Another chapter, yay! I hope you all are having a pleasant holiday season, and I'm glad that you all are still reading and writing during the break. I look forward to hearing what you have to say about this story. In the meantime, read on!

Chapter 25

North was too tired to panic as water rushed into his armor and started weighing him down. He could barely feel the blood flowing from his chest where the bullets had punctured him. Theta was, surprisingly, absent from North's mind. He was probably trying to recuperate from the shock and damage that they had taken, or else he didn't want to face the fact that his carrier, Agent North Dakota, was drowning.

"You will live to see another sunrise."

North's eyes shot open as much as they could, blurred by the pain and tiredness. He could have sworn that he had heard something, slightly distorted by the water. Maybe it was an illusion, in the haze of his approaching death.

"I am no illusion, warrior. You must remain awake."

'Is that the disembodied voice of God?' North thought as he continued to drift in his watery prison. 'I was never particularly religious. I mean, sure, I thought that we were made by a higher power and put here for a reason. I wonder if it'll dock me points-'

His train of murky thought was cut off by the very real voice inside his head, ringing in his ears.

"I am no god, no immortal power. I am living, and do help preserve the living."

'If you can hear me,' North thought tentatively to the thing that was communicating with him, 'can't I just die in peace? I'm so tired.'

"Your time has not come, human," the thing replied, and something protective wrapped around North, pushing him towards the surface. "You have a mission to complete. A life to fulfill. You have unfinished business."

'My friends,' North thought vaguely, and faces flashed through his mind. 'York, Texas, my sister, Theta, Dawn-'

Something sharp and piercing entered North's mind, and he took in a breath. He started choking on the water that rushed into his mouth, reminding him that he was very much alive.

"Protect her," the disembodied voice insisted, and North's head broke the surface of the lake. Something, or numerous things, started pushing him towards the shore. "Find me again, at the Caldera, when the moon is half."

"When…what?" North started shivering, and his mind was confused. "What-who are you?"

"Find me at the Caldera," the voice whispered, "and you will know."

Those last few words were ringing in North's ears as he passed out, half out of the water, waiting for someone or something to rescue him.

North sat up with a jolt, clutching at his chest where it gave a spasm of pain. He gasped at cool, clean air that surrounded him, and he opened his eyes tiredly.

"It's a good thing you woke up," an unfamiliar female voice spoke up. "We were beginning to worry about you."

North was able to finally get his bearings, and found himself in a sparse room with two or three hospital beds along the walls. He had been removed from his armor and changed into hospital scrubs, and he sat against a pile of soft pillows, covered in a plain fleece blanket. In a chair by his bed sat a woman with light-brown skin and long, curly blonde hair. She had intense green eyes that stared at him, tough yet gentle at the same time. She looked very much like her sister (sans darker skin and black hair).

"You're one of Dawn's sisters?" he asked groggily, putting a hand to his head as he tried to regain his senses. She pushed him back against the pillows.

"Yeah, I'm the Matron of New Taipei, head of Medical Affairs," the woman introduced herself. "I'm Tina."

"Nice to meet you," he greeted her in return. "Though I'd rather that it had been under better circumstances."

"Indeed," Tina agreed, smoothing out her long white robe and refastening the ornate glass button at her throat. "Oh, we met your two friends at the gate of the city."

North instantly became more alert. "York, is he-?" he started to ask, but Tina held up a hand.

"We had a medical team on hand to take him up to surgery. He's going to be alright. Your friend, Texas is fine as well."

"That's good to hear," North responded. A holographic pillar on his bedside table illuminated, and Theta formed in his usual fireworks display.

"North!" the AI exclaimed excitedly. "You're okay!"

"We had to remove him when we performed surgery on you," Tina explained as Theta leapt to land on North's shoulder and huddled close to his carrier. "He was getting rather hysterical. He managed to be brave, though, especially when he found out that you had all those pullets removed."

"Glad to hear it," North said, while Theta gave a happy hum.

There came a knock at the door, and Texas opened it from the outside so that York could limp in, his wounded leg completely bandaged and leaning on a cane.

"North, you're awake!" York exclaimed excitedly, and Tina offered him her seat so that he could sit by North. "Thank you, beautiful," he said in a flirtatious manner, leaning up to give her a kiss. She smacked him upside the head. York blushed in embarrassment, while Texas just shook her head sadly. "How are you feeling?"

