Stories from the Sigmaverse/Rebirth

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Pain. That was the first thing Jack felt. His eyes opened slowly. From what he could tell, he was being suspended in some kind of tank. Numerous wires were attached to his ruined form. Then it all came flooding back. Jack. That's my name. He had no surname, no family, nothing. Just a name and a number. Eighty-Five. It had meant something once, years ago.

The Rebellion. His fight.

The Array. His battle.

Marco. His failure.

Jack could recall every moment of the fight with perfect clarity. How they had fought on the rocky plains where his ship had crashed, blows and counter-blows traded in perfect sequence, the simultaneous, visor shattering punches that had staggered the two of them back. Meeting face to face.

It had been twenty five years since their last meeting. Jack had been much younger, but no less determined. No less filled with rage for his captors. Marco had been weak, foolish. His best friend had been brainwashed into staying, fighting for a lost cause. Somehow, Jack had always known that they would meet again.

Marco's face was scarred from decades of war. There was dark stubble under his chin and that same defiant look he had met Jack with all those years before, on Earth. His eyes, those piercing green eyes, stared unblinkingly at him, reflecting his foe.

Jack saw himself in those eyes. His face, contorted into an inhuman snarl of anger, his manic eyes staring straight back. For the first time in his life, despite all of his achievements, his kills and his conquests, Jack was afraid, not of his enemy, but of himself.

In those eyes, for that split second, he saw the monster he had become, the lunacy and the absolute destruction that he had wrought upon himself. He should have surrendered at that moment, made amends with his brothers and joined them, to fight as a Spartan for humanity, the future that had been created for him when he had been abducted as a child.

It was only a second. One moment of doubt in a lifetime of certainties.

Instead, he lunged forward, dived headfirst into the madness. They had fought on anyway, in silence. They had trained together, knew each others every strength and weakness. Jack was the cunning one, the perceptive one. Always had been. A quick glance showed him a weapon lying in the dirt beside the armoured, unconscious body of another former friend. Marco was stronger, both physically and mentally. The only chink in his psyche had been removed before Jack's 'departure'.

He had dived for the pistol, rolling before spinning round to level it. Marco was already there, and they were back to fists. That was when it hit him. He just didn't have it. No matter what he did, what move he played against his old friend, Marco would be stronger. He always had been. This angered Jack more than anything. A swift kick knocked Marco to the ground. He knew he wouldn't hit him, but aimed the weapon all the same.

Then, high above him, the last nine years of his life burst into flame. A cursory glance upwards told him that, and something broke inside him. Not for the first time in his life, Jack ran.

He had followed the falling fire for hours, to the rocky heights where it had crashed. No pursuit. Panic. Loss. Emotions flooded through him. He was confused, staggering about the twisted metal as more rained down around him. He had wept. Wept?! Aimlessly he wandered, until something gave way. It was not, thankfully, his sanity. What had once been a piece of titanium battleplate, weakened by the fall through the atmosphere and the subsequent impact, broke under the weight of his stolen MJOLNIR armour.

He fell.

Down.

Down.

Down.

Darkness. Everything was broken. Fire did little to illuminate the nothingness that surrounded him. Suddenly, he felt a strange feeling of separation. Looking down, another falling piece of metal had severed the lower part of his body, just above the legs. That hurt. He had screamed and screamed until the blissful blackness had taken him.

Ah, the pain. Which brought him back to his present moment, suspended motionless in a gel-filled tube, the only sounds being barely audible mechanical motors from his extremities as tiny pieces of metal were affixed to him. Where was he? Is this hell? he wondered.

"You live" A voice. No, a chorus of voices

Jack tried to open his mouth, but no sounds emerged. A heavy breathing device had been clamped over it. Who was that?

"We represent the first awakened of a kind beyond your knowing"

How had they known what he had thought? Unless... Where am I? What is happening to me?

"You are in our resting place, our tomb. We are repaying your favour for awakening us"

Awakening?

"You, creature, will become what you have always been destined to be. You will be our herald, our vanguard. You will know greater power than any of your kind, a God in walking form. You will serve in our pantheon as the voice of the Silence"

He didn't quite understand what the mysterious voices meant, but some things made sense to him. Namely the 'greater power' part. I accept. He thought about all those who had wronged him. He had spent his entire life being abused, abandoned, betrayed. No longer. He had nothing now, no connections to anything or anyone.

Nothing but his anger.

"We knew you would. Once you have been unleashed, none will stand against you. Do you have a name?"

Jack.

"Simple. Weak. Meaningless. You will serve us as Reave, when the time truly comes. As for now, your rebirth into a greater being is in progress"

Reave. That sounded nice. Jack smiled beneath his mask, ignoring the pain it caused. He would decide his own name, though. Already, a plan was forming in his mind. Genius. He would be the first of a new breed. Those who stood against him would be thrown down, be they Human or Covenant.

The voices were right. Once he had been remade, Jack would be a God among lesser creatures, perfect and ageless. Even the Spartans would pale in comparison when compared to him. All those who dared face him would face annihilation. And Marco? Well, he had all the time in the world to create the most exquisitely painful forms of demise for his former brother.

Somewhere in his mind, the tiny piece of regret and remorse, the fear and the vulnerability, his humanity, all those emotions that had been conjured up in that second of looking into those green eyes, were crushed.

In that chamber, deep beneath the scarred surface of Endrin, all that remained of Jack-085, the Spartan, died. Forever.