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aboxfullofstars2025-08-19 01:54 pm
stillnotretired) wrote in aboxfullofstars2025-08-19 01:54 pm[52] This is a Special Post for the Reach Thread, etc!
This is a Special Post for the Reach Thread, etc.
stillnotretired) wrote in aboxfullofstars2025-08-19 01:54 pm
no subject
[It was time]
no subject
Even with the chains of command holding her over her realms, this was a day Kotomi had longed for, and had ensured every step of the way would be dedicated to no one but her her husband and children. As the two toddlers leaned forward to look at Yuuko's flowers closer, she held her third child Ami in her arms.
Kotomi looked at the night skies, only wondering what was wrong. When she looked at Yuuko, she recognized an expression that sank her stomach.
It was the same expression Yuuko had when John first returned home. The realization that the weeks ahead would be dark ones.
"John hasn't returned," Kotomi mumbled to Yuuko outside of the canine ears of her own children. Her hand cradled Ami with worry.
Reach Expedition
She had a talent for her voice to be heard even through the deafening, whirring machinery. For a Japanese person from the early 21st century, she was tall, but life and diet in this world had forced her to turn strong, especially while wearing a bulky suit.
"Firing up in three. Two. One."
Her gloves lowered the lever. Kyou and Ryou ducked behind the machine. An engine fired up, and shredded rock and stone at a heated, accelerated pace, tearing down bedrock that had laid buried for years after the Fall of Reach, and even longer after whatever set this in here.
There was a loud crack that snapped the air, and a cloud of dust that covered the two twins' heads... then, they looked up at the artifact.
Not so much at the artifact, but at the engraving.
"Is that...?"
no subject
Her hand pressed over the smooth surface. It was cool to the touch. None of the heat of the machines had affected it. She looked upward.
At the engraving of a Sailor Senshi, in strange armor of her own, a warrior from a different reality from so, so long ago.
"It's Usagi," Ryou mumbled... then turned to Kyou, "Kotomi said this was possible, right? That there were always alternates. She would be eager to know of this later!"
no subject
...So what am I doing here, again?
[And then, he sniffed the air]
A Wish, powered by many. Hmmmm...
1/2
Kyou was less abrasive towards Incubators than others. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't tempted by a wish to have taken Tomoya's hand... or Kotomi's hand... but that would have been living in the past. In the end, she decided to make things work for herself. That was the way things should have been.
And yet, she offered an arm to let him climb up to her shoulder. To let him look at the same engraving everyone around her gawked at, mumbling in confusion. A human? On a Forerunner site?
To Kyou, this wasn't as surprising. But to everyone that hadn't been in other worlds, this broke what they believed. This was a reason Kyou decided not to believe in anyone, but herself and the people she loved.
"Is there a way to tell Usagi about this? Or Kotomi?"
2/3
"I don't know," Ryou answered, "it requires some strong spells I didn't really practice other than divination, but maybe it can also work with some of the comms they have here."
And yet, she smiled. She extended her own arm, and let Kyubey move to hold him against her chest, hugging him.
"Do you know if Usagi remembers anything about this," Ryou asked the two of them, "Ami back then transformed into a magical warrior, alongside Kotomi. If Usagi has been here..."
Her eyes widened. Ryou turned to Kyou, and then Kyubey, "is she the result of the wish? The fact their action and effort... made her show up? Now? I've never really thought there were coincidences in our world, and it seems there aren't here, either. Someone... from so long ago... giving a hand to heal a world."
3/4
"Come on. Let's talk about this, before any of those... Oh, for crying out loud."
4/4
"Transmission of this information is a violation of interdimensional treaties," the agent said impassively, "for everyone's safety, I cannot allow anyone to transmit this, even if it is to other worlds. In case any more than hostile factions would learn of this."
For some in the United Earth Government, the war never ended. It just resulted in the Covenant splintering into many more raiders, pirates, and factions.
On her pocket, was a tablet briefing them concerning another faction. 'The Banished.'
Missing in Action (Another World)
Viraine Mountains, Infinity
The Master Chief turned his plate towards both senshi.
"I am not discussing this."
Marie's hand grappled onto his arm. "Damn right we're not, John. We're not losing more."
