A broad echoey, cathedral, on and on formed of metal etchings and and geometrical shapes that Shepard had never seen before pieced together in elaborate arcs and meticulously constructed to form beings of light and cosmicity. Blue shadows wiped across the great room, dancing across Shepard's body. He looked down. His armor was mostly intact. Some minor scratches and dents here and there…
And about a dozen meters ahead...was the Master Chief. He was slowly trying to get up. His armor was in okay shape all things considered. Beyond him, another dozen meters, laying in the middle of the platform they were on, was the black bomb. It looked deactivated. At least, the Commander hoped so.
Shepard realized something. He looked down at his stomach…
"You...had stabbed me," Shepard said weakly. He remembered feeling the ka-bar pierce right between his plates, rip apart his inlay undersuit, and hit his stomach. The Commander tried to observe more carefully. He saw his undersuit, where the knife wound should've been, was patched up.
The Master Chief rolled over onto his hands and knees. In the blue shadows, his olive green armor had darkened. His orange visor was now a deep reddish-black. He looked to the bomb, then to Shepard.
"Nothing personal," he simply replied, sounding in better condition than the Commander.
The Commander assumed they both didn't know where the hell they were. But he knew he still had to stop the Chief. He reached down for his sidearm… Only to find it missing. At least the Spartan didn't seem to be armed either… But considering his hand-to-hand combat training, it didn't seem to matter.
The Master Chief unsteadily stood up. He looked around, "Blue Team? Are you receiving? Hal copy?"
Shepard heard the static emitted from his helmet.
"Blue Team, come in?"
Nothing.
Another light source illuminated the Commander. It came from behind. Shepard looked to it. About twenty meters ahead, three massive coils laid ahead. A central coil surrounded by jutting pillars and the two other, smaller coils. The main coil emitted a bright cyan-like green while the one on the right glowed dark, menacing red. The other on the left emitted a comforting bright blue.
Shepard stared at the great coils. He noticed the designs of the cathedral walls were Forerunner architecture, and the same to lead and form around these coils. The arcs circled and danced around each jutted pillar and carecessed the coils themselves.
"Where the hell are we?" The Commander whispered to himself.
As he continued to stare at the coils, they quickly became distorted. They grew farther and farther away, lengthening and becoming morphed in shadow. Something spoke, and its graveling, deep voice echoed along the arcs of the Cathedral walls.
"This is the monument to all our sins…" It said.
The Master Chief instinctively reached for his rifle, only to realize its missing. He reached for his Ka-bar, and realizing that's missing to, he raised his fists in a defensive stance.
The coils returned back to their normal position. The Commander got up, feeling nauseous and shaky.
"You heard it too…?" Shepard asked, maintaining his distance. He tried activating his Omni-tool. Like on Illium, nothing appeared, save only for a slight sting in his wrists. "I heard it before… I don't remember where. What the hell is that thing?"
The Master Chief didn't say anything. He walked over to the Nova Bomb. Shepard nearly scrambled before the Spartan quietly spoke, "no use. All nine fusion cores have been removed."
"And placed where?"
"Wherever our weapons are I would think," the Chief replied.
Shepard looked around. The platform stretched on until it was consumed by absolute blue and black shadows… There seemed to be no way outta here.
Shepard suddenly realized that they came out of the coils. He walked the distance to them. The center coil laid empty. A black circular pit stood in the middle. Shepard looked down. It leads to nothingness.
"Won't work… Trying to go back," the Master Chief said. Shepard somehow didn't realize he had followed him.
"How do you know?"
"We went through a portal…"
Shepard looked back, "Forerunners?"
The Chief didn't say anything, standing very still as he looked down in the abyss. Shepard only noticed the small blue core at the very center of the blackness.
"Yes," the Chief finally said after a moment.
Shepard nodded, "where?"
"Anywhere in the galaxy," the Chief replied.
How is that possible? Shepard wanted to ask. His first thought went to quantum entanglement on a physical level. Liara explained it in the past, and it just went from one ear out the other. Highly theoretical, to the point not even the Protheans achieved anything like it…
But the more Shepard witnessed in the past few months, the more he was ready to believe in anything.
"Whoever wanted us here obviously wanted us to get along," Shepard said.
"Or wanted us to get killed," the Chief said. He turned back to the ever extending platform. "We need to move now. We need to link up back with our teams."
Shepard didn't say anything. A few minutes ago - at least to his perspective - he stuck a damn grenade on him for nearly killing billions upon billions of people, for nearly cracking a damn planet.
