Author's Notes:

Hello Everyone! I've been visiting this website now for about four years now, so I finally decided to give back to this website by writing a story myself. Hope you all enjoy!

Note: I do not own Halo nor Shingeki no Kyojin.

Prologue

[Recorded date /2552]

It had been two weeks since the departure of the Pillar of Autumn's from Reach, and with it, Noble Six's final mission was completed... but still he fought. The words of his fallen brethren still etched into his mind "Make it count." He owed it to Noble. He would fight to his last breath, and bring as many of these bastards with him as he could. To his credit he had already sent thousands to their grave including an armor division that seemed to have been specifically sent to deal with this lone Spartan, but these achievements meant nothing. For as long as there was no escape from Reach, all he could do was look forward and determine the best course of action to maximize damage to the Covenant forces that still occupied Reach before Death's embrace finally caught up to Six and forced him to the world after... to fight again.

[Recorded date /2552]

This was it, death had finally found him.

In his exhaustion, Six had fallen into this final Covenant trap. They had tapped into Reach's personal UNSC emergency encryption and had fooled many a survivor to Rally Point Zulu. The location was a death trap, little cover outside of a few UNSC field buildings, and the body's of fallen soldiers and Spartans alike laid askew everywhere; an account to this fact.

Six himself had already been fighting for hours pushing back wave after wave of Covenant forces out of Rally Point Zulu, but the damage was done. He was trapped with no options for exfiltration, dwindling ammo, and mounting damage to his armor. The Spartan, wounded and cornered, now was truly the lone wolf; ready to die clawing and biting his way into the life after.

Finally after pushing back a group of high ranking Elites. The Spartan stumbled, and upon catching himself on the ground, coughed up a chunk of flesh blood on the inside of his visor. In this moment, Six realized just how damaged his visor had become, with three large cracks now overtaking most of the visor and the new coat of blood hazing most of his vision beyond the helmet. If anything this was a testament to the tenacity of the fight that had taken place in the last few hours...

But the Spartan quickly pushed that thought aside. The helmet was near worthless at this moment and thus had to be removed. So, slowly, with muscles screaming in protest, the Spartan raised his hands to the release clamps and with the unmistakable sound of the snap-hiss removed his worn helmet. Quickly placing it down to his side, he moved to pick up his MA37 assault rifle and stumbling back to his feet, he began the fight anew. Knowing full well that this would be it; no more breaks. If he had to, he would push into them until he breathed no more.

To his surprise the next fifteen seconds where a blur to the Spartan-no doubt a byproduct of blood loss, hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. But he could recall that he had gunned down four of the seven Elites that had cornered him: two were gunned down by his rifle, another by his standard issue M6G side arm, and the fourth was cut through with his knife before being having its life ended by a pistol shot to the brain. The entire time, plasma bolts splashed around him, scorching the ground and turning the sand into molten glass. Several direct hits fried his shield and nearly melted through a shoulder plate. Blood seeped from cuts in his armor, creating a trail of crimson on the ground, from where he moved.

But Six didn't feel any pain. in those fifteen seconds he had detached himself from his body-becoming death itself as it would seem- watching the last moments of Noble Six's last stand.

As the surviving Elites moved in for the kill, one of the three pushed Six to the ground bringing Six back to his body. Six couldn't help but let out a sad smile as he batted away an Elite to his side and kicked off a silver Elite who was trying to end this fight. Even if they killed him they would also die with him. For after the package was delivered to the Autumn, he had rigged his armor-as a failsafe-to overload after his neural interface stopped receiving data from his brain. In essence, when he died, his armor would detonate severally damaging or killing anything within a twelve foot radius of his body.

Finally, after the silver Elite again lunging to kill the downed Spartan and missed him by a hair. The Elite to Six's right ignited his energy dagger and moved for the kill. Unlike the previous attack, there was no room for the Spartan to maneuver around this death blow, so he stared down the Elite as he waited the milliseconds for it all to end...

