The battle on the Mantle's Approach had been a thorough hell to go through. Chief had won out in the end, but only through Cortana's timely intervention in stopping and pinning down the Didact and his force of Promethean machines. He had detonated the nuclear warhead that had completely and utterly obliterated the enemy ship as it attempted to compose the entire Earth. According to data, he'd stopped the Didact at just New Phoenix, in the old US.

Using the word 'just' left a bitter taste in the Chief's mouth, however. Those were still civilians he failed to protect and, after almost thirty years of fighting for humanity? It felt awful to him that he did. He'd saved Earth once before, during the Battle for New Mombasa and the subsequent other engagements near the end of the war. This was a blow that hurt more than he'd expected.

Chief had also expected that he'd stop thinking when dead. He wasn't much of a man of God himself, but he knew to either think there'd be some afterlife waiting for him, or absolutely nothing beyond the bone-chilling nothingness of a lack of thought or knowledge about his surroundings in an eternal void. As a Spartan, he'd never really much given thought to his own death except for the scant few moments it closed far too much for comfort.

Now?

Well, he just heard a ringing in his ears that just wouldn't subside. It was a long, drawn-out ringing as if a very powerful sonic device went off next to his head and his armor's audio-receptors hadn't shut off in time to prevent the damage. Admittedly, John had detonated a nuclear warhead in his own face to stop the Didact in his tracks, but that was an eerily convenient explanation to it.

He blinked, his vision growing blurry. He could see the faint outline of the mouth of some sort of cave through which the sunlight shined, but nothing beyond that. His entire armor felt stiff, probably a side-effect of whatever had happened to him, as well as armor lock kicking into survival mode. He tried blinking away the annoyance of his blurred eyesight, then murmured something to himself to check if he could hear. Inaudible, of course. Ears still rang like a grenade went off next to his head.

He felt something climb onto him and saw a blurred figure looking down at him. The pink of the human skin was clear, but the two blobs of shining blue that seemed to be at eye level were the worrying detail to the Spartan. The person, whoever it was, started calling out to him. He could faintly hear it beyond the ringing in his noggin. He grew tense, but remembered his armor was locked up.

The person ahead tapped on his helmet's visor, then seemed to gaze down for a moment and realize something. She hummed, then looked over his suit. It was a she, John realized. Form alone told him, even with his blurring vision. That was slowly returning, while the ringing in his ears faded, thankfully. The girl hummed, pausing for a moment, then looked down, grinned and snapped her fingers.

The armor turned limp, as did John. The Lock was disabled. He gasped for air and staggered into a seating position, feeling his breastplate for any ruptures or injuries. Had he been holding his breath? He didn't know, nor care. He held his eyes closed shut and swallowed, trying to clear his ears and hearing a pop as the ringing seemed to pass. He blinked, his vision slowly returning until he could clearly see the mountains ahead and the mouth of the cave around.

"... Sensory overload, huh? Guess it happens to even the best humans out there... Right?" He heard her voice inquire, but not from within his head. Rather, to his left. He turned and his eyes grew wide as he saw her sat there, smiling, her eyes shining a deep teal, almost mechanical. She was Human... For all intents and purposes, John stared at a humanoid version of someone he knew and had worked with for the past years of his life. She looked slightly different, however.

"... Cortana...?" He raised a brow.

"In the flesh and nanobots," She smiled, then looked down at herself, her cheeks suddenly flushing red, "Also maybe a tad naked and with a hint of Miranda Keyes in me."

"I can see that..." John averted his gaze, trying not to look upon the form of his AI companion, "Status report? What... Happened?"

She shrugged, then said, "Honestly, John? No idea... One thing I know is I'm listening to a thousand of me scream into my ears at the same time as I'm trying to help you and the next...? We pass through some kind of data cluster and I wake up outside your armor and looking like this. Best guess is some sort of very powerful Forerunner tech caught us in its data stream after the detonation and did this whole thing to me. I've started working out this body's functions, but it's... Weird. Almost biomechanical in origin."