"Like a herd of elephants stampeded across my chest," North answered truthfully. "How do you think, York?"

"You think yours is bad?" York challenged humorously. "My leg feels like they surgically implanted a cactus in it!"

"What exactly happened?" North directed his attention to Tex, who seemed to be the only sane one here. "How did I get here?"

"Some soldiers went out to scout the woods for any survivors, and they found you on the shore of the lake," she explained. "It looked like you dragged yourself out of the water in time so that you wouldn't drown, but you were about ready to bleed out."

"We would have helped," York explained, "but, you know. I was in surgery and Tex was trying to explain the situation to the higher ups here."

"Have you heard anything from Dawn?" North asked curiously, sitting up a little more. The other two hesitated. "Come on, spit it out," he insisted, prepared to hear the worst.

"The truth is, we don't know," York admitted apologetically. "We all got separated in the ambush. Some of the soldiers made it back, but not nearly as many as we went in with. We've had, I don't know," York thought for a moment, "ten come back. About six of them are still alive."

"Don't they have, like, recovery beacons in their armor?" North asked, almost getting frantic.

"It was not something that we had originally designed into the armor," a male voice sounded from the doorway. A muscular man in a temporary wheelchair pushed himself into the room, garbed in a wool robe dyed scarlet red and black, with a red fleece blanket covering his legs. Neatly cut brown hair framed a lined tan face that should have been young, had it not been for the stress marks around the man's haunted blue eyes. Tina took a step back and bowed her head in respect, while the three Freelancers struggled for some way to convey their respects. In the end, they each settled for a salute.

"At ease," the newcomer waved the salutes away with a scarred hand. "I suppose I need to introduce myself to you," he offered in a strong, yet raspy voice.

"You're Red Stallion, sir?" Texas asked respectfully. The man nodded.

"That's my formal name, but I allow my friends to call me Fhajad."

"I remember hearing that name," North said pensively, trying to think. "It was in a report from the Spartan-II project, with the names of the ones that made it through the augmentation-"

"The ones that died, and the ones that were less than perfect," Fhajad finished North's sentence with a slightly bitter tone in his voice. "Yes, I am THAT Fhajad."

"And when we met Renee earlier…" Texas concluded. "Oh my," she gasped.

"A few of my Spartan brothers and sisters, the ones LESS than perfect, relocated here," Fhajad explained. "We found that we could make ourselves useful with what we had, and we received no pity for our…conditions. And before you ask," he interjected before one of the Freelancers could speak again, "yes. I know Master Chief."

Nobody said anything for a while. Then, Fhajad spoke up. "Agent North Dakota, please tell me what happened after you, Agent York, and Agent Texas exited the woods."

"Yes, sir," North obliged. "We were running across the field by the lake, and the Insurrectionists kept firing at us from the tree line. I used my domed energy shield to buy some time for Texas and York to make it here so that York could get surgery for his leg, but I expanded my shield too much to keep it up for very long. I was shot in the chest and fell into the lake."

"With those sorts of injuries, it would not have taken you long to drown," Fhajad mused aloud. "How did you make it to shore?"

"I don't really know, sir," North shrugged apologetically. "I think…something living in there pushed me to the shore."

"I wasn't aware that something larger than a…well, never mind," Fhajad waved his thought away with a shaky hand, and he stared at it for a moment. Fhajad's entire body began to tremble slightly.

"Hey, are you alright?" North asked with concern, sitting up straighter. Fhajad groaned as his body continued to shake.

"I'll be…fine…JESUS!" He grunted in pain, trying to keep himself together. Tina rushed over and started pushing Fhajad away.

"This happens frequently," she explained to the three Freelancers, who were all concerned about the former Spartan's wellbeing. "It's a result of the…the augmentation process. It's why he's not a Spartan." Noticing the shaking getting worse, she rolled Fhajad out of the room to try and suppress the shaking.

"Now I get why there was such a controversy about the ones who didn't quite make it to Spartan level," York murmured, his eyes downcast. Delta and Omega joined Theta on his holographic pillar. "I don't know if I could handle losing control of my body at a moment's notice."