And he seemed to just brush it off…
The Master Chief knew what he meant. He proceeded to walk down the platform, slowly and carefully.
"I understand the sacrifices we all have to make…" the Commander began. "I want to know why? Is it just intel sanitization? Was it just to cover the UNSC's asses!?"
The Master Chief continued. As they proceeded into the darkness, dim blue electronic light lit the way.
"If it were, the UNSC would be more precise," the Master Chief replied. "Assassination wetwork. Your team wouldn't have made it back alive."
"So you think."
"Commander, if that ship made it into enemy hands, then every single living being in the galaxy would be in danger," the Chief said.
That was...out of nowhere. So much information in a single sentence. He nearly tripped. That thing was a ship? How the hell did it get down there? For over fifty-thousand years? If it were Forerunner then…
Even the Protheans merely 'discovered' it.
What did that ship do? What could it do that made it a larger threat, larger compared to the Reapers.
Shepard wanted to press, but he stopped himself. He only asked one thing, "what did you tell me this?"
"We're in immediate danger. If protocol becomes a detriment to the safety of the team or success of the mission, then whatever's necessary to reduce or eliminate these detriments takes absolute priority, even above Cole Protocol," the Spartan said. They approached a gap. An abyss of pure blue fog. Across was the other side of the platform, thirty meters away.
"And what's the detriment then?"
Next to the gap was a console, with a singular blue holographic arb surrounded by curved crafted metal.
The Chief approached the console, then turned to the Commander, "we triggered a trap. Enemy Forerunner constructs. They don't want us to touch this place. Whatever the security system is here took away our weapons. They want to target us. If you're in the dark, then you'll get my team and I killed. We're already dealing with one enemy, I don't need to deal with another on this mission. Understand the scope we're dealing with."
"And the mission is still to blow up Thessia?"
"The mission is to stop this ship from falling into enemy hands, and contain the Forerunner threat," the Chief replied. "The UNSC deployed a Nova Tactical Nuke because it's guaranteed the threat will be stopped. Civilian casualties were determined acceptable."
"If they were humans?"
"The solution still would've been the same."
"If it were Earth?"
The Master Chief didn't say anything for a moment. It told Shepard all he needed to know.
"Why didn't you tell us this beforehand?"
The Master Chief thought for a moment, "in my professional opinion, sir, you seem to be easily prone to emotional panic. That's what I observed on Thessia…. Considering the time factor and situation, I determined you were a possible liability."
Shepard sighed… For whatever reason, those words seemed to strangely relax him. His muscles untensed and he felt his shoulders drop, "and I shot at you."
"Yes, you did… According to the Asari before she died, we were surrounded. We walked right into a trap, and I made a decision as had you it seemed."
"So what does that mean now? What's the priority"
"I still have a mission to contain this threat. What we face in there, Prometheans and Sentinels, are nothing you have ever faced before. I've seen them cut down platoons of marines, and even fireteams of Spartan-IVs. They cut down that entire Asari team of three hundred soldiers, and seemingly cleared out the Reapers so much so the Reapers decided to quarantine the place rather than engage. My team is my priority. The mission is the top priority. The decision is out of your hands, Commander."
He waved the Commander over to the console. Shepard slowly and cautiously approached the console. The Chief assuringly nodded. Shepard placed his hand on the console, and the orb disappeared and the metal twisted away. The console sank into the floor.
A mirage of blue light appeared across the gap. Solid blue light, a bridge, connected the platforms.
"What is that?" Shepard asked.
"Hardlight…" the Chief said.
Hardlight? "As in materialized light?"
"I believe so," the Spartan carefully walked across the bridge. The blue light supported his weight. No bends or deformities appeared in the light itself.
The Commander was next. He placed one foot on the bridge. It felt like solid concrete. He smashed his foot on the light. Didn't move. Didn't budge. He stepped on, and quickly walked across the thirty meter bridge. Just like solid concrete.
And once both were across, the bridge deactivated. The light disappeared.
"What the hell?" Shepard said. It wasn't a hologram like QEC comms or a Omni-tool. Solid light…
"Write it in the report later. We need to keep moving," the Chief ordered.
...
"If there's time to find another way, will you do it?" Shepard asked as they proceeded forward into the infinite blue.
The Chief thought about it for a moment. They've been walking for over half-an-hour, covering about a klick. The platform just kept going.
"It looks like we have to," the Chief said, now referring to the defunct bomb.
"And that voice?" Shepard asked.
Again the Chief was silent… Shepard saw something in the distance. A faint blue light. It would be a while before they approached.
