A/N: I've attempted to link art to the characters, but I have not been able to do so for some reason. I'm not sure if I can actually put links in full here. So, on my DeviantART, the same as this screen-name, art for Kim, Armand, Orlav, Scion, and even Julie-Su has been uploaded so you get an idea of what they look like.
Chapter 9: Awakening
December 26th, 3241, 1600 hours
Requiem, Epoloch System
Core of Requiem
Scion was not a typical automaton. He was not like his brothers, or as they were supposed to be called, inferior units. He was not part of their collective, and thus was an individual, a rarity among robots. He thanked his creator for granting him consciousness, though couldn't help but wonder if he truly existed before Dr. Julian Kintobor had given him the greatest gift one could actually give.
Scion was a unique model, one of five to be precise - units specifically created to serve as a cut above the rest; leaders in every sense of the word for the armies of Kintobor's robotic forces, as well as inspirations for the troops of the Dark Legion.
He stood at seven feet in height, shaped much like that of a well built Human male. He was clad in armor plating, in fact, just about all of his exterior was made of armor plating. His face however was close enough to a Human's that it could be distinguished as such, but specifically designed to be off enough to cause discomfort. He didn't possess eyes, ears, or a mouth, but a part of his metal face jutted out enough to give the impression of a nose. Scion didn't need any of these things in order to operate. He had a suite of electronic sensors just beneath the facade of his faceplate that could visually scan a battlefield in visible light, infrared, and in X-ray wavelengths, leaving his enemies nowhere to hide. His 'mind', or his positronic brain, was something that he barely understood himself. It was a hyper-advanced piece of technology that the Doctor very rarely used as it was difficult to make. However, with the help of Finitevus, the leader of the Legionnaires, they together developed these five brains that was housed in Scion's mind as well as his brothers.
In truth, as a robot, Scion was technically neither male nor female, but he had chosen the voice, and personality of a Human male. It didn't matter what he chose, as long as his subordinates listened, that was all that mattered.
The Legionnaires had pushed deeper into the layers of Requiem than the UNSC had, and for longer than the military had been aware of their presence. Over a hundred thousand Legionnaires were on Requiem at once, but their numbers were far greater than this. Too many wanted an opportunity to strike at the UEG. Many colony worlds had populations that willingly joined the cause to make Earth pay for ignoring them in the past, or oppressing them in the present, and more than a few Mobians thought that the Kingdom had thought itself 'better' than the rest of the planet. In short, the Doctors had no shortage of recruits.
It was on the platform of the central area in the Core that Scion stood alongside a few elite Legionnaires. The robot stood at least a good head over the tallest, and this was not done by mistake. Everyone would look up to him out of necessity. At the head of their group, Doctor Julian Kintobor stood alongside Finitevus.
"I've never seen anything like it." Kintobor said in total shock. He was dressed in a fairly mundane outfit - a long red coat over a plain shirt and pants. On his nose were specially crafted glasses made to reflect light like lamps themselves. Next to him was the shorter and slimmer Finitevus, an Echidnan bio-engineer exiled from Albion for craft that shocked his leaders. He was enjoying the perks of his own creation. His eyes had been replaced a long time ago. The augmented organs could see in different wavelengths, and below his bright white coat that went down to his knees, several more enhancements were covered by the fake fur and skin that made people underestimate him. Scion knew that Finitevus was more machine than man.
"Yes, a standard piece of Forerunner technology that seems quite magical by our standards."
"I've never read about this before." Kintobor said, folding his arms. "What did they call it?"
"This thing?" Finitevus chuckled. "They called it a Cryptum."
Floating in the middle of this structure, suspended in space around it, was a spherical structure perhaps a forty or fifty meters across covered in intricate carvings and designs. Forerunner runes crossed it in several locations, some of them glowing bright orange. The Cryptum just hung suspended in the air, not rotating or bobbing. It seemed to be just as solid as the rest of the world around it.
"I take it that it's some sort of container?" Robotnik asked, walking a small distance away from Finitevus, looking at the echidna and then to the ovoid. "What does it hold?"
"A man."
"Excuse me?" Robotnik's glasses flashed.
Finitevus' heavily modified heart began to beat quicker as the thought crossed his mind. He was excited, though he hid this feeling well. "If I am correct, and I rarely am wrong, this holds a Forerunner within it."
"Cryptum." Julian repeated now looking back. "Of course. But is he dead?"
"No!" Finitevus waved his hand. "No! Very much alive!"
"But who could be so..." Robotnik began, before saying, "This is the Didact?"
"Indeed." the bio-engineer said. "By the Ancestors, he's still here! After a hundred thousand years." Finitevus pushed his glasses back up his nose and turned around to face Scion. "Get the men to an interface panel and attempt to access the systems to get this device open. The Forerunner inside is of extreme importance to me. Find any Legionnaire with organic limbs and try to get them to access the system. If they're a Reclaimer, they will be able to access further."
"I understand." the robot said. "What if the Didact proves hostile?" he gestured with a flick of his head. "Do you have further orders on how we proceed into... combat?"
Kintobor smiled as he watched Scion move. He and his brothers were his best work yet. Finitevus approved for different reasons. Scion moved and spoke not like the mindless automata that served the doctor, but like a Human being, and Finitevus, being a Mobian, silently chuckled within. That had been exactly the point.
The echidna spoke, "Combat is not expected if you use the phrases I have given to you. However, if things do get bad, retreating would be worse. The Didact will likely escape if you pull back immediately. I have contingencies in case the worst happens."
Scion nodded. "I understand." the mechanical man tilted his head away as if hearing something from a distance. "One of our base camps just sent a quick flash signal. They've gone offline."
"Then we're running out of time." Kintobor said folding his arms. "The Promethean warriors are waking up. It seems our efforts to keep hidden have finally fallen apart."
"Were we kept hidden?" Finitevus asked with eyebrows raised. "Or were we simply allowed to get this far?" the Mobian glanced to the Cryptum. "I wonder if he's still conscious in there...?"
A Legionnaire shouted something from down the hall.
"Out of time." Robotnik said. "Scion, take 2-2 Sigma, 7-1 Omicron, and 12-2 Beta to hold off the Prometheans.
"No!" Finitevus said, "Scion, you stay with the Legionnaires and make your way to the contacts! We will not risk failure here!" before glancing at the Overlander doctor before adding, "As for the drones, they can go into battle."
"Aye-aye!" Scion said.
"We will continue our own operations on Parl. The ansible should be providing you and your brothers with status updates. Good luck, and contact us when the task has been completed."
Both the image of Finitevus and Kintobor wavered slightly until they disappeared, leaving Scion and two Legionnaires in the space alone.
"Let's go." he nodded to both of them. He pulled the RE-45 handgun from his thigh holster. He grabbed a magazine from his utility belt and slapped it into the gun. With mechanical precision and speed, Scion racked the slide, leaving the hammer locked back, making the weapon ready to fire. "Get the Reclaimers together. We make a run the control panel somewhere on this structure."