"Is it a problem?" He inquired.

Cortana snorted, then said, "I mean, beside me needing to learn how to walk, eat, drink and sleep? Shouldn't be."

"And your... Uhm..." he motioned at her form. She rolled her eyes.

"Oh, come on, John, I'm certain you've seen the female form plenty of times, not to mention me," She teased, chuckled at the man's tense reaction, then sighed and said, "But yes, I can do something about it... Take a peek," and she saw him turn his head. She snapped her fingers as a strange frame made of a nanomachine-based steel formed around her body, the symbols of the Forerunners shining on her arms, hands and chest. The form-fitting bodysuit armor finished forming, with the most important parts of her body covered by an extra layer of armor and with a group of four small, floating Forerunner 'wings' on her back, two on each shoulder blade.

"That's Forerunner," He noted, approaching her.

"A minor Combat Skin. Class 9, from what I can tell," She smiled, "Doesn't cover the head any, so I feel like it's more a ceremonial piece, but I'm looking forward to finding out what it can do," then she tried standing to her feet, then stumbled and fell back down hard, before stating in a murmur, "Y'know, provided I can walk... Ow..." as she rubbed her back.

John walked up to her and helped her to her feet, watching as her legs wobbled despite a certain level of muscle already being built up around the thigh and calf area. He hummed, stating, "You should be able to walk."

"Yeah, probably..." She nodded, "Y'know, I'm surprised you Humans can do all this stuff so easily... I'm having trouble remembering to breathe when trying to run other elements of my body's basic systems. Part of me gets why you guys can't just interface with systems like it's nothing now, ignoring the active necessity of either a direct or wireless link to-"

"Cortana," John started.

She chuckled awkwardly, "Right... Sorry... Help me learn how to walk, if you don't mind...?"

Of course, John couldn't exactly refuse his AI-turned-human companion. He had so much on his mind that the fact she had become human was still running through his mind as he sat there, wondering whether or not this was some kind of dream from which he'd wake up, still floating in the Forward Unto Dawn and awaiting rescue from their comrades in the UNSC.

He found no such respite, however. As the early morning in this desert place turned to midday, Chief had had to assist Cortana in learning the basic functionality of walking through nothing else but patience and will to assist his closest comrade-in-arms since Blue Team. Slowly, gently, Cortana seemed to learn how putting one foot in front of the other and staying stable worked. That was progress, but the saying "You gotta run before you can walk" didn't seem to apply here.

They needed to get Cortana's coordination up to snuff so she could bolt in case of danger. She wasn't exactly armed right now, save for that Combat Skin which she didn't know how to operate. Slowly, slowly, as day turned to evening and the Sun faded behind the mountain their little cave was in, Chief had managed to get Cortana coordinated enough to be able to run at least a few feet.

"Hey! Hey! JOHN! I'M DOING I-AAAGH!" She sounded so happy before she tripped. John caught her just before she hit her face against the stone floor of the cave. She sighed, slumping in his hands, then said, "Thought I had it for more than half a foot that time..." before he lifted her to her feet. She nodded, saying, "Thanks..." quickly before averting her gaze.

If the Chief was still processing whatever had happened to them, Cortana had the luck of having her rapid processing power contained in what seemed to be either an enhanced, modified brain, or an artificial one built into the body. That meant she was still able to run multiple trains of thought at the same time, while also being able to focus on the task at hand. Admittedly, she should've given thought to focusing part of her important programming to allow herself to walk, run and sit properly. At least talking wasn't a problem. Breathing, she'd gotten down just now by assigning an non-important section of the mind to focus on the automatic process of regulating the Oxygen intake and carbon dioxide elimination process.

Now, she needed to find ways to regulate her walking, blood flow and heart rate. This wasn't exactly going to be that hard, either, considering it seemed even the makeshift human body she was in had the systems slowly 'booting up' so to speak, to go automatic, much like a normal human body that was 'born' in to the world. Still, her arrival here as a being made up of nanomachines and of flesh and bone brought up several dozen questions that she needed to find the answer to.

