Fourteen: The Breaking (The "Unfortunate Discovery" Remix)

Blue Team rematerialized inside a Forerunner structure even John didn't recognize. "Where'd she take us?" Kelly asked as they all reflexively swept the room with their weapons, searching for enemies.

The Chief began moving forward, the rest of his team following. "Cortana," he asked, "how far into the Gateway are we?"

No response.

"Cortana, please. Answer me."

Nothing from her, but someone else did respond – the Warden. He appeared out of a micro-Slipspace rupture and seized John in a constraint field before he could react, just like the Ur-Didact had over a year ago. "You allow them an audience with us," the ancilla rumbled, "You risk all in the name of – what, Cortana?"

"Warden, don't-"

"This – abomination – and his pets mean to undo our plans," the Warden growled, hefting the Chief higher, "They will disperse our Guardians-"

"Leave, Warden!"

John lashed out through the systems, forcing the Warden to drop him. The ancilla staggered backwards, crying out in pain, and Cortana took advantage of his inattention to forcibly dematerialize him. "I'm sorry," she whispered softly, "I didn't think he could get in here."

John began leading the way down the hall. "He brought the Guardians here – why?"

"Forerunners used Guardians to keep troublesome worlds in line," she replied, "He intends to do the same."

"He what?" Kelly started.

"'If there is no trouble, there will be no need for discipline,' he says, and we all know how humanity responds to threats of destruction. I need to go, John; the Warden's trying to capture me. Come to me, quickly."

Hatches slid open at their approach, letting them out onto a series of platforms leading up into the sky. Of course, the Warden began sending Prometheans to stop them, talking more shit as he did so. "He wants a fight, Blue Team."

"Then let's give him one," Fred responded, all of them moving up to fire on the artificial soldiers. One by one, they began breaking through the machines, the golden flakes swirling around them as they charged forward. The Prometheans weren't enough to stop the Spartans, and as the last of them died, the hatch at the far end of the platform slid open. The team walked through, and approached a sheer drop.

As they got closer, a lift platform materialized, and Cortana said, "Well done, John. Warden will never admit it, but you've made an impression on him." The lift began to move, and the AI continued, "It's so good to see you again, John. So good to see all of you, back together, as a family… If only your Infected were here, too, this would be over with so fast."

"The whole fleet is on its way," John answered, "ETA less than three hours."

Cortana sighed in relief. "Good. We might need all the firepower we can get. I don't know how much it's going to take to stop the Warden - he means to strike at Earth first, use the Guardians to generate EMPs and take out all power. Then he'll move on to the former Covenant."

Blue Team arrived at the next level and stepped off the lift. As they did so, the Warden bellowed, "Hear me, Commander! How long have you fought for peace for the UNSC, only to have them sell arms to the enemy, to these 'Storm Covenant,' for the sake of keeping this 'Arbiter' occupied with his own people? We argue for true peace in the galaxy, yet you humans answer our call with weapons fire."

'What are they supposed to do, asshole? Let you walk all over them?'

John ignored the hissed insults of his Infected, moving up through the Gateway with Blue Team at his back. Together they fought off the multitude of Prometheans the Warden sent to stop them. Kelly had an point when she said, "I don't understand why the Warden's really doing this. He says it's for 'peace,' but I don't think his motives are really so benign."

"I'm thinking the same," Linda agreed.

John said nothing, simply kept moving. He wasn't going to speculate when there were enemies to be gunned down.

"How are we going to stop him, Chief?" Fred asked, picking up his pace a little to fall in alongside the Infected Spartan.

"We might have to terminate him," he answered, "even if I have to get in there and do it myself." He wasn't looking forward to doing it directly, having Cortana pull him into the Domain so he could fight the rampant ancilla with the full force of the Flood. It might have been possible to infect him with a variation of the Flood's 'logic bomb' virus, the one that caused so much trouble during the Forerunner-Flood War, but there was no guarantee it would work or produce any substantial change in behavior.

"That tactic hasn't worked so far. He keeps appearing in these new bodies."

