Look at me returning on my promises, Everything is falling back into place.

So, there was an unexpected part before politics could commence, but I'm sure you'll agree it goes well with what's happening. You can look forward to Cortana dumping 26th centuary tech on Remnant next chapter, so for research into the soecifics, it may take a little longer than what would be 'usual' now that we have this thing going, but I'll try my best, between the last of the boxes, Halo 3 coming out for PC, and catching up with friends.

As with every chapter, I own nothting but the story, everything else is property of RoosterTeeth and 343 Industires.

The trip to Atlas was fairly bland, after having filled Blake in on the situation, along with the necessary points to Arbiter and the Chief, Cortana proposed a few questions, but they were quickly answered to her satisfaction, and they were told of the plan while the AI sifted through public records for more intel on the matter.

The rest of the trip was done in relative silence, and it wasn't long before Atlas looked out of the tundra mist, Mantle glowing orange below as the City of the kingdom's namesake floating above, steel cable tethers, linking the two together.

"Strange," Cortana said, "While I'm picking up small amounts of Gravity Dust residue in the area, there's nowhere near enough to lift such a large mass."

"That's because that's the public story," Ozpin told them, "When Atlas was first designed, we used the Staff of Creation to hold it up, the Amount of Gravity Dust that would be required would have drained the planet's resources for just 1 hour in the air."

"Looks a little condescending to me." Ruby put in, looking down at how Mantle looked, covered in industrial smog.

"While Atlas can be known for how... Sectarian they can be, their technological prowess is unmistakable," the headmaster tried to ease, to which the Spartan huntress just grunted.

It wasn't long before they came into land at Atlas Academy, and as the hatch lowered, they saw Ironwood, along with two other members with him, one was an elderly man, in a quadropedic walking chair, he was if a decent stature, and while he was grey, there was definitely some fight in him, despite time having taken its toll in the man.

The other was a relatively tall woman with a straight kempt suit, sword hanging at her side, her silver hair done up in a bun with her fringe left free. All three members of RBY recognized the Schnee heritage within, and while Weiss hadn't talked much about her family, they all realized this must have been Specialist Winter, Ironwood's right-hand Woman, in almost every regard.

Ruby herself also recognized the man on the other side of the General to be Doctor Pietro Polendina, One of Atlas' finest technological experts.

"General Ironwood, Commanding officer of the Atlas military, and Headmaster of Atlas Academy, a pleasure to meet your acquaintance," He spoke, extending his hand, as he shook first Chief, and the Arbiter, "This is Specialist Schnee, and Doctor Polendina."

"Master-Chief Petty Officer of the UNSC Navy," Chief, introduced himself, "Alternately, Spartan 117,"

"Arbiter of the Sangheili," Arbiter replied, "I wish we could have met on less strenuous terms, General."

"As do I, come, the rest of the Council is waiting."

The walk was long enough, and while RBY were required to wait outside, it wasn't long before the press swarmed the group, and with them along came Jacque Schnee, who tried forcing himself on the group as they went towards the council room.

He was dismissed by them for the moment, but as Ruby and the others were left outside, he took a smarmy look at them, before huffing.

"I suppose you're my daughter's team then?"

"You would be correct, Ruby, Rose, Pleasure to make your Acquaintance." She introduced herself, a sardonic grin on her face as she stuck out her hand. Which the CEO looked at like she was handing him a used tissue.

"Yes, well, I can see where her lapse in respect is coming from." He looked at the rest of them, with the same disgusted look, Blake particularly so.

"Well, I've tried giving her a new perspective on things. It's amazing what a change in worldview can do to you." Her tone was dripping with passive-aggressiveness.

"Oh, I'm sure it does, though I find that most other worldviews lack the things suited for a Schnee."

"You sound like you use that name a lot for a family you married into."

There was a momentary splutter, before he recovered, "So, you've done your research, I'll give you that."

"I like being up to date on current affairs. Keeps me open for every opportunity, especially if it is in something in regards to my team."

"You're smarter than most that come from your place in the world."

"I'd like to think so, can't be a good team leader, or Huntress without listening to my team."

"And what, pray tell, did she say about me?"

"Nothing I couldn't figure out on my own, but the matter of the fact is I listened."

He huffed again, before straightening his suit, "If you want to see her, she insisted on coming, so she is behind the press crowds."

"Thank you, I hope we can meet again." They walked off at a semi brisk pace to reach their teammate.

