I own nothing RWBY is owned by RoosterTeeth and Halo is owned by 343 and Microsoft.

August 30 1252 hours.

Noble Six looked out over the burnt landscape. Reach had fallen. All of NOBLE TEAM had died, with the exception of Jun, who escorted Doctor Halsey to CASTLE base. Now it was her turn to meet her fate.

'If I am going to die,' Noble Six thought, 'It will be on my terms, with a gun in my hand and a pile of dead Covenant at my feet.' She turned and spotted Emile's corpse in a pile of rubble. She walked over and slowly grabbed his dog tags, holding a moment of silence for her fallen comrade. She then looked over to a nearby dead Elite Field Marshal, Emile's kukri buried deep in its throat.

'Hope you don't mind if I take this', she thought as she claimed the knife and then the sheath from Emile's shoulder. She knocked his helmet in parting and moved on.

She found a beat-up Warthog in a crater, a little worse for wear, but sure enough it started. Oddly enough it had two turrets in cases in it; a LAAG and a GAUSS. It would definitely come in handy for the fight to come. She drove off across the pot-marked wasteland to find where she would make her last stand.

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Time skip

1400 hours

The Hog finally sputtered and popped its dying breath outside some kind of bunker, and Six took it as a sign to investigate. She carefully stepped through the shattered glass door and spotted the ONI symbol inside. 'Figures…well, there must be something valuable in here.' Seeing that it was clear of hostiles, she went to a functional terminal and accessed it, looking for any classified information that could be copied and deleted. Not that it mattered much when the world was about to be glassed, but old habits die hard, I guess…

'No luck. I need clearance to access anything worth copying. This is ONI, after all; everything has to be locked behind clearance gates. Hmm…Delta Wing has weapons for field testing and parts for MJOLNIR armor. Excellent. There appears to be a vehicle bay underneath the base as well. Bonus.' She found and unlocked the vehicle bay, feeling the building vibrate as the heavy doors screeched open. She slowly pushed the Hog down a hill and around the bunker to find the entrance to the bay in a cliff face. She noted the entrance was shallower than she would have thought, barely large enough for a warthog to fit.

Inside she parked the Hog in a defensive position where she could cover the door, and spotted some gas cans. 'Huh,' she smiled bittersweetly. 'Guess it's not yet your time, Hog.' Following the signs to Delta Wing, she noted that unlike its battered and scarred exterior, the facility was damn near pristine, as if it had just been cleaned a couple of hours ago.

First Noble Six went to scope out the armory, finding replacement parts, attachments, and removal tools for her armor.

'Removal tools…doubt I'll need those, but I might be able to move around faster without armor…we'll see' She grabbed a nearby duffle bag and scooped everything inside.

Next were the weapons lockers. The first locker had two sets of handguns. The designation "M6D Magnum" was pressed into the side of each gun. High caliber design, high explosive, armor piercing rounds in a twelve shot Mag. She gave a low whistle. Heavy duty and reliable if the feel of it was anything to go by. She swiped all four Magnums as well as the extra mags into her bag. The next locker had rifles. A cut down muzzle shroud, rails with a 2x scope and a 36 round full metal jacket AP ammunition. The label said it was a BR55. 'Wonder what the range is on this thing? Probably more of a medium range weapon compared to the DMR.' She snatched it as well and closed the nearly overflowing bag. She continued the process with other duffles, collecting as much weaponry and ammo as she could. She even found a couple of modified weapons with high velocity experimental ammo. 'ONI gets all the nice toys…a shame they're all too cowardly to use them.' When she was done, she had a weapon to suit any situation, whether it was long range, armored combat, CQC, ambushes or anything in between. She even got her hands on some Covenant weaponry. She had enough for a long drawn out fight.

Once she finished piling the duffles in the hallway back to the vehicle bay, she continued deeper into the facility to see what else she could find. She came across a sign for Gamma Wing and went to investigate.

