AN: Hello everyone. My sincerest apologies for not updating this or my other story for the last year. My graduate school coursework and job took a lot of time away from working on these things, but now that I've got my masters degree and in a job with a little more downtime, it's allowed me to bang away at the latest chapter for Halo Infinite. I'll do my best to get this updated semi-regularly as well as Noble's Eye barring anything insane in my personal or work life. We're at the home stretch of Infinite folks, so keep tuned to see how it all turns out.

A HUGE s/o to my beta-reader smartgrid. He's been with me for about half of this story and it's been insanely beneficial towards the quality to you the reader. Go send him a big thank you PM for making this a better work than it could've been had I gone it solo.

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing except for whatever original characters I have created.

After just narrowly escaping the burning Bank of Columbia, the three continued to follow the trail of footprints left by the ghost of Lady Comstock. With the unearthly storm still raging and moving ever closer to the city, the trio followed these footprints throughout the deserted section of the city. It was an incredibly uneasy feeling for Booker and Buck, as they kept their eyes on any place a hidden solider or rebel would hide in. As a result of every sneak attack they survived thus far, the two men were constantly on edge for when the next attack would happen and where it would come from. Meanwhile, Elizabeth was leading the way as she was dead-set on solving this riddle supposedly left for them by the furious ghost of Lady Comstock.

These footsteps led the three to the locked Cunningham Studios, a photography studio for the more well-to-do people of Columbia that somehow escaped damage during the Vox Populi's rampage throughout the floating city. After Elizabeth picked the locked door, they entered the ordinary shop to find only a Tear that played a conversation between the shop owner and dead Lutece twins. The only other object of extreme interest was a Voxophone that appeared at the same time the Tear disappeared. The audio box played a conversation between what Buck assumed to be the owner of the photography shop and a female about Cunningham's visit from the Lutece twins.

Combined with everything they had listened and discovered up until this point thanks to the breadcrumbs left behind by Lady Comstock's ghost, Buck pieced it all together. There was Fink murdering the Lutece twins under Comstock's orders, the revealed sterility of Comstock, Comstock covering up his murder of Lady Comstock by blaming Daisy Fitzroy, the journal of Cornelius Slate revealing that Elizabeth was not their child. There was a dark conspiracy revolving around the parentage and even origin of Elizabeth involving potentially every single member of the Columbian elite.

However, one by one, anyone involved in the conspiracy was taken out through different means. Even the Luteces and Lady Comstock were removed from the equation by Fink at the behest of Comstock, so that there were no loose ends. And with Fink killed at the hands of Fitzroy, there was nothing stopping this lie from being discovered. All that was left was Comstock, the head of the snake that was the conspiracy.

But what was Elizabeth? Clearly she wasn't the true offspring of Comstock and his wife, nor was she the daughter of Rosalind. Was she an orphan? Was she created in a laboratory? It would explain how she had supposedly come about out of nowhere and had these Tear abilities.

These thoughts and plenty others nagged at Buck as he and the three moved back to the courtyard in front of the gate to Comstock House, where Elizabeth had a meeting with the Lady to attend to. Along the way, she had deduced that the thing they were fighting wasn't really Lady Comstock, but a manifestation of Elizabeth's feelings of hatred after she thought she was being lied to. Whatever device Comstock used to suck her Tear powers was also used to reanimate his deceased wife, while also filling it with the hatred and rage as well as the unnatural powers Elizabeth possessed.

Finally, they arrived at the Lady Comstock memorial statue, still littered with dead bodies and barriers from the battle between Founders and Vox soldiers. Bullet casings were strewn across the courtyard on both sides along with bullet holes and blacked-out potholes from explosions. Elizabeth cautiously approached the Lady Comstock statue, where the ghostly footprints stopped, while Buck and Booker waited at the base of the memorial.

She took a deep breath before beginning. "Rosalind Lutece is not my mother… and neither are you. But he killed you both because of me…"

While waiting at the bottom for Elizabeth to finish her apology to the Lady, Buck thought he heard a current of electricity humming through the air. Booker heard it too, and the two turned to look at a white ball of light materialize out of thin air and circle around the Lady Comstock statue.

Uh-oh.

"I know you hate me for not being your daughter," Elizabeth continued, either ignoring the ball of light that grew brighter and brighter or oblivious to it altogether. "And I hated you for not being my mother…"

"Elizabeth," Buck said, gripping his weapon tighter. "Might want to wrap this up!"

It was too late. Before Elizabeth could say or do anything the bright light burst into a flash that quickly subsided and revealed the rage-filled specter that was Lady Comstock hovering above the ground and in front of the gated entrance to Comstock House.

