Chapter 1- Spartan-117 Finds Spartan-023 and a Dragon in the Swamp.

Disclaimer: I do not own Halo or any other properties that I borrow for this story. I also don't get any money for this. If anything it costs me money to make this. If by some chance some genius is able to sell this story to you. You need to go to the nearest cliff and jump as dictated by Natural Selection. Dear god how many times have I made this joke? I feel like Family Guy

Installation-04 Flood Research Facility

"Damn it!" John yelled as he ran through the narrow hallways. He was trying to escape the Flood that were hot on his trail. The last two elevators he had tried had blown up on the way to him.

"Oh for the love of…" John cursed as another door locked in front of him. After the last elevator it seemed as though someone was leading him somewhere deeper in the facility. The few doors had tempted him in only to lock and force him through another door.

"SCREE!" a human combat form screeched before John shot its head off with the shotgun. Problem is that it attracted two Carriers to notice him and blow up. All the while a massive flood of mutated soldiers and elites were chasing him.

He turned around to see many of those small balloon ones chasing after him. "Shit! Shit! Shit!" he yelled before he made it to the next door before it closed immediately after him and locked.

He found himself in a rather large dark room. It was mostly empty save for one pod that was embedded in the wall across from him providing the only light. Also there was a suspiciously placed chair in the middle of the room that faced the wall. It also appeared the only door was the one he went in.

"What the hell? What is this?" asked John as he approached the pod.

"Why hello there John-117." A male voice spoke from the shadows.

"Who is there?"

A shadowy figure with blood red eyes glowing came from the shadows and walked into the pods light. John raised his pistol and took aim.

"I mean you no harm."

"Who are you? Why did you sabotage my escape?" growled John before he activated his helmet lights and illuminated the shadowy figure.

The figure's full form was shown to John. The figure was shown to be a man close to John's height wearing jet black draconic armor with glowing runes etched in all over. He had a tail near two meters long and wings that were folded on his back.

"What are you? Are you part of the Covenant?"

"The Covenant? Hah those disillusioned quacks? No. Consider me someone who can help you survive this place."

"What? Why help me?" John asked very suspicious of the stranger.

"My reason and offering to show you can trust me is in that pod. Dratana. Would you be so kind as to turn on the lights?" the dragon replied before the room light up. He then walked aside and pointed to the pod.

John walked closer to pod not lowering the gun and pointing at mysterious man. He walked up to the pod and saw the window was dewed up. He wiped the window before gasping and dropping his gun in shock.

Inside the pod was the blood red armor of a female Spartan he had seen die years ago. Matter of fact he still carried her teddy bear keychain. KIA Spartan-023 Daisy.

"How?!" John growled before grabbing the mystery man and lifting him.

"She was someone I met years ago when she was a child. When I felt her life force begin to fade I went to her body and preserved her soul. I later stole her body and armor before placing her in this pod to heal. Right now she is in stasis. Waiting to be freed."

The door that had been locked was now starting to bend under pressure from the Flood trying to get in. "You will help us survive?"

"Yes. Though due to certain circumstances my abilities have been limited. I can guarantee that I will help you and Daisy survive John."

John looked over the options in his head. He knew that he had a better chance at surviving with another Spartan and this stranger. "Fine. But what is your name?"

The door finally gave way. "Ash. My name is Ash. Get her out while I take care of the Flood." said Ash before he had a vicious looking black scimitar form out of light and went on to take care of the Flood.

"Ok." John rushed back to the pod and went about releasing her. The pod released a hiss as it exposed its contents to the elements for the first time in years. The pod door fell open and Daisy soon began to stir.

"Urgh… What… Where am I?" she moaned as she recovered from stasis.

"C'mon Spartan. Wake up." ordered John as he helped her out of the pod.

"John? What happened? How did I live?"

"I was hoping you could tell me. Here." John replied before giving back her teddy keychain. "It is nice to see you again Spartan."

"ROAR! FLAMETHROWER!" roared Ash from behind him as he unleashed a monstrous stream of flame obliterating al the flood in the next room.

"Are you two ready? We need to move now. Dratana has secured us a route out of here. Do you have an extra weapon for her?" he asked.

"Those monsters had weapons on them didn't they?" asked John.