Settling on her own feet, Cortana managed to run, this time focusing on keeping herself balanced. Her burning blue, machine-like eyes shimmered as she diverted the tiny amount of boosted processing power necessary to keep her steady. She skidded to a halt in front of the cave, turned to face John and smiled as she still stood, stable, on her feet. The full Moon behind her glimmered white, silhouetting the girl.

John nodded, then retrieved a pair of MREs from his armor and handed one to the girl, then sat himself down and turned on his helmet's flashlights. The girl marched up to and sat beside him, stating, "Today was productive..." as beads of sweat ran down her cheeks. Surprisingly, the rest of her body temperature was regulated and she hadn't lost much water.

"Where are we...?" He asked, looking at the moon as it rose over the mountains.

Cortana hummed, squinted, then narrowed her lips and said, "Y'know, I think my brain's malfunctioning... Because I seem to think we're on Earth. Afghanistan, Helmand province."

Chief looked to her, then nodded and said, "Home," his voice filled with hope.

"Yeah," She nodded, smiling, "Yeah, that's Luna right there, but... I can't see any sign of human habitation..." She them seemed confused for a moment. She squinted, then said, "And there's faint traces of satellites in the sky," Before she turned to the Chief. She hummed, narrowed her lips, then gave herself a once-over and murmured, "Incredible..."

"What is it?" He asked.

She looked to him, her smile glowing, "I... I think my Rampancy's gone!"

Confused, the Chief took his helmet off, revealing his aged face. Although the man had lived long enough to be considered legend among even the Spartans, he still retained the look of a man in his early thirties, rather than the forty-something-year-old he was. His face was still chiseled like marble, with few if any wrinkles, but it was pale due to his stay in the MJOLNIR armor. Cryogenics and Spartan modifications allowed seemingly limitless rejuvenation potential, going by that alone. Still, Cortana froze when his two piercing azure eyes locked onto her, his brown hair having faintly grown out, while his beard had turned into what humans called a five o'clock shadow.

She blinked, her cheeks burning as she stopped mid-opening of her MRE, mouth slightly agape.

Breathe, Cortana. Breathe. He was still the man she had partnered herself with for the better part of their operational life, the man she had saved countless times and that had saved her just as many times. She swallowed, then smiled again as she suppressed the burning scarlet color of her cheeks, stating, "I've... I'm not sure if I can say I've 'run a diagnostic' on myself anymore, but from what I can tell, my mind isn't splitting in a hundred different ways anymore... My matrix, my brain and mind, they're stable... I'm okay, John."

The man looked at her for a moment, then narrowed his lips and breathed out a sigh of relief, bowing his head. He hummed, then opened his MRE and stated, "Good... I'm happy to hear that."

"Heh. Me too," She chuckled, before opening her own MRE. She looked ahead, once more, at Luna and the satellites orbiting above the Earth. She could faintly hear their calls, the roar of telecommunication and the data streaming around her, in the skies and in the void of space. She tried to pluck data with her mind, to read it, but still needed to focus on breathing and living, in general. She said to John before he asked, "I'm gonna try and have a basic explanation as to why and how everything happened tomorrow. 'Till then?"

"I'll keep first watch," He said as he opened a wrapper filled with saltines and took one out, "You... Learn how to sleep."

"Gotcha," She smirked, then yawned, feeling her entire body suddenly weigh a ton. She blinked, shook her head, then watched the man stand to his feet, drawing his MA5G off his back and sit himself down near the cave, still eating his food. She hummed, leaned against one of the walls of the cave, then closed her eyes, the last image burned into her mind being of John.

Her thoughts raced for her first evening of actual sleep. How had they come to be here? Why was she a human, all of a sudden? And why was she seeing a slight purple light at the end of this strange tunnel that was her dreamscape? A long, bright purple light shined in her azure eyes for a moment, partially blinding her as it moved closer and closer.

The light then displaced and moved toward her at incredible speed.

She gasped, waking up with a start.

