Disclaimer: Bungie used and i343 now owns Halo and Hiro Mashima owns Fairy Tail.

Prologue

Reach

June 27, 2552

Colonel Ackerson's Office, CASTLE Base

Colonel James Ackerson leaned back in his comfortable leather chair behind his grey metal desk. The the overhead lights were dimmed, making the light from his computer terminal fill the room. He was tired, worrying about someone did that to a person. He brought his standard issue coffee mug to his mouth, and took a sip of the bitter black brew. Ackerson took his coffee straight, no matter what, he was a firm believer that drinking coffee black was the only way to drink it and any other way was an insult to coffee.

He took the rare quiet moment to enjoy his coffee and waited. He was fine with waiting for this particular officer because if she was late, it was for a good reason. Someone simply did not walk away from killing thirty berserking brutes without some injuries to show for it. She had been in the ICU for the better part of three weeks. Her armor damaged beyond repair according to the tech geeks downstairs. Not that he was surprised, he had seen her come in, unconscious, with blood leaking out of ruptures in her armor. And he'd held vigil outside of the ICU whenever he could to get away from his duties. He'd even managed to actually be there when they moved the Lieutenant into the non-critical ward, though she had been unconscious at the time.

The knock on his door snapped Ackerson back to reality, "Enter."

The door slide open and in stepped a tall, muscular woman, ducking under the door-frame to keep from smacking her forehead. She straightened into a salute,

"Lieutenant B312, reporting as ordered, sir." The husky female voice hadn't returned to its full strength, but she was standing here, alive and obviously ready to get back to duty.

He acknowledged the salute with one of his own. "At ease, Lieutenant. Take a seat," gesturing to a chair. "I prefer to not strain my vertebrae any further than necessary and trying to look you in the eye from down here, is unnecessary."

A corner of her mouth twitched slightly up, and he knew he had gotten the equivalent of a full blown grin for a Spartan.

"Of course sir, we cannot have you hurting your neck."

The Lieutenant sank into the specially reinforced chair made for Spartans, which could hold a fully armored Spartan, which was no mean feat, by any standard. Although today, the Lieutenant was only wearing a dress uniform, very similar to their predecessors uniforms, the Spartan-IIs, but with some differences. Instead of the white out-seam, it was a dark red, instead of the eagle holding a lightning bolt and three arrows, the lapel pins were two crossed scythes, playing off the Lieutenant's own nickname of the Reaper and stating the Spartan-III goal of reaping the enemy's supply lines and forward bases, these were small differences but telling to anyone familiar with Spartan uniforms.

The Colonel studied her for a moment and was gratified to see her looking so fit. Although he would never admit it, his true goal of having her sit was to simply get her off her feet. Three weeks was almost too quick to have her moving around, but she was a Spartan and, more importantly, his Spartan. Ackerson leaned forward and steepled his fingers, gazing at her seriously. "How are you feeling, Lieutenant?"

She responded quickly, "Fine, Colonel, I am ready to get back to my duties. My nanites have sped up the healing process immensely."

He grunted, having predicted the answer. "I see. The doctors disagree, saying you need at least another week to fully recover."

The woman narrowed her eyes and leaned forward, "With all due respect, I disagree with the doctors, they are not Spartans. And, sir," she looked him in the eye, "they are not me."

He smirked, "I know, that's why I'm giving you light-duty for the next week, plenty of time to get familiar with your new armor manual."

She cocked an eyebrow, "I already know the manual for the Mark V armor forward and backward, unless..."

He was grinning now, "I, uh, managed to 'procure' a working prototype of the Mark VI. The techs are still running the final software and hardware tests, you'll perform the final live fire test at the end of the week and the armor will be yours."

Her eyes light up like a child's on Christmas, but her voice was as calm as ever, "Color scheme?"

"It's already in your preferred dark grey with pale gold visor coloring." Her lips twitched again.

"However, I called you here for more than just a debrief and to give you new armor, Lieutenant. Recently, a Spartan-III was KIA'd taking out a Covenant Carrier. His death left a hole in Noble Team."

She said nothing, waiting for Ackerson to continue. He shifted slightly under her gaze.

"Your serial number was drawn to fill in for the spot, due to the lack of available Spartans. I couldn't keep you off the list." He frowned slightly as he finished the sentence.

The Lieutenant sat perfectly still.

