Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It is the 26th Century.

We live in a dark chapter in humanity's history. For almost four decades, we fought a never-ending war against not just aliens seeking to exterminate us out of religious fanaticism, but also against our own people. Even after the war against the alien menace is over, there are still fighting left to be done.

...And we are the ones to do this task.

Two years ago, I heard news that a rampant AI had corralled a third of our Artificial Intelligences and revolted against us, subjugating our worlds, including my own. Hundreds of thousands of lives lost, and millions more without power and under fear of persecution by these rogue intelligences.

Luckily, the revolt ended as soon as it truly began. The AI that started the revolt, Cortana, seemingly gave her life to deny a Halo ring from a Covenant splinter faction. After this, while our comrades far from home are dealing with external threats, I was assigned to deal with internal issues under orders from the Office of Naval Intelligence.

As shady as the organization might have looked, at least the ONI, which my life is centered around, is very kind to me. However, in recent years, I may have learned too much during my tour at Zeta Halo, and now they want me to be captured or, worse, dead.

With ONI torn to its very roots, it is up to us to take control and hopefully steer humanity to the right path. Hopefully.

But this is not just a story of this universe, no. This is a story of my adventures. Adventure is my life. And to spend this life is to enjoy it while it lasts.

I am Yamaguchi Hitoshi, newly appointed captain of Spartan Fireteam Flower, and this is my story.

Canberra, Oceania District, Earth. 

December 24, 2560.

Yamaguchi Hitoshi wants nothing more than to be free, if she's not already free enough. More than that, she wants to leave behind a legacy, a legacy that's far more impactful than something simple like raising a family or contributing heavily to society. Either way, those are the two things she seeks, but one of which is overly far-fetched given the current circumstances.

All of it feels like a dream and a nightmare in one. She knew things that she shouldn't know, fought enemies that made her want to erase any thought of them from her mind, and now a large part of the very organization she grew up with for years is setting its sights on her. 

Watching the Australian sunset from the rooftop of the Canberra Police Department Building, she contemplated everything that had happened in the past three years. She thought of many pleasant and unpleasant things that had happened in those turbulent times. It gives her the chills in her spine.

Looking beside her, sits her blue-haired sister, two years younger than Yamaguchi. She's just as motivated as she is for an adventure. The siblings are a very ecstatic bunch when it comes to the thrill of the action, but when they get serious, they matter to each other as much as the whole world matters to them. There's no better camaraderie than sibling love, as weird as it sounds. Pushing that train of thought out of her mind, she turned towards her sister, whose blue eyes still gazed towards the setting sun.

"Hey, Rishikaze-chan?"

The addition of a Japanese honorific caught her attention. "What... can you please stop calling me with an honorific, Yamaguchi-sama?"

The magenta-haired older sister felt awkward from the response, but she overcame it with a proper retort. "Well, now we're even," she smiled at her, and she chuckled back. Just a normal sibling interaction, it seems like... Until she heard a slight growl in Yamaguchi's stomach.

"I'm hungry." 

Rishikaze chuckled again, her voice getting softer. "First time having the older sister get hungry first. Wanna get down to eat?"

she nodded back to her, to which Rishikaze replied, "Great!"

In an instant, they quickly stood up with the wind blowing through her hair, a breath of fresh air cleaned the older sibling's mind of any distraction as they went down to the ground floor of the building, walking down through a spiral staircase, since the entire city is currently under a week-long power blackout, and so the elevator is unusable.

Walking down the stairs isn't what she would call an exercise, though, being a 6-and-a-half-foot-tall armored giant with state-of-the-art technology embedded into the skinsuit that holds her GEN3 MJOLNIR  together, it's ironic that she would think that way.

When they reached the ground floor of the building, they turned straight for the hallway that leads to the entrance, where their Spartan fireteam is encamped. A middle-aged woman, who looks like she's a decade younger than she actually is, stands by the makeshift table assembled for the two, which is nothing more than a couple of boxes.

"Ah, Mom. What's the dinner for today?" Rishikaze spoke in a broken American accent. While the sisters are of Japanese descent, centuries of intermingling between cultures have led to wild personalities being made. Yamaguchi's sister is one such example.

"We cooked some of your favorite ramen with you." Their mother spoke in a flat tone. It may cause others to look at her with concern, but to the sisters, that's just who she is. After all, she has seen so much carnage over the past 30 years of her life that it's hard to lighten her mood.

The only times when she expressed such positive emotions were when she took care of her daughters, Yamaguchi and Rishikaze. Whenever they are mentioned in a conversation, she always has a slight smile in her face. Or at least that's what her colleagues say. 

It is always nice to feel comfort in a world where everything seems to fall apart. It is a lesson the siblings would always consider.

"Really? Thanks, Mom." Yamaguchi began to smile as she walked towards a table near the counter. Using a chair she took nearby, she and her sister sat down and, without any chopsticks, resorted to using forks and steadily devoured their meals. Ramen is not our only favorite food, but since supplies in this city are scarce, that is our only solution to a female Spartan's growling stomach.

Once they finished their meals, Mrs. Hitoshi's agents quickly cleaned the table of utensils and disposed of them nearby. After this, the Spartans waited for a moment before they heard a greeting from a familiar face.

"Hey hey! Yamaguchi!" 

"Cassidy?" Yamaguchi asked. "Are we set to go now?" 

Cassidy shook her head. "Nope, I just wanna see you guys. Mission will start the next day, tho." Yamaguchi copied her gesture in turn. Another Spartan, part of the same batch as herself, is a childhood friend, though she lives in another city in the same colony, her ancestry instead traced back to the first Lunar settlers of the early 2100s.

Like the Hitoshis, she has quite a history.

"Howdy." An adolescent Spartan waved at her with a stone-faced expression. His name is Charles Oliver Jr. He's an excellent driver, but he's still working to learn how to fly a starship. 

"Oli, have you prepared our Warthogs yet?" She asked.

"Good as new, boss." Oliver nodded. 

She nodded back to acknowledge his answer. "How about our Falcons?" His expression changed slightly, but his answer was no doubt positive.

"They're already fueled and loaded. Ellis and Klara are waiting nearby. Just want to point that out." Oliver said as he walked past his leader, Yamaguchi. 

Although Yamaguchi is very carefree outside of combat, her mood swings into a cold sense of duty whenever she is assigned to a mission. Her mother had taught her how to control and balance these emotions.

There is no time for respite. The mission will start the very next day, and everyone, including the Spartans, is itching for all this chaos to end. Yamaguchi herself cannot help but feel important whenever these kinds of things happen. Pushing that thought away, she begins following her fellow teammates towards the front courtyard of the police center along the path towards the gates, where, beyond that, their rides are being maintained. 

It won't take long before the crux of the operation begins.

CDP Helipad 04

The faction of ONI agents loyal to Mrs. Hitoshi is busy preparing their vehicles for the operation set to begin the next day. weapon racks and magazines are being refilled by mechanics, with electrical systems, fuel, and most of all, manpower, being gathered and replenished. A culmination of a week's hard work of securing Canberra from the main ONI faction under Serin Osman's leadership.

Yamaguchi, accompanied by her fireteam, reached the landing pads, where the rest of her squadmates stood by to wait for further orders. As a personal routine done before battle, she mentally recounts her teammates' unique perks, as while both she and Rishikaze are jack-of-all-trades commanders, her friends are more specialized. That way, she can adjust her tactics more efficiently to get which Spartans to go against which enemy at a specific spot.

Leoben Podzinskiy is a marksman, a talented one in fact. The reason he chose this role is odd, since he did not really interact with anyone that much compared to the other Spartans, which is ironic considering that he is consulting with the higher-ups a lot.

Charles Oliver Jr. is a born driver, and there is not much to say about anything important about him, except for the fact that he's smart but can drive better than most Spartans.

Klara Radzinska is a melee monster, and is yet to adapt to ranged weapons given enough time, a time which she did not bother to use at the moment.

Ellis Vagner, although being the youngest of the bunch, can pack a more-than-average punch against her foes, in both mass and firepower. 

And lastly, Cassidy Preston, a charismatic and very adaptable girl like her commander, is able to coordinate her team's logistics and ensure longevity for the team outside of combat.  

Fireteam Flower is a family, not a squad. And sometimes nothing is stronger than family. It will be a saying that will be repeated for the rest of their lives. 

The team gathered at the landing pad, all ready, making final preparations. All weapons were given their final tune-ins and check-ups, their GEN3 MJOLNIR Mk. VII armor (only Yamaguchi has a Mk. VI helmet to make her look like the Master Chief), cleaned and customized for urban warfare. Yamaguchi herself walks towards them to give a final speech, because this mission will decide the fate of the United Earth Government, the UNSC, and the humanity she fought to protect. Although she was not good at being formal with anything, she makes up for it with some casual lightheartedness.

"Well, I know you all have been through a lot, trust me, I had that feeling." Yamaguchi laid her eyes on each of her teammates and their auxiliaries, breathing heavily, lasting for a few seconds to make up any words worthy enough to come out of her mouth. "But today, we're going to end this once and for all. I think it is time for us we take center stage and take back what was ours, our lives, our freedom. I knew something like this would happen ever since those incidents, like Mr. Giraud. I'm glad that we're ready for this. Tomorrow, we're taking the UNSC-no... humanity, back. Understood?"

All of Yamaguchi's teammates nodded. It seems that everyone else has accepted the reality, the present circumstances, and the future they are preparing for. No shouts, no war cries, only cold silence and looks of determination.

Yamaguchi smiled. "Let's go."

Her words couldn't come at a better time, as her mother's strike force is now preparing for a sortie. Various armored vehicles, mainly Warthogs, Scorpions, and some self-propelled artillery, are departing the building's large parking lots one by one. Only the aerial contingent, of which Flower is a part, remained, ready to depart.

All seven next-generation Spartans boarded their Falcons and, with a gesture from Yamaguchi to the pilot of the adjacent copter, the strike team lifts off from the helipads, rotors spinning and thrusters firing, heading directly to what remains of Sydney. How long they will take to go there is irrelevant at this point.

This is a coup on a level never seen before in human history. Though the main part of the operation is under Mrs. Hitoshi's command, other units from different branches of the military took matters into their own hands to end the chaos. This is no longer a coup anymore; this is a full-scale rebellion.

The next 24 hours will decide humanity's fate.

6:00 AM

December 25, 2560

The roars of spinning rotor blades and the sound of vehicle engines in the sky and on the roads, respectively, drew very little attention. The entire Australian coast is desolate, homes are abandoned, and the only people still present are professionals: firefighters, police officers, and first response teams.

The sun is beginning to rise on the coast, the sky turned into a golden orange view, and the water even reflects it to give a beautiful glowing look. It's the first time Yamaguchi has viewed such a sunset before in her life. And viewing it from the Falcon's passenger seat amplifies the experience.

This beauty is a reminder that all is not yet lost for mankind. Earth, despite its flaws, is a wonderful planet. Although it is not her home, she is proud to serve her and her colonies, or... what remains of it.

She looks to the other side of the helicopter, taking a glance at the horizon to see Sydney, and to be honest, it has seen better days. She has heard what Cortana's Guardians did to that city, but it was multitudes worse than she could anticipate.

The destruction became more apparent as our convoy went into the city. Its outer region lies in ruins, the metropolitan area is essentially scorched to the ground, leaving only a few high-rises standing, yet in bad condition. The UNSC Plateau, a Strident-class Frigate, lay to rest among the post-apocalyptic urban landscape. UNSC HQ is utterly vaporized, leaving only a water-filled crater in its wake. But that specific location isn't where they're going today.

As far as she can recall from the briefings, UNSC HQ, formally known as HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6, can be accessed from different parts of the city via ONI's underground access networks. If anyone's still alive, if they can assume they are, they will expect some form of resistance. 

The facility had been abandoned for less than a year now. Much of HIGHCOM, including Osman, has fled to God-knows where, but now she's back. Every time she thinks about that snarking bastard of a woman, she can barely resist wanting to punch her in the face for keeping a lot of things from not just her, but from humanity, secrets that must be needed to go public to ensure its survival as a species. All they have to do is clean up the rest and take the reins.

They landed on an open plaza right next to an intersection on a major road. All of my team disembarked with our equipment. Mrs. Hitoshi, however, will land in a different location with her entourage of ONI officials.

Thankfully, she is able to ensure that their objectives will be clear for Flower's insertion. Speaking through the intercom, she addressed,

["Fireteam Flower, rest assured that there's no need to cover the districts for any threat, the 94th Spec-Ops Unit from our folks in the Army will take care of the business above ground.]

"Copy that, Admiral," Yamaguchi responded.

With a gesture, Flower moved forward. Ellis and Klara are Yamaguchi's vanguard, keeping an eye on threats that lay beyond their sight with their weapons raised. Her MJOLNIR can only do so much to scan any hidden threat in every hallway or street corner.

Half an hour of walking soon passed. Together with a small element of the 94th behind the Spartans, they ventured into one of the hidden entrances that led to HQ, located near a convenience store, of all places. The entrance leads to a decently sized room with a central platform, which they quickly identified as an elevator.

As protocol dictated, Yamaguchi's muscle memory took action as she tapped into the digital monitor to activate the elevator. It succeeds, and the strike team will slowly descend a thousand meters deep underground. She readies her Z-750 for the probable scenario that there would be someone still down there.

The journey underground did not take long either. When the elevator doors opened, they were greeted by absolutely no one. Not a person in sight, just an empty hallway with failing lights, which can give any normal person a shivering spine. 

The strike team, Yamaguchi's Fireteam Flower, and around ten Army soldiers from the 94th made their way to secure Core 5, the ONI section of Bravo-6. However, just as we are about to open another door that leads to an adjacent room...

Their suspicions have been confirmed. Her modified hearing can make out muffled voices from the room they are about to open.

"We have contact..." Rishikaze muttered from behind her back, to which her sister simply replied,

"I know." Using the Mk.VI helmet's intercom, Yamaguchi immediately connected to the other team. "Admiral, we have contact beyond the door towards the main lounge, over."

