Noble Six stood, straining his arm as he attempted to get a grip on the bloodied floor. John was already up, his shotgun still in hand. Wisely, it wasn't raised. The rest of the crew was either up, getting up, or still recovering from the fall.

"My head... ugh." Clancy muttered.

"How did-" John began, but the prophet known as Hom looked him in the eyes.

"Thun jafla." She hissed.

He stopped. He wasn't frightened, but something was stopping him from speaking. It was as if his vocal cords were suddenly paralyzed. He could move his lips and tongue, but no sound came out. Six just looked at the prophet in a mixture of awe and confusion.

Thun jafla was Wortish, the Sangheili people's native tongue, and roughly translated into English as "Stop talking".

She closed her eyes tightly, and the air around her distorted. Six felt a light wave hit him, and his sight rippled. He blinked hard, and his vision returned to normal. Nothing appeared to change.

"What...?" Six asked, confused. He looked out of the bulkhead window, a few feet of thick, solid glass, and realized something extraordinary.

Nothing was moving. Nothing at all. Plasma fire suspended itself outside, unmoving. The dust in front of him refrained to move, held in the air with an unknown force. Six looked backwards. John turned just a moment afterwards.

The crew was frozen as well.

Six grabbed the shotgun from John's hands, pumped it in his hand, and aimed it at Hom.

"What did you do?!" He shouted.

"The last time that you fired upon me, you didn't profit from the experience. I don't recommend trying a second time." Hom said. "Lay down your weapon. Now."

He gritted his teeth, but didn't lower the shotgun. If anything, all he did was tighten his finger around the trigger.

"Answer me!" Six said forcefully.

The self-proclaimed prophet observed him with interest. Her eyes were strange; where a human's eyes were white, hers were black, and the irises bright, the color of driven snow. Her pupils... she had no pupils.

Female Sangheili looked much different than males, bearing roughly human-like features. With their flat noses, oval eyes and fair lips, one could almost be astonished that they were even the same species as their male counterparts. She looked like no female Sangheili that Six had ever seen, however. He had no way of knowing the normal appearance of one, as he had only ever seen a few, but Hom gave off a certain presence. It was more than commanding. It was... magnetic.

"You shall learn not to speak such words to me." She said.

She raised an open hand, and the shotgun pulled out of his grip. It shot back quickly and with great force, and the stock struck Six's visor. A jagged crack appeared in his line of sight and the visor split, his HUD's shield meter flickering from the hit. He took a step back and looked up. Suddenly, he was looking down the barrel of the eight gauge shotgun himself.

John stepped forward, and Hom shot him a death stare.

"I could kill you both where you stand." The prophet said. "It would take me a fraction of the time that it would take you to even react. But my orders are very clear."

Six lowered his hand, which he had instinctively raised to his face when the shotgun made impact.

"What are your orders?" He asked.

John had felt feeling return to his tongue moments after Hom froze everything else. He was talking, too, but not to Six, and certainly not to the prophet. He had killed his external speakers, effectively muting sound from coming out of his helmet via a lock on his helmet. He had been talking to Cortana the entire time.

"Cortana," He had said. "Are you there?"

"Yes, I am."

"Run biological diagnostics on her. Find out everything that you can regarding the prophet Hom."

"I'm on it." She had replied. He still hadn't heard back from her yet, however. If there was any data, an unlikely event, it was probably buried unbelievably deep.

"They aren't to eviscerate you." Hom said, replying to Six's question. "That much you should be grateful for."

"Then why are you here?" Six fired back. "God dammit, what are you?"

She looked at the shotgun and curled her hand into a fist. The shotgun, made of dense metals, crushed itself into a ball as easily as tinfoil paper, and dropped to the floor.

"How would I be practical to explain my origin, if you do not even know the origin of yourself?" She responded. "'Tis not, therefore... I stay my answer."

Six froze. How did she know about him?

John narrowed his eyes and reactivated his external speakers. "Six, what is she talking about?" He asked.

