Ah, to be writing again. I'm really sorry to those I've neglected, but I was overtaken by my desire to do this fanfic. I know that that isn't an excuse for 3 months worth of waiting, but still. To the new people, whomever you are, I have a warning for you. The Chief and co. will be extremely overpowered in this fic. However, that doesn't mean that Fairy Tail will get booted from the spotlight. This is my first crossover fic, so lay anything on me. Flames, compliments, whatever. I use and consider them all. Except the flames. I only want those because I need to cook my dinner with them. Yeah, sounded a lot better in my head. But I'm going to keep it. So, hope you like story. And I've read the other Fairy Tail/Halo fanfic. I just wanted to do my own. Now you've got competition, Assault Godzilla. I will be relying on my readers to make some decisions. I like being included in fics, and I suppose others do as well. So, I will let you know when I want you to decide something that goes on in here. Anyways, let's get onto the story, shall we?

Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail or Halo in any way. If I did, Cortana would still be alive. Hmm, that's ironic, seeing as… Well, I'll let you read that.

The Master Chief's aim was true. Wielding his BR55HB SR Battle Rifle, his shot the Brute in the head. The Brute staggered back, knocked off balance by the bullets slamming into his helmet. The Master Chief shot again, and again. The Brute cried out, angered. He threw down his weapons, and charged towards the Master Chief, screaming bloody murder. The Chief waited patiently for the Brute to come. As soon as the Brute was in range, the Chief slammed the butt of the Battle Rifle into the Brute. The Brute was not deterred, and gave the Chief a good smacking in return. The Chief retaliated, and the Brute fell, dead. The Chief had been victorious, as usual. The sergeant, whose name was Thomas, smiled from behind the Chief, where he had been fighting off a group of grunts with his squad of marines. He shot the last one, and turned to the Master Chief.

"Seems like being in cryo for 4 and a half years hasn't made you slack off, eh Chief?"

The Master Chief just shook his head, in keeping with his "actions speak louder than words" persona.

"Alright, marines! Let's hope these bastards have learned their lessons about trying to activate Halo! Move into the control room! And let's hope there isn't another rampant monitor guarding the place."

Thomas said that last line under his breath. The squad of marines had all taken a part in the Battle for Installation 00, and they knew what had happened to Johnson, Miranda, and the Chief. They had also been on Requiem, so they knew what had happened to Cortana. No one brought it up with the Master Chief, not even Lord Hood, except when he was debriefing the Chief. But at that time, Lord Hood hadn't known, and hadn't been expecting the Chief's answer. He had even gone as far as to say that Cortana was now a top-secret AI, and no one was allowed to say anything. He may not have known Cortana as well as the Chief, but Hood knew that she had played a very important part in the war, and had bonded with the Chief well. He made the top-secret directive out of respect, and the Chief had been grateful- or at least as grateful as someone who barely speaks could be.

Thomas pulled his head back into the present. The Chief was on point, opening the blast doors that lead to the control room. Humanity and the remaining Elites who were allied with them and the Arbiter had only recently found the Halo ring that they were currently on. They didn't know which one it was, but they knew that it had to be deactivated. Thomas had brought along a Spartan Laser for the Master Chief, just in case the monitor of the Installation decided that it wanted to save the ring, instead of allowing Humanity to deactivate it.

