Several Days Later...

"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death. I release your soul and by my shoulder protect thee." Pyrrha once more chanted, her crimson aura triggering a similarly blood-red aura of Sev.

"For it is through service that we achieve peace. Through this we become sentinels for good and protectors of all, united by brotherhood and purpose. I release your soul and by my shoulder let you roar." The steel-grey Aura of Sarah Lyons shone bright as Noble Six's own aura was released, a deep forest green.

"Kalahira, mistress of the hunt, I ask not for forgiveness, but strength. Beset by wickedness and contention, grant this one the power to hunt his enemies, so that one day he may return to peaceful shores." Thane's prayer, coming from his own beliefs rather than an emulation of Pyrrha's chant, allowed his own aura to flare green as he unlocked Venom Snake's aura, a dark, navy blue.

Shepard smiled as she watched the Legionnaires test their new powers, flexing their auric muscles as it were. Snake and Sev wasted no time testing out the upper limits of their powers, now capable of lifting Warthogs of several thousand pounds with contemptuous ease, as well as gaining the ability to leap and jump absurd distances while surviving lethal falls. Six, on the other hand, already having superhuman physical abilities, was pushed to levels even further beyond. Combining his augmentations along with his aura and MJOLNIR armor, Six was easily the physically strongest member of the Legion, if not the physically strongest person in the Final Destination. The fact that he could overhead press the AT-TE, a vehicle that was at the very least a 100 Metric tons, left no doubt that he could probably vaporize people with a single punch. Speaking of Six, he and Snake both hadn't started gushing blood out of every orifice, meaning that their Aura wasn't messing with their enhancements and previous injuries. Snake made no indication that he'd be getting his eyesight back anytime soon, but Pyrrha mentioned that Aura's healing factor was more or less good for regenerating minor wounds and only stabilizing major ones. Lost limbs and the sort were beyond its capabilities.

With this, Shepard was the only one left who needed to get her Aura unlocked. Wynne and Galen had gotten their Aura's unlocked the day previous, and neither of them were skilled enough in its usage yet to free Shepard's soul. It didn't bother Jane too much, as while the rest of the Legion could test their new powers, she could focus on planning their next move.

It had been several days since the Battle of the Temple of Order, and while things weren't necessarily looking good, things could be going worse as well. Sure, the news that the forces of Chaos were being led by what was essentially a three-headed demi-god had put a damper on morale, the situation hadn't necessarily changed as they'd be fighting that amalgamation regardless of whether or not they knew about it. On the plus side, Snake and his team had accomplished his mission, killing the leader of the Super Mutants and getting a nuclear capable mech on the Legion's side. It's the little things like that, that help them get through the days.

As Shepard watched the Legion continue their power testing, a series of electronic whirls and whistles from behind her got her attention. The commander took a quick peek over her shoulder and saw T3-M4 approaching her, headlight bulb flashing.

"Hey T3, what's the matter?" Shepard asked, curious as the little droid didn't often go out of its way to speak with the other members.

T3 let out a burst of technobabble that caused Shepard to purse her lips. Not because of the content of the message however, but because Shepard was still learning the droidspeake from this universe and could barely understand the utility droid half the time.

"Uhh… I don't suppose you're trying to tell me that Pyrrha is stuck in a well?" Shepard weakly joked.

Despite having no actual facial expression of any kind, Shepard could feel the blank stare T3 was giving her. The droid then rolled up to the Commander and extended out his unity arm, handing Shepard a datapad. Scowling, Shepard began to thumb through the datapad, and realized that it was an updated version of the map of the Final Destination.

"Oh you finished the decryption from the Archives! Why didn't you say so?" Shepard gave a cheeky smirk to the droid.

T3 continued his black stare at the human, before extending his unity arm once more and giving Shepard a low voltage shock.

"Ow! Son of a- alright, alright, I'll stop. Obviously we need to get a sarcasm module installed into you." Shepard quipped as T3 began to roll away.

Looking down at the data T3 had translated, Shepard carefully plotted the Legion's next step. There were 5 primary points of interest in the Final Destination, the Temple of Order, the Citadel of Darkness, the Archives, the Armory, and the Tomb. According to the information from the Archives, these were the primary locations that had existed in the Final Destination when it was first formed as Haven. Anchor points that remain consistent regardless of how many times this dimension is reformed.

The Legion had already visited both the Archives and the Temple of Order, gaining insight and history into this world at both locations, but when it came to tangible help, they were found wanting. Meanwhile the Citadel of Darkness, the obvious lair of the forces of Chaos, was placed smack dab in the middle of Korriban. And the Legion was so hilariously outgunned by the forces of Chaos that any attempt to attack the Citadel was just a convoluted way of committing suicide.