The weapons sadly were now melted slag on the floor next to the charred flesh. "Uh… Heh heh heh… I didn't think that one through did I?"

"Who and what the hell is that?" Daisy exclaimed at the draconic man.

"URRgamoan!" roar moaned more combat form Flood from the hallway.

"Uh… less talky more shooty!" Ash yelled before turning his sword into a gun before blasting more Flood.

John tossed an assault rifle to Daisy before pulling out a pistol and shooting down the monsters. "You heard him!"

"What are these things!?" she asked as she mowed down the little popper ones.

"I don't know but they are hard to kill!" John replied aiming for an incubator that blew up and took out the monsters around it.

"They are known as the Flood. Think of fungus zombies and you have the general idea. Now c'mon take their guns so I can clear them out!"

An Hour Later

"Hah… Hah… Hah… Hah… Son of a…" Ash panted once they escaped the facility.

"Are you ok?" Daisy asked.

They made it to the exit and were currently with the other survivors resting a moment before they storm the swamp.

"Are you ready for combat? Last thing we need is someone to slow us down who said they help us off this ring." John growled.

"Sorry about that. All this strength I have is a trade-off for my stamina. If anything you guys are slowing me down." Ash replied back with a growl of his own.

"What?!" was growled back.

"I am meant to go in, obliterate, and go out. I am not meant for long term combat and precision. I can't really help you if I accidentally kill you in the cross-fire."

"Boys. Stop with the testosterone talk. We have to get out of here and back to whatever base we have."

GRRROANnnn!

"INCOMING! We got monsters incoming on our position!" yelled a marine

"Damn it! Dratana! Are you out of the system?" yelled Ash as he was yelling at the ceiling.

A hologram appeared out of Ash's armor that was strangely reminiscent of Cortana but with draconic features.

"I just got out now. Are we ready to leave?" replied Dratana.

BOOM!

"HOW THE HELL DID THAT THING GET A ROCKET LAUNCHER! WE HAVE TO GO NOW!" Ash yelled before sniping the rocket wielding zombie.

"This is Foehammer. Chief is that you? I lost your signal when you went in. What is going on down there?" The radio sparked to life.

"Foehammer. We have multiple hostiles surrounding our position. We have survivors and need evac now." John calmly reported.

"I see a large metal object in a clearing next to your position. If you can secure it I can pick you guys up." responded Foehammer.

"Hear that marines! We have a job to do! GO! GO! GO!" John ordered before leading the charge.

They fought valiantly through the swamp till they reached the metal tower.

"How many people did these damned monsters possess!?" Ash yelled as he took out yet another combat form.

"Anybody care to start explaining things to me!" yelled Daisy as she too was shooting more of the zombies.

"Cole protocol. Weird ring world. Covenant shot down ship. Actually giant weapon." John replied quickly between each burst of weapon fire.

"Man of words as usual…" groaned Daisy.

"La la di la la da la la dum." A mechanical voice hummed in the air. Before several hovering drones started killing the Flood.

"What the?" John and the others asked in confusion as the drones blasted the rest of the Flood.

Then John and Daisy were teleported to the top of the metal tower. John and Daisy raised their guns at the glowing blue thing hovering in front of them.

"Greetings. I am the Monitor of Installation 04. I am 343 Guilty Spark." The two Spartans lowered their guns. "Somebody has released the Flood. My function is to prevent it from leaving this installation. But I require your assistance. Come. This way." John and the others were teleported away in a flash of light.

"Chief, I've lost your signal! Where'd you go? Chief? Chief!" cried Foehammer.

"Damn it! Damned Chakas took them to the library! Dratana give me a waypoint to the Control Room! We need to get there before they can get back!" Ash growled before spreading his wings and taking off.

The Library

"We must collect the Index before we can activate the Installation." The blue orb then took off toward the large chamber.

"Something tells me this is going to be a long and hard trip. You have a long while to catch me up John." Daisy said with a sigh before following after the annoying blue orb.

Control Room Exterior

"Report in." Thel Vadamee asked his ground troops from his command ship.

"Fleetmaster we are trying hard to hack in to the door controls but the Human's A.I. is not making things easy for us." The Major replied back.

"Keep at it. We need to get into the control room. We need to make sure we can contain the threat of the parasite and purge our sacred land of those filthy humans." Thel replied back.