"Enemy," the Chief said. "Something worse than the Reapers."
Shepard doubted that, "here?"
"We would've seen him by now," the Chief replied. "It might be something else."
"That narrows it done," the Commander said. "Big enough threat to blow up a planet?"
"If you understood the scope, then yes."
"Master Chief, I trust your judgement," Shepard said. "But you can't ask us to make sacrifices without telling us the stakes!"
Again, the Spartan remained silent. A longer silence this time. The Commander guessed he was done talking.
Monument to our sins… the voice said. Shepard heard that voice before. No idea where, but he swore to God it felt familiar. A cold, infecting presence that nearly reached out and touched his soul. He kept thinking, and his mind took him to the dream… To the trees.
There.
He had heard the voice there. The Commander didn't remember how, he didn't remember when, but it was there he first heard it…. And if the Chief heard it, then a fragment of those dreams must be real… Somehow.
Was it simply the Reapers? Maybe the UNSC had contact with them before, never realized it…
He had no idea… He had no idea how to even begin to piece it all together.
"You're a soldier, Commander," the Spartan suddenly said. "Like me. You're to follow orders as needed and complete the mission without question."
"That's the main defense of war crime perpetrators," Shepard retorted. "You told us nothing at the Temple. What do you know?"
"Those constructs, the Prometheans and Sentinels, utilize hardlight weapons. Energized, materialized photons that can easily cut through the best shield technology. We have no intelligence how your weapons will work against them, but based on what we saw in the Temple, they don't work well."
And Shepard wasn't sure if that was a retort or a legitimate input by the Spartan. Based on what Captain Lasky said, the Commander will treat it as absolute focus on the mission.
"And what does work?"
"UNSC conventional weapons," the Chief said. "At close range, Assault Rifles and Shotguns provide the most damage."
"Explosives and heavy weapons…"
"Naturally," the Chief replied. The blue light began to become more clear. It was a orb, actually a pure circle, with a black center encircled by twisting electronic shadows.
"Is this another portal?" Shepard quietly asked.
"Only way out," the Chief said. "Unless you have a better way."
Whatever brought them here obviously wanted them to go this way. The Chief began to sprint towards the portal. Shepard followed, unable to keep up as the Spartan was already a few dozen meters away.
When the Commander finally reached the portal, he was out of breath. As for the Spartan, he seemed to not even break a sweat underneath that tonne armor.
The portal was rather large, maybe twice the height of Shepard. The Chief, without hesitation, was about to step through before the Commander stopped him.
"Do we know what's on the other side?"
"Hopefully something that can be killed."
…
Falling.
Shepard hit the ground. Hard. Hard enough where his kinetic barriers kicked in, and if he didn't have the armor he was sure to have a few broken ribs.
He looked around. Pale white and blue light filtered in from prisms above, shining upon whimsing cherry blossoms that adorned the floor with its pinkish-white petals. The grey metal floor was lined with soft red signal lights… The Commander looked around. Planter boxes and walled garden sections with various alien plants now burning and covered in wreckage…
They were aboard the Citadel.. How?
Not only that, but they were in the Council Chambers.
Shepard's hearing cleared up… Emergency klaxon. Evacuation… Red lights flashed above. He saw bullet cases scattered all over the floor.
What the hell?
Did it happen? Did the UNSC usurp the Council? How? Why now? Why so violently?
Shepard's heart jumped at those thoughts before he calmed himself. He looked over. The Master Chief was a couple meters away. He grabbed a single shell casing and got up.
"No visible UNSC manufacturing markings," the Chief said.
"You didn't make them?" Shepard said. "You're the only people who uses lead."
"I know," the Chief replied. He looked around. The Chambers were empty… Shepard thought he heard the distant crackling of conflicting weapons reports.
"How the hell did we end up here?" Shepard asked. "We traveled hundreds of light years in...instantly. At least, it felt instantly to me…."
"I think we have more important matters, sir," the Master Chief replied as he looked to a fireteam of dead C-SEC officers. No weapons in sight.
Shepard got up… His weapons were still missing…
And he's still trying to figure out how the hell they got here… He forced himself to focus on the situation, pushing himself out of tiredness.
"ONI?" Shepard said.
"Possibly," the Spartan said as he moved forward down the defensible stairs towards the main floor of the Chambers.
Empty echoes… Distant gunfire. Lead by the sounds of it… There was no life here.
"We don't know for sure," the Chief added.
Do we? Shepard's sure after trying to destroy half a planet, someone on the Citadel probably found out. Hell, maybe it was step one of a UNSC purge.
