What is that?

[Small Knife]

“My name is Omni. This is not the world you know. This is the Omniverse. You interest me, so I have made you part of it. The Omniverse is a place that reflects the wishes of those who are part of it. But! There are rules. I will explain them only once, so listen carefully.”

"813."

Omni hands you a glimmering orb in which all the colors of the rainbow coalesce. “This is Omnilium. It’s what ties the Omniverse together. Without it, you are nothing. With it, anything you desire can be yours. But you will need more than this. If you desire it enough, you will find it. You will find that using it comes naturally. Just think of what you desire most.

”813, wake up.”

“You will not be alone in the Omniverse. There are others. Of course, they, too desire Omnilium. Do not fear death. For as long as you interest me, you will be reborn. “That’s all you need to know right now. You’ll figure out the rest soon enough. I’ll be watching … and waiting.”

”Goddamnit...813 WAKE UP!”

The young Spartan Soldier, encased in black and red AVIATOR-class GEN 2 MJOLNR power armor, jolts awake from the persistence of his A.I., Valkyrie.

“Val, did you see it?” He ask as he dusts himself off and gets up.

“See what?”, Valkyrie appears in his HUD within his helmet. He stands up completely and does an equipment check.

“The white and eyeless guy, I think he called himself Omni or something.”,

”I guess the crash really rattled you…”, he starts to load ammunition into his macabre of guns

“Val, I have all of my guns, can you do a systems scan? And crash? Val I’ve had only crashed once, and the first was a gentle landing. Plus last I remember we were in the hangar of the Infinity and about to turn on Stag.””, Val disappears from his visor and does a systems scan. He finishes reloading and waits for her.


”Everything's fine except Motion Tracking, Radar, and Radio are, well….missing.”

“Huh? How can that be?”, he asks as he puts his guns in their proper places. He checks to make sure everything is secured in place.

”Well 813, I don't know how to explain it, but the equipment is missing and you did crash. The second part is probably because we were taking fire”

“Covenant Loyalist or Prometheans?”, as Val starts to answer, 813 looks around and he now notices, a giant flaming skeleton off in the distance. There is a large prism of yellow light encasing the skeleton.

“Val, what is that?”, 813 asks as he stares in amazement,

“That is trouble. Possibly Forerunner, maybe a construct of the Dadict? I can’t get a clear scan, but scans say that...oh...”, Valkyrie reads over her scans, puzzling, even for her intellect.

“Val, what’s wrong?”, 813 asks in a concerned voice, reaching for his service magnum.

“The Skeleton...is organic...”, 813 pauses and almost drops his pistol.

“What?”, obvious surprise in his voice,

“Yes, all of the scans agree...it is organic, that’s what the test show…and nothing else”, 813 catches movement at the edge of his sight, he uses it’s zoom function, the display sent directly to his HUD,

“Oh crap, it’s a Floodling, near that arch of dark stone, is that moss as well? Let’s follow, maybe there is more”, he zooms back out and rehoslters the magnum. Then he starts running southeast, as the Floodling makes a run for it to the gate.

[Ururu Kyuuei]

Aiko clopped along across the white expanse, a mixture of paranoia, anxiety and wariness burning across her kimono covered chest. Half of it she thought was the teenage hormones she had to deal with no on a daily basis. Why couldn’t her puberty been purposely stalled? Hell make her a young adult or child, anything but a bloody, emotionally compromised , angst ridden girl.

Since her body’s re-creation, she had become much more intimately familiar with it. More than one close call had forced her to call upon powers she thought had been lost to her. Now that she had some degree of control she was realizing just the potential ‘secondaries’ were capable of dealing out in terms of sheer of destruction. But something felt like it was holding her back, Ururu was no longer there to give her the potential she used to have.

It wasn’t every day that a clone got to exist for days on end; such though was the case of Aiko. To be frank, before now the bodies she inhabited to some degree had and expiration date if they had been generated on the fly rather than properly grown within an egg like husk. But here she was… more; her body generating her own supply of chakra even after Ururu had been taken from them.

Ururu-sama… Aiko thought with sigh blowing into her scarf.

Despite being the core portion of her family and creator, Aiko had never been as familiar with their Shinobi Mistress as the rest of them. Her own nature that made her suited for deep cover missions and source material that resulted in her own birth made that an easy fact of life. That didn’t change the hole left in her heart, the weakness wrought, or the gap in her memories.

