Purpose Of Existence Chapter 31: Medicant Bias
Not dead...still alive, trust me :D. So Here I find myself again explaining what the ever flying fuck i've been doing these past weeks. So this episode was supposed to be released few days after the original but before I managed to get started, I noticed awakening the nightmare was released and I needed to know what content it had to continue writing this. After watching full gameplay walkthrough of the DLC I was ready to continue...If my computer's CPU wouldn't have started to overheat and this caused total system shutdowns. 80 celsius in IDLE should not be a thing even in AMD CPU's and sure as hell it wasn't. Basically a windows 10 update had failed and my computer kept restarting it. This took over 40% of my system power and fucked up my liquid cooler settings. It took me a few days to get this fixed but after that school and floorball have been killing me. Soooo now that I have begged for your forgiveness, will ya forgive me? :D. Anywho back to the story shall we?
"Hate to interrupt your laughter but we still have a job to do" Fred nearly yelled over the hysterical near death laughter. Amused, yet almost scared for the spartans sanity. If spartan II's had confirmed sociopathic tendencies we...Spartan IV's were mostly ex ODST.
"Ah ,What?" Palmer starred fred blankly, clearly out of it. Fred was about to ask if she was quite alright but Palmer seemed to snap out of it, eyes returning to their old determined and cold look. The eyes of a leader.
"Right, Osiris! Secure the tower and get us a pelican". Nothing seemed to happen for a moment so Palmer continued a bit more coldly "Do I need to repeat myself?"
That seemed to do the job as entire Osiris was now moving like ants in a hive. Palmer allowed herself a small smile and turned back to Fred "I take it your mission isn't quite over yet?"
Fred eyed her for a moment before replying "Mendicant Bias is currently in the towers central console, we are waiting for him to report back". Palmer looked up the the master console , seeing Master Chief standing in perfect parade rest next to it. Gazing through the giant used to be window.
Like reading her thoughts Fred answered "It's his way of dealing with near death experiences, to this day I don't know what goes inside that thick head of his but you can be sure of this, he won't make the same mistake twice".
Palmer turned back to Fred "And what mistake lieutenant, might that be?" Again Fred eyed her through his visor, He clearly was man who didn't waste words Palmer observed. Even after serving with the spartan blue team for a while now, on a personal level she knew very little about them. Don't think anyone knows much about them, Palmer thought.
She was brought out of her thoughts by Frederiks sudden voice "He let Atriox go, a failure is unacceptable for any spartan, believe me I should know". And she did, no other UNSC soldier had so perfect record as the Master Chief. Not that anyone was allowed to see it, after all it was one of the most classified pieces of information in the entire military.
"This Atriox is an anomaly ma'am, He can challenge him in combat, something that no other Covenant, Human or Promethean has ever been able to do. Excluding the Didact of course. For him not being the best is maddening and believe me, he will do anything to take Atriox down now".
Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a orange shockwave flowing through entire room. It send everyone flying, Palmer hitting the wall behind her hard. Even with her armor and helmet on she blacked out.
As she slowly started to open her eyes, the first thing she noticed was the terrible neck and head pain. She shook her head to get rid of the dicines and started to rise up slowly. Everything was pitch black. The others weren't doing much better she noticed, II's were already searching for the source of the event. They always were much more resilient she thought.
Palmer could see their headlights moving around the room, they were clearly talking to each other, through their private comms probably.
She started to walk towards the main command platform, searching for the Chief, by some miracle he wasn't flown off and was intensely staring at something helmet tilted forward, he looked like a predator now, stalking its prey and striking when they least expect it.
She was curious though, what could have gotten him so worked up? As she started to walk up the ramp connecting the main platform to the rest of the facility, she could see a orange light emanating from behind Chief's hulking figure. He had his back turned towards her, his gaze still unmoving behind that cold visor of his.
"What do you have Chief?" Palmer dared to ask, breaking the silence inside the room.
Without turning Chief answered "Our objective ma'am". This peekd Palmers intret and she picked up her pace, going around the frozen giant to "inspect" the mission objective…
She froze.
Bias was standing on the holotable but he was… different. His armor was different, looked more advanced than his previous set and he looked even more like his creators. The figure was standing on the pedestal his eyes closed mimicking the Chief's earlier parade rest. For a while nothing happened. Palmer was just about to question is he alive when the figures eyes snapped open. Revealing menacing red pupils both calculating and yet somehow...Comforting. Those were eyes of a person who has lived long enough to see everything the world has to offer. Eyes of a man who held the knowledge of millions of people.
Then he spoke.
"Reclaimer… So far we have come, some many battles we have seen and now I am one". He closed his again. Biases voice was the same, expect it held the same strength as the Didact's did. That strange low menacing background hum that put fear into his enemies.
He opened his eyes focusing on the Chief "For you now have saved me, I shall do the same for you". Bias raised both of his hands in the air and the command tower came back to life. The white rings lighting up one by one, Chief pulled out his weapon and pointed it at the figure "What do you think you are doing?"
"How the hell is he doing it."
"The AI isn't human, he isn't supposed to be able to start them".
Could be heard in the background. Osiris had also definitely noticed the events.
Bias turned his back towards the group and spoke "Watch and you will understand".
Chief could only watch as the white rings lit up one by one, each blinding light meaning they were one step closer to total annihilation.
Only three rings remained and Palmer already yelled the to embrace, even thought it would probably be futile, the beam was extremely powerful. It did travel through slipspace all and all.
As the second last ring lit up, Chief closed his eyes in anticipation, betrayed by their only means of escape from this wretched place…
Exept nothing ever happened.
Spartan John-117 opened his eyes and stared at the ai with look of confusion.
Bias smirked that wierd alien smirk of his and answered the unasked question "Seems like you have one ring missing Reclaimer. The ring that was send away before our arrival never arrived…"
"Someone captured it along the way" Chief finished.
"Yes and it doesn't take an AI to put this puzzle together spartan". Bias continued.
"Cortana".