"I am not leaving them." His plate locked onto hers, both Spartans unmoved by glares that burnt through metal. "We stay here together, the Vigil will outnumber us. Do. Your. Job."
"It's my job to take care of you!"
For a second, the words froze the taller Spartan.
He stepped back. He held the top of his helmet. He looked down, then at his team...
A wall beside them shattered to pieces, and a roar echoed through the walls when the Sphinx reached them.
Time slowed down to a crawl. Spartan time ran through his eyes as if the entire world had been underwater, and all warriors heaved too slowly through the air. For the split second in which the metallic creation dragged and crawled itself through space as shrapnels of metal levitated around them, and it opened its maw as the lines of blood around him burned like a furnace, the eyes of both the Spartan and the War Sphinx met.
A sight of hatred and fury, and a promise to eachother that they would defend their respective worlds to the death. Both the burning eyes of the War Sphinx and the golden plate of the Spartan locked onto eachoter in that single moment. From that sight on, there was a silent understanding between both warriors.
There would be no quarter.
The Master Chief bolted and smashed himself against the War Sphinx in a tackle as the creature roared, and bashed its face against the ground as thick hardlight, force shields, plasma grenade, and sparks burnt alight as he ran to slam him against the wall.
All while the beast rose his arm to try grab him, like a lion fighting a hunter.
"GO!"
The Spartan aimed with the dragged Sphinx against Serenity, and the massive terminal behind them, deep into the darkness.
He knew he would not win. Much less against the two most powerful beings of both John's and Ami's respective universes. There were no words for his team. They had their orders, and his task became clear:
Push them to the terminal. Give them time. Survive.
A light glowed in front of the War Sphinx. The walls and floor around him vanished in a flash of white, as the three of them fell.
That same flash of light. The same scream upon feeling that it would be his final sacrifice.
John’s memories of Infinity faded in and out of consciousness. His HUD flickered in that limbo between life and death as he fell. In those seconds, he was left to ponder every choice he had made after the barrier to other worlds was opened to him, and after his return.
The images of the people he met in his journeys passed in front of him. Either as memories or as his HUD rebuilt the information stored in his armor’s systems. The smiles given to him, the gifts he carried, the life lessons, and the hugs that remained with him.
It was supposed to end with his return home, until he chose to stay in Infinity. But he was a soldier. This was the only fate that had been waiting for him.
All of the people he met would have new lives to lead.
Meanwhile, death had always waited for him.
He had been a fool for thinking there had been something for him beyond fighting.
He had no illusions that he would win this fight. All he could hope for was to give them all time. For that better tomorrow that he had never been meant to have.
That was all he was. A Weapon. Devoid of any other purpose but what he was pointed at.
No matter how much they actually tugged at him.
No matter how much her words...
I am a weapon. It is all I am. It is all I will be.
Mrs. Yuuko. James. Kotomi. Ami. Cortana.
You put your faith in me to become more than I am. But I can’t do that. Not while I have to fight.
I failed all of you.
I’m sorry.
His hand grappled the rifle as it spun. His HUD registered the reticle of the MA5D Rifle the moment his entire being moved with it as one, focusing on the only target that mattered to him.
The roaring machine. The beast that whirred, sank his tail and his arms against his sides like a flailing animal, mouth and eyes burning alongside the veins of lava of the superstructure.
His squadmates were above and given all the help he could give them. His Commander had given him the order to save them. All that existed to him was the threat.
The Spartan’s body tensed. The Vigil stared up at him in a single moment, regarding him as nothing but a weapon.
You know I am a weapon.
So watch me.
The Spartan launched himself against the Vigil’s head. He jabbed his rifle onto the neck of the machine and pulled the trigger into automatic fire. Blue light flickered inside the dark of the caves as the two of them fell. The Sphinx’s roars echoed all around them--
It spun. Slammed him against the walls of the machine. Extended a metal limb forward to grab him by his leg. Hurled him down with hatred and rage. Snarled as its mechanical arms shot downwards to slam him like an iron doll. Sinking the human’s body against the walls of the structure as he fell.
One fist redirected the Sphinx’s limbs. The Spartan blurred forward and brought out his pistol and fired point-blank blue light at the eye of the War Sphinx. He reloaded the picosecond his magazine clicked empty.