Right now, the Legion's greatest weapon was their secrecy. The Empire, the Covenant, and the rest of the forces of Chaos had yet to find where the Legion had been operating out of. And their small size allowed them to enter and leave battlefields extraordinarily quickly, usually retreating before any large scale retaliation could be mustered. But raids and lightning strikes weren't going to work anymore. If the Battle at the Temple of Order taught them anything, it's that Chaos was ramping up its efforts to put the Legion down, and they needed more firepower to contend with the armies chaos commanded.

For a brief moment, Shepard idly wondered if it would be possible to get one of the armies here on their side. According to Snake, he believed that the Master had some sort of psychic control over the super mutants, so with him dead maybe they could be negotiated with, or at the very least manipulated into fighting Chaos. Meanwhile the geth have been busy fighting everyone who wasn't a synthetic. Shepard sighed, wishing she still had the code Legion wrote to rewrite the heretic geth and bring them into compliance.

Regardless, the geth on Ilos was their next most likely target. This was because the ruins placed in geth territory was the Armory. As implied by the name, the Armory apparently stored technology, weapons, and equipment from all of the different cycles the Final Destination went through. It's location on Ilos had explained where many of the Geth were acquiring non-geth weapons, such as the power axe Shepard now wielded, as well as various unknown rifles that Thane had reported the geth carrying.

If they could complete a raid on the Armory, then that would get the Legion a plethora of equipment that could be used to even the playing field. Shepard legitimately had no idea what to expect, but if her power axe was to be taken as a baseline, then they would be getting some much needed upgrades from it. Because if they couldn't get their hands on an army, then every Legionnaire was going to have to be an army on their own if they wanted any chance at winning this damned game.

Back in the Capital Wasteland…

Sgt. Johnson kept his shotgun level, finger off the trigger, as good trigger discipline was expected for a man with decades of combat experience, but still ready to take down anything that was even remotely hostile to him. Despite being in an unknown, deadly environment, Johnson kept a cool head and a steady heart rate. While this kind of situation would be terrifying for a normal civvie, Johnson was a proud member of the Corps, and this would be considered a Tuesday for him. Sure the last thing he remembered was getting blasted by that goddamn floating lightbulb Guilty Spark, but this wouldn't be the first time the Sergeant has cheated death.

After several hours of walking, Johnson decided to take a break within a ruined convenience store. Lucky for him, there were still a few unopened bottles of clean water and sealed cans of some kind of mystery meat called cram. Johnson raised an eyebrow when he saw that the packaging date said 2077, but the food still seemed to be in serviceable condition. Hell it even tasted better than most UNSC MREs.

Once he was refueled by the mystery meat that was probably more preservatives than protein, he clicked on his radio and called out, "This is Sergeant Major Avery Johnson of the UNSC Marine Corps calling out on all UNSC channels. Can anyone hear me?"

This had been Johnson's routine for the past few days. He swore he saw a pelican flying around the first day he was here, but he saw no sign of it since. He had come into conflict with the locals, some strange yellow frankenstein looking motherfuckers that took as much punishment as a brute but were somehow even dumber. They weren't too much trouble to handle as long as he got the drop on them, as their muscles didn't do much against 8-gauge shells, but he didn't have unlimited ammunition.

In addition, his long range radio transceiver was busted thanks to the Light Bulb, so he was stuck walking and using brusts of short range communications, hoping that someone friendly was close enough to hear it. As Johnson scooped the last handful of cram down his throat, a burst of static through his radio almost made him jump.

"Agh! Goddamn!" Johnson exclaimed as he pulled his radio headset off, the white noise screeching and hissing.

Through the static however, Johnson could hear a voice barely coming through. "He- bzzzt - yell- tssssshhk - stein!"

Johnson jumped off of the convenience store counter he was sitting on and grabbed his shotgun. There was someone close enough to send him short range radio transmissions. The signal was garbled and distorted, which meant they were probably on the edge of his range, but that was better than nothing.

Moving out of the store, shotgun level in case he ran into anymore locals, Johnson kept his radio receiving, moving in random directions until the transmission started to clear up, giving him a specific direction to start moving towards. While Johnson was excited that he finally found something that could potentially be friendly, he had far too much experience to simply just rush towards his objective. That was a mistake that killed too many young marines who thought that they were invincible. So he moved from cover to cover, piles of rubble and corners of destroyed buildings, scanning for any potential hostiles before moving on. After a few hundred meters, the call began to clear up.