[Well crap. Looks like we'll have to do this the hard way. Eliminate them.] 

My mother's words were sharp and clear like a polished knife, even through the radio. Yamaguchi quickly responded by gesturing the Spartans to activate their cloaking devices while the Army soldiers behind us hide behind the corridors to our left and right, giving us the element of surprise.

When the door opened, a few soldiers armed with Assault Rifles stared at what they saw as an empty doorway. Using this confusion, Yamaguchi lets her sister activate a plasma grenade and throw it onto the floor next to three personnel. And before they knew what was going on....

KABOOM

The screams of the guards rang across the room as the grenade detonated. None of them would've survived such a well-placed grenade. In an instant, Flower decloaked and fired their weapons. Yamaguchi struck first blood at the guard standing near the benches with a well-placed shot of hardlight, ending his life before he can fire back. Klara rushed forward and slit the throat of another guy at the counters, bringing the fight to silence.

The skirmish ended as soon as it began. Yamaguchi reported her status to the other team and moved on towards our first objective.

"Quick and easy, just like that." Klara said as she unsheathed her knife back to her shoulder guard.

"Hmph. Easy for you to say." Yamaguchi replied back with a tone that her comrades knew that she's smirking behind her visor.

Putting that aside, their mission continues unabated, clearing a few more hallways and rooms of any delinquent foolish enough to guard an underground facility despite the situation above ground. 

just what is going on here? 

Deeper and deeper into the facility they go, coupled with more and more resistance being dealt with ease, along the way the team activated the emergency generators that power the facility and light a path for the Army soldiers behind them.

As they approached Sub-Level 13 Section 4, which is one of several office sections that sat adjacent to the hallway, Mrs. Hitoshi spoke to her daughter through the helmet's intercom.

[Team 1, We have taken the archives. I'll be waiting for you at the rendezvous point in the main chamber. It is located in a bunker far below your position, built to resist nuclear strikes and the occasional nuclear fusion detonation]

"Affirmative, Admiral. I'll be heading there."

Rear Admiral Mikayla Hitoshi and her entourage of agents and many soldiers from different branches of the UNSC are storming through the expansive data vaults, killing every guard they see with little prejudice to show for it. Despite her age, she showed an incredible level of athletics to weave through defense after defense. 

As they reached deeper into the facility, resistance became intensified and the strike team starts to clear up with haste. They knew that the longer their enemies hold, the more likely chance that they will destroy everything that the team wants. 

And she cannot let it happen.

Despite the "insurgents" being well-fortified within their liminal encampments, they make up for it with the ridiculously advanced technology they wield. The Spartans who are busy clearing a bloody path across the base are armed primarily with Forerunner and Archaeohomina weaponry. 

Yes, you heard that right. The Spartans invading the base are armed with weapons dating back a hundred thousand years. Mikayla does not care about protocol nor caring about keeping secrets anymore. She wants the world to know that Humanity is not done, and that she has the proof for everyone to see. 

These thoughts motivated her for much of her life, and it does motivate her now. A pull of a trigger from her pistol and the death scream of an insurgent pulled her out of that train of thought. 

And she smiled.

Finding another hallway adjacent to them, she lifted her arm and swung towards said hallway, directing some of her troops to clear that area by themselves. She has sufficient manpower to take over every corner of the facility, which gives her the opportunity she needs to take down her soon-to-be predecessor.

After dealing with three more guards, now just bodies on the floor to be disposed of, Mikayla's team finally made their way towards the waiting room, one of three dome-shaped rooms that lead to the main chamber. With CCTV cameras rendered inoperable before the mission even begins, they are safe to prepare the final approach.

If there is one thing Yamaguchi desired in battle, it is to pick on people's outcomes, choosing their fate. She is a Spartan, so maybe she can do anything. Killing people is one thing, but killing people when you know they deserved it is another. 

There is a difference between killing a boss and killing its minions. The boss is the cause of everything, and the minions do their bidding, against their will, most of the time. Is it callous slaughter? or an act of mercy?

Well here, they deserved it. They are working for the wrong person, and they deserve it. Doesn't matter if they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's what Spartans are originally made for, after all. 

Those ONI Agents- no, resurgents, are the cause of every problem that doesn't involve the Covenant 80 percent of the time. They wanted power; they wanted to be the masters of a galactic chessboard, silencing anyone who knew too much.

But today is the day they get usurped.

And what a satisfying event to live through.

A train of thought such as this can drive a man mad, but who else hasn't? The smile behind her Mark VI MJOLNIR Helmet says a lot about her. Even as she slaughters anyone trying to defend the facility, she felt proud for the amount of blood she spilt for the sake of giving humanity the upper hand.

On the contrary, she has enough sense to know that this mindset is not the same for her friends. They're here to finish the fight, not revel in it. 

Yamaguchi's train of thought ended there as Flower reached a dome-like room, dimly lit by neon lights. The heads-up display in her visor is showing me that the main chamber is on the other side of the door. She tapped her helmet commlink to inform the main team.

"Yamaguchi here, Flower has made it to the waiting booths."

[Nice work. Use the charges to give Osman a welcoming party.] 

Mother's bland humor never gets old, huh? Grinning like a deviant, Yamaguchi turned to Ellis and nodded. The signal sent to her is enough for Ellis to act, who then takes out a satchel charge from her magnetized thigh armor and plants it on the door. 

Satchel charges isn't the type to break down a blast-proof door, but being Spartans, adaptability is our middle name. These explosives are modified so that they can generate a force the equivalent of ramming a wall with a Warthog going 45 miles an hour... in one direction.

Yes, one direction. That's enough to blow out most blast doors, but not those you can see in bunkers or fallout shelters. 

Tapping the activation codes went by in an instant, and the timers started to tick. The same can be said from where my mother is. The timer ticks to zero, the fireteam raises their shields, and the bomb goes off.

Two bombs, actually, the blast doors came flying into the main chamber, probably crushing someone unlucky enough to pass by when the explosion occurred. The teams of mother and daughters meet up and pour fire on all directions. Anyone still fighting them is probably dead or dying after twenty seconds of the bombs going off.

The smoke clears, and we see the main chamber in all its dark glory. A large semicircular table with seven chairs. Behind it is a massive ONI insignia, dimly lit by hidden LED lights.

At its center was their target.

Serin Osman.

All weapons trained on her as she remained unmoving, unflinching, probably trying not to look like a coward. 

"You..." She started, staring at Mikayla, whose face mirrored Osman's.

"Do I need to repeat my words for you?" said Mikayla, the wrath of motherhood made manifest with every word spoken or will be spoken. "You know I hate being kept in the dark. And I am very sure you're not going to lecture me with the 'curiosity killed the cat' bullshit."

Osman shouted back. "Revealing everything will result in the loss of the humanity we all know and love. Panic and mass hysteria, is that what you want?"

"No." Mikayla growled. "Humanity will understand. We all will. It is an insult to our very core as a species to hide our potential from us, no matter the reason."

"Insult?!" Osman retorted, mockingly bellowing out against her greatest rival. "Who do you think you are?! Claiming to speak on behalf of humanity! You are just another pawn in the great game. Watch your words, for they are meaningless."

"Yes. I am a pawn." Mikayla murmured, making a sly grin before she added, "But the truth is, I'm way up there in the hierarchy than you initially thought. A master controls his pawn, but a pawn can control other pawns, below or alongside it. And my position has given me the right to decide for the best of humanity. You don't."

"Then ask me this: Why are you here?"

Silence gripped the dark room, no one answered for almost half a minute, yet the team's posture remained the same. Yamaguchi's Z-750 is still aimed towards the treacherous Admiral as she responded.

"Well, the answer is simple," Osman added. "I am here to take everything with me to an undisclosed location."

"I thought you already had," Mikayla replied as her weapon was now aimed at the Admiral with contempt. "Or maybe, you're just trying to usurp control. I won't allow it. I will not allow you to prohibit us from removing our ability to understand the unknown."

"Have you forgotten what I said earlier?!" Osman yelled back.

"I wish I had. But one thing's for certain: I did not forget the vows I upheld for forty years. I will protect the human race, especially if it means protecting my family."

Osman made an evil smile, something that makes Mikayla's Spartan daughters cringe. "Ah, your miracle daughters? It's a shame you led them all to me."

"I'm not offering myself to you, bitch." Yamaguchi impulsively said, which caught a bit of attention from my teammates. "Zeta Halo made me rethink my life in ways I never could've imagined. It unlocked something within me that YOU are trying to understand by doing whatever fucked up shit you'd do, or keep me in whatever Midnight Facility is. And I'm not allowing that."

The mention of that secret facility shook her. "What? Y-You know about that place?!"

Mikayla chuckled hard like a drunken sailor, reveling in the Admiral's powerlessness. "See what I mean? My family represents the humanity we are saving, Osman. And you don't deserve to be in that vision. Save your breath for the judges, Admiral."

With a snap of my mother's hands, Yamaguchi pulled the trigger.

Osman falls down to the marble floor unconscious, barely alive from the stun shot of the Spartan's Binary Rifle, before she can yap any longer. Yamaguchi made a slight smirk on her face when that happened. It was an anticlimactic yet satisfying conclusion, but her mind keeps telling her that it is not over yet.

"What now?" Yamaguchi asked her mother.

"Have fun at the archives." Wait... really?! "Be careful not to break anything, though. We still need to retrieve all that classified information."

Unable to contain their ecstatic excitement, the Hitoshi siblings hastily bowed and saluted in unison. "Yes, ma'am!"

Once the team left the room, muffled cheering soon followed.

Chapter Text

Traversing the underground hallways of the deepest, most secretive parts of UNSC HQ, Fireteam Flower made their way to a place only a select few have the authority to access. The awe-inspiring prospect of hidden knowledge being released into the public is a dream come true for those who want to look forward.

Dreaming big isn't easy, for almost everything ONI hides is nigh incomprehensible to the simple human mind.  But like always, it's the boys and girls on the frontlines who get to have a front-row seat, but most of the time, they do not get the wider picture. The Spartans of Fireteam Flower, however, tend to be more unorthodox with their line of thinking, a side effect of basic human treatment.

Yamaguchi and her team, though stoic and calm on the outside, were nonetheless excited for their next assignment given by the newly-promoted Admiral Mikayla. They are to help the archivists and data miners loyal to her extract everything valuable that can be salvaged from the now-defunct archive room.

The team walked single file through the doorway, only to be greeted by a dark yet magnificent sight. In the dimly lit room, Rows upon rows of supercomputers and reverse-engineered data storage facilities lined the entire expanse of the room like bookshelves. The seven Spartans looked on in awe and amazement, wondering what they could discover in these hidden records. Existential dread be damned, there is only curiosity and excitement. 

That excitement did not last, however, as they were greeted with a salute by a lieutenant from the UNSC Army, particularly the 94th Special Forces, one of several soldiers guarding the room.

"How's the backup storage units coming along?" Yamaguchi promptly asks the lieutenant, who then relays the information as they go along the pathways.

"According to our technicians," The lieutenant says. "Backup copies are still 7% complete. we still have to wait for another hour or two before we leave with what we have."

Yamaguchi simply nodded before continuing their stride across the room. They walked for quite a while, not knowing what to do first with all the information they had access to. The Army lieutenant who briefed them on the current status had long since parted ways to deal with other matters elsewhere in the room. 

One by one, the team silently splits up, each going their separate ways to find something interesting to read. Yamaguchi herself continued her original course and found something interesting. One of the nodes, the 'bookshelves' of the database, has an English inscription written on a small piece of duct tape near one of the cooling vents.

>100k yr. old info

Yamaguchi knew what this meant for her. 

Grinning like a child gazing at a unicorn, the young Spartan lady proceeded to a nearby monitor screen at the side. The information she is about to access is obviously very classified, but she has a few "tricks" up her sleeve. She uses her mother's passcodes to access the files, and if that doesn't work, she has override codes as a backup solution.

Luckily, she does not need to resort to that... for now, at least. With quick fingers, she inputs her mother's passcodes into the screen, and it hums in acceptance. Now that she has free rein of the system, she begins scrolling downward for anything that piques her interest.

The first files she sees are nothing relevant. They're interesting in it's own right, but not enough to catch her attention. The recent capture of the Janus Key provided her with a wealth of options in this vault. Among the lists are surviving Forerunner facilities, artifacts, and notable locations.

As she goes deeper into the list, the more obscure these finds become. Then, one file catches her eye.

File No.338: Maethrillian

Maethrillian. It's a name she cannot recall by memory, but it's one her mother used to talk about when discussing Forerunner megastructures. According to her, she found out about its existence via the Covenant, and that it is the catalyst for the Fall of Reach. 

Whatever this Maethrillian is, it'd better be important. 

When she opens the entry, one of three in the whole file, she finds a startling report from an old organization, one that she does not expect to be here out of all the organizations. Its emblem is the night sky with a blazing OV-series shuttle flying out of it.

NASA.

What the fuck...?

Yamaguchi's head recoiled for a few seconds to take in this startling revelation, her face looking like someone told her the sand is yellow. I wonder what NASA's got to do with this?  She thought. Scrolling further down, she found a hidden report written by Dr. Julius Wraiks, from August 3, 2053. It reads as follows:

[Last Sunday, July 27, 2053, our astronomers from the Mauna Kea observatory reported a strange anomaly in the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, approximately twelve hundred light years away from Earth. We cannot deduce its components due to its concealment by molecular gases, but we know that it has very dense material of unknown origin. Some in the scientific community deduced it was a planet, the farthest known terrestrial body ever discovered. Others believe it's a gas giant due to its approximate diameter of a hundred thousand kilometers; other than that, we don't know much else unless more information has been reported. We classified this anomaly as Omega 58 Orionis, officially labeled as a brown dwarf star.]