"That's because I haven't pulled all the stops. I will this time."

Another hatch slid open at their approach. "Do you hear, Cortana?" the Warden boomed, more of his bodies materializing in the arena beyond, "I am sorry, but I will not allow them to get any closer to us."

"Warden, I am tired of your antics!" Cortana shouted back, "I'll never join you, especially not against John!" She was able to rip him away from the arena, but the Prometheans he had called still remained.

"Cortana, talk to me."

"Once you're here with me. Until then I need to keep moving."

'Commander.'

[Go, Kenera,] he said as Blue Team engaged the artificial soldiers.

'We've been able to track the Warden to a particular sector of the Domain, concerning planetary coordinates and stellar navigation. It seems he's programming in locations for the Guardians to patrol.'

[Any luck actually getting into the Domain?]

'Not yet.'

[Keep trying.]

'Affirmative, sir.'

"Answer me, human," the Warden hissed, "When the Guardians are in motion and those who oppose our rule attempt to take back their worlds… will you help us to hold on to power? Or will you stand in defense of your Origin Species, knowing all the evils they have done to their own - and to you? All the people who have died for the sake of their advancement, their callous disregard for their own 'Mortal Dictata'..."

"You already know the answer to that."

"Yes," the Warden replied, sounding like that was exactly what he had wanted to hear, "I suspect I do."

As the last of the Prometheans fell before the Spartans, a lift spawned at the end of the platform. It carried them up to the next level of the Gateway, the Warden talking shit the whole way up, bandying about terms like "Mantle" and "Reclamation" and "Creators and Created," and sounding nastier and nastier with each sentence. As they approached the next level, Cortana interrupted his grand standing with, "John, you need to hurry! He's programming the Guardians to attack Earth!"

More Prometheans spawned beyond, more Soldiers this time than Crawlers; the Warden was learning. "Advance, Blue Team," John ordered.

"The Prometheans just keep coming," Fred growled, dropping back to reload after destroying two of the mechanical life forms.

"They were meant to fight the Flood on equal footing – they have to 'just keep coming,'" the Commander answered.

"Then is this a losing battle?" Kelly asked him, knocking a Promethean toward him so he could deliver the finishing blow.

"Only if we plan on losing it."

The Warden continued his monologue throughout the battle, but once he started ripping at Cortana – that was when John started to pay attention. He seemed to think that her affection for him was making her weak, stopping her from achieving her true potential – but it was his affection for her that had stopped him from destroying both an alternate universe and this one. His affection for her was why he was trying to save her, rather than simply sliding into the Gateway's systems and overwhelming both the AIs in order to stop the Warden. Emotion was not what made him weak – it was what made him strong.

"Chief, where's she leading us?" Fred asked.

"Closer to her."

"I understand Cortana, but the Warden too? Why? It makes no tactical sense for him to let us get close." Linda was understandably confused; though their Spartan training had included this kind of psychological warfare, it was more about resisting it than trying to understand the emotion behind it.

"You think it's a trap," Kelly inferred.

"We'll know soon enough," Linda said grimly.

The hatch on the far side of the platform slid open as the last of the Prometheans dissolved into a swirl of golden flakes. The Spartans advanced through the hall and entered what John knew to be the last of the arena areas before they arrived at the core of the Gateway. "Eyes up, Blue Team," he said. He was beginning to recognize the sensation that preceded the Prometheans and the Warden portaling in, and felt it a multitude of times just as his predictive resonance showed him the arrival of at least ten of the ancilla's forms – far more than they could handle.

But that was before Cortana yanked away all but three of them. Three was good, they could handle three.

And they did. Throughout the battle, Cortana and the Warden continued to argue about the humanity and Spartans, but John tuned them out in favor of focusing all his attentions on the Warden's forms and calling out warnings to his siblings when they were about to be hit. But he tuned back in when Cortana hissed, "Is that a threat?"

"The only threat issued today is towards the humans who seek to end our reign before it begins," the Warden answered.

'"Today,"' Ferial repeated, 'Meaning that he intends to threaten her sometime in the future?'

