What's this? two chapters in one 1 month? I'm outdoing myself. I got really motivated and managed to get this done, so here you are. I know there are some discrepancies with this and the end in the main fic, but those will be fixed shortly, don't worry.

now I can actually work on the main fic, between school projects and life, so I'll get it out eventually, BUT NO MORE HIATUS! anyway, enjoy.

"Noble Leader, seek immediate medical attention." Dot calls out as the feed resumes, Ruby and Emile trying to take out a couple of banshees and a Phantom tailing their Pelecan, which has taken some heavy damage as evident by the flaming engine on the left.

"Noble Leader, please respond."

At that Ruby turns to go to the cockpit, as one of the banshees fire into the troop bay, hitting her and causing her shields to flair. She turned back to see Emile shoot a grenade, it impacts with one banshee, EMPing it and causing it to crash into the other and whirl into destruction together.

Seeing the situation under control, she turns back to making her way to the cockpit, as Carter throws his helmet to the floor. Blood is splattered over the window as Ruby places one hand on the pilot chair for stability, looking at her very injured team leader.

"Please respond, Sierra Two-Five-Nine. You are alarming me."

He turned back to Ruby. His face is bleeding and his eyes bloodshot, his armour is charred from plasma fire.

"Not sure how long she's gonna stay together." He begins, "Skies are jammed up anyways. Gotta get you off her, Lieutenant."

"Sir, you-" Ruby begins,

"Don't wanna hear it. Get the Package to the Autumn."

Ruby pauses a moment before replying with a nod, "Done."

"Not yet, it's not…" he warns, "Emile, go with her. It's a ground game now."

She looks back to see Emile throwing the grenade launcher to the ground and pumping his fist over his chest in salute.

"It's been an honour, sir."

"Likewise... I'll do what I can to draw their fire."

Ruby pulls out the canister holding the AI from her back, and begins to make her way back to the edge of the troop bay, but gest stopped as her Commander adds one last thing,

"Red. That AI chose you... She made the right choice."

She nods as she joins Emile at the edge of the bay door, crouched ready to jump. Carter holds up his fingers for them to see, "On my mark!" He says dropping his fingers one by one till his fist is there as he calls out, "Mark!"

At his word Ruby and Emile jump down, going into a pile drive and sliding down a canyon wall. The rough landing takes out both their shields, but after they get back up, they see the damaged Pelican flying overhead luring the Covenant away. After a quick check of the AI core to make sure it was safe, it is replaced on her back, and she picks up her DMR and starts down the road ahead.

They approached another cliff, looking down the valley, a large shape of buildings in the distance.

"Still with us, Commander?" Emile asked,

"Stay low, let me draw the heat. You just deliver that Package."

"There's our destination, Red," Emile said pointing to the buildings, "Pillar of Autumn. Race you to her."

"Your on," she said, but her tone serious. They headed up, taking out a squad of Covenant distracted by Carter flying overhead. By the road was some all juts where they replenished ammo, and a couple of mongeese lay.

"Got transport," Emile noted at the pair of quads.

Following the road for a bit, they came into a huge clearing, drop pods fell from the sky around them, but the Spartans didn't pay them any heed, not even when a Scarab fell almost on top of them.

"Do not engage! Go on, Red!" Emile yelled, and Ruby drove faster, Carter being a saving grace, distracting the huge walker.

Get the Package out of there. Remember your objective!" Carter reminded her.

"You don't have to tell twice!"

The edge of the clearing was near as more pods and yet another Scarab fell, just as they reached the edge. A little further down the road, and a gap could be seen in a bridge. But neither Spartan hesitated.

"Get your head up, Red. We're gonna have to jump it!"

"So I get a package and all of a sudden I can't think for myself then?!" She called out in reply, her tone was serious but everyone knew she just wanted the commentary gone as they approached the jump.

A Phantom flew overhead as the jump raced up to them. They made it, but Barricades blocked the road, so they both got off and continued on foot.

Knowing they didn't really have time to take out the forces in the normal way, Ruby just called to Emile.

"Cover me, I'll take care of most of them, but get the stragglers."

He nodded and with a burst of her semblance, she flew towards the wraith, taking out what she could along the way, and slammed into the tank. The force already putting a huge dent into the hull, she then stuck a grenade in and rushed back to Emile, taking out the rest of the stragglers as the tank exploded. The pair nodded to each other before heading through the cave behind the Wraith scrap.

