135Halo: Shattered Fate
The Fate/Grand Order and Halo series, along with all characters and elements, do not belong to me. Both works are respectively properties of Type-Moon and 343 Industries.
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"Dialogue."
Special
Written Text
"Highlight/Supernatural Voice."
"Magic."
His eyes shot wide open. As if expecting for something to attack him, he lifted his guard up and started scanning around his surroundings.
Empty, no sign of activity. Not a single dot in his motion tracker.
Behind his visor, the man narrowed his eyes. It quickly became clear in his mind that he was not standing where he had been fighting just a few minutes before. Instead, his body stood in the middle of a verdant field, surrounded by trees at least 100 meters away.
There was something wrong here. Not only in his surroundings, but also in himself. He was unable to describe it with accurate words, but something felt odd within both his mind and his body.
"Echo-216, come in." He spoke through the comms on his suit, but no answer came. "Echo-216, I repeat, come in."
Dead silence on the other side of the comms. His frown grew deeper, as he shoved back his concern over Esparza. Simply because he didn't answer didn't mean the worst had happened, and whatever had brought him here must have interfered with his comms.
He checked his communications system. As he had expected, the feed was dead. A big problem for sure, but fortunately for him, there was someone who would be able to fix that problem at the snap of a finger. He held out his hand, spreading out his palm so as to leave the holographic emitters uninterfered.
"Hope, come in."
No response came, and his concern soared through the skies. He was seconds away from recalling her, when all of a sudden, a beep echoed in the back of his helmet. Then, azure particles began to gather on top of his gauntleted hand, and the bluish figure that had been accompanying him for the last couple of months materialized.
No matter how badly he tried to prevent it, whenever he saw her, his mind kept wandering back to her. Back to Cortana. His greatest failure ever as a soldier. Yet here she was, and although Hope was different from her, he was secretly regarding her as a second chance. It was a selfish thought, but one he could't eliminate from his mind.
"Hi Chief." The little AI, who had designated herself as 'Hope', happily greeted him.
Beneath his helmet, the Master Chief allowed for a faint smile to spread across his face. That smile, nevertheless, was short-lived, as he noticed a pained expression plastered across Hope's face.
"Hope, what's wrong?" John then asked, scarcely concealing the concerned tone in his voice.
"Nothing serious Chief, just a little headache." She assured him, but feeling the Chief's blank expression, she heaved out a sigh. "As I said, it's not that big of a deal. I just kind of feel like I got a hangover. N-Not that I know what a hangover feels at all, just that Esparza's description of how one feels like is the best way I have to describe my current state."
The AI gave a nervous, youthful laugh. John shook his head in partial amusement, briefly wondering about what exactly Hope and Fernando discussed whilst he was taking a rest following up one of his missions. But he pushed himself back to the present. His priority at the moment was figuring out where they were, his previous amusement having been replaced by his typical professionalism.
"Do you feel well enough to go on?"
She nodded her head with a smile. "Yes, perfect to continue. Although where are we?"
"Unknown."
"We really gotta fix this habit of popping up in random places."
"Hmm." The Spartan hummed in agreement. Then, his mind wandered back to that eerie feeling he experienced through his body moments after regaining his senses. "Hope, I need you to perform a scan of both the armor and my own body. Search for any anomalies, regardless of how small they may be."
"Sure, give me a second." The AI said as she closed her eyes.
Hope's expression shifted from a cheerful one, to a troubled one, and finally settled on a perturbed one as she brought her hand in front of her mouth. "C-Chief, something happened." Hope spoke in a panicked voice. "Not only to you, but to me too. I-I don't understand how this could have happened. I—"
"Slow down. You are not making any sense."
"Right, yes. Okay, like Fernando said, deep breaths." The construct paused for a few seconds, then shifted its gaze to him, a sorrowful expression in her eyes. "Chief, you're not going to enjoy what I'm about to tell you. At all."
"Don't worry, I can handle it. What happened?"
"…I doubt you can cope with this." She murmured to herself, before she looked him straight in the eye. "I'm so sorry John, but... you're dead."
The words of his companion entered through his ears, and remained in his thoughts as he kept repeating them over and over again, almost as if he was trying to make some sense of them.
Dead? He was dead? How was that even possible? As far as he could remember from his last confrontation with the Banished, it was only against a handful of troops that he shouldn't have had any trouble in eliminating. But now, according to Hope, he was dead?
He was quick to notice that both his heart rate and his breathing were accelerating rapidly. That wasn't good, he knew that he had to calm himself down. Acting out of control with his emotions was a fool's game.
"Explain." The Spartan requested, his voice as tough as the Titanium Alloy of his armor.
"Remember the migraine I had when I woke up?" Hope asked, prompting him to nod his head once. "Well, when I analyzed it, I recognized that it was due to a forced insertion of information. Rather than learning or absorbing the information, it was merely placed there, forcing me to internalize something which already resided in me."
