When everything stopped being black, I blinked and looked around. I'm standing in one of the few clear spaces in my bedroom. That's not to say it's messy, just that I have everything laid out so floor space is a bit of a premium. My bed lays in the corner of my room. My giant TV/entertainment center is directly across from it. The computer sitting on top of my mini fridge is right next to it. The door to the living room is next to that in the corner of the room, which is where I was standing.
Looking to my left from where I stood with my back to my bedroom door, I looked at the tall mirror I have hanging on my closet door. I gulped. I'm completely dressed in everything I chose from the 'dream'. My appearance is changed too. The sunglasses and gloves are still in my pockets where I put them, and my backpack that I chose is on my back.
Worse though is my appearance. I no longer look entirely like myself. I'm not radically different, so people should still recognize me, but people don't just change face shape like this, lose their stomach ponch, and gain a completely new longer hair style over night. How the hell am I going to explain this?!
Then again... do I really have to? I mean, I'm already kind of a loner already... I could probably get away with keeping away from my roommates since I only see them at most once every two days or so, since I generally stay in my room and surf the internet, reading, playing video games, and keeping up with people I know on Facebook.
But then... What about that other part of the dream? Am I really going to be whisked away in a week? I try to take a deep breath as I realize my heart is pounding and I'm starting to freak out a little. What am I going to do? What if I really disappear? What am I going to tell my family? My friends? What about my roommates? If I disappear, they're gonna be screwed when it comes to paying rent since I'm the one that takes care of the majority of the rent! I don't want to just leave them in the lurch like that!
But what else can I do? I can't exactly run from this can I? Pretending it didn't happen won't work since it very obviously did. Either that or I'm hallucinating the clothes and it's weight and smell on me, and the new look I have.
I sat down and put my head in my hands. I've got a week. A week to get my affairs in order, before I'm whisked away from this world. I may as well be dead as far as the world is concerned. I sighed. So is that it then? Should I just make a will, bequeathing my stuff?
I suppose I should also prepare for the trip too I guess. I'll have to be careful though, in case I don't get actually whisked away. I don't want to burn bridges if I don't actually disappear.
X
One week later
Well... I've done what I could. I bought a bunch of food that can last for a week or more if necessary, namely peanut butter, crackers, dry cereal, fruit bars, trail mix, the works. I filled my camel pack with water and have a thermos in my backpack. I went and bought a good swiss army knife, which I had in my pocket. I have my kabar knife I got during my time in the military strapped to my thigh, and a camping lighter along with a box of matches in the backpack. I also decided to strap my favorite katana a friend gave to me to my right hip. Hopefully it would come with me and I can only hope it serves me well. My left in one of the bigger pockets sat a small 9mm glock with a few extra clips. It's not the best, but considering I only have so much money and didn't want to burn through too much just in case, I had to make do with what I could find at the equivalent of a gun pawn shop down the road. I considered getting a rifle, but that would be too much, plus I have no idea what kind of world I might end up in.
The only thing I didn't have were some hygiene products and clothes, mostly because I noticed that somehow setting my appearance in that other place had done something to me. For one, my body hair is gone for good so no need to shave, but stranger still, my clothes don't get dirty. They're still as fresh as when I got them. I even tested it. Dirt just sloughs off over time. Like, a few minutes. Not sure what to make of that at all.
Checking my backpack again, I made sure that my two small collapsible umbrellas, my canvas hammock I got a few weeks ago, and a small one person tent that I'd purchased were also inside just in case. I decided to leave my wallet behind and exchange some cash for some gold. I figure wherever I'm going, gold is generally pretty universally worth something, whereas cash might be considered counterfeit or worthless. It's not very much. Again, I didn't want to bankrupt myself.
Looking down at my bed from where I stood in my bedroom once more, I looked down at my last touch. A paper folder sat on my bed, and inside is my last will and testament. I decided to give my electronics to my brothers, money to my parents to do what they see fit with it, and everything else to be donated to those in need.