"And here I thought I had seen everything," Ruby said as soon as they were out of earshot.

"I'm surprised you didn't punch him," Blake replied, with a mix of surprise, and sarcasm.

"God knows I wanted to. But sending the CEO of the planet's most profitable company to at least 3 months in the hospital wouldn't have helped anyone, but damn does he deserve it."

Weiss heard the sound of footsteps coming from the crowd, and looked up to see her team. And promptly ran into her team leader, to embrace in a hug.

"Woah, easy there princess."

"Oh, hush." The heiress replied as she let go, "I've missed you guys."

"Yeah, me too," Yang replied, as they came together.

"Mind if I slip some Cyanide into your dad's drink next time I see him?" The Spartan asked,

"Ruby!" She whisper-yelled back, "While he is…" she struggled to find the words,

"A narcissistic pig who only cares about profit and stimulating his ego?"

"Yes, well… that, he's still my father."

"I'm sure nobody would mind if he happened to have an accident."

"Stop it!" She hit her with the back of her hand but was smiling.

They laughed as they shared pleasantries catching up over what had transpired over the break, before reaching the subject of how they were able to meet in the first place.

"Yeah, so we were playing cards when I got a UNSC signal buzzing through."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I'm honestly surprised Atlas didn't pick it up beforehand, but hey, guess they're too narrowed in on their own frequencies. I got out and was able to establish contact, and they explained they had had a slip space accident that had left them stranded, and were going to make planetfall within a few hours.

We arranged an LZ and they used an escape pod to meet us shortly before their wreck, which only consisted of the rear end, landed in the Sanus Bay, they managed to get an escape pod and break free to land near the LZ.

She then explained the events that transpired between the landing, and making their way to Atlas, talking about the end of the war, the Flood, Halo, along with the more recent information, about Salem, and Summer's return.

Questions were answered as they arose, and while it took a while for Weiss to take in, she thought about it, and looked at her partner confidently.

"If you say we need to jump, we'll ask how high." Her blue eyes steeled in determination.

"Atta girl." Ruby smiled bringing her into a tight, but friendly embrace.

Inside the council room, it was tense, as the two newcomers sat down at the table, well, Arbiter sat, after a brief explanation, it was made clear why the Spartan did not.

After introductions were made, they got down to business.

"We do not mean to intrude here for long," Arbiter began, "We have an AI with schematics for one of our ships, as we understand it Atlas is the most well equipped to build something on such a scale."

"Could we, see this ship of yours?" Ironwood asked, his head in one hand in a thoughtful pose. In response, Chief pulled out Cortana's chip, and set it on the table, where her avatar appeared, holding a miniature Charon class frigate above her open palm.

The model expanded to fill the tablespace, as Cortana spoke.

"This is a Charon class frigate, a little longer than Atlassian battleships, and while we are aware that most specifics probably can't be met, we are willing to supply the technological knowledge to bridge as many gaps as we can."

"Your AI seems rather independent." A stout councilman noticed.

"UNSC 'Smart AI' CTN 0452-9, Cortana, at your service," she bowed, "My neural network has been modelled after the human brain, allowing for much more complex functions than 'Dumb' AIs."

"Your human?" They looked towards the chief, who just nodded.

"Through our exploration of the Galaxy, we discovered these great ringworlds capable of wiping out all life in the Galaxy, as a contingency against a pandemic that was growing on the ancient civilization who built them," Cortana explained, "It would make sense, after such a disaster, that they would reseed the Galaxy when the disease had been wiped out, My current theory as to why Humans originated on 2 different worlds, is they were not sure which world was Ancient Humanity's homeworld, so reseeded both locations, not the soundest in the world, but would explain how we ended up on two planets on the other end of the galaxy from each other."

"And when did this pandemic occur?"

"Approximately 100,000 years ago."

"So there's no chance of us being affected?"

"No, there was a small containment breach when we discovered Halo, but thanks to the data left by the Forerunners it was contained, and all samples destroyed; They had been forced to wipe out the Galaxy before they were able to find a cure, so there were samples left for experimentation there." She clarified as she saw raised eyebrows from her last answer.

"We lost a few men, but it was managed quickly."

Several members nodded as a 'sorry for your loss' kind of gesture, as Ironwood took a closer look at the Frigate model.

"This… 'Frigate' you have would take a few years to build, even if we had all the technology that you presumably know better than us, you will probably need to talk to the science team about the specifications, but I'm sure we could work something out."