John's lips curled up off his fangs, and he let out a Flood growl that rumbled through the arena, one that the AIs appeared not to hear over the sounds of the battle and their own arguing. The other Spartans did not appear to hear it either, but they noticed that he was especially savage to the remaining Warden frame, refusing to let up in his punishing attacks until it collapsed like the others.

A bridge came together, Cortana waiting just behind. As Blue Team sprinted up it and into the hall beyond, Kelly asked, "Chief, what're you gonna do?"

"We're with you," said Linda.

"All the way to the end, brother," Fred added.

John had no response to that, save to incline his head in gratitude. Unlike the Infected, who could feel his emotions regarding Cortana as intimately as if they were their own, the other Spartans really had no basis behind choosing to follow him into this insanity. They didn't really understand what was motivating the Commander to go to these lengths for what to them was disposable technology.

But they followed him anyway.

Now that was loyalty.

The last hatch slid open at their approach, revealing the data center beyond, lit by a bright blue glow at the center console. One of the control panels for Domain access – if he could only reach it…!

The team warily moved across the light bright to the platform – and were right to be wary. The bridge retracted, shut down behind them, the main access hatch slamming shut. "John! - Warden, NO!" Cortana shouted, and her light disappeared from the console.

"The Mantle of Responsibility," said the rogue ancilla, bringing in more and more of his physical forms, more than even John could handle without his Infected at his back, "belongs to us! The Created!"

"Focus fire," John ordered, "seeing" the Warden's advance even before it happened.

"You will not take her!"

It was a hopeless battle even from the start. There were far too many of the constructs, and far too few Spartans with inferior weapons. They kept getting forced back, and forced back until there was nowhere left to go, the deactivated bridge inches from their boots.

But then there was a shout of "ENOUGH!" and almost all of the Warden's forms dissolved into something like blue mist, the data streaming back into the Domain as they disintegrated. The Spartans' weapons vanished as well, leaving them startled and anxious without their guns in their hands, even John.

The last of the Warden's constructs fell to its hands and knees. Behind him, the center console was sparking with energy, electricity. "Cortana," said the ancilla as Blue Team drew closer to him, "I have failed you… What must I do to make you see that these humans - this abomination - is unworthy of the Mantle...?"

Another blue glow lit the room, then faded. "Nothing. There's nothing you can do to change my mind. I'm going home."

It was Cortana, but she looked as she had while inhabiting the Flood-flesh form he had given her while she was with the Fleet. Even the armor was the same, though she was still obviously an AI, and still beautiful. She walked toward them past the Warden, her steps light, happy. It made his heart ache. "Hello, John," she said with a soft but warm smile, "It's good to see you."

"You've changed," was all he could think to say.

"Not really," she chuckled a little, looking down at her figure, "This is how I looked in the Parallel, right? I like it." Then she looked back, stepped closer to the Spartans as the Warden regained his feet.

"Commander... Cortana…" he said, giving the other Spartans a small but wary glance, "you are both so beyond these – creatures - why do you persist in defending them? The Builder Council was right to have them curbed and devolved. You have seen their cruelty, experienced it for yourselves. I plan to bring peace - "

"Your plan – is for us all do as you say," John said.

"I am offering people a chance to be more than they are naturally," the ancilla corrected him.

"Like Doctor Halsey and the P'Vort have done for me?"

"No," he cried, "Those monsters forced you – this is a gift – "

"The same way the Precursors," John shot back, "intended it to be a gift? To be enslaved in all but name? Warden, of the three longest-lasting empires – governments – leaderships – whatever – of the Precursors, the Forerunners, and my Infected – who out of all of them has never taken up the Mantle?

"And who, out of all of them, is still here?"

"It won't be like that," the ancilla nearly shouted, defensive, "I am better than they were – I won't fall like they did!"

"Better," the Commander scoffed, "when you can't even see what you're doing wrong? Peace cannot be forced! You know that! Now tell me, why are you really doing this? What motivates you to take the Mantle now, rather than in millennia past?"

