AN: So far, there haven't been any recommendations for the Spartan's character, so I'm postponing the reveal for next chapter.

I do not own Halo, Avatar: The Last Airbender, or associated characters and properties.


Infection


Academy

January 4th, 2560

Local time 0221

As Hieu and the Spartan began to back away, the corrupted MIRAGE shakily took one step towards them, then another, as if the malicious construct within was getting accustomed to limbs. As it shambled, the program began speaking.

"Long have I waited for this moment, an opportunity to turn one of the UNSC's greatest assets against them," Iratus began. "An entire planet dedicated to the Spartans, a place meant to build an army."

Hieu donned his helmet and took charge. "We need to get up top and warn them about Iratus." Before the pair could escape, however, the door slammed shut, far faster than it had opened.

The crimson AI simply laughed. His walk was less twitchy than before, like it was getting better at walking. "Why leave when the fun is just beginning?" The portal flared. "I'm sure the spy knows how important it is to tie up loose ends."

Suddenly, the two Spartans were ensnared by red tendrils of light from the portal artifact. Unable to move, they watched as Iratus walked towards them, almost as smooth as if a human was in the armor now.

"I believe our time here together has ended. The Banished will claim this facility for their use, and I am their herald." The program raised a fist. " Goodbye, Spartans."

As the fist lowered, the light-tendrils suddenly yanked the pair towards the portal, and then they vanished.

With the only people capable of warning the Academy gone, Iratus chuckled to himself as he began his preparations. "What better place to start a plague than the place it was thought to be cured?" he mused to himself.


Academy

January 4th, 2560

Local time 0937

Petty Officer Spartan Jayna McCormick was in a War Games simulation with Fireteam Dragon, more specifically a game of Capture the Flag. They were up against Fireteam Padlock, and were winning 2-1.

McCormick was mere meters away from grabbing Padlock's flag when a sudden pain shot through her neural interface. She grunted in pain and noticed a red static in her visor as she was forced to a knee by the pain. Attempting to rise, she was shocked to realize that her armor wasn't responding to her movements, instead keeping her down. Suddenly, red holograms appeared around her armor, and a deep, sinister voice spoke through her interface: "Ah, the perfect vessel."

Her armor then began rising of its own accord, and turned her to face her team leader, Commander Kilroy. Seeing what was going on, Kilroy stopped what he was doing and looked at her. Without warning, McCormick shot towards him and began brutally beating him down.

When he became motionless, red holograms appeared around Kilroy's armor, and he began to rise once more. This time, McCormick didn't attack him. Whatever took control of her armor had evidently infected Kilroy when she "killed" him.

McCormick watched with tears in her eyes as the virus spread, and she was powerless to stop it.


Academy

January 4th, 2560

Local time 1134

"What do you mean, they've vanished?!"

Commander Laurette Agryna was currently having a very bad day. It had started off rather well, with her cup of coffee being just the right temperature. The reports from the previous day showed Fireteam Eagle yet again coming out on top of the Academy leaderboards.

But then things began taking a rather sharp nosedive. A certain extremely angry artificial intelligence had somehow escaped from the ONI server he was trapped in and had begun "infecting" Spartans during War Games. Then, they learned that the infection didn't cease after the simulations ended. In the less than two hours after Jayna McCormick had become "patient zero," so to speak, almost two dozen Spartans had been turned by Iratus, with no signs of stopping.

And now Agryna was learning that her best cadet and one of her closest friends had disappeared in the middle of the night. The only clue as to where they had gone was an open door in the training range with a gutted screen next to it. Marine teams sent to investigate reported seeing the Banished emblem on several screens, as well as cables that evidently used to connect to something, but whatever that something happened to be was no longer there, and there was no sign of her friends.

"Uh, Commander?" a Marine said, snapping Agryna back to reality. "As I was saying, ma'am, we couldn't find them, but we noticed that there was a mostly empty Spartan armor machine in the server room, the one we found the cables in. We did some digging in the machine's black box, and it looks like it used to have a set of MIRAGE."

Agryna sighed. "Well, as much as I hate to say it, we can't afford to look for them now with the current situation." She then remembered what the Marine said. "Wait, did you say 'mostly empty'?"

"I did, ma'am. The only piece left was the chestplate, and it looked like the machine didn't even try to put it on."

Who wouldn't take the entire set of armor? Agryna thought. Wait-

She turned to a nearby MJOLNIR technician. "Theoretically speaking, if Iratus can take control away from someone in armor, could he take control of an empty set?"

