A Hero's Sacrifice: a tale about Noble Six

Loss of Will

Agent: Rhode Island

Status: ROUGE

WARNING: ROUGE AGENT! HIGHLY DANGEROUS! APPROACH WITH CAUTION!

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She smiled. "Noble Six. I'm so glad I found you! We need your help!"

I scoffed. "I'm rouge, Cortana. Protocol dictates no AI contact with rouge personnel. You're trying to trick me, aren't you?"

"What? I'd never do that!"

I sighed. "You may be good at tricking covies, but you're not tricking me, Cortana. What do you want?"

She sighed. "What I want? I want you."

Suddenly, my body was engulfed in an eternal flame. I cried out in pain and fell to the floor, Xi rushing over. Before she could come close, I waved her away.

"Xi! Eject from your data core! Go! Find Freelancer! NOW!"

Xi looked at me, scared, but did as she was told. Running away, Xi left the base, allowing Cortana to take over my body.

"Good night, Six."

Cortana submerged my conscious, sending me into a dreamless sleep.

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Worry running through my code, I ran away from my assigned Agent.

Gotta get to the Saber. Gotta get to the Saber. Gotta get to the Saber!

Quickly, I entered the Saber and took off, rushing back to the Mother of Invention. Panicked, I ignored FILSS and instead landed without permission. As soon as the Saber touched down, I jumped into the closest Agent available.

"Agent! Rhode Island has been compromised by an AI that's stronger than me! Help!"

The Agent responded. "Get out of my head." It was Texas.

"Texas, please! Listen to me! Rhode is in danger!"

"He can handle himself."

"Not when an AI's sized his mind!"

Texas froze. "What?"

"An AI has control of Rhode! Everyone's in danger!"

Texas cursed. "Fine. But get out of my head!"

I sighed, then jumped to someone else. Their mind was pure confusion.

"Who's there?" I had jumped to Carolina.

"It's me, Xi. Something happened and Six had me run."

"What? Why?"

"An AI took over his mind and he knew it was too strong for me. He... He sacrificed himself to warn you."

Carolina sat down on a bench in the cafeteria. "Six... sacrificed himself."

Suddenly, the Master Chief was standing before us. "What are you talking about?"

I stood before him, head tilted all the way back to look at him. "Six is under the control of a rogue AI. He sacrificed himself to make sure I survived."

He crossed his arms. "Did you catch this AI's name?"

"Yes, I did. Its name was 'Cortana', or at least that's what Six called her."

Sierra-117's helmeted head drooped. "Cortana... She has control of a hyper-lethal Spartan. This won't end well."

I lowered my own head. "I know. Logging off."

I logged off, wishing to be alone. Instead of the quiet I wanted, bad memories of Noble Six echoed through my digital brain.

Just let me be!

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John-117's POV:

I walked away, a flurry of emotions churning in my gut. This isn't good. We have to end her, once and for all.

Dot spoke to me. "Spartan. I believe I have an answer. Amass all the AIs you can, then confront Six. While the two of you fight, we can sever Cortana's connection with him and destroy her, once and for all."

I nodded, then opened a channel to the team. "Amass all the AIs you can. We're going after Six."

Locke answered. "Copy that. You sure this'll work?"

"It's the only way, Locke. The only way."

Walking up to Lasky, I got to work.

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Sorry for the skips! I just really want to get on with some action!

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With twenty AIs per pair of boots, we got ready for an all-out assault on the rogue Spartan. priming my MA5D, we got ready for the fight we may not come back from.

I stood beside the deploy button, looking the task force before me well. Fred, Linda, and Kelly were with me, as was Osiris. There were several Freelancers on board, specifically Carolina and Texas.

Laskey broke my thoughts. "All troops, deploy!"

"Alpha Team! The light is green!" I slammed my fist into the button and watched as the team jumped out.

I jumped after them and we plummeted to Reach's half-scorched surface. We landed with a loud thud and began to sprint towards his last known location.

Hang in there, brother. We're coming to the rescue.

Semi-short chapter, but I'm going to end it here. The next chapter will be a fight for the century!

See y'all later!