Project Ares

Epilogue

Coruscant - Jedi Temple

Following the massive explosion all across the sector, Blue Team were the first to dive into the rubble in search of the leader, comrade, and brother. But unfortunately, not even the legendary Master Chief could survive that explosion. After carefully excavating his remains from the rubble, John was taken onboard the Pillar Of Autumn and transported back to Coruscant where he was allegedly born all those centuries ago.

Blue Team knew that he would have wanted a massive ceremony or statues erected in his image, so they had their own little funeral for their fallen brother within the deep confines of the Autumn. But even dead Chief was still a massive pain in the ass, his heavy armour couldn't be removed so Blue Team had to struggle to lift all 450kg of him into a torpedo before saying their final goodbyes. If you'd ever ask them if there were tears shed, they would all deny it, but secretly each and every single one of them mourned the loss of their comrade.

And it wasn't just Blue Team at the final ceremony, all the remaining Jedi Council members were present along with Ahsoka, Aayla, Rex, Cody, Thorn, Wolffe, Bly, Admiral Yularen and even Commander Fox after he had his inhibitor chip removed. Padme and the twins were there as well along with Senator Chuchi and the Bad Batch.

All of these people had been directly affected by Master Chief in the time that he was with the GAR and everyone had come to pay their respects to him for it. But in honour of 117's legacy, his face remained covered, the only people that had seen the man behind the visor being the ones he personally elected to show himself. Because of his military service, he was given military honours with Fordo leading the rifle party that was made up of the last four Alpha-class ARC troopers.

After the 21-gun salute, Chief's torpedo was fired from the Autumn as it burned brightly among the stars. In the blast, 117 had successfully managed to erase all traces of spartans from galactic records. As far as anyone outside the GAR knew, spartans never existed. The only thing that could serve as a reminded was Master Chief's helmet which was kept within the Pillar Of Autumn for a duration before it got transferred to the Jedi Temple where it remained deep inside the Jedi Vaults.

Time skip

It had been 6 months since the events on Daro and the Republic was almost fully recovered from the Imperial Regime that Palpatine had tried to instill on the galaxy. Of course there were still scars for everybody, some more than others, but at least the Temple was rebuilt and the Jedi Order was well on its way to replenish its numbers.

Anakin was awarded the rank of Master fairly quickly after Daro, even with some of the Council members' reservations. Windu actually got along with Skywalker fairly well all things considered, allegedly Padme had a very thorough chat with him while onboard the Spirit of Fire, but that was all just a rumour... right?

The Council had also retracted its policy on relationships and attachments, especially after the newly promoted Master Skywalker explained to them the freedom that love can bring and the benefits of a healthy and balanced relationship. And to everyone's surprise, Shaak Ti and ARC trooper Fives soon got engaged and had organized a wedding where everyone was invited,

With Echo as the best-man followed by Rex, Jesse, Hardcase, and Kix, with the medic grinning eagerly as Shaak had told him before the wedding to sedate Hardcase if he got too jumpy. To which Kix was more than happy to say yes to, so unbeknownst to the whole congregation; while the ceremony was taking place, Kix was subtly stroking a syringe in his pocket, just hoping that Hardcase would try something.

On the other side of the altar was Aayla Secura as the maid-of-honour, followed by Ahsoka, Padme, Chuchi and Omega. Before the wedding, Shaak had the stereotypical bride-meltdown with Padme and Chuchi attempting to calm her down while Ahsoka snuck off to talk with her new boyfriend, Captain Rex. Apparently Fives was having the same meltdown over in his room but instead of helping him out, the boys were taking the piss out of him.

Officiating the wedding was non-other than Obi-wan Kenobi, who had served closely with both of them during the war and was a generally respected Jedi Master and friend to both of them. It seemed only right that he was the one to wed the pair in the halls of the newly reconstructed Jedi Temple. In the crowd, all the Jedi wore their standard robes with the exception of Anakin, Mace and Plo. They wanted to really show their support for the new couple and had gone to some very painful lengths (totally not forced by Ahsoka) to get their tuxedos tailored for them over on Alderaan.

The clones made up a bulk of the crowd, most wore their standard GAR formal attire but some had gone out to get suits. Like Blue Team and some other members of the 501st. But the part that stood out was the front row. On the left-hand side sat Anakin followed by Luke and Leia before Blue Team took up the rest of the row. All the chairs were neat oak chairs shipped in from Kashyyk with fine crafted decals along the legs and support beams.

But at the far end of the front row, next to Thermos, was a vacant chair was an engraved number and a green helmet resting on the seat. To a random on-looker it bore the resemblance of a heavy combat helmet long since forgotten and discarded, with a giant crack across the orange/golden visor and the dark green paint flaking off the corners. But above the helmet was a name engraved on the back-rest with a quote.

"117; Never forget but always fight on." followed by another quote; "Spartans never die."

A/N: And that's it!!! Project Ares finally draws to a close. I had soooo much fun writing this fanfic but unfortunately I'm going to refrain from these long stories for a bit while I focus on finishing school. I'll still upload shorts like on my Star Wars shorts or something new that I'm working on called "What makes a warrior" which features a bunch of short stories of warriors from different universes like Halo ODSTs or Imperial Guardsmen from Warhammer 40K. But yeah, that's it.
- Naboo Prince signing off for now ;)

P.S That quote from Chief was from the 'Shattered' chapter if anyone was confused with the reference.