AaronMiranda669
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- Parts 117
Cryo frost still clung to his armor when the hiss of the pod seals broke the silence. SPARTAN V-097 "Tharos"-a Gen V prototype thought lost to classified black files-opened his eyes to the towering silhouette of Master Chief. No words, just the weight of a choice. In Chief's gauntleted hands lay Tharos' legacy: the crimson VK78 Tactical Rifle, the chrome-and-black Z-180 Close Combat Rifle slung for reckoning, dual steel M6D Magnums holstered like oathblades, and the hidden plasma knives sheathed beneath his forearms.
Then came the final gift-an AI seed, its core pulsing with a new, untested intelligence: Cortona (Gen V). A voice not yet burdened by war, but forged for it.
The corridors erupted in gunfire. UNSC Marines, Spartan-IIIs, Spartan-Vs, and ODSTs surged to cut them down-brothers-in-arms turned executioners. Side by side, Chief and Tharos carved a path through the steel labyrinth, their weapons speaking in unison, each step a defiance of the orders that condemned them.
They reached the hangar under a rain of tracer fire, boarding a stolen craft as alarms howled. The stars opened before them-then tore apart. A wormhole bloomed like a wound in space, dragging them into its light.
When the distortion spat them out, the sky was burning. Below, a human colony-Eden Prime-was under siege. Geth dropships descended like steel locusts, and at their head, a specter of another war: Saren Arterius. Two Spartans from another universe had arrived at the exact moment the Mass Effect galaxy's fate began to unravel.
And Tharos, ember-born, was about to write himself into a new war's myth.