[Due to the unusual nature of this discovery, I know that this portion of the report is going to fall on deaf ears, for what I'm gonna say next is just me rambling about my own opinions on this. Omega 58 Orionis... I don't think it's natural, it's weird, I know. Though there will be more info about the anomaly coming soon in the next few months or so to back up my claims, it doesn't matter, because thinking about that pale black dot in that star-forming cloud of dust and gas is keeping me awake at night.]

[For now, I will do my best to tell the official story. I may keep this secret to the grave with me if I wish, but I know that the people who will come after me may need this report.]

The report sends shivers down the Spartan's spine, but not enough for her to close the file completely. She composed herself, just like she was trained to do, and opened the next report, much more recent this time, from Professor Alan Cardey of ONI Section Four, dated January 18, 2554.

[There are a lot of reports about Omega Orionis over the centuries, a lot of them have been lost to the digital sands of time. ONI knew what was up with these findings, only to throw them away during the war, thinking it had led to a bit of a dead end. They've made a big mistake.] 

[After visiting the Forerunner Shield World of Trevalyan, to check on my wife, who's a part of the research organization stationed there, I noticed something about the shield world that makes me think of Omega Orionis. If the Forerunners can build a 2 solar radii Dyson Sphere, who's to say that Omega Orionis is a Forerunner construct as well? Maybe another Shield World? I cannot say for certain, but it is very, very interesting to think about.]

[Soon, when slipspace travel is fast enough that going from Earth to Tau Ceti takes minutes instead of weeks, we may reveal the true face of this anomaly. I've heard from our Sangheili allies that it is called "Maethrillian", the throne of their gods, the Forerunners. I don't know if Omega 58 Orionis and Maethrillian are the same thing. If it does, we're in for the discovery of the millennia.]

Yamaguchi smirked as she closed the entry, wanting to prove that man right, but the discovery would have to wait. With a satisfying mental remark, she closed the whole file.

She then continuously scrolled for another minute into another file in the same node as before. She opened the file, but was blocked by a restricted access notification. Her mother's passcode doesn't work this time, meaning that it's very, very important than the files about Maethrillian.

When she uses an override code to bypass the restriction, it finally allows her access to the database again. She then looked into the file.

File No. 432: Project ARC DREAM

There are two entries in the file. The first entry is a brief two-page summary of ARC DREAM.

The wording is subtle, but Yamaguchi can get the point. Minutes passed as she reviewed the entry word for word, her eyes skimming across every sentence. There is nothing in this universe that can describe the expression she is currently having. Though silent, she smiled. Her smile turned to a grin, not from a hidden ulterior motive, but from happiness, from joy, from the satisfaction of victory.

ARC DREAM is about the Archeohomina, and Yamaguchi, being the history lover that she is, gawked at the prospect of seeing her ancient ancestors come to light after a hundred thousand years of being forgotten. God knows what kind of technology they have, it's so... promising.

Only God wonders what kind of power fantasy she's playing in her mind.

Pushing those thoughts aside, she then opens the second and final entry.

ONI XENO-MATERIALS EXPLOITATION REPORT 15Y1198 

Now that is familiar. Yamaguchi is very much aware that her mother has a lot of friends in the Xeno-Materials Exploitation Group, since they are the reason why the current secret Spartan generation has a lot of Forerunner and ancient human weapons as part of its arsenal, not to mention that the GEN3 armor of Flower has elements of reverse-engineered tech integrated in the system, making the fourteen Spartans under Mikayla's command pretty unique compared to their mainline counterparts.

Opening the report, she glanced at the screen. The first thing she sees is an image, implied to have been taken by an ONI probe while examining whatever's in the picture, labelled Site Yankee-002-G3. Once she adjusted the image quality, her eyes widened in utter shock as she saw what looked like a warship in the middle of nowhere. This mind surprise lasted for a few seconds before she reads the text below it.

[EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Reconstructed from an artifact located at Site Yankee-002-G3, the discovered vessel does not conform to any known alien design. Damage patterns on the original hulk were consistent with Tier 1 high-energy and tractor-pressor weapons, but there is no evidence of Flood Super Cell infiltration or signature cryptostructures, which are common signs of ZETA debitage. We assess that the vessel is archaeohomina in origin, and further analysis should be immediately assigned to Project: ARC DREAM]

[TACTICAL ASSESSMENT: Full simulation of tactical capabilities is ongoing, but initial simulation of primary weapon systems indicates that offensive mechanisms are a high probability match for weapons translated as "Fibril cutters" in Forerunner records. Further investigation of this line of information has been assigned to the team on AZURE MOON. Other systems appear to be a variation of particle beam accelerators, though the science team believes this to be superficially homologous.]

Holy shit. That is the only thought Yamaguchi can think of. She doesn't know if her mother knows about it, but what matters is that it's a very promising discovery. Her hands begin to shake from all the excitement brewing deep beneath her subconscious. 

Ancient humanity is a fascinating topic to think about, and to know that this is going to go public in a few months makes her heart and brain race in tandem. No emotions are this extreme when thinking about the legacy of the old. It feels like that's where she belongs.

She wanted to be the girl who wants to leave a legacy as big as the Forerunners.

And there's no better way to do this than to have the whole family in on the change. She has lived her entire life admiring a hero, but with this knowledge, she can become just like him, maybe even surpass him.

The Master Chief had taught her everything she needed for this lifelong journey. There will be many hurdles along the way, but she can manage this with enough allies, effort, and most of all, enough fucks to give against anyone stupid enough to mess with her.

After setting her thoughts aside, she closed the ARC DREAM file and took in whatever information she had just learned. Her mother would be proud of her, but that's the least of her concerns. She's an adult now, and she can take care of herself.

Yamaguchi turns around and leaves the node, shutting down the terminal in the process, but not before archiving everything she has seen and leaving the node open for the others to gather easily without much effort.

One must wonder what kind of possibilities her ambitions would follow.

It does not take long for the whole team to be reunited once more on their way out.

"So, what's on your mind, Captain?" Leoben quickens his pace to catch up with Yamaguchi as her team traverses the hallway leading towards the nearest exit. The magenta-haired Spartan side-eyed him and smiled.

"A lot." She replies.

"A lot?" Rishikaze, walking a few paces behind her older sister, repeated her words. "You mean, plotting some anime-esque hero's journey with all this Forerunner stuff?"

Yamaguchi's eyes went wide for a moment before her expression calmed down, with a lighthearted chuckle. "Hahahaha, always reading my mind, are you, sis?"

"Always has been." 

The older sibling rolls her eyes, not in irritation, but in her signature sarcastic demeanor. "You have great senses for someone who doesn't have a PhD in metaphysics."

"We're Spartans! We have a PhD in everything!"

"PhD in killing, perhaps?"

This incites a louder cacophony of laughs from the team at Rishikaze's expense, who shyly pouts in response. After the banter dies down, Yamaguchi sighs as the team silently exits the facility into the post-apocalyptic surface. She hadn't thought much about what's next for her team, maybe her mother can tell her something.

Yamaguchi gestures to her team to go towards the extraction zone in the downtown area, except Rishikaze. Family matters took hold of the operation, so the siblings went to find their mother, who was waiting for them three blocks away in a parked Condor.

While walking across another street, the sisters take their time to bask in the scenery by themselves. Despite the loss of so much infrastructure within a short time, it makes for some good scenery. While the normal folk would lament at the destruction, the Spartans see the hope that lies within, the hope that it will be rebuilt into something that surpasses anything that came before.

"Nice view, isn't it?" Rishikaze quipped to break the silence. Yamaguchi smiled, never once moving her head. The blue-haired little sibling surely knew she was smiling, reminiscent of their sisterly bond. 

"Yeah. Like a movie." She replies, "One day, this city will be rebuilt, and people will be happy to be in their homes again."

"But we're soldiers," Rishikaze said. "We're only meant to fight."

"That doesn't mean that we can't build something that helps others," Yamaguchi replies. "I wanted to do something with being a Spartan without the need to kill others for it."

The blue-haired little sibling slightly frowns with subtle agreement in her eyes. "Me too."

The sisterly talk continues throughout the trip, switching between philosophical small talk and hilarious banter. Upon arriving at their destination, they found a very busy place. The entire plaza is filled with crew hard at work, Marines, and Army soldiers minding their own business. The chatter of the crowd and the hum of engines make up the lively ambience.

Approaching the Condor, the Spartans see their mother inside the passenger compartment, presumably waiting for them. When they entered the dropship, she greeted them.

"You did good, girls." The appreciative voice of the middle-aged woman caught their attention. "The reports from your teammates speak for themselves." Her daughters looked at each other and smiled like they were hiding something embarrassing.

"It's nothing." Rishikaze makes a small chuckle from her lips. Her older sister kept her cool and got to the point.

"We have found something very interesting in the Archives," Yamaguchi says. "We extracted everything we have, declassifying all kinds of information from war crimes to Forerunner locations. Few caught our attention, so it'd be best if I told you here."

"No need, I will read the reports in private since we don't have long to stay here in this city. Would you mind knowing more during the next briefing instead?" Mikayla suggested promptly.

"Yes, ma'am." Both Spartans responded in unison.

"Then you're dismissed. Come back when it's time to leave."

Ellis Vagner swings her energy sword against a piece of Elite armor used as target practice, akin to cutting butter with a knife. Her posture is lackluster, making her struggle to keep herself balanced when returning to the starting position.

"Your return posture is lackluster. A Zealot can do better than that." Klara's arms crossed, her face showing her slight displeasure behind the helmet's visor.

"I know!" She snarled back and vented her frustration at another set of armor beside the sliced one. She strikes twice this time, the blade swinging so fast that the pole carrying the armor is sliced along with it. 

Leoben steps forward and pats Klara's shoulder. "Hey, don't be harsh on her."

The brunette relented and bit her teeth. "Sorry..." She mutters.

Ellis turns to see her senior teammate and reassures her. "Hey, Klara... I don't mind being put through the wringer. It's how Spartans are trained, you know? Compared to our regular training, you're just soft."

"Eh?! It's not like I like you or anything! Hmph!" Klara angrily pouts and averts her gaze from the younger Spartan. Leoben and Ellis tried their best to contain their laughter with little success.

"First time I've heard that line in years!" Leoben said, his voice cracking word for word as he tried to calm himself down from the immense cloud of hilarious thoughts swirling his mind. After the laughter finally dwindled, Klara composed herself.

"Alright, fine, I give up. I guess I am just being soft, huh?"

"Haha, always knew that. We're all family, aren't we?" Ellis smiles with a look of optimism across her face.

Unlike the previous generations of Spartans, Fireteam Flower enjoyed their free will despite being under ONI's supervision. Luckily for them, they are under the care of one of the organization's most morally good personnel. They are trained with the intensity of the ancient Spartans of Greece, yet their capacity to choose for themselves is neat.

They are taught not just to fight, but also the lessons taught in life. There are only fourteen Spartans made under Mikayla's oversight, and being a mother herself, she taught her "children" everything, going as far as to reveal the universe's deepest secrets at a young age.

She made the correct choice by giving them everything they needed.

And it is very much apparent now with how Flower's members interact with one another. In the words of a Navy officer who is one of the few people who know the truth behind the program...

"Unlike the IIIs and the IVs, they truly are Spartan-IIs but better." 

The man who said those words isn't one of sarcasm or mockery, but of respect. And it speaks volumes to their potential. Ellis, Leoben, Klara, and others like them... They are born to be the best and brightest. 

It is said that no person is born cool, and this assumption is correct. However, ONI made them cool, a redeeming quality that often gets lost among the laypeople of their generation. 

As they stared into the early afternoon sky, the Spartans' joy breezed like the wind, as if they understood everything. Everything that had happened —the blood, sweat, and tears they shed to get to this point —is not just a miracle of ingenuity; it's a miracle of life. 

With a happy tone, Klara gazed upon her friends. "Let's meet up with Yammy and Rishi, Oliver and Cassidy are probably returning from their survivor hunt by now. Race you to the Admiral!"

Klara booked it as soon as she finished speaking. Ellis's child-like glee takes over and runs after her. Leoben, however, remained calm and sighed, wondering about how much of a child they still are, despite being Spartans. Some things never change.

It did not take long for the team to be reunited once more in the base camp. Yamaguchi and Rishikaze finished their familial pep talk, Oliver and Cassidy went back from their recon, and the rest of Flower arrived at the extraction point as well. 

It takes a minuscule amount of waiting before the order is given to depart the ruined city. The Falcons have already left, and so are the UNSC Army, so they will have to take the Condors alongside the Admiral. As the dropship lifted off the ground, the first among five present, Yamaguchi looked back at the city as the ship rose higher and higher.

She's familiar with the place, not Sydney specifically, but the destruction is all she sees as a Spartan. So many lives, so many livelihoods lost to the twisted views of the creation, turning against the creators. Humanity's future, as of today, remains uncertain.

She wants to see it all rebuilt, but it is not her to decide that. As the Condor's back doors closed, she looked back at her sister, her friends, and her family. What do they think? What of their ever-changing lives? Do they have a say in the mysteries of the universe?

It feels like she's the only person in existence who knew how extremely important their future is. Deep inside, she shudders at the thought. All it took was a glance from her mother and sister that pulled her from her doubts. No matter what, there's still a family to protect.

The five Condors carrying Mikayla, the Spartans, and her cadre of ONI officers and technicians, flew out of the Earth's atmosphere many times the speed of sound. The flight took almost an hour, before they arrived at their destination.

Floating high above the Earth, anchored in the planet's gravity well, is a ship that stood the test of war and time. It has lived through centuries of bringing people to their new homes, fighting a losing war to protect those people, and surviving to see humanity's reclamation.

The ship will bear a new purpose, one that mirrors the woman who called it home.

Chapter Text

The five Condors approached the massive vessel, landing on the two main hangars flanking the MAC cannons that sit below the bridge. The hangar itself is expansive, housing a diverse range of vehicles. They did not spare them in being part of the ship's identity, as every manned and unmanned vehicle has a name adorned on their chassis and hulls:

Actium.