"Hello! Please, can anyone hear me!? I've had it up to here with being underground!" A clearly male voice yelled out over the radio. "If you didn't know, being buried alive really sucks so if anyone can save me, I will not say no!"

Johnson picked up the pace as the continued to move towards the transmission's source. "This is Sergeant Major Johnson of the UNSC Marine Corps. What's your location?"

The voice sounded startled by Johnson's reply. "The UNS- oh fuck yeah I haven't seen you guys since before we landed on Chorus!" the voice jubilantly called out. "Here lemme see if I can ping your location… aaannnd done! Ok I've interfaced with your systems and sent you my location. I'm currently trapped underneath some rubble about a hundred meters North of your position. I'll set a waypoint for you so you don't get lost."

Internally, Johnson questioned how this so far unnamed person was able to access his equipment so quickly, but he figured he'd ask him after he pulled his ass out of dirt. "Understood, I'll be right there."

"Hmm, not like I can go anywhere right now."

Double timing it to the indicated location, Johnson found himself looking into an alleyway, the waypoint aiming directly above a pile of loose rubble and debris. Surrounding the debris were two more of those strange, yellow frankensteins seemingly… kneeling?

"Oh pretty light!" one of the mutants called out. "Tells us what to do!"

"I already told you what to do. You can fuck right off!" the voice he's been interacting with shouted at the monsters.

"But how do we do that?" The other mutant asked.

Johnson resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he brought up his shotgun. With two bangs, the supermutants' heads exploded like it was a grunt birthday party. Approaching the dead bodies, Johnson then scanned for what could be his mysterious contact.

"Son of a bitch!" the voice cried out as the mutants died. As Johnson approached, the voice seemed to refocus on the sergeant. "Oh thank Christ you showed up. And you're not a giant, yellow frankenstein, even better!"

Scowling, Johnson realized the voice was coming from underneath a slab of concrete. Bending down, the sergeant got both his hands under the rock and used his legs to flip the debris over. Underneath, Johnson saw something he was quite familiar with. A chip. An AI-microchip much like the one Cortana used. Displaying from the chip, a holographic AI appeared, taking on the avatar of a light-blue Spartan-II holding a sniper rifle.

"Hmm, an AI? What's your designation?" Johnson asked.

The AI seemed to be a little taken aback by the question. "Oh wow, straight to the point huh? Well, my friends call me Church, but my enemies call me the motherfucker."

Johnson gave Church a blank stare. "Right I'm sure you had them all quivering in their boots. The name's Johnson. Sergeant Major Johnson of the USNC Marine Corps."

"Well all things considered, I do have to say it's good to meet you Sergeant. So far this has gone a lot better than most of my interactions with the UNSC. Usually you guys just after me and my buddies save the day and clean up."

Johnson scowled at Church, confused. "Then Hell does that mean? You know what, nevermind. Church, why haven't you deleted yourself as per Cole Protocol?"

Church's avatar seemed to think for a moment, bringing his hand to his chin. "Hmm, now that you mention it, I did kinda delete myself, before I found myself here. Who the fuck is Cole though?"

"Cole? As in Admiral Preston Cole? How the Hell do you not know who he is?" Johnson was dumbstruck at the AI's lack of knowledge.

"Hey! Sorry I don't suck the dick of every blowhard you guys turn into heroes." Church shot back. "Me and the UNSC have a nice stable relationship where I leave them alone and they leave me alone."

"I…" Johnson couldn't really process what was going on.

"Oh by the way, six contacts to your left, sixty meters and closing." Church blankly stated.

"What!? Oh motherf-" Johnson immediately ducked behind the pile of rubble as bullets wildly flew around above him, pinging against the concrete buildings.

"Little shiny voice god belongs to us!" one of the super mutants yelled out as it fired its hunting rifle at Johnson.

Johnson turned to Church and just stared..

Church's hologram rubbed the back of his head, and had the decency to at least look a little bit sheepish. "Oh yeah, forgot to mention. I maaaaay have convinced some of the locals I was a god."

Johnson sighed and elected to ignore Church until the battle was over. Racking another shell, Johnson reached into his belt felt for how many grenades he had left. Only two frags and a single plasma grenade. He wasn't exactly bleeding explosives right now, but this wasn't the time to be stingy. The yellow freaks were wildly inaccurate, but they only needed to be lucky once to put Johnson down permanently.

