecker clinging to the spine of a tree, and two squirrel-like animals were chasing each other from branch to branch a hundred feet above our heads.

The jostle of Blue Team's armor was in sharp contrast to the peaceful surroundings, but not unpleasant. It was familiar to everyone here. I noticed that their armor was a little too dark to blend in with the trees, but it was the perfect shade of green to hide in the dewy, fern-filled underbrush.

A few minutes into the walk I heard something bubbling. John and the others had heard it a while ago, but Ellen and I only became aware of it when the stream was a few hundred feet away from the path.

It was shallow and clear, with rounded rocks visible at the bottom and silty banks on either side. I looked closely and saw a school of tiny fish darting from rock to rock. A few feet downstream of them some sort of water snake retreated into a submerged log.

There was a frog on the side of the path, where it arched closest to the creek.

My immediate instinct was to catch him; I used to befriend little creatures all the time on Eridanus II. But we had a mission, and we didn't have time to hold frogs. Both John and the Domain told me that.

So I let the frog fall away behind us and settled for watching the creek. Why? I wasn't sure. Anything I saw would just tempt me to talk to it, and the cycle would repeat.

Like the nonvenomous-looking snake stretched out over a stone at the edge of the water. She was covered in matte black scales, with rounded pupils, and was regarding us with lazy wariness.

I actually leeched off of her contentment to help stave off the urgency that the Domain was slinging at us. John opened himself to me and we both held onto the calmness for as long as we could.

Then we rounded a bend and the snake was too far away. For animals, the emotions were harder to feel and hold onto.

I saw a glint of silver through the trees. I squinted to see it better and realized that it wasn't metal; it was an animal.

There was a sloth hanging from a tree. Or...it looked kind of like a sloth, at least. It was only thirty feet up, a few trees away from the path, and was looking at us over its shoulder with big black eyes.

We got closer and I saw more details. His fur was shiny and silver on the back, duller on his arms and legs, and entirely white on his face. He looked like he was wrapped in tin foil, but he was so cute.

I tapped Ellen's shoulder. "What's that?"

She followed my finger, took a moment to locate the animal, and smiled. "That's a Toaadrel Sloth. They're native to Lemuria and considered a delicacy in the western regions. Here, they're a protected species."

"They're adorable," I gushed.

"And that." Ellen looked up at the sloth again. "The last time I checked, their numbers in Avaris had grown by two hundred percent in one mating season."

"No kidding." Fred was watching the sloth with an ambiguous but positive emotion stirring in his gut. "They have a similar animal on Gao."

Linda narrowed in on Fred. "Gao?"

He didn't respond.

"You're talking to that Inspector again, aren't you?"

"What?" Fred scoffed. "No."

Linda scowled; he was lying.

"I don't think it's smart to get close to her," Kelly said.

Fred rolled his head to meet her. "Tell me you wouldn't want to talk to her again, if you were me."

"No, I wouldn't." Kelly was entirely earnest, and a little incredulous. "I can't imagine why you would."

"She's strong."

"She's a spook," Linda corrected.

Kelly agreed. "She's dangerous."

"And we're not?" Fred countered.

Kelly's eyes narrowed and a dangerous emotion radiated off of her. "You know what I mean, Fred."

Fred waved his hand in dismissal, and the conversation drifted away from the Inspector from Gao. But my curiosity had been piqued. I made a mental note to ask Kelly or Linda about the mysterious spook.

Then we rounded another bend, and I saw a huge metal structure on the left side of the trail. It was several hundred feet long and looked mostly intact, but leaves and vines covered it and I saw some chunks where metal was gone.

Funny that every structure we'd visited looked like it had been in a fight. I couldn't help but wonder if this place had been a major battleground near the end of the ecumene.

The Domain wouldn't answer me or confirm my suspicions, damn thing.

While Ellen pushed into the undergrowth to find a way inside I floated up to survey the ruins from above. They really were huge, stretching back for thousands of feet and several stories tall in some places.

This place had once been grand, but now it had gaping holes in the ceiling, and flowery lichen was draped over cracked foundations. It was majestic, but the forest had begun to reclaim it.

"See a way in?" Ellen called.

I looked down at the ruins. "Maybe! Give me a second!"

Her response was lost to the wind when I dropped out of the sky. I fell through a jagged hold and caught myself a foot above the rubble-strewn floor of the ruins.

As soon as my feet touched the ground a foreign memory hit me.

Embers-of-Dying-Fight was grateful to be home. His assignment, a task bestowed by a high-ranking Builder, had been nothing less than a disaster. Three thousand years and evolution had failed him and the animal he'd been tasked to create.