The ghost raised her hands to the sky and summoned white bolts of lightning into each dead body. Buck watched as that lightning brought each and every previously dead body back to life. Lady Comstock hissed at the three of them and each undead soldier picked up whatever weapon was next to them and opened fire. Booker ran up and grabbed Elizabeth's wrist while Buck provided what covering fire he could against the overwhelming numbers.

In such an open area like this and against such a large number of enemy forces, there was little time to think of a strategy or plan of counter-attack. Buck needed now more than anything was to find cover.

He found the base of another toppled-over statue of Comstock off towards the edge of the courtyard and ordered Booker and Elizabeth in that direction under a hail of gunfire. Bullets zipped and zinged around them as they covered the distance between the Lady Comstock statue and their desired cover in a matter of seconds and dove behind the thick base before a grenade blew them to bits.

"Just like before, right," Buck said as he kept his head ducked down as far as possible.

Booker turned with deep blue, electrified crystals growing from his palm and eyes a charged-blue color. "Let's find out."

Just after a bullet whizzed past where their heads would be, Booker peeked his head out of cover and sent a Shock Jockey bolt towards one unlucky zombified Vox soldier. The bolt crossed the gap in the blink of an eye and paralyzed the soldier where it stood. Buck then whipped his upper body out of the cover and sent a three-round burst into the chest of the undead. Its head popped clean off its neck, and the rest of its body disintegrated in a matter of seconds.

That was all the confirmation Buck and Booker needed for successfully fending off the horde. Every time Booker would electrocute an enemy, Buck was right there to finish it off with either a well-place barrage of bullets or an equally skillful headshot. Buck saw that there was an unexploded land mine in the middle of three soldiers and with one shot, detonated it and saw them become engulfed in flames and torn to pieces with shrapnel and the pressure wave before ducking back under cover.

Within a matter of minutes, every last reanimated soldier had been dealt with, leaving only the pissed off Lady Comstock ghost. Or what was the manifestation of Elizabeth's feelings towards the person she thought was her mother, Buck couldn't remember. It was easier just calling her a ghost at this point.

"Liars," Lady Comstock shrieked. "You shall suffer for your lies!"

Buck aimed his sights right at the angry ghost as Booker stunned her with a bolt of Shock Jockey, he emptied the magazine of his machine gun into Lady Comstock. She flinched with every bullet, unable to land a hit on either of them as they moved quickly among the cover in the now-empty courtyard. The two split up and took cover on opposite sides of the yard, Booker stunning Lady Comstock with either Shock Jockey or Devil's Kiss and Buck riddling her with bullets.

After Buck emptied his third clip into the apparition, she exploded in a bright light and turned back into her spherical form. She whirled around the Lady Comstock state in quick, sharp circles as the group cautiously approached it, causing the statue to glow a similar, eerie light. Buck and Booker kept their weapons trained on the sphere – ready for whatever was going to happen next – while Elizabeth slowly walked towards the stone image of her "mother."

"I owe you an apology," Elizabeth said to the sphere, shouting over a rumble of thunder from the storm that now seemed to be resting right on top of them. "Comstock used me to bring you back, but I brought back a version of you from the reality of my own head."

"He pretended to love you, just like he pretended to love me…"

"Bastard child!" The ghost hissed at Elizabeth as a bright flash of lightning filled the sky and another loud rumble of thunder followed. Booker and Buck were ready to open fire on the Lady the second things between it and Elizabeth got hostile.

"I am NOT your husband's bastard," Elizabeth definitively stated to Lady Comstock. "I am his victim! And my days of victimhood are done! We must forgive each other, because there is one far worse than you or I!"

The speed of the sphere slowed and slowed until it stopped directly in front of Elizabeth and reformed into the ghostly image of Lady Comstock. But this time, it did not attack or threatening Elizabeth or Booker of Buck. It simply hovered directly in front of Elizabeth.

"My husband… killed me…" the lady said, with the sounds of a faint echo behind her voice.

"Because you would not keep his secret," Elizabeth finished, moving her hand closer to the ghost of the woman she had loved and hated for so long.

With the threat of violence now gone, Buck put down his weapon and moved closer to inspect the Lady. Although she was still shrouded in ethereal light and almost entirely transparent, there were still features he could pick out from when she was still alive.

Lady Comstock paused for a moment to observe those around her as well as her surroundings before looking back at Elizabeth. "But if that were so… then why am I alive?"

Elizabeth bit her lip and shook her head. What she had to say – that the version of Lady Comstock before them wasn't from this reality – was difficult for anyone to understand. Even the three of them, who discovered and deciphered the truth through Tears and voxophones, had a very loose grasp.