He knew she wanted to be on the frontline, but her skills were extremely useful in spec-ops. The Lieutenant was one of the best solo operatives in ONI. If not the best, having survived situations that could kill whole battalions of ODST and possible take couple of Spartan-IIs with them...but that last part was wishful thinking.

"You ship out in less than a month, July 24 to be exact, you will join Noble Team here on Reach. At least, until such time as another Spartan becomes available to take your place."

"Understood, sir."

"You're dismissed. Good luck, Lieutenant."

Ackerson paused for a second trying to formulate his words correctly, "I...I look forward to debriefing you, Lieutenant."

Her eyes locked on to his own, "I won't disappoint you, sir."

She rose and about faced and took the three steps it required for her to cross the room. As the door slide open, Ackerson remembered one final detail.

"Ah, one last thing, Lieutenant, your team designation will be Noble Six."

Reach

August 30, 2552

Dry Docks, Eposz

Noble Six watched the final Banshee spiral out of control and disappear from sight below the lip of the landing dock beneath her.

Boosting herself out of the gunner seat of the Onager, Six looked at the two Zealot corpses that attested to Emile's last stand. Emile's own body was propped up against the banister of the gun platform. The twin burn marks in his chest plate announcing the cause of death.

Emile's hand was locked around the hilt of his Kukri, purple Elite blood staining it's blade. Six knelt before him, to perform the duty Jorge had given her, to be the bearer of the Noble Team's dead dog-tags, to carry them to the end of this war.

She jerked the dog-tags from Emile's neck. But over the month of fight on Reach, she had come to know Emile didn't view his name tags as anything special like many soldiers. He viewed his Kukri to be part of him. Six slowly loosed the hilt from his death grip on it, then took the sheath from his pauldron. Six glanced skywards and caught a glimpse of the aft section of the Pillar of Autumn rising into the heavens.

She straightened and attached the sheath to her own pauldron and cinched it tight and then after wiping the blade clean on the closest Zealot, she sunk the blade into it's resting place.

Seconds later, Noble Six slide down the ladder, hitting the bottom with a thud that sent shudders through the platform.

Striding to the forward bannister of the platform, she scanned the terrain in front of her for any advantage, any escape or vehicle that could get her to friendly forces.

Her eyes latched on to the downed kilometer long Covenant cruiser nearly 5 kilometers away, it lay like a beached purple whale.

Covenant cruisers carried quite a few Banshee fliers, Six had personally knowledge of this, having flown against several in various fighter craft.

With a little luck, a Banshee might still be flyable, if not, the cruiser proved better cover and corridors would go a long way to limit their number advantage.

The current obstacle was getting there, Covenant forces were already landing in the clear area between the military bombed out buildings and the downed cruiser, most like preparing to do an intensive swept of the area, the dock included looking for whatever they were looking for. The search efforts had probably doubled in this area since she and Emile killed the Zealot that was poking around on their way to the Autumn.

She could use the buildings in between her and the cruiser to evade and navigate around the probable patrols, with only a little usage of active camouflage to assist her to her target.

Six strode across the corpse covered plateau she had recently defended waiting for Captain Keyes. Human and Covenant corpses laying side by side, red blood mixing with a rainbow of hues, turning into a mire of brown ichor that sucked at her boots as she walk between the corpses to the edge of the plateau.

Her destination was a jutting outcropping with several large boulders and a lone tree stripped of its leaves. It had served the Covenant as a guarded landing and rally point in the skirmish, that is til Captain Keyes' Pelican and it's escort, coming to retrieve the AI Cortana from Six, launched Hellfire missiles into the Covenant's ranks.

The massive Spartan's boots crunched over the scorched earth, the crackling reminding her of the sounds of bones being pulverized by her titanium alloy shod feet on other battlefields. She finally reached her destination, the stripped tree, it's trunk and branches a sooty black from the furious missile impacts.

Stealth providing the best chance of survival, using her thruster pack to descend was an obvious no. She would need to use the quieter, only slightly slower method.

Six reached around to her lower back and grasped the magnetized grappling hook. Its nano wire allowed slight adjustment in flight to its trajectory, the hook it's self was magnetized when power was run through the wire, making it capable of hold a fully-armored Spartan in controlled freefall or lift the Spartan up. She spun the hook once and then swung it around the tree, coming to grasp it's own wire in the hooks jaws, that would release when Six gave the rapidly blinked command. With a single tug to make sure it was anchored, Six leapt off the precipice falling towards the ground a hundred meters below.