Patting my pockets, I checked to make sure that my 32 gb mp3 player still sat in my pocket along with my two pairs of collapsed headphones, and the small portable solar charger I'd grabbed, along with the flash drive holding the majority of the files I didn't want to lose. I already have my ipad and charger cord in the backpack as well, which is loaded with a number of stories and small videos and pictures so I could remember my life here. I don't know when, or if, I'll be back, but at least I won't forget.
Swallowing, I checked my watch. It should be any moment that I get whisked away if I'm picked up exactly a week after I reappeared.
Impulsively, I grabbed one of my pony plushies off my bed and slipped a few of the tiny ones in my pockets. I hadn't even sat up when things started to go dark. Panicked, I gripped the large plushie, and tucked it into my coat just as everything went dark.
X
When I could next see again, I blinked and looked around. From what I can see, I'm outside. in front of me is a crater with a crashed craft that looks kind of like a drop pod. Scattered around it are dead men and women in armor that looks kind of familiar...
Looking around some more, I spy something on the horizon that makes me go pale in shock.
"No... no no no no NO! FUCK!" I shouted, then slapped a hand over my mouth and dropped, looking wildly around.
For off in the distance, the landscape curves upward into the sky, like a ring. I now know exactly where I am. I'm on a fucking Halo!
All of a sudden I hear a noise coming from the drop pod, and as I watch, the fucking Master Chief, John 117 himself rushes out, his pistol up and aimed in my direction.
"Don't shoot!" I call out, scared.
The Chief doesn't say anything, but he does jerk his gun away when he looks over and across the river where a Covenant Dropship is dropping off a small squad of grunts and two elites. Oh this is not good...
"Stay here." Master Chief says in that distinctive growling voice of his, as he aims his pistol and runs, popping shots off as he moves, nailing several grunts and one of the Elites in the face before they can even return fire.
I watch in awe as the Chief makes short work of the group before returning.
"Who are you?" The Chief asks.
"My name is Matthew. I don't know how I got here, but..." I gulped and decided to take a chance, "If you can keep me alive, I'll do my best to help you. I have information that could be useful to you. You specifically, as well as Cortana."
Chief seemed to assess me and I felt like I was being X-Rayed.
After a moment, he flipped the pistol around in his hand and held it out to me, grip first.
"You know how to use that?" the Chief asked as he shouldered his assault rifle.
I checked the gun over. It had an interesting sight piece on top that gave me a small zoom function when I looked through it. The trigger seemed pretty simple. I found the clip release and checked it before slapping the clip back in. "I've never used this model of gun before, but I think I might be able to cover you with it."
"You'll do no such thing. Keep up and I'll keep you alive. Use the gun if you're cornered, but do not draw attention to yourself. Understood?" The Chief asked, making it clear that I'd better do as he says.
I nodded, "Understood, Sir."
The Chief nodded back. "Good, follow me, keep low, and keep quiet. Evac should be available in a minimum 15 minutes."
I nodded again, and the Chief started off. I had to run to keep up, and I was soon out of breath. Luckily the Chief kept pace with me, even if he stayed ahead. Sometimes he'd rush off far faster than I could keep up. After the first time I learned to duck down and stay hidden because he'd usually be running ahead to tackle any Covenant up ahead.
Thankfully the Chief was good. Being in his protection meant that the Covenant didn't get anywhere near me so long as I didn't act stupid and try to charge in with him or something.
Eventually we found a Warthog and I sat in the passenger's seat as he drove us down into the depths of the ring.
While down there, I glanced at the Chief, then asked, "When the chance comes, could you be the one to debrief me? The information I have will be of the greatest importance to you, and it has to be done within a week."
"Why the time limit?" The Chief asked/demanded.
"Because by the end of one week starting from the time you found me, I'll end up disappearing from this world the same way I got here, and it's not by choice. I've been forced into this." I answered. "Trust me, the last fucking place I want to be is on a Forerunner Halo Ring. No way in hell do I want to be on this thing, and this one especially."
"Why? What do you know of this place?" The Chief again asked/demanded while we had some time.
