Hey all, first post here o/ Nice place you got here, and just noticed the fan-fic contest as well. I'll get to posting quite a bit, but this is a really, really cool site I must say. :D


In any case, down to business: I posted this down at Halo.bungie.org recently, but decided I may as well put this here as well, if only for more comments to improve the story along.

The fiction in this case is a F.E.A.R./Halo 2 Crossover (dont worry, knowledge of FEAR isnt necessary, but do note that there are some spoilers of the game in the story). It's quite long, since i've been working on it since Dec '05. Its over 65,000 words long, so I'll post teh first bits first, and if anyone's interested, I'll post the rest over time. >_>

If you want, you can also access the entire thing at one go from halo.bungei.org at This location.

In any case, here we go:

The Crossroads of Fate

In the depths of the forerunner ship, he looked on at the vast structure surrounding him.

His armor bruised, burned and battered, the only thing that shone anymore was the visor covering his face – and even that was so scratched up; it was surprising he could still see through it. The olive green armor that covered his entire body was smeared by several black spots where the impact of plasma bolts, shotgun shells and bullets had singed, burned or dented it.

It was a miracle he was still alive, that much was for sure. Checking his weapon, he saw that it had been smashed significantly by the impact. Discarding it, the Master Chief instead withdrew one of the pistols he had picked up from the flood he had fought on the way here.

And yet, he hoped for a miracle that would ensure that the person he left behind would stay alive.

Taking an unsteady step forwards, Master Chief John 117 continued to look around for an opening – some sort of exit from this area. It appeared to be underneath a large engine complex of sorts – probably a storage or loading area that had been added on by the Covenant in the generations the ship had remained aboard high charity. But there was no way out of here, and the massive doors behind him were sealed shut. Not that he'd want to go out anyway – they would be about to hit Earth atmosphere now. Although the Mjnolnir armor was tough, it wasn't that tough to survive re-entry all the way in. Space wasn't any better either.

Thinking about space, the Master Chief shuddered. He remembered the comrades he had lost at Reach; some of them ending up floating helplessly in space. He hated the vacuum, for it meant leaving the ground, and gravity – both conditions where he was in his element. Floating around in the vacuum didn't let him do anything, and only made him a target. He was ineffective there, unable to finish or do anything...

Pushing the thoughts aside, however, he continued to look. There was a mission to complete, and he had to stop the prophet before he activated the rings. The Master Chief could only hope that Cortona was able to hold out at her end.

Finally, after several seconds, he found an exit. It was on the other side of the room; and came in the form of a ladder. The ladder appeared to lead to a door that was hidden behind several columns. He could barely see it; and had only picked it up on the Infrared sensors in his helmet. It was nestled away quite well.

The Master chief didn't waste any time, running full-tilt towards the ladder, and then jumping on it such that he was already half-way up by the time he started to climb. Within a second, he reached the top, and then continued to run forwards. The pathway appeared hastily constructed, and had no side rails whatsoever. It disappeared into the wall however, turning a corner just a few feet in. The ceiling was quite low – he'd have to hunch to avoid it. It must have been meant for either grunts or jackals – Elites would hardly be comfortable in it, while Brutes would certainly not fit. This could prove to his advantage.

Stooping low, he waited just before turning the corner, listening for signs of activity. There were none. He'd normally just use the optical extension to scout around the corner, but deploying and withdrawing it would take time – besides, if anyone was here, they would have surely spotted him by now.

Turning the corner, pistol primed and ready, the Master Chief was relieved to see nobody on guard. Only the door was there, and it was open. The corridor that lay beyond was far; far different from the ones he had gone through on most other Covenant ships. The corridor walls were a dull grey color. However, several bright blue veins ran through them, casting the entire corridor in an eerie twilight.

It would have bothered him, but for some reason, it seemed oddly familiar – almost as if he had seen this before. The feeling kept nagging him at the back of his head as he walked down the corridor.

After nearly a minute, he approached a dead end, where the corridor split off to either side in a large 'T' junction. Looking both left and right, he saw that it was clear. But where was he going to go? Getting a map wasn't possible – covenant systems were bad enough, but forerunner systems? Without Cortona to help, there was no way he could get access to the maps. He was going to have to improvise, from the looks of it.