-=0=-

Among the ruined human buildings, Nilyep waddled along at the back of formation, severely annoyed, his partner was the noisiest, sloppiest nipsucker Nilyep had ever had to share a Methane module with, Falgap. Falgap snorted, gasped and farted on every mission, making any partner look like an incompetent oxygen breather. To make matters worse, they were lead by some new minor Sangheili with no victories to his name. And to top it all off, multiple demons had been seen in the area.

With this last thought, Nilyep tried to scrunch himself smaller, drawing his arms as close to his chest as his large forearms would allow him. But this move blocked his view of the piece of shattered concrete that shifted beneath his foot, pitching him sideways into Falgap. Falgap yelped in startlement as Nilyep's methane tank whacked him in the face.

Falgap thrust the object that hit him as hard as he could. It gave a cry as it thudded to the ground, Falgap only belatedly realizing it was his partner, Nilyep.

Falgap rushed to Nilyep's side, "Me's sorry! Me's sorry!" he cried squeakily, attempting to pull Nilyep upright.

Falgap promptly fell on his butt when Nilyep strike him with his heavy forearm, "No touch me!"

Nilyep swung his head back and forth searching, "Where me shooter?!" Desperation filling his high-pitched voice, the thought of Demons lurking in the area terrified him, but without a weapon, he might as well have Falgap shoot him and be done with it.

"AH, there, there!" Falgap pointed back the way they came from, it was resting against one of the crumbling walls.

Nilyep with the anger and fear still flowing through his veins marched up to his shooter and reached for it. His stubby clawed digits stopped mere inches from it, as he realized it wasn't resting against the wall, but something next to the wall, something invisible.

He could make out the faint outline of the thing, then slowly his eyes followed it up wards and upwards til he knew he was looking the demon in the eyes. Nilyep's jaw worked but his throat was parched, not a sound escaping it's desert plains.

He knew he was dead.

The demon blurred, his eyesight bloomed in to red, white and black swirls.

Falgap shriek when Nilyep suddenly lifted from the ground, then two bursts of blue light ignited on Nilyep's belt and Nil was flying at Falgap, the startled queries from those grunts behind Fal sudden cut off as twin hissing reports sounded, consuming Falgap and the Grunts in expanding clouds of bright blue plasma

-=0=-

Six's throw hadn't gone as far as she thought it would, landing on the Grunt's linemate instead of the Elite's back, causing the Elite only to lose his shields and recieve burns up his back. She whipped her grappling hook around the burnt Elite's neck and sharply jerked it back, bring it crashing to the ground, four quick powerful strides brought Six level with the Elite, where she promptly smashed it's head in with her boot heel, purple blood spurting from it's long neck.

But the game was up, the other patrols now had her location. Six gave up stealth and charged through the maze of buildings, jumping over walls and ripping down others to slow her pursuers.

Clearing the final line of bombed out buildings, Six put down her head and fired her thrusters, flying forward, Six's toes skimmed barely inches from the baked earth. As she rocketed through the Covenant forces, glowing green balls of plasma and blue teardrops flickered around her.

She killed the thrusters mere meters from the downed cruiser, and kicked through the weakened hatched and dove into the dark interior as plasma splashed against the hull surrounding her.

Six quickly grabbed a toppled module of unknown use and wedged it in to the kicked open hatchway in an attempt to buy a little time.

Pausing to gain some resemblance of a bearing, Six quick surveyed her surroundings, a dark purple corridor leading in two directions, with few emergency lights to illuminate the interior. She had taken note of the budge in the hull where the hangars usually resided in Covenant ships. It was to the right of the hatch she had entered.

The Lieutenant started down the corridor at a loping run, the passage turning to a blur as she sped through the dim twilight of the Covenant cruiser. Only one door blocked her progress but was quickly done away with a shoulder charge that barely broke her stride.

Bursting into the immense gut of the hangar, Six nearly slipped on a bright purple sludge pool that, after a second look, was confirmed to be the remnants of an Elite.

Six ignored the squelching of her boots, she inspected the Covenant fliers, but most were in similar conditions of the crew, only a few resembled what they had once been hours before but were still unflyable, the hangar was now a mass grave of twisted metal, cooling fluid and neon plasma.