They were at another door now, and the Master Chief was busy pushing against the hard-light control panel. Thomas let his thoughts wander again, for a second. He wondered what the egg-heads back at ONI had done to the Chief's armor. He knew that the Spartan IV's had better armor, and that the Chief had taken off his armor on the UNSC Infinity. It was the first time Thomas, and pretty much anyone else, had gotten a look at the Spartan's face. When they had arrived back at Earth, Lord Hood had given a long speech, and the Chief had gotten new armor. You couldn't tell by looking at it, as it looked exactly the same as his old armor, but the Arbiter had picked up on it immediately. In fact, the Arbiter had also gotten an armor upgrade, though there had been a rumor that no one had wanted to give it to him. Lord Hood had done it as a courtesy, since the Arbiter had done so much for Humanity. Lord Hood also wanted the Arbiter to have a better set of armor, since what he previously had almost didn't get him out of a disastrous situation back on his home world. Thomas shuddered. He'd heard what had happened when the Arbiter had tried to get the Elites to ally with Humanity. It hadn't ended well. So now, it was only the Arbiter and a handful of Elites who had allied with Humanity. Lord Hood had immediately assigned them to work with the Master Chief, knowing that the two groups would be the only ones who trusted each other. None of the other marines in the UNSC would even go near them. The wounds were still too fresh and strong. The only reason that Thomas's squad agreed to work with the Elites was because they were people who had a good outlook on life, and they had fought with the Elites on Installation 00. But while they did trust the Elites, they still kept an eye on them. Never know what could happen, right?

Thomas suddenly heard the Arbiter on the radio.

"Spartan, 50th Squad, have you gotten to the control room yet?"

The Elites had all taken on the UNSC's naming convention of stuff well, even if they forgot some of the names at times.

"We're here." Thomas replied. "The door's opening right now."

"Good. We have taken care of the remaining Brutes here at the Cartographer. We'll meet you back at the firebase you set up."

"Roger that. Be careful."

"Understood."

The door had by now opened. The marines were hanging back, as per the Master Chief's orders. He was slowly advancing, searching for the Monitor that was doubtless nearby. He was soon rewarded.

"Reclaimers!"

The Chief whirled to see the Monitor, who had appeared next to him. He motioned to Thomas's squad, who advanced. They all kept their weapons trained on the Monitor.

"Reclaimers, have I done something wrong?"

The Chief didn't answer. Thomas took the incentive.

"No, you haven't. We're just wary about you Monitors. We haven't exactly had the most enjoyable times with you."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Reclaimer. I shall do my best to live up to your standards. But, I'm being rude. I am 295 Unending Vigilance. I am the Monitor of Installation 06. Welcome!"

"Uh, thanks?"

The Chief had stopped aiming at Vigilance, but didn't put away his weapon. The marines followed suit.

"So, Installation 06."

"Yes, Reclaimer."

"Please, call me Thomas."

"As you wish, Thomas."

There was an awkward silence, as neither party knew how to talk, Vigilance because this was his first meeting with Humanity, the marines because they didn't know what to say. Finally, Vigilance broke the silence.

"I am excited about having Reclaimers on my ring, but I do hope that you have not come to activate it. That would mean that the Flood is active, and I would lose the only organic race besides the Flood that I've seen in a long time."

Thomas couldn't help but wonder how Vigilance had managed to sound so human, despite being a machine. It was like Cortana all over again. He couldn't imagine what the Chief was thinking.

"No, we're not here to activate the ring. We're here to make sure it won't fire, ever."

Vigilance tilted, as if to ask why. Thomas got the hint.

"Marines, stand down. We're going to be here for a long time."

After telling Vigilance their story up to now, he seemed to be sad.

"I'm truly sorry, Reclaimers, for 343 Guilty Spark's actions. When we were first commissioned to watch the rings, I'd thought that he had a little more of an attachment to his ring than he should. But I do not hold your actions against you."

"Why not?" This was the first time the Chief had spoken.

"Two reasons. One, you are Reclaimers, heir to our creator's empire, and everything in it. We cannot argue with your decisions, or at least shouldn't. We were programmed to serve you, even if we don't agree with your decisions. Second, it was the better course of action. You might have died if you had waited until Installation 04B was ready. That is also why I'm not going to stop you from deactivating my ring."

"Well, that's nice to hear." One of the marines, McKenzie, said. "We won't have to fight you."

"Indeed. On another note, I must apologize for the Didact's actions as well, Reclaimer. He always held a grudge against you, because of what you did."

Thomas nodded knowingly.

"But I must ask, what will you do with my Sentinels and I when you have deactivated the ring? I really have no wish to go offline now. Perhaps I can still be of service."