"Noble! You got a...situation." Carter warned as one of the scarabs dropped in front of them, charging up its main cannon.

"Mother... We can get past it, sir!" Emile yelled as they both started backing up to cover.

"No you can't. Not without help."

"Commander, you don't have the firepower!" Just as it was going to fire, Carter flew overhead, distracting it with gunfire to the hull. It turns overhead to face the Pelican, not charging its beam in alarm.

"I've got the mass."

"Solid copy. Hit 'em hard, boss."

"What does he mean?" Yang asked confused. Ruby did say anything but pointed back to the screen.

The bird rounds itself and begins to fly towards the walker.

"You're on your own, Noble... Carter out."

Carter ramed the Pelican into the Scarab's side, it goes out in an explosion that causes the Scarab to lose its balance and fall down the cliff, seemingly screaming as it did so. Shortly after another explosion is heard as Emile turns to Ruby.

"Crevice to the east. Let's go." Is all he says as Ruby nods and follows after him.

A little later they enter a cave littered with Marine bodies,

"Buggers. All quiet." Emile warns,

Ruby pauses the feed once again, just as a flying bug creature appears on screen.

"Almost forgot about these." She said, gesturing to the alien, "Drones, come in packs and like to swarm enemies. Extremely hard to hit, if you don't know how."

After the brief message, The feed resumes as the Drones fly erratically while firing on the two Spartans, but they all dropped quickly as they advanced. The next section had Skirmishes that too, were taken down swiftly.

They were approaching the cave exit now, as the huge Drydock facility could be seen, with troopers fighting off Covenant that seemed to have control of the area.

"Spartans! Over here!" A trooper called, waving at them as she got cover fire.

"Understood. We've got to get to the drydock. Priority One." Emile told her, as a voice came over the Comms,

This is Captain Keyes of the Pillar of Autumn. We are tracking you, Noble, but we've got a lot of signals. See you at dry dock, Platform D. I'll be on it myself to receive the Package."

"We'll be there, sir," Emile vowed to the Captain,

You'd better be, soldier, because my countdown is no abort."

It took them a while, but the squads of troopers and Spartans pushed forward and made their way out of the titanium works and towards the now-massive Pillar of Autumn, with service cranes all about it, and Point-Defence Cannons firing at the invading Phantoms and banshees.

"What's the situation?"

Emile asked one of the nearby troopers.

"We rigged the mass driver up top. We lose that, the Autumn will have no covering fire. She'll never make orbit." He explained pointing towards the large gun, looking like a small MAC pointed forward.

"Noble to Keyes: we're at the pad," Ruby said as Emile followed the troopers, and she went towards the landing pads below.

"Copy, Noble. My Pelican's ready. Clear an LZ and I'll meet you there."

"Will do, sir."

"All right, Six…" Emile said to her, "This is it. I'll man the big gun. You just get to the platform and deliver that Package."

Another nod and she headed off to the land pad, going into the hut nearby and restocking ammo.

"I'll take out as many Phantoms and Banshees as I can!" Emile called out to her as he fired at a nearby Phantom that was about to drop troops in.

Wave after wave of Covenant appeared, as Ruby eventually dealt with them all, and secured Keyes' LZ.

"LZ clear, Captain," Ruby confirmed,

"This is Keyes, on hot approach to Platform Delta." Two Pelicans closed in and one turned around to reveal a man with short hair and a white uniform, surrounded by Marines in the troop bay, he came forward as the Troopers covered Ruby's six.

"Good to see you, Spartan." Keyes told her, "Catherine assured me I could count on you."

"Cathrine? Not Halsey?" Blake asked?"

"Yeah, they were a fling quite a while ago," Ruby confirmed, "And even had a kid, Though she joined the Navy with her dad, believe her name is Miranda. I guess even though they aren't together, they're still on a first-name basis."

"Not just me, sir." She added solemnly as she handed over the AI core. He put a hand on her shoulder as he took the canister.

"They'll be remembered." He assured her.

A low throbbing hum drew their attention as a Covenant Cruiser loomed through the gloom of the storm currently blowing over them.

"Cruiser!" Keyes called out, "Adjusting heading for the Autumn! Noble Four, I need fire on that cruiser or we're not getting out of here! Do you copy?

" You'll have your window, sir."

The Mass Driver turned to face the ship floating in the sky like a bad omen.

"Bridge, this is the Captain. We have the Package. Returning to the Autumn, over."

