A/N: Hallo everyone. I'm back with a new chapter and I hope you all enjoy it. Remember to leave a review so I who what I can improve on or if you're wondering about something in the story.

An old hero returns

The 03/20/2581 Unknown location

The room was pitch black on a dark crimson red light bathed the 8 armored humans standing in a perfect circle around the source of light, a small pyramid no bigger than it could barely be in a hand. The humans all wore the Arch Guardian armor. The rare armor only given to the captains of the Sinner squads but these Sinners weren't merely captains. No they were… something else.

The gathered Sinners looked at each other. They had all gathered here to discuss what had happened to their leader, Siflion Talma.

"So… the reports from IIS, the Imperial Intelligence Service, are true." One said, his voice echoing through the dark room.

"Yes, our master has been captured by the enemy… do we know where they have taken him?" A second asked.

"We don't." A third said, with clear disappointment in his voice. "He should have ordered his squad to have held them off while he got away. He knows how important he is to us and the Empire."

"Do not speak of our master in that way." The first one scolded. "You know how much he cares about the safety of his men. You shou…"

The fighting came to a sudden halt. All 8 turned their attention to the small glowing pyramid. Silence was everything for a moment while they all stared at the small glowing pyramid as if in a trance.

"Of course Old One, you're right as always." The first looked back at the third. "We shouldn't fight among ourselves." The other 7 nodded in agreement.

A fourth coughed lightly in his hand to get everyone's attention.

"Have the Empress dispatched the Order of Assassins yet?" The second nodded as his head as an answer.

"She has. According to IIS they left as soon as they got their orders and they're bringing quite a few Black Phoenix' with them." The other 7 started mumbling concerned between each other. For the Empress to call upon more than one Black Phoenix was unheard of. These trained killers were masters of stealth and assassination, far above anything that the Imperial Army could ever hope to archive in terms of skills alone. Once again the 8 gathered Sinners fell silent and turned to the small pyramid. They all nodded after a brief moment.

"Understood Old One, We will not take any actions and await the masters return. In the meantime we'll continue searching for potential recruits." The gathered Sinners turned around and walked away from the pyramid after bowing respectfully to it and disappeared into the darkness beyond the light of the pyramid. They all had thing to take of that required their attention like building up the Sinners strength to their former glory before the Great Rebellion.

_Ω_

The 03/23/2581 The Capital

Aldu walked in circles around himself inside the Forerunners council chamber. He had caught news that his friend had been left and captured by the enemy on Hakkurok Kullok, now known as Harvest. The worst part was that Siflions sister, Juel Talma and the current empress he might add, was very, very pissed and had arrived to the Capital to meet him in person. The ship that had been transporting Siflion and his men had been given a special assignment by Juel. The Lord of Admiral pondered on what the Empress had in mind for the ship's crew, clearly nothing good. He hated that he didn't have access to the details of what the ship was assigned to but he couldn't do anything, the file was classified with the Praetorian Guards seal on. Just having their seal on the file made him rethink even looking at it but to classify the file for even HIM was taking it to the extreme in his book. He was after all the Commander-in-chief of the entire imperial military and he wanted to know where his forces were.

His train of thoughts were interrupted when a door slid open and Juel stepped into the council chamber flanked by two Praetorian Guards with their halberds in their hands, one of them the Royal Commander of course, and stopped in front Aldu. Juel was still in her Praetorian Guard combatsuit with the helmet off, only her spiked crown rested on her head. Aldu gave a short bow. A man of his status had sudden privileges when it came to such formalities.

"Your majesty, you honor me with your presents." He said before standing upright again. Juel send him a sharp glance.

"Cut the formalities already, I want to know where my brother is held captive." Juel almost hissed as she walked past him, taking in the design of the chamber before summoning a chair of hard light. The imperials had overridden the Forerunners security codes many days ago and now had access to most commands and functions on the Capital. A large number of servitors had been uploaded into the Capitals systems and was slowly cutting their way through the remains of the heavily secured codes and commands.

"I'm still organizing a scout fleet to gather information about his whereabouts so be assured my empress, we will find him." Aldu sat down on a chair of hard light he had summoned while he talked and sat facing his ruler.