"And I presume that this data is connected to... my current condition?"
"Yes, let me explain." Hope said as she crossed her arms behind her waist. "At the present time, you have become a Heroic Spirit of the Archer Class. A Heroic Spirit, or Servant, is a replica of a noteworthy individual who has left his mark on human history. They may range from kings, to warriors like yourself, or even mythological figures."
The logical side of John's mind should have dismissed everything that Hope was telling him as pure bullshit, or classify it as the words of a Rampant AI. However, for whatever reason that he couldn't comprehend, he was actually believing everything that the AI was telling him.
Yet he remained skeptical. Perhaps, whatever it was that had brought the two of them here was messing with their minds. It remained a possibility which the Spartan refused to rule out in its entirety. But for the time being he would allow Hope to continue with her explanation.
"There's a wealth of interesting information about the Servants, so I'll give you the fundamentals. For some reason you have been manifested on Earth, though I don't know why. Your body is composed of magical energy, but you shouldn't be feeling any different than you did when you were still alive, in fact you've actually been summoned with the body from the prime of your life."
"We are on Earth?"
"Yes, and no, I don't know where or when we are."
"When? Meaning that we could have been summoned at some point in human history?" John found the words coming out of his mouth surprising. If one of the Blue Team members were to hear it, he doubted that all the training they had undergone would be enough for them to hold back their laughter.
John froze momentarily at the thought of them. With every second that he spent listening to Hopa's explanation more he began to accept it, which meant that it was true that he was dead. It also meant that he could never get to see them again.
He could not help but feel a twinge of sadness in his heart. Fred, Kelly and Linda. His teammates, friends and siblings. No longer would he be able to see their faces, no longer would he hear their conversations, no longer…
"Most likely. The location where the Servants are recorded, known as the Throne of Heroes, exists outside of time, so we could be either in the past or in the future. I'm leaning more towards the former."
"… I see." John said dryly.
For some reason or other, his mind could not deny the truth that Hope had conveyed to him. He was dead. He had been transformed into a Heroic Spirit. And he was in an unknown territory.
Everything threw his mind into turmoil. John believed when he died at least he would be able to rest. That proved not to be the case. He was standing here as a living spectre, and there was nothing he could do about it.
The Master Chief shook his head slightly, and drew a long, deep cleansing breath beneath his helmet. There was no sense in losing himself over what had happened. So, he pushed aside everything that was preventing him from being able to focus.
"All right, what do we do now?" Asked John.
"I… have no idea." Admitted Hope. "I mean, I never thought I would become a ghost."
"Hmm." John hummed in thought as he gazed up toward the clouds. Then, he remained staring up at the sky. "Hope, above us."
The AI let out a confused noise, before she too turned her gaze towards the sky. Just like the Chief, she remained staring at the anomaly soaring in the blue sky, staying silent as she tried to comprehend what she was seeing.
"What is that?" She asked incredulously.
"No idea, but I doubt that it's a Halo. Do you get any signals from there?"
"None. Sorry Chief, without any signal I'm not much help." Hope said as she dropped her head.
"Don't worry, I'm the same." John said. "Let's move out of here. We'll see if we can spot anything in the vicinity."
John allowed Hope to dematerialize and then he closed his fist, before making his way out of the open field where he had awakened. He had nowhere in particular to head to, so he simply would see what he would encounter along the way.
"Well, at the very least that ring of light might be a clue as to why we're here." Hope said on his helmet's private communications channel.
"You think so?"
"Of course, with your luck it will be."
"...You said I became a Servant, what difference does it have from when I was alive?" John asked after a minute of silence.
"Glad you asked. First of all, your strength and speed. Both of them have been exponentially increased, so much so that you would be able to take on 100 elites without any problems."
The Master Chief stopped himself. If what Hope was claiming was true, then he would be interested in seeing at what stage his current strength would be at. So, he flicked his gaze toward one of the many trees that were surrounding him, and without any hesitation, he launched a fierce punch towards it.
Just as he had expected it, the three broke into pieces when his fist landed on it, an strength that the augmentation on his body had gifted him. What he did not expect, however, was the shockwave that followed, which managed to destroy a bunch of trees on a straight line.
John blinked in surprise as he watched the damage that a single punch of his had brought. It appeared that Hope had not been lying when she said his strength had grown, although now he was questioning to himself just where his limits were. But he would have to check that later.
"What else?" John asked.
"Two more important things. First, let's look at the Skills. Skills are the embodiment of a Servant's abilities and traits, and they are divided into two types: Class Skills and Personal Skills. Your class skills are Independent Action and Battle Continuation, while your personal skills are Mind's Eye, Eternal Arms Mastery, Anti-Mystery, Charisma and Pioneer of the Stars."