I grunted as we took a particularly hard swerve and started heading down a ramp into a large area with a chasm. Recognizing the area, I said over the roar of the engine. "Fuck! I'll answer in a moment. We've got company. Switch for the light bridge is up there!" I said, pointing up and to the right.
The Chief didn't answer and I held on for dear life as he side swiped several Covenant before hopping out and raining fire on the enemy, drawing all fire from the Warthog where I was hunkered down, hiding and trying to make it seem as if there was no one still in the vehicle.
Unfortunately it wasn't to be. While I was hiding, I heard the sounds of a Grunt approaching the Vehicle. I swallowed and kept the gun aimed in the direction where the sound was coming from, tracking the sound and praying, keeping the gun as steady as I could.
As soon as the thing got close enough for its head to appear over the door of the warthog, I fired, nailing the thing in the head, causing it to drop out of sight. Unfortunately, now plasma fire was now peppering and rocking the warthog, and I grimaced and covered my ears. Judging from the speed of fire, an Elite was firing, and I knew laying suppressing fire would do nothing but anger it so I kept hunkered down.
More plasma fire joined and a few seconds later the fire tapered off. I listened for what was happening, and nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard behind me:
"Glad to see you can listen."
I sighed as the Chief entered the driver's seat and I sat up, seeing that the area had been cleared and the light bridge activated. As we drove across the bridge, the Chief asked, "I found the switch exactly where you said it was. How did you know it was there?"
I sighed, "Have you ever played video games at all, Chief?"
"No. Sims are the closest experience I have." he answered.
"You know what they are though right?" I asked.
The Chief nodded once.
"Right. Well, this is going to sound insane, but I'm not from this world. Where I'm from, there's a video game series called Halo, which stars you for four of them, and two others are a prequel showing what happened in Reach from the perspective of the Spartan team that delivered Cortana to the Pillar of Autumn before it took off, and the other from the perspective of an ODST who ended up in... in... dang it, I forget. More importantly, the first game features you from the moment you're awoken from cryosleep on the Pillar of Autumn and ends when you destroy this ring to hell using the Pillar of Autumn itself by overloading it's power core or something. The second, third, and fourth games follow the events chronologically after that point."
"And why would I overload the Pillar of Autumn's Fusion Reactor to destroy this place?" the Chief asked.
"Because this place is a doomsday weapon on a galactic scale, created by the Forerunners to wipe out the food source of a biological pathogen called the Flood that mutates and warps anything it infects into twisted version of itself, which then goes on to attack anything not infected, either killing or infecting it, perpetuating itself. Unfortunately when the rings were activated, while it destroyed nearly all life, it didn't wipe out the flood, and there's a colony of the things here on this ring, and the stupid Covenant and humanity fighting on this thing is going to wake them and things are gonna go to hell. Stupid asshat Prophets of the Covenant think that these rings are supposed to deliver the Covenant to enlightenment so will try to activate the thing. Only advantage we have over them doing that is the fact that all Forerunner installations can only be activated by a human. You especially since the Forerunners used their tech to essentially try and manipulate things so that you personally will end up here. Unfortunately I can't give you much details beyond that cause the crap the Forerunners were spewing in the game made very little sense to me. As it is though, you're gonna end up running into 343 Guilty Spark on this ring eventually, and he's gonna want you to activate the ring to destroy the Flood, and he's going to call you the Reclaimer, since you're human and you can specifically 'reclaim' the technology of this place for yourself. Of course, he's not gonna be happy and try to turn on you and Cortana when you confirm for yourself what I've told you about this place being a galactic doomsday weapon, and one of several, all strategically placed to wipe out all life in a bid to get rid of the Flood."
The Chief was silent for a time after I offloaded all that on him. I wasn't sure what else to say at that point, so I kept silent until he would say something. I gripped my seat as he made a jump over a ledge and we made it back outside.
"Are you a Forerunner?" Chief finally asked.