The Legionnaires nodded. When Scion turned to run, they followed him with metallic limbs clanking on Forerunner metal. When he emerged from the hallway into the massive open-air platform, he could see the amazing sight of the Cryptum hovering beyond his reach. The next thing he noticed was the sound of violence and battle in the air. Where there were none before, the platform was covered with bipedal robots with hunched backs, glowing bladed weapons, and blue glowing lines. They were flanked by swarms of dog-like crawling beasts shrieking and screaming while chasing down legionnaires.
"I want the men to push forward now!" Scion called into the radio. "Drone units will close in and engage with Promethean hostiles! Let's move, people!"
Scion's actuators screamed as he kicked his top speed over that of an Olympic Sprinter. The open space just below the Cryptum was covered in no time at all. All around him, miniature Slipspace portals were opening, shining bright blue as matter streamed through at high frequencies. To Scion though, these portals were rainbows of color displayed in bands of light that the average Human had no name for. These rainbow bursts of deep purples, magentas, and reds mixed over visible light would have made an average man or even Legionnaire with their optical implants double over in pain. However, these deposited the bipedal Prometheans - robotic soldiers that were like scalpels versus the blunt instruments that were Robotnik's drones. Glowing orange weapons were in their hands. The leader of a small fireteam of the Promethean bipedal robots fired a long and wicked-looking device longer than it was tall. A bright orange beam streaked across the open space and intersected a Legionnaire square in the heart. The Mobian shuddered as his body turned to wisps of red hot ash.
"Son of a bitch!" Scion heard one of them say. "How are we supposed to fight that?"
The Legionnaire in question had a large rifle in his gloved hands, though he wore little protection other than the robes that indeed offered some degree of ballistic protection. Against what these things wielded, there was no promise of any such shielding.
Scion knew this and ordered a charge. Standing back to fight them would be useless. "I want Reclaimers behind me!" he ordered, his voice magnified to reach over the din of the battlefield. "Drones, continue to draw fire!" the advanced robot barked, firing his weapon at the approaching dog-like creatures. The Shieldbreaker rounds loaded into the magazine popped off their bodies in whining ricochets, but when a bullet slammed into the glowing location where the mouth would be, it burst into metal shards.
"Legionnaires!" He began. "Aim for the mouth on the quadrupeds!"
Those armed with rifles followed Scion's orders quickly, and with concentrated automatic fire, began to wipe the floor. The crawling Prometheans were no match for ranged weaponry. Even as they spat their hard-light ammunition at them, managing to kill a couple of their soldiers, it meant very little. At best, the squat creatures were just weathering the storm.
The large ones on the other hand took very differently to the whole ordeal. They began to charge themselves with blades unfolding from their arms. Some of the Legionnaires broke ranks, meeting them in battle with swords and knives of their own. Hold-out energy swords emerged from wrist sheaths as the first of the modified soldiers met the Forerunner constructs.
The result was a glorious, bloody, and horrifying mix, with each side managing to impale, sever, and mutilate one another, with Forerunner swords cauterizing cuts as soon as they were made, while the monomolecular swords cut cleaner than any blade ever could hope to do. Several Legionnaire fail-safes triggered, causing the dead or badly wounded to explode in a massive fireball, engulfing ranks of Prometheans and leaving nothing except for metal and bone behind.
Scion's men pushed though. They were battalion strength with about one hundred and fifty standing men continuing to make their way to where Scion believed the interface was. The Legionnaires took turns waiting as an elevator brought them up a small distance so that they could fight anew. The area beyond was a large bent open area with shifting geometry. Every now and again, sections of the room would slowly disintegrate and later reintegrate themselves, often at odd angles. Scion thought it was strange that there was no rhyme or reason as to how the pillars, or boxes, or accents, or even small doors themselves, would just go wherever they felt like going. At times it even seemed that the reintegration was actually working against them, like the system had a mind of its own.
He ordered half of the Legionnaires to take an upper pathway to the right which passed through a vestibule on the near and far end of the area stretch. From here, they could rain down fire to give their brothers a fair charge down below. Scion himself took the middle road, quickly holstering his gun and grabbing two Ontario Combat Knives from their individual sheaths on his back. Knife was a bit misleading as the blades were nearly a foot long with an additional four inches of grip behind them. Scion wielded them as if they were a pair of short swords. He had perfect ambidexterity, and why wouldn't he?
Two Prometheans charged him. He searched for a weak point in their armor and brought down one of the knives in a slash, breaking a thin part of its arm from sheer speed behind the strike. The machine opened its faceplate to give a defiant roar. Scion was able to see up close what the true face of this creature was. It was a bright blue skull with even brighter eye sockets. Its jaw hung open and a warbled and hellish scream escaped its mouth.
"You don't scare me." Scion said before stabbing his knife up to the hilt into the Promethean's skull. The jaw went slack and he pulled the blade out while kicking the construct away from him. The body twitched as it glowed brightly before falling apart in glowing strips. He had no time to muse on this. The second robot took offense at the death of its comrade and fired its angular yet squat gun in its bony-looking fingers. Energetic and quick but staccato bursts of sounds filled the air as a wall of hard light crossed less than fifteen feet to lash out at Scion. He felt the impact of the hard light, but against his integrated energy shield. The Forerunner ammunition felt like a flurry of small punches against his body, but he still held strong, lunging forward with one fist, holding one knife, cracked across the faceplate of the Promethean, snapping its head to the side and knocking it off balance. Scion flipped the knife in his right hand and stabbed upwards several times into the chest of the construct. The metallic body seemed to twitch with every single piercing and when it moved no longer, he threw it aside as it was already dissolving.
They were still making good progress, though the Legionnaires were still falling, robes burning from the hard light projectiles that had over penetrated their bodies. Several fail-safes triggered and they exploded in flowers of flame, flinging several Prometheans into the air, sputtering into non-existence. This was pointless. If they didn't run, they wouldn't have any other Reclaimers to activate this equipment.
"7-1 Omicron! Disengage and move in to assist Legionnaires!" Scion barked into his radio. Several of the red-orange biped robots turned and left from their main group near the terminus. A squad of ten drones had survived holding off the Prometheans, but they dutifully charged into the fray supporting their organic counterparts. As they passed his position with weapons up and blazing, Scion could make out the logo on their shoulders - a laughing death's head-looking face in a bright red color. Scion had the same logo on his body - the body made by Julian Kintobor. However, he took his orders from Finitevus first, which puzzled him from time to time. It still puzzled him as he skewered several of the crawling Forerunner constructs, ignoring their screams of what could have actually been pain as the knife went right through their vulnerable mouths. He flung their lifeless bodies off with a flick of his wrist as he continued onwards. One last incline remained as he got closer to what appeared to be a platform extending closer to that of the Cryptum. This had to be the control center.