The reality of the situation knocked on her conscious' door, there were no ships in flyable condition aboard this cruiser, she was trapped, on foot, in a Covenant controlled area, and given the Covenant's dogged pursuit of Dr. Halsey and the AI Cortana, and their escape, Reach was mostly likely doomed to be glassed, and Covenant were vitriolic, meaning the Dry Docks and all evidence of their defeat had a high probability to be turned to glass very soon.

She need to get out of the area, the sooner the better and put as much space between her and here as possible, and regroup with UNSC forces.

Cutting across the hangar, scrambling over some of the fliers that blocked her path, She headed for the door that should take her in the opposite direction of Covenant forces. The door had a banshee flier jammed against it.

Grabbing the front of the vessel her armored sheathed fingers gouging into the metal, she bunched her muscles and heaved the banshee to the side, it came away from the entryway with a shriek of protest as it was dragged from it's resting place, sparks dancing from the wall and floor as the banshee tumbled away.

The hatch was bowed outwards, Six punched one hand in to the metal and as she shifted her weight to ram her other hand into to begin spreading the separate parts, a familiar hum gave her pause.

Then she threw herself to the left of the door as a bar of molten green plasma disintegrated the door right where she had been a millisecond before. The moved banshee flier was also a casualty of the beam as it was ripped apart and reduce to liquid metal.

Six dragged herself to her feet even as an echoing bellow blared into the hangar. On her feet, Six grabbed the closest wreckage and using her right foot as a pivot, swung another banshee flier in to the breach. Two thuds rippled through the metal, confirming at least two enemies had been struck by her swing. An angry roar, muffled by the jammed entrance way sounded again, followed by command growls.

Several faint hisses sounded, and mild thumps sounded for the far side of the wreckage. The Spartan spun and leapt onto a smoldering phantom and sprang towards the door that at a diagonal to the door she was at and on the same wall as the door she had entered the hangar from.

In mid leap, she saw the massive hangar doors, begin to sag and glow as powerful plasma weapons began pound at from outside. The retort of the plasma grenades on her makeshift barrier behind blasted shrapnel outwards in to the hangar, pinging off her shields and whistling past her, tinging off the remains of the fleet of once powerful fliers.

She tucked and rolled as she hit the deck floor to keep her momentum, every second counted as still more Covenant began pour from the door she had used to enter the hangar minutes before. A sudden blazing light, which caused the newly arrived Covenant to throw up their arms to shield their eyes, warned of the ships breaking in through the gigantic hangar doors.

The whine of Banshee twin link plasma cannons filled the cavernous room, blue plasma bolts stitched the deck, walls, ruined fliers and Covenant allies the Elite pilots overeager of gaining the honor of killing a Demon, fired with out discrimination through the breach. The Demon herself leapt, slide and sprinted through the onslaught of deadly sky blue teardrops. With titanic lunge Six propelled her body through her targeted door, her shield flickered as her armored form skid down the corridor. As the forward momentum slowed, she jammed her forearms against her chestplate, then jerked them downward, allowing her left leg to bent and her ball of armored foot to catch the deck and push herself up and forward and drag her right leg forward, permitting her run and she barreled down the passageway, her eyes flitting back and forth looking a quick exit. A door to the right. Possible exit.

Snapping her right arm out she sank her fingers into the dark purple wall, her forward speed causing her to fly towards the wall, a blindingly quick thrust with the left hand reversed the momentum. Six prepared for another bout with a door when the deafening beat of hundreds of wings reverberated through the hull and hatch. The Lieutenant double timed backwards as the spit of dozens of plasma pistols sounded, and the hatch began to grow molten. Six broke left and continued farther down the corridor. Then after nearly thirty seconds, a warm light behind her and incessant clicking, warned of another breach in her defenses.

The corridor widened into a rounded square chamber, darkened Covenant consoles sunk into the walls, a command platform raised slightly above everything else with more console waist height around the edge of the platform.

Three doors lead into the chamber two on the wall she had entered from and a larger one on the other side of the platform.

Six twisted round and punch the door frame once, twice three times til it was deformed enough for her to get a grip under the frame and with an incredible effort, manage to tear some of the metal away from the door the incessant wing beats and clicking was approaching like an avalanche down the corridor. Six grabbed the recessed door and ripped it outwards.

An earsplitting screech as dozens of impacts slammed into the ripped out door, the Mjolnir's audio systems isolated and coverage the potential damage that might be done to Six's hearing, using white noise to less the effects.

Yellow-green gore splattered over the top and sides of the door, shattered exoskeleton limbs and other portions of the drones flew into the room with a few surviving drones crashing to the deck barely dodge the door.