"In return," Another council member began, "I think it would not be prudent to ask you to share some of your technological advancements to us."

"I'm sure things could be arranged," Cortana, agreed, "Though I won't be able to share everything, the specifications of Chief's exosuit are Classified, and even then, they cost more than that frigate to build."

"Why so much?" The council looked amazed.

"Again, most of this is classified, but what I can tell you is it is rated for extended spacewalks, enhances just about every skill of the wearer, is tailored to the person, and if a normal person were to wear one, it would kill them."

"But not him."

"I have been given special training and secondary and tertiary equipment required to use the suit that is not available outside of UNSC space." Chief clarified, "It would take years of training to even be remotely ready to use this Exosuit, and even then, without the extra equipment, which is very delicate and risky to implement, you would die if you put it on."

"I see." Ironwood responded, "I take it that it is near enough impossible to remove without the right equipment too, wouldn't it?"

"It has tamper-proof bolts, and a failsafe detonation device should it fall into enemy hands, yes."

"Then what Technology would you be willing to give us?" Another council member asked, apparently frustrated at the lack of contextual progress.

"New forms of energy production for one." Cortana began, "Yes you have dust, but that is very much a finite resource, what will you do when it runs out?"

"I doubt it will for quite some time, the Dust mines are very rich in their ore."

"Maybe not in your generation no," Arbiter replied, "But think of future generations, starved of resources and no ways of powering the very energy-dependent civilization you have created."

"Our humanity used to be the same," Cortana explained to them, on our home planet, Earth, before we had the energy tech we have now, we relied heavily on fossil fuels, Coal, Oil and Natural Gas, byproducts of dead microorganisms, plants and animals from a time where decomposers were not as efficient as they are now.

We almost drained our planet completely dry, a problem of you considered that it accounted for 80% of the world's electricity production, not to mention heating, transport, lubrication and several other products that relied on these byproducts. If it wasn't for the breakthrough of Fusion energy, we would probably have devolved into an energy crisis war for the last scraps of oils and gas."

"So this, Fusion solved your energy crisis? How potent is it?"

"Well, so long as you have the proper reactor, and right isotopes, even when we were first starting out, a glass of water was comparable to the energy output as almost 160 litres of Oil."

The council went wide-eyed at that. Oil, was known as a potential fuel source, and was used in a lot of cases were Dust was too volatile to use, but overall the right Dust mixtures could put out about 2-3 times the energy output, as opposed to almost 1000 times the output that Fusion supposedly gave.

"That seems a little ambitious." One of the more cynical members replied to the AI's claim.

"Chief's armour runs on Fusion packs." Cortana began, "And the fuel within it is enough to run it for 7 years without maintenance, and that includes prolonged firefights where it would be using up most of its energy."

He pointed to the rectangular points on the back of his chest plate armour.

"It is the same process that Stars use to generate energy, and ok yes, they have trillions of tonnes of fuel, but they are able to put out enough energy to warm several planets and shine at a luminosity to give light from millions of light-years away, for billions of years."

"Ok, that will be one thing, what else would be available?"

"Advanced medicine would be one. I'm sure this planet is still somewhat plagued by a life span of around 80 years, with Cancers and other diseases being a prominent factor in it."

They all nodded.

"We have almost eliminated known diseases, save from the fact that exposure to them can strengthen your immune system to fight off unknown ones, Cancer has been a trivial thing to cure for 200 years, and Gene therapy has eliminated all major genetic defects, such as diabetes, Down's syndrome, colour blindness, hemophilia and the like, and lifespans have been improved into almost 200, maybe even longer, since we were at war until recently, we don't have reliable data for life expectancies."

"And your willing to share such technologies?"

"In return for a space-worthy vessel yes, though we would probably have to some of it anyway, as the ship runs on some of the techs we mentioned, as well as a few others."

"Such as?"

"Magnetic weaponry; most UNSC ships are built around a Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, which can accelerate slugs in the hundreds to thousands tonnage range from 2% to 6% the speed of light, depending on the model."

"Well, I'm sure the science teams will have a field day with all that information," Ironwood told them, "I think we have heard enough to make a decision.

All agreed in exchanging the technologies discussed from the UNSC in order to build them a space-worthy vessel say aye."

There was a chorus of ayes over the table.

"All opposed?"

Significantly fewer nays were heard amongst them.

"Then it is decided. We can escort you to the science team, where you can go over everything with them."

"A Pleasure, Councilmen," Arbiter bowed, as Chief collected Cortana's chip.