DAY 1

A wall of monitors lit up a grey concrete room.

A meticulously made bed sat on a wooden bed frame, free of any and all wrinkles, with a red, cylindrical laundry basket to the left of it, a small hill of boxers, shorts, and short sleeved shirts jotting out of it.

The one inhabitant of the room sat in a black leather desk chair, swivel wheels on its base, legs tucked underneath a white desk that circled around him. He wore a red collared short sleeve shirt, the three buttons under his neck done up, and red cargo shorts that hugged his thighs. A noticeable belly bulge poked an inch or two over his shorts, contrasted by the muscular definition in his shoulders, arms, and chest. Dark brown disheveled hair paired up with an unshaven face, bags forming under his eyes, and his teeth chewing profusely on his thumbnail.

Todd had let himself go a little.

Todd surfed his attention through the screens, all showing something different. The first one that caught his eye displayed a wall of rock and stone, full of cracks and jagged edges, particles of snow dancing across the screen. A barely visible silhouette moved up the wall, ascending slowly, its size the head of a needle compared to the wall.

Todd took in a deep breath, and blew. The snowflakes frayed suddenly, and the silhouette stopped their climb. They shook up and down, battling the sudden uptake in the wid, until finally they plunged down- arms grasping at thin air and torn rope snaking around- out of the frame.

His lips stayed flat, neither forming a smile nor a scowl, his eyebrows still as he searched through the other screens. Submerged underwater, blue and gray schools of fish passing by, sunlight shining from the surface up above. Another one glided over grassland, a forest of pine trees in the distance. One had its view obstructed by an intricate weaving of branches and twigs filtered through the green of night vision.

The final screen that caught his attention held another concrete room, this one larger than Todd's. Todd pointed at the display, and then extended his fingers. The screens flickered, returning as a single, giant picture of the room, giving Todd full view of its occupants: an intensely diverse group of people, organized into neat rows.

Some wielded weapons, such as rifles and handguns or even swords. Armor coated in nearly every color of the rainbow, clothes of every fabric known and unknown. Many were obviously not even human; hooves, armored skin, scaly skin, green skin, grey skin, and unnatural sizes gave hints that they were not exactly homo sapiens sapiens. They all stood frozen, not moving or even showing signs of breathing. One would think the display was a recording on pause. Todd knew better.

He diverted his focus to the red bar on the upper right corner of the display, a green 97% right in the middle, a small sliver of grey shrinking on one end.

A vac sealed bag sat in front of Todd; chocolate peanut butter cups. Todd's favourite. He ripped the top of the bag open, releasing the transparent bag's grip on the chocolates, took a handful and shoved them into his mouth.

...99%.

Todd pulled out a cherry red handheld vacuum, cleaning tiny bits of chocolate crumbs he got on his desk.

...100%.

After the bar reached the end, it cleared itself. Several other bars appeared, instantly loading themselves. After the bars were done, an icon that said 'Continue' and another that said 'cancel' appeared.

His voice was high-pitched and soft, "Continue."


The Arbiter grasped the Fleet Admiral's hand, an expression of trust and unity; an assurance that neither of them had a dagger in hand. "Hard to believe he's dead."

Thel looked at the memorial. A green, metal shard stood over them, surrounded by flowers, pictures of fallen soldiers, and rifles with green hats on top the barrels. Thel 'Vadam noticed the picture of sergeant Johnson; a man who stood in the face of a world much stronger than him. He shifted his attention to the metal monument that loomed over the image. On it, written in English, a language he had spent days educating himself on out of respect, were the words In Memory of Those Fallen in the Defense of Earth and her Colonies March 3, 2553.

Thel inspected the image carefully. "Were it so easy."

He looked up, expecting to see the former Covenant ship, the Shadow of Intent...only to be met with a concrete ceiling.

"What?" Thel, dumbfounded, looked to where the memorial stood, only to see a group of beings standing in a line, and another line behind that line. He looked around, seeing creature of an unknown race standing to his left, and a human woman standing to his right.

Urdnot Wrex equaled Thel in height, and sported his signature red battle armor. Elizabeth Comstock had cut off most of her black hair, and wore the blue dress she had put on from the First Lady airship.

Wrex brought up a weapon, aiming it around, "Where the hell-?"

"Ellie," Joel looked ready to smash his lead pipe into someone's skull, "stay close!"

Ellie wrapped her hands around a revolver, keeping herself close to Joel.

Elizabeth swivelled with wide eyes towards the voice, feet ready to spring forward, and called out, "Booker!"

Inspector Akane Tsunemori scanned her surroundings with her dominator- a weapon that gathers psychological data about it's targets. The gun registered dangerously high stress levels from people all around Akane, but it sent out an alert when it pointed at Joel. "Crime Coefficient: 350. Enforcement Mode is Lethal Eliminator."

The Sole Survivor of Vault 101, still wearing the blue jumpsuit underneath his scavenged armor, lowered the rifle composed of plumbing, transfixing his eyes at the woman before him "...Nora?"

