This is my first story on the halo universe. I'd been mulling over ideas for halo stories due to being a massive fan before motivating myself to finally piece together my story. I hope you enjoy.

All OCs are of my own creation.

Rated for blood, gore, language and violence and some suggestive themes.

(Chapter 1) Beginnings

Earth – June 16th 2517, 2300 hours.

She stood across the street from the targets house, under the dim light of the street lamp above her. The night was quiet; all the residents of this sleepy suburb had already settled down for the night, this would make the act simpler.

There could be no room for error here, this was classified on the highest levels, she had decided on overseeing the operation personally to make sure it ran smoothly. A voice crackled into life in her headpiece, disturbing the silence 'We are in position to enter and extract the target, Doctor Halsey. Do we still have confirmation to proceed?' the voice asks her in an emotionless tone.

She looked to the darkness of the houses porch, seeing the shadow the voice belonged to. An ONI agent, a spook in every sense of the word, ruthless, efficient and just one of the few positioned around the outside of the house.

For a moment she weighs the morality of what they are to do here, though it passes as quickly as it comes, she had decided long before that this is all necessary and that if she must become a monster in order to help humanity then so be it.

She speaks softly 'Your orders are unchanged, proceed inside and extract the child.'; 'Understood', the cold voice replies to her and with that she watches the shadows open the front door without a sound, Slipping inside the family home.

Looking down at her data pad she sees the camera feed of the infiltrator as he moves silently through the house, moving up the stairs into the darkened hallway of the upstairs landing. The man moves across the landing to a door decorated with pictures of flowers, typical of a young girl's room. Stuck to the door is a piece of paper saying 'Nikki's room.'

The agents hand moves to the handle to open the door but stops suddenly as if startled by something, the camera moving to the door to his left. Halsey could make out talking on the other side of the door through the feed and footsteps as the agent draws his gun, resting his back against the wall next to the door and flicking off the safety.

As the door opens a woman steps out from the room into the dark corridor, to be met with a gun pushed against her temple. Before she has a chance to utter a sound the agent pulls the trigger, firing the bullet through her temple, killing the woman instantly.

Halsey looked away from the feed as the woman's body fell. Looking to the house and seeing the small flicker of muzzle flashes through the bedroom window. Pressing her fingers to her earpiece she speaks furiously 'Agent, we wanted no civilian casualties. You were clearly brie-' The agent cuts her off before she can finish 'The operation was in danger of being compromised doctor. We acted in accordance with the orders from our superiors. Your superiors, we cannot afford to have it known what we did here.'

Halsey grits her teeth, the spook was right, as much as it sickened her to admit it. 'Continue with the op.' she spat, looking back to the feed to see the death the agent had wrought. A man sits dead against the wall of the bedroom, two bullet wounds in his chest, one piercing his heart and killing him instantly, a gun in his hand where he had attempted to defend himself. The agent walks from the room, stepping over the dead woman's body.

Walking back to the door of the Childs room and opening the door with a gloved hand. A nightlight sits on the table, shining shapes on horses onto the wall of the room, looking to the bed for the child he finds it empty. The covers thrown to the floor as the child left the bed in a rush. He turns his gaze to the wardrobe, hearing the faintest of whimpers from inside.

She holds a hand over her mouth, tears streaming from her eyes as she hugs her teddy bear to her chest, that mum had bought her today at the fair. She was woken by a thump a few minutes before, looking to the door which she had asked dad to leave open for some extra light, she has always been scared of the monsters hiding under her bed. Dad always checked under the bed for her but the light was reassuring.

She pushes her cover to the floor and gets out of bed, slowly walking to her door and trying to rub the sleep out of her eyes. Looking out through the gap in her door she sees an image she will never forget, her mother dead on the floor, a pool of blood spreading from the bullet hole in her temple.

Falling back onto her rear, shaking from both devastation and shock, tears uncontrollably flowing from her eyes. She almost doesn't hear footsteps coming from her parent's room, doing the only thing she can and scrambling to her wardrobe, grabbing her teddy bear from her bed along the way and shutting herself inside.

Looking through the gap in the doors she watches in horror as a shadow obstructs the view, pressing herself back against the wall. Wishing she could just pass through it and be away from this horror, maybe this is all a dream? Yes, that must be it. Shutting her eyes and expecting to wake up at any second to her parents smiling face, everything will be back to normal.

She scrunches her eyes shut as she hears the doors pulled open repeatedly whispering to herself 'Wake up, wake up wake up..' She yelps as she feels a hand grab her by the hair. Her eyes snapping open to see a large man with obstructing sunglasses holding onto her.

She can only whimper as he pulls her out of the wardrobe, pushing her head against the floor of her room she watches him take out a needle with tear filled eyes. Unable to put up a struggle against the strength of this man he pushes the needle into her neck with a sharp prick, injecting the fluid into her. Within moments her consciousness begins to fade and darkness creeps into her vision. The image of her parents faces coming to her mind before she succumbs to the drug and everything goes black.