So why the hell was Shepard still even alive? He figured if the Spartan wanted to smash his head in, he simply could. Shepard was sure he had the contingency orders to.
The Commander got up. Even without weapons, the Spartan did his best to ensure the room was secure, "no movement," he announced.
Already, the Spartan was on the move. Shepard looked around. The Councilors were gone…
"How…?" Shepard whispered.
...
Something passed by Florence's head. It wasn't lead-based ammunition, and it certainly wasn't eezo-based slug projectiles. Instead, bright green and blue bolts of light passed overhead, making a splashing sound as they hit solid matter.
The enemy Spartans were finishing up with the C-SEC officers, and in turn it looked like there was nowhere to run.
Fuck this.
Mark raised his battle rifle and did his best to lay down some sort of suppressive fire. This might be it.
Spartans began to cut off all possible routes of egress. The civilians were trapped. Diplomats, embassy workers, the whole load.
One of the Spartans saw the Captain - he was sure of it. Instead of providing precision accuracy, he sprinted towards Mark, his shields absorbing any rounds fired from the Captain's rifle.
The Spartan grabbed the Captain's rifle and threw it away. He wanted to take him alive.
Mark reached for his sidearm. The Spartan grabbed his sidearm, forcing him to let go of the pistol.
Fuck. No this shit again.
Cole Protocol dictates action. He could not be taken. Not again.
Something, a green shadow, tackled the bulky Spartan and smashed him against the nearby window. It shattered into pieces, letting in the rush of gusty winds from the high Presidium. Pieces of glass struck Mark's face and fell down his uniform collar. More light from outside seemed to seep in.
Mark looked to what it was and…
Holy shit.
The Master Chief had tackled the Spartan to the ground, and with one hand ripped off the exoskeletal joint on his right shoulder. With a single fist, he punched the enemy Spartan's visor. It cracked in several places, a tremor which threw golden glass shards in various directions. He targeted the exoskeleton that covered the armor. He grabbed a joint point and ripped it off. Sparks flew and hit the floor, absorbed by the water as fire sprinklers activated.
He threw away the joint, grabbed the Spartan's assault rifle and finished him off with an entire clip into his chest.
Without word, he turned to the other enemy Spartans and made quick work of them. In controlled three round bursts, he knocked out the shield of the nearest one. Out of his belt he pulled out a plasma grenade and thew it. Pinpoint accuracy, stuck right center on the enemy's chest.
The enemy knew it was the end. He charged the Master Chief as the plasma grenade grew brighter and brighter. The Chief calmly aimed down the assault rifle and fired a single shot. Mark saw blood trickle down his neck, right under his helmet. The enemy Spartan fell flat on the ground right as the grenade exploded. Scorching hot plasma ignited, melting a arm and eating away at the armor and exoskeleton. His body was knocked back a few feet, and all that was left was a scorching black carcass in a pool of superheated water.
"Captain…" the Master Chief. "Sierra-117 on deck."
Captain Florence looked to Commander Bailey…. Mark was sure his face displayed the same amount of shock as his.
….
"Master Chief! We got incoming!" Shepard said.
It was a massacre…
A sea of bodies, interlude with pools of water, covered the Embassy lobby floor. Most of the enemy (whoever the hell they were) had pushed forward to clear out another area as a few remained to clear our stragglers…
A few Spartans.
But there were a lot of differences. Even Shepard noticed it at first. Comparatively far more bulky compared to standard UNSC Spartans. And unlike the fluid and violent motion of Blue Team, it was as if their armor weighed them down and had to compensate for it. Like watching Marines outfitted in reinforced kevlar, they weren't conditioned or altered to go long periods like regular Spartans.
It's as if the armor was foriegn to them. Unnatural.
Commander Shepard peaked out of cover and saw multiple enemy troops on a balcony running to the Embassy lobby. It was a six man team. Four were advancing towards them, while two provided suppressive fire from the balcony. Of the two, one had a machine gun of some sort, and the other had an elongated purple rifle that was able to provide fire discipline
Shepard got a closer look. Redundant armor covering the chest, and heavy shoulder pauldrons. They had submachine guns and reinforced riot shields. The helmet, however…
It looked exactly like the Chief's…
Spartan…
The four rushed Shepard. The Commander activated his reinforced tech shields and fired an incineration round from his Omni-tool. It splattered against the nearest Spartan's riot shield, melting the metal. Shepard quickly placed micro-land mines and jumped over the railing, landing in the middle of the lobby.
