Chapter 17: The Control Room, Part 2

Author's Notes- This is it, the last chapter of the Halo 2 section. The aftermath of this will be the start of the Halo 3 section. Rate and review, like usual, and give me a PM if you want help with a fanfic at all. I may also expand the story into the Reclaimer Saga instead of ending at the end of H4, but that is quite questionable because I will not be purchasing an Xbox One for a while for obvious reasons (The price is too damn high!), but for now, enjoy the final chapter of Halo 2, The Great Journey.

Thel Vadamee, R'tas Vadumee, Carter and Emile all watched the pair of Phantoms soared overhead, one turning around towards where they had come from, and the other stopping near the control room. The Arbiter glanced at the Wraith that R'tas had stolen. "What is that place?" "Where the Councilors were meant to watch the consecration of the Icon. The start of the Great Journey." "We must get inside." "Then mount-up, Arbiter. I know a way to break those doors."

A Spectre LRV, similar to a Warthog in purpose, pulled up beside them, and the Zealot that had been assisting them jumped out and offered the Arbiter the operator's seat. "I'll take the gunner's position." R'tas jumped back in the Wraith, and the 2 Spartans jumped onto the side seats of the Spectre. As R'tas guided them towards a tower-like structure, they came across a pair of Ghosts. The Arbiter opened fire with the plasma cannon on the back, destroying one within seconds, and the other was decimated by a direct hit from a plasma mortar from R'tas' Wraith.

They came across a Scarab waiting to be activated, and Emile pointed out the obvious. "There, that's our ticket to the control room!" "We noticed, Demon." "Arbiter, there is a path up to the Scarab in the cliff wall. I'll follow soon." "Thank you, Commander." The Arbiter and the Spartans disembarked from the Spectre, and as they came towards the doorway to the path up, they found themselves face-to-face with 4 Brutes and 2 Wraith tanks. Emile groaned inwardly. "Fuck this." He pulled the Grenade Launcher off of his back, loaded the grenade that the Grunt that had charged them and been rewarded with a plasma grenade to the face had been holding, and hoped that it was one of Johnson's.

The grenade flew straight and true, and was in fact one of Johnson's, because when it blew up, it killed all of the Covie bastards and blew up their Wraiths.

The three entered the structure, and found a pair of Hunters in the hallways ahead. "Just FUCKING perfect." "Shut up and quit bitching, Emile." "Blow it out your ass, Carter." (Another fine display of insubordination from Emile) A Sangheili jumped onto the nearby stack of crates, and upon noticing the Arbiter. Yelled at the Hunters, who had come out of the hallways and were preparing to attack the group, "Hold your fire! Hunters have come to our aid, Arbiter. They will fight by our side."

The Hunters charged into the next room, and immediately were beset by a pack of Brutes on an elevated platform. The Arbiter had already cloaked, ran up the ramp to one side, AND rammed his Sword through the gut of the leading Captain. The Brutes dying screams alerted its brothers, and they all opened fire on the Arbiter.

Carter ran up the ramp, and was nearly killed by the energy beam of one of the Hunters. "JESUS CHRIST! Tell that thing to watch where it's shooting!" The Elites and the Hunters ignored him, and Emile didn't hear him because he was too busy trying to kill the 7 Brutes that had emerged from the doorway behind them. He drove his kukri into the neck of one while simultaneously blowing the guts of another out with his shotgun. He reloaded and blew the heads off of two more Brutes, including the leading Captain. Emile jumped out of the way just as a Hunter slammed its giant-ass shield into the head of another, covering the rest in blood. This pissed them off enough to make them throw down their weapons and charge at the Hunters. Emile jumped on one's back and snapped its neck, while the Arbiter picked the other up by the neck and rammed his Sword through its gut.

The Elite and the Hunters stayed behind, while the Arbiter and the Spartans continued onto a bridge that was crawling with Jackals and Drones. "Fuck this." Carter pulled out a Rocket Launcher that he had acquired in the Brute armory, and annihilated the Drones and some of the Jackals by using both rockets. One of the Phantoms, the one that had veered off towards the Scarab, dropped into view and opened fire on the three as soon as it saw them. At the end of the bridge, the group dove through the doorway just as the Phantom pelted the area with enough plasma to turn them to glass.

The next room they came to turned out to be a detention-type area, holding 2 Sangheili Councilors and a pair of Hunters, guarded by 3 Jackal Snipers and a pack of Brutes.