The War Sphinx brought its maw forward to the Spartan’s arm. It flailed him towards the wall. Its non-flickering eye glowed red to fire white plasma. The Spartan slammed a pod onto the wall behind him.
A sphere of hexagons blocked the blast as all turned to molten metal. The Spartan emerged from the bubble shield. lunged to the Vigil’s chest. The human pushed the War Sphinx’s head against the walls to the screams of sparks. He brought out his knife to jab at the creature and try to open it, fingers sinking into whatever holds of metal he could find.
The Vigil instead turned. Grabbed the Spartan and slammed him against the walls. Hissed with sadistic glee as his armor ground with sparks against the walls.
The Spartan sank his boot onto them before leaping off, and lunged at his face with his rifle. It thundered with fully automated fire flickering blue light. The Vigil’s maw turned to lunge at him.
A megalopolis laid below. Made of obsidian and onyx, with smooth towers spanning kilometers in height. Towering structures meant to shelter a civilization from the cleansing fire, only to be abandoned when the Flood consummated its victory a hundred thousand years ago.
For the first time in ages, the Vigil returned to it with the only clue to its past. A human that almost craved death. The War Sphinx’s veins of red made it resemble a fireball as it fell, muted only by the blue light of the Reclaimer’s weapon.
It was never going to end any other way.
Not with life. Not without John fighting the impossible, pulling his arm and weapon forward to force the Vigil onto the ground as they fell. He watched the ground below.
There was a flash of light. He looked up at a laughing woman bolting towards him--
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'Coruscant'
Joan snapped awake. Muscles tensed. Thousand yard stare looking forward. Once again attempting to find the barrier between nightmares and reality.
Dr. Halsey had once said that Spartans would need to accept all grisly visages and memories, without rejecting them, because otherwise they would stick for even longer. After so many years of warfare, and so many things he had seen and done... Joan was not so sure how well did it work, now.
The life in the World Tree that she had failed. She was still a weapon. She murdered an innocent. The best thing she could do, was break with everything they knew. Every romance, every mentor, every student, and just... leave. Not just the World Tree, but... with how much she had changed, there was the bitter realization she couldn't return to their home universe, either.
She did not know where to go.
Therefore, Joan sat where she last stopped to sleep. On the streets of a city-planet known as 'Coruscant', covered in a brown cloak, with her hair disheveled, and her magic having lost power. The last months had been difficult to sleep. Normally, military discipline would keep her in order, focus on an objective, as Spartans would do them even under psychological collapse, but now...
...
Joan shrank. She lowered her head against her knees, burying herself deeper into the dirty cloak. Too dangerous to ever live in peace in full, too rebellious to ever come back to the UNSC.
Now? She did not know what to do.
Sailor Moon Arrives
[Chiba Usagi, wife of Chiba Mamoru. Now also Neo Queen Serenity, married to Neo King Endymion. Back at their home world, their Palace was now a big spaceship, and...]
[Well, this future was most definitely not the future the Chibi-Usa who'd lived with them in her teenage years came from, that was for sure]
[And now, she had a daughter, whose nickname was Chibi-Usa and resembled the Chibi-Usa she had known befere greatly, and also a son, who hadn't existed at all in the other timeline, as far as she could tell]
[She'd been a bit worried about the other Chibi-Usa until she came to Worldtree again and discovered she had been doing fine, but never mind that now]
...Hmmm. I do feel a Sailor Senshi nearby...Could that be Joan-san?
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As much of a replica to the Master Chief that used to exist. The exception was, her little brother who replaced John had been more Him that She or the Spartan were.
"I am not a senshi."
Joan simply said. By this point, realizing how strange it was that she was able to live, breathe, let alone speak in space in the first place. And yet the statement was less of a matter-of-fact, and more shame.
She was not a Spartan. She was not a Senshi. She was not human. And no matter how hard she tried, she was not a machine.
The planet in front of them continued to look scarred. Grayed. Seared by a Covenant glyph as their final victory over the world that John used to call home. In previous times, Joan would have been happy to see it. Hopeful for its reconstruction...
... but here, beside Neo Queen Serenity, all Joan felt like was an intruder to a world that no longer was hers.