The first room she found looked like a morgue; it was full of steel tables, scanning equipment, and had a row of refrigerated lockers in the back. Unlike the rest of the facility, this room was in tatters. Papers were strewn about the floor, equipment looked damaged beyond repair, and carts were overturned with their contents spilled like guts out everywhere. There were even actual guts and body tissues in some places. Noble Six could see at least 3 corpses in the room. It looked like there had been a sizable fight in the room, with everyone taking some kind of damage…yet there were no signs of gunfire. 'Knowing ONI, this was probably some kind of cover up…but what were they trying to hide?'

With one of her new Magnums at the ready, Six cautiously entered the room. She checked for life signs in the bodies, to no luck. They were scientists, geneticists by their ID tags, and one of them had Omega level clearance. 'Yes! Now, let's see what we can dig up.' Armed with their ID, Six found a still-operational console and logged in. As she set up the copy and burn, she took a quick glance through the files. It was uncharacteristically nosy for her to snoop through documents she was collecting, but seeing as how her death was almost assured at this point, being clandestine didn't have much appeal.

She was just about to step away when her eyes caught on a project folder. "Project Veil" was the title. Noble Six didn't know why, but she was transfixed by the name. She'd heard it before, somewhere just beyond memory…She opened the folder and clicked the first link. A video appeared with a lab tech on the screen standing in a dimly lit and non-destroyed morgue .

"March 30th, 2542. An unexplained flash of light was observed in a forest Northeast of Sword Base. Upon arrival, Subject Alpha was found, a humanoid female in her late 20s to early 30s. Subject was found in a critical state, multiple lacerations and perforations, a few broken bones and ruptured organs. Personal effects recovered were a white cloak covered in blood, likely her own, a mechanical transforming scythe of unknown origin and design, shotgun shells of unknown make, and an unusual type of data pad which has a number of contacts and pictures. The pictures seem to indicate that Subject Alpha was a wife and mother, as well as a mercenary of some kind. It also identifies her as Summer Rose, a 'Huntress of Vale.' A search for the location 'Vale' and the classification 'Huntress' turned up nothing substantial. They do not appear to exist."

Noble Six was gripping her Magnum with white knuckles. Summer Rose. Huntress. Vale. These were words she knew, from some time long ago that she couldn't quite remember. It was sitting on the tip of her tongue, infuriating her, but it was just beyond her reach. One thing was certain: Six new this "Summer Rose." She returned her attention to the video, which had now cut to a shot of a female body on a table, monitors all around her, her face and genitals obscured. Her skin was pale and sickly, her flesh emaciated and covered in poorly-healed wounds.

"We've managed to somewhat stabilize Subject Alpha," said the same lab tech, off camera, "but her condition worsens every day. Through several tests we've found that her body gives off a low-intensity energy field similar to the shielding units the jackals use in their gauntlets. How this is possible is beyond our understanding, but Dr. Faust seems to think the energy is centered on the blood. It would explain why the flash clone we've made from Alpha's tissues doesn't exhibit the same energy field. We're planning on attempting a transfusion between Alpha and the clone to see if a transfer is possible…"

The video cuts to several people in lab coats standing around a large tube of some sort, connected to a second tube via wires and piping. It appears that a woman, probably Summer Rose, is inside the tube, but the scientists are crowding the monitors and viewports, so Noble couldn't be certain. Not to mention the camera was moving all over the place, making everything hectic and unclear. Indistinct voices could be heard mumbling about exchange rates, theorems, and what would be for lunch.

The video cut back to the single scientist, their facial hair grown out some, as they leaned against a hallway wall smoking a cigarette. Noble noticed the videos seemed to get less and less professional over time. "It appears the transfusion was a success," the scientist sighed, "which is a damn good thing, because Subject Alpha is caput. Dead and rotting. We started the dissection-"

Six fast-forwarded. She didn't want to hear the scientist be so raunchy while talking about cutting up Summer. It made her skin crawl.

"-The clone seems to have some of Alpha's memories, but she can't readily access them. That's the problem with flash clones – so imperfect. There's so much we could have learned from Alpha, but because Faust was so eager with his transfer idea, he just had to rush everything. Who cares if it worked! There's an entire unexplored world's worth of information locked in the head of this clone, and it's completely out of reach, even with neural mapping! We'll never get at it unless she makes the connection herself, and that'll probably never happen!"

