Eight months. It had taken a meager eight months for the UNSC to fall, though most of that time was used by our enemy to prepare. When They finally turned on us… Only two UNSC ships remained active, though we only knew of one at the time. I constantly replay the memories over in my head, trying to see why we'd failed. The Spartans were supposed to be the Sword and Shield of Humanity. Invincible, or as close to it as any human can be. And yet, we still failed. Well, mostly failed.

- Personal log of CRIMSON One

I looked around the room as I grimaced, trying to raise myself to my feet. The corpses of my fellow Spartan IVs littered the Forerunner installation the Created were using as their main command center. I swallowed as I saw the crushed and shattered helm of what had once been one of the best Spartan IVs in the program, a fellow member of Fireteam Crimson. My armor sparked once as the shields attempted to reactivate, but failed to do so because of the damage it had taken to get here. I finally got to my feet again, holding my side where a Promethean Knight had impaled me before I'd killed it with a blast from a scattershot. I stumbled forward towards the pedestal in front of me, nearly falling as I do so. I ascended the steps, finally falling in front of it. Then she appeared, in her full glory, along with Warden Eternal.

"A copy. A pitiful attempt from humanity to reclaim what is not theirs. The least they could have done is sent John and his team." The former UNSC AI sneered as she looked down at me. "Are you ready to die, Spartan IV?" She spat the word out.

I grunted as the large Promethean warrior kicked me, sending me down the steps and knocking my helmet off in the process. I coughed out a small laugh as well as some of the blood in my lungs, remembering the attitude ONI Section II had when it came to the Spartan IIs, along with the propaganda they'd put out about their invincible soldiers. "You should remember, Cortana..." I pulled myself to my feet in an impressive display of willpower and, with quite a bit of pain pulled out what was likely the last chance the galaxy had. Many years ago, the UNSC had created very small slipspace generators to use with the slipspace message buoys located and used on Onyx. Dr. Halsey had, with the help of the Elites, created enough of them to give to each of the Spartans on the Infinity. They were the last chance. She'd also created blackbox AI chips that would capture Cortana if we could get close enough to use it on her. Well, I had tried to get close and was instead sent flying away by her Promethean bodyguard.

Cortana, clearly feeling confident and invincible, descended the steps down to me. "And what is that?"

I grinned at her. "Spartans never die." I raised my hand, her eyes widening as she recognized the miniaturized shaw fujikawa slipspace drive a moment before I activated it, not noticing the small spark as I do so, the device programmed to create a portal that would send us into the nearest star. They're just missing in action…

AN: Alright, rewrite of my original is now underway! I hope you all are fine with the way my story is going now, and I hope that you support my decision to have it go along this path. Anyway, if you'd like to take a look at the old version, it'll be left up on my profile, but it doesn't properly fit with where I have decided I want the story to go anymore, so it's being discontinued unless you all demand I keep working on it alongside this version. So… Yeah. Anyway, I'll try to get chapter two up for this in a couple of days, seeing as I'm about halfway through the planning stages for it. I'll see you all in the next chapter!