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Shadows of Archon II (part 15) -Remembering the Master Chief
Posted By: Wado<wyamauchi@msn.com>
Date: 19 September 2002, 9:47 am
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The sun shines brightly through rainbows along the ground and far above clouds spiral over bodies of water. In the shade of short trees, a breeze lifts the leaves creating dancing shadows.
By the waterfall outside the tunnels to the Heart of Darkness, Val sits next to the Lady and Cat. The water brings back memories, some sad and some not. Val lies on the ground saying, "I'll never be able to forget the warm breezes of Jukan. It was a breezy day like today when I first really looked at John. He was like a guardian angel come to rescue me. You say he was like a re-born angel, he was a sleeper. Tell me Cat what is an Archonian Sleeper?"
"Val, I cannot describe what the answer is, it can only be felt, told in a story," replied Catsandravalahundra the Dark Archon. "Long ago the first Archons arrived here from far away. Many of the forerunners had already arrived here and had placed claim onto much of the galaxy. After much searching, the first Archons were allowed to settle in a system called Yon-Ho-Pic. Known today as Archon. This system had been a great wonder from the days of the Old Ones. The forerunners were not willing to colonize worlds of the Old Ones because doing so would mean accepting the role of servant to a greater power. So the story goes back to before the forerunners arrived into this galaxy, back to the time of the Old Ones."
Cat continues saying, "So the Old Ones were here first and although they are long gone, the things they built remained to mock all the power of the forerunners. The Old Ones somehow knew the secrets of null space, of void, of nothingness. Before there was a universe, there was nothing. To understand this nothingness is a paradox, so the story goes. So the forerunners found the ruins of the Old Ones and found the nothingness. These properties you have experienced here on Jukan in the tunnels down below, where there is the Elder stone."
"Elder stone can be molded like clay, but it forms into something much harder. Elder stone absorbs energy. You could blast Elder stone all throughout your life with plasma and anti-matter and it would never even scratch it. Only the physical momentum of the attack could damage the stone, all forms of energy would be absorbed into nothingness. The worst of this is that Elder stone defies the sciences of the forerunners, demons, and Archons. Our sciences are of nature and are commonly called magic by humans because it follows different rules of reality than do your principles of physics and logic."
"The forerunners were masters of blending natural magic with technological science. But nothing other than mass drivers really have any affect on the creations of the Old Ones. The forerunners really hated this, they could not accept that in all their greatness, such a simple thing as a stone could defeat them."
"They really could never be defeated by the creations of the Old Ones though, it was more like a thorn in the side than anything else. A thorn that was in a spot that couldn't be reached. Much time passed and many forerunners grew to resent the Old Ones' presence in this galaxy, and they grew home sick. Even though it most likely meant their deaths, they sought to return home, to galaxies far away."
"So the great exodus began and then with the absence of many of the great forerunners, a void was created in the power structure of the forerunners that remained. An internal struggle began and then the uprising of the Covenant and the constant attacks by the Omega flood. The forerunners that remained were never defeated. They just faded away, made insignificant by the vastness of their enemies. They went into hiding."
"All this time the Archons fought for survival against the demons, forerunner factions, Omega flood, and a host of other enemies. We Archons don't know why there were so many enemies, but we felt that there was something beyond these enemies, an unseen enemy -- a master of masters. Then one ominous day, the visions came, the visions of the ultimate evil -- a god without compassion, without empathy, a god of pure logic. All the life forces in this universe were but a statistic to this god, so it was described to us by those more logical thinking beings amongst us."
"Archons have little concept of statistics. I once heard that if more soldiers die that wore red uniforms in battle than those that wore green, then that is a statistic that would be used to justify that soldiers should wear green uniforms. I don't understand how that works. We Archons just feel these things, the colors of the uniform match what makes us feel better for the battle ahead."
"So the Archons of past felt the ultimate evil, we could not understand it but we felt it would be the end of us all if something was not done. We knew of the humans, we felt that the answer was there amongst the humans if they could only survive long enough. You have heard of the Archonian Great Experiment. In the absence of magic, the humans would develop to use technology and logic above all else. When the time is right, the magic will be introduced back to the humans, what comes of that will be something that can protect this universe from the ultimate evil. I don't know what it is, but that is how it will be."
"Getting rid of magic was not something we could do alone, for one thing, the demons kept regular contact with humans. We sought the aid of one of our mightiest enemies, the Demon Overlord Shai'tan. Our beautiful Queen Cortana went to speak under truce with Shai'tan, but he deceived us and took her away from us to be his queen. She would not succumb to him willingly, so even in his victory he was forced to make concessions. Shai'tan agreed to leave Earth alone, but not any of the other human worlds. This meant that demons could only be summoned to Earth. To stop this, the Archons rid Earth of much of the magic users, but we could not get all of them. Earth needed protection from magic users and other outside forces such as the forerunners and Omega flood."
"The Archons created the sleeper by infusing some humans with Archons. The sleepers would become the guardians of Earth when the Archon inside them awoke. But so not to compromise the Great Experiment, the sleepers that fully awoke would have to leave Earth, so we made sleepers awake in phases according to threat level to humanity. Partially awaken sleepers would have moments of greatness and then would go back to being just their human selves afterwards. Sleepers live normal lives but the Archon inside them remains and is shared from generation to generation."