The Chief spoke out again. "We'll figure that out later. For now, how do we deactivate the ring?"

Vigilance, after showing them how to permanently deactivate the ring, followed them back to their base that the marines had set up. Seeing the Pelicans, Vigilance commented on how primitive the technology was, compared to his own, but that it was still very capable of doing its job.

They landed, and met the Elites inside.

"Why did you bring the Oracle with you?" The Arbiter looked confused, as much as Thomas could see. He wasn't exactly an expert on Elites' face expressions.

"We brought him back because he didn't know what else to do. Now that his ring is deactivated, he wanted to know if he could help us."

"I see. What do you plan to do, Oracle?"

Vigilance could see that the Elites were speaking to him, but didn't understand why they were calling him "Oracle". Still, it didn't matter, and the Reclaimers seemed to trust these creatures, though they were guarded towards them.

"I will do what I can to help. But, if I may, your combat skin is very inadequate, compared to the skins my creators had. I shall endeavor to upgrade them."

"By inadequate…?"

"Your current combat skins barely match up to one of our class 1 combat skins. It is my intention to remedy that. I shall upgrade you to a class 18, which is the highest class we have. Also, I can provide certain medical technologies which will do wonders for you."

"Like what?"

"When my creators were trying to find a solution to the Flood, so that they wouldn't have to fire the Halo Array. They had succeeded, but they were too late. What they made were essentially bio-huragok, which will aid in many different aspects, not just infection. The bio-huragok will not only purge the Flood infection from your systems, but it also helps to heal scars and injuries, stops aging completely, and requires almost no input from the user. It is tailored to the user's DNA, so that only the user and the user alone can control them. It feeds off of any natural or artificial impurities in your bodies, and also uses it to repair the body."

Everyone was momentarily silent, thinking of the benefits of this technology.

"You can do that? Man, let's get upgrading!"

"This procedure will take a fairly long time, and you must all be unconscious. I shall complete it as quickly as possible, and keep watch for enemies."

The Chief didn't really like it, but he was starting to trust the Monitor. He also had a few questions.

"When you upgrade me with those bio-huragok, how will it affect me?"

"It should work the same as the others. Why should you be any different?"

Vigilance scanned the Master Chief.

"Oh my. I see. Well, I shall take into account your unique qualities, and the bio-huragok should cause no problems. But if they do, the user can disable them."

"What about my armor? It is slightly more advanced than everyone else's. And what of the Elites?"

"The Elites, as you call them, shall undergo the same procedures as you. I can tell that your armor and their armor are similar. I shall let you know what I have done when you all wake up."

Thomas interrupted. "Alright, everyone get's upgrades, and we all go home. End of story. Let's get to it."

The Master Chief was currently in cryo, doing something that no one would expect: dreaming. It was the same every time. He would try to sleep, and dream about Cortana, and how he lost her. He would know in the back of his head that it was a dream, and know that he would eventually wake up. But in this dream, he didn't know when he would be waking up, and that made it worse.

It was the same scene, over and over again. Him running up to the last pedestal, pulling Cortana's chip and inserting it into the Didact's system, to shut it down. The pedestal exploding, turning into nothing but orange code. Him yelling "Cortana!". Then it all repeated.

He knew that it wasn't real, not this time. And yet, each time the hurt came back, fresh and full. Losing Cortana was almost too much to bear. But there was a sudden shift in his dream, and he felt it. It was no longer a repeating event. No, now he was looking at Cortana, as if she were still alive and well. She was talking to him. Trying to say something. The Chief strained to hear what was said.

"Don't worry, John. I'll see you again. Even as we speak, I'm coming back. But I have a message."

"What is it?"

"Find Fairy Tail. They will accept you there, accept us all."

"Fairy tale? What's that?"

"Not fairy tale, Fairy Tail. When you wake up, you and the others will not be in the same world you once knew. You must adapt to the new one. You will still be the protector of Earth, the Demon to your enemies. But it won't be what you used to know. Be prepared."