"You're not, not in this world. Maybe this is you… in a different world. One where you never met him..."

"One where I saved him…"

"Perhaps, but I'm not sure. Is that even possible?"

Lady Comstock floated closer towards Elizabeth. "Find out child… find out…"

The Lady looked over towards Buck and then over her shoulder at the superstorm approaching rapidly before floating back above the statue. Lady Comstock then brought her arms above her head and let out an unnaturally loud wail. It was louder than anything Booker, Buck, or Elizabeth had ever heard before.

What building windows were left that weren't damaged from the fighting throughout the day were shattered and the volume and frequency of the deafening wail from Lady Comstock caused even her own statue to crack and crumble as the cry grew louder and louder and the bright light emanating from the Lady grew brighter and brighter.

The trio moved behind a nearby police barrier to shield themselves from the glass raining down on them as well as the chunks of statue that were crumbling around them. As the light completely engulfed the courtyard and Lady Comstock's yell rendered any form of vocal communication useless, the sound of a brilliant lightning bolt ripped through the courtyard and in an instant, everything returned to normal.

Booker, Buck, and Elizabeth all stepped out from behind the barrier to see that all around the courtyard was surrounded in broken glass and chunks of plaster and stone from the statue which exploded from the Lady's howl and subsequent departure.

They looked over the base of where the kneeling statue of Lady Comstock once was – now replaced by a small pile of rubble – and saw a gaping hole in the middle of the gated door sealing off Comstock House from the rest of Emporia. The edges of the hole were glowing white-hot and smoking from the impact Lady Comstock's spirit made.

The three walked through the destroyed gate, careful not to touch any of the glowing-hot edges, and they continued their way towards Comstock House to get the answers they desired.

No one said a word as the three walked through the eerily-quiet terminal leading from Emporia to Comstock House. The howling winds and the rumbles of thunder were the only sounds to accompany the noise of footwear on the marble floor through the building. What Buck imagined was once a bustling, busy terminal filled with only the most important of Columbia was now a ghost town.

Upon leaving through the large, heavy metal door, the three were greeted by the monumental busts of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson underneath the mansion that was Comstock House. Storm clouds surrounded the menacing-looking building, and a pair of search lights atop two of the buildings towers were scanning the skies for any signs of intruding airships.

As the storm danced above them, the three made their way to a lever placed at the end of the island. Presumably, it would bring a gondola or raise a bridge or give some other means of transportation to Comstock House.

Booker activated the lever and as the gears to the connecting mechanism whirred to life. Suddenly, the Songbird tore through the clouds below with terrific speed and a piercing screech and landed on the edge of the island with enough force to knock Buck on his behind and place Booker underneath his feet.

Buck quickly got himself back on his feet and unloaded with his MA5C into the body of the monster. Bullets tore through the leather and pinged off the gears and machinery inside, but nothing could take down the Songbird. With its eyes glowing orange-red, the towering creation backhanded Buck into the column of an adjacent building. The assault rifle went flying from his hands as he crashed into the brick building and the ODST blacked out for but a brief moment.

"Run Elizabeth," Booker shouted out as he tried to pull out his pistol. Songbird turned its attention back to DeWitt. With an angered hiss, Songbird grabbed Booker in its clutches, reared back, and chucked the Pinkerton agent through a window on the top floor of a building.

Buck came to just in time to see Elizabeth running towards him with the Songbird briefly distracted. It turned its bird-shaped head towards him and quickly started to head in their direction.

He picked himself up and looked around for his MA5C but was unsuccessful in finding it. Buck quickly switched to his machine gun, took aim and fired at the Frankenstein-like creation. Once again, the bullets pinged off the metal and tore through the leather of the Songbird, but there was still no visible effect of any sort of damage done to it. If anything, attacking it only made the Songbird angrier.

"Get out of here," Buck shouted to Elizabeth, right before resuming his attack with his Columbian weaponry.

Buck hammered down the triggers of both weapons until the clips ran empty, their barrels smoking and glowing white-hot from the heat of constant fire. However, the Songbird wouldn't stop and in an instant was right on top of Buck. It grabbed Buck and tossed him through a window into the same building as Booker.

Crashing through the glass at terrific speed and force, Buck collided with the wall of a room and was knocked out cold.

Once again, Buck found himself floating in a pitch-black void. He tried to move, but once again he had no control over his limbs or other extremities. He couldn't speak, he couldn't blink, he couldn't move any part of his body. The only thing bodily function Buck had complete control over was his breathing.