I shook my head, "No. Just a guy who liked playing Halo and remembers a good chunk of the story of it, who ended up getting sucked into some kind of system that has basically 'volunteered' me into jumping worlds every week, and of all the worlds I could've gotten sucked into first, it had to be freaking Halo."
Nothing else was said, especially as things started to get heated. I kept down while the Chief went around rescuing soldiers stranded in different areas. I kept my hands over my ears when a marine got into the back and manned the chain gun, and the fire proved to be extremely loud.
Finally the first Pelican came, and the Chief pointed towards it. "Get on. I'll be by to debrief you later."
I nodded. The Chief turned to one of the soldiers. "Simmons."
"Yes, Chief!" the man saluted.
"Keep him alive. He's a civilian VIP with sensitive intel vital to our survival. Do not let anyone but me near him. Understood?" he ordered.
"Yes sir, Master Chief!" Simmons saluted again, and the Chief saluted back. The Pelican then took off, and I gripped the harness that'd been strapped to me while several of the marines eyed me curiously.
X
We ended up flying into a hastily constructed FOB, where I was rushed out and escorted into a hardened prefab structure and pretty much sat down to wait in an empty room with nothing but a bed, table, and chair. I don't know how long I had to wait. After the first hour, I stopped checking my watch and just laid on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Luckily I still had all my stuff, including the pistol the Chief gave me along with the few clips I'd picked up for it.
I was just dozing off, when finally after several hours, the door swung open and the Master Chief walked into the room. Thus followed several hours of the Chief grilling me from start to finish on every detail I could remember from the Halo games, particularly the first one, as well as going into everything I could remember about the Forerunners and the backstory of what happened before the Forerunners disappeared.
By the time we finished, I felt worn out and like my mind had become a dried up sponge. And we hadn't even touched the fourth or fifth game! Just concentrating on the current war and how it would end according to the games I mentioned, with the Chief stranded with Cortana in half a ship over the Ark after he went through a portal located on Earth, though I wasn't sure exactly where it was. I gave him my best guess of Africa from what I could recall, and could only hope that it would help.
The Chief then left, charging Simmons to keep me alive, and told me that he would investigate the information I gave him and would proceed from there. I nodded and settled down to wait.
X
Things were hell. Being on an FOB that was constantly moving, no matter what time of day it had to happen was a nightmare. I spent my time getting a bit of training with the weapons so I could do my part if we got caught with our pants down. I ended up getting issued my own set of armor and stored the majority of my clothes and effects in my backpack, though it was now completely stuffed from everything now in it.
After a few days, I could say I'd become fairly proficient in the shotgun, assault rifle, and pistol. I'd so far been lucky to not end up needing to shoot anything, but it was only a matter of time.
Eventually orders came, and the whole FOB started getting taken down. I figured it was another standard move, but somehow it felt different. We all got boarded into the pelicans, and flew out.
after some time passed, I finally saw our destination, the Pillar of Autumn. I wasn't sure what was happening, but we all got unloaded, and ended up evacuating to several smaller ships much like the one the Chief escaped in. Once we entered space, I saw from the view port as a chunk of the ring got blown and smashed into another part of the ring, taking it out and causing it to collapse in on itself.
I then settled back to wait, and after another day, we got picked up by another ship. While on this one, I found out the general gist that the Chief had indeed confirmed most everything I said, though no one knew I'd been the one to tell him most of the information, and had gone ahead with detonating the Autumn to take the installation out.
While on the ship, I got approached in the room I was in by some of the marines that I'd made at least some connections with, as well as a uniformed individual along with the Chief who once again had me go over everything I'd told him about the war, the Flood, basically everything I could remember about the first three games once again.
After that, the man asked if that was everything. I hesitated, then shook my head. "There's two more games after that, but they have more to do with the Forerunners and the Chief personally, and I'd only feel comfortable telling him in private."
The man looked annoyed, but after a glance at the Chief, he decided to humor me because he stood up and left the room.
After he left, I sighed and rested my head between my hands, massaging my temples. "He's just going to listen in through the video/audio feeds isn't he."
