AN: Yes, I know this chapter is WAAAAAAAAAAAY overdue, but I ran into a buttload of distractions over the past few months like college… and WoW… and DOTA… and a whole lot of other things…. Point is, I'm still alive and have a new chapter up (finally)!

Chapter 24: Family Tree

Sentinel Forge

"He's my what?!?" Lynn exclaimed.

"He's your what!?" Kyle gaped.

"You're her what?!?" Johnson glanced at Didact.

"Perhaps this would be a conversation better conducted in private." Didact said. "Mendicant."

"As you wish." The AI replied dutifully. Suddenly, there was a bright flash as everybody in the room was instantaneously teleported.

Weatherlight

"I suppose I should explain the full story, seeing as I wasn't entirely truthful to you." Didact sighed.

"You sure as hell should!" Lynn seethed with a mixture of surprise, relief, anger, and frustration. Having a father she had never met suddenly appear out of the blue awakened many deeply repressed emotions. Hell, she could barely even remember his name, apart from when Keyes would occasionally talk about him. What was his name anyways? That's right, it was Dallen. Dallen Wellings.

"It's not easy dealing with this, even for me." Dallen sat in one of the ruined chairs in the Weatherlight's bridge, his eyes nostalgically scanning the abandoned ship with a mixture of amusement and sadness. "Honestly, I was hoping neither of us would run into this situation."

"Keyes said you and Mom were dead." Lynn shook her head, trying to make sense of things.

"I'm not surprised, Keyes probably didn't want you to end up like me and you mother." Dallen smiled bitterly. "Seeing how things ended up for us, I can't blame him."

"What happened? What were you and mom doing?" Lynn asked.

"Perhaps it would be better if you see it rather than hear me speak about it." Dallen pointed to his temple. "Don't be afraid. It's not like I have anything to hide from you."

"Is... is it safe here?" Lynn looked around at the ruined remains of her parents' ship.

"The bridge is completely sealed off from the outside. Even if the Flood knew we were here, there would be no way for them to get in."

"A-alright then." Lynn slowly reached out and touched her father's head with her hand.

Snowbound

Meanwhile, the rest of the party found themselves standing in the middle of Snowbound. With both the Flood and Sentinel threat neutralized, things were already beginning to settle down. Civilians began filing out of buildings and shelters to assess and repair damage, while soldiers stayed vigilant in case they had missed something. With their job done, soldiers from the neighboring shelters, including Valhalla, began making the trek back to their homes.

As before, the Keyship that had so suddenly arrived floated high above the settlement like a silent watcher. The ship attracted a gaggle of onlookers, who had never seen such a thing before. However, they were soon quickly herded away by soldiers more interested in keeping order than asking questions.

"Where'd Lynn and that other guy go off to?" Kyle asked, looking around.

"Probably went off to his private spot." Johnson shrugged. "Didact is a pretty secretive guy. Never really liked to socialize much."

"Are you sure he's supposed to be Lynn's father?" Kyle glared at Sanah, or rather, her miniature holographic representation.

"With a ninety seven percent degree of accuracy." Sanah said. "Even though it conflicts with my logic subroutines, there's no other conclusion."

"But still-"

"The man you know as Didact is in fact Dallen Wellings." Ackerson cut Kyle off. "I should know, since I and Keyes have worked with the man well before you and Lynn were born."

"But, didn't Keyes say that Lynn's parents were dead?" Kay scratched her head curiously. "How do you explain that?"

"Quite simple, really." Ackerson shrugged. "Keyes never really knew for sure whether Dallen or Rachel were alive or not. He simply decided to cover up that fact to keep people from asking questions."

"He'd never do something like that." Kyle shook his head.

"Kyle, my dear, naïve boy, Keyes is quite capable of doing many things." Ackerson responded. "But, we're veering off point here. What piques my interest is you, Sergeant Johnson. You're a man who, in all respect, shouldn't even be alive. Yet, here you stand in front of us in the flesh."

"I've been wondering the same thing." John agreed.

"Right, I promised you an explanation, didn't I?" Johnson sighed. "It all started back on Halo…"

Alpha Halo Installation 04
Year 2552

For what seemed like the millionth time, things had gone to Hell.

In one second, what was supposed to be a combat patrol to root out Covenant stragglers turned into a scene from Aliens. Strange little alien creatures began pouring out of every opening and corner and swarming over Johnson and his squad.

"Jesus Christ! What the hell are these things!?" Jenkins screamed as he blasted away at the alien tide at full auto.