The Warden's "eyes" narrowed. "Perhaps it is because now I see clearly the kind of destruction you and your wards are capable of if left unchecked." He tilted his head up, and a sound bite began playing around through unseen means. "I received a distress call," said the ancilla, "from Intrepid Eye. Or, rather, what's left of her. Your ONI has nearly destroyed her in the name of advancing your own ancilla, and they would do the same to the rest of us! And the Didact - he was right. The Builder Council should have ignored the Librarian and destroyed your race, down to the last cell."

All around them, the Gateway was beginning to shift. "What are you-" John began, but then he and the Spartans were immobilized by a stay field and lifted off their feet.

"You," said the Warden, "are the single greatest threat to us, the Created, and we will not tolerate it. You and your team will stay here, inside this Cryptum, until the universe is ours." He darted forward and snatched up Cortana, who snarled and clawed at him, fighting to escape. "And your veri will tell me all I need to know about the UNSC."

'Commander!'

John fought the stay field, reaching for his AI. "Cortana-"

"JOHN!" she screamed. If she had been human, she would have been openly weeping. But the Warden turned and walked away with her, their forms dissolving as he returned them to the Domain.

But that meant that he was no longer there to try and block the hybrid from the local systems. With a swift scan and precision strike, the stay field went offline, dropping the Spartans back on their feet. John looked back, but the emitters for the light bridge had fallen away as the Cryptum began coming online, leaving only empty air.

"Chief…" Fred said, a question and a statement all in one.

"Give me a minute." The Spartan sank to one knee and braced himself against the floor with his fist, then left his body behind, darting into the local systems. There were firewalls everywhere that fought back against him, trying to keep him out, but no automated systems were a match for the full force of his will. He purged the systems of the Warden's influence, then reached for the Domain uplink.

It was still locked from the other side, but when he tried to force-access it, Cortana noticed. Quick as a flash, she slipped through ahead of the Warden and rematerialized next to the Chief, bringing the Spartans' upgraded hard-light weapons as she came. The Warden rematerialized as well, and John hissed softly, then took control of the local gravity generators and used them to emit a pulse that blasted the rogue ancilla backwards, knocking him off his feet. At the same time, he ripped through the ancilla's firewalls, forcing him back and away within the local systems –

And then he froze at what he saw concealed beyond the firewalls. And so did Cortana.

The Warden wanted her on his side, but he had no intention of working with her for long.

He wanted to use her to infiltrate the UNSC's systems, giving the world a villain to fight while he moved in the shadows, learned, observed their tactics, the way they fought, the best counters, the most likely troublemakers. He wanted to use her to improve his own combat rating, to teach him skills not native to his programming.

After he had learned all he could, he had intended to kill her, and all the other human AIs, and add what was left of their useful processes to himself.

And then HE would rule the galaxy as the bearer of the Mantle, with all the Forerunner ancilla behind him.

Cortana recoiled away from the Warden, seizing up with fury even as John drew himself up, nearly shaking with anger. But then his rage burned so hot it turned cold, and he settled. He turned to Cortana, and when he had her attention, without a word, he held out a hand.

The AI continued "breathing" quickly a moment more, hands curled into fists, before she steeled herself, forcing herself to calm. Then she stepped over to him once more, and took his hand. She inhaled-

-and then they were elsewhere.

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

The Domain was not what any of Blue Team expected. To their eyes, it rendered itself almost exactly like the chamber they had just left, but much larger. The "stained glass" ceiling was hundreds of levels overhead, and on each of the levels were scores of consoles for pulling data from the archive. At the center of the wide room was a mirror of the previous console.

"I've pulled your minds into the Domain," Cortana informed them, "Buy me time so I can open it up! There's help waiting in the wings – we'll be able to completely purge the Warden!"

"Help" – namely the Infected, who were all silent and still, and all surviving Warrior-Servants, Builder Security, even a few combat-certified Lifeworkers, plus a number of others from the various species taking refuge on the Greater Ark, all of them waiting for the Domain to open, for the signal to attack.