'Crack'

But it didn't.

The head of the to be Spartan killer simply ceased to exist well before the sound of the weapon reached the downed Spartan. To the Spartans highly trained ears, it was unmistakably the sound of a SRS 99 Anti-Material rifle that could be heard, like distant thunder, reverberating throughout the desert wasteland.

Just as the Spartan comprehended the sound of the first shot a second 'Crack' filled the air as the silver Elite, which was all too eager to kill the Spartan, had its head removed. The final Elite, recognizing that there was a new foe, Roared a defiant battle cry as it momentarily forgot about the downed Spartan, to look for the new adversary. A mistake that would cost the Elite dearly, as Noble Six summoned up the last of his strength to grab one of the plasma Swords from the dead Elites and rushing to his feet dove the plasma blade deeply into the sole surviving Elites chest as the Spartan landed with the full weight of the MJOLINR armor on the Elite. And with the emendate threat dealt with, the Spartan stood up and surveyed the landscape.

One, no, two beams of light could barely be seen in the distance. Two Snipers, the Spartan surmised, but was quickly distracted away from as he heard the unmistakable sound of a warthog. It's been far to long since I've heard a friendly vehicle. The Spartan thought as he gathered up what he could from the battle field, all the while watching the approaching warthog to make sure it really existed.

In all, by the time the warthog stopped in front of him, he had gathered up three energy swords, his pistols, his rifle, his damaged helmet, and over two dozen plasma grenades. Even though his helmet was irreparably damaged it still housed a fragment of Noble Teams AI, "Dot," which under a cacophony of situations could be essential to the Spartans continued survival.

"Need a ride Spartan?" The ODST in the driver's seat called as the warthog screeched to a stop.

The Spartan only nodded as he quickly moved towards the warthog, gave a brief glance to the other occupant of the warthog. Another ODST by the unmistakable black armor, who was keeping the warthogs gun to the sky as she slowly angled the gun left and right watching for any Covenant air support. As Noble Six climbed his way into the warthog, the driver had already put the warthog into motion, and soon the vehicle was screaming down the barren wasteland that once was Reach.

Almost immediately after getting the warthog back up to a breakneck speed the driver began talking to the Spartan. "It was lucky that we found you when we did, Spartan. A few more minutes and you would have been fighting the war on the other side." He paused for a second to glance at the Spartan, "I guess that makes us even, then. After all, you did save me and my Squad back in New Alexandria when the fighting got the thickest.. I wish I could say that their still in the fight, though..." The ODST shook himself out of his memories before continuing.

"Right, I'm Captain Ian Schmitt of the 10th Shock Trooper Battalion, Bullfrog squad. Back there," Captain Schmitt pointed behind himself, "is Lance Corporal Ellysia Langnar, lone survivor of the 19th Shock Trooper Battalion stationed in this sector. In all, we're the last Shock Troopers active in this sector, hell, we're probably the last active members on this continent." Schmitt took a moment to regain his composure with a deep breath before continuing, "By now you've already put together the fact that we aren't the two that pulled the trigger on those two Elites that almost ended you. The ones who did, your guardian angels, would be Corporal Miranda Stacker and Private First Class Liam Schultz of Hades Corps. They're not in visible range for all of our safety..."

Six understood why, it was a common practice for survivors, since the Covenant war went into full steam for survivors to stay barely in radio range to minimize the chances that everyone in the group would be found if a Covenant patrol where to stumble upon one of the vehicles in the survivors group. This would allow that found group to become sacrificial lambs to spare other survivor's in the larger group by leading the Covenant patrol and subsequent troops away from the convoy of survivors and their destination.

"Now besides those two, there is a third vehicle in our group containing an ONI Operative, I believe he codename was Foresight, and a turncoat Insurrectionist named Benjamin Galik. As you can probably imagine our ONI Operative has become the impromptu leader of our rag-tag group of survivors. No surprises there."