"Less questions, more shooting!" Johnson yelled back, trying to keep some form of order with his squad. "Fall back to the door and stagger your fire so they don't catch us reloading!"

"Screw this, I'm outta here!" Mendoza's frayed nerves finally snapped and he broke from combat. The rest of the squad looked to be on the verge of following him.

"HOLD THE LINE!" Johnson was determined to keep his squad together. If they broke now, it would be over. "Or I will personally shoot the next motherfucker who decides to break!"

Johnson and his squad kept firing as they backpedaled furiously to the exit, but the alien swarm proved to be too numerous and coming from too many directions. From his peripheral view, Johnson could see several of his Marines falling as they were covered by the alien lifeforms. When he finally reached the exit, he didn't hesitate to step out and hit the locking mechanism.

"All right! Roll call! Call it out!" Johnson said, dreading what he would hear.

"Keyes here." Admiral Keyes said.

"Jenkins!"

"Bisenti!"

"Dubbo!"

"Is that all?" Johnson asked. If it were true, he had just lost half of his squad. "Damnit!"

"Jesus, what the hell do we do?" Jenkins asked. "We never went up against things like those before!"

"Shut it, private!" Johnson snapped. "We do what we always do. Complete the mission and kill any poor bastard who gets in our way!"

"I suggest we keep moving." Keyes said. "It would be safe to assume that there may be more of those things out there."

"You're damn right, Admiral." Johnson nodded. "Alright, let's do this! Bisenti, you're on point!"

"Oh shit, here they come!" Jenkins pointed down the hall, where another wave of Flood infection forms began pouring in.

"Go go go! MOVE damnit!" Johnson urged his remaining men. They sprinted down the hall, away from certain doom only to round the corner and find something even worse.

They found Mendoza, or rather, what used to be him, shambling towards them like a crazed animal. It didn't take eagle eyes to spot the ugly alien growths and mutations covering his body either. Bisenti, who was up front, yelped in fright and emptied his entire clip into the thing that was Mendoza. The creature then exploded in a manner that was both magnificent and disgusting.

"Holy shit! What the hell did they do to Mendoza?!" Bisenti gasped.

"No time for questions! Keep moving!" Johnson reminded them of the tide of Flood forms just behind them.

As they made a beeline for the lift, more Flood forms began pressing in on them, and not just the small infection forms, but full sized combat forms. They proved to be much harder to take down than the infection forms, which made them significantly larger threats. Even worse, some of them were their squadmates, who just several minutes ago had been alive and well, only to be turned into these alien abominations in a matter of seconds.

"I don't think we're gonna make it, Sarge!" Jenkins wailed.

"Shut up and move!" Johnson tried to stamp out the private's doubts, but he knew that if some of them didn't stay behind to act as a rearguard, then the entire squad would be overwhelmed while waiting for the lift.

"Bisenti! You're with me!" Johnson yelled, holding his position. "We'll hold them off at this corridor while the others get that lift running!"

"Yes sir!" Bisenti took position alongside Johnson. He pulled out a bandolier of frag grenades and tossed one down the corridor, blowing apart the oncoming wave of Flood and disrupting their attack for a few precious seconds.

"Admiral! Get going to that lift! We'll catch up with you!" Johnson urged.

Of course, both he and Keyes knew that Johnson's chances of survival were almost zero. However, the hard truth was that Johnson was more expendable than the Admiral.

"Godspeed, Sergeant." Keyes whispered. It was the last time either men would ever see each other ever again.

The two Marines kept up their fire well after the lift disappeared into the shaft above. With a lot of luck, Keyes would send the lift back down and they would have a slim chance of actually reaching the surface alive. Unfortunately, the Flood had other plans. They eventually overwhelmed Bisenti while he was reloading his rifle, clawing and pounding on him. Not wanting to become a mutated monster like them, Bisenti pulled the pin from one of the grenades on his bandolier, but not before yelling, "Sarge! Run!"

Johnson didn't hesitate and he dove for cover as all of Bisenti's grenades exploded simultaneously. Even though he reacted quickly, Johnson misjudged the power of the blast and was knocked into the wall by the shockwave. Stunned and down, Johnson knew he had no chance against the oncoming Flood. Within seconds, they recovered from the blast and were swarming all over him. He felt dozens of sharp, painful stabs in his back, but nothing happened. It may have been his imagination, but he could have sworn that the infection forms were confused. Seconds later, golden energy beams arced out and burned the infection forms off of him with alarming precision.

"What the hell are you tin cans?" Johnson asked the newly arrived Sentinels, perplexed.