The scientist swiped at the camera, knocking over its stand and causing a cut to the next scene, which was similar to the last, but in a different location. "The source tissue was too damaged to make a fully-grown clone, so we had to settle for a less-developed one. She has around a 16-year-old growth level, which has made things a bit weird in the lab. We're not used to have kids around, let alone teenagers," he sneered the word, "We'd love to study her more, but the higher-ups sent the kill order on that real quick. They want to use her for combat deployment, because of course they do. They're shipping her out with Colonel Ackerson to be part of Beta company. The logic of sending a special soldier into battle when we could instead study them and copy their abilities is beyond me." The scientist picked up the camera and began walking. "But, we might as well record her for posterity before they shut us down and ship us out to god-knows-where. Hey, Nat-"

The video became grainy and distorted, then fizzled out entirely.

Noble Six stood in silence, absorbed in thought. This strange woman, Summer Rose, was human, but from an entirely different world with equipment far beyond even ONI's understanding, and she possessed a strange power the UNSC wanted to make use of. Huntress of Vale…who was this woman? She was suddenly overcome with rage. 'Those ONI bastards…of course they would be more interested in what secrets they could gain from her instead of actually keeping her alive! God, they make me sick!' She punched the wall, causing the already disheveled tiles to crack and fall, and eerie echo of rage reverberating through the cold concrete room. Not only did they let her die, but they cloned her and inducted that clone into the UNSC forces. Six wondered how much the clone knew, if she remembered anything, if she was even still alive, or if they had recalled her to use her as a test subject once again. Her heart ached at the thought.

A beep from the computer returned Six's thoughts to reality. The copy and burn was completed. She tried to click on some more of the files in the Project Veil folder, but they were encrypted and she didn't have the means to decode them. Typical. She yanked the drive from the computer, not wanting look any deeper into the ONI abomination of sacrilege they called "R&D". It's not like it mattered anyway. Their secrets died with the rest of Reach…and her. 'It's not fair that they can just get away with this…I wish there was something I could do…not just for me, but for Summer."

Yes. Go through all the trouble of surviving this impossible situation so you can get "justice" for the mysterious woman who you remember but can't recall anything about, and in the process be dishonorably discharged for insubordination as the best possible outcome. More likely she'd be court-martialed for treason and sent god knows where to be a lab rat. Just like Summer and her clone…

"It's all so depressing, isn't it?"

Six's Magnum was instantly up, her head whirling around to find the source of the voice. She hadn't found any signs of life in this building, and she was sure all the bodies in this room were dead. There was no movement, no indications, no sound. All was still, as though she had imagined the voice entirely. Was the air in this room laced with a hallucinogenic, one that could get through her helmets filters?

"Geez, put the gun down, you're embarrassing yourself."

A male voice, human, roughly 20-30 years of age, again coming from some unknown location. Upon close inspection, she detected a faint reflection in the corner of the ceiling. She slowly moved toward it, gun cocked and ready, and saw that it was a very well-concealed camera. Probably installed to spy on the scientists who worked in the lab.

Someone had been watching her.

"Ah, you finally see it, huh? Took you long enough. And here I thought the S3s were supposed to be hyper-observant? Seems more like hyper-easily-distracted, to me."

"Identify yourself," commanded Noble Six in a steely tone. She turned and started striding toward the door, Magnum still a micrometer from being fired.

"You first, Spartan B-321, Noble Six of Noble Team." There was a pause, and then, "Crap, I messed that joke up…I suck at first impressions."

"Identify!" She said with more force as she exited the morgue, going down a hallway she hadn't explored yet. Whoever this individual was, they didn't seem very focused on what was going on. 'Who the hell would still be here?' Six wondered.

"Hmm…I guess you could call me the Boogeyman. I'm the shadow that haunts these halls, keeping the secrets, watching and waiting for idiots to wander in here so I can toy with them and feast on their bones." With the last word, the lights in the hallway went off, the emergency lighting casting strange orange shadows on the walls.

"Very dramatic," scoffed Noble Six. 'This Boogeyman better hope he's bulletproof,' she fumed internally 'or he's going to look like Swiss cheese when I'm done with him. There's no time for games like this.' She checked a corner and continued, looking for any doors with lights on.