While she spoke, Hope arranged for each skill which she named to be displayed on the Chief's HUD. He analyzed each one of them, some of them he understood and while others he failed to comprehend their meaning.
"Explain Independent Action and Pioneer of the Stars." John requested her.
"Of course. Independent Action is an ability that allows you to exist for a certain amount of time without forming a contract with a Master, and before you ask, a Master is an individual who has forged a magical contract with a Servant." She added before he had a chance to interrupt her. "Meanwhile, the Pioneer of the Stars ability was bestowed upon you for your heroic achievements during the Human-Covenant War. Essentially what this ability does is 'make the impossible possible'... somehow."
John didn't quite understand the latter, as it did not sound like a straightforward thing to understand, so he chose to ignore it for the time being. "And the other thing?"
"The Noble Phantasms. They are the crystallization of the legend of the Heroic Spirit, a symbol of their history. You possess three of them: your MJOLNIR armor, me and another one called "I need a Weapon". Do you know the meaning of the last one?" Hope asked him in an innocent tone of voice.
"…Maybe, but it's not important. What does the last one do?"
"In short, it allows you to summon all the UNSC weapons that you have used throughout your life. Or well, most of them. Nothing of nuclear caliber." Hope replied, before she hummed in contemplation. "Hey, why don't you try summoning one? It would serve as good practice."
The Spartan pondered the suggestion made by his companion, then nodded his head once in agreement. "All right, how do I do it?"
"Simply imagine the weapon you wish to summon and... summon it."
That sounded much easier said than done.
Ultimately, though, it's not as if he had another option. It was either follow what Hope had instructed him to do, or remain completely unarmed. And he preferred the former option, by a long shot.
John squeezed his eyes shut, allowing his brain to wander through the many weapons he had handled throughout his career. As a member of the UNSC Navy, and for times of ONI, he often had access to a variety of weaponry, both experimental as well as those that were common amongst the Marines.
There were too many of them, from assault rifles, to shotguns, to rocket launchers. So much so that John had to pull himself out of his thoughts for a moment to figure out a different approach. After a few deep seconds of contemplation, he determined that rather than wander through the entire arsenal, he should just look for a single one.
Once more John found himself inside his imaginary arsenal, with the hundreds of weapons dangling motionless suspended in the air, all waiting to be picked up. Rather than register each one of them, he concentrated his mind so that the one he had chosen to deploy would make itself appear in front of him.
Then, in front of him the firearm suddenly appeared. Grasping it inside his mental armory, the only thing he had to do now was to summon it. All of this barely made any sense to him, he even started to appreciate the Forerunner technology more than this sorcery, since it was, well, technology. It was only whatever was forcing him to believe it that prevented him from dismissing what he was doing.
Finally, his blue eyes cracked open, and John returned back to the physical world, with a familiar weight on top of his right hand. As he lowered his gaze, he quirked an eyebrow at the sight of the MA40 Assault Rifle clutched in his hand, identical to the one he was using a couple of hours ago.
"Of course you would summon that one." Hope humorously commented within the private communication channel. "Perhaps it's your favorite?"
"It gets the job done." John replied calmly, as he began to examine the weapon in detail.
It was mildly frightening how identical it looked to the one he was carrying in Zeta Halo. From the built-in ammunition indicator to the magnetic compass, the assault rifle appeared to be straight out of the factory. John even removed the weapon's magazine to examine it for anything amiss, but only found the M118 7.62×51mm Full Metal Jacket rounds, all of which were in perfect condition.
Overall, it did not appear that the rifle had been tampered in any manner, and although as he summoned it struck him as bizarre, John decided not to pay too much attention to it, and simply rolled with it.
John then laid the assault rifle on the ground, then, just as he had done a few moments before, he summoned another weapon to his hands. This one was nowhere near the size of the rifle, and was perfect for a swift grab if he were to run out of rounds whilst in combat.
Nodding to himself, the Master Chief attached the M6H2 magnum to the magnetic weapon carrier on his right leg, and picked up the assault rifle lying to his right. After that, the Spartan II continued along his path.
John maintained his eyes straight ahead along the path he was following, occasionally flicking them to the motion tracker display on his HUD in case any movement was detected in the vicinity. Hope, uncharacteristically, stayed quiet for the majority of the time.
He didn't bother to ask why. She was probably trying to make sense of everything that happened, just as he was, too. Although John was having a tougher time than he had expected. It's not every day that you find out you're actually dead and that you've been summoned back as a ghost.
But, exactly as he had been trained, the Spartan shoved the emotions connected with the ongoing situation to the background.
Finally, one hour after walking slowly through the forest, the Chief visualized a small town in the distance. Quickly he pulled himself behind a tree, and activated the zoom function of his HUD. As he carefully examined the village, he noted that the architecture did not coincide with that of his own era, and did not even resemble those of the 21st century.
