- Wolverfrog
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- Fabled Legendary Member
Here is the first part of the Epilogue to Insurrection. It is shorter than subsequent parts will be. Thanks to Steadman for "steaditing." I hope you enjoy this small teaser, I'm constantly working very hard on the Epilogue so it is as rich and satisfying as possible. You won't need to wait too long for the next part.
Epilogue - Part 1
John awoke slowly, his head pounding with the sound of a thousand drums. The world swam before his eyes, his ears were ringing. Groggily, he moved his hands before his face, and was relieved to learn they were still there. A voice was distantly battering at his mind, incessant and shrill. He smacked the side of his head, attempting to clear his head of the voice, but it didn't stop.
"Chief!"
Memories were associated with that single, powerful word. Running through the jungle with his Spartans back on the Reach undergrowth, searching for an Insurrectionist leader. All had been wearing black jumpsuits. Fred was creeping through the darkness, twin knives held in hands. They were stained with dried human blood. Linda held a silenced long range rifle in her hand, the scope practically unused as she picked off targets with hawk-like vision. Kelly stealing through the night, falling upon unsuspecting victims with a swift and deadly precision, snapping necks and suffocating. Sam, the tallest of them all, not making an effort to hide himself as he ripped insurrectionists to pieces with his lightly gauntleted hands. Kurt, conferring with John, assessing the situation and always talking. William, determined and always keeping up morale with clever jokes and befuddling riddles. His family, working together as a singular force.
And then crushing reality kicked him in the stomach, and John felt sick. All of them were dead. He was the last Spartan.
"Chief!" the voice cried again, quite concerned. But John didn't want to wake up. He just wanted to lie down forever, and drift off into oblivion, with his Spartans. They'd be reunited again. A sudden, sharp pain in the side. Another shout. Hands shaking him constantly, voices muttering.
"Spartan, awaken! It's time to leave."
John stubbornly refused to open his eyes or engage his brain. He was done with life, not that it had been much of a life anyway. The earliest thing he could remember was Halsey taking him away. And since then, his life had been war. There was nothing else. There could be nothing else.
Suddenly, a deadly familiar sound. That of a gun being drawn from it's holster. Raw instinct kicked in despite his wishes to die and he leapt to his feet, surging in the direction of the gun. He didn't even need to think or see as he grabbed the arm holding it, twisted and batted the firearm out of the hand holding it.
"Heh, I knew that would work," Sergeant Johnson chuckled, staring up at John with a triumphant smirk. "Okay Chief, you can let go of my arm now. Ow!"
His vision cleared, and he saw his hands grasping Johnson's scarred and torn arm in a deadly grip. He stared dumbly at it for a few moments, before relinquishing his hold and drawing back.
"Sorry," John muttered quietly, assessing the room. He was still in the Gravemind's lair. But there was no Gravemind in sight. He saw Avery Johnson and Thel Vadam' watching him, still concerned. He could sense Cortana inhabiting his armour, although the world felt strangely colourless without his MJOLNIR helmet.
"You've been out cold a few hours at least, you were too close to the Gravemind when he. . . I actually don't know what happened. All I know is that suddenly he was dead, and you were lying on the floor," Johnson informed him, exhaling a puff of smoke. Without his helmet, John inhaled the second hand toxins, and nearly gagged as a result of the strong vapour.
"So the Gravemind's really dead?" John demanded, still feeling a little shaken, as if he would have a nervous breakdown at any moment. The room had become eerily silent, almost scarily so. For some reason John wanted nothing more than to leave.
"See for yourself, Spartan," Thel intoned, pointing up at the pedestal the Gravemind had once inhabited. A pool of rotting, biological mass. Dead contours were indented into the remains of the Gravemind, letting off a odd looking vapour. And in the middle of it--
"Mendicant Bias?" John marvelled, striding towards the pedestal and the inactive spherical monitor lying in the centre of it amidst the Gravemind's corpse. Johnson grabbed him before he drew any nearer to it.
"Not so fast Chief, we don't know how dangerous that piranha plant's remains are. Yeah, we see tinkerbell too. He looks pretty dead, Chief," the sergeant told him sadly, shaking his head. "As much as he got on my nerves sometimes, I kinda liked him. At least he didn't shoot me with a laser."