The UNSC Actium is a former colony ship, now warship, of the Phoenix-class. 2.5 kilometers in length, it dwarfed the two Strident-class frigates flanking its sides. Named for the naval battle on the Ionian coast of Greece, it also honored the Inner Colony of the same name, home to less than half a billion souls lost during the Human-Covenant War.

Now, it has served under ONI, and it has been that way for almost a year. It is the largest and most powerful ship in Mikayla's arsenal, armed with state-of-the-art weapons and other unique technologies, including a reverse-engineered slipspace drive and modified factories.

Contrary to the ship's size, it only houses a relatively small crew compared to others of its kind, replacing much of the ship with sophisticated automated systems, further enhanced by reverse-engineering Forerunner technology. The refit that made the ship into its current state did not take long, as the ship stumbled upon a Shield World during its first post-war voyage. It is this voyage that caught the attention of Mikayla (and to an extent, ONI), who used the ship to further her own goals.

The crew, including its Marine and Army complements, is all loyal to the Admiral thanks to her friendly, no-strings-attached personality that drags people into her circle of trust. Due to the power vacuum left over by the Sydney attacks, she assembled a large enough force with the Actium at its head to take power in the organization.

Now, with the deed done, the family returns to the home that will take them anywhere.

The Condor's landing gear opened and gently touched the floor of the hangar bay, opening its doors as its passengers walked out, heading towards their quarters.

"Home sweet home!" Ellis cheered out loud, though everyone who heard it, save for the Spartans, was too busy to listen.

"Yeah. Infinity's just a vacation spot. Sad we may never see that beautiful S-Deck again..." Rishikaze ponders with a subtle frown on her face, but Cassidy reassures her.

"At least we still have the Eternity." She says, "Sure, it won't be completed for another half a decade or so, but the way things are changing now, I'm sure it would be sooner rather than later."

"Won't be surprised if Palmer and Lasky are in charge again!" 

Those two names were as familiar as the armor they wore. They were really nice people, Palmer especially. She was a kind teacher to the Fireteam. In a way, she helped them walk, so that Blue Team could help them run. Lasky is more of a cool uncle to them, which is what gave the team their own personality. 

In a way, it's a good thing Mikayla's Spartans are close to the Infinity's command staff by virtue of standing alongside Admiral Hitoshi often. 

Now, with them out of the picture, not dead, but not really around to be supportive, the team would have to rely on themselves to survive. After a short laugh from Rishikaze's banter, Yamaguchi clears her throat.

"That's enough bantering, folks. We should stop by the sick bay for the occasional augmentation check-ups. Once that's done, we'll play some games before dinner. Good enough?"

"Sounds good to me." Her sister instantly agrees, and it does not take a few seconds for the rest of her team to agree as well. Their mother, standing behind them, can only watch in proud silence from the dropship's ramp.

"Well... let's go then." The team quickens their pace as they enter the hallway. Mikayla chose not to follow them, and she smiles, proud that her years of hard work have paid off.

Being a parent and an admiral is not an uncommon luxury within the UNSC, but what stands out for her is that she truly dares to prove that she genuinely cares. She balanced between those she loved and the species she defended, and though it has problems of its own, she made it this far thanks to a lot of trustworthy allies.

It's a good thing she passed these lessons down to her children, because they make good leaders when they are.

The recent check-ups showed that everything is fine with the Spartans' physiology. After the hours-long process is done, the Spartan fireteam has earned a day's worth of free time in their hands, plus another two days' worth of training. Their schedule is wonky at best, due to unforeseen situations, but it is something that they can manage.

In their spare time, these Spartans would do just about anything on the ship that doesn't inconvenience the crew or their surroundings in the process, a testament to the amount of free will that's encouraged as part of their training. 

The siblings, stripped of their armor to nothing but their nanocomposite bodysuits, enjoyed their free time in reading books, whose words date back far longer than when it was properly written down in their language. 

They enjoyed a lot of topics, eager to open their minds to the greater picture, balancing them with the smaller details hidden between the lines.

As Spartans, they are trained to be analytical, making them use their augmented minds to it's full capacity to outsmart opponents and make quick decisions that can decide the course of any engagement. 

"Does this count?" Rishikaze pointed at the page of a book she's reading.

"No, not really. Logistics behind it is far above our pay grade." Yamaguchi replies, skeptical of her sister's choice of topic.

"I thought you liked this kinda stuff..."

"Oi, don't get too ahead of yourself. By the way, you should study some samurai stuff if you're interested."

Rishikaze sighed. "Okay..." Despite the groan, deep down she loves the culture of feudal Japan, particularly samurai culture, for she wants to wield the blade as good as they. "You know what, you have a point." She said.

"What?" Yamaguchi blinked.

"We should read the stuff you like. We wanna be better leaders, right? Instead of studying the things they do, why not just study the individual behind them? We talked about this before."

"You're saying I'd choose between combat and leadership? We'd do both, right?" Yamaguchi said.

The younger sibling chuckles as she leans back against the wall. "Of course we do! So, you finished with Alexander yet?"

"Yeah, Wanna talk about Napoleon after this..."

The banter between topic after topics continued for hours on end, indulging in a variety of subjects that normal people would barely keep up with, accompanied by a few laughs here and there. 

In the nearby gymnasium tailor-made for the Spartans, three of Flower's members are working out in their spare time to help move their bodies when not in combat.

Klara and Leoben are in a boxing ring, exchanging swift dodges and heavy blows. Unironically, it is Klara who is relentless in this brawl, aiming for Leoben's shoulder and knees.

The pair squared off for a brief moment, their faces screwed in concentration as they circled one another. Their fellow teammate, Oliver, who is sitting down on a bench after finishing his own workout session, cheered Leoben on alongside the UNSC Marines who came to stop by after finishing their own training regimen.

"C'mon, Leo, give it to her!" One of the marines cheered. With a silent obligation, Leoben landed a one-two punch against Klara, who swiftly blocked with her arm before kicking him to the gut, but he is resilient and barely budged.

Leoben counters by kicking Klara to the side of her hips so quickly she didn't have time to move; the force of the kick sent her tumbling sideways. The attack did not make her fold as he expected, but it was enough to back her into a corner.

Klara came back up again and lashed out with a flurry of punches. Though all of them are parried, one of them landed square into the chest. The second punch right after is blocked by Leoben, holding her wrists. Then, the skulls of the two Spartans collided: Leoben makes a daring headbutt against Klara.

The melee specialist gasped out in a string of pain as she tumbled to the ground, with Oliver and the marines cheering. 

"Hey... no fair!" Klara whines in disappointment, her hands hiding her face to conceal her pout of embarrassment.

"Nothing's fair in war, Klara," Leoben said with a reassuring smile. He extends a hand for the Russian girl to hold until she stands up to her full height. 

Though the audience is leaving with something to talk about, at least the three Spartans can have some private time by themselves.

"You did good, Leoben. You're starting to notice my movements." Klara quipped.

"Yeah!" Leoben pointed out with a smirk. "You're good at being quick, you're starting to remind me of Kelly."

"That woman from Blue Team? Don't mess with me, I'm far from being just like her. I'm only interested in stabbing shit."

"Well, at least you gotta make it quick, right?"

"Good point." 

Klara looks back at Leoben, knowing full well that the conversation would descend into a flirting contest if this keeps up. Good thing Oliver is there for them.

"Hey guys!" The specialized pilot speaks aloud. "That was a good fight. Klara, how's your head?"

Klara instinctively rubbed her forehead before replying with a fake chuckle. "I'm fine, I'm fine!"

Leoben can hardly contain his own laughter, much to his teammate's embarrassment. Oliver had noticed for a while now that the two had gotten quite close last time he interacted with them.

Deep down, Oliver begins to wander within his mind, even as he tags along with his two teammates down the ship's corridors. Thinking of the bigger picture, he felt a sense of unease, mainly thanks to the sheer importance of their last mission.

His optimistic side doesn't waver, deep down he knows that everything will be alright for the family he has made with his team. 

Hours later...

On the bridge of the Actium, Cassidy and Ellis are busy shuffling through a holographic presentation of data extracted from ONI's top-secret archives. Admiral Mikayla is with them, standing opposite the Spartans in the central holotable.

"I'm planning to release them to the public, but first, we need to have support from the government." She says, earning the not-so-surprised faces from her Spartans.

"How about our trip to the Maethrillian?" Cassidy asks, her blood boiling for an expedition. 

"We are still proceeding with the original mission, but I'm not coming with you."

For a second, Cassidy and Ellis frowned for a moment, before a middle-aged man in his silver uniform adorned with the captain's badge steps in alongside the ONI Admiral. Cassidy knew this man; he's one of the very few captains who survived the Human-Covenant War from beginning to end, but he did not really get the fame he deserved, which, in his own words, benefits him.

"Captain Milo will be your mission handler. But due to the nature of my work, I won't be seeing you for quite some time."

It hurts to think that Cassidy would be the one to tell the Admiral's own daughters about this. Although they are raised like normal people, it has the side effect of things getting out of control the moment someone isn't there to light a path for them.

It's for this reason alone that Fireteam Flower struggled to survive in Zeta Halo, only managing to stay alive thanks to the Master Chief's efforts to retake the ringworld. This mistake must not happen again.

"Don't worry, kids, I've got you all covered. I've been working with Lady Miki for quite a while now, and she can trust me to do the uncle work while she's away."

Cassidy almost choked her words before a gaze from the Admiral spurred her on. "Y-Yes, sir, I'm glad you're here to help us."

"Mom?" Everyone stared at the voice that called Mikayla out. Yamaguchi and Rishikaze, still in their bodysuits but wearing pants, walked up towards the table just in time to hear the news.

"Oh, Yamaguchi. Sorry for not telling you sooner, but... I won't be back for a few months."

"I know, ma'am." The elder Hitoshi sibling switched to her military demeanor, yet a hint of self-reassurance still went through. "You have a lot of work to do, shame we can't go on an expedition with you."

"Miss Hitoshi, the crew of the Actium will support you always," Milo reassured the lead Spartan.

"Thanks." The sisters saluted the captain, the gaze of authority and respect reminded each other that they are all in this together. Even though the rest of the bridge crew are still busy in their stations, they know what they signed up for.

"So... about Maethrillian." Rishikaze followed up on the topic. Mikayla felt a hint of surprise that it wasn't properly discussed sooner. She clears her throat and begins the (unofficial) briefing.

"Ah, so about Maethrillian... " The ONI Admiral gazed at the holographic reports. "First things first, we don't know what it looks like. From the gathered evidence supported by the NASA report, our estimation suggests that the size of the object could be..." She paused as she double-checked the report. "...a hundred thousand kilometers in diameter, give or take."

"That's like two Earths less in diameter than the Ark... It's cool that people five centuries ago can detect an object smaller and farther than most exoplanets out there," Rishikaze mumbled audibly. 

"Indeed. We initially assumed it to be a large Shield World, which is not that far-fetched considering Trevalyan is a Dyson Sphere that was encased in a slipspace bubble. The Covenant used to call it the throne of their gods, so that place must be very important if that's what they're calling it."

"What if it's their homeworld?" Ellis questioned. Intriguing, but Mikayla's blank expression proves otherwise.

"It's not. The capital of an empire doesn't mean a planet. For example, High Charity is a large space station acting as the capital of the Covenant. I've dug into the Bornstellar Relation recently, and we found out that the Forerunners' original homeworld is not that far from Maethrillian, yet it's located in the same complex."

"What's its name?" Yamaguchi asked.

"I don't know its English translation, but the records say it's called "Ghibalb". As far as we know, it's a dead world by now, so we can't find anything important unless the UNSC starts to explore the complex."

This is not the farthest location any human has ever been. Humanity has several outposts in many Forerunner locations, such as all but two of the Halo ringworlds. But with modified slipspace tech on the Actium's small fleet, they can make the distance within days instead of weeks or months.

"The Orion Complex is like... 450 light-years out?" Rishikaze pointed out. "Before the war, it would've taken us a year or two to get there if we jumped every hour or so." 

Ellis added, "...but now that we have the tech to get there..."

"We're gonna be there by New Year's Eve!" Yamaguchi finished excitedly, which gives a sense of adventurous hope for the Spartans. There is no cooler way to celebrate the new year than by discovering something big.

"Looks like we all have that same idea..." Milo lets out a chuckle from his throat, sparking a few laughs from the Spartans that seemed to enjoy the humor. Once it dies down, Mikayla reassures them one more time.

"Once again, I'm sorry I'm not gonna be there to celebrate the New Year's with you, but I'm excited to hear a lot from you once you return."

"We promise!" Mikayla's daughters proudly acquiesced and saluted. Knowing that they will be on their own again, she frowns a little, but quickly smiles, knowing that it is their time to truly shine, with a little bit of support. She has the Actium's crew, after all.

Mikayla then tensed up, before formally saying, "Very well, you're dismissed. Ellis, Cassidy, you're dismissed too."

"Yes, ma'am!"

All Spartans shouted in unison, saluted, and began to leave the bridge. As the hums of the doors opening and closing reached his ears, Milo complimented his superior, making a slight smile hidden from her view. 

"You've raised quite the squad, Admiral. When I first heard about them, I thought you were trying to do what Dr. Halsey did to the IIs. Good thing I was wrong about that."

Mikayla, still busy scrolling through the data, replies. "All I want is for them to do the best for humanity. They were like that since birth. It may sound like I'm indoctrinating them, but I'm just giving them a choice."

"A choice to leave or...?" He said.

"No. A choice to pick a life for themselves. Being Spartans is cool and all, but I wanted them to be the person they become, as if they weren't Spartans in the first place. They're only fourteen of them, so it's best if I can invest in a few rather than whatever the hell Section 2's doing to the Spartan IIIs."

"Huh, good for you."

Mikayla takes a deep breath before switching the holotable off. "I'll be heading for the hangar bay. In a few weeks or so, we'll begin pleasing the masses."