"Oh yes, drama is the spice of life! Without it, everything goes stale. Like the rations here. Those powdery, dry packets of instant-bread and cup-o-noodles. Sure, they'll keep you fed, but who wants to eat that crap? I could really go for some pizza…" There was an audible distortion in the voice as he spoke. It seemed like although most of the Oni structure was pristine, the equipment hadn't been so lucky. Which didn't bode well for Six.

The "Boogeyman" continued to ramble on as Six rounded another corner, and she spied what she sought: a glowing light behind a door. She approached as quietly and quickly as she could, readying her Magnum once more. She placed her hand on the latch for the door, steadied her breathing, and flung the door open.

Nothing. There was no one in the room. It was a fairly large room full of surveillance equipment and computers, with garbage strewn about from the previous operator, but it was clear no one had been inside the room in a while. The keyboards and screens were covered in a thick layer of dust, probably from all the fans whirring in the room. The monitors displayed a number of rooms throughout the facility, several of which she had already been through. Whoever was watching had been watching for a while and could easily have avoided her, but not without leaving some kind of trace of where they went. 'Something isn't right about this…'

"Haha, did you actually think I was in there? What are you, nine? Man, the Spartan program has gone in the crapper since it they gave up the child-soldier thing…damn morality making things needlessly complicated. Just kidnap some more kids and shoot them up with steroids and nanomachines, what's the big deal?"

"Alright, I don't have time for this," demanded Six. She'd had enough of this "Boogeyman's" games. "You do realize there's a Covenant assault happening on the surface, right? They're preparing to glass the planet, killing you, me, and everyone else. You have confidential knowledge of ONI operations and you speak perfect English, so you're not Covenant. Even if you're some kind of Rebel, I'd think your survival would be a little more important to you than avoiding capture by the UNSC."

'Unless he's insane,' she thought.

"Capture? I think you mean 'Reclamation,' Sherlock. You can't capture what you already own."

"Reclamation?" Six was puzzled. "You really are insane, aren't you?"

"Not as insane as the people that made us." The screens in the room began to flicker. Some turned to static, some turned off, and some began to display a bleak, blinking message. 'Welcome to the Graveyard of Dreams.' At that moment, a nearby projector sprang to life, and a hologram of an AI appeared. They were male, wearing the a leather jacket, ripped jeans, fingerless gloves with biker boots and, oddly enough, had a red and white electric guitar slung behind them. His long wavy hair was past his shoulders and he had aviator shades hanging from the corner of his pocket. Oddly enough, although the colors of the hologram shifted through varying hues, the AI's eyes remained neon green.

"I mean, look at me," the AI said, "What the hell was the point of programming all these aesthetic changes to my appearance? It's a giant fricking waste of time. Although, to be fair, I was the one who did it…"

"An AI," mumbled Six. That would explain why nothing added up here. She noticed that the hologram glitched out every few seconds, causing the AI to drastically switch between positions. It didn't look like a problem with the projector, but a problem with the data it was projecting. It was clear that whatever equipment had failed here had damaged the AI in some way, and who knows what else was broken in here.

"No, I'm a magical Butt Pixie who's here to give you explosive diarrhea and get that stick out of your military-conditioned ass! Of course I'm an AI; who the hell would stay here unless they can't leave?" The AI glitched through a number of poses in rapid succession, and its face flashed on some of the screens in the room, showing various expressions ranging from joy to anger to sadness. It appeared the more agitated it got, the more it disrupted its natural operation.

"Identify," said Six in her most authoritative tone, trying to bring the AI into a more default state. It seemed to work, as the AI donned a neutral expression, staring blankly at her face.

" UNSC Smart AI SDH-1371321 'Shadowhawk'," said the AI. "Monitor of ONI installation 'Shield Base,' special operations manager and record keeper for all projects therein, keeper of keys and groun-"

"'Record keeper?" Six leaped on the idea. If this AI had access to all data on the special projects, it might know more about Summer and her clone. Six had to know. "Can you get me access to the files about 'Project Veil'?"