And once again, there was a growing source of light off in the far distance. And much like before, his body was involuntarily drawn towards the light that grew brighter and brighter with every passing moment. When Buck was face to face with the light, there was a brilliant flash and an enveloping light of pure white surrounded the ODST.

With Buck now floating inside the bright light, there was once again the rapid projection of random images all around him. For the most part, the images being shown to him were exactly the same as in the last time he was unconscious:

A burning forest, an urban slum in an old city, a woman giving birth in a hospital, a grouping of three spaceships moving through the emptiness of space, an alien landscape untouched by man, and a soldier standing next to a UNSC flag overseeing a battle in a valley below.

However, there were some newer images in the display: a large boat filled with soldiers, a destroyed city covered in darkness, a group of people disembarking from a colonial ship, a small boy with another older man on a boat in a choppy sea of gold, and a classroom on a foreign planet with a student glancing out at the surrounding cityscape.

But out of all those images, new and old, the image of the woman in the hospital bed was shown the most. And with each time it was repeated, the image became more and more clearer. While he wasn't able to see all of the woman, he saw that she had brown hair and pale skin. What was also revealed this time around was that there was an infant in her arms.

What does this mean, Buck thought, as the display of images cycled through over and over again, always lingering on the image of the woman in the hospital bed. Why am I being shown this?

The white light surrounding him grew brighter and brighter with every moment once again, obscuring everything around Buck save for the image of the woman and infant in the hospital bed.

"Buck… BUCK!"

Buck jolted awake with his pistol aimed at the darkness of the lobby. The wind was howling through the broken window as the storm surrounding Comstock House continued to rage.

Something grabbed his M6C and Buck immediately reversed the person's grip, swept their leg and pinned them to the ground with his knee on the person's throat. Buck pressed his pistol right at the person's forehead and was ready to pull the trigger.

"Get the hell off me Buck," Booker coughed out, his windpipe being crushed by Buck's leg.

With his vision now back to normal, Buck saw that he was indeed Booker DeWitt, his face cut up from crashing through a window. Seeing that it was Booker DeWitt and not a member of the Vox Populi or the Founders, Buck picked his knee off Booker's throat and gave him a hand to lift him up.

"It took her," Booker said, taking Buck's hand to pick himself up off the floor, which was littered with bits of broken glass. "Songbird. It has Elizabeth."

Buck was angry more than anything. After all their hard work in getting past the Vox and Columbian soldiers plus the Lady Comstock ghost-thing he manipulated Elizabeth into conjuring, Comstock had to sick his attack dog on them just to get Elizabeth back under his control. Buck knew exactly where they had to go to rescue his hostage.

"Comstock House?"

"Yep. The bridge is down, let's get going."

Buck looked around and saw that his Columbian machine gun as well as his MA5C were missing. He surmised that they were knocked out of his grasp when he was grabbed by the Songbird and thrown through the air like a baseball. But there wasn't time to go looking for them, so he would just have to use his pistols for the time being until he pried a weapon out of the dead hands of a Columbian soldier or a member of the Vox.

The two burst through the door leading out of the building and sprinted across the bridge. Buck took several steps before he started to feel the effects of being thrown into a building and then through a window. His back and neck were starting to stiffen significantly and he suspected he broke or fractured a rib because of how difficult it was to breathe. Buck took a look over towards Booker and he saw patches of blood dot the back of his dress shirt and run with a very noticeable limp.

They were running straight into the storm, as the howling winds, frequent lightning strikes, and driving rain did everything they could to push the two back.

As the two made it halfway across the bridge and into an incredibly thick pocket of fog, Buck felt a feeling of static energy wash over him. The hairs along his arms and neck raised as much as they could as Buck followed Booker across the bridge, looking to bring back Elizabeth by any means necessary.

When they exited the fog pocket, the were greeted by a burst of frigid wind and… snow? Buck looked around and the storm clouds and driving rain were gone and instead replaced by a driving blizzard and howling winds. The path in front of them was covered in an inch of snow as well as the statues ahead of and above them.

"Snow," Booker asked, picking up a handful of the stuff. "But it's July…"

While Buck was shivering from the dramatic change in climate, he saw up ahead a Tear in front of the massive entrance to Comstock House.

"Get your hands off of me…" a voice clearly belonging to Elizabeth demanded.

The two immediately sprinted towards the shimmering wave of ethereal energy, the snow crunching under their shoes with the winds howling and swirling around them. Before they could reach the Tear, it evaporated and closed shut, leaving them standing in front of nothing but the driven snow and the steps leading into Comstock House.

