"Two down." John said to Six, walking out of the small base that housed one of the three pulse generators that were used to help fire Halo. His Shields were regenerating as he walked outside, as the EMP blast had knocked them out.

Six had to wait outside of the base this time, due to his prosthetic malfunctioning from the EMP. Cortana had been able to reboot it in just a few seconds, but it was... inconvenient.

"I've located the Pillar of Autumn." Cortana said.

"Good." John said simply.

"Its put down twelve-hundred kilometers up spin. Energy readings show her fusion reactors are still powered up. The systems on the Pillar of Autumn have fail safes that even I can't override, without authorization from the Captain. We'll need to find him or his neural implants to start the fusion core detonation."

"Well, I hope we don't find only his implants." Six said.

"I agree. That would be bad." Cortana replied. "There is a tunnel in this part of the canyon that leads to the next section. The final pulse generator we need to destroy is through there. I'm marking it on your HUDs now."

A little blip popped up on Six's visor, to his left. The cave was a pretty tight fit, meaning that there probably wasn't a good chance that they could fly the Banshees through.

"I think we're going to have to run there." Six said.

"No time." John replied. "Cortana, are there any vehicles nearby? A warthog, maybe?"

"Scanning..." She said. "I found a single Mongoose that isn't in bad shape behind the base. I would take that."

"That's fine," Six said. "But I'm driving."

Six rushed the ATV through the cave, John standing in the back. They reached the end of the tunnel, and were greeted by the sight of the structure that housed the third and final pulse generator.

"You go in. I'll stay out here, in case something goes wrong that isn't on your end." Six said.

John walked into the structure. Six leaned against the wall with his DMR in hand. John was a great guy, and a damn good person to trust with his back. Six almost trusted him as much as...

No. Not as much as Jorge.

Not yet.

Something up on the ridge caught Six's attention, and he strained to look at it. He raised his DMR and looked through the scope, trying to get a better view.

It was a single Covenant Jackal. It shot him in the shoulder with its beam rifle, knocking Six sideways on to the ground. He crawled for a rock as cover and turned his radio on. More shots were fired into the rock, obviously by multiple snipers.

"John, There are Covenant out here! Disable the generator and move your ass!" Six said.

Six recieved nothing but radio silence in return. Of course! The EMP likely disabled John's radio, too. Hopefully he could hear the gunfire and was hauling his way out of there quickly. Several more beam rifle shots hit the rock, then they all stopped at once.

They started again, but this time, they weren't shooting at Six. He peered over the rock.

Flood combat forms were trying to get to the top of the ridge to the Covenant and were running aimlessly throughout the canyon. One caught Six's stare and ran at him, screaming. A spray of bullets hit it in the chest and it collapsed to the ground. Six looked over. John was standing in the structure's doorway, assault rifle smoking from the barrel.

"I was wondering when you would get back." Six said to John, both firing at distant Flood forms. Six was blowing off limbs and heads with every bullet, and John was spraying down the crowd. Another beam rifle shot fired and hit Six's leg. He cringed, aimed up towards the ridge and fired two shots into the Jackal that had shot him, killing it.

"Where do we go from here, Cortana?" John asked, still shooting.

"We need to find Keyes. He's our only way of rendering the installation inoperable, otherwise this little generator shutdown mission will have been an absolute waste of time." She replied.

"Then let's get into the Mongoose and get to him, fast." John replied.

"Absolutely not. That will take too long." Cortana said

"Then what's the plan?" Six asked.

"There's a teleportation grid that runs throughout Halo. That's how the Monitor moves about so quickly." Cortana said. "I learned how to tap into the grid when I was in the Control Center. Unfortunately, each jump requires a rather... consequential expenditure of energy."

"Something tells me I'm not going to like this at all." John said.

"I'm pretty sure I can take the needed energy from your suits without permanently damaging either of your shields. Needless to say, I think we should only try this once." She said.

"Do it." Six said.

"Okay. Just give me a second..."

More Flood forms began to notice them.

"Cortana, is there any chance that you could work just a little bit faster?" Six asked.

"There. Finished." She said.

The air around them rippled, and they were transported away, just in time.

They were teleported inside of the Truth and Reconciliation, but there was something odd about the room around them, and Six couldn't put his finger on it.

Then it hit him. It was the floor.

Literally.

Six and John fell on their heads and hit the ground hard. Cortana had teleported them into the battlecruiser upside down. As they got up, Cortana sounded a bit embarrassed.

"Um... Oh... I see, the coordinate data needed to be-"

John whacked the side of his helmet.

"Right. Sorry." She said.

"You're fine. We were just... surprised... that the ceiling wasn't the ceiling." Six said, cracking his back and neck.

"I've got a good lock on Captain Keyes' CNI transponder signal! He's alive! And the implants are intact! There's some interference from the cruiser's damaged reactor. I'll bring us in as close as I can." Cortana said.

After a minute or two of walking, Six asked Cortana if she could hear anything.

"Not from Keyes yet, but the Covenant network is in absolute chaos! From what I've been able to piece together, their leadership ordered all ships to abandon Halo when they found the Flood, but they were too late. The Flood overwhelmed this cruiser and disabled it. The Covenant are terrified the Flood will repair the ship and use it to escape from Halo. They've sent in a strike team to neutralize the Flood and repair the ship for immediate departure."

The two Spartans walked another few feet.

"Chief... Six... Don't be fools...Leave me..." Someone said.

"That was Keyes." Six said.

"Captain? Captain?!" Cortana asked, trying to respond to Keyes. "Dammit! I've lost him."

"If we keep going, I'm sure we'll find him eventually." Six said. "Come on. Let's move."

Despite the confidence in his voice, something felt off about this situation. Sure, it wasn't exactly the usual mission, but something told him that this wasn't going to end the way that they wanted it to.

AGHHH.

So many reviewers and viewers (and by that I mean like three) are super halo experts and keep pointing out tiny details. Small corrections here, an error fix there, missing words, yadda yadda.

Why do I bring this up?

Well, I'm not even going to hide how stupid this sounds, but I just remembered that this is fanfiction. I can write whatever I want as long as I justify it and the facts that shouldn't be tampered with aren't tampered with. I'm not using that as an excuse for my errors, but as an opportunity to put a spin on this story that isn't made by Bungie. So I changed chapters three and four quite a bit. If you don't want to go back and read them, I won't force you to, but, please, I recommend it. The significance of those chapters will resurface when I move on to Halo 2 in this fanfic.

Either way, I hope that you all enjoyed this chapter. If you've played through the game before, you know what happens next.

:(

Happy reading, Wolfgang!

~Husky