John shrugged off the other human's hand, and kept moving towards the inactive Forerunner AI. He leaped up onto the large, elevated platform, scratched and weary green boots splashing through the almost liquid body of the Gravemind, which oozed unpleasantly under his feet. The stench was atrocious, but he kept moving anyway.
Finally, he reached the centre of the pedestal where a dead god now lay sprawled, and bent down to touch Mendicant Bias gently. The lifeless looking monitor spun slightly, before once again remaining still. He was covered in biological Flood mass, and no light emanated from him.
"Mendicant?" John asked softly, but there was no reply. The Forerunner AI was completely, and totally dead. It must have burnt out when unleashing the virus upon the Gravemind. John bowed his head mournfully, gently placing two hands upon its chassis, wiping away some of the biomass tarnishing its beautiful surface. He could see small Forerunner runes line the body of it, thousands upon thousands of them neatly rowed up. Affectionately he traced a path across a line of them with a finger, sighing.
Then, a spark. A fleeting, momentary race of blue across the thin surface, over so quick that John as almost convinced he'd imagined it. He looked back at Johnson and the Arbiter, but they hadn't seen anything. Still, he had. And it was enough.
He tentatively picked the small casing of the monitor up, brushing away further remains of the Gravemind. Once again he was astounded by how truly beautiful the monitor was up close, and the amount of intricate detail that no normal eye could ever see.
"You wanna take him with us?" Johnson asked sympathetically. "Sure, we can give him a burial, or burning, or something."
John hopped off the pedestal deftly, holding the AI out before him, analysing.
"I think he might still be alive," the Spartan remarked shrewdly. Thel looked sceptical.
"He said himself that being put into the Gravemind would kill him, Spartan. Do not overly grieve him, for he died happily and with no regrets. Now, we should find this ship's bridge and head back to Sangheilios. With the Gravemind dead, there is no doubt that we shall secure a swift and decisive victory," the Arbiter told him, unconsciously clenching his fist as he did so. John stared at Mendicant Bias for a few more moments, before nodding and affixing the inactive chassis to his back via the clips he used to hold his rifle.
"Then let's get moving," he began, before suddenly being interrupted by a bronze light materialising in the air before him. He stepped back wearily, whipping a pistol out and aiming it at the source.
Offensive Bias appeared, staring straight down the barrel of the M6G. The rampant AI stared curiously at it for a few moments, before the light in its eye focused on John.
"You! What are you doing here? Where is the--" Offensive Bias broke off as it drifted sideways slightly, looking behind the trio at the Gravemind's decayed and putrid corpse. It stared blindly at the remains for a few moments, the red light in its eye increasing in intensity, before uttering a few words.
"No," it protested, denying the scene before it. It frantically began to pulsate, making despaired noises. "You haven't-- this is a trick!"
John stepped forward determinedly.
"No trick," he told the tarnished AI, before letting a round loose from his pistol. It passed straight through the shimmering Offensive Bias, and he realised it was merely a holographic projection.
"You've ruined everything!" Offensive Bias shrieked at him, the image of it blurring slightly in a wave of static. "Why? Why must you people always destroy and neglect everything wondrous? What's wrong with you!"
John put his pistol back into its holster, knowing that he couldn't do anything to harm the AI nor could it directly harm him. He moved a tired hand across his eyes.
"Nothing is wrong with us, Offensive Bias. We just finished what you were created to do. Your primary programming has been fulfilled. You're free," the Spartan told it softly. Offensive Bias' red flame dulled to a kinder blue for a moment, but just as quickly reverted back to its crimson colour.
"No! I will never be free now, thanks to you! Well you're going to pay, do you understand? You may have ruined everything, but you will die!" it screamed at him, and the hologram began to glow vividly. Suddenly, John felt the entire ship creak and shudder, making horrendous noises as it began to sway dangerous.
"What did you just do?" he demanded icily of the fallen Forerunner AI, who laughed maniacally.
[Edited on 08.21.2010 10:43 AM PDT]