Ruby Rose had ran away, grief stricken by the death of her mother at 4 years old she had refused to accept it, and ran, not caring where her feet took her. She had just had her aura unlocked by her older sister, after begging for her to do so since she began training at signal, and wanted to show it off to Summer Rose, when the letter came you the Rose/Xiao Long household, stating that a huntsman had found the mawed corpse of the bright and cheerful huntress.

She panted as tears streamed down her face as she ran further into the woods where her late mother had last been seen,

"Mommy!" she cried out in vein, "Mommy! I'm here you can come out now!" No cheerful chuckle graced the young girl as her footfalls were the only sound to be heard. Instead a faint whirring was heard by the little girl in the red dress. A floating metallic orb, with a blue light for an eye appeared in front of the girl,

"A Reclaimer?" it said, causing the small girl to stop in her tracks and stare up in curiosity. "There shouldn't be any Remclaimers here, the shield world upgrade project was canceled shortly after Requium's completion, you must be returned to a Reclaimer planet at once." The orb decided, as Ruby sniffled,

"Are you going to take me to Mommy?" she asked, blissfully naïve to the orb's origin, "Yes, follow me," it 'nodded' before floating off.

Spartan Ruby B-312 woke with a start, that dream following her around for as long as she could remember, she banged her head back against the concrete wall of the bunker she had managed to find. The Pillar of Autumn had left about 12 hours ago, and Noble 6 was scouting a way off the planet, after narrowly avoiding death from a group of Elite Zealots she had picked up her broken helmet, even if the visor was cracked, it provided better protection against plasma blasts, and found shelter.

If the sounds from above were anything to go by, the Covenant were still searching for her, not wanting to let a 'demon' go the chance of being left alive. She sighed as she stood up, and put on her helmet again. Her black and maroon highlighted MJOLNIR armor , blending in with the shadows. She used that to her advantage as she snuck by the Covenant troops, seemingly wandering the deserted planet aimlessly.

After what seemed like hours of evading enemy squadrons, hijacking vehicles and driving with the same lack of purpose, Spartan B-312 found herself in front of a structure, the like of which she had only seen once before, and that was 30 km underground, frozen in glacial ice underneath SWORDBASE. Its sleek, silvery metal with blue highlights intrigued the Spartan. It reminded her of somethings she had thought had just been a dream, but now that she saw a similar structure, it was beginning to feel like a memory.

"Ah, Reclaimer!" a robotic voice announced behind the hyper-lethal vector, as she spun round to face her assailant, her DMR at the ready.

The voice's owner was a silver orb, made seemingly of the same material as the structure, with a large blue dot in the center, making it look like some weird eyeball,

"I am 413-Sovereign Martyr, monitor of this shield world installation, At least I was until The Didact got corrupted with the Logic Plague, then the shield world upgrade was canceled half complete." The orb chuckled before floating around Noble 6,

"It appears your combat skin is damaged, and out of date, I can upgrade it if you like, along with body augmentations that will help you withstand the flood, though I must say, your weapons would be terribly ineffective."

Ruby still held the DMR up to the mysterious construct. Even if it seemed to have no apparent threat,

"I assure you I mean no harm Reclaimer, I am simply suggesting that we get to a safer location so I can do what is necessary." Sovereign Martyr stated, as she lowered her weapon.

"Your who I saw all those years ago." She realized, "The one who teleported me from my Home world."

"I can assure you that was not me Reclaimer, I have not met one of your kind in approximately 100,000 of your measurement of years. Shall we go?" he asked in a joyous tone.

"Yes…" came the nervous reply, before they were teleported inside.

Ruby tensed up at the sudden action as she assessed her new surroundings, she was in a large room with a high ceiling, too high to make out in fact, with various consoles and panels lining the walls. In the center was a table looking very much like an operating table,

"Please remove your combat skin, and I will have it set to be repaired, and upgraded, do you have any special requests regarding it's upgrades?" Martyr questioned, as Ruby looked up at the forerunner AI in disbelief,

"It takes about 5 hours to get out of it on my own." Was all she said.

"Ah I see your predicament, one moment." He flew off to a wall before seemingly doing something to a holographic interface, and a disassembly ark appeared from the floor, "I scanned your black box data earlier and I believe this is what's required to remove the armor correct?"

She nodded nervously as she stood into the arc, and in about 5 minutes, was out of her armor, and in nothing but the skin tight undersuit, which still provided some protection. The monitor then floated over, "I have devised a series of augmentations I believe should enhance your abilities to the max they can safely be, would you like to undergo them while I am having your combat skin repaired?" she nodded slightly in affirmation, and 413 flew over to the table in the center of the room, "Lay down here please and we will get started."

