Chapter 1: Welcome to Blood Gulch

A/N: So, I hoped that the ones who read the prologue liked it for the most part. I'd like to apologize for putting Cortana's death into the prologue, but I wanted to have the Chief be introduced to the Reds and Blues in chapter 1, and I didn't want the prologue to be a paragraph long, so that's what I went with. Quick shoutout to Mandalore the freedom as he/she told me in a review that Sarge was an ODST in the Covenant War, so thanks a lot for the information. With that said, enjoy the chapter!

From the Spartan's point of view, if he didn't know that he was pointing a rifle at the Master Chief, which he probably didn't know, he should have been scared. The cobalt armored Spartan didn't look like he was backing down and the Master Chief was probably outgunned. So, he decided to just go with it and wait for a chance to get his weapon back. "I'll say it again," he said, his finger hovering over the trigger. "Who the hell are you, and what in the hell are you doing here?!" The Chief was about to answer calmly, but someone answered before him. "Jesus Church," a Spartan in black armor with yellow trim said. "Calm down!"

The cobalt Spartan known as "Church" looked to his left and said, "Shut up, Wash!" The Master Chief stepped out of the pod and looked at Church. "Do you have any idea who you're talking to, soldier?" he asked, in a serious tone. Church turned back to him and said, "What?! Who are you, then?!" An orange Spartan cleared his throat. Church took his hand off the trigger and raised his hand. "This is private, Grif!" he said. "That's the spirit, Bluetard!" a Spartan in Regulation Red armor said. "Shut up, Sarge!" Church said. "And you, get back in your- What?! Where'd your pod go?!" The Chief turned around, to see that the cryo pod was gone.

"Church, was it?" The Chief said, turning back to the man in cobalt. "Yeah?" he asked. "What of it?" The Chief was getting somewhat frusterated and pissed off. "Hey, is there someone nicer here to talk to?" he asked. "Can anyone here fix an AI?" All of a sudden, Church readied the rifle. The rest of the group raised their firearms, except for a Spartan in Regulation Blue armor. "Did you say AI?! You're a Freelancer!" Church started to fire, but the Chief flipped to the right, grabbed his sidearm from his thigh and fired a bullet into Church's knee. Church groaned and fell on his other knee. The Chief took his Assault Rifle back and pointed it at all the other Spartans. The other Spartans slowly lowered their weapons out of fear.

"Serves you right, Church!" A female Spartan in a Light Blue color said. "Shut up, Carolina!" Church grunted. "Now, I'm not a Freelancer like Church said," the Chief said, stepping forward, lowering his weapon. "Does anyone here know who I am?" The Spartan in orange, called Grif, raised his hand. The Chief pointed to him. "You," he said. "Grif, right? Who am I?" Grif cleared his throat. "I was going to tell Church," he said, nervously. "That he was shouting at Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan-117, of Blue Team." The Chief had to admit, that he was impressed with the Spartan's knowledge of him.

"That is correct." he said. "But how do you know that?" The Regulation Red armored Spartan called Sarge, beat Grif to it. "I fought in the Covenant War as an ODST," he said. "You were a living legend, sir." The Chief nodded. "Well, with that being said, you are correct. That's an excellent summary." The Regulation Blue armored Spartan said, "If you are from Blue Team, then that means you are on my team!" A Spartan in Cyan, Sea Green, Aqua, whatever armor it is looked at him and said, "What are you talking about, idiot? We're not on seperate teams anymore! We're pretty much all friends here now, well, except the fact that we taunt each other a lot."

"So," the Chief said, looking around his surroundings. "Where am I?" The Spartan in whatever shade of blue stepped forward. "My name's Tucker. Pleasure to meet you. I'm sure you feel the same." he said. "You are in possibly the worst place in the entire universe. We call it Blood Gulch. And probably won't be getting out of here." The Chief didn't recognize the location's name. "Blood Gulch?" he asked. "What planet is that on?" Tucker looked at the Chief. "We uh, don't know." The Chief didn't like the response. "Well, that's just great!" he said, kicking the dirt. "I need to get back to the UNSC Infinity!" Sarge looked at him. "UNSC?" he asked. "I've heard of it a few times. But what is it?" The Master Chief was stunned. "The United Nations Space Command?" he asked. Sarge shook his head no. "Is that what the acronym stands for?" he asked. The Chief nodded.

"So, you're saying I'm stuck here?" the Chief said. "Yeah that's right." Sarge said. The Chief looked at the ground, accepting his fate. Cortana had saved him from an eternity of floating through space. Somehow, the pod that she made sent him here. But why? He reached to the back of his helmet and was surprised to feel what felt like Cortana's data chip. Or a data chip. He pulled it out and looked at it. "What's that, Sir?" Grif asked. "Oh, this?" he asked, raising the data chip. "My AI chip. Or the UNSC's AI chip, I should say."