With nowhere else left to go, the two hurried up the steps in an attempt to find Elizabeth in the building. When they entered, they were stunned to see that there was no one inside to stop them. As a matter of fact, there was absolutely no one inside at all.

The interior floor was covered in a thin layer of frost and snow – no doubt coming from the broken windows above – while there was an eerie recording playing from an unseen source.

In dead center of the lobby was a large statue of Elizabeth wielding a sword bathed in an unsettling, sickly green light. A sign above her read "Our Lady Elizabeth, Godspeed Thy Judgement" while the recording was just then overcut with a pre-recorded speech by Elizabeth.

"Some men dream of money, some men dream of love… my Father dreamt of a flood of fire! We were given Eden and we turned it into Sodom!"

As her speech of punishing the wicked and the non-believers continued, Buck couldn't help but notice that there was something very off about her speech. It was Elizabeth's voice, no doubt about that, but her tone was completely different. Gone was the warmth and tenderness Booker and Buck were long used to. In its place was a stern, cold, angry voice. It sounded exactly like Comstock.

They continued past the lobby, ignoring any more of the recording, around a set of stairs and to another door. Waiting for them was another Tear in the entryway, and once again there were sounds of Elizabeth struggling and in danger before it vanished forever.

Feeling there wasn't a moment to lose, the two burst through the doors into another waiting room, and this time were finally met with other signs of life.

There were close to twenty people inside the disheveled waiting room. However, it didn't take Buck or Booker long to figure out something wasn't right. All twenty people in the room looked like they were wearing dirt and grime-covered pajamas and had broken porcelain masks of prominent American historical figures George Washington and Benjamin Franklin over their heads. And the only way to describe their movements – if there were any movements being made at all – could be described as small, shambling steps.

Booker and Buck took their focus off the people in the waiting room when they heard what sounded like Elizabeth being tortured over a loudspeaker. They sprang into action and sprinted across the nearly-vacant waiting room to where the sound was coming from around a wall, only to be met by a vanishing Tear in front of a locked door leading to the Warden's Office.

Above the door leading to the Warden's office was a primitive video screen that was currently showing nothing but static. Booker hit the button on the brass-looking door and heard a shrill buzz and the crackle of a two-way intercom.

"Listen," Booker started. There was a strong hint of urgency and insistence in his voice, while at the same time unease was creeping into his voice as time wore on. "We've just come to see the girl. I promise no one will get hurt, and we'll be on our way once we get some answers."

Instead of hearing another voice or simply static, an unnatural grumbling was heard from the other side of the speaker. While Booker and Buck were sharing a look of confusion at the sounds coming from the speaker, the catatonic patients of the waiting room straightened themselves out and turned in unison towards where the two would-be rescuers were, with their eyes beginning to glow a bright blue.

An incredibly loud, piercing, ear-splitting shriek suddenly cut through the uneasy silence before the viewscreen cracked and exploded outward, showering Booker and Buck in glass, while the speaker shorted out and an odd, disorienting noise began loudly coming through.

Before one of the two could figure out what that sound was or what caused the devices to spectacularly malfunction, all twenty patients in the waiting room charged at the two. With howls and wails that echoed off the stone walls, the crazed patients all sprinted as fast as they could towards the soldier and private investigator with hands tightly balled into fists and hatred in their eyes.

The two were taken completely by surprise and they were quickly swallowed by the wave of attackers. Despite not being as strong or equipped as Booker or Buck, the swarm of mental patients nearly overwhelmed the duo with their surprising speed until they were right on top of them, jabbing and punching them and strangling them whenever they got the opportunity.

Buck suffered a few cuts and scratches and most surely a black eye after taking a hard punch to the face, but for the most part the crazed attackers weren't landing much damage. It was just their sheer numbers and ferocity that allowed them to deal what little damage they could.

Having had enough, Booker broke a man's jaw with a strong elbow and unleashed a wave of Bucking Bronco. All twenty mental patients were instantly levitated into the air thanks to the non-combative Vigor while Buck tried to pick himself up off the cold ground. Instead, the ODST unholstered his Columbian-era sidearm and emptied the entire clip into the mass of floating enemies, with Booker joining in with his carbine. Twelve shots were followed quickly by ten kills from Buck, while Booker hit five out of eight targets.

The effects of the Vigor wore off while the two were reloading, and the remaining five crazies fell to the floor before quickly picking themselves up and bum-rushing Booker and Buck. Buck reloaded first and raised his pistol but an attacker swatted his pistol out of his hand and attempted to gouge his eyes out with his bare hands while another picked up a sharp edge of broken glass and charged forward.