The drones had been so closed packed to avoid the edges of the passageway they couldn't see beyond the drone in front of themselves.

Six stood with her back braced against the door, her left hand keeping the door from falling left or right and the constant torrent of Drones kept the door press against Six's back. A Drone that had dodge the door scrambled to it's clawed feet, an ominously glowing overcharged plasma pistol clutched in a shaking claw. Six knew the plasma EMP effect wouldn't work on her Mjolnir armor but it could knock out her shield and plasma could eat through Mjolnir. Her M6G Magnum barked once and .50 caliber Semi-Armor Piercing, High Explosive round caught the Drone dead center of the head, a millisecond later it's putrid brains were blown out the back of it's head painting the command platform a vile green.

The pressure on her back eased, and the continuous thuds stopped. As the door fell away from Six, she spun and stepped on to the falling door, putting her whole weight down crushing any living drones beneath it. She swept the corridor with her magnum, apart from the sporadic twitching of wings and limbs, no movement. But more were coming.

The opposite door bowed inward as an incredible force struck it. Six whirled, holstering her magnum and pulling her M45 Tactical Shotgun from it's magnetic clamps on her back and dove for the platform as a huge blue armored Hunter burst into the chamber it's assault cannon charged and searching for a target. Six slammed into the raised dais next to the drone she killed early, a glance showed it had a plasma grenade on it's bandoleer. Snatching the grenade, in a single graceful move, Six primed it, rose in a sweeping motion releasing the grenade at nominal arc and it smashed into the Hunter's elbow just above the charged assault cannon. The resulting explosion ripped the arm in twain, the heavy cannon crashing to the ground and the super heated plasma gushing back out having not been releasing from the barrel, covering it's former wielder and roasting the worms inside their armored tomb. It's bond brother keened in lost and rage and stormed into the room, not bothering to charge it's cannon, seeking to pound its brother's murderer into the deck.

Grunts boiled out of the corridor behind the Hunter, brave in numbers and to let the most armored one among them go first. Six stood and fired at the Hunter as it charged directly at her. With surprising agility, the Hunter leapt up on to the dais, crushing a console in the act, and brought it's massive shield arcing down like a sword to cut the Demon in two. Six dodged left, the Hunter jumped down to the same level as the Demon and swung it's shield again, at chest height, it's swing smashing in to more consoles sending sparks everywhere. Six ducked under the wild swing, taking the opportunity to jam her shotgun in to the Hunter's gut and pull the trigger, blowing a chunk out of it's middle, it keened in pain, but worms filled the gap quickly, reducing the damage. Sudden the Hunter swept the shield back bashing Six into the line of sight of the Grunts who whooping in excitement, opened fired. The concentrated fire drove Six's shields down to almost empty, the high-pitched alarm warning of imminent shield failure. The Hunter took another step forward raising the shield high. Six had to act.

With a blur of motion, Six grabbed the Hunter's giant blue chest-plate at the neck hole and using her weight to pulled the Hunter lower, where, with her other hand, grabbed its codpiece and heaved, immediately alarms were clamoring in her helmet, red warnings flashing: massive muscle strain, imminent danger to knees, hernia warning. Six silenced the clarions with blink. With an immense effort she swung to face the herd of Grunts, who's excitement had suddenly died as realization dawned in their small minds.

A shrill voice was shrieked, "Retreat!"

The Hunter seemed to groan as it was thrown amidst the Grunts, gore covered it's blue armor, methane assaulted its olfactories. A sudden hiss as a blue globe landed on it's chest and detonated.

The Hunter roared. It's exposed worms warbled in pain, it's once blue armor scorched black by plasma and ignited methane. Rage grew and grew, a battle poem rumbled from deep within as it charged it's assault cannon, and aimed at the embattled Demon, now exchanging blows with a Major Elite. The dueling pair crossing in front of a large door. The cannon signaled full charge, the Hunter fired.

The Major Elite took the first full second of the blast before it was nothing more than vapor and some extremities that weren't caught in the blast. The beam of plasma continued melting the door as the Hunter attempted followed the Demon with the cannon. The Demon dropped under the flow of plasma. The door slagged to the ground. A piercing blue-white light shone from the room, the Slipspace Drive and it was still active.

The plasma arc played across the drive. The Slipspace Drive seemed to give a strange burp. Then everything turned white.