"Both John and Cortana are sleepers because a scientist that worked on them was an Archonian sleeper and passed on the Archon to them, she also, by the way made Cortana the likeness of our lost Queen -- Queen Cortana. It is also said that she, herself, resembled Queen Cortana. This made John and Cortana usual even among sleepers. Princess Kira took a big risk to partially awaken John to save the Archons trapped at in the Web of Medusa and in doing so she may have saved the rest of the Archonian race. The cost was great though, John is now dead and humanity might be destroyed by the Covenant. So goes this story... and so does this story continue, but I do not continue for it is time to stop."
The Lady speaks, "So the story goes from the Archonian point of view... We Nomdians have a different flavor of how things go. Some day Val, when you have a lifetime to listen, I will begin to tell you."
The Nomdian and Archon both begin to laugh out loud.
------------------------------------------------
Remembering the Master Chief
Val swims in the cool refreshing water, she is alone she thinks, but something is watching her. The wind blows and leaves flap to reveal a partially concealed figure. The figure backs away. Val grabs her assault rifle and gives chase. The hunt is on.
The figure leaps over trees and dodges between rocks, but stops ever once in a while to look back. Val shouts, "Stop or I'll shoot!"
The figure rolls and suddenly is behind Val, running in the opposite direction. It laughs like a child as it moves away.
Val is breathing hard but her will is strong, she perseveres. She is in a full sprint when she steps on a sharp rock and trips. Blood comes from her cut foot.
The figure approaches and Val can see him clearly now. It is John in sunglasses, a Hawaiian shirt, and long shorts held up by a pull string.
"John, oh my god, is it really you?" said Val.
The figure picks her up without speaking a word and takes he back to the water.
"Say something please," said Val as she holds on to John tightly in her arms.
The figure puts Val down and says, "John is dead, my name is Shadowflux."
There is a flash of soft light. "Ouch," said Val as she finds she finds she is alone in the water again. She looks down to see that she has cut her foot on a sharp rock in the water. She limps to shore and sits down next to the Lady and Cat.
The Lady speaks, "Val, you had a vision."
"Yes, how did you know?" asked Val.
"We all did," replied Cat.
Cat is alone amongst the flowers, in the background are great monuments of Jukan -- Pyramids like on Archon. She does not feel his presence, but he feels hers. He slowly approaches through the shadows. Touches her with his glances. He reaches out to her, but she is gone.
Cat runs through the flowers saying, "Ha, ha, you can't catch me. Na na na na, na."
He chases her, but she is too agile -- she bends with the wind, evades like water, and is as strong as the earth below. He gives up the chase and reaches for something on the ground. He holds it in his hand and smiles.
Cat can't see what it is that he holds. He holds it loosely, so maybe it is fragile. He hides it from her. What does he have?
Cat silently approaches him. He turns away still holding something in his hand.
Cat gets closer while eyeing his hand. She then looks to the side as if she has lost interest in this game. She toys with her hair looking up at the clouds.
He seems a bit frustrated and slowly turns giving Cat a better view of his hand.
Cat pounces and grabs his hand, opening it up she see that there is nothing in it.
In one motion he drops with both legs around hers. She falls from a scissors takedown. He rolls up on top of her and pins her to the ground.
"Nice one John," said Cat.
"I'm not John, John is sleeping, my name is Reclaimer." He then disappears.
The Lady sits in the passenger seat of a Warthog. Beside her in the driver's seat is a tall human figure wearing a UNSC uniform, rank of Master Chief. They drive across a great, sandy desert.
"Hee haw," said the driver as the warthog goes airborne over a sand dune. They are moving very quickly and sliding from side to side leaving fishtails in the sand.
The Lady speaks, "Why am I here? What do you want?"
"Heck if I know lady," said the driver. "Maybe they know back at HQ. That's where we're going. Ya-hoo!"
The land around darkens. High above is a giant ship that blocks the sun.
"Oh man, here they come again," said the driver. "Here lady, take the wheel, will ya." The Lady takes the steering wheel. "Thanks ma'am." The driver then pulls out his pistol and takes a few shots at the giant ship above.
From the ship drops a small package.
"Holy mother of, look out!" said the driver as he grabs the wheel again and veers off just in time before the package hits the warthog.
The Lady looks back at what it was. It has arms and legs, whatever it was it is dead now. "Nice shot John," said the Lady.
"John, was that my name? I can't remember, everyone here just calls me Spartan or Master Chief, Chief for short," said the driver. The warthog then goes of over another jump. "Hold on, waaaaaa!"
The warthog flips over in the air and the driver and the Lady are thrown out of it. The Lady lands softly. The driver is gone, no where to be found.
The visions are over and Val, Cat, and the Lady look at each other. Val says, "We are going to bring John back aren't we."
"Yes, the signs are good," said the Lady and Cat in unison.
They all place their hands together in the middle, and then pull their hands apart while saying, "Yes, let's do it!"
-- Next, Humanity's Last Hope --
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