Feeling that the Captain might fall into a tangent Noble Six took that moment to ask a question that had been burning the back of his mind since the Captain had set the warthog barreling down the landscape. "Where are we heading?"

The Captain was quick to answer that question, "A farmhouse." He then took a moment give the Spartan an expression the just seethed the sentence, I don't believe what I'm about to tell you, "Our insurrectionist friend believes that there is still a 'lifted' civilian vassal beneath the farmhouse. Something I doubt..."

"Think positively Captain, it's either there or its not, and if it's not, then we go out in a blaze of glory then," suggested Corporal Langnar, who finally decided to joined the conversation.

To this suggestion the Captain sighed, "It's best to expect the realistic, that why we won't be heartbroken when it's not there." Deciding to concede a bit to the Corporal, to end this conversation, he added "I'm not saying it won't be there, I'm just saying... I'll believe it when I see it."

And at that exact moment, a Banshee appeared lazily moving outside of an Ionized gas storm in the distance. Ending the conversation where it stood, as all individuals in the warthog tensed at the possibility of being found in the open. For a few tense minutes the Banshee drifted just within visibility of the warthog before lazily flying into another Ion cloud leading away from the warthog's destination. In the clear for the moment all members of the warthog breathed a sigh of relief, having just dodged a bullet, but this would not be the last time they would run into a patrol before reaching their destination.

Three Hours Later...

"So this is the farm," Captain Schmitt stated as he brought the warthog to a stop next to the other two warthog that the group were using. As the Spartan got out of the warthog and made his way towards the farmhouses' entrance where the marines were gathering around the ONI operative and paramilitary civilian. The Spartan took a moment to take in the surroundings. The farm, which no doubt was prosperous over two months ago, wasn't much to look at anymore. The foliage around the farmhouse was long dead and it appeared that a small scale firefight had taken place on the premises in the past few weeks...

As the Spartan approached the group he heard the tail end of Operative Foresight's instructions "...Corporal Langnar, Corporal Stacker, and Private Schultz stay in your respective warthogs and be prepared to move them into the hanger as soon as Benjamin here opens the door. As for Captain Schmitt, Spartan B312, Benjamin Galik, and myself, we will be going into the house. If we meet any resistance it is to be dealt with, with lethal force. After that, Benjamin will hit the switch located within the house and we all regroup inside the hanger bay. Is that understood?" After a chorus of yes sir's, the groups departed and began performing their assigned tasks.

Within minutes the house was secured, and Benjamin began looking along a discreet wall for the switch that would lead to their miracle ride off of Reach.

"Wow, umm.. Sir, you're going to want to check this out!" Captain Schmitt yelled from a storage room.

"This better be pretty damn important," Operative Foresight announced as he and the rest of the house group entered the storage room. Almost immediately everyone understand why this warranted such a quick response. "That's.. That's Spartan armor. How did that get here?" Foresight turned to the only living Insurrectionist for answers.

"I honestly have no idea. Thomson never explained how he got the 'hotter' contraband that he did... and I'm afraid he took those answers to the grave." With that Benjamin pointed towards a body laying besides a window. On a closer inspection, you could see that Thomson had put up quite a fight before taking a plasma round to his head, resulting in a nice fist sized hole in his head that had oozed and solidified across the rest of his face and upper body.

"Damn," was the only muttered response to the sight of the body before everyone went back to business.

"Spartan, grab that gear. You'll probably need it. Not to mention it doesn't feel right to leave it here, in enemy territory." commanded the ONI Operative as he moved back to supervising Benjamin, as he searched for the switch. As the Spartan gathered up the boxes of contraband gear, he noticed something truly peculiar. This.. This was his spare gear to be used during Saber Program testing... How did it get here?