"What do you mean, it won't be the same world? Cortana?"

She was fading now, her mouth still visibly moving, but no sound came out. She stopped talking, and waved. But she said one last thing, and the Chief, since he couldn't hear her, read her lips.

"See you on the other side, John."

The cryo-tube opened, and the Chief stepped out in a hurry. He looked around, and saw that no one else was awake. He felt cold, but that was just the after effects of the cryo-tube. He heard the familiar hum of Vigilance moving about.

"Reclaimer. I decided to wake you up first. There's been an incident."

"What happened?"

"One of the hostile alien races found your facility. I was busy with your upgrades, and was unable to stop them. They had brought a bomb that generated a Slipspace rupture, presumably to send you into oblivion. But that didn't happen. I managed to fire an EMP wave at it, and that shorted out the bomb. Not in time, but it was enough. We are now in an unknown area, and so I woke you."

The Master Chief thought over this. He really didn't know what to think.

"Wait, how did the we survive? We were in cryo, and the generators are on the other side of the facility."

"When the Slipspace bomb went off, it created a very large radius of transport, which consumed the entire base. As such, everything was taken. Unfortunately, that isn't a good thing in some ways. The other race were outside, just in case. I assume that they came with us, but I have not detected anything outside of this base. And you placed your base in a very bad spot. You built it right over the Flood containment facilities."

That chilled the Master Chief to the bone. He knew what would happen if the Flood got loose. It was bad enough to have the Brutes there, not dead ones anyways. Dead ones were fine.

"Thankfully, the blast radius was enough to cover the Flood's containment facility in its entirety. So, they cannot escape, unless someone manages to break in and release them."

The Chief sighed with relief.

"Well, I can't deal with anything without weapons or armor. So, what did you do?"

"Ah, that is where I introduce an old friend to you."

Vigilance flew off, and the Chief followed. They went into another room, full of machinery and armor. There was a pedestal in the middle of the floor. The Master Chief noticed it immediately.

"Is that…?"

Something popped out of the top. It was a girl, made of code, blueish-purple. She looked at the Chief.

"Hello again, John."

"Cortana?"

The Chief didn't quite know how to describe how he felt. Vigilance had woken the others, and explained their situation and Cortana. They were uncomfortable not knowing where they were, but they cheered up when they saw Cortana. The Chief was silent, and had been looking at Vigilance for an explanation.

"You see, Reclaimer, when I was inserting the bio-huragok into your system, I came across your neural implants. As you know, they allow you to use your armor more efficiently, and allow you to carry an AI within your head. Your construct had dumped all her data into your system at periodic intervals, which is why she appeared to you after her chip had been disintegrated. I was able to take these bits of data, and recombine them into the AI you once knew. They were damaged by rampancy, however, so I had to repair them. I had been studying rampancy in my spare time on Halo, trying to find a cure. I had found it, and now your construct and I are immune to rampancy, much like you are all immune to aging."

So, after much celebration, they had finally gotten back to armor and weapons. The base that the marines had set up was full to the brim of the best that the UNSC and Elites had to offer. They were taking no chances, since they all knew how bad the Flood was, not to mention a rampant AI. The USNC Infinity had given them the best stock they could have hoped for. Pelican dropships and gunships, Scorpions, Warthogs, Longswords, Mongooses (or is it Mongeese? Let me know.), even a Mantis. The only thing they were missing was a Mammoth. And the Elites hadn't slacked off either. Wraiths, Banshees, Ghosts, Specters. Pretty much anything you could name was part of that base. And they all had weapons galore; everything that the UNSC ever made- from flamethrowers to shotguns- and all the weapons that the Elites had, which ranged from plasma swords to plasma grenades. There were even a few Brute weapons in the mix, like the Gravity hammer and spike grenade. There was one other store that almost no one knew about. There were a few of the Promethean weapons and armor abilities, because they seemed to be the most useful against the Flood. Yes, everything had been supplied, just in case. Plus, there were factories built into the base, to make ammunition for any and everything that used ammo. Vigilance got down to business.