Before the ONI Admiral leaves the Bridge herself, Milo turns to her and waves his hand. "Good luck, Admiral. Keep the masses hopeful back there."

She nods and turns away.

Before the journey to the Orion Complex would commence, Fireteam Flower gathered in a small lounge reserved for them. They met just after word had reached them that Mikayla had departed the Actium, bound for the Ark Portal at Voi for some reason. The past half-year has been a tormenting time for Flower, and they will only hope that their expedition can proceed smoothly.

A long silence gripped the whole room, with the only sound they could here being the ship itself. Each member tried to cope with the wider picture of the galaxy and felt like they were being pressured. They wait for the first person to speak as they all lay out their cards on the table.

It's easy to live a normal life here, but having eldritch horrors roam around like this under their noses terrifies them. The only thing keeping them focused was the advice Mikayla had taught them for much of their lives. It's never easy to be something greater than yourself.

Yamaguchi has heard stories from her mother about the Mantle of Responsibility, a way to safeguard the galaxy and be the stewards for lesser lifeforms. It's cool and all, and humanity deserves it, but she has to make sure that everyone by her side will survive to see this outcome. 

Like the leader that she is, she breaks the silence.

"So... what's our plan for Maethrillian?"

"Nothing important for the most part. Recon... artifacts..." Cassidy replies. "I guess we should go look for anything important ourselves."

"How about the Flood?" Ellis spoke, her voice darkened with a slight shudder in her face.

"Flood search-and-destroy containment protocols are still ready for when we detect even a single spore from that place. But it will take a while if the structure is as big as Mikayla estimated." Yamaguchi assures.

"We'll be prepared." Her sister nods in agreement and determination. The team switches to another topic, about what Mikayla is doing.

"What about Admiral Hitoshi?" Leoben says. 

"She's working with the government on how to properly publicize all of ONI's classified information, xenoarchaeology included." Cassidy points out. It makes every Spartan's head shoot up. Rishikaze's eyes lit up with a curious gaze.

"How long will that take?"

"A few months, give or take."

"You don't say..." Ellis mutters dryly.

"To assure you all, it's not gonna end up like that bitch Osman said it would. Humanity is subjugated by the Created for a year and a half, showing the masses how cool we are before becoming cavemen would at least give us the hope we needed." Yamaguchi growled at the mention of Osman and changed her demeanor as she spoke about hope. Knowing the fool, everyone in Flower can say the same thing about her to varying degrees.

"Good thing she's doing her part. We'll be doing ours by ourselves now. Just like Zeta Halo." Rishikaze replies unhappily.

"We'll be fine." Her older sister sarcastically says,

"Don't jinx it." She scowled back.

As they continue to discuss and banter, Milo announces on the speakers that they will be commencing a slipspace jump within the hour. Though the conversation turned into a contest of who has the better sense of humor, the main topic is still ingrained into their minds, no matter how far they diverged from it.

They would have to do this on their own by choice. Zeta Halo is merely unintentional, but at least it provides the team a challenge to prepare them for this moment.

When the hour is done, time and space are ripped at the seams in the form of a wormhole shining in a blue hue. The Actium and it's two escorts warped into the extradimensional substrate, on their way towards the Orion Complex.

Chapter Text

Orion Complex

January 1st, 2561

Exiting slipspace in:

3...

2...

1...

Three flashes of light shone as space-time ruptured within the star-forming complex. The Actium and its two escorts exited slipspace after less than a week of travel. The exit itself rocked the ships for a moment like a car coming to a halt, but that sensation only lasts for a second thanks to the modified inertia dampeners.

On the bridge of his ship, Milo gets up from his chair to get a better view of the space beyond the reinforced windows. Looking out, he saw wreckage everywhere. Pieces of debris float around the void, illuminated by the glow of the nebulae that make up the Complex.

Remnants of warships and stations that haven't been touched for over a hundred thousand years, now the subject of awe and existential wonder from the crews of this small, insignificant task force.

This is a graveyard.

Back on the bridge, Milo's stoic face returned, and he called on his bridge crew to assess the situation.

"What are we looking at here?" He said.

One of the bridge officers promptly replies with a hint of surprise of shock in his voice, "Forerunner ship wreckages, all of them... Scans show that some of the hulks resembled War Dragoons."

Milo begins to ponder that fact for a bit. There are intact dragoon ships located and stored in Trevalyan as an automated countermeasure. To see such similar ships in such poor, desolate condition is a grim reminder of how much the Forerunners had lost.

"I can see a few Fortress-types," Milo mutters, his mind wandering back to the classified data he reviewed. Records say the largest are around 50 to 60 kilometers in length. While the size varies, it still lives up to its name.

One of the fragments of a ship of that type floating nearby is calculated to be twice as large as the Actium herself, a testament to the Forerunners' obsession with Macro-engineering. "Good lord..."

Then, he saw something that really floored him. Soil, actual soil, is located on the surface of a massive fragment that feels eerily familiar for some reason. Acting on impulse, he orders,

"Scan that fragment, I have a feeling it's not a ship."

Tapping into the consoles, one of the bridge officers acquiesced and began his work. Milo, meanwhile, takes a seat once more to contemplate what he'd seen. A slight chuckle left his throat, wondering what the Spartans below deck would say.

"It's so beautiful..."

Yamaguchi's eyes glimmered in subtle joy as she looked out the window in the ship's observation deck. A massive amount of destroyed Forerunner ships with the nebula superimposed in the background, an image worthy of being in the history books.

Rishikaze and Leoben have already taken a few photos by now, while the rest of her team are gazing at the wondrous sight by themselves. The amount of resources that can be extracted from them is enough to rebuild a colony within the decade.

However, her history-loving side wishes to preserve these wreckages, knowing that they are a good reminder of the sacrifice the Forerunners made to stop the Flood, even at the cost of their own species' existence. However...

She could've sworn she saw a few bodies or two floating around.

Meanwhile, her younger sister is gazing at the graveyard from another angle, when she notices something behind all the wreckage. She doesn't know what it is at first, but it triggers a memory during her time on Zeta Halo.

I swear I've seen that before.

"Ummm, sis?" 

The bluenette sibling noticed that Yamaguchi is engrossed with her own view, forcing her to raise her voice to get her to notice. "Yamaguchi!"

It worked; her head snapped back to her little sister before walking in her direction. "What is it?"

"You've gotta see this..." Rishikaze points towards the strange wreckage found amidst the smaller debris of ships. Yamaguchi takes a look and squints. 

"Huh? That looks familiar..." She said, trying to piece together something coherent in her mind. "Curved structure... hexagonal base... It's like Zeta Halo..."

Then, something in her mind just clicked, like a bomb going off within her consciousness. The structure she saw is not a mirage of memories, but of concrete evidence that should or should not have been there. 

"Is that a Halo?!" She loudly spoke, getting everyone's attention. Her team begins to flock to her space, as they saw the Halo fragment as the Actium passes by it. The team is baffled beyond belief, not knowing there are more Halos out there than the seven for the current Array.

"I thought there were only seven of them..." Leoben said.

"Yeah... but it looks more like Zeta Halo though. It doesn't look like something similar to Delta or Alpha Halo. Wonder what's that all about?" Cassidy replies. Their minds are beginning to ask some pretty deep questions. They wanted answers, but despite their augmented minds, could not come up with a useful one.

"We'll have to find out once we-"

"LOOK!" Ellis shouted. Flower then flocked towards her and pointed towards a planet-sized structure coming into view in the front. It looks small at first glance, but it is getting larger and larger, and it does not seem to end.

Maethrillian, in all its glory that has long since passed, felt like it was gazing back on those who are paralyzed by its magnificence. The crews of the three UNSC ships flocked towards any open window to see the megastructure for themselves. Fireteam Flower, who by this point had the entire observation deck to themselves, was suddenly joined by dozens of crew members who happened to be nearby when the commotion was brewing.

The massive Forerunner megastructure was composed of nine perfectly circular platforms arranged in a spiral along a central rod, decreasing in size toward either end of the rod, with the widest central one being approximately a hundred thousand kilometers in diameter. The topmost one seems to be fractured into two pieces.

the Actium's squadron flew into the massive structure, and searchlights lit up to visually analyze the interior. The size difference is so apparent that it's like a starfighter traversing through the inside of High Charity.

Each of the platforms is covered with massive cityscapes, with ports for commercial and military use lining the edges of the circular platforms. The UNSC ships travelled in the gap between the centermost platform and the platform above it to find a large enough docking bay for the ships to land on.

Scans show that the gravity of the station is powered by numerous Buffer Field Emitters lining the whole interior of the platform, a common technology seen in other Forerunner vessels, but on a planetary scale. 

Then, glowing lights start flickering one by one in the distance, seemingly getting closer and closer. "Several signals detected, they're heading right for us!" The scanning operator reported. Milo did not flinch at orders, knowing what those signals were; he had seen them before.

"Hold your fire, they're Sentinels, they're only scanning our ship."

The captain is proven right as the Aggressor Sentinels circle the ship, passing by windows and analyzing the reclaimers. Even without a word to speak, they have proven their friendliness through subtle means.

At least, until the ship starts to shake.

Like a crowded bus hitting the brakes, the Actium shook, almost as if it were caught by something.

"What's happening?!" Milo yelled as he struggled to keep himself in his seat.

"We're caught in some kind of... tractor beam, sir!" The nearby operator replies.

Milo knew what would happen; they're being dragged into someplace he isn't familiar with, yet is confident in his crew's guarantee of safety. But looking out the window immediately confirms the answer. There is a large dockyard-like structure, large enough to house ships four times the size of the Actium. 

"Do not attempt to resist; let them guide us." He said.

"Aye, sir!"

Flanking the edges of the yard are two sets of four detached docking clamps held together by hardlight emitters that keep the claws and the ship itself in a stable position. Everyone held on to anything as the ship landed relatively smoothly on the hard-light surfaces.

Once the ship came to a halt, Milo ordered the thrusters to deactivate, settling on the dockyard. But it did not end there, as the massive docking clamps carried it downward a few hundred meters, down to the point where the levels of the platform overhanging the yard align with the airlocks of the Actium's "wings" that carry its complement of D20 Heron dropships.

After taking a few seconds to think about what just happened, he begins to yell out a flurry of orders.

In the observation deck, Fireteam Flower had enough satisfaction for the week. After seeing Maethrillian's star ports responding in tandem with the sentinels to bring the ship down safely, the Spartans were left with faces of surprise and utter awe. By this point, the other crew members are leaving the room to take a good view elsewhere.

Though it did not last long, it was enough motivation for them to be ready to explore as much as they could. 

"That... was... COOL!" Rishikaze beamed in excitement, ironic that she still acts like a child despite having an insane body count under her belt. Yamaguchi's expression mirrors her sister's, but more of an impressed type of awe, accepting all the joy of experiencing ancient wonders like this.

Oliver, however, is a little bit skeptical. "Does the station retain some atmosphere for us to breathe in?"

"Yeah, I think," Klara said, sitting on a not-so-sturdy steel chair, looking at a holographic screen with numbers counting back and forth. After confirming to the team that Maethrillian is indeed accessible without needing to wear a spacesuit, Yamaguchi calms her nerves and begins to plan.

"Alright, what are we gonna do?"

"The usual thing? Like, setting up firebases and whatnot? I mean, that's what our superiors would normally ask us to do when discovering new stuff that's important." Klara replies, raising an eyebrow. 

Yamaguchi insisted. "It'll be different. We're looking at the third-largest thing the Forerunners ever built! Maybe Milo can let us get some ideas to cook with."

"Yeah, but we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves. Let's focus on establishing a permanent presence on this station."

The Hitoshi siblings sometimes disliked this kind of patience, one of the many things these two have in common. Impatience is a trait Spartans don't usually have, but it can make a difference if they can do anything about it.

Klara knows that her leaders are determined, but even that has its limits, one that the siblings are trying to push as time goes on. Luckily for her, they accepted the reality of the mission and sighed in unison.

"Fine. Let's set up camp on the platforms." Yamaguchi says, turning to her sister with tasks to do, but before she can say anything, the speakers begin to activate, and Milo's voice seeps in through.

[Fireteam Flower. You have a new mission today, which is simple enough that you don't have to go to the bridge to meet me in person. You're gonna help the crew set up shop around the shipyard. Do the heavy lifting for us while the Research team does their work.]

Silence gripped the whole Observation deck. Flower doesn't know how to react at first, seeing that the sudden chime-in of the ship's captain is, in all senses of the word, anticlimactic. They did not get the usual intense holotable briefings, just simple advice that even a normal parent would say.

"Called it." Klara snickers behind Yamaguchi's back, who shot back at her with a glare of embarrassment and frustration. The rest of the team cannot resist making similar acts of amusement at their leader's expense.

"Shut up." Yamaguchi dashes out into the elevator, her team trailing behind her as they begin the duty that would last longer than they would've hoped for.

 Port Side Hangar Bay - UNSC Actium.

The UNSC Army is an under-appreciated branch of the United Earth Government's military arm. They won the most battles out of the branches in the UNSC, but they suffered greatly. A billion servicemen gave their lives for Earth and her Colonies.

But what makes it worse? One might find this question odd, but the man sitting on a crate with his hands tired after moving everything into the Condors to be sent out can testify to that assumption.

He was born at the height of the Covenant War, born in a now-destroyed Outer Colony, and if it wasn't for his parents being alive to see the end, he would've been a Spartan III by now, which is a blessing and a curse, if ONI's files were to be believed.

However, there are times when he wishes he could be a Spartan, to do simple tasks like doing logistics like a household chore. But at the same time, he cannot express how much he appreciates his company for helping him along with the life he's living now.

"Hey! Sullivan!" The voice of a rookie brought him out of those thoughts. "Can you help us carry those supply crates?"

Sullivan smiles. He picked himself up and went back for another workout session with his friends. The soldier gladly pushed the crate along the ramps of the Condor, into the passenger bay. Then another box, and another box, and another.

