Nine: Messenger from the Darkness

Bornstellar took command of Forerunner forces as the Didact - all that remained of him, at least - and his first order of business was to track down Mendicant Bias and his rogue Halo. They had suspicions about where it had gone, but it took time to discover the exact location, and longer still to actually get there, even with jumps assisted by the Fleet. Slipspace was still massively in flux, but it no longer seemed like it was purely the Flood and the Halo transits.

The end was drawing near. As soon as he thought it, John knew it was true. The Great Cataclysm was perilously close.

Shadowfall signaled for his attention. 'Chief, we're picking up some unusual heat and energy radiation in a rimworld, along the edge of old human space.'

[Show me.] He briefly reviewed the data. The energy was inconsistent with any natural processes and too "oddly-shaped" to be a Forerunner ship, or even a Precursor structure. [I think this is it. Good work. Alert Bornstellar ASAP.]

In a matter of minutes, they were racing for the star system; it wasn't far from the Ark, actually on the near side of the galaxy.

Sure enough, there it was. The Halo was on approach to an odd planet that seemed to have a wolf etched in craters on its face. Bornstellar's ship streaked ahead of all the others, aiming for the ring, and the Fleet followed close behind. Déjà ran an analysis even as they drew alongside the construct.

Bornstellar was already sending out orders. The Halo was dangerously low on power; if they couldn't get energy into the system, it was going to shear apart as it passed. It was already shearing apart-

All the ships docked with the installation and started connecting their power grids in, while the Fleet internally kept watch for the logic plague. Nasty little virus it was, perverting ancillae and making them serve the Flood, a philosophical form of infection-

There is peace in subjugation…

For fuck's sake, do you ever stop?

There was a Gravemind on the ring, but it was new, weak, unable to connect with the rest of the galaxy quite yet. That they suppressed with ease, erasing its influence.

They could not erase the influence of the Primordial. Its black-ice presence was heavy in their minds, reaching for them, seeking the revenge it had long brooded over in its prison.

But there was something else as well. Something slower, subtler, clearly obvious only now at the end of things. A presence like a film between them and the Primordial, thin but unbreakable; it pushed hard, tried to take control, but couldn't pierce the film.

The Domain? Something like it?

It didn't matter. They had more pressing concerns.

But in the end, the planet passed through the ring without touching. Even so, the damage was immense. Huge sections were shed into space, and John watched as they tumbled end over end. Soon the Halo was small enough to fit through a narrow portal to the Ark - and it did.

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John was called to bear witness. To what, Bornstellar - the Didact, did not say, but all of the Infected watched through his eyes as he entered the facility. The Didact was already there, along with a human on life support of some sort. Clearly the Forerunner wished him to bear witness as well. They entered the facility and emerged in a wide arena.

The Primordial was on a dais below, surrounded by a cage of black rods.

It reached for them, but examined rather than sought to dominate. Even so, the Hive withdrew with a hiss, and listened as the Didact questioned the Primordial.

"Have you found what you sought?"

"No. Life demands and clings selfishly."

"Why did you come here at all?"

"Not by choice."

"Were you brought here, or did you command the Master Builder to bring you?"

No answer.

Unwise perhaps, but the Didact and the human drew nearer to the cage. John followed warily behind. "Are you again hoping to take vengeance upon Forerunners for defying your race and surviving? Is that why you bring this plague down upon us all?"

"No vengeance. No plague. Only unity."

"Sickness, slavery, lingering death!" the Didact returned in wrath, "We will analyze everything here, and we will learn. The Flood will be defeated."

"Work, fight, live. All the sweeter. Mind after mind will shape and absorb. In the end, all will be quiet with wisdom."

The Didact clenched his fists; rage or fear, John didn't know. "You told me you were the last Precursor. How can you be the last of anything? I see now that you are nothing more than a mash-up of old victims infected by the Flood - a Gravemind. Were all the Precursors Graveminds? Or in the end are you only an imitation of a Precursor, a puppet, a reanimated corpse? Are all the Precursors gone, or is it that the Flood will make new Precursors?"

"Those who created you were defied and hunted," said the Primordial, "Most were extinguished. A few fled beyond your reach. Creation continued."

Path Kethona.

"Defied! You were monsters set upon destroying all who would assume the Mantle."

"It was long ago decided. Forerunners will never bear the Mantle."

"Decided how?"

"Through long study. The decision is final. Humans will replace you. Humans will be tested next." The Primordial's pitiless eyes turned to John and the other human.

The Spartan knew what it spoke of. The Halo Campaign.

But how did it know? Or did it assume it was inevitable that the Flood would return in new forms in a new era?

"Is that to be our punishment?" the Forerunner asked.

"It is the way of those who seek out the truth of the Mantle. Humans will rise again in arrogance and defiance. The Flood will return when they are ripe—and bring them unity."

"But most humans are immune-" The Didact stopped. Then he said, "Can the Flood choose to infect, or not to infect?"

To John's eyes, the thing grinned, enigmatic and insane. "No immunity. Judgment."