The Master Chief had quickly taken out the Spartans in the room. Their bodies laid amongst the dead… The ones intact exploded in bursts of superheated plasma. Fragments interfered with the Commander's kinetic barriers and smoldered on his armor.
In the corner of the room, Shepard saw a handful of survivors in the corner of the lobby. A handful of civilians and C-SEC officers… Among them was Commander Bailey and Captain Florence. Their shock turned from the Master Chief to the Commander.
"You're supposed to be on fucking Thessia-" Florence was immediatly interuppted by a stray plasma round.
The soldier providing fire discipline fired a shot, scraping past the Commander. More accurate than even most Cerberus Assassins, Shepard was forced to hunker down behind a planter box. Green residue from the shot had bounced onto his collar, breaking past the kinetic barriers. He saw it burn through metal, slowly melting it until it stopped after a quarter centimeter deep.
Shepard took out his helmet and put it on.
The four rushers pushed forward and jumped into the central lobby. One closed the remaining distance faster than anything Shepard had seen. And now he was right in front of Shepard. He was barreled onto the ground. The Commander twisted and sporadically fired. Flickers of light sparked around the enemy Spartan… shields- just like the UNSC Spartans.
Before the enemy Spartan could fire, the Master Chief tackled him down. The Chief stripped his weapon, aimed it and fired off multiple rounds. The shields immediately broke, and a bolt of plasma pierced his helmet. The soldier Chief tossed the weapon to Shepard.
"Type-fifty-one Covenant Carbine, radioactive projectiles. Sixteen rounds left. I'll find my own. Tell me if you need to reload." The Chief stated. He leaped out of cover and proceeded to engage the remaining three.
Hell, he didn't even wait for Shepard to provide fire discipline. Guess the Spartan didn't need it
Shepard crawled over to the dead Spartan soldier and removed his helmet. If the Commander guessed correctly, he had less than thirty seconds before the body exploded. The helmet was locked tight. Shepard jammed the barrel of the carbine of what looked like the lock mechanism and fired.
His Omni-tool indicated a spike of radiation. The bolt had melted through the metal. He hastily ripped off the helmet. And..
Reaper cybernetic augmentation. In the middle of his forehead was a singeing hole the size of his thumbnail. Right where the Chief shot him.
He's seen this type of augmentation before, and it couldn't be…
Cerberus...
The Commander moved just as the exoskeleton structure ignited and the body exploded. He moved to the opposite cover and peaked out. The Chief was already engaged with one of the rushers, ripping off a piece of his armor before slamming his fist into the opening. The wet crunch was audible, even amidst the chaos. The Chief barreled forward, sparing nigh a glance at his previous target. He stripped the gun from another enemy Cerberus Spartan as his Mjolnir-armored arm crashed into the enemy's neck and shoulder, toppling him over onto the floor. Like lighting, a multi-ton boot bolted upon the Cerberus helmet. Crystal glass, forged metal, and flesh all exploded together.
Violence made flesh and synthetic… the cacophony of shots from the enemy pair above, tore the Commander back into the present. He raised his arm and fired an incineration round at the firing team. The enemies' ducked, taking cover, as their background was showered in flame. Shepard fired upon them with precise bolts. Yet, they did not yield. They leaned over and fired back.
Ducking down into cover, Shepard peered closely at the strange ammo indicator of the purple rifle, noticing the indicator was now closer to the red. Debris bursted off from his cover and he snapped his head away. Shepard took a few breaths and raised up his aim.
Eight precise shots. Four bolts of green for each enemy. Each bolt sliced through shields, armor and flesh. They collapsed down, like sacks of lifeless meat.
"Good shooting."
The Commander looked back down. The Master Chief loomed over his kills. The four rushers. Their limbs entangled and wound in impossible angles. Craters of pure force bore deep into their armor. Shepard peered into a cleaved visor and saw a wide eye… shock and awe. Shock. And. Awe.
"Jesus fucking Christ…" Captain Florence said. "Never fucking though I see the Chief in action in my career."
"Yeah… Me neither," Shepard whispered.
Shepard was about to say something. He heard the echo of footsteps. Metal, heavy footsteps that cracked the glass floor underneath. Down each hallway, dozens of Cerberus Spartans converged on their location. Snipers and spotters took position above.
"Do we have reinforcements?" Shepard said.
"I had two Spartans. We got separated," Mark replied. "More than likely they're either dead or lead a good chunk of them away."
Yeah. Good chunk.
"We don't need them," the Chief as the enemy formed a cordon around the surrounded group. Shepard saw no way out. "Stay in cover. Do not give support.
"I'll clear the way."