Utopia

By LoveAnimeForever

John was alone.

Like he had so many times before, Master Chief SPARTAN John-117 leapt from the Pelican personnel bay with the ease of a cougar from its cliff, taking the three-meter jump with as much unflinching grace as his half-ton armor would allow. But this time was different. This time, there was no pilot keeping their precious bird in the air, no marines with their surprising courage waiting to tear at Covenant throats. Just him, and as the Pelican crashed behind him for lack of a guiding hand, John was forced to remember that "him" no longer consisted of himself and an AI who shared his armor. Cortana was dead, just like everyone else.

And John was alone.

Washington, DC. Early as the seventeen-hundreds, the city had been the capital of the United States of America. Before and ever since, it had been the home to all three branches of the US government – the iconic Pentagon and White House. Even after the humans began colonizing other planets, DC never lost its grandeur. In between the sprawling embassy buildings and their ornate fences were expansive grounds covered in carefully landscaped greenery; and beside and around were parks, national monuments – all seemingly untouched by time and its technological advancements.

A center of power, not that it mattered anymore. John had never actually seen Earth before the wars, let alone Washington before now – Reach had been the only home he knew. And now, there was simply nothing left to tell him of the city's splendor. Concrete once resplendently painted and seamless, now rubble, revealing the titanium-A reinforcements within – also crumpled and bent out of shape. Metal once burnished to a reflective sheen, dulled and blackened… Neat, smooth asphalt, torn up and cratered in by grenades, and maglev sedans – broken like a child's toys – lining the pavements.

But – no bodies. As if the destruction to the landscape wasn't enough, dried blood covered nearly every surface, but whatever wasn't crimson-black was blank, without the expectedcorpses… The Master Chief didn't like to reflect on how or when they'd become expected, exactly, but the lack was eerily disorienting. He wasn't religious – it simply wasn't something they taught in the military – but he found himself murmuring short prayers as he passed bloodstain after bloodstain… A last service to the dead, albeit too late, because…

John didn't like to think about it, but the yellow-tainted fog in the air undeniably pointed to only one source.

Flood.

In the middle of the Pentagon, there was – had been – an immense twenty-thousand square-meter plaza, walled by the five sides of the building. It had been painstakingly designed centuries ago; paths of rough marble laid, trees and flowers chosen for beauty and resilience, the greenest grass in between. And all of it was currently crushed under the stern of Infinite Succor, and debris, and charred, dead, grass. As for the whale-head prow of the Covenant vessel – it was buried firmly below, punched straight through both of the Pentagon's original two basements and into the newer, lower levels. From the vessel's control room – as far from either end of the ship as possible – a white mass had spread, spread…

The Gravemind chuckled in its ominous rumble, and pressed its brown tentacles against – through – the torn concrete and blistered earth that kept it hidden, out of the sunlight. Not that it minded the darkness – on the contrary, it thrived in it, and it didn't need to see the over-world to know what was going on. As its main body had grown and crushed the walls that contained it – first Infinite Succor's control room, then its hull, and now the walls and ceiling of the Pentagon's basement – its tentacles, like a praying mantis' antennae, and his children – devil's spawn, as the Covenant termed them – would collect all the information it needed and send it straight home.

And there was new information, after so many years of nothing but reports of victory after mundane, absolute, victory…

The SPARTAN, the one Reclaimer worthy of the title…

Sending his tentacles far from the ruins of the once whitewashed walls of the Pentagon, the Gravemind's chuckle turned into a fearsome laugh.

"He… is here… at last…"

DC was by no means a small city – though the Master Chief had traversed greater distances – and without Cortana or fellow soldiers at his back, it seemed even larger than it actually was. There was no more urgency in his footsteps; the Master Chief was used to running, legs pumping furiously for cover, transport – an advantage over the enemy, an opportunity to save a life. A precious human life, that he had been brought up to protect… But there was nothing left to protect, not even an enemy to fight.