"There's no need for that Lord of Admirals, I have already contacted the assassins, and with that freighter that my brother's team brought back with them, infiltration should be easy enough." Aldu nodded and licked his lips before changing the topic.

"How does the recolonization of Charum Hakkor and the other planets in the system?" Juel pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, revealing more of the beautiful bleach white tattoos on her forehead. The bleach white tattoos were a symbol of rank and status inside the higher classes of their society and within the imperial military. Hers detailed that she was more than just a System Lord that she was above even them. Siflion would have had such tattoos as well had he not joined the Sinner. He had been stripped of the original tattoos and had been given that of a mere Sinner captain.

"The colonization is going well. Colony ships are arriving every day and we will soon need to expand outside of the old capital system." A hologram projection appeared between the two, showing the arrival of the large colony ships that transported both migrating people and materials for city constriction as well as supplies for the military. "We might have to make the council chambers larger now that there will be named new System and Planet Lords as we reconquer our old worlds."

"More politicians in the Council of State are just what we need. You might even end up having some competition within the chambers." The two shared a small laugh together. "… If I may…" Aldu hesitated for a moment after the laugher had died down, wondering if he should ask his question or just keep quiet for now. He chose to ask. "What happened to the ship Siflion was stationed on when he went to Hakkurok Kullok?" Juel heartwarming smile was replaced with a sinister one, sending a shiver down Aldus back, as beautiful as she was she could become really terrifying when she wanted to, and crossed her legs. The friendly air between them gone.

"You have read the report. It was reassi…"

"Don't give me that crap…" Aldu cut her off, almost jumping out of his chair as he stood up, the chair dissolving behind him. "I know full well that you have done something horrible to the crew. That's why the details about this reassignment are classified to me, right?" Juel looked away and seemed to study something on one of the walls. "TELL ME!" Aldu roared, his voice echoing in the large chamber. Juel turned her eyes back on Aldu, the sinister smile still on her lips, even a bit wider thought Aldu.

"I assigned them to project Awakening." Aldus eyes widen with horror.

"Y-you did what to them?" He stumbled back a bit before sitting down again, the chair finishing its summoning just in time to catch him. "We agreed to only use prisoners from the prison worlds and prisoners of war… They were soldiers of the Empire, your Empire."

"Yes, they were soldiers of the empire. However they ceased to be that the moment they left my brother to die on that pathetic planet." Juel stood up from her chair, an air of dread and hatred towards those who had left her brother behind surrounding her. Aldu could feel the how her emotions flowed into the two Praetorian Guards behind him. He could hear how their breathing were getting heavier as the hatred and anger ran through their almost empty being and all that anger was currently focused on him. He slowly shifted his stance into a more aggressive stance turning towards the two guards. He didn't know when the anger would get the better of them and attack him but he sure as hell would be prepared for it. A series of claps were heard not far from the small group. All hostilities ceased as they all looked around trying to find the source of the clapping. Funny that no one's sound detectors could pick it up at all. They all turned however when millions of tiny hexagons forming an invisible being deactivated one after another in an accelerating speed and revealed a light and dark gray armored human wearing an even lighter gray hood and cape that reached down to its knees. On its chest was a symbol of a black bird with its wings stretched out so it almost formed a circle. Two more appeared behind the first one, a Cold Wind Sniper rifle resting in their hands each.

"It's good to see that we aren't running low on infighting although a fight between the regular military and the Praetorian Guards would be quite the entertainment I might point your attention towards something more urgent than some fancy evil project that the Empire is working on." The first one, the one how also had clapped his hands, said, his voice changing with each word he said.

"Good to see that you have finally come, assassins… Or should I say Black Phoenix'?" Juel asked with a small smile as she brushed a few stray hairs back behind her ears, her emotions turning back to normal. The leading Black Phoenix bowed, to Aldu it seemed to be bordering on a mocking bow rather than that of respect.

"You honor us with your knowledge your highness." The Lord of Admirals and the empress could almost imagine the small smile underneath the Black Phoenix's mask. He stood up again. "The order of Assassins has dispatched us with an additional 9 regular assassins under our command."