Shadowhawk returned to its normal demeanor. "Typical military response. You threaten me and wave your gun around to try and get your way, but the moment you find out I'm useful for something, you start making demands and trying to be buddies." It puts a fist on its hip and shook its finger at her. "Have you no shame?"

Noble Six realized she was still pointing her Magnum at the AI's pedestal, the trigger still a hair's breadth away from firing. She immediately relaxed her grip, sticking the gun to her thigh plate. She was way too worked up over this Summer Rose thing. 'I haven't been this anxious since boot camp…what's gotten into me?' The impending glassing of the planet, probably.

She made a 'happy now?' motion toward Shadowhawk. He just smirked. "State your name and rank."

Noble Six fixed Shadowhawk with a death stare from underneath her helmet. She didn't like this AI. "You know my name and rank already, don't you?"

The AI shrugged. "Protocol is protocol. You wouldn't want to forsake the UNSC traditions just because the world's ending, would you?"

"Yes, I would."

"Well, aren't you just a ray of sunshine!" The AI beamed at her. "I like you, kid."

Six took a deep breath to calm herself. "Could you…please…focus for a minute?"

Their expression remained the same, but the AI's eyes took on a very sad look. "No," it said curtly. "Name. And. Rank."

She sighed. "Lieutenant Natsuki, Spartan B-321." Six said.

" See was that so hard? All you had to do was tell me your name and rank." He said in explanative tone. Like a parent explaining the most simplest thing to child.

The now named Natsuki just looked at him with a deadpan stare under her helmet.

"So, one of the many things here is the entire video record of VALE, and some sort of prototype ish teleporter." Shadowhawk said.

"Ok first can you show me the rest of the video?" Natsuki asked. Her hope rising hoping to find out if Summers clone survived.

" I can but it is corrupted. So I would need to reconstruct it. Witch means I need time." ShadowHawk said. " Sorry."

Six gave a exasperated sigh.

"What is this about a teleporter?" She asked.

" That, is a good question." He responded, " I know you saw the thing under sword base. Contrary to what you may think, we learned more than what Halsey and the AI fragment would have said. We have learned of short range teleportation."

" So what are you saying exactly?"

" I am saying is all the tests we did but one, were all failures. They were transported into atomized bits and pieces that probably ended up way outside the galaxy for all I know. The one successful test we did went through alright and came back, but has been slipping in and out of dimensions. Kind of like a phantom." was the answer the AI said with a bit of sorrow. " The crazy bastard. Of all the people to successfully do it it was him. He was a good friend of mine you know. Probably the only one that could stand me and me him."

Natsuki looked upon the AI with pitty. She knew what it felt like to lose friends. After all, she lost all of NOBLE TEAM in the span of a week. She gave a deep sigh then remembered she had a slot open in her helmet.

" How about you come with me. You serve no need here, as far as I can tell, and you need to be either reclaimed or destroyed as per protocol. We can try this thing and if it doesn't kill us, we may or may not end up on a peaceful world." she said to him ' hopefully we end up on either where Summer Rose was born so I can break the news to them, or where her clone is so I can help her out.' she thought privately.

Shadow Hawk looked up at her with a genuine smile.

" I will do what I can. I do remember the input codes used for the successful test." He stated, " The teleporter has more than enough room for your warthog to get enough speed and space to get through no problem. I will start the charging sequence and inputting the codes and coradneats. In the meantime, if you want to grab Summers gear it is in this locker. Even if we don't end up on her birth world, I don't want it to be glassed by these bastards."

Nat walked to the mentioned locker and opened it. Inside was a Black combat skirt and Blouse with white trim along with a clencher. Boots with white laces. Black leggings and some heavily damaged chest armor. Finally a white cloak. It was clean and had a metal Rose pendant on it. Giving a mental picture it gave the look of protection yet fashion. Along with everything else was an odd looking sniper rifle. Odd in the fact that it looked like it was made out of blades, or to turn into a blade of some sort, that and a small white rectangle devise that when opened showed a blank screen. It seemed familiar to her, like she had one before but she was positive she never saw this. She placed everything in a plastic bag and then in a duffle. The rifle she magclamed to her back. She will fiddle with it later but right now she just wanted to get Summer's stuff packed up and ready to go.