But unlike the rest of them who were scouring the Libraries for information to where their creator had been banished Aiko felt less concerned. More focused on her original missions.

It still took precedence. Find a prime who they could use to temporarily offset themselves with which was the reason why she had abandoned the forests of Camelot finally and moved on towards some place more dangerous. Or rather walking towards it now. The Pale Moors’ gate.

She was moving quickly but careful not to exhaust herself.

That was one thing she had noticed lately over the past few days that had been easier to do. Which was concerning when she spotted an armored figure on the same movement vectors as herself. The gate. And more to the point if she turned around now, it would be obvious she was avoiding them which could draw all kinds of attention.

Pissing off a storm trooper wasn’t one of them.

With a slight stumble, Aiko fell into a casual gait muttering to herself, “Positive, bubbly teenager! Yeah that’ll work. Ignore the girl in the dark purple Kimono who isn’t important. Walk calmly but not too unconcerned and they won’t notice or care.”

With any luck they let her pass with her having to worry about being hauled back near that huge clusterfuck that had insane bloodthirsty primes written all over it.

Damnit this was what Saru was for!

He was the expendable; he enjoyed escaping on the skin of his teeth or using his last couple breaths to compromise a foe in the most embarrassing way possible. No the undercover girl has to be the one to attract a bloody storm trooper going way to close to the Camelot Gate? What was he suicidal? That helmet practically screams shoot me I’m your enemy!

[Small Knife]

813 jogged lightly, not too worried about losing the Floodling, although it did already slip inside the Gate and could not be seen, but as for its unusual appearance, people will notice the deadly creature. As he traveled across the Nexus, his mind began to wonder, What is this place? Some Forerunner arena, or are the Covie loyalists at fault here? Hmm, maybe there is a local Cartographer uni-,

<813,>, Val interrupted his thoughts, they were about 20 yards away from the gate, 813 stretched his neck a bit,

“Yes Val?”, he responds, annoyed at himself for losing track of time, as it had been a couple of hours since his arrival already,

<There is a civilian young girl heading towards our destination, maybe she saw the Floodling.>, Val said as a statement, rather than a question. 813 nodded silently and continued his current course, only slowing slightly so that they will be in front of the gate right at the same time. The small and dark haired girl turned to the gate and right before she could enter, 813 placed his hand on her shoulder.

“Woah there little miss, can you hold on for a bit? I saw something dangerous go in there, also I have a few questions for you. I’ll start simple, what's your name, and why are you out here alone?”, 813 turns her around to face him.

“M-my name is Akio, and I am looking for someone. What’s your name, and what are you doing this close to Camelot?”, the girl responds, her voice shy and timid at first, but it gains confidence near her two questions.

“Well, I go by SPARTAN-813, but everyone shortens it 813, and what is Camelot? Like King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table? Well nevermind that, but have you seen this?”, He kneels down and holo image of a tentacled creature pops up. The top part of the creature is a bulb that comes to a point, which faces away from two tentacles ending in red barbs. This bulbous part sits upon a mass of tentacles, Val animates the holo image. The creature walks on the tips of the bottom tentacles.

<It is a very dangerous creature, we need to find it and destroy it>, Val says as she, using a projector in 813’s helmet, appears next to the holographic creature, Val’s avatar is of a woman in a ‘modern’ flight suit and without a helmet on, what can be seen of her skin is a dark grey color. A large pair of black wings hang behind her, her hair is a short style.

<It's about 3-4 feet tall, and a place green color>,

“We need to find it before it infects anyone, then it can get really dangerous.”, 813 says, the speaker in his helmet transmitting his concerned tone.

[Ururu Kyuuei]

Aiko gave a jerk as the armored one cornered her with a restraining hand and began his spiel faster than a flood during the rainy season.

When the Holographic video appeared though she felt only moderately better, “Only in in Mis-s Miss’ porn collection” Aiko said, cutting herself off halfway through mistress to. Her eyes flicker between the helmet and the image. The blush that lit her cheeks let it be known how much of an idiotic statement she realized she had just uttered.

Non-sentient creatures didn’t often travel through the gates; something about them perplexed the untrained and wild. Kept the worlds separate and their ecologies roughly intact. So whatever it was either was summoned in the nexus by some idiot prime, brought here by Omni… or… this person was a brand new one and they just hadn’t realized yet that their universe and the one they now currently occupied were completely separated.