Juel nodded. "Good leave as soon as possible and gather whatever information you can on my brother's whereabouts and rescue him. Any other useful information you can gather on the enemy will be of second priority." The three elite assassins bowed deeply before they disappeared.

"As you command." The first Black Phoenix almost whispered before he disappeared entirely.

_Ω_

The 04/15/2581

David Armstrong hurried into cover under the entrance of his apartment building from the heavy rain that had laid siege on the city of New York City. He ran a hand through his short hair to get the worst of the rainwater out of it. The water dropped down on his face and down unto his partly waterproof light gray coat. He pulled out his keys and unlocked the door and stepped inside and wiped his shoes while walking towards the lift at the end of the small hallway. He stepped into the rather spacey lift and pushed the bottom to the 25th floor. The doors closed and the lift sped upwards to its destination.

David got out of the lift and walked down the empty hallway down to his apartment. He unlocked the door and called out.

"Honey I'm home!" It was first now that he saw that all lights were turned off and that no one answered him. That couldn't be right he had talked with his wife on the phone ten minutes before he had entered the building. David tensed and slowly moved into his home his hand ever so slowly reaching for the large M6C/SOCOM hidden in a special designed socket for the gun inside of his coat. He walked into the small hallway that led him into the living room. Everything was as he had left it this morning before he had left to get to his office closer to downtown. He moved through the living room, his gun in his hands and ready blow the head off of anyone who had broken into his apartment. He neared the arched doorway that led into the kitchen. Something was moving about in there. He could hear the small noises of someone moving around. Taking a deep breath he rounded the corner and aimed his pistol at his wife.

He quickly yanked his finger away from the trigger before he pulled it. He let out the breath he was holding. He put the gun away and looked at his wife. She was standing in front of the sink with her back turned to David. She was washing a few dishes if David had to guess on what she was doing over there.

"Honey, you didn't answer my call and why are you standing here in all this dark?" He asked as he walked closer to the island that separated them. She didn't answer right away and David had this nagging feeling that something was very wrong here.

"Oh I'm sorry dear. I just thought it was a good idea. Don't really know why." She turned her head so she could look at him over her should and gave him a warm smile. He returned the smile and breathed out again, that was when he saw the hand of a female human sticking out from around the island, his wife's hand if the wedding ring on the finger was any indication. Again he reached for his gun aiming it at the imposter the looked like his wife. However before ever got to pull the trigger something pressed against the backside of his head, the end of the barrel of a gun.

Reacting fast David spun around, pushing the offending gun away from his head aiming his own at his assailant only to the blur of a gray hood. A fist connected with his right chin, knocking teethes out from the sheer force behind it. He didn't have time to recover before he was grabbed the shoulder and a pop of air was heard before a knee rocketed into his stomach. It would have send him flying had his assailant held onto him. The air was knocked out of him and he collapsed to his knees and emptied his stomach out on the floor. His vision darkened but his assailant wasn't quite finished yet. David felt a strong hand grabbing his hair and with a strong throw sent him through the air into the living room and onto the coach.

David shook his head and spat out a few drops of blood. The world was spinning like crazy for him. The spinning soon died down to a more tolerant phase and he was beginning to make out the details of his assailant. It was clearly a human male, no doubt about that, he was clad in a gray, dark gray and black colored armor with a cloak reaching down to his angles with a hood over his head in the same colors. At his wrist rested a handle to a sword, probably some kind of energy sword like the ones the Shangheilies loved so much. The imposter disguised as his wife walked up besides the cloak wearing ninja guy, an evil smile crossing her lips. She had a small data pad in one of her hands, probably from the island in the kitchen, and looked over whatever was stored on it.

"David Armstrong, live in New York City, married with no kids, have received military training, officially work as a financial audit at Grand Tomson" his wife's eyes looked up from the data pad and straight into his own. "Unofficially works as an ONI agent of Section One, handles security and storage of data."

David's eyes went wide. How do did they know who he was and what his real job was? And more importantly who were they in the first place? He thought to himself. He slowly scanned the room for a way to escape his captives and somehow call for help.