Doing as the orb instructed, Noble 6 lay down on the table and then various tools and needle-like appendages on long arms stretch up above came down and hovered about a few feet above and to the side of Ruby's figure on the table.

"I assume you want to be unconscious for this process?" Martyr asked,

"Yeah, I think that would be best." Came the reply, and a small arm came down and injected anesthesia into Spartan B-312's bloodstream. The last thing she saw before blacking out was the needles and various other devices on the arms slowly coming towards her.

Ruby woke from her dreamless sleep after the augmentation process with no-one else in the room, but her armor was sitting in a stand to the side of the table. She got up, wobbling a bit, it seems the augmentations increased her height yet again, gauging the surroundings around her with herself, she estimated that as she was she was now about 7'2" as opposed to the 6'7" before them, almost as tall as Jorge, she reminisced, reaching into the pockets of her armor to make sure they were still there, pulling out 4 chains, one with JORGE-052, another. CATHERINE B-320, the third, CARTER A-259, that one blackened slightly, and lastly, EMILE A-239, stamped on the metal plates. She had collected Emile's tag after disposing of the Covenant carrier. He fought valiantly, and, had personally been Ruby's favourite member of Noble Team. The only one who seemed to want to end the Covenant more than she did. And Carter's were found during her time wandering, somehow surviving the glassing.

As she got used to her new body, wandering around the room, she thought what Martyr had said, he hadn't seen a human in over a hundred thousand years, there was an enemy called the flood, and Reach had been planned to be a shield world, whatever that was, before the Didact, who she presumed was an important figure, got infected with some form of disease called 'the logic plague,' it sounded like a virus for AI, perhaps the Didact was a powerful AI for this ancient race?

She looked at the armor on the stand. The Operator CNM helm with a silver visor, UA/MultI threat left shoulder pad, and ODST on the right, UA/Couterassault chest plate, Tactical trauma kit on the thigh, a Tac pad on the wrist, and FJ/Para kneepads, all fully customised by herself to suit her needs as a Spartan III, the black colour with maroon highlights standing out in the white and blue of the room around her. It had been scaled up to fit her new frame, and now stood, arms slightly outstretched above the sides, waiting for it to be put on.

"Ah you're finally awake Reclaimer," came Martyr's voice as the orb floated down from the ceiling, "I trust that the combat skin has retained enough of its original design?" he questioned.

"Yeah, I think it has, could you run over the upgrades you gave it?" she asked, and if the eye-like orb could have visible emotions, one could only describe its motions as physical excitement, as he launched into his explication.

"Oh most certainly! your original set had much heavier steel and titanium alloy plating, where as this has a new blend of superlight, durable metals that not only has increased its overall strength, but flexibility has increased, with weight significantly reduced. The energy shield batteries were terribly inefficient, seeing as they were nuclear, so they have also been upgraded, allowing the amplification of your energy shielding by approximately 250%, your under-skin was also botched together in a most barbaric manner, if you can describe synthetic materials that way, so has been made more durable, tear resistant and flexible than its predecessor."

(A/N Re Edit: closer to Gen III armor, but with Forerunner power sources.)

Ruby was trying not to fangirl over the upgrades, she had always been interested in these things, armor and weapons. One of her Quirks, but she was a Spartan and couldn't let it show and so she held her composure as she continued questioning the monitor.

"How much does it weigh now?"

"According to the weight scale of the schematics of the previous one, to now weighs precisely 158.95 Kilograms," was Martyr's response.

Wow, ok, that was a lot lighter as opposed to the 226.8kg it was before, she felt as if she's gonna be able to run alot faster, oh she couldn't wait to try her rose boost with it.

"Please understand Reclaimer, your specifications made it so that I could only upgrade it this far, it still only marks as a rank 4 combat skin, if you allowed me to alter the physical design, I would be able to upgrade it to a rank 9 combat skin, even with the limited resources I have here." 413 spoke then, as Spartan B-312 looked at him in surprise,

"You mean to say, this is still weaker than what you can make?"

"Yes, Reclaimer,"

"And you could make it better, if you altered the look of it?"

"why of course, would you like me to?"

"No, it's just, man, I thought Halsey was exaggerating about this whole past civilisation stuff, but thy must have been pretty strong then." The monitor looked crestfallen at the denial to upgrade to a better combat skin, but perked up at the question that Ruby then asked him,

"Tell me, you said about the flood, earlier, what do you mean by 'the flood?'