With the two separated by the remaining mental patients, Buck knew he wasn't getting any of Booker's additional firepower or Vigor powers so he would be on his own on this one.

With one assailant's hands gripped in his own to defend against the eye gouging attempt, Buck spread them apart as far as possible and front-kicked him into a wall. Buck turned his attentions to the man wielding the broken glass and instantly had to duck, dodge and even block a few swipes at his face, body, and neck. Buck quickly unsheathed his own combat knife and quickly deflected away another horizontal swipe at his jugular with an expert block.

Buck saw another sloppy swiping attack coming from a mile away and caught the man's wrist with his free hand and wrenched it in a position that was unbelievably painful for the assailant as tendons and muscles strained from the awkward position of the arm. Having overpowered the attacker, Buck brought his knife high over his head and launched a powerful downward strike into the man's point between the collarbone and the neck. The knife sunk into the man all the way up to its hilt and Buck nearly fell over the man from momentum and used his free hand to steady himself and prevent a face-plant onto the cold, snow-covered ground.

Buck heard another crazed shriek from the man who he front-kicked. Buck saw that he was picking himself back up and looked ready to charge. Not wanting to go through another bout of hand-to-hand combat, Buck whipped out his M6C and put a tight grouping of three bullets dead center in the attacker's chest. He hit the ground with a loud thud as blood quickly pooled underneath him, and Buck quickly yanked the knife out of the dead man's neck to rejoin the fight with Booker.

As Buck sprinted around the corner to where he last saw Booker, the ODST saw DeWitt standing over the dead corpses of the final three attackers, smoking burn marks covering their chests and heads as Booker's right hand was covered in the Shock Jockey crystals.

With the last of the remaining crazies dead and the wind howling through the broken windows of the waiting area, Buck was the first to break the uneasy silence. "OK," Buck said, in between deep breaths. "What the hell was that?"

All Booker could do was shrug. "You've got me. That door's not opening any time soon. We've got to find another way to get Elizabeth out of here."

"Let's try and not run into anymore crazy people." Buck tore a part of his dress shirt to wipe away a bit of blood from his eye and mouth.

Booker sighed. "Agreed. I think I saw an elevator back towards the locked door."

The two headed over to the locked Warden's door and saw a button to call for the elevator, which Booker slammed in frustration. As the lift descended to their level, they heard another distorted cry for help from Elizabeth through a Tear in the middle of the elevator car.

"Take me back to my tower," Elizabeth demanded.

"It's too late for that now, child," said an unknown male voice. He tried to sound reassuring or calming to Elizabeth, but all it succeeded in doing was sending a chill up Buck's spine. "Your father gave you a lovely home, and you chose to destroy it."

"He is not my father!" Buck smirked at Elizabeth's defiant nature as the Tear dissipated.

The elevator doors opened and the two cautiously entered and hit the button to send the lift back up into the higher levels of the facility. Buck reloaded his Columbian pistol, unsure exactly of what kind of trouble they would run into inside this asylum.

The lift finally brought them to the atrium, and right in front of them was another mental patient swaying back and forth in the harsh winds of the exposed walkway.

Much like the patients in the waiting room, it wasn't attacking them so it was for the best that neither of the two provoked it.

They were just about to round the corner when they saw a bright searchlight move in their direction, forcing them just behind the edge of the entryway. Booker and Buck peaked their heads around the corner just to get a view of the room when they saw the light move away from their position. There was a figure standing on top of a pile of debris wearing a large, bronze helmet over its head that completely obscured its face. On each side of the head were large sound-amplifying devices and a bright white light emanating from where its mouth should be.

A rat scurried out of a hole in the wall adjacent from Booker and Buck and into the path of the light. The helmeted-person growled at the tiny animal in the same way Booker and Buck heard that growl come from the loudspeaker. After a few moments, the rat scurried away and the man in the helmet and outgrown uniform went back to its scan of the area.

Booker put two and two together as he brought his head back from the open. "I'd bet everything I had on that thing being what set off those mental patients from before."

"You wouldn't be wrong," Buck said as he straightened himself out. "I don't see any other way to where we need to go, so it looks like we've got to go through here."

As the helmeted man looked around the room in its complete scan, Buck counted to himself how long it would take for them to make it across the room. When he figured he had the timing down, he signaled to Booker when to go. When Buck tapped Booker on the shoulder, Booker went through a quiet sprint from their hiding place into the next room. It was Buck's turn next and after waiting for the light to move away from his spot, Buck booked it from one end of the room to another and into the safety of the second room.