"Why doesn't it work?" Church said, finally getting up. The Chief looked at Church. "Shouldn't you call in a medic, soldier?" Church shook his head. "No, I'm good. Uh, I'm an AI, too." The Master Chief looked at Church. "You?" he asked. "An AI? Of course." Carolina stepped forward. "You see," she said. "Church here is the Epsilon AI. He is a memory fragment of an AI that was modeled after the Director of Project Freelancer. And all the AI's were fragmented from that AI. I'm not sure if your AI was part of the program. All of our AI's were codenamed after the Greek alphabet. To name a few of them: Alpha, Gamma, Delta, Theta, Eta, Iota and Sigma. What's it's codename?" The Master Chief said, "Her codename is Cortana."

"I don't recall one called Cortana." Carolina said. "Why isn't she working?" The Master Chief put the chip back in his helmet slot. "She reached her limit of twelve years of service and she went rampant. Sacrificed herself to protect me from the explosion of the Forerunner structure, the Composer." All of the Spartans exchanged glances. "Say that again?" Grif asked. "She reached her limit of-" the Chief started, But Grif interrupted him. "No, no, no," Grif said. "We heard that. What was the thing about something called the Composer?" The Chief nodded. "Oh, that," he said. "A structure known as the Composer, built by an ancient race called the Forerunners."

The Spartans exchanged glances once again. "Forerunners?" Tucker asked. The Chief looked at them. "You haven't heard of the Forerunners either?" he asked. A few Spartans shook their heads and the others just stood there. "Of course. Where have you soldiers been?" he asked. "Oh, around." Church said. "Here, at Blood Gulch, Sidewinder, Zanzibar, some facility on the planet Chorus, places." Carolina nodded. "Affirmitive," she said. "Once we defeated Felix and Locust on Chorus, we came back here." Tucker laughed. "I thought the part where I recorded Felix's plan was fucking awesome!" Church turned around to look at Tucker. "Yes Tucker," he said, angrily. "We remember, asshole."

"I remember the part where-" The Regulation Blue armored Spartan started, but at the same time, all the Spartans except the Chief yelled, "Shut up, Caboose!" The Chief cleared his throat. "So, anyone know how to fix an AI?" he asked. "You could try getting in Sheila, and-" Church started, but Tucker interrupted. "Bow chicka bow wow!" he said. Carolina turned around and hit Tucker with the butt of her Battle Rifle. "Ow, hey!" Tucker said, after recovering. "As I was saying," Church continued. "You could try getting in Sheila and putting the data chip in one of her slots."

The Chief thought about this. "Well, I guess it's worth a shot," he said. "But who or what is a Sheila?" Church cleared his throat. "Oh, Sheila is our tank." The Chief looked at Church. "You named your tank 'Sheila'?" he asked. "We didn't name her. She named herself." Caboose said. "Well, ok then." he said. "Then please, take me to the tank, Church. Where is it?" Church began to walk away from the crash site. "Over by Blue Base. Follow me." he said. "Blood Gulch Outpost Alpha!" Tucker shouted. "Whatever, same difference!" Church screamed, as the Chief followed after him.

"So, why were you made into an AI, Church?" the Chief asked, as he caught up with the cobalt Spartan. "Oh, that?" Church asked. "Hell, you don't want to hear about Chief. It's just a fucking love story." The Chief grimaced in his armor. "Actually Church," he said. "I've had my fair share of love stories." Church stopped and turned to him. "Ok, well I guess I can tell you about it," Church said. "I started as an experimental AI made by my model, Dr. Leonard Church. They tortured me in the Epsilon Unit and forced me to split up into multiple copies of myself, with different personalities. It wasn't till a while until I learned that my true purpose was just to be a copy of Leonard and I was made to be paired with Tex, a cyborg made to model the Director's love, Allison."

The Chief looked at him. "The torture part sounds unpleasant." he said. "Yeah, it sure as hell was." Church said, as they walked up to the tank. "Hey, Chief?" Church asked. "Mmm?" the Chief grunted. "Sorry, about holding you at gunpoint." he said. The Master Chief turned to Church and patted his shoulder. "Ah, don't sell yourself short, soldier," he said. "You didn't know who I was and who knows, I might have done the same thing." Church pointed to the tank. "Well," he said. "Go ahead, and see if you can reactivate Cortana." The Chief nodded, and walked over to the tank, and opened the driver canopy. He sat down in the tank, and the driver canopy closed. The Chief pulled the data chip out of his helmet, and put it into the AI slot. The Chief opened a private com channel to the tank's AI and said, "Cortana do you read?" He heard a distorted voice, but was beyond recognition. "Say again?" he asked. "Is that you, Cortana?" Just then, a purple flash occured from the tank's AI slot.

A/N: So, there's the next chapter. About the "spoiler" in the middle of the chapter, that's not real. I just needed to make something up to explain how got back to Blood Gulch and it is a Fanfic, after all. So, next chapter you will find out if the Master Chief found out how to bring Cortana back. As always, I hope that you liked this chapter and please leave a review.