It was day. John sat by the entrance to the cave with his rifle in hand. He looked to her, then asked, "Are you okay?" The faintest hint of concern hidden behind his stoicism.

She nodded. That had to have been her first dream. And it was a weird first dream to have. He stood up, then said to her, "We gotta move. I saw a vehicle moving down a path in the sand below. Path looked travelled," and stowed an appliance that Cortana didn't even know he'd grabbed. Namely, a heat lamp that had kept them warm in the desert cave.

"So, we go to a settlement, call for help and head on out to Sydney to collect your medals and new rank pins," Cortana offered with a grin, standing up slowly. John nodded after a moment's pause and she stated, "Sounds like a plan. Lead the way," and she watched John begin the descent. Oh, boy, right. She still didn't have that much of a proper motor control, so she looked to John, somewhat worried.

The man, realizing what this meant, offered the girl a nod and extended his hand, with the two descending the steep mountain face together. Reaching the bottom of the mountain at relatively record speeds, the UNSC assets met with the 'road', a beaten path in the sand, travelled clearly by wheeled vehicles and, perhaps, some armored, tracked transports of some kind.

Despite the concern welling in her gut, Cortana chose to keep her mouth shut. She was sure Chief was acutely aware of the fact that they may meet a military presence, if not armed Locals. Afghanistan remained untamed territory for much of the world's history, but Cortana felt eerily off about this Afghanistan. It was almost as if the place was completely empty. The Earth's Com network would've been buzzing, trying to find where she and Chief had gone and recover him unless they were still combing through the debris of the Mantle's Approach.

No. Cortana heard echoes, the faint traces of actual telecommunication and the whispers of encrypted radios in her head, travelling the airwaves and beyond. It was eerie, it was almost too quiet, but it was there. This was Earth. Just what Earth? Or when? She was aware Slipspace anomalies could be temporal, not just spatial, what with the experience they had on the Ascendant Justice.

It didn't matter right now. She looked ahead as her armor started projecting a Heads-Up Display in her retinas. A detailed breakdown of the armor scrolled across her eyes. It was, in fact, a Class 9 Forerunner Combat Skin, a specialized, lightweight, but even more ancient Forerunner system than the Class Twelve that they'd been offered way back in the day, either by the Librarian, or by someone else like 343 Guilty Spark.

Beyond the HUD, the girl could see the ripples of the morning heat of the desert. She wondered if her armor could somehow cool her head, but continued walking beside John while the man kept his rifle at the ready. Half an hour of walking later, Cortana was thankful she found out about the water recycling capabilities of her armor set. Ten times as powerful and sophisticated as John's MJOLNIR, ten times as efficient, too. She needed to make the modifications she saw in her own armor to John's, maybe boost it to at least a class 4 Combat Skin.

The two walked wordlessly through the desert, the sun beating down on them for three hours, the heat building up. Despite her own sweat boiling on her face, Cortana trudged on, not wanting to slow John down in the slightest. She and him had a lot they went through together and a little sunburn wasn't gonna stop this AI from getting herself and her friend out from this hell.

"Any link on Radio...?" She inquired, her breathing ragged.

"Nothing," John replied, then paused. He gave a quick raise of the head to show Cortana there was something ahead. She paused, looked and saw a small town. Designed exactly like the standard Afghani towns of the past, with rows upon rows of plants, presumably poppy, set to be cultivated by the locals, the town ahead resembled what one would expect to see out of an early Twenty-First Century Afghanistan, rather than the developed, but still somewhat rural areas of the twenty-five hundreds.

The two looked to one-another, with Cortana flashing a reassuring smile at John.

Before both of'em heard gunshots ring.

The Chief and Cortana looked to one-another, then ahead and jumped into an irrigation ditch, to advance into the town as undetected as possible. Slowly, the two snuck forth down the main irrigation ditch and toward one of the walls of the compound-town. Leaning against said wall, which was really more a mix of some sort of clay with various plants, the Chief poked his head inside.