The Sole Survivor of Vault 101, having discarded her blue jumpsuit for the orange Brotherhood Of Steel uniform, leveled her splattercannon- A Nuka World brand weapon- and nearly retreated her eyes from the man resembling her dead husband, Nathaniel. "Stay back!"

"Don't move!" Delta Squad, the four clone Commandos of the Republic, formed a circle, weapons pointing out, their T-shaped visors masking the wildness of their eyes as they are so instantly removed from an intense firefight with a spider shaped tank.

"What the fuck!" Jack, formerly called Subject Zero by her classmates and the doctors, still maintaining her shaved head, swirled blue biotic mist around her heavily tattooed body.

Chaos started to bubble around the Arbiter. People of all shapes sizes and colors armed themselves, brandishing a heavy variety of rifles, handguns, swords, and axes.

People shouted at each other, demanding to know what's going on, or what happened, where they were or who each person was.

Thel noticed a lot of people, humans, staring at him with wide eyes, one man pulling a revolver and a woman directing the points of two metal blades at Thel.

Thel realized he had his blade on him, his hand inching towards it when people started going quiet.

A loud mechanical noise had started to draw everyone's attention, causing everyone to look around towards the source: A large bald man sporting a black vest with a red t-shirt underneath a bullet belt wrapped around his shoulder to the armpit opposite.

People only ever called him The Heavy Weapons Guy.

The sound had been the spinning barrels of his Heavy Weapon- a one hundred and fifty two kilogram minigun. The spin allowed it to fire ten thousand rounds per minute.

The Heavy, who only knew one way to express himself, contorted his face in rage as he let out a roar, and a storm of hot metal erupted forth, tearing through the crowd in front of him, reducing them into a bloody mountain of corpses. He shifted his body, attempting to clear all the fleeing- and charging- people, when a blue beam of light struck his weapon, causing a sudden stop to the bullet rain.

The Heavy looked at the melted metal on his gun in shocked surprise, "Sasha!" he shouted as his feet charged him into the crowd the beam came from, ramming speed with Sasha's 300 pound corpse at the front.

Fighting broke out everywhere.

Nora pumped bullets into chest of the man in front of her, his body collapsing to the ground.

Akane's dominator erupted a blue beam, which struck Joel, causing boils to form on his chest, eventually encompassing his entire body, until he finally popped, pouring blood all over his partner. "Joel!" A high toned squeal escaped Ellie's throat, followed by a shrieking scream.

Thel didn't know what to do. Fear nearly swept him off his feet. Blood bathed everything, fist shattering jaws, tools crunching ribs and scattering teeth. Thel swivelled his head, trying to get some manner of grasp of the situation.

He whipped out the handle of his energy sword, the blade exploding out, and swung it at a shape that had moved too close to him. Thel stopped his attack mid swing. The Master Chief had readied an arm to block the attack, which slowly lowered as he saw it wasn't coming.

John 117 had been standing behind Thel, dazed and confused after being so suddenly and so violently pulled out of cryo sleep.

The Master Chief slammed a hand on Thel's shoulder, "Get down!". Something large swung over them- A massive blood red tendril.

The appendage retracted towards the body it attached itself to- the back of the white haired Japanese half-ghoul from Tokyo, Kaneki Ken. Kaneki still sported his black Frankenstein neck bolt leather mask, his perpetually baring teeth still zipped up, his right eye blocked by an eyepatch, his exposed left eye transformed into the signature red iris and black sclera ghouls typically had.

An object flew at Kaneki from behind- and another tendril springing out and smashing the wooden axe into pieces. Ratonhnhaké:ton, who had taken up the name Connor to put the Colonials at ease, violently received a tendril as sharp as deer antlers into chest.

The embedded tendril lifted him, and sent him into a wall collapsing at the base, blood dripping his belt bearing the symbol of the assassin's order.

A tendril swung at chief, forcing him to block with his rifle, shattering it into pieces. "Demon!" Whatever brought Thel there put two blades on his person, and so Thel sent a blade to the Chief's way, just when Thel spotted an incoming tendril, and his sword sliced it in half, causing it to the floor wiggling and eventually disintegrating into a red mist. He heard the sound of the Chief's sword springing to life.

The half-ghoul went full out. His tendrils began to strike excessively, trying to score a hit at their chests and heads. Thel and John swung their swords, blocking the fast tendrils as they came towards them. The no-weight swords made it extremely easy to swing them, but dealing with a fast and multi armed opponent made the effort exhausting. But it was clear that their enemy was also becoming exhausted.

Kaneki pulled back, tendrils having both been reduced to arm length. Thel took the time to gander at his surroundings.

Delta squad laid lifeless, helmets crumpled up with their heads inside, limbs twisted into unnatural directions, the Heavy attempted to stand above them victorious, exposing the various bloody wounds and holes climbing up his entire body. He barely managed to improvise his gun into a crutch, when blood loss and exhaustion finally dragged his body down to the blood soaked floor.