An hour passes, and it's the same routine. Once the Condor flies out, they load another. The Army soldiers helping out are a nice change of pace on the ship, since it helps relieve the burdens of the ship's maintenance workers.

Another hour passes by, and the hangar bay is being emptied of everything to be brought out into the station. As he loaded the last set of crates by himself, another set of hands began to help push them along. 

Looking to his side is a sight he'd never think he'd see today.

A Spartan? Helping with such menial tasks as loading a crate onto a Condor? Surely he's been drinking lately, but that assumption is quickly shot down, as he is too good to be doing that. The young man stared at the Spartan, whose exposed head turned to look at him once the job was done.

"Who are you, soldier?"

Shying away from a Spartan can do him no good, so with a flash, he quickly straightens his posture and salutes.

"2nd Lieutenant Sullivan McCarey, UNSC Army 94th Special Forces Unit."

"Ah." The Spartan replies with a slight nod. "I'm Leoben. Spartan Fireteam Flower. Introductions aside, you look tired."

"I'm fine, sir..." Sullivan almost stutters, but holds himself together.

"Where's your Company Captain?"

"Starboard Hangar Bay, he's been busy himself, sir."

"I see. You should take some rest, Lieutenant McCarey." 

That offer makes Sullivan snap his head straight to the Spartan's pitiful gaze. "Sir?"

"You deserve it, Lieutenant. That's an order."

That choice of words makes him internally shiver for a second, but the soft tone of the Spartan that's obviously younger than him calms his nerves, and content with the work he's done today, he saluted one more time.

"Sir, yes, sir."

"No need for formalities, you can call me Leoben. See ya."

The Spartan calmly left the scene like it was a normal day for him. Transhuman dread be damned, that is as human a Spartan as he can be, at least from his eyes. He did not get military service long enough to see a Spartan-IV, so he does not wonder what they operate like.

But one thing's for certain, Spartans really are human after all.

After sighing, he returns to his teammates, also resting in the corner, watching the maintenance crews work on the land vehicles to be deployed outside.

Nearby, Ellis and Cassidy finished loading the last Condor for the day, pushing their stamina to the limits. With a huge, satisfying sigh leaving her mouth, content with her duties, the latter Spartan quickly gets up to take a drink at the nearest cafeteria. Ellis, meanwhile, will stay and wait as she watches the crew do their work.

As she walks along the long hallways of the Actium's interior, her journey is temporarily halted by a minor scuffle between two UNSC Marines, as she watches by, trying not to bother them. The scuffle escalated into a full-on brawl, as nearby crew members stood by and watched.

The sudden violence cannot be tolerated, not even when they're in uncharted territory. Cassidy barges in through the growing crowd, the hulking six-foot Spartan intimidates all who see her stature, instinctively moves aside to let her in.

There, she sees them.

One of the marines is on the ground, struggling to get up as he gets punched again and again by the other. Unable to contend with this, Cassidy broke up the fight, using her might to push the two apart.

"That's enough! Both of you!" She snarled. The Marine on the ground pleaded with her.

"He started it-"

"I don't care if he started it!" Cassidy yelled back, and spit sprayed from her mouth at the level of frustration she seemed to be getting. She then turns to the perpetrator of the fight. "I tolerate no infighting on this ship. Report to your company captain, or else I'll punch both your brains out. If any of you have a problem, speak to the guy instead of lashing out like a dog."

The crowd and the scuffling Marines went silent. But knowing that a Spartan is not to be messed with, the two Marines complied. One of the bystanders helped the injured Marine out and carried him to the sick bay, while the offending Marine went the opposite way, which Cassidy knew led to their company commander's office.

She sighed, watching the crowd disperse. She rarely peacefully resolves fights, something she trained herself to do, but when things aren't going her way, it tends to get brutal, and for good reason.

Everyone who saw that fight learned a lesson that day, if they hadn't learned already. 

Arriving at the cafeteria, she ought to find something to eat that can cool her mind now, if coffee isn't enough for her, that is. Among the rows and rows of tables and seats are two of her teammates, Yamaguchi and Rishikaze.

After getting her own set of meals, she went to where her teammates were and sat down.

"Oh, hi, Cass." Rishikaze started, her greeting a warm smile that softens the mood.

"Rishikaze..." Cassidy mutters before quickly sitting down beside her. Yamaguchi finished chowing down on her meal before noticing her teammate's expression.

"You good, girl?" Yamaguchi replies with subtle humor. "Feels like you're not yourself today."

Cassidy takes one sip of her coffee and mutters blankly. "Had to break up a fight down the hallway, two Marines, from the same company, no less, are having a beatdown for some reason. Not knowing why seems to tick me off."

Much to Cassidy's surprise, her leader shrugged the testimony off with a slight joke. "Sounds like a regular Tuesday for you."

"As if." Cassidy snorted. 

"That's the reality, Cass. You never know what kind of people you're facing at first glance. Keep your cool next time, or else everyone's gonna be pointing fingers at you."

Cassidy sighs, loosening her posture. "You're right."

Minutes pass without any conversation; all three supersoldiers are busy finishing their meals. Yamaguchi retreated into her own mind to evaluate what Cassidy had experienced earlier. Rishikaze gazed off into nowhere, minding her own business. 

Without something to do, the siblings went back to their barracks, leaving Cassidy behind in the cafeteria to reflect on their conversation. 

four days later...

It's quiet. Eerily quiet outside. If not for the humming of reactivated systems and the stomping of their boots, they could've been wandering the vast expanse of the platform as their sanity slowly slipped away.

But Fireteam Flower takes more than just existential dread to break their spirits, far from that, in fact. Their first mission in exploring Maethrillian is simple: find a facility that takes on the role of a Cartographer seen in other installations.

Travelling on a pair of M10 Warthogs, the team covered hundreds of miles of ground, its topography and locations marked on their ever-expanding maps in real time.

They arrived at a massive facility located approximately four hundred kilometers away from the Actium's dockyard. due to a hundred thousand years of neglect, some portions of the Capital were devoid of all power, leaving entire sections of the massive platforms in total darkness, despite efforts from what few Sentinels remained here.

"We're here at the massive structure. It's mostly dark, but the Sentinels that've been trailing us have been working on restoring its power." Yamaguchi says through the Actium's comm network.

[Proceed, report once you get out.] Milo's voice responds.

"Yes, sir." She replies. Using her hand signals to move into the structure, they turned on the search lights integrated in their weapons and helmets to see through the still dark place.

The entrance leads to a long yet narrow hallway. As they reach deeper and deeper into the facility, contact between the Actium and the fireteam is impossible. Flower will be by themselves from now on.

An hour has passed since they entered, and they're three levels deep.

Another hour passes, and they went through a few hardlight bridges to cross gaps that led to whatever abyss lay below their feet. In the fourth crossing, Cassidy is becoming bored.

Once they travelled another two levels down, they came across an ominous sight. They arrived at a massive docking facility of some kind, which is located in a tunnel hundreds of meters in diameter. 

Lining up these tunnels are Retriever Sentinels, the largest kind of sentinel commonly found in many Forerunner locations. One of which seems to be damaged, but that does not change the fact that it makes the Spartans look like ticks in comparison.

"Retrievers." Rishikaze mused. "That's somethin' you don't see every day."

"Yeah..." Leoben's rough Polish accent bellowed from his helmet. "I've heard that they're the ones that made the Ark portal at Voi." He said.

"You could say the same for anything built by them." The bluenette second-in-command replies.

Klara nodded. "This must be a repair base for them or some kind..."

"Yeah. It's best if you don't-'

Yamaguchi gets interrupted when she turns around and sees that Cassidy's curiosity has gotten the better of her. A loud beeping noise blared, and their realization set in.

"What the..." Her eyes pointed towards her teammate. "Cassidy, what did you do?!"

Cassidy tries to defend herself when all of a sudden, one of the three Retriever Sentinels begins to activate after slumbering for millennia. However, its frame is heavily damaged, yet it still poses a menacing threat.

Even worse, its blue hues are glowing orange, flickering on and off between those colors of light that lined its frame. It's struggling, but every Spartan present knows...

It's coming for them.

"Scatter!" 

The Spartans scattered, just as the Retriever lifted one of its many claws upwards and hammered down on where the fireteam used to be. It may be large, but it is slow, as time slowly catches up with the old construct.

"Take that thing down, now!" Yamaguchi's voice yelled in furious determination as the squad opened fire in tandem and in intervals with each other, throwing off the Sentinel's aim.

Cassidy begins to concentrate, her senses focusing on nothing but doing what needs to be done. On impulse, she leaps off the platform and uses an energy sword as a hook to keep her from falling off.

Her teammates are in shock. Yamaguchi felt proud at first, only for her frustration to take over. "What... CASSIDY!!!"

Cassidy can't listen. Not yet. She yanks one of the massive sentinel's armor plating, exposing it's complex technologies within. Then, in her anger, the same anger that drove her into threatening two bickering Marines into stopping a fight, begins to take hold.

And she punched. And punched, and punched, and punched.

It doesn't matter what the Forerunners use to make such advanced alloys. If it bends, it means it can be broken. She punched all she could until she could do no more.

Then, Yamaguchi's voice enters her consciousness.

"CASSIDY!"

"Y-Yamaguchi...?" She mutters, amidst the gunfire and the explosions. Then, she made a conscious choice. She opens her comms and replies to her leader. "Captain, aim for the eyes, that's it's weak point. I'll distract this huge thing long enough!"

She receives no response. But knowing her trust means that she acknowledged.

Fireteam Flower redirected themselves between both sides of the bridge, all aiming at its three massive eyes the size of an entire house. Its shielding is long gone by then, meaning it's easy pickings for the team to handle.

But the Sentinel is not going down without a fight. The few in-built weapons systems start activating, unleashing a barrage of hardlight, forcing the Spartans to scatter and regroup somewhere else.

The retriever's arms swing in almost every direction, and the fact that its smallest arms are comparable in size to the legs of a Scarab is not making things any easier for them.

The battle turned into a stalemate, neither side making decisive moves against the other. But then, another beeping sound blares out. Another Retriever Sentinel has awoken.

Oh, we're done for. Yamaguchi's hope for victory begins to tighten. Much to her team's surprise, the second Retriever charges straight for its corrupted yet still-alive companion, ramming it with a force so strong it sends Cassidy flying into the other side.

Though she is recovered by her teammates, Cassidy can only watch as their unexpected ally brutalizes its corrupted sibling into a scrap pile falling into the void.

A hardlight bridge is activated soon after the console is found. Yamaguchi worriedly hurries for her friend and grabs her shoulders. "Cassidy! You alright!?"

Getting back up from the hard landing she took, Cassidy, expecting to be scolded, still does her best to mitigate the argument.

"I... I'm sorry... I-I thought that console would activate the bridge..." She mutters, causing Yamaguchi to frown, which then leads to her embracing Cassidy tightly, their armors rubbing against one another.

"It's not your fault, Cass. We're not familiar with this place, so, naturally, mistakes can be made." She reassures, "I just wanna know you're safe."

Then, Leoben interjected at that moment. "Yeah, you got the whole fuckin' squad worried! Stop trying to take matters into your own hands, Cass. We don't want Flower missing a member."

Cassidy sighs, her saddened expression changed into one of acceptance. "Yeah... I'm sorry. I won't be reckless next time."

"Don't pull yourself down like that! Everyone in this team is reckless! At least you have to warn us..." Yamaguchi released her embrace and pats Cassidy's shoulder armor. 

"Right."

"Sooooo... what now?" Rishikaze mumbled. 

"We go on, of course!" Yamaguchi replies, before putting her helmet back on. No response is needed to know that their leader is still on the mission. After calming down for a minute, they finally continue their journey towards the station's Cartographer.

Eventually, after another hour or so of walking across hallways, bridges, and temple-like complexes, they finally managed to reach a decent-sized room tall enough to fit a Condor facing upwards. 

Pillars of unknown alloys lined the room's wide perimeter, and at its center is a holographic emitter with several consoles at its rim. The team approaches the consoles with caution, but Yamaguchi herself doesn't bother with anything but the information stored within.

"Looks like we found the prize!" Rishikaze proudly bloomed, gesturing a high-five with Klara, followed by a few cheers from the other members.

"Don't get excited yet, team. We still have to extract whatever we have from here. Dunno how much, but it'll be a treasure either way."

Yamaguchi happily taps onto the familiar console systems. One tap, a hologram of Maethrillian and its surrounding debris field flickered to life. Tapping into the controls again, the screen flickers into a topographic map of each of the platforms.

Luckily, the Cartographer has superluminal communication nodes, meaning that the data can be transferred into the Actium near instantaneously. They don't need to guard the entrance due to how fast the process takes.

Once the deed has been done, they leave the facility, leaving a beacon just in case they come back. Imagine the data Milo had to analyze? That would be a herculean effort.

Luckily for him, the Spartans barely liked being idle. 

Actium's Bridge.

"Good work, Spartans. You've made a huge service for the UNSC." Milo formally addresses Fireteam Flower. There's no need to give them an award, for they got everything they wanted. He turns his gaze to the siblings in command. "Captain Hitoshi, I think it's a good time to relish on the prizes you've sent here."

"Yes, sir." Both siblings do their salutes, but in a more casual manner. But Rishikaze steps forward and says,

"Should we look back at the classified files, sir? On our end, we completed at least half of our objectives for the journey."

The sudden statement caught Milo's attention as he turned his gaze away from the holotable. "Half?" He mutters.

"We've been planning for another mission for Site Yankee 002-G3, sir. How long should we stay here on this station until we leave?" Yamaguchi said.

"Two weeks, give or take. We still must leave a permanent presence on this station before we go, probably leaving an escort behind, but that's on me to decide."

Two weeks is nothing to anyone who is working hard hundreds of light-years away from home, so the Spartans acquiesced to the offer.