"Scanning area for additional infection." One of the Sentinels squawked in a monotone, robotic voice.

"Infection index is ninety three percent. Area is deemed compromised and a liability for future operation." Another Sentinel muttered.

"The Monitor concurs. Immediate extermination protocols will be enacted."

"Stop." One of the Sentinels centered its sapphire blue eye on Johnson. "This organic subject possesses an infection index of zero percent."

"Confirmed. Relaying data to the Monitor." The Sentinels silently hovered in the air for a second. Just as Johnson was thinking about trying to slip away, they suddenly reactivated. "Subject is to be detained and transported to the Ark for further study."

The last thing Johnson remembered was seeing a bright flash of blue light followed by blackness.

Snowbound

"And after that, the next thing I remember was when Didact cracked me out of stasis pod. Nearly punched out the son of a bitch when he told me two hundred years passed!" Johnson grinned. "I can only assume you spent the last few years in cold storage too, Chief?"

"More or less." John said humorlessly.

"What about Keyes and the others? Where are they?"

John could only shake his head sadly.

"Oh…" Johnson sighed. "You know, logically, none of them could be alive today, but there was always that vague hope that maybe, just maybe, they ended up just like I did. Guess I wasn't all wrong, huh?"

The Ark
Twenty Years Ago

There was no going back now.

Here, on the edge of the galaxy, the answer Dallen and Rachel sought lay in the infinite darkness beyond. As it did for its entire life, the Weatherlight soldiered on with its ailing engines as it sought the next safe port in the inhospitable reaches of space.

"Do you think it's really out here?" Rachel asked, staring out of the ship's viewport.

"It has to be. You read the data too." Dallen said.

"I know, but, is it worth it?" Rachel bit her lip. "Don't you remember all we sacrificed on this journey?"

"We've sacrificed a lot of things." Dallen said grimly.

"But our own daughter!?" Rachel's eyes burned with a mixture of anger and despair as she said those words.

"Yes, even Lynn." Dallen stared out into space with a determined expression. "What we're doing isn't just for her, it's for all of us. We deserve to have a place to call home."

That finally seemed to quiet Rachel, but Dallen knew that she was still very uneasy about the entire affair. Actually, Dallen was also angry and disappointed at himself for having to make such a difficult call. However, he couldn't afford to squander a decades long journey for sentimental reasons, especially now, when they were so close to the end of the long, difficult road.

Suddenly, the sensors squawked as they detected a new contact, snapping Dallen and Rachel back to the situation at hand.

"What have we got?" Rachel asked.

"I don't but it's gigantic." Dallen gaped as he read the data. "The size of a small planet, but that can't be possible…"

"Oh my god…" Rachel pointed out of the viewport. "Look!"

There, like a glittering jewel against the infinite blackness beyond the galaxy was a construct of unimaginable size and scope. In all of the Forerunner installations, bases, and cities they had explored, neither Dallen nor Rachel had seen anything like this. The Ark was essentially an artificial planet, complete with its own working biosphere.

"How could anybody build something like that?!?" Rachel gaped. "And I thought High Charity was huge…"

"Too bad it doesn't exist anymore, or we could have compared sizes." Dallen joked weakly.

"Wait, we're being hailed." Rachel looked at the communications console. "I think the Ark is trying to message us."

"Looks automated." Dallen frowned as he analyzed the message. "Crap, it's asking for a passcode."

"Well, say something!"

"I'm trying!" Dallen typed some keys into the communications console, only to be rewarded with rather alarming beeping sound. "Shit!"

In seconds, Weatherlight was bombarded by a rain of golden energy emanating from the Ark. Fortunately as a rule, Dallen and Rachel always had the ship's shields powered whenever possible, a habit they learned to pick up the hard way over years of dangerous space exploration. With the shields taking the brunt of the attacks, Dallen and Rachel had enough time to take the helm and begin evasive maneuvers.

"Typical." Dallen sighed as he weaved the Weatherlight through the web of energy. The small and nimble corvette was more than able to handle a defense network designed to ward off waves of large, heavy warships.

"Shields are at sixty three percent!" Rachel said nervously. Two shots and they already lost a third of their shield energy.

"And we aren't even halfway there." Dallen growled as several more beams grazed their shields.

"And… we just lost engine power."

"Damn."

The Ark
Thirty Minutes Later

"She was a nice ship." Dallen said sadly as he looked at the ruined wreck of the Weatherlight.

"We'll find a way to get her back." Rachel tried to reassure her husband, but they both knew that with the engines fried, the power core cold, and the superstructure compromised, Weatherlight would never fly again.