Taking a right, he slowly moved down the corridor, keeping a sharp ear out for any hostile movement. The Master Chief noticed, however, that despite walking for quite a bit, there weren't many doors at all. The ones that he did try to access were almost always locked.

It was odd....why was the entire area empty? Normally one would expect guards or the like, at the very least, a few roaming patro-.

From up ahead, a noise interrupted his thoughts - the sound of slow, heavy footfalls echoing through the corridor.

Speak of the devil he thought to himself. Looking around, the Master Chief searched for some sort of cover. There was a door nearby to his right, but walking up to it produced no result – it was locked up fairly tight. Looking at the console to the right, he tried to manipulate it, working it. The controls were vaguely like that of the Covenant's. The screen behind the visor translated the symbols to their approximate human equivalents. He realized that the door wasn't locked – just not under automatic control. He set it to open manually, and then lock up immediately afterwards.

With a soft swoosh, the doors split apart, revealing a somewhat dark room beyond. Switching to night vision, the master chief realized that the room was nothing more than a supply cabinet.

Quickly stepping in, he watched as the doors closed quickly, plunging the room back into the darkness.

He had to wait for sometime as the footfalls grew louder and louder, till, finally, they came to outside his door. They seemed to stop for a few seconds just outside it, however. The Master Chief quietly removed the safety off the pistol, prepared for the worst. If it was brutes, then this would be a difficult scenario indeed. But still, he had been through worse.

And he always won.
He sat there, tense for nearly a minute, about ready to pounce at the door. But then, finally the footsteps continued moving on.

Breathing a sigh of relief, the Master Chief looked around for anything useful. There was only what looked like cleaning equipment here, as well as detergents that the Covenant might have used. The room itself was tiny; barely enough to accommodate him and all the equipment. A glowing console nearby provided the only light with which he could see in the normal spectrum.

Manipulating the console, he opened the doors, pistol drawn and ready. But when he looked out, there was no-one. Whomever it was had walked away, from the looks of it.

Taking this as a sign of good luck, the Master Chief didn't waste any time, moving as fast as he could through the corridor while still maintaining a degree of stealth.

He kept on moving down the hall, coming across a junction a few seconds later.

There were sounds here again – mostly growls and footsteps. This time coming from the left side of the junction. Snaking the optical instrument around the corner, he took a quick peek at the other side. Three Jackals had gathered here – two were wielding shields and another, a sniper rifle. One of the ones with the shields was facing towards the junction, while the other was just leaning against the wall, staring into nowhere. Just past the junction was a large window of the view outside. The third jackal with the sniper rifle was looking just past this, at what appeared to be a storm they were traveling through. It was facing away from the Master Chief.

He needed a way to draw them out. But it wouldn't be easy. But then, fighting the Covenant rarely ever was. Checking the pistol, he nodded to himself. It was time to act.

Without a second thought, and with blinding speed, the Master Chief hurled himself around the corridor, throwing a punch at the jackal on the right with one hand, while using the other to shoot the other Jackal's head over the shield.

They didn't even have time to react. The one on the left crumpled almost immediately, while the one on the right barely had time to look in his direction before his punch smashed it's face in, spilling blood on the wall next to him. He brought the gun up at the last jackal, which had whirled around and was now raising its gun to face him. But when he pulled the trigger, it only clicked.

Not wasting any time, he immediately threw the pistol up, grabbed it by the barrel, and then flung it at the last Jackal before ducking to the side. The pistol hit the jackal in the chin, knocking it's head back with a resounding and somewhat sick snap. The Jackal did manage to get off a shot, though, which barely missed where the Master Chief's head was a mere half a second ago.

Getting up, he immediately grabbed the beam rifle as well as the Covenant's plasma pistols. They would serve to be somewhat useful in the upcoming fights.

Running down the corridor, the Master Chief ran by the window, only glancing out to try and get a rough grasp of where they were.

Then he froze. Turning, he faced the window fully, staring out at the storm.

He had just seen something – something out of the corner of his eye that, even with his reflexes, he barely noticed. It had been something in the clouds that had gathered outside. Something strange.....

It had looked like a face.

He attempted to discount it to fatigue, or just a random cloud formation. But even in that glance – even in that momentary glimpse of it...it had looked so real.

Then the Master Chief studied the storm itself.