"Copy that, over."

Suddenly a Phantom appeared, using its main cannon to take out the escorting Pelican and sending Keyes' reeling to dodge. It flew overhead and towards Emile, but before Ruby could provide covering fire, the Grunt manning the Plasma cannon fired on Ruby, forcing her to reel and try to minimise her size to avoid getting hit.

By the time she regained the ability to look up, Two Zealots dropped from the Phantom, one landing on the canopy, Sword drawn. Emile cried out and blast it with his shotgun, causing it to fall over, as he got up, and pump another round into its chest, killing it.

"Who's Next?!" He taunted, looking around

"Emile! Your six!" Ruby called out just as the other Zealot, ran him through and he roared in pain, while being lifted up.

But he wasn't done yet as he pulled out his kukri,

"I'm ready! He yelled, "How 'bout you?!" He asked as he drove the knife into the Zealots throat, causing them both to fall off the canopy, and Emile to groan, as his life obviously came to a halt.

"Lieutenant, get on board!" A Marine called from the Pelican behind her, "We gotta get the hell out of here!"

"Negative. I have the gun." She replied, voice resolved, as she turned back to the drydock, "Good luck, sir."

"...Good luck to you, Spartan." He replied solemnly as the Pelican flew off.

With no Marines left, Ruby used her semblance to rush through the Covenant, her knife spraying blood as she took down one enemy at a time, including the remaining two Zealots part of the squad that killed Emile.

Upon reaching the Mass Driver, she took a second to look at Emile, two holes through his chest plate, neat and precise.

"Cruiser, moving into position. I need it dead! Noble Six!" Keyes pulled Ruby out of her mourning as she took control of the cannon, and just in time as Phantoms and Banshees assaulted her, each being taken out with one shot of the gun.

"Mass driver won't crack those shields! Steady, Spartan!" Keyes told her, as she focused on the Phantoms, but she didn't let the central disk of the Cruiser charging up.

"Fire! Now, Lieutenant!" Keyes commanded, "Hit her in the gut!"

As soon as a gap in the Phantoms came, she fired on the central part on the Cruiser. The shot caused the core section to explode, and the Cruiser to fall as Ruby got up and out of the massive gun.

"Good guns, Spartan." The Captain complimented, "All stations: brace for cast-off."

Ruby watched as the UNSC ship rise out of the dry dock, Pelican boarding one of the bays on its side,

With assisting boosters on the bottom, it banked out and pushed forward and into the sky, hiding behind the clouds

"This is the Pillar of Autumn." Keyes broadcasted, "We're away. And the Package is with us."

Ruby picked up Emile's dog tags, and readied her DMR for the inevitable Covenant Army to rein upon her.

"So, they just left you, to die," Yang stated, a bit bitter at the fact that her sister was left for dead.

"Well, what choice did they have?" Ruby argued, "The Autumn was the last Slipspace capable Human ship on the planet, and it had way too valuable things on it to risk the entire crew and data for one Spartan."

"Still-"

"Not still," she cut off her sister, "I knew I was sacrificing myself to get that ship off-world, and even if I had found a ship able to get me to space, it would be impossible to get out alive, and then, where would I go?

"So how did you end up here?" Blake asked, seeing as Ruby had omitted that she was pretty much ready to die then.

"I got pretty lucky." Her team leader replied, and she pointed to the feed.

Ruby was in a valley with various ruins and many corpses of Spartans and Marines littered the area, Phantoms and Spirits dropped off waves of covenant and while Ruby put up a strong fight, she tired and began to falter, as the screen got cracks on it, she pauses for a moment to toss the damaged helmet aside, picking up a nearby AR and continuing the fight.

An Elite Ultra charges at the at Ruby, the camera in her helmet clipping of her head, as the split-jaw fired a plasma rifle. She guns it down with the assault rifle, as General attacks from behind with an energy sword, she rammed it with her shoulder knocking it to the ground and kills it with a pistol. More shots are fired from off-screen and it hits her, she staggers, but recovers hip-firing the AR in one direction and the Magnum in the other. She managed to kill two more Elites before an Ultra knocked her to the ground.

A Zealot approached behind her with an Energy Sword and prepared to kill the downed Spartan, but Ruby kicked the Ultra away and knocked the Energy Sword out of the Zealot's hand. The Ultra pounced on her again, but she elbowed it in the jaw, the Zealot, now recovered drew an energy dagger. A third Sangheili steps into the frame, but just the foot and the tips of an Energy Sword hang within the view of the camera.