"INCOMING!" The radio blared.

"What is going on?! Major report!" Thel asked worried for his soldiers.

"Unknown hostile is ripping through our forces!"

"Is it the demon!?"

"Negative! It is beast in black armor he is ripping through our forces like they are all grunts! GAAA!"

The static was all pervasive in the command deck of Thel's ship. "What in the name of the Forerunners happened?" asked Thel in horror.

"Excuse me! Hello? Is this thing on?" The radio blared back to life. "Is Fleetmaster Thel Vadamee there?"

"Who is this?" Thel asked the voice.

"My name is exactly important at this moment in time but I thought it would be important to tell you that your ship the Truth and Reconciliation is about to be invaded by the parasite. Also all your troops are fine I just knocked them out. Have a nice day!"

Static silenced everyone again though not in horror this time.

"What the f-

3RD Locked Door

"I AM GOING TO KILL THAT GODDAMNED SPARK!" Daisy growled as she ripped the spine out of an infected elite.

John looked on the woman in horror as the bodies piled around her. "Holy…" John didn't even have to do anything the woman had been taking all the kills after the floating blue A.I. abandoned them again.

"C'MON BITCHES! LET ME RIP YOU TO SHREDS!" she roared before large claws popped from her armor.

"I think Ash gave her armor a few adjustments…" John said in awe as she was now scaring the Flood.

Control Room Third Bunker Door

"Are you done yet Dratana?" Ash asked from the floor bored out of his mind.

"Do you want to hack through Cortana's subroutines? I'm trying my hardest here! You know how hard it is to hack through an A.I's security protocols undetected!?" yelled Dratana.

"Hagh… Fine I get it. Don't get your coding in a twist. Yeesh…" the man sighed. A beeping light appeared on his visor. "Those Covies finally woke up."

"We won't have to worry. I locked the doors even tighter than Cortana behind us."

"Nice. I suppose I should be happy though. At least Chakas didn't take me as well. I wouldn't want to have to fight through all those Flood in the Library. I even had catchy one liners. But I don't want to ride the elevator! Wait, it gets worse! Fourth floor: Tools, Guns, Keys to super weapons. All that good material wasted."

Library

"Finally! John grab that damned thing and we can get out of here." Daisy said in relief as she began to rub off the green blood all over her armor.

After he grabbed the Index, Guilty Spark took the Index himself. "Protocol requires that I take possession of the Index for transport. Your organic form renders you venerable to infection. The Index must not fall into the hands of the Flood, before we reach the Control Room and activate the Installation."

"Let's go then." John said before he and Daisy glowed in a bright golden light.

Control Room

"Hagh… last door finally…"Ash moaned as he was about to die from boredom.

BANG

ZAP

BANG BANG

BOOM!

CRUNCH

"Dratana… get out of the system. NOW!"

"Of course!"

The blast door opened up to reveal… The barrel end of a shotgun blasting into his face.

"OW! What the flying hell was that for!?" Ash screamed from the ground.

"Woops. Sorry about that. After all that has happened we have been a bit paranoid." Daisy replied lowering her shotgun.

"Are you alright?" John asked.

"Yes of course. Uh… you might want to get ready the Covenant are right behind me…" He replied as he saw the sensor on his visor flash that the blast door behind them was about to open.

Covenant Command Ship

"What is the status report on the Truth and Reconciliation?" Thel asked one of his officers.

"We are still trying to quarantine the ship for repairs… The parasite is not making things easy. The monster was right about the parasite. It looks to take our ship for itself." He replied.

"We are getting updates that the reactor core is losing coolant. Eventually the core will go offline and take out the ship." another officer added.

"Very well. Continue the assault to take back our ship. Either we win and get it back, or the parasite takes it and the ship is destroyed. We cannot allow the second option."

"Fleetmaster if I may?" a shipmaster asked from his right.

"Yes?"

"Why risk so many of our troops for one ship? Why not just destroy it?"

"The Parasite is intelligent and seems to only be getting more so. If we take down the ship we may end up giving the damned thing enough supplies to get off world. We cannot allow that to happen."

"And of the humans' ship?"

"We currently don't have the resources to pluck the ship. So I have some of our best men guarding it until our reinforcements from High Charity arrive."