'Create a lineage of creatures to guard my gardens from predatory pests,' she had ordered. She had paid him handsomely. She had given him every resource and state-of-the-art equipment to make an animal all deadly, beautiful, and obedient.

And he had failed. He had slunk back to his home in shame.

John was pressing against me through the bond, a little alarmed. "Tawny? What happened?"

I looked around and saw crisp sunlight piercing the floor through a hold-riddled ceiling. There were stones and metal chunks all around me, growing moss and flowers. Leaves whispered along the metal floor.

I was in the ruins, and everyone else was still outside. What had happened?

"I don't know," I admitted.

John paused briefly. "Are you alright?"

"I think so."

"Can you find a way inside?"

Right. That was why I was in here, alone. I was the only one who could fly - well John could fly, but we were trying to hide his abilities from ONI so he wouldn't. I had to find them a way inside.

"Let me look," I said.

I walked along the wall, knowing that Ellen and John and his siblings were on the other side. I could feel them, waiting somewhat impatiently. Ellen was shifting eagerly, unable to wait, itching to explore this place.

This place...was a home. The home of a Forerunner Lifeworker. Would a Lifeworker, a fairly low rate in the ecumene, have a terminal in his home?

Only one way to find out.

I found a pathway into an underground level and went inside. It was pitch black, but I was following an instinct. I kept my hand on the left wall and felt the pathway hook around and open up into a large room.

The wall to my left abruptly broke off into a side path. I went along and found myself walking up a sloped pathway.

My forehead hit a dead end. I stumbled back, nearly falling backwards in the blackness, and rubbed at my forehead. "Ow."

But this wasn't a dead end at all. It was what I'd been looking for.

I fumbled around in the corner, reaching way above my head, and felt the bottom of a control panel. I floated up and pushed the massive button with both hands. An earth-shaking rumble started above and in front of me, and dust and leaves and dirt tumbled down onto me from a new opening.

I fell back onto my butt, nearly rolling back down the incline, and flinched away from the debris and sunlight. The door in front of me, which was sloped to fit in with the hillside, was rolling slowly open and dislodging thousands of years of forest floor in the process.

When the door was mostly open I walked out into the sun. A few hundred feet in front of me was the team. Fred, Linda, and Kelly had their guns aimed in my direction, and Ellen was startled.

John tilted his head when he saw me. I realized that I was covered in at least three layers of dust, and when I tried to dust my hair out a few leaves and twigs fell out, as well as a huge, shiny beetle.

"I found a way in," I called.

Ellen raised an eyebrow. "I can see that."

"And all you had to do was break open the forest floor," Fred teased.

"Yeah," I laughed. "It's pretty- it's pretty dark down there, just so you know."

"That's not a problem," Ellen said.

She led the way down into the passage. I fell in between John and Kelly, still trying to brush dust and soil off of my hair and clothes. Kelly glanced down at me and plucked a twig out of my bangs.

Fallen sticks and leaves crunched under our feet for the first hundred feet of the tunnel. By the time the floor was clear it was darkening, and I couldn't see what was ahead.

Ellen reached under her lab coat and pulled out a handlamp. "Do you know if there's anything down here?"

I shrugged, then realized she was facing away from me. "I-I don't know. Sorry."

"Don't be." She walked out into the middle of the safe room and cast the light around.

It was a treasure trove.

Forerunner machines of every shape and size lined the walls. My breath escaped me as I took it all in; there must have been a hundred artifacts, and they all looked intact.

"Oh." I brushed past Ellen and Fred, my fingertips landing feather-soft on a cylindrical metal machine.

Embers-of-Dying-Fight was glad to be home, though he hated the failure that sent him back. His wife regarded him with subtle disappointment despite her platitudes and assurances that she was so pleased to see him return.

He couldn't face his children. He knew his eldest, Symphony-Brings-Glad-Peace, would look down on him. She had risen to acclaim within the Lifeworker rate in her short five thousand years, and he had no doubt she would have succeeded with his failed task.

So Embers-of-Dying-Fight focused on his research. He would make himself better. Even if he never got that assignment again, he would prove to himself that he could succeed.

"Tawny?" John's hand was clamped around my shoulder.

I started, jumping back from the machine. "What-"

John glanced back at the others, distinctly aware of Ellen's presence as well as the hovercam warbling around the room, and eventually said, "You froze up."

"I saw something."

"What?" Ellen stepped forward.

I looked up at her, feeling weird and sleepy. "I-I saw the Forerunner who lived here."

"Lived here?" Ellen asked. "This is a house?"