The crash had brought them to a massive Forerunner bridge spanning a wide chasm. Since the Weatherlight was blocking one end of the bridge, there was really only one way to go. They trekked for what felt like an eternity. It didn't help that the majority of the structures they had to navigate through were overly large and repetitive. Eventually, they came across what looked like a battlefield. Bullet holes, carbon scoring, and destroyed Sentinels lay all over the ground.

"Can it be…?" Rachel's eyes widened as she examined the damage.

"The bullets are definitely human-made." Dallen picked up a spent shell casing and examined it. "There's still residual heat. It probably couldn't have been fired more than a minute ago."

As if on cue, they were suddenly interrupted by the sound of gunfire and the whine of Sentinel energy cannons. Rachel and Dallen both sprinted over to the commotion to see a knot of ragtag humans battling with a wave of Sentinels. The humans were wearing a mishmash of clothing and armor, and were armed with scavenged Sentinel weapons.

"What are humans doing here…?" Rachel wondered.

"I don't know, but it looks like they need help." Dallen armed his rail rifle and pumped rail rounds into the Sentinels. Unlike the primitive, chemical propelled bullets, the rail rounds easily punched through their shields and armored hulls, instantly knocking out several of the robotic drones. Rachel lent her firepower to the fight in a few short minutes, the battle was already over.

"Thanks for the help." One of the ragtag humans poked his head out of cover and welcomed Dallen and Rachel. "I haven't seen any of you around. What settlement are you from?"

"Uh," Dallen glanced at Rachel and shrugged. There wasn't really any point to lying to them about it. "The Weatherlight."

"Huh, never heard of it." The man frowned. "The name's Milo, by the way. We're from Valhalla. What brings you out to this dangerous place on such a fine day?"

"Sightseeing." Dallen remarked.

"Well, I wish we had it as easy as you!" Milo grumbled. "Our goddamn reactor is starting to go cold, which means we have to go patch in to the station's power grid."

"You have an understanding of Forerunner technology?" Dallen's eyes widened, utterly fascinated.

"Of course. Mendicant Bias taught us how to work it." Milo shrugged.

"Who?" Dallen raised an eyebrow.

"Goddamn, you must've been under a real big rock not to have heard of him." Milo scratched his head. "Where exactly are you from?"

"These two individuals are not natives of the Ark." A ghostly, disembodied voice echoed through the halls.

"An AI?" Rachel asked.

"How perceptive." The artificial voice said. "It is rather encouraging to know that the Reclaimers have managed to survive in areas outside of the Ark."

"Whoa, hold on a sec there." Milo gasped. "Outsiders?! We've still got people out there?"

"More or less." Dallen sighed.

"Well what brings you out into this dark little corner of the galaxy?" Milo said sarcastically. "Not for the fabulous view, I hope."

"We're here to find a way to Earth." Rachel answered.

"After all the trouble our ancestors went through to try and get off of it? Boy, you two really are crazy." Milo shook his head.

"I do sympathize with your plight." Mendicant Bias said. "But unfortunately, that is not possible at this time, unless you happen to know the manual override for the Ark's failsafe systems."

"I thought Forerunner technology was supposed to work automatically for humans." Dallen wondered why that wasn't the case here.

"Under ideal conditions, it should." Mendicant Bias said sadly. "Unfortunately, such is not the case."

"Tell us more…"

Five Years Later

"Incoming!" Johnson yelled as a fresh wave of Flood combat forms charged at them.

"All units fire!" Dallen ordered. The human assault force pumped volleys of energy into the tide of alien flesh, demolishing the wave of Flood like the countless ones that came before it. "Rachel, we need those doors open now!"

"What do you think I've been trying to do all this time?" Rachel said, exasperated. "It's not like I enjoy fighting Flood any more than you do!"

"Why don't you two lovebirds just shut it and do your goddamn jobs!" Johnson snapped. "My god, it's like I'm babysitting a bunch of five year olds!"

Behind the door they were trying to break through lay Dallen and Rachel's greatest mistake. They had dabbled in things they shouldn't have and were now forced to pay the price. In the years prior, Dallen and Rachel had been trying to explore ways to activate the override. They thought the answer lay in those rare few humans gifted with telepathy, but things went horribly wrong.

They had never counted on the Gravemind.

Their most promising student, Lilly, had somehow been possessed or corrupted by the Gravemind. Now she was slowly making her way to the chamber Mendicant Bias had managed to seal Gravemind in. The AI made it very clear that under no circumstances was the Gravemind allowed to escape its prison. Such an event would most likely doom the entire Ark.