A Legionnaire calling himself Undertow was making good progress with a belt of ammunition strapped across his bare chest feeding a gigantic rotary machine gun that he hefted in one heavily augmented arm. The cultist had ditched his robe at the beginning of the firefight, but he moved, as extremely vulnerable as he was. The gun sang as its barrels twirled, expelling yellow hot flame. Tracers streamed across the Forerunner structure impacting off hard-light structures that materialized in an instant. The hum of the weapon must would have made the Legionnaire go deaf were it not for the fact that two small domes were in place of where his ears logically would have been. He laughed like a mad man. In fact, he very likely was mentally disturbed. Scion had learned about many of the more 'prolific' Legionnaires. Many of them had been inmates at the High Moon Supermax Prison far from the reaches of civilized space. While many of these men and women could hardly be 'sane' in the strictest sense to begin with, earning several life sentences for depraved and violent acts of the highest caliber, but their isolation with no sigh of civilization save for the smudge of the galaxy above their heads every night for six months of the year, with the remainder being in the absolute darkness of intergalactic space, broke them completely.
Scion's mind processed this quickly as Undertow cackled, spent shell casings spewing from the ejection port of his machine gun like a brass colored rainbow. The casings impacted the impossibly ancient walkway, the sound of which drowned out by weapons discharge. All in front of him, Forerunners wilted like weeds, fading out of existence as their bodies were destroyed. It wasn't until now, as his legs pumped, slamming his metal soles into the ground, that he noticed the Prometheans left behind sparkling clouds... or were they just sparks?
He charged through one of them, the remains of one of the large ones. On the ground he saw a Forerunner weapon, a long and angled gun that he made a beeline for. He sheathed his knives and picked it up midstride. The weapon morphed around his hand. He could feel the grip reshaping itself to match his digits. He retained his speed as he kept the weapon shouldered. Up ahead, the path took a hard right. Undertow was right behind him. Following the Legionnaire, two more soldiers came up the incline. All of their limbs with the exception of the right arm had been replaced, and that was specifically to access Forerunner systems. All three of them were Human.
Scion ordered them to press against the wall, a half- high block of shifting metal. By the time they got into a defensive position, a squad of Robotnik's drones passed them. Immediately, they took fire from a position they could not see.
They took the opportunity to reload their weapons. Undertow slapped a new belt into his machine gun and pulled back on the massive offset charging handle. He pulled a cigar from somewhere on his belt and lit it.
"That smoke's going to give us away." Scion advised. "Put it out."
"They're not focused on us, sir." Undertow growled, his voice like two rocks grinding against one another. "The pawns are taking the hits for us."
Scion shook his head and peeked around the corner. His vision enhanced the area where a squad of Prometheans were holding. His cameras increased resolution. It looked like a pedestal. No, two pedestals, set apart from one another. That had to be the access point.
"OK. Here's the plan." Scion began, looking at the weapon. He had no idea how to check for ammunition, or how to even eject the magazine from the gun, if there even was a magazine. All he knew was that there was a trigger, and a stub not far from his thumb. Maybe that was the ejection. "Undertow, give us some suppressing fire." he said to the former prisoner. The man whirled his augmented arm around to give a thumbs up to the robot. Scion's HUD identified the other men as Marlow and Manx. "You two advance. I'm right behind you. The drones will suck up the bulk of the fire."
He took a second and whipped his head around, searching for more IFF tags in his vision. "Where's everyone else?"
"I don't know." Marlow shrugged. "I thought they were right behind us."
The robot didn't move for a moment. Even with no real features on its face he seemed to be thinking hard. None of the men could have ever thought that a robot could suppress anger, but there it was in the disturbing micromovements. Scion was seething in anger.
"On three." he finally said. "Get ready. I'm right behind you."
A round ricocheted from the battle just ahead of them. The screaming round nailed Manx in the throat, tearing right through the carotid artery. Manx fell into shock so quickly, he wasn't even aware of what had just happened. Marlow shoved the man out of the way, and the lifeless Legionnaire fell to the ground face first.
"Now!" Scion barked. "Now! Open up!"
Undertow's arm broke apart. A secondary limb latched onto the gun as its barrels spun around. The sound of battle was drowned in a crack of gunfire like a lightning bolt set on repeat. The rounds spat by the rotary cannon were small but fast, smacking into the Prometheans with enough kinetic force to overload their shields and punch their armor in. The crawlers simply puffed in a flash of hard light. In the excitement, Undertow realized he had never even lit the cigar. With his free hand, he reached into his robes, pulled out the flip zippo that had gone to the prison with him. He flicked the flame on, lit the edge of the cigar, took a puff, and placed the lighter back in the folds of his robes. He then replaced his hand on the still firing machine gun.
Scion had taken Manx's place next to Marlow, who was now the only confirmed Reclaimer to still be alive for all he knew. If Marlow died, the operation was off - they would need to retreat and call for reinforcements. They were so close now...
The space ahead of him was metal carnage. Body parts of the drones were strewn around the field. This fight had been intense. Virtually all the drones had been destroyed save for a few stubborn ones, and even then, they had been severely damaged.
The Prometheans were still around though. Scion sighted the weapon. Part of the gun broke apart and hovered in midair. He could see the weapon's targeting reticle trained on a large Promethean that threatened Marlow. He pulled the trigger. To his surprise, the gun bucked. A bolt of hard light streaked from the barrel and impacted the Forerunner robot just beneath its mask. The round ricocheted into the head, blasting off part of the face covering. The energy of the alien bullet spun the Promethean around, nearly tripping over its own feet. However, the thing righted itself and turned back towards Scion. Its remaining face plate pulled away, revealing the skull beneath. It screamed well over the sound of Undertow's machine gun. He was supposed to be afraid, but all Scion saw was a target. He fired the gun a second time, vaporizing the skull. The body twitched with sudden loss of control and dropped to the ground. He could see it clearly now - the contacts up ahead.
One final alien construct was still standing. This one was different. It had a plume of holographic feathers on its body. In its hand was a massive and jagged piece of metal that glowed red. Scion immediately sighted the gun again. "Marlow! Get down!" He screamed over the radio. Marlow hit the deck as soon as the order came, and not a second too soon. What emerged from the weapon was a spiral of glowing almost gelatinous points of light, twisting around each other. The twirling mass hit somewhere between Scion and Marlow, bursting into a shower of energy that incinerated the area of impact. Marlow backed away, scared.
Scion sprinted, pulling ahead of Marlow as fast as his legs would allow him. Before the Promethean could fire another shot from the cannon, He lowered his center of mass and hit it square in the leg joints with shoulder raised for a charge. He overrode the last of his safeties and hit sixty miles per hour in a burst. He slammed into the legs, breaking them at the knees. The construct fell flat on the ground while he kept on moving. Scion slammed off the wall behind the warrior but righted himself and jumped on it, knife now out again in his off hand. He searched for seams in the armor and slammed the blade in point first. The Promethean screamed in what may have been pain, but he continued to stab into its metallic armor. Scion could not feel pain and thus was dethatched from any sort of sympathy. Finding an area just beneath its back where its body began to curve like a beetle's shell, he wagged the blade, forcing the plates to separate. Scion stuffed the barrel of the Forerunner rifle into the crack and pulled the trigger. The bolt went straight through the armor, ricocheting inside of the body and it never exited from any other angle. The alien robot gasped once, gurgled, and then fell still.
There was silence. Battle continued around the ring, but where they were, things were quiet.