"What do you think you're looking for?" The women asked as she forced him to look at her with a forceful hand around his jaw. Small sparks of electricity appearing everywhere on her skin, hair and cloths. Slowly she started to transform from top to toe. Her skin color changed from white to light brown, A few lines of bleach white tattoos appearing on her changing face features, and her body's overall structure changed as well, making her more muscular and even taller before everything disappeared behind an armor that matched her partners perfectly In terms of design. The clothes she had worn seconds ago had literally turned into the armor.

"W-who are you guys?" David asked still not quite believing what he just saw. The one that had been disguised as his wife straighten up to her full high and spoke but this it wasn't his wife's voice this time it was his own.

"Someone very interested in your and your organizations work." She grabbed the sword handle in one hand and activated it. A dark gray and black energy blade, almost disappearing in to darkness of the room, sprung to life. "But you don't need to worry about that, we'll take good care of your work." With great speed she swung the energy sword at him. David had no time to react and only felt a small sting when his head and neck was separated from his shoulders. The head hit the floor with small thud and rolled under the table in front of the coach. The black phoenix that still had his gun in his hand bent down and took the head by the hair and lifted out from under the small table.

"Get the storage unit ready, the brain cells die quickly." The female black phoenix nodded and retrieved a small dice formed device from one of her small bags around her waist. She placed it on the table and tabbed it on the top. A light emitted from it and a flat but wide circular slipspace portal appeared millimeters above its top. The male black phoenix dropped the head through the portal. The portal closed when the head had gone through it, effectively storing the head in slipspace. The dice's edges emitted a light red glow, signifying that something was stored within it.

"Retrieval successful, let us dispose of the bodies and head back to base and get those memories transferred into our minds." The male black phoenix produced a similar dice this one also had light red edges. The female nodded and headed for the door. While she walked she changed into the form of David Armstrong. The male followed close behind, transforming into an agent from Section Tree.

_Ω_

The 04/30/2581

Siflion took a short breath before he parried a fist aimed for his face. He quickly grabbed the arm of his assailant forced it down unto his knee, breaking the arm. Dark blue light from where the arm had been broken, showing the damaged hard light, that his opponent has made of. Still holding on to the arm he swung his opponent into another that had aimed to deliver a kick from his left. The two hard light constructs collided with each other and landed on the artificial ground, the hard light shining through the holes of their 'skin'. A third hard light construct was summoned a few meters in front of him. Siflion smiled beneath his helmet and charged the newly arrived enemy. The hard light construct took a defensive stance, ready to greet the charging Sinner.

Siflion struck with his left hand. The hard light construct pushed the incoming fist out of the way and prepared to follow up with a punch of its owe but found itself on the ground as siflion had removed its feet from the ground with a kneeled down round kick. Siflion stood up again and stamped as hard as he could on his down opponent's chest. His foot dug deep into the hard light and the entire construct vanished. Siflion smiled yet again to himself and turned only to receive a punch right in the face. The two constructs had collected themselves and had ganged up on him. Siflion dodged and parried most of the attacks from his opponents that didn't give him room to counter. The fight moved to a small empty UNSC outpost with no one getting the upper hand. Spotting a low hanging pathway between two buildings Siflion jumped and reached for the railing just as the two hard light constructs attacked at once. Siflion got hold of the railing and pulled himself up, the two constructs following right behind him.

The first construct reached the top and charged at Siflion. Siflion parried the incoming punch and spun around the construct and took hold of the back of its head. With a roar he smashed its head into the railing. Cracks ran over its face like shattered glass, the railing bending to near its breaking point. The hard light construct went limp and dissolved. The last remaining construct got on top of the pathway. It ripped a piece of the rail off and used it as a weapon. The construct lunged at Siflion, swinging the metal rode in wide arches and keeping Siflion at a safe distance. Siflion dodged every attack and after minutes of exchanging blows he finally saw an opening and took it. With a quick move he grabbed its hand that held the metal rode and with a powerful kick towards its left knee he broke the constructs leg, making it loose its balance and dropping to its knee. With the construct temporarily stunned he ripped the metal rode out of its hand and stabbed it through its throat. The hard light construct made a gagging noise, a surprised expression on its otherwise emotionless face. Taking hold on both end of the metal rode he twisted it around, serving the constructs head from its shoulder. The construct disappeared like its siblings and soon after the pathway and everything else around Siflion dissolved, revealing the hard light everything had been made up of.