"It might have been kinder for the ones who DID die during that experimentation," Omega growled, and everyone turned to look at him. "Think about it," the AI said. "Would you rather die, or suffer some unimaginable physical, emotional, and mental conditions that could never be quite fixed?"

"Ask us something hard, why don't you?" Tex replied sarcastically, staring at the door where Fhajad had just exited. "But still, I get the point. I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

"And to think that humanity's savior came at the cost of the lives of other Spartans," North murmured, unsure of where he was going with his train of thought. Theta gave an unidentifiable sound and disappeared.

"Is there any news about what happened to Dawn?" North asked suddenly. The other two shook their heads.

"Haven't heard anything," Texas muttered, staring out the window at the setting sun. Clouds were forming on the horizon, along a chain of mountains.

"She's a survivor," North conceded, leaning back on his pillows after a sudden flair of pain in his chest. "She's lived here forever, she knows this place inside and out."

"Yeah, but how about US?" York asked. "We're supposed to keep an eye on her for the Director, so that-"

"To hell with the Director!" Tex exclaimed angrily, and the other two whipped around to stare at her. Tex seemed surprised by her own outburst. "I…I mean that we need to keep Dawn's safety in mind first before worrying about what the Director wants," she finished hastily, but York shook his head.

"Do you get the same bad feeling that I do?" he asked the group in general. "That the Counselor, the Director, the Project, even our AIs, they're all a little…off?"

"Agent York," Delta spoke up, and they all turned to him. "Normally, I would dissuade those sorts of notions as untrue statements or thoughts. However, we AI have been sharing the same misgivings about our Creator. If we must know more…" The AI trailed off.

"Say it, D," York pressed his AI.

"We must speak to the Alpha."

It had been about two hours previous that Dawn had first sensed someone following her through the deeper part of the woods, and she could tell that they weren't IAOC because they had at least two Warthogs with them, plus a Mongoose.

The shell of a Scorpion tank exploding behind her had Dawn running full speed through the trees, leaping over branches and ducking under felled trunks, trying to lose her pursuers. Gunshots rang out behind her, and bullets shredded the bark off of the trees surrounding her. Not one had touched her yet, but Dawn's winning streak was running out. After two hours of non-stop running and dodging, she was beginning to tire.

"Don't give up!" Chi called to Dawn as she continued to run, the amber AI being as aware as possible to changes around them. "The trees are thinning up ahead."

"That'll just make it easier for them to find us," Dawn hissed as she slid down a small slope and kept going. "But, I'll take your word for it."

Another Scorpion shell exploded behind her, and the shock from the blast propelled her forward through the tree line. For the first time in hours, Dawn stopped running and knelt, catching her breath as she stared at the cliff that she had almost fallen over. Mist obscured what was at the bottom of the cliff, but she heard a source of running water. Most likely, it was the Yngok River. There was no place else to go on the cliff, besides where she had just come from. Across the river, another series of cliffs ran parallel to the horizon, with tall monoliths stretching up towards the sky like fingers.

"Chi, what are our options?" Dawn asked her AI as her pursuers came closer and closer.

"We can stand and fight," the AI suggested. "But there's little ammunition left. You'd be killed before we could take down very many of them."

"What's the likelihood of survival if I jump into the river?" Dawn asked, leaning over the edge.

"I'm not Delta," Chi retorted. "I can't even begin to calculate those statistics."

"Well, it was worth suggesting," Dawn replied, drawing out her weapon of unknown origin, the core of the weapon glowing blue at her touch. She was getting too tired-

The cock of a sniper rifle's trigger had her whipping her head around in another direction. It was coming from across the river.

"Don't shoot!" Chi exclaimed suddenly. "It's not the Insurrectionists. They're-"

Chi never got the chance to finish her sentence as a bullet tore into Dawn's shoulder from behind and propelled her forward. With a hiss of pain, both Dawn and Chi went tumbling down into the gorge below, blood trailing through the air as they hit the water.

Yeah...Maybe that chapter can be changed later on. For now, it's needed to piece things together.

Oh, I found my mistake: Farjhad IS Fhajad; I had to go back into The Fall of Reach to find the correct spelling.

Next chapter will focus more on Dawn and the mysterious sniper from the other side of the river, and after that is...ANOTHER FLASHBACK! YAY!

Hope you guys keep reading this, and please review when you get the chance.

Happy Holidays,

anna1795