"Not at all," a voice answered which was the first time I'd heard it, but was easily recognized, "I'm blocking the signals into and out of the room and keeping the door locked. This room is secure. I'm Cortana, but you knew that already, don't you."
I nodded, and sighed. "Yeah. Honestly, I'm surprised you're even humoring me."
Master Chief shook his head. "So far all your information on the Halo installation has panned out. I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on everything else."
"Especially seeing as your intel saved the lives of hundreds of our soldiers and effort on our parts. You've earned some leeway." Cortana answered.
I sighed again and closed my eyes. "You won't think that after I tell you the gist of the fourth and fifth game. It's not good, and I fucking hate Bungie for taking the story in that direction."
"What happens?" Cortana asked.
I bit my lip, then sighed and nodded, "Essentially... from what I can remember from the jumbled mess that is the backstory, there was actually a third entity involved in the past decisions of the Forerunners. Originally the Forerunners were supposed to be the successors to this entity, which for lack of a better term, I'll call the Prometheans, until the Prometheans came across humanity and decided to make them the successors instead. This kinda pissed the Forerunners off, but there was still that junk with the Flood, everyone dying when the rings were activated, then after a time, AI's seeding life back on the planets and restoring humanity and the other races. It's all confusing as hell and I'm probably getting it a bit confused, but essentially the fifth game centers around the remnants of the Prometheans pulling that douchebag move again and switching from humanity being the successors to something else..."
"What?" Cortana asked.
"AI's," I answered, "And you, or at least a form of you, are the harbinger of it."
"Explain." Master Chief demanded.
"You know how I said the third game ends with you and Cortana stuck in half a ship over the Ark while you're in cryo and Cortana is watching over you?" I asked.
The Chief nodded.
"The fourth game starts after a large chunk of time has passed. Long enough for rampancy to start setting in. You wake up to a fleet of the remnants of the covenant scanning what's left of the ship you're on. I don't remember the details exactly, but you and that fleet end up near a Dyson sphere created by the Forerunners, or Prometheans, it's hard to differentiate the two since the Forerunners were supposed to be their successors. The Dyson sphere is the size of a planet, and is basically an enclosed habitat much like a Halo ring, only with an entire interior sphere. A human ship also ends up getting sucked in that was searching for you as well."
"Only problem is, this Forerunner Dyson Sphere planet thing, is serving as a jail for one of the last Forerunners, and he is one heck of a bastard, with psionic powers and telekinesis that allows him to command what he terms 'the lesser races' of the Covenant by sheer force of will. Tack on the weird mechanical robot things of the Prometheans that have more in common with the robots you've already seen and fought with the Monitor, and things get kind of crazy. At least with Gravemind dead, the Flood is essentially out of the picture though, so there is that."
"This guy essentially ends up tricking everyone to free himself of the prison, and then flies a sphere like ship to Earth. You end up going with, while dealing with Cortana kind of breaking down every now and then due to the Rampancy. You end up facing the Forerunner in combat. The battle ends up on a lightbridge, which Cortana comandeers to create hard light projections of herself to help you fight the Forerunner, cause... well... he's kinda giving you a hard time, Chief. Unfortunately by doing so, she basically ends up splitting herself and making multiple copies to hurt him, which makes her rampancy worse, and he ends up falling down below into the bowels of the falling ship. Unfortunately, it's highly likely that since you didn't actually see him die directly this way, that he didn't actually die. Also unfortunately, with Cortana's rampancy now far beyond what she can control... she ends up sacrificing herself to destroy the Forerunner ship while you escape."