He shifted his attention to the villagers. Their garments were plain and dirty, the latter of them he had seen caring for the cattle. Also unlike anything he had witnessed in his lifetime.
At the very least this essentially confirmed that he was truly in the past. Mentally, John released a heavy sigh, still barely able to believe that this was all true. It all felt very much like a dream, and he couldn't figure out if it was supposed to be a good one or a bad one.
However, he did not let his thoughts get caught up in that. The Master Chief began to ponder over how he could acquire more information about the time period he was in. Walking directly into the village was completely out of the question, it would only attract too much attention.
Maybe he could just wait until nightfall to infiltrate and then gather the information he needed. That way he could avoid drawing unwanted attention towards himself.
John quickly decided to go along with that plan. But when he was moments away from heading towards a more sheltered location to avoid being spotted by someone, two unidentified dots appeared on his motion tracker, prompting the Spartan to immediately turn around and draw his weapon towards whatever was coming his way.
The Spartan stood by patiently waiting for whoever was approaching him. His finger was firmly planted on the trigger of his rifle, ready to take the shot if the situation warranted it.
The dots were getting nearer and nearer by the second, so when he noticed on the HUD that it was already at a distance he didn't quite like, John yelled out to it. "Halt! Raise your hands and slowly march towards me!"
"Yes, please don't shoot! We are not your enemy!" A youthful female voice replied back to him.
Then, out of the bushes two figures came out, a man and a woman. The woman was somewhat petite, around 160 centimeters, with an almost inhumanly beautiful appearance. She was wearing a luxurious red dress and a strange hat, it resembled a giant mushroom. Meanwhile, the man was approximately 180 centimeters in height, and featured lengthy blond hair and had an abnormally pale complexion. He was also dressed rather luxuriously and elegantly, with a black suit and a matching colored coat draped around his shoulders.
Both of them advanced towards him slowly and with their hands in the air, with the woman glancing at him somewhat nervously while the man had a look of annoyance on his face.
"Great, look at the mess you got us into Marie." The man sarcastically commented in French.
"How could I know that this would happen?" Likewise, the girl replied in French, sounding more amused than annoyed by his comment. "Besides, you are the one with the sharpest ears, so you should know that there was another Servant here."
The last thing that the girl supposedly named Marie had said caused the Master Chief to narrow his eyes at them. As he observed them silently while the two bickered amicably, he ran his gaze over both of them, once again feeling something strange in a part of his mind that was telling him something about them.
"They are Servants." Through his helmet's internal communication system John relayed his thoughts to Hope, his words sounding more like an affirmation than a question.
Hope thoughtfully hummed for a couple of seconds before giving an answer. "Yes, the two of them."
Her confirmation caused him to swallow his breath. With the understanding that the Heroic Spirits were figures from the past with inhuman capabilities—demonstrated by the level of strength he never had before—then he stood at a disadvantage when confronted by two of them.
Though at the very least they didn't seem to be seeking to initiate a quarrel, considering they had approached him with their hands held up just as he had instructed. Perhaps he could use them to gather up some information.
"Identify yourself." John ordered them in French, maintaining his tone of voice neutral.
Both the man and the girl returned their attention back towards him, the former staring at him with wide eyes. However, the girl was now regarding him with a newfound delight, wearing a genuine joyful smile on her face.
Then, she introduced herself.
"Bonjour my fellow compatriot, I am Marie Antoinette and my Class is Rider."
AUTHOR NOTES:
All right, I have lots of things to say, so be ready.
Why Halo? Simply because I re-downloaded MCC, and my love for the series returned once more. With few Fanfictions crossing the both franchises, I chose to take it into my own hands.
Why start in Orleans? I didn't feel like doing the same opening that everyone gets tired of in Singularity F, therefore I skipped it altogether. As for the plot of the Singularities, I will use the manga as a foundation, not the game. Although changes are bound to occur. Obviously Halo and Fate can't both exist in the same continuity (Ultimate Ones), so I have a half-formed explanation, though I'm not adding it for now. If I see that it is absolutely necessary then I will do it.
The Weapon is named Hope, I thought it was a good sounding nickname, and I don't think it looks good if she's going to be named Cortana. If 343 decides to name her something else, then that's their thing. This chapter was originally written in July 2024, so what happens after Infinite is not known to me at the time of the first chapter.
The pace of the chapter. Very fast, I know, I only noticed it halfway through when I was writing it, so I sincerely apologize. I promise to move things at a slower pace, and return to topics that seem to have been skipped over, like John accepting his death. It's something important to him, so I will go back to it in the future.
And finally, my native language is Spanish, so I apologize for anything that may sound strange or any spelling mistake. I use Google Docs to minimize typos, but I know that some will slip through.
All right, I think that's all. Criticism is most welcome, but let's try to keep it cordial. That's it for me, I'll be seeing you in the next one.
N.R