//------------------------------// // Bonus Chapter I: The Vision // Story: My Little Halo: Survival is Magic // by Dusk Writer //------------------------------// John opened his dirt-encrusted eyes, and after a brief moment of pause, quickly sat up. He looked down at his hands, realizing he was not in his normal armor, and only in a set of civilian clothing. Ignoring his own temporary discomfort, he stood and analyzed his environment. As far as he could see, it was nothing but an endless desert made of white sands. The wind picked up tenfold and the sand began cutting into his skin. Raising a hand to shield his eyes from the miniature missiles, he pressed on further into the endless wasteland. He continued to walk for about another ten minutes, trekking over sand dunes, sliding down them, and still shielding his eyes. As he came to the crest of another dune, he spotted a figure in the distance on top of another dune in the distance. Figuring it was probably another lost human, he found the wind shift directly into his face, almost as though it did not want him to meet this figure. Still ignoring the stinging grains, he pushed on, his journey not made easy by the blowing sands. He finally came within ten feet of the figure, who he could now see was wearing some type of tattered, old cloak. He attempted to see past the hood, but to no avail. After a moment’s hesitation, this new figure trudged past John, further into the desolate landscape. John reached out to place a hand on its shoulder, “Identify yourself.” However, his hand came short by a few inches thanks to a particularly strong gust of wind. Any further attempts at communicating with it were in vain. So, he decided to just follow this figure and see where they were going. There were many times when John almost lost sight of the mysterious figure, barely catching its footprints before they faded. By the time John caught up with the figure, which just kept walking and ignoring him, his clothes were in tatters. Eventually, the figure finally stopped at the top of a particularly rocky dune and looked out upon the desert. As John looked at it, all he could describe as was flat. After another ten miles or so, odd rock formations made strange, arching rocks. Suddenly, John felt what could be described as a familiar energy in the air; Forerunner energy. Looking around, he raised his fists, ready for a fight. The figure simply stood there, watching quietly as the black rocks around them began to float into the air. John could feel the energy building around him, and as he waited for it to activate and destroy both him and the figure, it just stopped. The rocks around them collapsed to the ground, almost as though they had never moved. A deep rumbling and shaking in the ground brought John’s attention to the sand field in front of them. As he watched, the entire center of the field appeared to collapse in on itself, raising a dust storm that could smother a city. In the center of the collapsed area, he watched something begin rise up out of the dust. The cloak of dust made it appear enormous. It began to shed its sand armor, allowing John to see orange “eyes” within the shroud. The figure watched, almost as though it expected this, and raised a hand to shield its own eyes. As the shadow the object cast enveloped John and the figure, most of the sand had fallen off, revealing angled, metal structures, very similar to the Forerunners’ style of architecture. It now almost appeared to make a type of winged staff, like a giant caduceus. The metal forming the “staff” of the object began to spread apart, revealing more orange lights along its length. Movement from the cloaked figure drew John’s attention to it, seeing it reaching with a hand into its dusty, brown cloak. As John watched, a rather familiar gauntleted hand pulled out what seemed to be dog tags. John walked up behind it and looked into the Mjolnir-wearing figure’s hand, to see Cortana’s broken data chip strung on a chain. Hearing more movement from the Forerunner object, John looked quickly back up to it. The metal pieces that had broken off of the “staff” were now spreading out to its sides, much like how a bird spreads its wings in preparation for flight, just in slow motion. As the wings reached their fully outspread position, a wave of energy burst forth from it, forcing John to take a step back and the figure’s hood to blow back. John looked on in shock, as he recognized his own damaged Mjolnir armor with a cracked visor. John watched as his other self closed his fist around the data chip in conviction, slowly raising his head to face the Forerunner “bird”, which UNSC records had described as a possible Forerunner “War Sphinx”. Suddenly, the entire landscape just blows away like the sand from earlier as John’s consciousness raced towards a pinpoint of light. “John! Wake up!” He slowly sat up from the hospital bed, which he had been placed into after collapsing next to the Composer. Looking to his right, he saw Cortana, who had been shaking his shoulder in an attempt to wake him up. She sighed in relief as he looked at her with his ever-stoic expression. “I sensed a magical residue within your brain. Anything you would care to share as to what happened in your dreams?” Recalling the memories, he gave her a slow account of what had happened, watching as her face became more curious by the second. When he finally finished his tale, she held up a hoof, telling him to wait. She trotted out of the hospital room, presumably towards the library. After several minutes of waiting, she came back. “John, I cross-referenced several books with the type of magic I felt around your cerebral cortex, and then looked into some of the books on prophecies of dreams.” She sighed a bit before giving a small smile, “Gonne have to get used to having lungs.” Finally able to deliver the news, she told him, “John, I believe you saw a vision of the future.”