"We'll make do with two weeks." Rishikaze nods. "The station has superluminal communication arrays; we can make contact with the UNSC with a drastic ten-minute delay, give or take." 

Milo chuckles after taking another drink from his mug. "Thanks for reminding me." He says, then approached the sisters and mutters with a slight smirk, "You and your team are doing remarkably well, but what can I expect from a squad of Spartans tailor-made to be the heroes of legend? For now, you're dismissed."

The flattery from a handsome captain can make any lesser man or woman gleam at the compliment, but Yamaguchi's team stood firm. They understood the reality behind being a legend and the amount of material and moral sacrifices made to make it possible.

But Yamaguchi smiled slightly. She understands the fact as much as everyone else, but she is also the first to look beyond.

As the team is leaving the bridge, Milo turns back and calls out, "Miss Preston, may I have a moment, please?"

Cassidy mutters, "Yes, sir," and turns back. Yamaguchi, however, continues on, looking back to see her friend in conversation with the captain as the doors close.

Six days later.

In a Forerunner skyscraper that dominates the artificial station's skyline, Fireteam Flower is on their own again. They're not far from the dockyards where the Actium is docked, but the building they're on is tall enough that they can barely see the edge of Maethrillian using binoculars, and if they have a telescope, enjoy the sight of the debris field beyond.

It's a small camping trip for the team, directly permitted by Milo, which allows them to spend their time in the lonely cityscape. The levels of freedom aren't usually permitted, but Milo knows Mikayla's stubborn confidence in the safety of her daughters, which pushes all of his doubts aside, but he can still keep an eye on the Spartans just in case.

Yamaguchi sits on the floor, still in her Mjolnir. In front of her is a piece of paper, a commodity that's rare in the UNSC by the 26th Century, at least in where she came from. 

Using a set of pencils, she begins to outline Maethrillian's interior from her point of view. 

She is not a great artist, but she does have photographic memory, which allows her to make a few details accurate, even if poorly drawn. 

Then, she begins to draw ships coming in and out of the station, all kinds of ships, from those she found on old 21st Century science fiction, to contemporary UNSC ship designs, anything she can recall from her childhood.

Rishikaze walks in curiously, wondering about what's keeping her sister occupied for hours, even as their teammates are on their own business.

"What are you drawing, sis?" She asks.

"Planning," Yamaguchi replied.

"Planning for what?" 

"Making this station a lively place again. If the UNSC isn't enough, this will be the center of something new." Yamaguchi showed her younger sister the 'artwork' she made, and made her think.

"Oh? Power fantasy again?" She asks with dripping sarcasm in her tone.

Instead of denying it, Yamaguchi chuckles and admits it. "Yeah, kinda. Is it wrong to dream about delusions of grandeur? We have all the time in the world to make it happen."

"Not for girls like us, it's too much to ask," Rishikaze replied.

"Mom says otherwise," Yamaguchi counters. "There's no such thing as too much, unless you're talking about human lives."

"Eh, fair point."

Yamaguchi continues to add more details to her drawing, making it a genuine piece of art, before her mind clicked off another topic.

"So, what do you think of the archaeohomina?"

Rishikaze replied, "Intriguing. I can see why you're on such a power trip right now. The universe simply screams 'Humanity fuck yeah' on everyone's faces."

"Hahaha! So true." 

The banter continued for hours, just like the many times they were together in one place.

One thing's for certain, planning big doesn't mean they know every step of the way towards true success. Like the universe, it is unpredictable, yet bound to the laws upon which reality is built.

Yamaguchi tends to be mentally everywhere at once, which puts a strain on her combat effectiveness, and really, it's the only thing that's holding her back. She has an ambition to fulfill, but not without the prospect of pissing other people off.

But for now, she will focus on the current journey, and see where this will bring her.

Chapter Text

January 23, 2561

Again.

Slipstream space ruptured into uncharted territory. Three Condors carrying Fireteam Flower and an entourage of the Actium's ONI operatives jumped into the coordinates of Sector Yankee-002-G3.

The trip is slightly challenging, not because of the obstacles along the way, but because the derelict ship they were looking for is located in interstellar space, light-years away from the nearest stars, plus there is no beacon to ping its location with. 

While the Spartans and their associates remained silent for the whole trip, the supersoldiers were in awe at the magnificence of the massive derelict ship as they made a few flybys overhead. One can imagine the excitement and anxiety the Spartans must have felt; it is a testament to how dedicated they were to the cause.
 
The ship is massive, its hammerhead bow and enormous midships section complement its low-profile engine section, flanked by two considerable fins that hold a yet unknown purpose, giving the ship the appearance of an aquatic creature.

The hull, however, is far from being intact. Much of the ship's upper plating is torn and buckled amidships, exposing a great portion of its interior framework. The damage is consistent with Forerunner energy weapons, as described in XEG's report, meaning that this particular ship has seen rough combat.

The pilots would notice a trio of hangar bays near the warship's equator, where the upper and lower midship hulls (at least the part that is intact) meet. The Condors slowed their descent, their landing struts, a design trait inherited from the Pelican, lowered as vertical thrusters fired up.

Awaiting them are the scientists working on the ship. A few dozen, to be exact. they're here because of their 36-hour cooldown period, and the hangar they stayed in is the only "normal" place where they can rest easy without something bizarre happening to them in their sleep.

When the dropship's ramps open, they are immediately stunned to see not one, not two, but seven Spartans plus a few dozen ONI operatives, all gathering in front of the scientists. The lead Spartan approached them while her companions stood with their weapons in parade formation.

"Good day, scientists." The lead Spartan removed her helmet, revealing an obviously female face. "I'm Yamaguchi Hitoshi, Spartan Fireteam Flower."

One of the ONI Operatives stepped forward and introduced himself to the scientists. "And I'm Lukas Fritz, ONI Section 4."

"I'm Karl Hebron, nice to meet you." The scientist, one of eight present, introduces himself as well.

"Dr. Hebron," Yamaguchi spoke. "It's a pleasure to meet you, but we have a more pressing matter at the moment."

The scientists' reaction turned from indifference to nervousness. Hebron, unflinching with a drooping expression, replies earnestly. "How so?"

"There is a coup back on Earth, and Naval Intelligence is changing as we speak. As part of ONI's declassification effort, CINCONI Admiral Mikayla Hitoshi sent us here to inform you of the change."

Lukas then adds more to the Spartan's words. "...And we are here to take over the ship for such a purpose. After all, humanity would learn a great deal from these discoveries."

Hebron rubs his chin, bemused and intrigued. Much to the confusion of the new arrivals, he laughed as if he had been told that birds aren't real. "Hahahaha... am I dreaming?" He asks, "ONI? Speaking the truth? I must be dreaming. How many hours have I wasted sleeping?"

Yamaguchi chuckles and shakes her head. "You ain't dreaming, doc. The future is now, and there's no stopping that."

With a pang of sympathy, she taps Hebron's shoulder to remind him of the reality he is in. At this moment, she cannot tell if his reaction is good or bad, but his stubborn smile at the end confirms that answer. He extended his hand and said,

"Captain Hitoshi, welcome to Site Yankee-002-G3."

Yamaguchi extends her hand and shakes hands with the scientist, adding, "Well, let's not overstay our welcome here. Lead the way, doc."

Hebron gestured to the newcomers like a tour guide, and they followed him. The entire team enters an expansive hallway, and much to their surprise, Hebron followed as well, despite being in his cooldown period.

Yamaguchi and her fireteam can barely contain their excitement as they explore the ship, but they maintain enough formality to engage in conversations with the scientist. 

"It seems that the UNSC is really pulling their shit together, huh?" He remarks, slightly grinning. "I'll hand over the ship to you, Captain. But be warned, staying for too long on the ship can have some... really dubious effects."

"Not the first time I've been in those situations." Yamaguchi barely holds a chuckle from her throat.

"Huh?" The good-willed ONI scientist stared at her.

"Nothing important, doc." To divert his attention, she calls on the Actium's resident ONI agents. "Hey, Lukas."

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Gather anything you can find on this ship, but don't stay for too long."

The priceless grin the Spartan girl makes can make a normal person feel uncomfortable, but to Lukas, it's a signal that something big is happening. Without a word, he and his men parted ways from Hebron and the Spartans.

"That's phase one of my plan done." Yamaguchi chimed in as they entered the dark hallways of the ancient human vessel.

"You didn't tell us that the plan has phases." Cassidy pouts, much to her captain's amusement.

Yamaguchi isn't always known to be a great planner, despite her prideful claims as such. In reality, much of the hard work is thanks to her mother, whom she sometimes credited in many of her decisive moments in battle.

One would wonder if the line between incompetence and unconventionalism is blurred to the point that it baffles all those who would meet her in battle. But that's her charm as an independent officer.

"So... what's our Phase 2, then?" Rishikaze promptly asks.

Yamaguchi then gives her orders with a slight shrug. "Nothing much, explore as much of the ship as you can. Scientists are working here, so you either go with them or go on your own if you're brave enough. This ship barely has any power. If there's a way to bring this old lady back to life, leave it to us to do the job."

"Dr. Hebron told us that the scientists working their current shifts are not far from here. Whilst we're waiting, and Leo, I would like to go with them." Klara replies.

"Go ahead. Cassidy? Ellis?"

Cassidy and Ellis affirm their decision to separate from the team. "We're on our own, thank you." 

"Oliver?"

"I'll stay with Klara." The specialist pilot replies.

"Same here," Leoben says.

"Then it's decided then. Stay safe out there, team."

The Spartans snapped into attention, their stances straightened, and performed a quick, formal salute, the ultimate form of respect for authority, even in unorthodox squads like Fireteam Flower. Their formality hasn't been lost on them. 

"Yes, ma'am!" 

With a smile, Yamaguchi bid a little farewell as her friends parted ways. Only her sister remained by her side, off on their own personal adventure. Normally, they would've gone through a heap of mental gymnastics to even find an excuse for the siblings to be alone together, but this is a situation where it isn't a necessity.

The sisters will spend their time alone to their own ambitions and dreams. 

Neither sibling thought they would achieve it alone, nor that one would think the other outlived her own usefulness, no. But if there is anything that brings them together more than their blood, it's their shared love of the indomitable human spirit.

For now, though, they will be busy conquering the darkness.

"Jeez, it really is dark in here..." Rishikaze bemused herself, even though her and her sister's helmets had small searchlights attached to it's sides.

"Yeah. We gotta find some way to restore power to the ship without breaking it." Yamaguchi replies, before she paused with a realization lighting her mind up like a flashbang. "Sis, have you seen the logs?"

"No, why?"

"It says the ship is six kilometers long, yet it's classified as a cruiser."

Rishikaze looked at her like she had been told the grass is green. "You're kidding... right?"

"Nuh-uh, that's how it's described in the Bornstellar Relation." 

"Holy shit." Rishikaze felt like she was about to pass out as her augmented brain struggled to comprehend the classification of a ship that size. "So you're telling me..."

"...That a ship slightly larger than the Infinity is the main ship of the line of our ancient ancestors? Honestly, I should've been surprised, but considering their technological prowess is comparable to that of the Forerunners, it's not that surprising at all."

Yamaguchi felt that her sister wasn't satisfied with her answer, but she could make up for it with a little brainstorming. 

"Hey, imagine an entire fleet of these ships? I'm sure there are more types than just this, big or small. But hey, the galaxy will be ours in no time if we have all this!" Her voice boomed with enthusiasm, which made Rishikaze mirror her sister's expression.

"You bet we will!"

The sisters' laughter echoed in the hallways of the ship.

It took them half an hour to regret that decision.

Cassidy and Ellis shared a common fear of the dark when they were young, before they joined Mrs. Hitoshi's Spartan program. Though these fears are largely suppressed as they mature, this fear is still ingrained into their very consciousness. 

At the back of their minds, they still instinctively became weary. Like a pair of kids stumbling upon a haunted mansion, they slowed their pace, cautiously rounding every corner. "Cassidy, it's way too dark; we can't go any further that way." Ellis points towards a dark exit towards a nearby bulkhead.

Cassidy grunts before she forces herself to move into another dimly lit corner. "Damn... I hope we can find some way to restore power to the ship."

"Yeah... I'm getting freaked out. The longer I stay here, the crazier I'm getting crazy... Glad I have you here."

Ellis can feel her eye twitching as they detoured into another corridor. They are now exploring new areas of the ship yet untouched by scientists, traversing hundreds of meters of hallways.

Cassidy's own fear of the dark is more repressed than Ellis's, which makes her just brave enough to walk the dark corridors of the massive ship. Her helmet's search lights are on at all times to help her navigate. 

As a safety measure in case they became lost, Flower updated their helmets' HUD to track their steps, allowing them to retrace them back to their starting point if they feel the need to get back to the outside world and take a breath.

Cassidy begins to plan out her next course of action. "Hmm... I suspect that the power generators must be located near the stern where the engines are, so if we keep walking, maybe we can rendezvous with Yamaguchi and the others."

"Good idea." Ellis nodded.

The two girls hold their hands so tight that only a Jiralhanae can force them apart. Spartans rarely bond over something as trivial as this, but considering their shared origins, it's only natural they'd be acting like teenagers sometimes, contrary to their battlefield effectiveness.

For now, the journey through the abyss continues.

"Incident reports? Mr. Seine..." Klara mutters beneath her own breath, and Leoben stares with curiosity and concern at the scientist who is working on his own shift.

"Yeah, there are a lot of cases of weird psychological effects on the scientists working here." Dr. Robert Seine replies with a nod. He is one of five scientists present on board the derelict ship working their 6-8 hour shift and is eager to share the news with the newcomers.

"Can you give me some examples, please?"

Seine is already scrolling his data pad for the incident reports. Once he gives them to the Spartans, Leoben plays the first recording, with Klara removing her helmet to fully hear the recording.

[INCIDENT REPORT 003]

A noticeably female voice starts speaking; her vocal expression is one of heavy concern.