Scion thumbed the part of his gun that caught his attention earlier. The top retracted and the weapon spat a cylinder free from the housing. It clanked somewhere behind him. Good. He knew how to reload the gun now. He scrounged around for another, dropping it into the recesses of the rifle. Slamming it home, he closed shut the top of the rifle and it flashed bright orange. He guessed it had been fully reloaded.
Marlow was still on the ground covering his head, face pressed into the metal, muttering something in his own language, which wasn't one of the Earth-standard derivatives. He came over and pulled him to his feet with one hand. Undertow likewise met up with them. Manx was younger than the bare-chested men by several degrees. His face wasn't lined - not yet anyway. Scion had a passing thought as to how a young man like him ended up in the Legion. Both his legs to his hips were augmented as well as his left arm up to his shoulder. His face seemed clear of any enhancements though.
"Come on. We're out of time." Scion said, gently pushed him to the contacts. A passing wave of relief passed over the mechanical man. They could finish the mission.
His robes pulled up over his head, Marlow slowly walked towards the contacts that stood parallel to one another. He slung his weapon on his shoulder and held out a hand waiting for the feeling to come over him - the feeling of yearning in his mind, like he wanted to be a part of the Forerunners' great plan. He wondered with a slightly giddy thought if this was how all Reclaimers felt. He suddenly just knew what he needed to do.
Scion however was unsure of this now. Despite surviving the fight, he noticed with a start that there were two contacts, but Marlow only had one organic hand. This was distressing. Every single occasion of use before had only required the user to use a single hand. It might still work, but now uncharacteristic apprehension took him. He stood back, silent, in case the computers rejected Marlow. There were rumors of course of what these machines did to 'Reclaimer stand-ins', but he had never seen one personally or otherwise.
Marlow reached out his hands, as if drawn by a giant magnet.
"Come on, kid!" Undertow said. "Do it and let's get out of here!"
Marlow's hood shuddered. Something was calling to him. He licked his lips in anticipation, and set both of his hands, organic and mechanical, on the contacts. He closed his eyes and waited. Ten seconds. Fifteen seconds. Nothing happened.
"Did he do it right?" Undertow asked. "Dammit! Didn't work!"
Scion was about to agree, but asked, "Do you feel anything?" to Marlow.
"No, I don't feel anything." he said, but before he even finished that sentence, a loud and reverberating echo of that word projected. It made him jump, but he felt compelled to hold on.
"What the hell was that?!" Undertow shouted. "What did you do?!"
"I don't know!"
Again, another booming echo sounded.
Sounds of fighting completely ceased. There was no sound from either the Legion nor the Prometheans as all looked at the source of the noise: the cryptum.
Nobody said a word as the ancient sphere started to glow. A shrill humming began to fill the air as the sphere began to rotate slowly. Scion backed away, a primordial fear from the Human source code activating itself in his CPU. This had been the goal of his mission and he had accomplished it, but he couldn't help but feel that something horrible was about to happen.
The cryptum lowered, and from its bottom emerged a platform that resembled a closed flower. In that cage, on its knees, was a figure: tall, muscular, but unmistakably alien.
"Holy shit." Undertow breathed.
Holy shit indeed, Scion thought.
The sun-scorched surface of Parl-265d was vast and seemingly never-ending. The flat and wind-swept surface of the planet was punctuated by only a few mountain ranges stretching for only a couple hundred meters into the air. Other than that, the land was nearly flat. To a common observer, it would have been impossible to see that this planet was once home to an advanced civilization. However, virtually no sign of this life was present.
It was here that Finitevus and Kintobor came in search for a mysterious pyramid. This planet was so far away from civilization close to the galactic core, just over thirty thousand lightyears away from the star Sol. Finitevus glanced through the thick panoramic windshield of the heavy-duty and air-sealed rover. His eyes moved away from the sand dunes and instead up into the sky. There up above was a mess of bright stars that seemed like an explosion of light, bunched together by their own gravity - a globular cluster. The Messier 14 Globular Cluster to be precise. In that sky, dozens of bright and giant stars were burning in a place where a neighbor was less than a lightyear away. Virtually nothing would be able to live in all that radiation, but if it didn't tug at Finitevus' soul.
Parl-265d would never know true night with that in the sky. Even a scant hundred or so lightyears away from the cluster, it was beautifully large like a second sun in the sky, and the echidna could swear that he could feel its warmth if he could just concentrate on it hard enough. He closed his eyes and thought of all those stars in the night sky of Parl. He realized that this system had been flung a very long way from its home, traveling across the vastness of intergalactic space, banished from its home galaxy through means of which he did not know of. This planet was special for more than the reason they had come here.
What tales did the rock beneath the tires hold? To be on a planet formed in another galaxy entirely. What wonders had this planet witnessed?
"Doctor, did you get that?"
Finitevus' eyes snapped open. His cybernetically enhanced. retina startled by the sudden light. His pupils cycled to dots as he glanced to his left.
"What was that, Reihner?" the leader of the Dark Legion asked.
Ambrose Reihner was glancing at him as the wheel spun around in his hands. He made brief eye contact before looking back to the wastes ahead.
"I was saying that Julian's calling you." Reihner repeated, pointing at the communications panel on the dashboard. A symbol of a phone was blinking in green.
"You didn't answer it?" the echidna said, somewhat annoyed.
"What if you didn't want to talk to him?"
A fair point. Not everything that came out of Julian Kintobor's mouth was necessary to listen to. Ambrose had been right to run it by him. Any major call - no pun intended, he thought - would be determined by him unless given strict orders to the contrary. In truth, Finitevus thought rather well of Reihner. True, the man was a Human, but he certainly had his uses. The man had come to him over a year ago, somehow locating him through back channels and the darknet, a most impressive feat itself given the size of the unregulated corners of the Internet. He claimed to have information useful to the Dark Legion, which impressed Finitevus further. The doctor had considered killing the man to keep his then nascent operation a secret, but decided against it once seeing what Reihner had for him - genetic information supposedly showing an ancient temple on a far forgotten world, extracted from a subject before death.
Here he was now, on some alien world that lay unobserved for millennia, perhaps longer, and if the promise of this pyramid was correct, he was about to gain information that could help him bring this... thing... under his control.
The echidna tapped the answer button. "Yes, Julian?"
"Were you having trouble finding the button?" came the bemused reply.
The cyborg was not one for sarcasm at a time like this.
"I would hope that you have something important to tell me? We're still away from the target location. So unless it's good, I recommend you keep this channel silent."
"Scion has an update from his brother."
That made Finitevus bob his eyebrows. He didn't realize he was licking his lips in anticipation. "...And?"
"Revival has begun."
Good news indeed. Finitevus made a sharp but short intake of breath and his internal cybernetics cleaned the air of any impurities, enriching it with its own chemicals. He was excited now, but he made sure not to let it show, though his eyes were telling the bigger tale - staring straight ahead, wide open, and mouth pursed tightly.
"Tell the remaining Legionnaires to form a perimeter around the satellite. The Didact is the priority. Have our ships ready to intervene if he tries to make a run for it. Before you ask, Julian: no, I do not believe this Forerunner will go quietly. Under no circumstances is he to be harmed. If the Didact dies, then our tactical advantage goes with him into the abyss. Relay that to Scion immediately."