It raged outside the craft; as if the ship itself was stationary and the storm was around it. But yet, the Master Chief knew – staying still would be suicide for the Prophet, and he wouldn’t be so stupid as to merely stand in one place – not when potentially hundreds of anti-aircraft guns could be fired at the craft. This was no Covenant cruiser after all – far smaller, it was probably significantly more vulnerable to such things.

But even if they were moving....the storm must have been following them, or at least be very, very large for it to remain there as long as it did. Storms would be no threat to the forerunner ship itself; but still....

As the Master Chief looked on, he could feel a chill run down his spine. He had seen some pretty disturbing things before, but none of them disturbed them as did this storm. He didn't know what it was about the storm, but it was downright creepy to even look at it. The way the clouds boiled and rumbled indicated as if they were reacting....reacting to his gaze and curiosity, almost.

Shaking himself off the view, the Master Chief focused on his mission. There was no time to go site-seeing....too much depended on him now, too many people were counting on him to win this war.

Then the entire ship lurched , as if something had hit it. The Master Chief staggered, catching his balance quickly. The lights went dim, while the veins in the walls surrounding shifted colors from a pale blue to a bright white and yellow mix. Looks like the entire ship had gone into battle stations, or something similar.

Then he heard it – a loud explosion emerging from somewhere nearby. Apparently, someone or something had managed to hit the ship badly enough to have made a difference.

Breaking into a run, he forgot all guise of stealth and ran full-tilt down the hall. As he passed, he recognized several signs on the way. They were similar to the ones he had seen on covenant ships. The nearest one was the detention centre. He made it his choice of targets – if he could get there and neutralize the guards, he'd have access to a lot more weapons, at the very least. And from the looks of it, if a Covenant computer was there, he'd at least be able to get a map as well.

Running down the corridors, he managed to avoid a few of the patrols that were running to the scene of the recent incident. Maintaining some stealth helped him as he ducked into an unused room here and there as patrols went by. It was nothing but sheer, incredible luck that not one of them managed to catch him as he made his way to the junction near the cell blocks. Here, he saw that there were two brutes guarding the doorway. One was wielding a plasma rifle, while the other a Covenant carbine.

The odds simply couldn't get any better.

Both were located at the centre junction where three corridors met. The Master Chief was at the right side of this junction, at the end of a long corridor. Creeping around the corner, he brought the rifle's sight up and aimed at the nearest Brute before letting loose a shot that went clear through its head, dropping it to the ground. Within a fraction of a second, he fired again on the second brute, flooring it as well. The beam rifle overcharged from the quick fire, spitting out hot steam from the plasma battery. Putting it aside, the Master Chief wielded both of the plasma pistols and then charged out from behind cover to the doors.

Within two seconds, he was already approaching the doors – however, he could see that they were opening, possibly allowing for re-enforcements to come through.

Not to be overwhelmed, however, the Master Chief pressed the triggers on both the plasma pistols, bringing them up to overcharge. As he approached the doors, he made a massive leap in mid-air, turning his body around to face the door as it flew past. The doors opened, revealing the faces of two brutes that began to step forward. Their faces grew in surprise as they saw the Master Chief fly past at unnatural speeds.

And then their faces were no longer as both the plasma bolts smashed into them, the heat causing one of them to scream and collapse onto the ground as the plasma did its work. The other just stood there, his body limp and about to collapse.

The Master Chief didn't waste any time; he rolled and recovered from the drop, immediately reaching for and picking up a Covenant Carbine. Bringing it up, the Master Chief charged the still-standing Brute's body, smashing into it and using it as a shield as he charged into the room, expecting a hail of fire to come after him.

But none did.

Instead, he heard, as well as felt, the loud howling sound of the wind as air rushed to escape into low pressure. Looking on into the room, for once in his life, the Master Chief was truly and completely horrified at what he saw.

The entire room was large, holding several cells on two levels. At the end of the room, beyond a large central pillar, there appeared to be an airlock that at one point of time must have been heavily guarded – however, where the airlock doors one were there was only a large gaping hole showing the boiling and rumbling clouds beyond it. He could see the faint flicker of a containment screen as it tried to hold the atmosphere in, succeeding only partially on doing so.