The Arbiter faded from view again and proceeded to "quietly" murder all of the Brutes in the room (*cough cough* decapitation *cough cough*) while Carter and Emile sliced open the throats of the Snipers. As Emile and Carter destroyed the cell field generators, Thel was busy killing more Brutes, but instead of decapitating them, he castrated them, and then left them to suffer. Carter shot each in the head twice for the satisfaction, not to end their suffering. The Councilors followed the Arbiter and the Spartans up to the platform that would grant them access to the Scarab.

"Arbiter, if you take care of those Brutes, we'll make a break for the Scarab and get it warmed up." "Alright." They heard the Captain of the group talking to another Brute over a comm channel. "…Quietly. Now, kill the rest." Carter and Emile took off in a dead sprint for the Scarab, and found a very familiar Sergeant-Major right behind them as they climbed to the controls. "What the fuck are you doing working with that split-jawed son-of-a-bitch?" "It's a long fucking story, Johnson, and I don't feel like telling it right now."

They got the Scarab started up, and Johnson turned it around so that he could walk to the back and talk to the Arbiter. "Listen, you don't like me and I sure as hell don't like you. But if we don't get to that control room, Mr. Mohawk is going to activate this ring, and we're all going to die." "Tartarus has locked himself inside the control room." "Well, we just happen to have stumbled onto the key. Come on, grab a Hornet and give us some cover." "I will take a Banshee and make the Brutes pay for what they have done."

Emile heard his comm buzz to life. "Noble 3 to Noble 1 and Noble 4, do you copy, over? Emile hesitated for about 10 seconds, unsure if it really was Jun. "Noble 3, this is Noble 4, I read you, Jun. What do you need?" "The Covenant have captured Commander Keyes and Sgt. Johnson, and plan to use them to activate the ring. A Brute Chieftain by the name of Tartarus has just left the giant space station in a Phantom for the control room. We need to know if you can intercept him." "We will. We were on our way there anyway to find the Index." "You won't find it there; The Brute has it." "Solid copy, Jun" "Where are the Elite and Carter?" "You mean the Arbiter? He's gone to 'make the Brutes pay for what they have done', while Carter and I are waiting for him by a Scarab that we stole." Six interrupted the conversation, and he seemed amazed. "I knew that was the one he was talking about!" "Six what are you talking about?" "We made an alliance with the Elites, and one of them mentioned the Arbiter. They thought he was dead." Apparently, the Arbiter had been listening to the conversation somehow, and jumped in as well. "So, my brothers think me dead. They will be in for a surprise." "Emile, was that the Arbiter?" "Yeah, he just grabbed a Banshee, and Johnson is here with us too." "That's a relief." Johnson and his marines had also tuned in to the channel, and Johnson proclaimed proudly, "Those dumb apes didn't stand a chance against my beloved Corps!" The marines shouted a lively "Hoo-Rah!" into the comm. Emile told them how they had also forged an alliance with the Elites, and the channel was closed.

Emile and Carter jumped out of the back of the Scarab. "She's all yours, Sergeant. We'll take a Hornet." They found said Hornet around the corner of the building, and Emile jumped onto one of the side seats while Carter took the pilot's seat. "Don't crash us into Johnson's Scarab!" "What makes you think I would?" "The last time you got near a Scarab while piloting an aircraft." "Right. Almost forgot about that."

The Hornet, Banshee, and Scarab charged towards the control room with very few problems, except for the occasional Shade Turret or Banshee air patrol. They got back to where they had started, and Johnson unceremoniously blew the doors to the control room off of the attached walls.

The Arbiter and the Spartans landed on the now smoking and burning platform and charged through the doorway into a room where there were no enemies at all. "Motion tracker shows 7 Brutes moving towards this room. Find cover now!" The three hid in a small trench-like dip that concealed their presence from the Brutes. The Brutes, finding nothing, began to chatter. "I heard that the filth are working with Demons." "DEMONS? How is that possible? They hate each other!" "Not as much as they hate us now." "I just hope that it wasn't them who blew up the door." "Of course it was, nimrod! What would you expect, a tiny group of Grunts?" "Kind of." They heard the Brute get back-pawed by the one that called it a nimrod. "They could be in here now, you know. The filthy Elites might have shared their active camouflage technology with the Demons." "CLOAKED DEMONS! Oh, Gods, don't ever let that happen."