"Naturally." Kintobor said, no doubt speaking to Scion's brother, who was inside of his own rover, possibly even driving it himself. The ansible was a wonder of Human technology that was easily repurposed for creating the five Scion models, all interlinked and able to share knowledge at faster than light speeds. While not necessarily a hive mind, it remained to be proved whether this robot was in several places at once.
The channel snapped off, and Finitevus turned to his driver.
"Reihner, what's our ETA on that pyramid?"
"Six hours at this speed."
"Blast it. We should have landed closer."
Ambrose looked over. His eyes were heterochromatic - one bright yellow and the other deep blue, no doubt the result of his latest splice fix. He doubted that there was any atom in Reihner's body that was original. Today, his nose was sharp, his jaw was round, and a neat but short beard was trimmed on his face. His hair was spiky blond, and his arms were muscular, all of which he could change on a whim and with a well-placed injection. There was no use placing the term 'normal appearance' to him.
"I'm not saying you're wrong, Doc. But you know that temple still has active defensive systems that took down two of our own ships from orbit."
"Yes, Reihner I am aware."
Finitevus was also aware that if it were anybody but Reihner and possibly Julian that talked back to him like that, he would order them reprimanded. It was perhaps because of Reihner's usefulness as a deep cover operative that kept him not only at the top, but within a web of safety.
"Did 'our friend' have any information as to what was inside the temple?"
"No." Reihner said. "I've been reviewing the MIM footage multiple times. It seemed the Forerunners never even got inside the pyramid. Granted that was all I was able to retrieve from his grey matter before he went offline. Perhaps the Librarian or perhaps the Didact managed to tell him something we never even considered."
"Such as this defense system."Finitevus growled. "Damn it all; having to approach this thing on foot, and in a pressure suit no less."
"Well, you could always wait in the car."
Finitevus crossed his arms. "I will do no such thing, Mr. Reihner. I haven't come all this way just to sit by while Julian gets the upper hand over what we know."
"Well," Reihner said cocking his head, "The ATM is only .92. You'll really just need an oxygen mask for the CO2 atmosphere."
"Strike that actually. I've never had the opportunity to test my bronchial enrichment implants in such an atmosphere. Call it some attachment to my organic past."
"Hey, you can do whatever you want, boss." Reihner said. "I'll have the mask ready on standby in case you bowl over."
"Your concern is appreciated, Ambrose." Finitevus said before looking out the window of the rover again. Six hours more of this rolling wasteland. Perhaps he could get some rest before they arrived at the outskirts of the temple. Yes, that was for the best. Finitevus hadn't slept in over a hundred and forty hours. His neural implants could keep him going for almost two hundred. Regardless, sleep sounded nice. He rubbed his chin, noting that some stubble was beginning to grow, bristled against the carefully groomed fur. Thinking that perhaps he would grow it out, he folded his arms, leaned back, and closed his eyes, plotting his next move until he submitted to unconsciousness.
The area ahead was steeped in the sounds of battle. John-117 sprinted as fast as his legs would carry him. He was aware that he was taking a very real risk by going ahead of the rest of his group, but the instant Cortana had stated that something was wrong with the satellite at the very center of Requiem had pushed him into a panic. Something was very wrong. There were far more dead cultists ahead than living ones. Several Legionnaires were pinned down by Prometheans. Several of the larger ones, Knights, as determined by Cortana, were lumbering around suppressing the soldiers with hard light weapons spitting glowing rounds. A trio of the robed figures were hunkering down near an outcropping that protected them from the Forerunner constructs, but left them completely open to the Spartan who threw a quick barrage into the hiding cultists. The one in the center caught the burst, two in the heart and one in the head. The Mobian's head jerked back against the rock, and by the time his comrades realized he was dead, the failsafe activated, blowing the outcropping, and the hiding cyborgs apart.
Kim and Armand were at his side, bounding gracefully as they picked their targets with stolen Forerunner weapons. The light rifles in their hands chirped loudly as distant Forerunner enemies exploded in flashes. "Chief! We're coming up on a structure now!" Armand said. "Looks important!"
"Yeah, looks like there's a struggle!" Kim
Julie-Su was the next to arrive in the area, twin barreled shotgun braced on her arm as she ran, tucked close to the ground. Her companions, the ONI agents Scott and Baulkner followed up the rear, pleading for her to slow down.
"Relax!" Scott cried. "Let them come to us! This is going to get you killed if you aren't careful!"
"I can handle it!" Su said in response, following the Spartan's lead. She passed the wreckage of bodies where the cultists had taken cover She checked the chamber and raised it to eye level, keeping it braced on her left arm. Julie-Su never put a stock on the weapon but felt she could handle the 12-gauge shells just fine, especially with what was left of her skeletal enhancements. She took particular joy in putting down these cultists for what they did to her family. She spotted one about thirty meters away, cowering behind a pillar while a group of Prometheans searched for him. She raised the gun and fired a salvo. The pellets struck the Legionnaire just below center mass. She could hear the cry even from where she was at. The chambers cycled, blowing the spent shells out both sides of the gun and she raised for another shot.
"Hold fire!" Baulkner said gripping her on the shoulder. "We don't need to get caught by those things. We don't have enough ammo to stop them all!"
"Just pick up those guns!" Su fired back, "I can handle myself.
"No." Scott said. "We keep moving. Something's telling me things are going to go to hell here soon. You're not staying behind when it happens. You can shoot plenty of these bastards along the way."
They heard a puffing noise behind them. Orlav had caught up. A layer of sweat matted his brow. In his hands he held a Forerunner Light Rifle. He had discarded the Halberd II for the alien weaponry not too long ago. Orlav was a field agent, but he was not used to this much combat. "Radi boga! Intensivoye!"
"Commander?" Scott nodded.
"Thanks for the assist back there, blyad! Would it kill you to slow down?"
"We're moving at the Spartans' pace. Don't want to keep up, don't come along."
Orlav was about to say something but held his tongue. "What's the plan, Commander?"
"Just follow." Scott nodded. "Spartans are going to carve a swath through the field of battle."
They all heard a noise and turned. Three Promethean Knights appeared from a rift in space. They roared in defiance - their neon blue faces sending chilling images to their brains.
"They didn't say anything about it filling up!" Su said with gun raised. They all had their guns raised.
Cortana's voice appeared as well in their earpieces. "Run! Don't try to fight them! There's a corridor at the top of this incline! Get in and I'll lock it behind you."
Nobody needed further convincing. The four set off into a short and bending tunnel which brought them to a pathway that led up. A small battle was occurring between the Dark Legion and the Prometheans. They were able to take the Legionnaires completely by surprise wiping them out before they knew they were there. The detonations from their failsafes sent shrapnel up and down the path. Unfortunately, Su took a hit to the arm. Not serious, but she jerked back and let out a gasp of pain anyway. She stopped to look for a second, but Scott shouted at her, "Later! Move!"
The ONI spook took a small beveled cylinder off his belt and primed it. It unfolded at the top and bottom as he threw it in a high arc straight into the opposing force. It twinkled with light before erupting in several spheres of glowing light, seeking out the Promethean soldiers and impacting against them. The resulting effect was strange - the constructs glowing for a second before shattering like glass before whispering away, leaving their path clear.