"Oh that was just me rambling Reclaimer, after checking the database, I found that the flood are all but extinct, so there is nothing to worry about." He brushed off the question, without a moment's thought.

"Uh huh..." Ruby looked at her armor again, "Shall we put it on?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, I knew I hadn't mentioned something, you no longer need that primitive machinery to put it on, just tap the screen on the arm there."

She walked up to it, and tapped on the screen as she was asked, the armor seemingly vanished until the Tac pad was the only thing left, on a wrap that could be put on the arm. "It now can be called and sent away by that interface, which sends it to a small pocket dimension, which you will also find every weapon that was in your black box data, with plenty of ammunition." Noble 6 blinked, that would certainly come in handy, she picked up the Tac pad, now looking more like a phone from the 21st century than a device of such grandiose as the forerunner AI had implied, and strapped it to her wrist.

her clothes had been changed too, she now realised, she was wearing a set of plain clothes, that looked rather like a long sleeved vest, and some office trousers. But the material was a lot more comfortable than any she had worn, and seemed to glow a dim light, it didn't of course, it just looked that way. She tapped the Tac pad again, as her new Mjolnir armor slowly formed around her, each new piece seemingly growing out of geometric scales that flickered before becoming solid. (A/N like Star Lord's mask in Guardians of the Galaxy.) Working from the Tac pad, it grew up her arm, over her torso and up her head and down her legs. She had levitated slightly to compensate for the size of the boots. As the process was complete, her HUD started up and she saw a blue flash over the armor, as opposed to the yellow she was used to, as her energy shields charged up, giving that familiar hum inside her headset. Testing it out, she threw a few quick punches to the air, before jogging on the spot.

Yup definitely lighter, so light in fact, it felt flimsy, like a piece of cardboard. But she had faith that the construct knew what he was doing with this stuff. She ad noticed her general speed had gone up as well, even with the weight reduction. She looked at the Tac pad, it displayed a menu, to remove the armor, retrieve a weapon, or view data that it was able to pick up from its environmental scans, like a normal one. She scrolled through the weapon options, and sure enough, every weapon was there, SMGs, rocket launchers, a Gravity Hammer, even the experimental Battle rifle. She liked it's three shot burst so selected it, and in much the same way as her armor, the Battle rifle formed on the magnetic strip on her back. She pulled it off for a physical assessment, and sure enough, it was the exact same as was in her black box data.

"I trust the functions are satisfactory Reclaimer?" 413 asked as B-312 sent the rifle back to the pocket dimension.

"Yeah it is." She stared at the wall for a moment, "Here why do you keep calling me 'Reclaimer?'" she asked the floating orb, who simply stated,

"Because humanity are Reclaimer, they are the ones who are destined to reclaim the mantle."

Ruby nodded as only more questions arose, she chose to dismiss them though, it was never really her thing, she'd leave that to Halsey, if she ever found this place.

"So what now?" she asked Martyr, as she leaned against the table. "Reach is glassed, the UNSC thinks I'm dead, and I'm not too fussed about crawling back to them again, not after my team's gone."

"You could always use the portals to go to a planet and live there instead." Martyr suggested, "They're are plenty of worlds accessible from this installation, I'm sure you could go onto one and blend into society, or live on your own."

She thought a bit. "No, I guess that doesn't sound too bad, ok, random habitable planet it is."

"Wonderful, follow me,"

The monitor flew off and out a door on the far side of the room, following not far behind, he reached a panel that he started interfacing with, and shortly after, two metal curves raised themselves from the floor, and a deep blue swirling vortex appears between them.

OK now that dream definitely seemed like a reality. So her birth parents weren't killed in a covenant attack like she had thought, so she wondered if she could go back to that world where she came from.

"Hey, Martyr," she spoke up, still staring into the vortex. "Is there any other cancelled shield worlds out there?"

"Why yes, hundreds of them." Came the response. She tried to remember aspects about them,

"Are there any with a shattered moon? With a Nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere?"

"Hang on, let me check the database, yes, I do believe there is one shield world installation, that fits your description Reclaimer, do you want me to send you to it?"

"Yeah," she said, turning back to the orb. Before he started interfacing with the controls again. A moment later, the portal flickered before seemingly going off, to only start back up again.

"There you go Reclaimer, I wish you a pleasant new life."

"Thanks, she said as she stepped through, the room vanishing in a bright white light.