The Arbiter cloaked, ran up behind the Brute that had been back-pawed, and ran his Sword through its gut. "BOO!" The Brutes all turned at this, which gave Carter and Emile the time they needed to kill 4 more of them. The other two were so pissed by this point, having just witnessed a Killtacular medal being achieved (That's 5 kills within 4 seconds of each other), that they charged the Arbiter and were rewarded with a knife and a kukri to the back. Carter and Emile grabbed their knives and followed the Arbiter towards the control room.

Inside, they found Tartarus, along with 4 Brutes, trying to coerce Commander Keyes to activate the ring. The Arbiter stepped a little bit more towards the Brutes than the Spartans did. "Tartarus, stop." The Chieftain and his entourage turned toward the voice, and almost gaped at the sight of the Arbiter, alive and kicking. "What? Impossible." "Put down the Icon." "Put it down? And disobey the Hierarchs?" "There are things about Halo… even the Prophets do not understand." The Brutes around Tartarus gasped in shock at the Arbiter's display of heresy, and began to move towards him, but were stopped by Tartarus. "Take care, Arbiter. What you say is heresy." "Is it?" He now turned to address 343 Guilty Spark, the Oracle that Thel had captured when he had been sent to kill a Heretic Leader. "Oracle, what is Halo's purpose?" "Collectively, the seven…" he didn't finish, because Tartarus grabbed him and shook him a bit. "NOT ANOTHER WORD!" Another voice came from behind the Arbiter. "Please…" Thel and the Spartans turned to find Sergeant Johnson aiming a Beam Rifle… right at Tartarus's face. "Don't shake the light-bulb." The Brutes around the Chieftain started to move towards Johnson. "If you want your brain to stay inside your head, I'd tell your boys there to chill!" Tartarus gave a low growl, and the Brutes backed off. Johnson turned his head to the Arbiter. "Go ahead, do your thing." The Arbiter once again addressed 343. "The Sacred Rings, what are they?" "Weapons of last resort: built by the Forerunners and designed to kill off any sentient life capable of sustaining the Flood." "And, what happed to the Forerunners?" "After exhausting every tactical option, my creators activated the array and every sentient being within three radii of the galactic center… died, as planned. Would you like to see the relevant data?" There was a pause. "Tartarus, the Prophets have betrayed us." Tartarus threw 343 Guilty Spark at Johnson, forced the Index into Commander Keyes hands and forced her to start the activation of the rings. "No, Arbiter. The Great Journey has begun, and the Jirhalnahe, not the Sangheili, shall be the Prophet's escort!"

Emile immediately loaded the last of Johnson's grenades into his GL, and fired at the group. The blast killed Tartarus's guards, but barely even scratched the Chieftain. He jumped onto the firing platform, which had separated into three sections when the ring was activated, and a horde of Sangheili followed, accompanied by Noble 1 and Noble 4. The Arbiter hung back and helped Johnson snipe the Chieftain, aware of what the giant hammer that Tartarus was carrying could do. When Johnson and the Arbiter took down the shield that enveloped the Chieftain, the horde attacked and severely wounded Tartarus, but one swing of the hammer killed of almost all of the Elites, except for the Zealot that had been helping the Spartans since they were teleported. Another swing sent the Zealot careening into a nearby wall, crushing its organs and killing it instantly. The Arbiter jumped down to assist the Spartans, and almost struck the killing blow, had Carter not been such a good thrower of combat knives: the knife stuck Tartarus in the brain just as Johnson took down his shields. Unbeknownst to them, Commander Keyes was already moving in to remove the Index and stop the sequence.

The ring fired prematurely, and thus did not have enough of a charge to kill anything. The blast shut off the lights in the control room, and the group, minus the Arbiter and the Spartans, who were mopping up the last of the Brutes in the room, all convened around a nearby display, with Johnson hitching a ride on the Monitor. Keyes looked puzzled at what was on the display. "What's that?" "A beacon." "What's it doing?" "Communicating at superluminal speeds with a frequency of…" "Communicating with what?" "The other installations." "Show me." "Fail-safe protocol: in the event of unexpected shutdown, the entire system will move to standby status. All remaining platforms are now ready for remote activation." "Remote activation? From here?" "Don't be ridiculous." Johnson interrupted the exchange. "Listen, tinker-bell, don't make me…" Keyes cut him off. "Then where? Where would someone go to activate the other rings?" Spark paused, as if amazed that they did not know the answer. "Why the Ark… of course." The Arbiter and the Spartans returned. "And where, Oracle, is that?