"And what was that...?" Orlav began.
"Classified biological weapon."
"Biological...?
"Move."
True to Cortana's word, the massive door slid shut once Orlav, the last of the group, crossed the threshold. Several portions of the door's geometry slid around and it glowed red, signaling it was shut.
They waited for a few seconds and checked their surroundings. It was a hallway, heavily mechanical and built into what appeared to be a rock face. It was tall too with the roof of the structure being perhaps forty feet above them. It was a dull metallic grey with every conceivable light source being reflected in some manner. It was almost as if the hall were lacquered. It curved towards the left with no end in sight.
"OK. I vote for a five minute breather." Orlav said raising a hand and sitting against a wall. "I need to catch my breath."
"Get up." Scott said. "You can rest after we secure the area."
"And when will that be? We don't have an area to secure - it's a planet's core! Five minutes, OK?"
"Three." Scott said walking away. "Su, you alright to go on?"
"Sure." she said taking two new magazines out of her belt and slapping them under the barrels. "Guess I don't need a breather."
"Glad someone doesn't." He nodded, glancing long enough for Orlav to flip him off. "Baulkner, stay behind and make sure he's ready to move in two and a half minutes."
"Aye-aye." the agent nodded.
Scott set off first at a half jog with the echidna at his side. They moved just beyond the curve of the hallway. Who knew how far away the Spartans were now.
"Does something like this fall outside of the Dark Legion's MO?" Scott asked.
"Couldn't tell you." Julie-Su said. "They've never really done anything like this before. They do like their secrets and deep dark places." She glanced up at the ceiling, or rather, the area that she knew was outside of it. "Maybe they'd like it here. Can you believe that this is the core of a whole planet?"
"I've seen my fair share of Forerunner installations. I knew this one guy, Alvarez, who was specifically tasked to look for weird bases or buildings and a couple of times found shield worlds. By accident. I guess they're everywhere."
Scott smiled at the anecdote, but Su looked straight forward, resolved to find Finitevus. It was the reason she was here after all."What does this... Didact have to do with the Prisoner?"
"Seems he at least knew about it himself. If we can get to him, maybe we can get him to see our way of things. Better than what the Legion must have in store for him. Doubt they could actually hurt him though."
The sounds of gunfire grew louder as they entered the next section. Baulkner and Dima joined up with them, the combat operative now much happier that he had gotten his two and a half minute breather. The Spartans were clearing house. Just three of them had created a major dent in the enemy's defense.
"Spartans, we're entering the combat zone." Scott radioed.
"Not much of one left!" Kim responded. "Feel free to pick up whatever's left."
The three suits of armor were dashing around the area. In the center was a large structure that stood perhaps three stories in the air like a fort. A bridge led away from the structure into the rock wall.
Dima took aim first at the crawlers, taking careful shots with his light rifle to pick them off before they became more than a nuisance.
"Make for that central structure." he ordered.
Without argument, the others moved. Orlav ejected the magazine from the weapon and slotted another cylinder into the gun. He giggled with child-like wonder as the weapon slid shut by itself.
The quadruped creatures exploded in flashes of light, screeching as the bolts of energy slammed into them. None of the larger ones were around, but glowing motes of light signified their former presence. Orlav caught sight of John-117 running to him as he cleared his final target.
"Looks like a dead end." Orlav said, jogging to the base of the structure. Amazingly, the Spartan seemed to have retained his original weapon, and judging by his ammunition pouches, still retained a few more full magazines. His aim must have been such that he had placed every shot lovingly, missing few, if any.
"That's not true." John shook his head slightly, motioning to the bridge. "We haven't seen where that goes yet."
"Could be a dead end."
"Then again it could be a way to get to the satellite at the core." Cortana added. "We won't know unless we get up to figure it out."
"Very well." Orlav nodded.
"I'll be making that call." Scott said, glancing at the ONI combat operative. "As a matter of fact, Orlav, why don't you go and check it out?"
It wasn't a request; Scott was flexing his muscles and keeping the others in line. Orlav grumbled, "Idti vint kozla, suka blyat."
"Kim, go with him." John quickly added.
"Sir." the Mobian nodded, jogging up to the agent. "Come on." she said hooking her head up the incline. "The sooner we check that out the sooner we get out of here."
Halfway up the pylon, Orlav looked to Kim. "I thought they cleared the assholes out of ONI during the purge."
"Scott's not a criminal." Kim said. "He doesn't act like one. An asshole he may be."
"Should have gotten broomed anyway." he said out of the corner of his mouth, rolling the R-phoneme.
"How's the view up there?" Julie-Su asked when they reached the top floor. They could see Kim and Dima when they passed close to a balcony. "See anything?"
"Negative." Kim said. "Nothing up here or down there. Looks like a graveyard."
She was right. Bodies of dead cultists were strewn about the place. In addition to the corpses that hadn't detonated, robotic bodies of what was unmistakably Julian Kintobor's drones covered the purple-grey soil. She hadn't noticed them, as she was completely engrossed in combat firing on anything that was moving first. On instinct, she quickly grabbed her sidearm, slipped the magazine out without looking and pressed down on the top of the stack of cartridges. The spring didn't travel far. She must have had a nearly full magazine of fifteen shots maybe sixteen with one in the chamber, totaling seventeen rounds.
"Expecting trouble?" Dima asked.
"Never can be sure." she said with a quick jerking of her head. "Come on, let's check out that bridge." She tapped into the team's communication channel. "If you want to come on up, the top floor is clear."
"Understood." John said.
"Petty Officer, I'm getting some strange readings coming from just beyond where the walkway heads into the larger structure behind it." Cortana said. "Perhaps it's communications equipment or maybe even another Terminus. There's no way this is a simple dead end. It makes no sense for how they got here."
"I'll check it out, ma'am." Kim nodded. "Come on, sir." she added off the channel. "Stay behind me."
Orlav felt glad that Kim was trusting of him. Though Dima did have some degree of energy shielding, it wasn't the same as a Spartan's and not the same degree of strength. If he took a hard enough hit, he would go down. Absentmindedly, he wondered what his other men were up to or whether they were overrun by Prometheans. He tried to make a call back to his people but was answered with static.
"They're fine." Kim assured him, though he had no way to be sure and realized the Spartan was only reassuring him.
The bridge was at the back of the pylon - a narrow walkway suspended above the ground with accents around it. These vaguely ovoid shapes twisted around in midair, sliding over themselves. Kim and Dima looked up to see the massive structure extend so high that clouds began to bunch around it. It must have only been perhaps five hundred feet high or so.
Up ahead, the light was blinding. Dima's glasses polarized as far as they could to protect his vision. The passageway was narrow, but up ahead they saw what was perhaps a window containing something exceptionally bright. It looked like a dead end.
"That can't be right." Kim said. "How did they..." she trailed off before calling to the rest of the group. "OK, looks like a small compartment back here looking into some sort of power source - my guess. It doesn't look particularly interesting. Perhaps twelve feet by ten feet and a bit rounded.