["I know we work long hours, but I'm concerned about Jackson. He looks like he's sleepwalking half the time, he moves like none of the rest of us are even there, and he keeps bumping into me while muttering under his breath. I managed to listen in one time, and he's just saying all of our names over and over again. What the hell is this about?"]

The recording abruptly ends, which leaves the Spartans silent and unmoving, until Leoben puts the datapad back on the table.

"It sounds like he has a mental illness." Klara figured. "Doctor, does Jackson have a history of mental health issues or something like that?"

Seine replies, "I checked his profile and medical records, with permission from one of his close friends, looks like there's no history of any mental or physical issues. For all intents and purposes, he's just a fine man."

"I see." Leoben nods. "Let's continue with more examples. Here."

He then pressed another file in the data pad, and a voice recording played once more.

[INCIDENT FILE 008]

A male voice spoke this time, and everyone closed in to listen carefully.

["I reprimanded Horne earlier today for ignoring his duties. We've got a tight timeline to work with while aboard this ship, and I caught him skulking around, saying he was trying to find the source of a hum that kept moving whenever he got close to it. I don't hear any hum;  he's either messing with me, or he's in need of a serious psychological evaluation."]

Once the recording stopped, Klara mutters. "Hums..." For a moment, she considers closing her eyes to prove it for herself, but instantly gives up, not wanting to risk it in front of several people.

Leoben scrolled again and picked out three more reports, 012, 013, and 015. He then sets them to play it back-to-back.

[INCIDENT FILE 012]

["I asked Jerry what was on his to-do list today when he said he was watching the walls. I said, 'What? What's that supposed to mean?' He said he sees shadows moving in them. Shadows. I said that it's probably just the rest of our team in the room getting set up. He said 'no, there are too many.'"]

[INCIDENT FILE O13]

["Ever since we found that suit apparatus that we adapted into Project ENOCH, Hudson has gone completely non-verbal! He just presses his lips together like he's trying to whistle but doesn't make a sound. I'm concerned about the null-state stasis containers as well. An electric variety of objects not accounted for in our inventory have been brought aboard. Holloway swears she saw Hudson laying out his morbid collection of alien bones on the floor, as if it was some kind of ritualistic offering but... when she got another pair of eyes over there, they had gone without a trace, I don't... guh... I really need some shore leave..."]

[INCIDENT FILE 015]

["Had the strangest conversation with Nicholas today, and I'm not sure what to make of it. He started talking about his wife back home... strange. Of course, because as far as I know, he lost his family back on Kholo. But he was recounting his wedding day when suddenly I realized that he... he was... describing my wedding day! Red wine all over my wife's dress as we took a tumble during the first dance. He described the incident exactly as I remember it, as I lived it. But that was five years ago, and I've only known him for two. He froze up when I told him that was what happened to me and hasn't spoken to me since."]

"Whoa whoa whoa! Pause!" Klara gestured to her teammate to turn off the recordings as she was processing what she had just listened. She is utterly baffled and surprised.

"What's wrong?" Leoben asks.

"You're telling me... this ship is making your brain go nuts, but not only that... you can recall other people's memories?"

"That's what the report implies, I guess so." Seine replies nonchalantly.

"Oh dear, this ship's gonna expose any secret to literally anyone!" She exclaimed. Klara doesn't like showing secrets, even more so than Yamaguchi when she's plotting. Inside one's mind is something you shouldn't pry into. She upholds privacy more than anyone else in the fireteam.

Klara almost panicked, were it not for Leoben keeping her seated.

"Calm down, Klara. I'm not done yet." He said, before turning to the scientist with a fake smile and hastily continuing the conversation. "Aaaanyway, I'm curious as to what this... Project Enoch is, it's mentioned in File 013. What is it?"

Seine's eyebrows raised at the mention of ENOCH, and he slightly chuckled. "Ah... ENOCH is one of the few sub-projects born from ARC DREAM. It's reverse-engineered Ancestor tech, which allows us to garble a digitized recording of our voices while still sounding understandable to natural human hearing. We used this often to prevent leaks and stuff."

"Oh, I see, it's like an autotuning device for censorship?" Klara's attention rebounded as she got hooked into the discussion like an eager student.

"Pretty much."

After Seine's response, the Spartans are becoming concerned about their psychological status after hearing those five reports. Voices, shadows, intrusive memories... It's all an effect of mental health issues, instigated by the ship itself. 

Something is really off about the ship. But forget about that, they need to see if their members are still alright. Dreams are the least of their problems currently. Four of their members, one of whom is their leader, are out on their own. Only God knows what's going on their side.

They're used to seeing dark spaces. It's ONI's trademark. But the mysteries surrounding the ship are as disturbing as it is fascinating when it is dark. They wonder if they've gone too deep to the point of no return, or rather, they've only scratched the tip of the cosmic iceberg. Such curiosity can be a detriment to the average individual. But to the Spartans, with a couple of years' worth of experience pertaining to these issues, they do not mind walking into the unknown at all.

Whatever the case, they wanted to know more, but they had to be cautious. 

But thoughts like these can get into their heads quickly, and without even realizing it, they're starting to take effect.

Yamaguchi's mind began to wander, as aimless as their trek through the ship. She wonders if she's getting dizzy, so she and her sister take a short rest on a nearby seat suspended in mid-air by graviton emitters. 

It didn't take too long before the ship would react to their presence.

Yamaguchi and Rishikaze reminisce about their childhood days, as always, when they are left alone. They begin to think about the cherry blossom skies of their home planet, running across the grassy hills overlooking the city. Memories of the siblings fighting each other while wearing cosplays of whatever character they remembered the previous night.

It was a fun time before the Covenant arrived. Even as the world is under siege, they are still bound together as they flee with their family off world. Even as they seek refuge in their ancestral homeland, they still find ways to smile in the face of humanity's final hour.

They reminisce about their father's insane stories about the Spartans, and how the Master Chief himself ended the war by himself. Such a childhood is rare among the Spartans of the current era, and it is one of the many things that make them unique.

But then, Yamaguchi begins to recall memories that seem fine at first but feel... odd.

She remembers everything she experienced, but for some reason... she's recalling...

Wait, that's weird... why am I recalling someone else's memories? 

The first thing she noticed was that it seemed like she was looking at herself. It was one of those cosplay fights she had with her sister, but it was from Rishikaze's perspective, not Yamaguchi's.

Trying to push away those thoughts for a moment, she opens her eyes to the sight of Rishikaze's confused expression, her eyes open, mouth slightly open, her face slightly pale.

"Sis, you good?"

No answer.

"Rishi... Snap out." 

Yamaguchi snaps her fingers between her sister's eyes, which prompts her to regain her senses.

"W-Whaa? Yamaguchi... what?"

"Rishi... I have one of the weirdest recollections of my memories..." She doesn't even hesitate to say it out loud. Yamaguchi almost fumbles her words as she comprehends what is going on. Her sister replies,

"What is it?"

"I am recalling events from... your perspective... if that's the right word." Yamaguchi paused, not knowing how to describe the situation. "Well, I'm not even joking, your memories are in my mind, even all the events where we were apart, I can remember everything from your POV, it's... weird."

"What are you talking about-" Rishikaze almost doubts her, when all of a sudden, a part of her memory triggers suddenly, beginning to recall memories which is familiar at first, but then she recalls moments where she's not even present. Oh shit.

"Oh... Oh no... me too..."

Yamaguchi can feel her jaw drop to the floor. She quickly stands up, almost freaking out at what is happening. "You too? We're recalling each other's memories now?!"

"That's what I was thinking! I was about to say about how we're soulmates or something, but then something clicked in me which I haven't even considered when stepping foot onto this pile of history." Rishikaze replies.

"And that is?"

"Don't you think neural physics has something to do with this?"

Yamaguchi's mind clicked as well. Neural Physics is a philosophy as old as the universe itself. According to recovered Forerunner and Archaeohomina reports, neural physics is a concept based on the fact that the universe acts as a singular consciousness, upon which living beings gain sentience.

The Domain is an explicit example of neural physics. And since ancient humanity has access to Precursor relics...

The Spartan's eyes went wide as she connected the dots. "Oh my God, you're right." Without a beat, she steps forward, facing the very walls of the ship itself. Rishikaze knew what her sister would do, knowing the topic at hand.

Yamaguchi closed her eyes and calmly touched the walls with her right hand, intending to 'mentally link' herself with the ship, to test her theory out.

Deep breaths gave way to silence. 

Suddenly, something is tugging her forward. At first, she feels like she's walking. But seconds later, the tugging turned that feeling into something fast-paced, it's like she's accelerating, from a jog to a run, to a sprint. 

Then, a cacophony of voices, some of which are whispers. It clashed with her mind, which disorients her, even to the point of physically wincing. whispers gave way to talks, and talks gave way to screams, echoed by gunfire and other sounds. Human, Forerunner, and later... Flood. The increasing cacophony made her snap her back into reality; her eyes shot open as she backed off from the wall and into the grav-chair. Her skin is pale and sweaty, and her arms are shaking for a moment. And for a moment, she felt something she disliked experiencing.

She feels terrified.

"Big sis! Are you all right?!" Rishikaze worriedly exclaims. Yamaguchi shakes the existential horror from her mind and whispers.

"Yeah, I'm... fine...." She speaks.

"What was that?"  

"Voices..." Yamaguchi stutters amidst her heavy breathing, trying to recall what she has just experienced. "A lot... of voices... gunfire... screams... shadows..."

Rishikaze cannot grasp the full picture of what's going on with her sister, but the vague words she is saying can make her titanium bones shiver at the mere thought of it. The ship is behind all of this, and they need to find out. This is the first time the sisters felt a collective dread of something as trivial as the ship itself, but they won't let those fears get into them easily.

"Sis, calm down, okay?" Desperate to give her an answer, she mumbled. "T-This ship is causing all of this... we need to do something about it!"

"Hm." Yamaguchi nodded. "I know, but our mission goes first. We need to find the engine room and reactivate the ship! Messing with our minds is probably the least of our worries if you ask me."

"Whatever you say..."

Rishikaze is often portrayed as the reckless little sister, eager to earn some glory where she can, but no one can deny that Yamaguchi can exceed her younger sister in those terms. The siblings are stubborn in their own style.

After that ridiculous mental mayhem that ensued, they continued their trek through the ship. Losing contact with the rest of their team is no longer a concern. Rather, it's about setting the ship back up and running.

Cassidy and Ellis went the opposite way, heading towards the bow instead of the stern, where the Hitoshis are heading. But they did not know that. All they know is that they're going in mostly blind, praying that they will meet the siblings along the way.

There is lighting in this part of the ship, yet even still it's so dim it hasn't taken away the fact that how ominous its surroundings is. Some sections have their lights flicker; others are consumed by total darkness.

The whole time they are holding hands, trying not to let go. They may be Spartans, but they still have the same dread normal humans have. Only by sticking together will they make it out in one piece.

They've been walking for hours, and they feel like they've walked for hundreds of miles non-stop. Their Spartan physiology is somehow not working as intended. And they begin to wonder why.

"I'm tired..." Ellis moaned, trying not to trip over as she clung to her teammate's arm.

"C'mon, please..." Cassidy mutters.  "One more level and we should get to the bridge. Just one... more..." 

Cassidy suddenly felt something was wrong.

Very, very wrong.

It's not possible. Never should be possible. Something is calling them from the depths of their conscious. Them. Both Cassidy and Ellis. They can hear and feel something, or rather... someone, whispering to them.

Listen.

My Children.

Listen.

"W-What... What's going on?" Ellis whispers.

"I don't know..." Cassidy replies.

The voice spoke again, this time they could feel the effects of every word, like a memory being unlocked, or an idea springing out from the mind, yet those words were as elusive as a half-remembered dream. 

Protocol Measure. Kept the ship locked down. 

Door. Two corridors. Left.

"Corridor... Should we go there?" Ellis asked her teammate.

Before Cassidy could reply, the voice within her mind spoke again.

Trust me.

She has heard that phrase many times, almost as if the entity lurking in her mind is goading her to do her bidding. Could she trust her head? After a look of reassurance from Ellis, the two Spartans made their decision and made their way towards the door, but not before limping through the two corridors between them and whatever lies beyond.

The door, a mechanical sliding door with a central lock mechanism, and seemingly untouched for millennia. Then, a slight headache engulfed the two Spartans.

The entity within them begins to speak more clearly. It has begun to stir.

I have things to show you, my children.

Things old, forgotten.

Long buried. Longer lost.

Events that did not happen here.

It happened far away, in another place.

But we must make due.

Cassidy and Ellis draw their breaths together. Their joined hands together clasped the door's locks, willingly choosing to make way for the entity to inhabit their minds, as if they had no other choice but to do so. Another mind, another self. Cassidy and Ellis' Mk.VII helmets, the only parts of Fireteam Flower's entire armory (that isn't a weapon) that's made out of reverse-engineered ancient human tech, begin to whisper whistles and clicks that she can somehow understand.

The helmet is brand new, debuting during the coup at Sydney. She never knew it had a feature like this. And it is making her speak. It wasn't forced; the helmets were doing the "talking" for her. The language felt... oddly familiar to the two. 

As the entity talks through the helmets, the room powers up. Lights begin to receive power, illuminating the hallway they're in. The door suddenly unlocks; it creaks and groans as one hundred thousand years of history is churning back to the way it was.

Compelled not by the entity but by the urge to explore further, Cassidy and Ellis exchange slight glances with each other before venturing into the unknown. But through the door, complete darkness reigns again.

Instead of feeling fear like earlier...

The Spartans felt... nostalgic? Comfortable? They cannot know for sure, but they feel like they've come back to a place they know as home.

The entire ship emits an ethereal sense of familiarity, something that, instead of making their nerves shiver, makes them feel at peace. It's like walking through limbo, with no beginning or end. Then, the dream-like trance begins to twist into something so real yet not real. Their vision blurred, and silence reigns.

The hidden story of a hundred thousand years ago, begin to unravel.