It continued like that in every room they went through. Whenever they saw a helmeted man with the light shining from its mouth, they quietly and methodically went through each room. Following Buck's map, they made it through the horrifying underbelly of what was a mental asylum inside the Comstock House. It was like every room featured a new, sickening thing for them to discover: shock therapy, an operating table used for God knows what, and other methods now labeled as obsolete and ineffective were seemingly everywhere they went.

Had any of this happened to Elizabeth? Even more frightening were the Tears that were appearing every so often as Booker and Buck delved deeper and deeper into the facility. In each Tear they found, Elizabeth was being beaten and tortured by both Comstock and a Doctor Pettifog, who Booker assumed was the head physician and was personally in charge of whatever Comstock was going to do to her.

What rocked the both of them to their cores was when they discovered one of the Tears in a sort of back room that was filled to the brim with those creepy presidential masks.

"Still expecting DeWitt and Buck to burst through and save the day," Pettifog sarcastically asked. "It's been six months, child… they're not coming."

Six months? No, no, it couldn't be true. Buck felt his heart sink when he heard those words, and he could only imagine how Booker was feeling. Aside from it being his mission to bring Elizabeth back to New York City to have his debt wiped away, it seemed like he actually cared for the girl and her well-being. They also picked up and listened to Voxophone recordings of Elizabeth, and it just crushed them even more. She sounded so beaten down and defeated in each recording, it was more and more difficult to listen to.

It took them a few minutes of sneaking through the run-down facility and avoiding the strange-looking helmeted men, they finally made it to the Warden's Office, which was mysteriously empty. Facing the opening was a wall made entirely of video monitors to watch over every square inch of the facility, both inside and out, while the blizzard continued to rage outside.

Booker silently approached the main control panel and pressed a flashing yellow button. Upon doing so, the door unlocked and immediately opened on the viewscreen. Satisfied that the first part of their quest was complete, they turned to head back the way they came and to the when a helmeted man stood directly in front of the doorway, blinding them with that damn light of his.

Before either of them could do anything, it let out an ear-piercing scream that was louder and more powerful than anything he'd ever heard in his life. All he heard in his ears was a muffled ringing as the being vanished in a swirling vortex of energy and light.

Disoriented and off-balance, Buck stumbled to the nearby wall to try and regain his bearings as armed security guards flooded through a doorway and into the stairs, opening fire with a barrage of different weapons.

A bullet pinging off the bulletproof glass above him was just enough to help Buck regain his ability to stand and fire, and the ODST quickly took cover behind the protective glass facing the opening. He waited for the fire coming from the other side of the room to slack before he whipped around and opened fire, picking off two of the attackers before Booker lobbed a Devil's Kiss their way. It wasn't long until the professional soldiers took out the remaining security presence left in the entire building.

Picking up a carbine along the way, Buck silently followed Booker back the way they came through the facility, expecting hordes of mental patients to attack them. But to their pleasant surprise, there wasn't a single mental patient or helmeted man in the building. In fact, he was quite certain that aside from that one rat they saw earlier, they were the only living things inside the building. The howling winds through the broken windows, the crunching of snow underneath their shoes, and the sounds of shoes echoing off the stone floor were the only sounds that could be heard throughout the entirety of the facility as they made it back to their elevator.

As the elevator finally made it to their desired floor, the doors opened and they were immediately greeted by the sounds of Elizabeth screaming and shouting in extreme pain. Buck's skin crawled as he heard Elizabeth screaming and begging the doctors to stop their treatment of her.

They sprinted through the doorway and down the hallway, following the sounds of Elizabeth's torture until the found the Lutece twins standing behind a fading Tear of Elizabeth's screams of pain. The two were crushed upon this discovery.

"A Tear," Buck said as the interdimensional portal quickly faded from existence. "That's what this was… a goddamn portal?"

"Why do you ask 'what'," Robert started.

"When the more delicious question is 'when'," Rosalind quickly finished.

Before Buck could unleash his exasperated anger on the Lutece twins for all the tricks and riddles, they vanished into thin air right as the light above them flickered several times.

Booker and Buck looked defeated. They had just risked their lives searching through a dilapidated building, avoiding crazed lunatics and men in helmets, all for finding a Tear of Elizabeth being tortured months ago with absolutely nothing either of them could do.

They risked their lives over nothing. Nothing but some sort of fucked up lesson from a pair of sadistic intellectuals. Booker was shocked. Buck was furious.

"A fucking Tear…" Buck muttered before he front-kicked the metal doorframe in anger. "We just went on a wild fucking goose chase, risked our lives being torn apart of deafened in a rundown mansion, for nothing but a Tear."

"Calm down Buck," Booker said, sitting down on the edge of an inactive, partially destroyed fountain. "We need to think this through."