"Why do you fight against that which you cannot defeat? We are eternal. We are perfection. We are… one." Lilly's disembodied voice cackled in their heads.

"Don't do this, Lilly." Dallen said, knowing that she, or whatever she had become, could still hear him. "You'll doom us all if you open that chamber."

"Doom? You can't imagine how glorious it is to part of its grand plan…"

"I got it!" Rachel yelled as the door opened. However, as soon as that happened, she and everybody else were instantly incapacitated by a piercing, psychic shriek. Dallen clutched his head in pain, as it felt as if a swarm of countless spiders were swarming all over his brain.

"Foolish beings, clinging to your pitiful notions or morality and reason. What are you, compared the greatness that is the Flood?"

"You know," Rachel slowly got up, clutching her head and trying to stem the flow of blood from her ears. "I'm starting to get really tired of that bitch."

Before Dallen could ask, Rachel, in a feat of sheer willpower, stormed into the opened room, her beam rifle blazing. Lilly at first disregarded what she saw as a minor threat. With a twitch of her finger, Lilly summoned a fresh horde of Flood forms that swarmed all over her. She never even once readjusted her weapon to defend herself, and kept it trained on Lilly.

"No!" Dallen tried to bring his beam rifle in line to fire on the Flood, but with all the shrieking in his head, the best he could manage was a wild, random spray of shots.

Finally, Lilly couldn't ignore Rachel anymore, especially now that her shields were being drained. With an almost casual flick of her wrist, she sent a shard of Sentinel debris spinning through the air, striking Rachel in the heart. However, as a last parting shot, Rachel drew a bundle of scavenged plasma grenades, which exploded violently, engulfing her, Lilly, and the Flood in a brilliant and deadly cloud of plasma.

"Rachel!" Dallen sprinted forward, not even caring about the Flood all around him. It took everything Johnson and his squad had to keep them off him and mop up the survivors.

In a panicked rush, Dallen quickly shoved aside the charred remains of the Flood forms, and only noted Lilly's incinerated corpse with only the most casual of glances. He quickly found Rachel, still barely alive, and cradled her frail form in his arms. The force of the blast had nearly shredded her in half at the midsection, and there were severe burns across a large portion of her body. Even with instant medical assistance, there was no way for her survive such grievous injuries. It was a miracle she was even alive at all.

"Rachel…"

"Ha. We really screwed up this time, didn't we?" Rachel grinned, seemingly oblivious to her condition. "But… we can't afford to lose hope that we'll get it right someday."

Even though Rachel's eyes were shut as a result of her ordeal, she was still very much aware of what was happening. However, she still somehow found the willpower to maintain her smile and try to sound encouraging.

"This rain… feels warm." Rachel said wistfully. Dallen didn't have to heart to tell her that it was his tears flowing down from his eyes. "I'm sure… the rainbow will be… gorgeous."

With those final words, Rachel Wellings sighed and relaxed for the last time in her life. The surviving humans, who had grown to view Rachel as a sort of mother figure, slowly gathered around and hung their heads low in a mixture of both sadness and respect. Johnson, stoic as ever, but visibly holding back tears, snapped to attention and saluted the fallen warrior. His men quickly followed suit.

To Dallen, it wasn't nearly enough to console his loss.

"I'm sorry to intrude in such an… inconvenient time, but I would like to report that Rachel's sacrifice was not in vain." Mendicant Bias announced. "The seals in Gravemind's prison remain intact."

Dallen, however, was not listening. He had delicately picked up Rachel's body and was slowly trudging off into the distance.

"Sir, where are you going?" One of his men asked, obviously worried.

"I'm going to take her to that place where she said the view was magnificent… one last time."

Nobody made a move to stop him as he slowly wandered off.

Present

By the time Lynn broke contact, she found she had been crying uncontrollably. Instinctively, she dove forward and hugged her father as hard as she could.

"Is that why, you became Didact?"

"I read the history logs of the Ark, and it contained the story about two Forerunner, the Didact and the Librarian. I found their story to be poetically… tragic. I could understand what the Didact had to experience, so likewise I took up his title, in an effort to get rid of the pain."

"Did it work?" Lynn asked, already knowing the answer.

"Not at all."

Suddenly, something seemed to snap in Lynn's brain, as if somebody inside had flipped a light switch, as a sudden idea had stormed through her mind. "Dad, I think I know!"

"Know what?" He asked curiously.

"How to control the Ark!"