Tears rolled down Ellie's face, dripping down onto the bloody machete in her lap as she sat on her knees beside the bloodied corpse of Joel's killer, trying desperately to keep her eyes open even as blood poured from her left shoulder, now missing the corresponding arm.

Nora's laid out crumpled corpse had it's head twisted all the way back.

Jack had teamed up with the familiar Krogan, Wrex, cornering a pale faced woman sporting a red hood, whose military gear and armor made her look important enough.

"Give it up, bitch!" Jack spat at her.

The half Helghast Echo, granddaughter of the great Scolar Visari, rappled a grenade from her pockets, pulled its pin and didn't let go as it began ticking.

Tick-tick Tick-tick Tick-Tick Tiick-Tiiiiiiiiiiiiick

"Oh-" Jack attempted to erupt a shield, but the blast got her first. She fell to the ground like a ragdoll, body covered head to toe in shrapnel wounds.

The blast kicked up dust from the concrete, blowing over the entire room, blinding Thel. He lost track of the Master Chief- and their opponent.

We will be ready, Thel thought to himself. He kept his feet planted into the ground, staying his orientation. The Chief is to my left, our enemy in front of us.

A red shape brushing past Thel's left corrected him. He's trying to disorient us.

A shape in the corner of Thel's eye caused him to swing his blade in it's direction, but it met only dust-coated air.

The dust began settling, raining down to the ground, and the Demon's helmet finally stood out.

Thel's legs prepared themselves to leap to his ally's side, but the Chief's frozen demeanor stopped him. Thel eventually made out the red appendage, snaked around the Chief's twisted neck. Thel stood there, staring into the Chief's lifeless corpse as the half-ghoul propped it up, first as bait, now as a taunt.

Thel let out a guttural growl as he launched towards the display.

The appendages heaved the giant corpse at Thel, the dead comrade landing into Thel's embrace and dropped to the ground, Thel's current concern being vengeance.

Kaneki charged tendrils first into the Arbiter. A blue discharge from a head-to-toe shield met his strikes, preventing them from fully connecting.

Thel swung his blade, slicing the tips of two tendrils and causing his opponent to double back, but the dust having fully settled he remained exposed.

Thel checked his hud, seeing that his shield occupied a small sliver. Anymore and it's done.

The Arbiter and the Half-Ghoul stood still, facing each other, Thel with a quarter of his shield's energy, Kaneki having lost most of his tendrils- the Kagune. Both could regenerate each respective tool, but doing so would leave them exposed.

Kaneki pulled the zipper along his fake teeth, showing his real mouth, sliding his tongue along his lips.

Thel opened his maw, revealing rows of razor sharp teeth, climbing along each individual mandible. He charged forward, howling violently with his blade in hand.

Kaneki, stunned by the display, regained himself and matched the charge, whipping his Kagune towards his enemy.

The blue shield dissipated instantly on impact, and Thel had tendrils embedded in his legs, left shoulder- and the bicep of the arm wielding his blade, and he found he couldn't extend the blade into his opponent.

Kaneki drove his Kagune deeper, cutting through flesh and metal armor, until the points jutted from behind his victim. A hand reached and gripped Kaneki's neck.

Thel had remembered the weeks of studying the human anatomy, ticking off their weak points, and he had his opportunity when his adversary unwittingly came within arm's reach while driving his appendages further into his body.

He gripped fingers onto neck, searching for the specific cartilage, eventually finding the trachea. Thel squeezed with all his remaining might, and he felt the windpipe crumple and break underneath his fingers.

Kaneki grasped his neck, trying to break free of the powerful grip, which released itself, and Kaneki found he couldn't breath still.

The tendrils pulled themselves out of Thel, as his enemy began gasping desperately for air, and his black eye changed, turning into the regular human white color, his iris brown, the appendages receded into his back. Thel dropped to his bloodied knees, watching the display.

Kaneki fell to the ground, kicking and running his hands along the broken part of his neck. Oxygen started to drain from his brain, his vision turned blurry with black spots forming. Kaneki climbed on his knees, facing the monster that had done this to him, unable to speak.

He summoned forth his appendages into a single, long tendril, and whipped it at Thel, slashing his own throat. Thel grasped his own throat, as the human creature fell to the ground, having spent the last of his energy.

Corpses surrounded the Arbiter. Wrex had a blade shoved his skull. Elizabeth bullet holes riddle Elizabeth's red stained blue dress. John 117, or the Demon, laid lifelessly, his powerful armor useless in protecting him against a broken neck.

Thel's head started to feel light, and a numbness began to spread through his body. One thought entered his mind...

...

...Where am I?

His vision began to blur, and he fell into an ocean of darkness.


The screen showed blood pooling around the entire room drenching corpses, guts sprayed onto the walls and ceiling alongside bullet holes and massive chunks from the blast. Todd had no reason to check vital signs; he knew everyone was dead.

He shoved another handful of the chocolate bites into his mouth. "That's not what I wanted." He spoke with a mouthful, a smile spreading across his face.