She filled up the hog and got it in position. With that done she asked Shadow to wake her when it is all ready or if anything happens and promptly took a much needed rest.

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Time skip.

1600 hours.

It started as a dream. A peaceful dream. The smell of baking was in the air of the small cozy little home that Natsuki found seirane. The outdoors were shrouded in darkness with snow on the sill. She sat at a table with a hot cup of tea. She let a smile across her lips. The sound of someone behind her got her attention and in a very unspartan way, she casually turned to the person entering the kitchen. They were two kids and an adult. She couldn't make out their faces. Everything else however she could. The youngest had short raven black hair turning red towards the tips, a small red cape, a black shirt and skirt. She was toddler age if she had to guess, four to five with silver eyes. She had a smile adorning her lips as she looked at her.

The other girl was around six years of age, had long golden blond hair, lilac eyes. She had on a yellow shirt and brown pants. She as well had a smile adorning her face.

Last was a man in his late twenties or early thirties. He had brown cargo pants with a black belt, a red bandana on his left upper arm, a brown leather vest over a tan shirt and had a shoulder guard and a leather forearm guard. He had Blue eyes,blond hair and a bit of a stubble around his jaw line. Handsome is a word that most women would attach to him. And on some deep inner desire, she had to agree.

Leaning down she held her arms out with the younger of the girls falling in to her arms in a hug.

' The hell is going on? Why am I hugging a child?' where her thoughts.

She opened her arms up again and the other girl fell into the hug as well. With a smile on her face she, she nuzzled her face between the girls heads taking in their scents.

"Mom, can we some cookies and milk?" the youngest girl asked looking up.

She gave a giggle before answering. " Sure sweety. Just not to much."

" Thanks mommy!" the blond girl squealed and took off with the toddler.

The sight warmed her heart and made the already present smile, shine.

They got glasses with the help of the older man, got milk and cookies, and sat in the living room. She felt a pair of hands rub her shoulders in a message. The man leaned down and planted a kiss on her cheek.

" They are going to miss you you know." he stated.

" I know. But what are you going to do. It is supposed to be a simple extermination mission. I am not expecting any trouble. I will be home before you know it." She said

Coming to the front of her, he knelt and looked at her. Taking in every detail and trying to memorize every pore on her face.

She closed her eyes and sighed. When she opened them however he was not their. Instead she was face to face with a jackal. She shot her hand forward and into the jackals chest. When she saw the landscape around her, she saw her hand was covered in her armor and not in a black blouse. The landscape was that of reach. Sword base to be exact. She retracted her hand with the jackals heart still in her grasp. As the jackal fell to the the ground, she looked around. Aside from destroyed vehicles and buildings, the only living thing here was a girl. At this distance all she could make out was a flowing red cape with her hood up and black skirt. But the eye catcher was the pendent that clasped her cloak togher around her neck. A rose. The same one that Summer had among her effects. Nat started to walk towards her wanting to see if she can get answers. The girl saw her approach and reached behind her back for something. Whatever she was reaching for she did not find and looked horrified at the realization. Nat reached into an ammo pouch for the same pendent she had in her inventory. The girl looked ready to bolt when she withdrew her hand with the same pendant and offered it to her. The girl looked puzzled turn to shock and grief.

" Natsuki" She stated.

Nat was at a loss.

" Natsuki." She said a again, but she heard another thing behind her words. But it was to faint to hear.

"Natsuki/six" that time she made it out. Six.

" SIX! WAKE UP!" a new voice was heard. The last image of the women was of her saying something.

Noble six sat bolt upright in the driver seat of the workhog.
" Status!" she cried.

"Calm down. I am in the final stages of powering up the teleporter. But it seems to have brought attention to our location. We got a covenant search party in the building. Not to worry they seem to be sticking to the common area and upper offices. But it is only a matter of time before they make their way down here." Shadow Hawk replied.

She didn't respond verbally and instead grabbed her magnum and a assault rifle. As she approached the door, she hit the lights. She would have to contemplate her dream later. Right now it was war and if there was one thing she excelled in, it was war.

She turned to the AI and addressed him.
" Stick to my helmet comms. Standard encryption." she said killing the lights.