"You see any interesting panels or buttons?" Cortana asked.
At those words, a panel formed from metal that came from somewhere. Pieces flew from points around the room and combined into a rectangular piece a bit large than her hand in terms of dimensions. A hologram deployed from it showing a flat screen.
"Yeah, one just popped up." She followed the window and saw that the ceiling extended for a good distance vertically. "I think this is an elevator."
"We're on our way now." Cortana said. "Be there in a second."
In an instant, Scott, Baulkner, Armand, Su, and John arrived at the panel. John walked forward The small area filled up quickly as John made his way to the front. Kim stepped aside, making sure that she did not step on Orlav's feet. The Human was right behind her staring out the window at the twirling rings beyond the transparent paneling.
"Will this take us up?" John asked.
"Only one way to find out. Only one button too." Cortana chirped. "I think this is a communications pylon of some sort. I can't tell what it's supposed to be communicating with though - it's been deactivated."
"Recently?" Scott asked.
"Can't be sure." The AI responded.
John reached out a hand, the slight tingling at the base of his skull compelling him to reach forward. He let his index finger touch the hologram and slowly the platform began to rise.
Julie-Su was unprepared for the movement and jumped slightly. This ancient alien stuff was a bit over her head. She knew very little of what Forerunners were beyond the obvious that they were aliens and had been around for a very long time - millions of years. Seeing something like this constantly blew her away. True, the Echidnae had been around a long time and had some advanced machinery too, but this was damn near magical what she was seeing. The fact that the Dark Legion were this close to possessing a whole artificial planet was galling to her. Who knows what else they would get their hands on. She learned that Scott had ordered an increase in security around other Forerunner sites, but it was apparent that ONI had no knowledge of Requiem's location, which seemed odd to her.
The elevator continued to go upwards. She decided to break the silence.
"So, was anybody supposed to... you know, live here?"
"What?" Dima asked, surprised.
"I mean, it looks like a great place to set up a city or two. Were people supposed to live on this planet?"
Baulkner answered. "No idea. Places like the Dyson world Trevelyan seemed to have facilities set up on the interior, but if the Didact... lives here... perhaps it was a world for Warrior-Servants."
The Echidna cocked her head. "And that's important because...?"
"They enjoy a more Spartan existence." Baulkner answered. Armand turned to look at him. "No pun intended." the agent added. "Maybe the exterior layer is more a game preserve or sanctuary. It's not the first time their rate's made humble homes to live in. Who knows. Maybe people never made it here in time when the Halos fired."
Julie-Su half-nodded, not quite satisfied with the open answer. However, she could say that she learned something from this ordeal.
At the top of the elevator, a large flat area stood before them with an active terminus at the end. An inactive control port stood at the close end of the elevator.
"There we go." Cortana said over the external speakers. "That's how they went forward. That active terminus may lead to another hub area. Maybe even to the satellite!"
Dima stepped close to the control panel. He looked at it in interest, tracing his finger around the rounded edge. Julie-Su came up to him. "What's up?" she asked.
"The Legion must have shut this down." he said, looking straight up. "I think whatever was here is supposed to be communicating with whatever's up there."
"That... would make sense actually." Cortana said after a second of thought. "Maybe this is a power grid then, like a large power cable..."
There was silence for a beat, and then she said, "Get through that terminus. I have a theory."
The group obeyed, half-running across the empty ground to the terminus. John went through first and felt himself stepping through vast spaces in an instant like running through a wall of thick water. The next thing he felt was hitting a solid body in front of him. In another instant, he saw the red and black robes of a Legionnaire that turned to face him. The Mobian looked angry at first, but then his jaw dropped in sheer terror as the golden faceplate glared inscrutably at him. The Legionnaire was so frightened, he couldn't even scream. In one swift motion, the Spartan jerked his hand forward knocking the wind out of the cyborg, breaking three ribs in a 'soft' punch. The Legionnaire doubled over, spitting blood onto the alien floors and began to try and crawl away before John grasped him by one arm and a leg and in one swift motion, flung the Mobian down the hallway, limbs flailing until he slammed into the door, which slowly slid open a second later. Two seconds after this, four robed figures looked into the hallway where they heard the impact, and upon seeing the seven foot giant in green armor, immediately fell back, screeching.
John wasted no time, running forward and gripping both his knife and sidearm. He ran forward, blade in his left hand and gun in the right. When he went through the doorway, he swung his knife to the left, catching the waiting Legionnaire in the heart. The man jerked and stiffened. An instant later, John pointed the gun at the head of the Mobian on his right, the otter's face immediately softening as the barrel met eye level. John squeezed the trigger and the gun went off at point blank range, putting the bullet straight through the skull in an instant. Both men fell to the deck within a second, leaving the remaining two behind a ramp at the far end of the room.
The Legionnaires' failsafes went off - their eyes glowing brightly as their implanted bombs were ready to blow. John kicked both men off the platform where they detonated below the walkway. By this time, the rest of his team arrived and were putting suppressing fire on the ramp. They could barely hear the Legionnaires as they panicked, making for an active terminal straight behind them. They made frantic bursts with their stolen weapons, but took too many hits before falling over on the walkway.
"Area secure!" Dima shouted. "No place to hide!"
"Confirmed." Kim said striding forward and checking the bodies. They hadn't gone off, so those bullets must have done some work on the bombs.
"Looks like a hub of some sort." Cortana said. "Look at these."
Three terminii were active at the end of the room with a large view of the area beyond. They all recognized from watching the glowing points of light at the ends of what was the core chamber that they were just down there.
"Wait, are we sideways?" Armand thought out loud. "Should we be pointed down?"
"That's the weirdest thing you've seen all day?" Kim retaliated.
John stepped forward looking at the three gates and then to the shape at the center of the chamber. A silver and orange mass was huddled in the space at the center of Requiem. The satellite.
"This is a transit hub that leads to either of those two pylons you see there. I believe we were at the one on the right."
Everyone's eyes glanced over at the point on the right of the satellite. They had jumped hundreds of miles in an instant.
"It looks like both these pylons have been deactivated." The AI continued. "And look at that, they left the gate open just for us."
"Goody." Scott said. "There's likely hostiles on the other end."
"This looks their advance guard though." Baulkner added, pointing to the corpses. "They probably didn't think we would get this far. It's probably light security on the other side." He gestured to the center portal. "That one gets us to the satellite?"
"Seems that way." Cortana said in a way that would seem well-paired with a shrug. "I'd recommend moving quickly though.
"Agreed." John said. "Get through that gate."
Nothing else needed to be explained. Everyone double-timed it to the terminus, passing through in double file.
When the haze of the Slipspace portal cleared, nobody dare make a move. Ahead of them was a sprawling collection of platforms, and on them lay corpses and destroyed chasses of what were no doubt Robotnik's drones. At the center of it all was a large sphere glowing threateningly in orange. But below it, towering massively despite the distance, was an armored figure. There was no doubt in anybody's mind about who it was.
The figure saw the movement and turned to face them. Its face was uncovered, revealing it not to be a Human as its posture would suggest, but in fact a Forerunner, standing alive and well.