His Motion Tracker registered him and Cortana as friendlies, while the area ahead was littered with over three dozen unknown contacts. Gunfire rang through the air again and Cortana stated, "I'm hearing faint traffic. It's on a 4G network. Old frameworks, like, really old. Early twenty-first century old..." as she peeked from the other side of the wall, "And it's in... Pashtun."

"Local dialect," Chief observed, "Militias?"

"Probably," Cortana noted, closing her eyes and focusing on intercepting the messages. The 'wings' on her back extended, beams of energy protruding through them as they seemingly intercepted the communications and audio data. She smirked, though her eyes were still closed, "Fun new tricks I learn as I go along..." before noting, "Sounds like Pashtun, alright. Angry Pashtun."

John wanted to reply, but saw them. Men clad in the local attire of long, dress-like items of clothing, headscarves and face covers marched in, while civilians ran away from them. Their weapons looked modern, however. Far more modern than one would've thought a Militia could wield. Modular rifles firing 7,62 caliber ammunition. They fired into the crowds of fleeing civilians to stop them, grabbing the men from the line and shoving them away from the women.

Cortana shifted and looked past John, her eyes growing wide as her heart sank, "Oh, God..."

"Counting forty footmobiles entering the town," John stated, taking a knee and checking his ammo count. He still had plenty of mags, seeing as he didn't much fire anything at the Didact despite his best efforts. Cortana, meanwhile, retrieved a hard-light weapon from her belt:A Promethean Boltshot, to be specific. Looking back at her, he shook his head, "Stay here."

"You sure? I think I can help," Cortana inquired, checking over the Boltshot, "Funny thing, having this in your belt."

"I'm sure. Stay put," He replied, "Shoot only if they come for you."

She pouted, then said, "Alright..." Before feeding a 'round' into the Boltshot's chamber. Chief examined the threats as they lined several civilians up against the wall of a house. He stood to his feet, watching as the other enemies formed clumsy patrol patterns and grouping up. Had he enough grenades, this entire compound would've been cleared the moment they spread far enough away from the civilians.

He noticed a single man in the lead, a thinner bastard with a tan and a moustache, carrying a communication device. A rather large Radio, in fact. Cortana said to Chief, "I can listen in on their coms with that thing. Just get it to me and we'll have our way into the Ten Rings communication arrays."

"'Ten rings'?" John asked.

"What they call themselves over com..." She replied, then watched John take off. She sighed, smiling, then said, "Fair enough. No need to care what the people you're gonna kill call themselves."

She watched as John pushed in. The Spartan greeted the first man out of a patrol of three with a rifle butt to the face, breaking his nose and immediately snapping his neck. Beside him, his buddies all seemed to stagger in surprise, raising their assault rifles and trying to aim for the fast-moving Supersoldier. He swiveled about, lifting his rifle and opening fire.

Blood stained the sand and the first corpse dropped onto the floor before the man he planted the butt of his rifle into the face of actually did. He turned around, snapping his rifle toward the third man of the patrol and filling him full of holes, several rounds penetrating the thin layer of clothing the man wore and splattering blood on the wall. Bullets sparked off the Chief's shields as the scared enemies turned to engage him.

He turned around, returning fire and keeping mobile as he ran off to the side. He killed two more while their comrades rushed for cover and the Civilians began to flee.

He rolled off to the side, taking cover as more bullets struck his shields and drained bits and pieces of them. The enemy must've been firing lighter ammunition, maybe 5,56 instead of 7,62 AP. Still, that would've hit hard and would've done some damage to the Spartan's weaker armor sections. OR so he thought, 5,56 supposedly being fast enough to penetrate any old armor set. Save for Titanium-A plating, surprisingly.

He poked out and opened fire, trying to keep his shots generally aimed, with short bursts being the play of the game. A round sparked off his helmet and reflected into a wall, penetrating it. Following it, one of the enemies fired an underbarrel 40mm grenade launcher at the Chief's position. That, he had barely had time to dodge before the warhead armed and detonated, showering his former position and parts of his armor with shrapnel that pinged off the shields.