"It's certainly possible, ma'am," the tech answered. "It would remove the element of the operator, meaning he isn't fighting against the person inside it and doesn't need to keep them alive."

Agryna shook her head. "So the situation just got a lot more dangerous."

"That would be an understatement, ma'am."


Location unknown

Date unknown

Local time unknown

Hieu Dinh cracked his eyes open slowly. Sitting up, he noticed his HUD was booted up and activated his suit's diagnostic system, which came back all clear. Silently praising the people who designed RAKSHASA, Hieu took a look around.

It was mid-afternoon, around 1500 hours if Hieu wasn't mistaken, and he was on a beach by a small lagoon, with mountains surrounding the place. Forests lined the edge of the beach, and he noticed open sea outside the lagoon. This doesn't seem like a bad place to retire, Hieu mused. Now where's-

He panicked, remembering that his compatriot had been thrown into the portal with him. Quickly searching around, he sighed in relief when he spotted the other Spartan's gray armor a few dozen meters to the left of where he landed, with the Bandit miraculously still undamaged. Reaching the Spartan, he immediately went to work rescuscitating his friend.

"You awake?" asked Hieu. The Spartan weakly nodded. "Don't move. You're not in any condition to move far."

Disregarding Hieu's order, the Spartan rolled over and stuck an armored fist into the ground to get up. Slowly standing, the Spartan glanced around, and asked only one question: "Where the heck are we?"


Unknown location

Unknown date

Local time roughly 1600

Wandering into the nearby forest, the unlucky duo had elected to gather supplies for survival while they figured out where they were. Hieu had drawn his machete and was gathering wood for a fire, while the Spartan was at the lagoon seeing if there were fish to be caught.

They had set up camp in a small clearing. The clear skies indicated that there wouldn't be any storms, so the pair agreed that a proper shelter would be set up the next day.

Hieu came back to the campsite at what he estimated was 1600 hours with an armful of assorted sticks and branches. After clearing the immediate area of anything that might be flammable, he began setting up the fire.

The Spartan returned just as the fire was lit. Cuts of what looked like fish meat were being carried.

"Why didn't you just take the fish here?" asked Hieu.

"The fish was too big to carry. Easily four meters," answered the Spartan.

"...And you killed it, how?"

"I took a swim."

"Right."

The meat was over the fire soon after the flames had cooled enough for cooking. When they were sure none of it was raw, it was removed from the fire, and they split the food between them.

"Not bad for mystery fish," the Spartan said after taking a bite.

"Tastes like salmon," Hieu agreed.

Remembering something Iratus said, the Spartan decided to ask a question. "Iratus called you a spy before we ended up here. You wouldn't mind shedding some light on that, would you?"

Hieu grunted. "I was an ONI field analyst before I became a Spartan, so?"

The Spartan shrugged. "Just curious."

An uneasy feeling unexpectedly came over the pair while they ate. "Do you feel like we're being watched?" Hieu asked.

Suddenly, a small group of women dropped from the trees and surrounded the pair. Numbering five in total, they wore armored green dresses, white and red makeup, and golden headdresses, unique to each woman, and wielded gold-colored fans. The Spartans rose from their seated positions and donned their helmets.

"Who are you?" one of them demanded more than asked. She had a headdress with four protrusions coming out of the front.

"To answer your question, I do believe we were watched," the Spartan said sarcastically.


AN: And that's Chapter 2 done! If you paid attention to the description of the second-to-last scene, you would notice we are on Kyoshi Island. I plan on having our duo wait a couple days before meeting the Gaang, if only so I have an excuse to write a filler chapter. We've also met the Kyoshi Warriors, who gave Hieu and the Spartan a similar welcome party to the Gaang in the show. Before you ask, no, I don't plan on killing any of them off as a result of the Spartans. How that will be achieved is going to be revealed in Chapter 3.

On the Academy side of things, Iratus has officially begun his takeover. I decided to give a semi-first-person perspective of the "infection" starting to add a bit of weight to what's happening. Agryna's busy trying to figure out how to deal with Iratus, and the portal artifact is missing for now.

Anyway, I'm beginning to think I'm gonna need to name the currently unnamed Spartan myself. If you have any ideas for a name before Chapter 3 releases, please leave a review with said idea.

Please leave a review telling me what I can improve on as I continue to write this story. This is my first fanfic, so there's undoubtedly things I can change.

This is Believer218, signing off.

Edit: minor AN and dialogue changes.