One: The Island

Nightfall, unknown Forerunner world, estimated 109,473 BCE.

"…him sleep. He looks like he needs it."

John returned to awareness slowly, like he was coming out of deep water. He could tell that he was still in the same place he'd fallen asleep, a fact made readily more apparent by the massive crick in his neck. The Spartan pushed himself upright, then twisted his head this way and that, trying to get his neck to – aahh.

The Forerunners in the next room heard him moving. The silver-haired twins appeared in the doorway, followed by a massive Forerunner - :Warrior-Servant – Promethean – Didact: - whose mere presence made him flinch and instinctively hunch over and wrap his arms around his midsection to shield his vitals.

The Promethean seemed somewhat pleased by the reaction – at least until the twins kicked him in the shins. John found himself biting back a cold flare of sadistic amusement, a curl of pure malice that rose from the depths of his Self. He automatically shied away from the effects, using his military training to shield himself from what the Flood instincts were trying to do to him – and make him do. At the same time, he could feel its desires battering at his shields, its cage.

The peaceful one is at war without and within.

For the moment at least, the beast was staying in its prison cell.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"My residence," the Didact replied. A chair made of hard light materialized across from the Spartan's couch, and the Didact sank into it. "I was away, when Venera and Kenera brought you here. I'm sorry I was not able to greet you properly when you arrived."

John made a noise of acknowledgement. One of the twins left for a moment, then returned with a bowl of alien fruits for them to eat. Some were similar to what he'd eaten when scavenging out in the wild during the Human-Covenant War. Others were like nothing he had ever seen before – a neon pink pear the size of a grapefruit, a yellow star made of "glass" and filled with syrup, a dark violet watermelon the size of an apple, a peach covered in inch-long fuzz. For the moment, he decided to play it safe and chose a fruit that he recognized from Reach, a relative of Earth's apple.

"You are from Erde-Tyrene?" the Promethean asked, having made his own selection.

"'Erde-Tyrene?'"

"The homeworld of humans."

"Ah. Indirectly, yes. In my time, we call it 'Earth.'"

"Eartsu… the word for 'dirt' in one of your tongues?"

"It has a bit more of a positive connotation than 'dirt,' but we could debate about semantics and word choice until we're blue in the face." John bit delicately into the fruit, finding the tangy sweetness he expected. "What did… Venera and Kenera?... tell you about me?"

"Just that there was a human who had fought the Flood waiting at my home." The Didact eyed him critically. "You look like your kindred, but your armor is… not the same," he finished lamely.

"'Not the same' as in more primitive?" John asked, but it wasn't really a question. Venera had said the same when she found him. The Forerunners remained silent. He continued, "I'm from the year 2552. We've estimated that it's about 100,000 years after the firing of the Halo rings. I don't know too terribly much about it, but about three hundred or so years before the rings were lit, the Flood appeared in the Milky Way – this galaxy, that's what humans call it. Your people rallied to fight it, but too late. Whole systems were beyond saving –"

:only a freak mudslide, a stellar disease – warnings heeded too late – they are not worthy:

YOU WILL BE FOOD. NOTHING MORE.

Instinct surged. John stopped speaking, an armored hand coming up to thread through his short hair. His teeth pressed together so hard that he could hear tones ringing in his ears. The beast snarled and pushed, but he held his ground, refusing to give in.

Something else insinuated itself into his mind, its presence strong and protective and unyielding. It helped him push the Flood back and cage it Elsewhere, deep in his unconscious, so that it couldn't interfere.

He came back to himself to find the Didact kneeling in front of him, large hands hovering on either side of his head. "Many Forerunners but especially Prometheans," he explained as he rose, "undergo a special mutation to become psy-active. It enables us to coordinate faster in battle if we merge our perceptions." He returned to his seat. "You were saying?"

John accepted a container of pure water from Kenera with a nod of thanks. "Whole systems were beyond saving, and there was no way of knowing how many ships had been captured by the Flood and send out to other worlds to spread the infection. When they learned that there was a Flood presence on their planet, some worlds committed mass suicide as a form of resource denial – or so the fragmented data from the Ark led me to believe."

"'The Ark?'"