He snapped up his rifle and let loose a three-round burst into the grenadier's face just as the round counter flashed red and the gun clicked empty. He tossed the empty mag out as he moved and slapped in a fresh one, ramming the bolt home as he ran and avoided the enemy's fire. He stopped dead in front of an enemy with an RPG and put three bursts into him, causing him to throw the RPG out of his hand.

Chief grabbed it out of flight, rolled off to the side and aimed it at the crowd of a dozen other Footmobiles. He fired the rocket at the ground, a wash of shrapnel, stone and dirt striking the enemy and either killing, or blinding them. He tossed aside the tube weapon, hefted his AR again and opened up on the discombobulated hostile unit. The Civilians were out of harms way and sitting by Cortana if what he was reading was correct.

He looked back to see Cortana guiding the mothers, elderly and children her way. She gave John a thumbs up, smiling, then ducked back into cover. John rolled his eyes, then allowed himself a small smile as his shields regenerated. The enemy ahead of him had stopped to reload and was still only aiming for him. Good, it meant the Civvies did get away safely.

He heard a scream, a faked battle cry, then turned to see a man charging him with a Machete, as if he'd run completely out of ammo. He slashed downward, toward John's chest, but his blade caught on the Spartan's gauntlet. He grabbed the machete arm, twisted it until he heard it snap, grabbed the Machete and then slammed the man onto the ground. He slung the machete onto his belt, drew his assault rifle again and opened up on his buddies just as they got fresh mags into their rifles.

One of the bastards was carrying an M240 Bravo LMG. That one fired 7,62 by 39 millimeter ammunition. Going by the way it was plinking off his shields, it was penetrating ammo with a steel core. Chief quickly switched guns, drawing the M6G that sat on the mag-lock on his thigh and put a round clean through the man's skull, splattering his brains on his buddies.

He rushed forth as the bastards fired at him, punching one one man's throat in and jumping over the cover to grab the M240B. He spun about with the 7,62mm MG and let loose. Suppressing fire kept an enemy squad down, while another was shredded by the Chief's lightning-quick reflexes and little regard for ammunition expense in this case. This gun wasn't his, it was the enemy's.

Still, he didn't expect a hundred-round belt to go this quickly. The moment the gun clicked empty and the last spent casing and broken link fell out, he threw the gun to the left, right in the face of an enemy, before drawing his assault rifle and opening up again. One of the enemies, one carrying an anti-materiel rifle, scoped Chief in and fired, but the round sparked and bounced off the shields, causing them to drop.

He grabbed a grenade from the floor, seemingly a Russian F1 frag with the strange fuse poking out from the top, pulled the pin and threw it toward the Sniper. The detonation filled the man and a few of his compatriots full of superheated shards of metal, eviscerating another guy and leaving only five hostiles, including the officer, alive. Two tried to flee, throwing their weapons aside.

Chief snapped off accurate bursts. The last five died.

A town full of hostile 'Ten Rings' corpses, a dead commander and a radio to recover. He approached the corpse of the commander, knelt and picked up the semi-archaic telecommunication device. He looked at it, then checked his Motion Tracker. One hostile still moved and was approaching fast. He swiveled about, but didn't have time to shoot as a hard-light bolt punctured the man's skull.

He paused, watching the corpse drop dead, then looked to Cortana. She looked for a moment, shocked, past the sights of the boltshot, before lowering the weapon and smiling at him. He sighed, holstered his firearms and marched up to her, stating, "That was dangerous..." before handing her the radio. She chuckled, then looked over the device and nodded.

She then replied, "It was. I could've dinked your shields... Why don't ya give me a training lesson in shooting?"

He looked at her, then sighed, relieved, as he saw her smirking at him, before noting, "When we're out... Grab something to cover yourself with. We're leaving."

So he thought, despite the cheering civilians behind them handing them food and water... Well... For now, they didn't have to worry about supplies. And Cortana had found something to use as a hood to shield herself from the nightmarish sun of the Afghan desert while he salvaged what ammo and weaponry he could.

... Now, the question was, what to do next?