What was most striking however, were two things:

The first and the most obvious, was the thing that had lodged itself firmly in the central pillar. From the databanks in the suit, he recognized it as a Terran helicopter – a motorized helicopter, and an extremely old variety, too. Nobody used things like this anymore, much less against the Covenant.

The Chopper was smashed to bits, almost – the blades were strewn over the entire room, some of the bits impaling various brutes and jackals nearby.

What was surprising, however, was that the body itself was still intact. Normally, any impact at the kind of velocities they were thinking about would have utterly vaporized the helicopter, much less only destroy its blades. Not only had it survived the initial impact, but it had punched through the Forerunner ship's shields and armor, and then somehow stayed intact till it hit the pillar, at which point it only lost the blades, and not much else.

The second most startling thing, however, was probably the most disturbing.

In the various cells surrounding him, lay skeletons. The insides of each cell however, seemed almost entirely covered with blood – some to the point where it formed a pool nearly an inch thick. He recognized the skeletons as having belonged to Covenant grunts, elites and maybe even hunters. But what could have done this? Not even Brutes were that...brutal, so to speak. Not even they would resort to such a thing. It was almost as if the muscles and flesh of the victims had spontaneously liquefied, leaving behind only the hardened skeleton.

Then, all of a sudden, a wave of static blasted through his radio. Turning it down didn't help as the Master Chief looked on. Despite turning the volume all the way down to zero, the static remained on his channel.

Then the Master Chief saw it. What it was, was a human leg, sticking out from the rubble of the helicopter. Rushing to it, the master chief knelt down beside it, placing the carbine to one side. He started digging through the rubble that had fallen on the pilot, attempting to clear as much as possible.

Eventually, after a few seconds, he was able to clear out enough to see the person's face. It was definitely a male, but the face was covered almost entirely by a gas mask. The uniform was that of no known special operations or UNSC force –classified or unclassified. Revealing more of the person also revealed the extent of the injuries. He realized with a fair bit of grimness, that the person wasn’t going to survive for more than a half hour longer, and would probably remain unconscious.

However, his hypothesis was proven wrong, when, in the next moment, the person immediately gasped for air, opening both eyes. He looked up at the Master Chief and wheezed.

Then, all of a sudden, faster than even the Master Chief himself could perceive, the man grabbed his head and brought it down closer to his face. The Master Chief was about to react when the man finally spoke, wheezing during the sentences as he did so...

“You have to stop her...please....I beg of you, stop her before it's too late!'

This caught the Master Chief off guard. Rather than resisting the grip, however, the Master Chief instead asked.

“Stop who? And who are you?”

“NO TIME! Just stop her! Alma....she can't get loose onto the rest of the planet. Otherwise everyone's dead. She'll kill everyone! And she won’t stop for any other soul!”

The Master Chief was about to say something when another burst of static came through the speaker, following shortly by the low giggle of a young girl.

His head snapped up, looking around for the source. He had definitely heard that, for sure. Or had he?

Looking back down at the person, he saw through the man's visors that his eyes were wide, with shock, awe and terror.

“My God, she's here! Alma's here!” He screamed as the Master Chief, pushing him away and reaching for a weapon.

“Run! Run! Run! Run! RUN! RUN! RUN!” he kept screaming at the Master Chief, repeating the same word over and over again.

The giggle came again, followed by a short laugh. This time, however, it was just behind him.

Whirling around, he looked for a sign of threat – only to find her.

She was a small child; barely perhaps 8 or 9, with long, black hair that covered most of her face and upper body. She was wearing a short white skirt that gave her an almost creepy aura.

She whispered, slowly, softly at the master chief. Even though it was barely a whisper, it still reverberated far louder than the screams of the person next to him.

“I know who you are.” the little girl whispered, before reaching out to touch him.

That single touch, that single moment of contact was so powerful, it dented the chest plate of the Mjnolnir armor, and drove him back several dozen feet, to smash into the wall. He barely survived the impact, however judging from the insane pain in his gut, the girl had probably broken a rib or two. Still, the master chief got up, looking for the girl again, and this time getting ready to follow the advice of now-silent stranger.

A second later, however, he noticed as blackness began to form around him. It appeared to be a vortex of sorts; one that was around half his torso's size. However, it began to grow rapidly, and then duplicate itself to cover him almost entirely. The last thing the master chief felt was a massive punch to the stomach, before the world went black around him.

******