But Buck wasn't having any of it. "So now what, huh," Buck angrily said to Booker. "Now what the fuck do we do? We're six months too late, Elizabeth is long gone, and we're stuck in a building that's falling apart with a blizzard outside. We're royally fucked DeWitt, and it's thanks to those redheaded assholes."

"That's no proper way for someone to speak," a woman's voice said from beyond the other room.

The sudden sounds of another human stunned Buck into silence and Booker roused to his feet. That voice sounded so familiar, albeit more tired and older. Booker cautiously headed through the doorway with Buck behind him, and once inside they saw an ever more dilapidated theater room. Standing on the stage at the far end of the room was a woman shrouded in a shadow.

"Who are you," Booker asked, aiming his rifle at the figure. His finger rested off the trigger as he and Buck slowly approached the shadowy person.

The closer they got to the person, however, the clearer it became who she was. The way she held herself, her outfit, even her mannerisms. It couldn't be any clearer that it was in fact Elizabeth standing on that stage.

Booker let his rifle hang loosely from his arms as he rushed over to the stage while Buck moved a little slower, absolutely unable to believe what he was seeing.

"As you can see, Booker, the inmates now run the asylum," Elizabeth said as the two men reached the stage. "All I can do now is watch, as what I've set into motion slides into its terminal stage."

Elizabeth let out a long, pained sighed. "It took all I had left in me… just to bring you here."

Booker and Buck shared confused looks with one another before looking back up at Elizabeth and seeing how old she was. Her now-silver hair was done up into a bun and there were wrinkles all across her once youthful face, but now tired.

"E-Elizabeth… I don't understand," Booker stammered out as Buck looked on. "We… we heard you screaming. We were coming to get you, I swear."

"Here, take my hand." Elizabeth offered her hands to Booker and Buck. The two men took them and she pulled them up to where she was standing. The two soon found on top of a roof overlooking downtown Manhattan that was under siege by the entire might of the Columbian military.

The city below them was on fire as Columbian airships let loose rocket after rocket into anything they could find that wasn't Columbian. Air raid sirens sounded all throughout the city as skyscrapers burned and screams of New Yorkers could be heard from their rooftop.

"Say what you want about Comstock," Elizabeth said as she watched the carnage continue to unfold. "But he was a hell of a fortune teller."

She turned away from the skyline and back to Booker and Buck, mouths agape at the destruction they were witnessing. "It wasn't the torture that broke me. It wasn't the indoctrination… it was time." Elizabeth sighed with pain and anguish. "And time rots everything… even hope."

"But I was coming," Booker said in a soft voice. "We were coming to rescue you."

Elizabeth shook her head. "Songbird. He stops you every time."

"Yes, but we would find a way…"

Elizabeth shook her head. "No, it's too late for me Booker. I brought you here not for my sake, but yours." She then pulled a card out of her dress and handed it to Booker. "Here, you'll need this."

"What is this," Booker asked flipping over the card before looking back at its writing. "What does it say?"

Elizabeth shrugged. "Just some advice… on how not to become me."

While Booker looked over the writing on the card, Elizabeth glanced over at Buck for the first time as he kept watching in stunned silence as New York City was bombed and burned to the ground before his very eyes.

Buck couldn't believe what he was seeing. Even in the future, New York City is still known as one of the most impressive and famous cities throughout the entirety of Humanity's colonies and nation states in terms of economical, technological and societal importance. To see it now being subject to an aerial bombardment at the hands of Columbia was something that rocked Buck to his core.

"You've brought a friend with you," Elizabeth said as Booker continued to look over the card. "Good. You're going to need all the help you can get."

Confused, Buck turned away from the scene and looked at the older Elizabeth. "Elizabeth, it's me. Buck, Eddie Buck."

She looked at Buck as if he had two heads speaking Latin. Buck put a hand on her shoulder. "I was with you and Booker all that time. I helped you escape the tower."

"I'm sorry young man, but I think I would remember a face as handsome as yours." While Buck stood confused, Elizabeth turned back to Booker. "It was good to see you again, Booker. Now go, and stop this from happening."

With a wipe of her hand, the world around them exploded into a blinding light and the two felt a surge of vertigo as the world around them faded away. When their vision returned, they found themselves in a corridor surrounded by nice furniture, a phonograph playing music from the era, and bookshelves packed with books. From the open windows they saw rays of sunshine flooding through.

"We're back in 1912," Booker exclaimed.

Suddenly, the sounds of Elizabeth screaming and being tortured could be faintly heard, and the two sprang into action.

"There's still time," Buck said with urgency. "Let's go!"

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