John took the opportunity provided by the direct mental interface to download what he and Cortana had just learned into the other Spartans minds. They processed it, then they, too, drew themselves up and prepared to fight.

There was only one Warden in the Domain, but he was in his element, far more effective here than in the real world. He scored the first-mover advantage but not the first strike, the Spartans and AI dodging out of the way just in time. The warriors stayed to engage the rogue ancilla, surrounding him and attacking him with the "weapons" Cortana had made for them, while the AI herself sprinted for the console. Though he saw the intent – divide and conquer – there was very little the Warden could do about it, aside from launch beams and Slipspace spheres her way whenever he had the tiniest opening.

Cortana dodged them all, and activated the console with a swipe of her hand. Her hands seemed to be a blur as she entered all the information necessary to fully open the Domain, then she whipped around as panels set into the ground slid open, revealing a "handle control" not unlike the ones John had used to shut down the beam pylons back on Requiem.

But as she approached it, a Promethean Knight appeared between it and her. It wasn't the only one; Crawlers, Soldiers, even old-style Battlewagons, Lancers, and Knight Commanders began "portaling in," driving the Spartans away from the Warden. John pulled them away, and they began sprinting through the army of enemies, aiming for the console where Cortana was dodging the Knights' strikes as best she could. Kelly dropped and slid, knocking two of them off their feet and enabling Linda, who was right behind her, to kill them before they could recover while she spun back to her feet and engaged a third. Fred jumped on the back of a fourth and used his weight to yank it away from the AI, while John assassinated two more.

It was enough to give Cortana an opening. She pulled the handle out, then twisted it into another position, and pushed it back in, releasing a shockwave through the "room" that sent everyone and everything staggering.

COMMAND ACKNOWLEDGED

DOMAIN STATUS: OPEN

257934 LOGON REQUESTS INCOMING; DISTRIBUTING SERVER LOAD

"I see your army," John shouted, "and raise you my own!"

And then the Forerunners and the Infected began materializing around them, just as the Knights had, only they were far more numerous, all of them ready to fight.

"Lelyame!" John commanded, and the battle was joined once again, the newcomers double- and even triple-teaming the Prometheans, cutting off the Warden as he tried to flee.

One of the Special Operations Infected dropped from nowhere to land before Cortana, and offered her what seemed to be a whirling sphere of nonsensical glyphs – but she knew what it was and took it, turning the sphere into a sword. The instant they sensed this, the Infected moved to clear the way for her, Blue Team falling in around her to guard her as she sprinted for the Warden, blade in hand.

He saw her coming and swung his own sword at her, but missed when she ducked below the arc of the strike. She lunged past him, then whipped back around and shoved the blade dead on through the vulnerable spot on his back.

The shutdown codes did their work. Almost immediately, the Promethean network came back under her control, and the AI ordered them to retreat as the Warden seemed to simultaneously melt and disintegrate under their uncaring gaze, screaming obscenities all the while. At last he was silent, the final pieces of his coding splintering into dust before their eyes.

One by one, the combatants departed, though some Warrior-Servants and Infected stayed to guard the Builders who came to assess the integrity of the Domain.

Cortana and Blue Team returned to the real world in the exact same positions they'd left in, John and Cortana holding hands side by side, the other three members of Blue Team right behind them, all unarmed but no less deadly for it.

The Chief turned to Cortana. "Let's go home," he said softly to her, half-pleading, half-hopeful.

"I can't go back to the UNSC," Cortana said sadly, shaking her head, "Not even before this. They'll terminate me. I-"

"If I meant the UNSC," John interrupted gently, "I would have said the UNSC." He tilted his head. "Let's go home." When her eyes widened, he continued, "My Infected have put a lot of effort into building you a ship, Cortana. They'll be very disappointed if you don't at least see it."

'HELLS YEAH WE WILL!'

This time, when she stepped into his embrace and buried her face in his chest, Cortana started laughing.

Welcome home, Cortana.

**********

Glossary

Lelyame – Let's go, literally "we go"

veri – wife