A/N: I am not going to reveal the full origin of the Titans, as I plan on it being a bit of a surprise. If you pay attention, and follow the clues, you might just see exactly what I am planning, but I hope it is unique enough that it wont be too obvious. I am going to reveal a bit at a time, throughout the stories I write (type, whatever). As you can probably guess, I do not plan on making a single fanfic. I will make several, in different categories, and will say at the end of each story what category I am planning next. For instance, after this I may do a fic concerning Final Fantasy, possibly Mass Effect, this will be decided at a later date. I apologize for any lack of quality in this fanfic, but please remember that this is my first, and I have been writing this late a t night, and I haven't been getting anything approaching how much sleep I should be.
Disclaimer: I do not own Halo. Unfortunate, I know, but I do not own it.
Actually, knowing me, Id accidentally drive it into the ground. So, maybe its a bit fortunate.
Alright, Ive made my usually unintentionally long A/N, so...
Wrath of the Black Flame
Chapter II
Unease
Darakathos was... uneasy. When Rakithas had hacked into the vessel's comms systems, he had only seen this 'Master Chief.' He had not seen the Elites at all, they were told of the message by the 'Chief's' vessel.
He had not seen the Humans.
And now they were aboard his ship. They were in his war-room. At least this SPARTAN-human could be trusted to be untrustworthy. Obviously, he was superior in some way to the other humans, maybe even their leader. Otherwise, why would they waste such armor and augmentation as was obvious in this SPARTAN? Humans betrayed. It was in their genetic code, their culture. Greed, avarice, wrath, envy. Foolishness. He was a bit more at ease with a predictable fool than a fool as unpredictable as a human.
He looked at them, and then looked at the Elites.
He had fought them twice before. They were a worthy foe. They had burnt many human planets into balls of irradiated glass, and yet, the humans were now allied with them! He sighed. He knew only one thing that could stop his change, that could make him take something seriously. Humans.
(About the 'change': all Titans have some kind of personality quirk, brought about by their origin. Darakathos's is that he can never take anything seriously. He just doesn't care enough to do so.)
Humans could not be trusted. Ever. They had already done so much.
But, for now, he had to go along with them.
The Arbiter was... uneasy. When Cortana had sent him a translated recording of the message, he had been shocked. This 'Aulianas' was a Titan!
He had heard of the Titans before.
They were not common knowledge. The Covenant had encountered them twice before, and attempted to force them to join their ranks. Both times, an entire fleet had been sent.
Both times, only a single ship had returned, broken and defeated. The comm logs had revealed that the entire fleet had been annihilated, and that they had boarded the surviving ship. They had slain every last Sangheili, Grunt (I apologize, I do not know the Covenant word for Grunt), even the Lekgolo. They had destroyed the weapons, the shields, and finally the life support. Then, they had triggered the engines, and recorded three messages on the comms systems. The first was a recording of a single alien- taller than an Sangheili but almost skeletally thin, wearing a hooded cloak so black, it seemed that it was swallowing the light- taking on a pair of Lekgolo, in close combat, barehanded.
The Titan won.
He taunted the Lekgolo the entire time, feinting towards one, even standing on it's shield, and punching the chestplate of his bond-brother. As he punched the Lekgolo, its armor dented. It was wearing thick plate armor, but the Titan-creature dented it with a single punch. By the time the Titan had finished, the Lekgolos' armor had been crushed in, their fuel rod cannons broken, and their shields splintered.
The second was the Fleet Master's final words. Both times, it had been an incoherent scream. He had to give the Titans one thing. They knew how to scare.
The third message was a log. The Aulianas had left a warning. Leave this place alone. Come and die. It was their choice. Oh, and that whomever parked a cruiser in his spot, it has been impounded until further notice.
That last part never made sense to the Prophets, and the Sangheili were still trying to figure out what he was talking about. But, that didn't really matter.
The Arbiter had reviewed that tape many times, to try to figure out how the destroyed an entire fleet. Twice.
And today, he had jumped into a system, expecting nothing more than to meet some allies and found a colony. Instead, he had found a gigantic fortress powerful enough to destroy a small moon, and he was now staring at the Titan from the video, this 'Aulianas.' Obviously, it was not the same Titan, but if anything could defeat a pair of Hunters in melee combat, without even a trace of fear...
He did not want these aliens as his enemies.
John was... uneasy. The humans and Elites had come to the system, believing it to be uninhabited. Probes and long-range scans had revealed a world in the system to be capable of bearing life, and so the Elites and humans, to seal their alliance and bring the two species closer together, had intended to colonize the planet, which they had named Prosperity.
The Elites had not liked the name very much, but in light of the fact that the Elites had glassed Reach, Harvest, and a long list of other planets, they had decided that maybe the humans should get to name the planet.
Instead of this new planet, and humanity's new hope for colonization, they had found a species named after ancient Greek deities, been jumped by hellspawn, found out that this new species spoke Latin and English, was in the middle of a civil war, and had enough firepower in a space castle to blow up the moon.
He really, really did not like surprises. In his line of work, they tended to be a bit fatal.
When Keyes and Johnson had come aboard the space-castle-fortress-cannon, they were greeted with distrust. The Titans seemed to be watching them constantly, and the tension between them was almost thick enough to cut. They seemed to be a little more at ease with him, but he had not removed his helmet or armor since leaving the ship. It was possible that they did not know he was human.
For whatever reason, they seemed more willing to speak to him than Keyes or Johnson...
They had told him what was going on. It was not pretty.
It appeared that Aulianas Darakathos was the leader of a species known as the Blackfire Titans. They were allied with the Necris Titans, and constantly fought. They thought of war as a game of some kind. They had no rank, and even an Aulianas had about as much authority as a piece of rock. Aulianas was translated as 'trusted leader,' a bit like an advisor. He suggested to the Titans how to do things, how to fight, and where, but he did not give orders. Each individual Titan made his own choice, and each individual Titan was held accountable for those choices. If a Titan is found to be talented in strategy, and was liked amongst the crew, he was made the Aulianas. A Trusted Leader. If one had great prowess in battle, he was made a Rakithas. A Blade in the Night.
They were at war with a branch of former Blackfires that had split off after finding some lost tech. Naturally, the Titans did not appreciate this, and the fact that the new 'Cruor Titans' were constantly attacking them did not help.
Cortana had gone off to look around in their files, she believed that she would not be detected. He trusted her discretion, but was worried about how the aliens would react if they found a construct in their computer files.
Cortana was not uneasy. She was amazed. She had found the main computer systems for the Rakothan. They were... familiar. She had spent several seconds pondering this, searching for where she had seen this before.
She was unable to find a reason, until she had run a comparison of the human security system, and Forerunner computer technology.
What she found was incredible.
The Titan's computer systems contained elements of both Forerunner, and human computer tech. The Forerunner technology was obviously salvaged, and it appeared that they had somehow adapted it to work in their system. They had even managed to dredge up long-forgotten files, including information about the Halo rings!
But, the human part was harder to explain. The files and systems that they used seemed to be based off of human organization, and it was next to impossible for it to be a coincidence. There was only one plausible excuse.
Then, she saw that a small portion, a set of documents, was locked. This seemed to be especially protected, and there could only be one reason.
The files inside were to be seen by none but the Aulianas himself.
She tried to open them, but the security was unusually tough. She tried to hack in through the password protection, but she could find no match at all. She could not open the files. But, she could copy the segment and work on it later.
Besides, she had found something amazing. Judging from how the Titans organized their systems...
They had encountered humanity before.