Siflion stood now near the middle of a large empty room with a metal door on one of the four walls. The door opened and a pair of Spartan-IVs entered, their weapons aiming at the Sinner.

"Training's done for today." One of them said, pointing at the door. "Time to get back to your cell." Siflion just nodded at them, his helmet falling apart into the individual nano machines his entire armor was made up of and down to his shoulder, revealing his head, and extended his hands towards them. One of them moved up to him and placed a pair of large and heavy handcuffs around his wrists, not that he couldn't break through them. They were after all designed to hold Spartans and not a Sinner like him but he didn't try to escapes, he was after all in a high security prison with tons of Spartans and every third of them had gauss rifles that would tear him to pieces within seconds if he tried anything stupid.

The two Spartans escorted him back to his cell from the war games room where he had been 'allowed' to train and keep himself in form while he stayed here… wherever here was. Siflion knew that they monitored him while he trained, trying to learn as much as they could about him and fighting techniques, but he had become bored out of his mind just sitting in his cell meditating or trying to understand why that there were Precursor technology inside that girl he had scanned onboard the UNSC New Dawn. Of course the guys who monitored him weren't the only ones learning, his servitor had hacked its way into the facilities wireless network and had begun gathering information undetected. It wasn't anything classified or highly secured, that would expose his servitor sniffing around on the net. She was gartering data from official sites like healthcare sites, free information sites and sites that described their history.

So far she had covered most of all official events about their history, like the world wars, the development of the slipspace drive, the insurrections, the bloody events during the Human-Covenant war and the many conflicts after its conclusion, and at the very end rumors of Siflion civilization's small attacks and raids on the worlds near the border of UEG space.

Siflion and his escort arrived at his cell. Siflion went inside and the door closed and locked behind him. He let out a light sigh and sat on the bed in a meditating position and focused on the data that his servitor had gathered while he had trained. The stream of data rushed forth into his mind by the help of his servitor who controlled the flow so that he wouldn't be overwhelmed by the large amount of data.

Hours went by as Siflion looked through all the data. He only stopped when he heard the door slid to side and a man with a tray with food on stepped inside. He placed he tray on the floor not far from the entrance.

"Enjoy the mashed potato." The man said as he turned to leave but before that he made a small hand signal with his right hand. Siflion eyes widened for but a second. The hand signal had been fast and unnoticeable by anyone not knowing what to look for, hell Siflion had barely seen it himself but he was sure it hadn't been his imagination. The signal had been one the imperial army's stealth units make use of when they are on undercover operations to signal to each other about friendlies up ahead.

Siflion pondered for brief moment over what unit the man belongs to when it dawned upon him, a black phoenix, the inner circle and leaders of the Order of Assassins. Siflion smiled to himself and dug a hand into the massed potato and found something hard inside. He pulled it out and the small nano machines removed the massed potatoes that stuck to the tiny device. When it was all clean could Siflion see what it was, a tiny experimental communicator that used a rather unstable slipspace frequency. The instability made almost impossible for anyone to pick up the link but the quality of the link was very poor. The nano machines absorbed the tiny device into the armor and linked it up with his armors own communication system. Siflion activated the device. The shape noise of interference reached his ears, he grimaced at the offending noise, but it soon died down enough for him to make out a voice calling for him.

"…lion can y-y-you read me-e-e? Repeat, Siflion can you read me?" The voice was nearly drowned in the offending noise but Siflion could just make out the words.

"I read you."

"Thank t-t-the ancesto-ors, you were pretty h-hard to find." The black phoenix said with an unstable voice through the channel. "We'll arrange an escape for you as soon as possible."

"No. Not yet. I need you to gather some information on a particular person of interest."

"And who would that be my prince? Our mission was only to recue you for your sister." The black phoenix sounded annoyed by having to do more work than he and the others had intestinally thought.

"I know, but there's something special about this one."