"I... I don't..." He replied.

"You asked of my orders, yes?" Hom questioned. "My orders, as of two Earth weeks ago-"

"How do you know about Earth?" John asked.

"Interrupt me again, and I'll make sure that you know pain!" Hom barked, aiming a hand at John. He stepped back. She lowered it. "...My orders have been to observe your movements and conversations. For undisclosed reasons, I have been ordered to follow your friend, here. Noble Six. My master finds him to be... interesting. And after I reported that he had an ally with... similarities... I was told to keep track of the both of you."

"I would have seen you." Six replied. "There's no way-"

"You almost have. Several times. You have a keen eye, Spartan," Hom said. She spit the word out like it was a bad taste. "But I'm faster than you are."

Six hated being taunted.

"A scouting job? Really, though?" Six asked. "Surely a prophet would be... oh, seeing visions from the great beyond?"

"You misunderstand the term." She replied. "Do you think me to be a coward like the prophets of the Covenant? I fight on the front lines, and I rip my enemies apart. The only difference between me then and me now is that your head is still attached."

"Then why haven't you done it?" Six asked. "What stops you from laying waste to me? To him, and the rest of our crew?"

Hom grimaced.

"I know from experience that behind every command, there's an even more complex command." Six said. "You aren't sparing us out of the goodness of your heart."

Hom adopted a sour look. "The Enclave despise the Covenant. You know this. You saw our soldiers on Reach."

"Yeah, at a... very close range." Six said. He winced. God dammit, Jun. "Your people executed a lot more than Covenant soldiers."

"I remember." Hom said. There was almost a hint of understanding in her voice. "If it is any condolence to you, the Officer who killed your companion was executed swiftly at the personal hand of our High Prophet."

"... It doesn't." Six said. He would have rather beaten the Sangheili that killed Jun raw. He would have ripped its tongue out of its throat and stuffed an energy sword down its gullet. He knew that he wouldn't get the chance, as the odds were one and a million, but it bothered him that it was now impossible.

At least he still had Kat's killer to look forward to. Again, one and a million, but it never hurt to imagine.

"One of our many purposes is to dissolve... no, to destroy the Covenant. " She said. "After they forced many of the civilizations of my home planet, Sanghelios, to join their walk of death, there was retaliation. All states who majority opposed their "Great Journey" received punishment from their own people. My state was one of them. Beings fighting each other when we should have fought the threat.

"They call you Spartans demons on account of your prowess. In the past, they have studied your augmentations and kept experiments hidden for no eyes to see. And I..." She said, lifting the crumpled shotgun from the floor. "...Am one of those experiments."

"Are you saying that... The Covenant tried to make Spartans of their own?" Six asked, dumbfounded. "And succeeded?"

"No. At least, not about the success." She said. "There were seven original test subjects. My family was abducted from their state. Me, two of my sisters and our High Prophet were selected to be... what you humans would call guinea pigs. We survived, but the other three were killed in the process. The project was discontinued and were labeled as failed experiments, wiped from the records of our civilization. They hunted us for sport. We despised them for that."

"Why are you telling us this?" John asked.

She held her hand up, but this time, it wasn't in aggression. "You know the Covenant as an enemy. I know them as a scourge. If we are to see eye to eye, then you need to know them as I do." She said. "You need to see them as a pus filled boil that must be drained. No secret can be hidden, but it is no secret that the Covenant is a grand boil of epic proportions."

"Where is this going?" Six asked.

"We are powerful, but in a battle against the Covenant, I know it to be a fact that the Enclave would fall. There's a centuries old Sangheili saying in times of war. It has poor translation to English, but a saying said by humans I heard long ago captures it perfectly...

...Have you ever heard the saying 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' ?"

Watch out, you two.

I realize now that I may have just created more questions than answers. Bah, no matter. All will be explained in time.

Have a nice day, Wolfgang! Or night, or, um, afternoon...

You know what I mean. Haha.

~Husky