Slipping a frag grenade, he lobbed it over the cover, watching it bounce towards the super mutants. The berserking mutants didn't seem to take notice of the explosive as it rolled next to a mutant's legs before exploding in a cloud of fire and shrapnel that destroyed the mutant's lower body. Several nearby mutants were forced back, stumbling away from the grenade, protecting their eyes with their arms, blinding them.

Seizing the opportunity, Johnson rushed forward with his shotgun. With two blasts of his shotgun, 8 gauge slugs tore through the torso of two of the mutants, instantly putting them into the ground. They fell to the ground as the mutants recovered, loosing a counter volley. Johnson bit back a curse as he was forced to hunker down once more as hot lead began flying over his head.

Johnson raised his shotgun above his cover and blindfired two shots, hoping to hit something. However the slugs flew wildly pinging off the nearby walls as the remaining Super Mutants continued to push, undeterred by the return fire. Church, watching the whole thing happen from his makeshift altar, knew that if the mutants got close to the Sergeant, they'd tear him limb from limb and use his pancreas as a knapsack. So he decided to intervene. Shifting his hologram in front of the mutants, Church manipulated his projection to appear 20 feet tall, easily towering over the mutants.

"Wait!" Church called out, trying to make his voice deeper to sound more authoritative. It didn't work. "Wait my uhhh, minions. Before you go and slay this heretic, listen to the final words of your god!"

The super mutants stopped in their tracks, staring up at Church's hologram and awe and terror. So taken aback by the majesty of the AI in front of them, that none of the super mutants saw the blinking red line that emitted from Johnson's position. The blinking red laser was familiar to Church and he sucked in an excited breath as he did a double take behind him, seeing Johnson charging up his Spartan Laser.

"Oh!" Church squawked out. "Son of a bitch!"

The mutants barely had time to follow Church's sightline when a massive beam of hyperconcentrated energy discharged from the heavy weapon. The laser instantly cut through the bodies of all of the remaining mutants, disintegrating limbs and burning through the armored torsos of the brutes. The mutants all dropped to the ground, dead within milliseconds of being hit. As the smoldering corpses continued to burn, Johnson left his cover, holstered his laser, and approached Church.

"Aw man you have a giant laser gun! That's freaking sweet. I remember when I used to possess this floating, alien eyeball robot, and had a giant laser on there too. Good times." Church seemed to lose himself in his memories for a brief moment.

"Riiight." For now, Johnson found it best not to question the eccentric, possibly rampant AI. "Anyway, I'm looking for a way out of this hellhole, and I'm assuming you want in?"

"Fuck yeah. Being a god for a bunch of brain damaged mutants isn't as fun as the movies make it out to be." Church shrugged.

"Good, I could use the support." Johnson picked up Church's AI chip and put it into his utility belt. "Now, a couple of days ago, I heard a pelican flying over. You see it too?"

Church's hologram appeared right next to Johnson's shoulder. "Yeah I did. I tried to ping 'em but the idiots must've had their radios off or something. They were flying South in a hurry."

As Church briefed him, Johnson bent down next to a mutant and picked up a rifle that looked like it was based on the older Russian AK models. The mutants had a few spare clips on them, so he had another option for his continually depleting supply of shotgun shells "Alright, we have an objective then. I hope you like Cadences Church, because we're going to be walking a long way."

"Trust me buddy. Nothing you sing will ever be as bad as listening to Donut singing the entire soundtrack of Frozen in the shower." Church shuddered.

Johnson worked his mouth open and closed at Church, trying to come up with some sort of response, before ultimately just shaking his head and continuing his way South.

A/N, 7/19/20: Man, writing Church has to be some of the most fun I've had in a long time. I wish I made Church an original cast member of this fic. All honesty, once I finish Legion of the Damned and Jaun Arc, Lord of Hunger, I'm probably going to make a RvB fic, I'm thinking either an RvB+Worm or RvB+Mass Effect crossover. I felt Shepard's part was a little expository and bland, but it was just set up for the next chapter. Trying to come up with unique mantras for unlocking Aura was also pretty hard.

Review Responses:

Ptl, Solemn Vigil: Thanks for the suggestions!

Brother Bov: Sergeant Johnson is going to be a fun one. He was one that was suggested a few times early on, and I felt he could add a lot in terms of personality to the story, which is why I added him in.

Hunter Zickafoose: This might be a bit of a spoiler, but in the Warhammer Fantasy universe, the Holy Grail was used by the Bretonnian Knights, and when they drank from it it literally turned them into superhumans that could go toe to toe with daemons.

FORGEMaster: Glad you like the story! 40k was actually one that I initially didn't plan to put in, but eventually backtracked and started teasing.

And with that, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, continue to stay safe, and I'll see you in the next one.