'Hiss'

"That was it." Stated Benjamin as he moved away from a consoled panel, ripping the Spartan from his thoughts. "We only have two minutes to get in the hanger before the doors automatically reset." And with that, the group quickly left the house and entered the recently exposed tunnel to the smugglers hanger bay.

Upon entering the hanger bay Noble Six could hear Captain Schmitt whispering, "Well I'll be damned, it does exist." When he spotted the civilian vessel in the cramped underground hanger. As the group walked into the hanger bay, Benjamin stretched his arms out. "The Mary Celeste... It may not look like much but, god willing, it's our ticket out of here."

The Spartan like the rest of the survivors, took a moment to take in all the details of the vessel. To be honest it wasn't a pretty sight. The ship, which was a relatively new modal, had been 'upgraded' by the insurrectionists to contain three gun mounts on the top of the vessel and two on the bottom. Even for the Spartans well trained eye it was difficult to tell exactly what model of anti-ship weapons these guns where, since it was obvious that these guns were constructed out of various scrap and stolen gun parts. The Spartan himself had seen multiple makeshift gunboats that Insurrectionist had attempted to use over his short career, but this by far was the worst constructed one he had seen to date, which explained why it was still in the hanger. This group of insurrectionist where beyond green and outside of having some good thief's, they had no idea what to do when it came down to an actual firefight...but Benjamin was still alive, so either he was the brains of this operation or he was one lucky son-of-a-bitch.If the craftsmanship on the guns where any measure of how the ship was taken care of, it would be a miracle, all over again, if this vessel was actually space worthy.

A thought echoed by Operative Foresight. "Damn, you did one hell of a number on this one, but can it fly?"

Benjamin was quick to replay to that question, though in a less than ideal manor, as he worked his way around the warthog lineup that was ascending into the ship's cargo hold. "It can fly. It might not be pretty, but it can fly." He paused as he reached the mouth of the ship and stated bluntly. "I'll be honest, this ship was designed to get away from you guys. If you where to ever find out about our operation, this was our escape plan. Obviously we hadn't finished working on the vessel, but that's the hand we're all dealt. We may not be able to take any punches but the ships fast, and those guns do work. They were installed to keep a few Pelicans at bay, I'm sure it can do the same to any covenant patrols in the area... at least until we can jump into Slipspace." With that Benjamin led the group to the bridge of the ship, where they would discuss their exit strategy.

Forty minutes later...

After some deliberation and a quick final check the seven survivors where ready to finally leave Reach. The Spartan was voted to be the ships pilot do to his extensive knowledge of spaceflight to do his Spartan training and the Saber Program. Corporal Stacker and Private Schultz where given the tasks of navigations and communications respectively. Specifically Private Schultz was to watch for covenant air support and relay that information to the other six survivors, four of which were operating different weapons on the ship with the assistance of the Dot fragment from Six's helmet.

"We'll only get one chance at this... Is everyone ready?" To the Spartan it almost sounded like the Operative Foresight was having second thought on this operation, but when no one voiced any concerns he gave Six the OK to start the assent. Muttering to himself an old idiom "We'll make it on a wing and a prayer."

Within moments the farm above the hanger bay divided like the Red Sea, allowing the ship, the Mary Celeste, to rise from the grave as it would have appeared and take flight on an exit vector from Reach. It would be five minutes for the Slipspace drive to worm up for use and until that time, they'd have to play a deadly game of cat and mouse with the Covenant.

The first minute when by without a hitch, but within fifteen seconds of that a Banshee had noticed the vessel on radar and was making its way to intercept the ship. A mistake for the Elite pilot. Not expecting the civilian vessel to be armed with anti-ship cannons the Banshee was destroyed before it had the chance to let off its own projectiles against the civilian vessel.

It wasn't until there was less than a minute on the Slipspace drives timer did the Mary Celeste meet any true resistance, in the form of a Seraph squadron. Now the Spartan had push the vessel to its limits to keep the Seraphs from narrowing in on a kill shot, all the while having to listen to the timer slowly ticking down until they could escape. Even with all the makeshift firepower on the vessel, they weren't having any luck punching a hole through any of the Seraphs' shields, putting that much more pressure on the Spartan and the Mary Celeste to avoid Seraph shots.