They had found the Didact, but awake and animate. Something was very wrong.
The Forerunner just stared for a second, making observation of who was entering his domain. He looked nothing like what they were expected to find - a regal face, thoughtful eyes, and a slim head. The man standing in front of them looked twisted. Thick teeth-turned-fangs draped from his mouth, and his wise eyes had sunken and had become amber orange from their cool silver before. His many-fingered hand was held out, grasping what appeared to be a man at cursory inspection, but upon closer look, the thinness and artificial look revealed it was a drone, but a very different one.
The Didact's pause gave way to pure rage as it saw what was coming in. More intruders. This time though he saw their faces, their posture, and hated them the very instant he had retrieved that buried memory. Before the Didact could move, Cortana had amplified the suit's speaker system, and in hurried Digon, the ancient language of the Warrior-Servants, pulled from ONI's xenoanthropological archives, shouted,
"Shadow-of-Sundered-Star! We come on behalf of your wife and life-partner the Lifeshaper! First-Light-Weaves-Living-Song sends us to wake you. We seek your wisdom!"
The sound came out as a long and guttural language not too unlike German, though there were completely different phonetics. It was not a beautiful language, and anyone who spoke it would seem confused by the pronunciation. It was utilitarian - straight to the point - and its first uttering in over a hundred millennia had caught the Forerunner completely by surprise. Unending eons of silence was shattered, first by the now-dead intruders that lay beneath him, and now by these...descendants of the hated ones. But a voice spoke to him in a way that he knew, and he could not react at first. He had suffered a strategic setback he had not anticipated. Enraged by this, that he had been taken off-guard not once but twice, he raised his hand, ready to send a blow towards his enemies. His platform had moved quickly to them, and he threw the robot to the floor. It rolled and skittered to a halt, and only moved in the slightest ways.
"Spread out! Here he comes!" Scott shouted.
"No!" John shouted. "Stay where you are!"
He closed hundreds of meters in seconds. Julie-Su let out an involuntary scream and hid behind Baulkner who crouched with weapon raised - a bolt of glowing hard-light that appeared in his hand like a trident. The glowing weapon sent sparks into space, and he raised it.
"We seek your wisdom of the Prisoner!" Cortana cried desperately.
The Forerunner stopped at once, platform freezing all of a sudden. He had heard her used the word, Utin. This was not the word for just any prisoner, but for the One. The All-Devourer. The Didact, only scant meters away, looked into space, his twisted mouth now opening and closing slowly as if searching for something to say.
"Brace yourselves. I'm going to translate this as best I can." Cortana advised quietly to the group.
The confusion manifest into anger again, as the Didact bared his teeth, his hair pricking up as the emotion spread through his face.
"Humans..." his voice rang through the room - "Hamanush..." the untranslated and somewhat rolled word filling the space, "you dare come to this place. This place of places."
The Didact's voice was like ice, barely constrained fury dripping like acid from his sharpened teeth.
"You dare!" He screamed at once, making everyone short of John flinch, who proceeded to raise his weapon in defense. "You dare to bring that name into this place! This place of rest and reconciliation! You have no right to speak those words! You make no demands of the Didact!"
He jumped from the platform straight to the floor, bracing ever so slightly.
"Stand your ground." John ordered in a low voice. "Stand..." he made an uncharacteristic gasp or surprise as he was lifted off his feet by the alien through no means that he could pinpoint.
"Long have I waited to grip your kind by the neck again, Hamanune. Long have I waited to watch another Human bleed." he glanced at the corpses. "If you could call those... men."
"I think we're losing him!" Julie-Su said
"And this!" The Didact said in a mirthless laugh. "A retinue? Pets?" he gestured to Julie-Su, who flushed with visible anger. "Always like Humans to bring others ruthlessly to their heel. You have not changed one bit." he shook his head. "What purpose would such lowly creatures have of my wisdom of the Utin? How may I be of service?" he growled, speaking the last sentence in a mocking tone. "Do you wish me to grovel at your feet too? Call thee 'master'? Give control of the Domain as well?"
"The Prisoner seeks to escape. It wants freedom."
The Didact's face froze. He didn't comprehend the word otjakt - the open noun 'freedom', at first, or rather, he did not want to. His eyes broke contact with the Spartan in his invisible grip. The others made no move. Slowly, the Forerunner realized what it meant. Fear grew on his face, but he quickly suppressed it. "How come you by this knowledge?"
"It's told us." Cortana said.
"It... told...?" The Didact's heart began to beat quicker. The insanity of millennia was slowly fading, replaced by fear that sharpened his mind, sobering him to the harsh reality of the Prisoner, Utim, the All-Devourer, the creature that he had failed to slay a hundred thousand years ago, was forced to let sit smugly in its hole as its Prison greedily devoured his ships and Warrior-Servants. He had been forced to relive such a horrible memory in the space of that minute. His grip loosened and John clattered to the floor, energy shield sparking for a second. "You heard it?"
"One of us did, two years ago." Cortana said. "The Lifeshaper spoke to him in his mind. She told us where to find you. He... also mentioned you spoke to him too. An imprint. You counseled him."
Shadow-of-Sundered-Star found himself brought back to reality in an instant. He remembered making such an imprint. It was his essence, placed into devices of safe keeping in hopes that they would be found - messages of the Prisoner, warnings of what was to come. The memory of this suddenly broke something within the Didact. His gaze went to the floor, and his trident vanished in a flash. He stood in silence while guns were still pointed at him.
"Once..." he said at last. "I saw millions die... drawn into the maw to feed that abomination." he said in a soft voice despite his size. "I heard them scream in fear. I lost... so many Warriors for nothing. What you speak of is knowledge not known by any. You speak truth. Ancient truth." The Warrior stood strong. "The Didact lives to fight this evil anew!" He spoke confidently, his orange eyes now showing long-absent integrity and strength.
"We are humbled before your presence and your wisdom as vast and as bright as the Glow." Cortana said. "Kneel." She whispered into the radio.
Confused, but quickly, they all got to one knee.
"Will you aid us?"
The Forerunner glanced down at them, sizing them up and seeing then on their knees. "I would kill you where you stand, hamanush..."
John grimaced, waiting for the inevitable strike.
The others felt anxiety too. Julie-Su had a thought of going for her shotgun.
"... but Utim cannot be allowed to call this world its own." He nodded. "For the sake of the souls who had died, not for the hamanush." He turned and looked at the Cryptum where he once stood, and the bodies that lay around it. "Your luck is immeasurable this day Humans. The Didact's heart grows merciful to your pitiful fate. Long have I sought vengeance against the Librarian's pets. Today, it has been redirected. The Didact aids you!" He proclaimed "Aya!"
"Well look at that." Scott said breathlessly. "Looks like we just made a friend."
"You make no friends this day." The Didact said, addressing the agent directly. "You make an ally."
While they stared in amazement, the prone form of Scion, keeping perfectly still and feigning destruction, watched this unbeknownst to anyone. As he watched the exchange, an unexpected feeling of panic rose in his core. He immediately activated his ansible and sent a text message to his opposite numbers:
'We have a problem.'