"Fine why not." The answer came after a few moments of silence. "Send us a memory of this person and we'll look into it." Siflion smiled to himself.

"Good when you have found out where she is you'll get me out of here then we go get her." Siflion sent all he knew about Cortana, before he closed the link and laid himself on his small bed. Now he just had to wait for the assassins find her and break him out of here.

_Ω_

The 05/07/2581 Estevan, Canada

Cortana lay on her bed in her room. She and the rest of Reach team had been granted a few weeks shore leave after what they had encounter on Growth. The house she and her parents, John-117 and Julia Griffin, lived in was a small one located in Estevan, Canada, a small town no more than 20-30 kilometers from the US-Canadian border.

It was nice being back home with her parents after having been away from them for months, first the Spartan-IV initials and argumentations that she needed, even though she was a child of two Spartans She still needed the cybernetic implants, when the training that came after and finally her tours with her team across human space and beyond. Just yesterday she had gone to a hockey game with her farther, not that sports really interested the old man that much. The game had been awesome most of all because her favorite team had won big time over their rivals.

The old war hero had gotten a job in the local police force along with his wife. Apparently her parents couldn't quite put their old military lives behind them and therefor had gotten a job in the police… not that there were that much crime in the town and whatever crime ring dared show their ugly face around here were in for quite a surprise when two former Spartans came knocking down their doors.

"Cortana" She heard her mother call from downstairs "dinner's ready." Cortana sighed. Being in a family only composed of Spartans made dinner a rather special occasion for them since Spartans could go for weeks on end without food or water. Cortana got down the stair at the end of the small hallway, and stepped into another small hallway that separated the kitchen and the living room. The TV was running in the background while the family of three sat around the table. Lasagna was on the menu.

"… according to ONI, the explosions that leveled several buildings and injured an still unknown number of people in Nottingham, Great Brittan, a few days ago was due to a huge gas leak, however eyewitness saw a small group of what they describe as black armored soldiers leaving the screen in a hurry, could the insurrections finally have reached? We have talked with professor…" The TV was turned off by John, he didn't like hearing about such things ever since he had settled down and started his family. Of course he missed the military… well some parts of it, it had after all dominated most of his life. The dinner went by with some small talk here and there, mostly Julia asked to Cortanas missions and her stay on the UNSC New Dawn. When they were done talking about her military career her mother and father started talking among themselves, something about and upcoming festival in a nearby big city and how they all should go and have some fun together. Meanwhile Cortana had shut both of them out and was looking quiet traffic out on the street in front of the house. Two vans stopped on the other side of the street right in front of their house and 11 black armored soldiers stepped out of them with rifles in their hands. She could identify one of them by the design of his armor, Siflion.

The imperial soldiers lined up in the middle of the street and readied their weapons and before Cortana could yell to her parents they opened fire. The blasts of antimatter round cut their way through the walls and into the house, everything exploding around the three family members. The three Spartans threw themselves to the floor while the antimatter round whizzed through the air above them.

"What the hell is happening!?" Julia yelled over the many small explosions.

"It's those other human guys I told about!" yelled Cortana back. Her mother looked back at her with a look that told her that someone was in big trouble.

"You mean the guy who dug tentacles into your brain?" Cortana nodded her head slowly.

"Alright… I'm gonna kill him now that I got the chance." Julia crawled her way to the cupboard under the sink and opened it. After looking around in there for a few seconds she pulled out a pair of assault rifles and tossed one of them over to John who effortlessly caught it, a magnum was thrown to Cortana, who quickly took it. Cortana still wondered for how long those weapons had been down there, she didn't recall that she had seen them before. However that question had to come later when they were safe again. The family got up so they could shoot out of the shattered window and out on the assassins.

The energy shields of the assassins flared to life and brushed off the lethal bullets. Knowing that their Shields wouldn't be able to protect them forever they activated their cloaks and disappeared from sight.

"I counted 11 before… There were only 10 when we fired back." John said while he scanned the street for the invisible enemies and just as he had uttered the last word was the wall to their left just behind them exploded inward and through the dust cloud of former bricks came Siflions armored figure sprinting towards Cortana who was the closest to the hole.