Hallway to Canyon B

BOOM!

"GAH!" Ash yelled as he was launched by the rocket launcher from behind a blind corner.

"Ash are you alright!" Daisy yelled as she blasted the offender with the shotgun.

"I'm fine. LOOK OUT!" Ash yelled as he blasted two more combat forms. "Goddamn it! The Flood is all over this place! We better double time this if we want to live!"

John grabbed the rocket launcher that was dropped and cleared the room. "Let's go. We need to make sure he can't fire the ring."

Ash then opened the door before screaming like a little girl and started firing his gunblade like mad. "C'MON BOOK IT BOOK IT BOOK IT!" he yelled before they started running and firing like mad through the Flood infested bridge.

"Banshee!"

BOOM!

"Got it."

"Oh this just screams long and painful mission…" Ash moaned.

They made across the bridge and got into the elevator. "We are almost there." Cortana informed us.

"LARGE HOSTILE PRESENCE ON MOTION TRACKER!" Dratana screeched in my speakers before we looked up.

"HOLY SHIT!" Daisy yelled before they got to work on the large amount of infection forms above them as they went down.

Canyon B Generator

"So…" Ash started.

"What?" asked Daisy.

"If this is there is only one way in here. How did the Flood get up here? They can't fly…"

"It doesn't matter at the moment. Let's just get this done with so we can head to the next one." John ordered.

Final Pulse Generator

"Why the hell am I the only one that has been shot down by zombie rockets?" asked a rather charred Ash.

"Shitty piloting?" replied Daisy.

"Are you two done? We have a job to do." replied John coldly.

BZZT! BANG!

"Now what?" asked Daisy.

"We need a ride to Captain Keyes position." replied John.

"That will take too long." Cortana reported.

"So what we teleport?" snarked Daisy.

"Actually yes. There's a teleportation grid that runs through Halo. That's how he Monitor moves about so quickly. I learned how to tap into the grid when I was in the Control Center. Unfortunately, each jump requires a rather… consequential expenditure of energy."

"Something tells me we are not going to like this." replied John.

"But I'm pretty sure I can take the needed energy from your suits without permanently damaging your shields. Needless to say, I think we should only do this once."

"Very well I guess I will see you guys at the Pillar of Autumn." replied Ash.

"What? You aren't coming with us?" asked Daisy.

"No. My suit doesn't have the excess energy to make that jump. So instead I will head for the Pillar of Autumn and prepare an entrance for you."

"Ok then. Be careful then we will see you at the Autumn. Cortana take us there now." John ordered before they teleported away.

"So master. What is the real reason we aren't going with them? I could easily tap into that grid to follow after them." Dratana asked.

"Dratana… Hagh… You know as well as I do that I can only do so much for them. Not to mention I still have secrets I can't show them just yet. When we get off this abomination of a weapon I will tell them as much as I can. I have lived a long time Dratana, I will not have John repeat the same mistakes I did." Ash went outside to landing pad. He spread his wings widely. "By the way. What is the status of Shadow Clone 025?"

"He reported not long ago that he completed his objective and is currently holding his position on Reach with the rest of the survivors. He is making sure to hide his identity to the humans and sabotaging the Covenant as best he can without breaking protocol."

"Good. We will need Six to join us once we reach Reach. We have a long journey ahead of us Dratana. We need to make sure whatever caused Akumi to reincarnate here doesn't interfere with John and his mission." Ash finished before he took off to the other side of the ring with a burst of flames coming from his wings.

AN: A halo fanfic. Yup… am I a masochist I wonder? I mean I am having a hard as hell time with my other one. Not to mention the book I am writing as well… DAMN MY CREATIVE MIND! Hagh…Oh well. This story has been floating around in my head for a while now. This Fanfic will follow John, Daisy, Ash, and the Arbiter from Halo: CE to Halo 3. If I feel like it I will go on to 4, 5, and possibly 6 if it comes out within a reasonable timeline. Whether or not I go on to the Reclaimer Trilogy depends on you. Word of warning this story will be last priority until I finish Sephiroth's Redemption. So if I get late on the updates it will be because I am too busy on that one or just lazy. So now with that incredibly long outro intro done. Have a nice week. Please Review, Fav, etc…