I nodded.

"Who lived here?"

"Embers-of-Dying-Fight," I said. My fingers reached for another machine but I pulled them away, scared of more visions. "He was a Lifeworker near the end of the ecumene."

"Is he important?" she asked.

"I-I don't know."

"We'll keep looking."

Kelly's eyes scanned the shadow-cast artifacts along the wall. "Lifeworkers were like biologists, right?"

"They made life," Ellen said. Her tone was intense but her eyes were on her datapad. "Millions of species were artificially created by them. They had complete, precise control over genetics to a degree humanity has been unable to achieve...yet. It's amazing."

"First-Light was a Lifeworker," I said.

That caught Linda's attention. "The Librarian?"

I nodded.

"She used your DNA to make your powers," Linda recalled.

I nodded again. "She planted seeds in my ancestors before Halo was activated, and made sure they made it to a Shield World… A lot of the humans they tried to save didn't."

Ellen, though she was watching the hovercam scan a bed-like machine, was more focused on what First-Light had done. "Could you imagine having that much capability to manipulate genetics? To have your powers come to fruition at just the right time, hundreds of thousands of years before they were needed?"

I couldn't imagine. The balance of the galaxy was so precarious, and First-Light had managed to massively impact it without throwing everything into chaos. It really was amazing, Ellen was right.

And to do so to two humans, since Ellen didn't know about John, only made it more incredible.

The Domain rippled, low and unpleasant, and I felt John tense beside me. Find a terminal.

I walked along the wall, away from the others, hoping to find one. The light faded away behind me, and I only kept my footing by viewing myself through John's eyes. He could see me perfectly, even though I was almost entirely blind.

My hand stretched out and brushed the machines to my right. John could see the lines where my fingers raked dust away. I was a hundred feet away from him, and so far from Ellen's light that I felt like my eyes were closed when they were fully open.

I felt my fingertips catch on the jagged edge of a damaged machine.

Embers-of-Dying-Fight had thrown himself into his work for four thousand years, and he'd yet to succeed in the task he'd failed all that time ago. He spent more and more time underground, working and trying and creating abomination after abomination in an attempt to please a Builder who had passed two hundred and seventy three years ago.

Lurid-Choice-of-Fate, Embers's wife, was standing in the doorway of the underground workspace. She looked dishevelled, as dishevelled as Embers-of-Dying-Fight had seen her at least, her eyes slightly wide and her hand clutching a glass of liquid as if it was necessary for her survival.

"There's been news of a Flood outbreak, on this planet," she said. "We've been quarantined. Builder Security has been dispatched."

Embers-of-Dying-Fight didn't respond. He didn't know what to say. He was too emotionally exhausted, and yet horrified. The Flood had destroyed the Forerunner infrastructure, grounded the Juridical rate, and allowed enough instability to fester that the disgraced Faber-of-Will-and-Might had risen to power once again.

If the Flood was on their world, they were doomed. As were the Builder Security agents coming to 'save' them.

My finger hurt.

I looked down and saw blood welling up on my middle finger, a thin slice along the side of my fingertip.

"Ow," I murmured.

I heard Fred, "Tawny?"

"Hmm?" I turned around to face him. He was watching me, along with Linda and John.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I had another vision."

Linda shouldered Nornfang. "What did you see?"

"The Flood was here."

Nornfang was back out, pointing all around the room. Kelly followed suit with Oathsworn, and Fred had his rifle trained on the shadowy exit to the upper levels of the house.

"N-not recently," I corrected. "When the Forerunners were here."

"You couldn't have led with that?" Ellen asked, post-fear aggravation rolling off of her.

I felt my face heat. "Sorry."

"Did you see anything else?"

I shook my head. I hadn't seen anything useful, and there were no glimpses of a terminal in the vision.

I was beginning to think there weren't any terminals here, whatever the Domain said.

oOOOOo

Author's Note: Hi guys! How are y'all? Biden won the election, so that's not-as-bad-as-it-would-have-been-if-trump-won. I still don't like Biden but I Hate Trump so...yay, lesser of two evils!

Also! I haven't talked about it in-depth, so I figured I would here: I have put serious consideration into the LGBT characters in this fic. As you may know, Tawny is bisexual, her ex Laure is a lesbian, and John is straight. But I also took other characters into account! Both Fred and Veta Lopis are bi, Kelly is aro/ace, and Linda is a lesbian. Ellen is tentatively bi-curious (leaning towards women) and transgender. If there are any characters I've forgotten I'll edit this but that's everyone I can think of for now lol

Anywho I love you guys!