Cortana quickly got on her feet and fired her magnum at the charging Sinner, his shield absorbing the damage and swung his hard light blade at her. Cortana threw herself back and away from deadly blade that would have taken her outstretched arm off. Siflion prepared to follow up on his attack but his sword arm was grabbed by a pair of strong hands and before he could react he received a knee to his guts from the Chief himself. His shield still held but the knee had nearly shattered it. He didn't take any damage but the force from the knee still lifted him off of the ground and sent him a few feet's back. Siflion quickly recovered only to that Julia was aiming her assault rifle at him and was about to pull the trigger. Seeing no other option he threw himself through the thin wall to his right, just as the bullets pierced everything behind him where he had stood a moment ago, and out into the small hallway. Julia was about to reload her rifle when two assassins jumped through the destroyed window and into the kitchen. The assassins had swished out their morpher rifles with their APD hand guns and hard light swords and engaged the three Spartans, one against Julia and the other against both Cortana and the Chief.

Cortana and the Chief managed to get a few hits in before they had to dug and dodge the deadly dark blue blade of vaporizing energy. The Assassins clearly wasn't as strong as Siflion but they made up for it with greater agility and advanced fighting styles even for imperial standards.

The two assassins were clearly in disadvantages, it didn't take long for the three Spartans to knock them unconscious or injure them beyond fighting conditions, but they had served their purpose, distracting them. Four new assassins appeared along with Siflion. With their superior numbers they tried to overwhelm them with sheer force. More holes in the walls were made as imperial assassins were sent through them only to get back up again and sprint right in again. In the middle of all the chaos was Cortana suddenly taken by neck and thrown through the window and into a parked car just outside. The cars side bent inward with Cortana stuck in it. Cortana tried to wrestle her free from the metal that held her captive and after a few tries she got free and feel to knees only to see a shadow blocking the light of the descending sun. She looked up to see Siflion looming over her and lunged at him with a fist but the fist never reached. Cortana was confused for a moment until she heard a small thump and looked down see her arm from right above her elbow and down lying on the ground. She didn't even have time to scream before Siflion punched her in the head with a powerful fist and knocked her unconscious. He picked her up and flung her over one of his shoulders and grabbed an antimatter grenade.

"Target have been captured, we're leaving boys." He shouted over the com channel to the assassins. The assassins quickly broke free of their fights and grabbed their fallen before they rushed out of any opening they find while leaving a charging grenade behind them. Siflion threw his own grenade and walked casually towards the vans they had arrived in. The kitchen exploded in a shower of burning bricks and pieces of wood. Siflion laid Cortana on the floor of the van while the assassins got onboard and stepped on the speeder, leaving the destroyed house behind them.

The Chief pushed the large pieces of rubble off of him and groaned as he stood up, his body was covered small burns and scratches and his clothes were ripped to shreds but he didn't care. He looked at the destruction and found his wife in the rubble not far from where his had laid. He pulled her out from under the destroyed bricks that once had been a wall. He placed her out on the sidewalk, away their house that threatened to give in under from its own weight. He checked if she still breathed, she did. He was relieved to know that and breathed out loud. In the distance he could make out the sound of police cars and inwardly scolded at them for first showing up now. Ignoring the sirens from the police cars he began shaking his first lightly then more forceful until she came back to consciousness with gasp and sat up with a shocked expression. Turned and looked at her husband then looked around for Cortana, not seeing her daughter anywhere she turned back to Chief, an unspoken question in her eyes that she couldn't get herself to ask. Chief nodded a sad and wrathful expression on his face.

They took Cortana

Julia Sniffed, trying to keep her tears and anger at bay but couldn't when Chief pulled her into a tight hug.

"Don't worry honey, we'll get her back and make them pay, I'll call Lasky and call in a favor." He stoked her shoulder long black hair carefully with a hand, trying to make her relax just a little. "We'll get her back for sure." He said with a fire in his eyes, a fire of wrath and determination.

A/N: So I finally got around and introduced both the Chief and his wife. Don't worry details about how they met and such will soon follow... or you could PM me i you can't wait ;)