"As you all know, recharging the plasma weapons made by the Elites has always been a problem. So, I have figured out a way to counter that. I have built a charging station that will keep them fully charged, until they are used. The same with the Promethean weapons, though they use ammunition instead of charge. I set up a different thing for them."

Vigilance moved and hovered over the new armors, which looked better than when they came off the assembly line in the UNSC.

"I have upgraded your armor to my class 18 specifications. Your construct also asked to help, and so we created a class 19. I must say, your construct had ideas that I never would have dreamed of. I'll let her explain."

Cortana popped back up.

"Alright. We did a few things. First, we took the old UNSC metals and reinforced them with Forerunner metals, which is lighter, stronger, and more resilient to pretty much anything. We gave you marines some energy shielding-"

Everyone began cheering again, since having energy shields was every marine's dream.

"Yes, yes. Anyways, that is it. As you can imagine, I was able to do more with the Chief since he already had some stuff built in."

The marines didn't care all that much. They were already putting the new armor on.

"Chief, Arbiter, I did some special stuff with your armor. The other Elites stayed the same except for the metals, since I couldn't do much with it. You two have a treat, though. I upgraded the energy shielding to have 4 layers, each as strong as an overshield. These layers work with each other. If the first fails, it will cycle to the bottom to recharge, while the others will move up a layer. And it only takes about 3 seconds total for the layers to recharge if they are all down. Imagine taking a few Scorpion rounds at the same time, with plasma grenades thrown into the mix, and you'd be getting close to the strength of these shields. Nothing is getting past them, short of a MAC round. I also upgraded the metals, just like the others. Another thing is that since you already have the Spartan IV armor, I added to it. You now have a miniature Slipspace drive in your suits, which will allow you infinite storage of weapons, ammunition, and anything else within reason. That will help you a lot. It also automatically recharges the plasma weapons you may have in there."

The Master Chief and Arbiter looked, well, dumbfounded. They weren't expecting this.

"On top of all that, Vigilance and I have included all armor abilities permanently, from Promethean Vision to Active Camouflage. You have a new power system as well, to support it all. Instead of fusion reactors or hybrid reactors, you now have a Micro Dyson Sphere to power your suit. The Forerunners use two of them to power their Keyships, so you can see that you really won't be needing that much power. So, do you like my presents?"

Everyone was now suited up, ready for anything. They had all been told of the situation, and were going to go scouting to see what they could see. And it turned out that everyone had a similar dream as the Chief did, with someone saying "Find Fairy Tail". So, while they didn't know who it was, they thought "What could happen?"

Each person was to go with a partner. There were 12 marines and 6 Elites, not including the Master Chief and Arbiter. So, there were 10 two-man/alien teams. Vigilance would stay behind, to monitor what was going on with each team, and as a backup. Everyone was to get back in 5 hours, and report what they had found. The Chief slipped Cortana's chip into his head, feeling the familiar rush that always came with it.

"Good to be home. You miss me?"

"More than you know."

Each team left the building. They were in the middle of a forest, and they could see a city in the distance. Each team was wondering where this would be going.

Yes, this is the end. Don't worry, Fairy Tail will come in the next chapter. I will try to update often, but no promises. I know that the Chief is really overpowered, but it will come in handy, with what I have planned. Yes, the Flood and Brutes decided to tag along. Nothing will happen with them, though. Unless you want something to happen. Or I decide that the Flood will somehow escape. Hmm, idea. Well whatever. Just know that the Chief, in my mind at least, would be able to take on all 10 of the Wizard Saints by himself, and win. Yeah, that's how good he is now. On another note, if anyone has an idea for the title, let me know. I couldn't think of a good one, and I'm not stealing Assault Godzilla's (though the thought has crossed my mind). Anyways, hope you all like it, and see you next time.

-Portertrain9