Gravemind's death sent gore everywhere. Apparently, a ten million volt Zatn'kitel was enough to kill a Command form like him. It was like putting a shredder round in a carrier form. The explosion was like a Jackhammer missile in the gut, sending the Chief flying back into the opposite wall, which was a good fifteen feet away. The improved armor shielding saved him from the main force of the blast, but it was enough to cause some internal bleeding.
Cortana's holo-pad was mostly undamaged, except for a slight crack in the display glass. Her hologram became fractured on one side, so she edged to the side of the holo-panel.
"John! Answer me damn it!" She called anxiously. Explosive swearing answered. The Chief's form got up and staggered over to a support. Cortana sighed in relief and shot him a glance.
"I didn't think that you would come back!" She yelled at him, noting that a trickle of blood came from his clenched teeth.
"And I thought In Amber Clad was going to blow this place and Delta Halo to bits, but someone didn't get that far!" The Chief growled back, getting his balance. "Besides… I made a promise."
Cortana bit her lower lip and glanced at the hole in the wall.
"We still have a mission to do."
The Chief shook his head.
"We don't have a mission. I have a mission." He said, tapping a new control panel on his arm plates. A beeping light answered.
"Chief, what's going on? What happened to the old Mjolner armor? And what were those new weapons?" Cortana asked, now confused and scared. The Chief was stranger today than he had ever been since she had met him, and that disturbed her. Occasionally, when she raised her voice, he would wince, like suffering a bad migraine. His eyes had changed, too. The diamond pupils were gone, but his eyes were too focused, and fragmented. His movements were jerky and not as graceful as before.
The Chief finished typing and a tiny sphere popped out of the wrist. He caught it and placed it on his head, just in front of his right ear. A seal pooped and it stuck to his head. A piece of metal jutted out from it, a tiny microphone appeared at the end. He tapped it twice and a tone issued from the microphone.
"This is SPARTAN-117. Highiron, can you get a lock on my signal?" Chief asked into the radio. A strange voice responded, through static.
"This is the Highiron to Master Chief. I cannot get a lock on your signal. High Charity must have more powerful shielding than I first anticipated. The lock-on should take no more than four minutes."
A combat form wielding a plasma sword ambled though the opening of the hole in the wall. The Chief glanced up at it and turned back to Cortana.
"Make it two."
"You got it." The radio went dead.
"Chief! What are you doing!" Cortana asked, shocked that even the Chief was going up to the Flood unarmed.
The Master Chief lifted his arm and a section of armor slid away and revealed a Zatn'kitel that fell into John's hand. He hefted the small, snake-like weapon and squeezed the pad at his fingers. A lightning bolt slammed into the combat form and overloaded the sword. The flood weakly got up to challenge the Spartan and received a second shock. The beast hit the ground, dead. The Chief fired a third shot and the carcass disintegrated into nothing. Cortana gasped at the efficiency of this weapon.
A roar could be heard from the opening of the hole and it sounded pissed. It sounded like Gravemind's children had come to pay their respects… by killing the Chief. The Master Chief sighed and pulled a hidden grenade off his belt. It was a sphere with four lights on the sides. Chief turned it a quarter turn and held it in his hands. The lights flashed red and began to countdown.
The Chief leaned back to throw and released the grenade. The device went into the hole. The Chief waited a full ten seconds. Cortana held a "breath". The Chief stood, puzzled for a moment, and then his eyes grew wide. He ran over to Cortana and placed a hand on the holo-pad. She was siphoned into his neural implant. Cold mercury filled his mind and Cortana was added to his brain. The Chief ignored her inquiries and tapped his wrist computer. A Goa'uld shield flared over him and an Asguard Shield flared over that one.
"John? What are you doing?" She whispered, now scared by his fear. There was a rumble though the floor and a white wall of light pushed its way into the room. John threw his arms up, crossed in front of his face. The light impacted the Asguard shield and fought in a struggle of energies. The Asguard shield flickered and died, releasing the wall of pulsating light to impact the Goa'uld shield. That soon faded, too. The wall of light was upon the Chief and Cortana and then there was a sound of rushing wind.
Cortana appeared on a type of isolated holo panel in a large, bright observatory that offered a nice view of space. High Charity hung outside of the window, Delta Halo slowly spinning. Crystal control panels surrounded the room. The floor was engraved with a giant symbol. It resembled a pyramid with a sun hanging over it. Cortana recognized this symbol from records of fossil digs on Earth. She looked over a bit further…
And saw John's body sitting at the other end of the room, bleeding and not moving.
A pang of fear flooded through Cortana and she tried to access the ship's systems, or do something to help John. She snarled in frustration and tore her eyes from the wounded Spartan's body. A tiny, grey man was standing at nearby controls, glancing at the Chief's body. Cortana noted that this creature seemed to resemble the reports from the alien files from Roswell. This could have been a new addition to the Covenant. The tiny man walked over to John's body, looked him over and walked past Cortana.
Cortana yelled at him, "Who are you? Some new bastard recruit of the Covenant!"
The creature froze and turned to her. He tilted his head to the side.
"I am not a Covenant bastard, as you may say, Cortana." it said.
Cortana glared at him, angry that he wasn't trying to help John. She turned an angry dark purple.
"Why don't you say who you exactly are, hm!" She asked.
"We don't have time to talk while we can save him." He said, glancing at Master Chief. "So I will get to the point, right now."
Cortana toned down, still furious, but interested. The little man stood straighter.
"I am Trojan, Third Lieutenant of the Asguard Fleet. And this is the Asguard ship Highiron. And I am here to help SPARTAN-117 kill the Ori and save this dimension from a cataclysmic doom."