The Zealot pounced on Ruby again, and lunged at her with the dagger, but as it might have looked like it made contact, a whirl of petals split into 3 and go round the Elite, she picked up the Energy Sword it dropped and ran it through the Zealot, before pulling it out and slashing the Ultra.

The third Elite had the opportunity to focus and reel back from the shock of what happened and put up some resistance. Both blades clashing just off-camera until eventually, another burst of petals, and Ruby, clearly exhausted, bleeding, wheezing, limping, picked up her helmet again, and put it under her arm, as she stumbled to a Bunker door she had found earlier, but was jammed shut.

Now with the Covenant no longer pursuing her, she managed to hack the electronic lock, got inside and collapsed to the floor.

"I slept for quite a while there," Ruby said, fast-forwarding, to when she woke up

She woke up with a small gasp, and after a few moments of fiddling, she lifted her helmet up, to see that her wounds had been dressed, as she put the helmet back on.

"Yes it was damaged, but it still protects from plasma a hellova lot better than skin." Ruby clarified, "Since I had pretty much recovered as much as I would at that point, I decided to go look for more survivors, see if we could go out together, sorta thing," her teammates frowned at that, "But what I found instead, was this:"

The feed had fast forward to when Ruby was looking at a building with Covenant surrounding it, it was similar in architectural style to the ruins beneath SWORDBASE, but had a different overall shape.

After eliminating the Covenant excavating and guarding the area, she was exploring when suddenly a noise came behind her along with a robotic voice of,

"Ah, Reclaimer!" 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 centre, 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 cancelled half complete." The orb chuckled before floating around Ruby.

"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."

She 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.

"You're who I saw all those years ago." She realized, "The one who teleported me from my Homeworld."

"A similar construct had teleported me from here to New Harmony," Ruby clarified.

"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.

She paused the feed there.

"It gave me further augmentations, making me as I am now, and upgraded my armour which, by his standards, was a class 2 out of 9 he could make there, and even now is only a class 4."

"Wow," Yang said, astounded by the possibility,

"Hang on, he said he hadn't seen a human for 100,000 years," Weiss said, "But, you said it was 2552, when you were there."

"Ah, well there a slight discrepancy there, I forgot to ask him about it, since we sure as hell weren't in space 100,000 years ago, but Homo Sapiens have been around, from Earth at least, for about 250,000 years, that's the Latin name assigned to us, a dead language used about 2,000 years ago now." She clarified.

"And the Flood?" Weiss asked,

"Apparently, he forgot to check the database, and they were recorded as extinct, so, nothing to worry about there.

After the Augmentations, he suggested I use the apparent portal network to get off-world, and after realising that it was the same way I got here, I asked for this planet, and… here I am, Ozpin found me, we struck a deal and now I'm your team leader."

"Is this why your pushing us so hard?" Weiss asked, looking upto her leader with some concern."

"Kind of, yes. But also I just want the best of you. I guess this is my military upbringing for you, but I don't want to see your potential waisted, y'know, it just feels... Wrong."

"Are you worried about them finding Remnant?" Blake asked, Ruby noticing her bow was drooping slightly,

"Again, yes, as you saw we were utterly devastated on Reach. Granted, that was the biggest Covenant force we ever encountered, but with the tech and weapons you have, even with Aura and Semblances, they would slaughter you." Ruby sighed. "I wanted to find a new life, but my old one is still haunting me." She picked up the Tac pad and attached it to her wrist, "The Covenant can do precise slip-space jumps, something that was previously thought impossible. They have highly advanced weaponry, tech and force capabilities, the only reason the UNSC stood a chance was the Spartan program. If they come here, even if its one or two carriers, unless we can find a way to get up into atmosphere, we're toast."

"Does anyone else know this?" Blake followed up.

"Only you, I told Ozpin about the Covenant, but I still don't trust him enough to tell him everything, he's hiding something himself. It's hidden well, but after the amount of capture and interrogate missions I've been on over the years, I can tell."

Blake nodded solemnly, as Ruby got up, "Well, we should probably head back, it's getting late."

"What time is it?" Weiss questioned,

"20 hundred." came the reply,

"Eight o'clock! We've been in here for 4 hours!"

"Yup," came the Spartans reply, "Now come on, don't want to be caught past curfew."