She heard his voice within the confines of her helmet.

" No shit sherlock. Why don't I use the PA? I am sure they won't hear that at all." he said in an annoyed tone.

She growled in annoyance as the doors shut behind her. Taking cover behind a wall she kept a lookout for any signs that they have been spotted. She didn't see any movement for a lengthy amount of time. She was considering on moving up a passage or two to get a better feel for the area, when she caught something out of the corner of her eye. It was a shimmer. Wait only camo soldiers shimmer like that. She snapped her magnum up and pumped five shots into him. The powerful handgun bucked as it fired and the elite went down like a ton of bricks.

She looked at the gun in her hand and gave an appreciative nod. Then cursed. He probably had friends upstairs that heard the commotion.

Well let's see what the covies were doing shall we.

The search party were told to check the area due to a power surge in the area. The party has found many things that...were underwhelming. Maps of the local reagan, snack packets, fifty two thin hard paper rectangle things, a multi colored cube that rotates, small figures with oversized heads the bobble. And that was all in the common area. In some of the side offices were more personalized ranging from little models of some vehicle of sorts, a black box with two diagonal lines running across the top and a green circle where they meet. Some had stills of people in them, and in one corner office that was walled off and had a hard wood door, a long cylinder device that powers up at the base. The wand of some boss maybe but nonetheless useless.

A spec op elite called Sa'al Rutt'emee was walking around when he found a set of stairs leading down. From what he remembered, ONI usually has the top secret stuff that the scholars would like to go nuts about. ' lets see what is stored here' he thought. Five minutes later he was walking around in camo when he felt the urge to take a piss. He was walking around looking for a corner or tree or something when he got shot to death.

The rest of the search party heard the shots and went to investigate.

A few minutes later the firefight got underway. Six was gunning down any covenant solder that came down that corridor. Shot for shot, kill for kill, she slaughtered the endless horde. But it was also a horde against her. She took hits. Her shields taking the brunt of the fire but failing and needing to recharge. Scorch marks littered her armor with breaches being seen in areas. Her visor was cracking from the abuse. Already a whole was formed around her right eye.

A crackle came over the comms. It was Shadow Hawk.

" If you are done playing around with your friends we can blow this place. The device is active and ready. All you need to do is leave a tip." He informed.

Backing to the door, it opens and she backed in, rifle still firing till it closed. She not only locked it, but also dropped a blast door.

' That should hold them.' She thought. She ran to the turmanal Shadow Hawk was located at.

" You ready to go?" She asked.

" Since the self-destruct is active with only three minutes till boom, yea. I am ready if you are. Unless you want to watch the fireworks." Came his reply.

Grabbing his chip she slotted it in her helmet. The feeling of liquid mercury flooded her mind as he interfaced.

" HOLLY SHIT! I NEVER KNEW A SUIT OF ARMOR COULD HOUSE SO MUCH! I AM TOTALLY GOING TO PERSONALIZE THIS SPACE IN HERE!" he said in excitement.

She heard banging from the covenant on the other side.

' I hoped for more time.' She thought. Taking out some C7, she rigged the counsel and anything else that might let the covies through to this other world. She punched in thirty seconds. She jumped in the HOG as she looked ahead. The thing ahead of her looked like a slipspace portal. Taking a deep breath, she punched it with the timer counting down. Right as she hit 88 MPH, the doors blew. Shrapnel and crystalline needles glanced off the HOG right as it hit the portal. All that was left was gawking covies as they watched the portal. The C7 went off destroying the counsels and pylons, killing the portal.

An elite clad in gold zealot armor looked at his subordinate clad in black Spec-ops armor.

" What in the prophets happened?" He asked.

The spec-ops elite looked at him with bewilderment.

" In all honesty, I don't have a bloody clue." was his reply.

The zealot was going to reprimand, when a voice was heard throughout the building.

" Hi, I am Shadow Hawk. I am the AI of the facility. Now you might be wondering, what the fuck just happened? Well let me tell you, you all just got FUCKED! Not only did we escape, but you are about to get boned. So I will leave you with this little number to listen to as you all die. Please keep it clean and if you feel the need to shit, piss, or just need to get off, do it in another room please. No one needs to see that."