If Ururu-sama was right… they didn’t even know that they were not actually them. Not yet anyways. Aiko’s better judgment left that particular fact off the table for now though it did cause her to squirm a bit. Where their mistress could be a blunt as a brick, it was Aiko’s own job to be as sharp and subtle as a knife. Creating an existential crisis with a prime who could be only minutes old was not a situation she wanted to deal with.
 
A blaster bolt to the head did not sound appealing.

Which meant pretend his reality was still… valid. So meant a supposedly dangerous animal was on the loose, which may not even exist as far Aiko knew… focus on information gathering keep the unstable prime calm. She only had one life at the moment until they could find Ururu or anchor themselves to another prime.

“Where did you last see it sir?” Aiko asked with a cracking, uncertain voice.

[Small Knife]

“Porn? No, if anyone is putting the sickening images of having intercourse with a Flood inside your head, you need to to report them, no matter what you owe them.”, Aiko's eyes widen a bit when 813 mentions this. She asks her question now,

“Going right through this teleporter, which do you happen to know where it leads to? Also is this a Forerunner or Convent construct?”, 813 asks Aiko. Val, now that she is not needed stops the animated projection and makes it blink out.

“Pale Moors sir, it's like a foggy forested foothill area, with lakes and stuff, never really been, although I heard that a very powerful Prime resides in there. Forerunner or Covenant? Are those Factions? Like the Kingdom and Institute?”

“Ah cool humid climate, and Prime? Like a Crawler Prime? Like a Promethean? Well the Covenant is a group of Alien species that worship Forerunner technology and the Forerunners are a species of Aliens that came before all sentient species, or so we know”, 813 states after his questions.

“A Prime as in someone brought here by Omni directly”, Aiko corrects 813,

“Ha I knew I wasn't crazy! So do you know if he's Forerunner?”, 813 starts to think about Omni could be, while Aiko tries to think of a way to explain to him.

[Ururu Kyuuei]

Aiko was starting to get a sinking feeling that she wasn’t going to get out of this without potentially damaging the rep she had built. With her spreading feelers through Camelot, the Dataverse’s underworld had become a second home to her. This guy was no doubt going to be a mercenary in short order… his name spread with hers would either going horribly bad or horribly good. And having a prime owe her collective a favor definitely was appealing as well. It would mitigate at least some fallout. Damned if she didn’t damned if she did.
 
Lovely.
 
Squaring her shoulders, setting her jaw and screwing her courage, Aiko pulled on a trickle of chakra and snapped her wrists. In less time than it took to blink, heavy tungsten claws wrapped around her fingers and exposed the barest hints of the chains sealed within the dimensional holes that filled her gauntlets.
 
“I… I don’t know what a forerunner is or pretty much anything else you said so far.”
 
That caught the man’s attention and his tongue but she cut into him before he could even start talking. “So let me put this as simple as possible. You’ve been screwed over. Everyone you meet from now on is likely from a completely different universe from you and if not at least from a different timeline.”
 
“Alright,” The man said carefully. Obviously he sensed she wasn’t quite finished saying her piece.
 
“I suppose though we need to kill it-“ she paused, sighed and took a mental snapshot of the armored man. His likeness and her situation passed into the network. “And if I die… I need you to give my necklace to a member of the Kyuuei clan, they reside on Coruscant. They’ll be expecting you. Tell them Aiko sent you.”
 
She only had the dimmest of hopes that she be able to bind her essence to the Black Star chakra crystal when she was on the cusps of death. Without Ururu around anymore, it was her last chance of reviving herself. At the very least a copy of her mind from last night was stored on it. With any luck it would be enough for Hikaru and the others to reconstruct her core self with.
 
“Still the damn thing looks like it should be the star of a sex flick.” Aiko muttered.
 
If the worst should happen, she didn’t think she could live down the humiliation of being killed by a tentacle monster. Oblivion might be preferable.

[Small Knife]

“Why do you keep on bringing up sex with a Flood? There is no need to worry unless there are hundreds of those things. When we find what spawned this, there might be combat forms of this thing. The little ones are easy to kill, but if they get to you, and you don't have energy shielding, well you will be infected, and that can take minutes to hours. I wouldn't recommend those claw things you have, you need to be able hit them fast and hard”, 813 then grabs one of his SMGs and hands it to her, and she takes it curiously,

“Actually here take this, you know how to shoot right?”, after 813 asks what he views as an essential skill, Aiko looks up at him and shakes her head.