"Then why turn Mendicant Bias against its creators, and encourage the Master Builder to torture humans? Why allow this cruelty? Are you the fount of all misery?" the Didact demanded.

"Misery is sweetness," the Primordial answered cryptically, "Forerunners will fail as you have failed before. Humans will rise. Whether they will also fail has not been decided."

"How can you control any of this? You're stuck here—the last of your kind!"

"The last of this kind." Its grin widened. "We are the Flood. There is no difference. Until all space and time are rolled up and life is crushed in the folds... no end to war, grief, or pain. In a hundred and one thousand centuries... unity again, and wisdom. Until then—sweetness."

The Didact growled, and called up the control panel for the Primordial's cage. "Let your life race ahead! You were made to survive deep time, but now it will arrive all at once. No sweetness, no more lies! Let a billion years pass in endless silence and isolation!"

Before their very eyes, the Primordial aged. Cracks split its surface, limbs fell away, all of it turned to dust until nothing remained.

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Installation 07 was cleansed of the Flood and deployed to the depths of the galaxy, forever wrapped in cloud – a memorial to those who lost their lives, who were infected and yet still stood in defiance of Mendicant Bias and the Primordial.

343 Guilty Spark was born of the human John saw in the arena; the Composer's work. The Spartan was far from pleased, but time induced rampancy in all AIs, even Forerunner ancillae. If such a thing had happened in the past, they had no records of it, but there was no changing it - not if they wanted to maintain the timeline.

John wasn't sure that he did. Not if the price was too heavy.

But this, at least, he would allow.

The Fleet returned to the front lines, still fighting a losing battle, doing all the damage they could to protect the few Forerunners who survived.

But then they found a survivor they did not expect.

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'Spartan!'

John came out of an exhausted sleep with a jolt. His mind was clouded, but it rapidly cleared. [Report.]

'It's - you need to come and see.'

He barely took the time to pull on his armor before letting the Storm's internal transit system pick him up and drop him off in one of the cargo bays.

The remains of a ship lay on the deck before him. It looked like it had been put through hell; the hull was buckled everywhere, and breached in more than a few places. Despite the destruction, there were a few survivors laid out, being tended by the Lifeworkers. One of them was Catalog, part of the Juradicals, who handled Forerunner legal proceedings. John didn't trust them - they'd been inadvertently bought before, unbeknownst to many of their parts.

Another was the Didact. The original Didact, unconscious but uninfected.

"How is he?"

Ambience-of-Night was kneeling next to him. The little Lifeworker was new - they'd just picked him up not even three days before - and not infected, though he had expressed the desire to stay with the Fleet for as long as was feasible - which could be a very long time indeed. "He's... there's something wrong. His neural topography is severely disturbed. I've never…" He shook his head and stepped back to let Moons-of-Evening-Star lean over him.

Her probes tapped over the Warrior-Servant's bare face. "Ambience is right," she said after a few moments, "But there's something else. It's almost - it's almost like he's been infected with the logic plague."

"Set up a quarantine, and check the others as well. But why would a Gravemind do 'catch and release' with the Didact? If it took him, it would know everything." He reached out mentally to get a feel for him - thank you, Tuavan, for the refinement to their natural yet still very weird Flood ability.

It was like a slimy black seed germinating, roots starting to spread through the Forerunner's mind, itself thrown into disarray and providing fertile ground for the corruption. It moved so fast that there was no time to physically move the Didact; he had to act now.

"Restrain him."

The Lifeworkers moved away at once, and the Warrior-Servants came forward to pin the other Forerunner with all their strength, even though he was still unconscious.

It wouldn't last.

And it didn't.

The moment John reached into the Forerunner's mind, he came awake, fighting hard, writhing in the others' grips, and spitting the foulest curses the Spartan had ever heard - and some he hadn't. Even the ODSTs had nothing on the Didact. His mind similarly struggled, but the Spartan was still a Gravemind, with the full might of his Hive behind him.

The thing was wily and cruel; if it couldn't take the Forerunner, it would leave his mind shredded beyond repair. But it underestimated them; together they were able to shield the bulk of the Didact's consciousness, the most important parts of his mind, from it, and an inch at a time, John extracted the dark seed of evil the Gravemind - no, the Primordial had planted in him. As it finally came free, he heard it whisper, Didact, do you have a moment? Just a moment. That's all it will take.

He had used his mind to remove it, and now the seed was inside him - but again, unlike the Didact, who was alone in his own mind, John and the Infected together had the strength to crush it, rip it apart and banish the last of the Primordial's influence. It tired them – the Flood's will was strong, and they had their own Flood to contend with simultaneously – but they did it.

When he came back to himself, the Spartan was exhausted, shaking with weariness despite his armor doing its best to help him, and sweating like a pig. [How long?]

'Three days.'

He let out a bark of laughter at that. Time had felt simultaneously stretched and compressed. "See to the Didact. Return his neural topography to normal - or whatever passes as normal for him. And tell the Librarian and the Bornstellar Didact we found him."