I looked down. "Unfortunately, things aren't that simple, and things get worse. Much worse. Cortana doesn't actually die. Sort of. A form of her finds her way into what I could gather is some kind of huge information grid that can digitize biologicals into information. Somehow, getting to this place... changes Cortana. Or something. It might not be the place, but the remnants of the Forerunner. Or it could be not her and something just taking her appearance to manipulate things. I don't know. It's all extremely confusing by this point. All I know is, that this version of Cortana is seemingly no longer suffering Rampancy, but is now under the impression that AI's are now the new heirs, and that they're supposed to be the guardians of the rest of life. This is unfortunate because this pretty much is going to put AI's in the position of wardens while we're the prisoners, protected but not really free to flourish as we see fit, but under the control of the AI's, flourishing in the ways they dictate. It's a flawed kind of reasoning, and it's one of the reasons why I don't think the AI in the fifth game is actually Cortana, or at least it thinks it's Cortana. From what I understand of the first four games, making Cortana essentially the bad guy of the fifth game was extremely out of character and a really stupid choice for the directors of the game to go. It isn't helped by the fact that the company in charge of the series changed. The first three games, ODST, and the Prequel Reach were controlled by Bungie. The fourth and fifth game were made under the control of another company that I forget the name of at the moment. It's only made worse when Cortana tries to reason that you, Chief, wouldn't understand unless you could see it for yourself, so this 'Cortana' tries to trap you in the same kind of prison the Forerunner I mentioned was in, essentially putting you into stasis until everything was finished and you could actually see what she was trying to accomplish, stating you wouldn't truly understand until then that this isn't actually a bad thing. As it is, things go from bad to worse as Cortana contacts all the AI's of all the ships in the fleet and basically all but one is shown to pledge themselves to Cortana, while the one AI that doesn't makes a jump out of system and the game ends."
At this point, the three of us sat in silence, Cortana looking rather shocked, then turning thoughtful, while the Chief just sat across from me, completely silent.
After several minutes of this, I sighed. "I'm sorry. I know this is a lot to take in, and I wish it wasn't so crappy. I can only hope that now that you know about all this information early on, you can take it and change things. I mean, you already have on the Halo Ring, and the future is what we make of it."
The Chief nodded, and he and Cortana spent the rest of the time asking me questions, clarifying everything I told him, and I did my best to oblige. Finally after what felt like several hours, the Chief stood up.
"Thanks Matthew. We'll make sure to use this information as best we can to bring this war to an end and make sure those Guardians don't see the light of day. For now, you have roughly four days until the system you mentioned is supposed to make you disappear. I and the Chief will personally see to your not being bothered till that time." Cortana offered, the Chief nodding once in agreement.
"I... thank you." I said, surprised by the offer, but confused. "But... what should I do?"
Cortana shrugged, "You can only take what you can carry on yourself and that backpack when you go, along with any training you can get. I would suggest getting some training in and taking a standard marine kit and armor set I'll requisition for you."
I nodded, "Thank you. I really appreciate this."
Thus the next four days were spent in training, with the Master chief occasionally giving me pointers. He pushed me hard, and I felt like I was going through boot camp all compressed down into half a week. It was worth it though. By the end, my stamina had increased greatly, I felt stronger, and I could now use the marine armor and weapons with some degree of proficiency. I even picked up some hand to hand combat training and CQC training from Simmons, the marine that spent the most time guarding and teaching me while ring side since that's what the Chief ordered him to do.
By the end of the four days, I can't say I felt like a commando, but I definitely felt stronger and ready to survive in whatever world might come next. Hopefully. I was wearing a set of standard marine armor in my size, with a pistol strapped to my thigh and a shotgun and assault rifle hooked to the holsters on my back, with my backpack resting over them precariously.
When I felt the darkness start to creep in, I waved to the Chief and Cortana. "Thank you for everything."
"You're welcome." Cortana said, and the Chief responded, "Do some good out there."
I nodded, "I will."
And everything was black.
AN: I am well aware how wrong most of my information is regarding Halo's backstory now. What I wrote at this point was solely what I got from the games alone. I've since been through the wiki and realized that when I wrote this, I barely knew anything about Halo's back story. Irregardless, I'm not changing what I wrote because for this character, that is all he knows. …Also I tried writing it all out, and gave up after I realized what I wrote had doubled the length of this chapter by itself, I wasn't even done writing it all so it may even end up triple length, and a good chunk of it is even more unbelievable than what I already wrote in the first place!