“What? Oh come on that's a basic skill everyone should learn. Well, It's on safe right now, which means it can't shoot right now. When you go to shoot you can thumb the safety to fire, then you line up this notch with the post, and the thing you are shooting at”, 813 taps the two parts he mentioned,

“Squeeze the trigger, don't pull, also you should let go right after, you’ll repeat this a few times, for if you hold it down to long you’ll empty the mag in about 4 seconds. Mag drop is button in between the two red dot on the left side, press that when you are out, then,”, 813 takes out a magazine for the sub machine gun,

“Slap this in, you have to ‘charge’ it afterward, the charging handle is on the right side. There that's all you should need to know, also here,” 813 flips down the foregrip and extends the stock a bit on Aiko’s gun for her.

“That should make it more comfortable for you to shoot. When you shoot at the Floodlings, wait for them to get close to others. When they get shot, they explode into a cloud of noxious gases, you can use this to start a chain reaction, but only if you time it right.”, Aiko nods, but is reeling from this flood of information.

[Ururu Kyuuei]

Aiko blinked slowly at the armored man. Was he really that isolated in his universe?
 
She shook herself and accepted the weapon in question with little fanfare. It felt like a composite material of sorts, alloys or maybe a ceramic, no- a polymer. The body itself was lighter than she was used too, again probably some sort of alloy or a titanium. If so this was an impressively expensive tool. Given the requirements needed to gather and forge the materials together to build such a thing.
 
Really the thing reminded her of the weight of some of the heavier swords she had wielded once upon a time. The mechanics were simple from first glance though there seemed to be a flaw in the design.
 
She traced the path that seemed to be accepted by the casing. Component sizes would be standardized with a basic threshold that they would be made to. Aiko could see it now. Even with her creator’s memories gone, the skills she had inherited in forging equipment for meticulous work that the gauntlets had required and other tools…  There.
 
With the base knowledge that had been imparted by the 813, and her own workings, she fell back into a basic kata stance. The shape of the SMG conformed immediately to her shoulder as the stock hit her flesh and she pulled back on the hammer and took a bead on the Camelot gate. The weapon was mostly well designed though it was far too big for her even with the adjustments made for her size.
 
It would do though.
 
Easing the hammer back down into the safety position and redoing the lock that kept the device from firing, it wasn’t long before the weapon was strapped to her belt where the sword from weeks ago had been. Lost weeks ago. The new weight felt reassuring there.
 
“Guns are a suppressed technology where I come from,” Aiko finally said in a dry monotone, as the man finished his own demonstration. “As for your… tentacle monster,” she snickered, “Exploding foes is an old hat for me. No different from the standard elemental clone techniques.”

[Small Knife]

813 nods and notices how the length of the stock is awkward for her size, he winces slightly and adjusts it. He slides it forward a few notches and then once satisfied, he nods.

“Okay good, but stay behind me. Watch my back, they’ll mostly come from the front, and watch out for the bigger ones, if any. They are tough to kill, but less deadly.”

<813, your energy shielding has been down since you got here. I would recommend turning it on>, Valkyrie chimes in.

“What? Val turn it on then”, 813 says, puzzled by the abnormal behavior of his shielding,

The holoprojectors on his armor come to life and Valkyrie ‘flashes’ in. Her construct of black and grey pixels forming to her normal avatar, a woman in a black flight suit and even darker feathered wings behind her back. Her avatar is actually one of the more detailed ones, with Cortana and an old A.I. designated as Deep Winter. She has a splash of freckles on her cheeks and her hair is slightly messy, looks similar to someone having helmet hair. This brings a happy memory laced with thorns to 813, for her visual representation echoes memorable characteristics of his late twin sister.

<Actually I would wait. After a scan of the shield generator, I found out that it has limited power. At first I thought this was a glitch so I didn't tell you till I realized that you didn't know that it wasn't on, sorry 813>,

“Damnit, well it's okay Val, just tell me as soon as something seems off next time.”, the Artificial Intelligence winks out and 813 sighs. He then looks at Aiko,

“Ready kid?”, she gives a nod. 813 breathes deeply and calmly, then steps through the gate, raising his gun, and preparing himself for whatever he might find.

To be continued in my Pale Moors thread, They’re Here