"It's – was… will be?..." He shook his head. "The Ark is a Forerunner construct on the edge of the galaxy – well beyond it, actually, now that I think about it. When I went there, I had a clear view of the top side of the Milky Way galaxy. It was built to house the DNA - and some live specimens - of all the species that had been indexed by someone called the Librarian." The Forerunners distinctly straightened, even more attentive than they had been mere moments ago. "The point of it was so that after the Halos purged the galaxy of all life, it could be reseeded." He paused, then said, "The Halos were all fired remotely from the Ark, so far as I am aware."

:the cure is worse than the cancer:

"What else? Is there anything else you can tell us?"

"An AI – Mending Bias or something. He encountered a Gravemind, and it convinced him to switch sides. He was stopped by another AI – Offensive Bias, I think – shortly after the Halo event." He paused again, thinking. "When I was on the Ark, I found a terminal bearing a message from him," the Spartan said slowly, "He said that he wanted to atone for his sins by helping Cortana and I escape, but I'm not entirely sure if he meant it, or if he was just being facetious."

:and so here at the end of my life, I do once again betray a former master. The path ahead is fraught with peril, but I will do all I can to keep it stable – keep you safe:

The Didact watched the Spartan for a moment, the warrior having gotten lost in memory. The human looked very much out of place in the Forerunner residence, comparatively small, primitive, relatively unintelligent, plain… The Warrior-Servant heaved his massive frame to its feet. "I must go speak with my wife. If what you say will truly come to pass, we need to begin preparing now."

"Will you answer one of my questions before you go, Didact-cáno?"

The Promethean paused, surprised at the respectful form of address. "To the best of my ability."

"You seemed disappointed – angry – that I was human. Why is that?"

The Forerunner sighed heavily again and sat back down. "Your people and mine have just finished fighting a very nasty and drawn-out war," he replied, "From what we have gathered from the few records that are left, the Flood attacked your people from beyond the galaxy's edge, but you managed to stop it at the cost of many lives and many worlds. As a result, you needed more worlds to replace the ones you lost to the Flood, and that pushed you into conflict with us."

"And you fought back."

"Yes."

"What will you do?"

"It has already been done. The war has been over for a decade, but much resentment remains."

For all that he was "just a soldier," the Spartan was able to read between the lines. "You took their technology away. All of the advancements they made… they're gone."

The Didact sighed again, a very human gesture. "The Builder Council would have had your people eradicated down to the very last egg and sperm, but my wife – the Librarian – argued in favor of preserving some humans and the memories of those who fought us, in hopes that one day they might reveal their secret. You wouldn't happen to know…?"

"Only if it involves shooting it until it doesn't move."

"That would be a 'no,'" Kenera said dryly while her twin descended into giggles.

"A pity. Do you think that's feasible on a large scale?"

"So long as it's done promptly, but glassing or destroying the planet would be a more effective solution. And permanent."

"'Glassing?'"

"Vitrification via a directed plasma stream."

"That's totally barbaric!"

"That's how the Covenant did it."

"'The Covenant?'"

"An alliance of various races that were led to believe that humans are an affront to creation and should be destroyed, but after the Sangheili were betrayed by the San'Shyuum-"

"Wait, wait, wait," Venera interrupted, waving her hands, "The San'Shyuum were trying to kill you?"

"Yes…"

"Oh, the irony!"

"What?"

"The San'Shyuum were allied with your people, and for quite some time, too. They fought against us with you."

-------------------------------------------

"WHAT?"

"Tell me you're joking."

"No," said the hybrid, shaking his head, "I'm not. I talked to many of them before things went south. They were our allies, emphasis on the 'were.'"

"That's…"

"Messed up?"

"Yes. Very. What happened?"

"Long story short, I showed up 10,000 years before the Halo Event. During that interval of time, the Prophets eventually grew to resent humanity, believing that we were the cause of their defeat, even though they surrendered to the Forerunners fifty years before the last human stronghold fell. And then the Halos fired, and we never really got a chance to kiss and make up until they ran across UNSC space and we started killing each other."

"I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that the people who led twenty-three billion of us to their untimely demise – used to be our allies."

"Amen."

"Ditto."

John sighed.