His strides were, as usual, long – but that wasn't something he could help, what with the enhancements the SPARTAN program entailed. But, paces slow, John-117 felt like he was marching toward an inevitable fate, something he couldn't control… And above all, he felt tired. Years upon years of cryo-sleep, only to wake up to Cortana's dying breaths…

Chief… I got us home… It took all my power but... Home, chief! Ea-

She'd sounded rampant, on the verge of her core logic's sanity… Yet she'd sacrificed herself – again, again – for him, that he might finally find peace, on his species' cradle planet, with his fellow humans… Ready to start anew… So wrong… I'm not lucky at all, the Master Chief thought to himself, and waited a split second for a sarcastic response before remembering that Cortana was dead.

Like the rest of them, the Master Chief thought, passing a Flood pod gingerly by, lest it explode and unleash infection forms. And who knew what else, really, considering the advanced stage of the infestation here… The Flood-mist was thickening, and John arbitrarily decided this was the right way – into trouble, meeting it head-on, instead of letting it sneak up behind you. A surprisingly cool breeze danced past, too light-hearted to not mock him, and the mist dissipated slightly – enough to reveal the ruins of the Pentagon in the distance, and the remains of a huge Covenant vessel, clearly destroyed but no longer trailing smoke due to the age of the wreckage.

Suddenly, the ground around the Master Chief shook. It would have reminded normal civilians of earthquakes, maybe, or some other natural disaster. But John's brain immediately accessed the memory of the Halos self-destructing, and his mad dashes on overtaxed Warthogs for a way off the resulting infernos. And when the – John shuddered at the word – familiar brown tentacles shot up from the ground – some through asphalt, some through concrete, and yet some through bare earth, like undead, unholy trees sprouting from tainted cemetery grounds – he remembered, in particular…

How could he forget…

The Gravemind was quick to locate and trap the SPARTAN in a fence of tentacles. It remembered how much damage this single – this particular – Reclaimer could do, and it didn't want to take any chances. Though, considering its position, taking a chance might have been… Fun? A moment of excitement and interest, sending pure forms to hunt down a helpless, trapped, rat – it certainly seemed to fit the Reclaimers' definitions of the word.

The SPARTAN was fighting back, shooting – still using its primitive gunpowder weapon – at any tentacles that got too close. His ammunition ran out soon enough, and he resorted to using a combat knife – even more primitive, yet reliable… The Gravemind felt no pain as tentacle after tentacle was hacked, punched, ripped away; it just sent more and more tentacles, ever closer, ever closer, and a few pure Flood forms to add a little variety to the Reclaimer's torture.

Do not be afraid… I am peace. I am salvation.

The words were spoken straight into John's head, a taunt that sent waves of déjà vu straight through him. The battle of Voi – a painful cleansing of another infested warship. Only, they had succeeded, then. His grief overwhelmed him for only a moment, but it was enough for the Gravemind to secure its tentacles around his already tired limbs – tired from fighting, from running, from moving, altogether.

I am a timeless chorus; join your voice with mine and sing victory everlasting!

The tentacles tightened around him, as they had on Delta Halo, and pulled him toward the Pentagon, sometimes dragging him along the ground, sometimes almost flying him through the yellow-tainted Flood-mist that pervaded the air.

A little maneuvering had been in order to bring the Reclaimer – relatively – unscathed into the area around Infinite Succor's midsection. It turned its giant head toward its… guest.

"Child of my enemy, at last, you have come…"

"Welcome, Reclaimer… To my Utopia…"

If the Gravemind's voice had had any capacity for anything other than scorn, disdain, and poetic menace, it would have made its greeting an exclamation. Something in the fashion of the – dead – religious fools that had called themselves the Prophets of the Covenant. As it was, his greeting kept the tone he'd been using for millenia... Eons past.

A sickening crunch.

Just before Master Chief SPARTAN John-117 passed out for the last time, he could've sworn he heard Cortana's voice, with the unnecessary worry that most AI didn't have the algorithms to show, strengthening against the Gravemind's fading sadistic laughter.

Chief, chief!