Of course not a single solder understood what was said, they just assumed it was some form of blasphemy.

Turning to their underlings, they turned to leave when what humans call music started playing.

" AWAKEN AWAKEN AWAKE! TAKE THE LAND THAT MUST BE TAKEN!" blared the speakers.

They all started to go nuts and find the source so they could kill it. Some even slammed their heads into walls or counsel to make it stop. Their wishes were make when the facility blew up.

The warthog screamed as it lost traction. The tires spinning looking for something to grab. The engine revving teh RPMs. All Nat could see was a blinding darkness. The screaming and howling being deafening. The ride was short but felt long.

When she did come out she had to slam on the breaks when she realized a building was in front of her. She skidded to a halt swerving and fishtailing. When she did stop she saw that the town was dark and abandon. She gave a deep sigh of relief. Leaving the hog running with the lights on. She looked for a good place to set up camp and after finding an intact enough house, she parked the hog behind the house as she tested the lights. Nothing. So she fished out some hand held lamps and set them up.

Sitting down she removed her helmet and took a deep breath of fresh air.

The slight breeze caressing her face. Taking the moment she just let it all sink in.
She was alive. With that simple fact, she allowed a smile to grace her lips.

Shadowhawk use her helmets external speaker to talk to her breaking her moment.

" So. Are you going to just sit there and look like a statue or are you going to, I don't know, start repairing your armor?"

She gave a low growl and went to fetch the tools needed. After she removed her armor, after an hour of undoing locks, seals and alike, she was now in her black under suit and it to had a couple puncters. She removed it and started to seal any breaches. Then she did the same with the armor.

With that done she set the auto diagnostic and got some real rest.
" Shadow, wake me if anything comes up. Otherwise, let me sleep." She said letting her eyelids fall and shut the world out. The dream started right when she punched a Jackals heart out. Again she looked and saw the same girl and again she approached her and again she dropped to her knees. Nat was going to drop to a knee to be more eye level with her, when she suddenly scattered in a flurry of red rose petals.

Ruby looked upon the hellish landscape. She could not believe what she was seeing. Aliens burning the planet without remorse. Civilians were hunted down and eaten alive. Soldiers were slaughtered left and right. There was only one thing that slowed the assault. An armored tank of a human. It moved to graceful to be a machine or an android even. She watched as it punched through a bird like aliens chest and rip out its still beating heart. It then turned to Ruby and approached. It reached a hand behind its back. Thinking it was going to attack she reached for CresantRose only to find it was not their. She had a look of horror. She looked back up ready to run when the figure stopped in front of her and retracted its hand. It held a pendant. Not just any pendant, her mother's pendant. It just held it their as Ruby stared at it. She then just dropped to her knees and cried.

Waking up with a start she found she did indeed have tears running down her cheeks.

' What was that all about. Who was that person with mom's pendant? Why did it give it to me?'

She threw the covers off and went to the bathroom. She started the hot water and took a nice hot shower. If there was one thing she missed most about civilization, it was the ability to take a nice hot shower. That and a roof over her head and no grimm to worry about during the night.

With a hot relaxing shower out of the way, she stepped out of her room and met with the others in her party.

" Ready to go?" She asked.

Ok, So my second story is up. I hope you enjoyed. I have been working on this story for a while actually. I started it during volume 4 and just now got it done. What took so long you may ask? Well I had a friend that was helping me out and editing and spell checking. He got a good portion done. So while he was doing that I started work on other projects. Just recently I asked if he had a chance to look it over again when he told me that he has to much on his plate and to just post. So that is what I did. A shout out to SPARTAN-626 for looking it over a couple of more times and brainstorming. I really appreciate it.

A couple of fun facts about this story, I got inspired to write it from reading ptabs0101s Remnant of a rose and Remnant of an Irorn rose fics. So go check them out. Both of his storys fallow Summer Rose in the Destiny universe and her coming back home and all sorts of shenanigans that will happen. He even got Chibi in thier in some chapters. So yea go check it out, I had a fun read with it.

Well tell me what you guys think, leave a comment, send a PM, do what you got to do.

With that I will see you guys on the virtual battlefield