15 seconds... The engines of the Mary Celeste where well into the red zone and would soon shutdown permanently if the Spartan wouldn't lay off of the thrusters, but as seven plasma rounds landed glancing blows on the vessel, that wasn't going to happen.

10 Seconds... Warning siren went off indicating that one of the vessels four engines had gone offline. A second prior to the siren going off several plasma rounds had struck that location of the ship, but it was impossible to know at that moment if the engine failed because it was struck by a plasma round or if it had simply given out the stresses the Spartan was pushing the engines... Within the span of the next ten seconds the Spartan expected to know the answer.

5 Seconds... The coordinates where locked and the Spartan was forced to stabilizing the ship for the Slipspace jump. And at the same time he did that, the battle to take down the Mary Celeste changed completely. "Something's wrong. The Seraph's are backing off of us."

2 Seconds... Before anyone could respond to the Spartans comment, the answer appeared before them. A Slipspace portal, big enough for a Covenant Cruiser, began to open up. It covered the exact coordinates that the Mary Celeste was going to punch a hole into Slipspace at-something that had never been done before. The ramifications of punching a hole into Slipspace where a current Slipspace portal existed had never been tested, but doing something like that couldn't be good.

0 Seconds... The Mary Celeste opened up her own portal, causing the larger portal, as well as theirs, to swell and change. By this time the Covenant Cruiser had only just begun to immerge from the Slipspace portal, but the change caused by opening the second portal was already having visible effects. By the time the Mary Celeste began
entering its own portal, the Covenant Cruiser's belly, still in Slipspace prior to the second portal opening, had compacted into the front portion of the Cruiser as its body seemed to be propelled out of the portal faster than the front of the Cruiser was.

"Oh, shit." Was the monotone response of Operative Foresight as the vessel entered Slipspace.

Upon Entering Slipspace...

The sounds of sirens and the groan of metal had already become common to the individuals inside the Mary Celeste after the five heart racing minutes of fighting to get to Slipspace, but upon entering Slipspace, these noises where multiplied by the hundreds, as every siren and sheet of metal on the vessel seemed to go off or groan almost simultaneously. On top of that, internal power seemed to be fluctuating randomly as both the lights and consoles' began to fade, burst, or return to normal at random intervals.

Within a minute several fires had been started throughout the ship do to malfunctions and overloads. Dot quickly was able to put out most of these fires by venting the oxygen in all compartments the ship besides the bridge, but for those bridge fires everyone on the bridge who was not attempting to stabilize power or bring the ship out of Slipspace where furiously working on containing the fires.

At three minutes into this Slipspace hell, support beams where beginning to fail as the ship's hull began to peel away in several places. On the bridge, the fires had been put out and power, as unstable as it still was, was stable enough for the Spartan to get a Slipspace portal opened up, bringing the Mary Celeste back into normal space.

But this Slipspace wouldn't be without its casualty. For as the Mary Celeste decelerated back into normal space, several weakened support beams failed and collapsed into the ships' deck. One of which was located on the bridge of the ship...

'Thump'

"Anyone Hurt?"

"Foresight down!"

"Dammit, he's dead.."

WARNING: COLLISION IMMINENT, SUGGEST IMMEDIATE COARSE CORRECTION

"The engines aren't starting.."

"Shit, don't tell me we left Reach only to crash and burn on another planet!?"

-End prologue. -

So, that's the prologue!

As a final note, I want to thank everyone who bothered to read this to completion, as well as, my two friends who-more or less-beta read for me. Thanks again DeadzManWalking and xXCOMIZARXx for all of your help.

Please if you are inclined, leave a review... A constructive review preferably.

Until next time, have a great day everyone!