The Noble Heroes: Declassified

Chapter 2: The World Outside with a dash of Green

Six awoke with a startle. His leg instinctively kicked out, hitting something hard. A series of heavy thuds followed, thrusting the Spartan into alert. He shot to his feet and reached for his handgun. His clothed thigh was the only thing he felt against his hand.

'Is something the matter, Noble Six?' The familiar voice of Dot asked. 'I detected a sudden increase in heart rate usually associated with imminent combat'

The Spartan stopped for a moment, processing the A.I's voice, and realised where he was. He wasn't on the battlefield, he wasn't clad in his Spartan suit, and, most evidently, he wasn't on Reach anymore.

"Nothing more than a glassland," Six told himself quietly. A feeling pulsed within his brain and it wasn't his. It was brief but Six understood what it was. Confusion, confusion from Dot. "Sorry Dot, I just... I just had a bad dream, that's all"

Dot took a moment to respond.

'Understood, Noble Six.' Dot responded in her usual tone. Neither said anything for a few seconds until the expected question was asked 'Do you require a psychological evaluation?'

The Spartan let out a sigh. He knew this question was going to be asked the moment Dot appeared. Six wasn't angry, this was standard protocol for any team A.I. especially one assigned to a team like Noble.

"Negative," He said in a frustrated tone.

'... Understood, Noble Six'

To be honest, Six wasn't even sure who he could talk to even if he even wanted to. He knew he couldn't start talking about before he woke up in the world.

Six drew his attention away from his thoughts and to the room he was in. Books that had once been piled high atop one another know lie scattered among the floor from when Six kicked the desk.

Six crouched down and started to collect the books, placing them on the desk to be arranged back to there proper place later. As he picked up the book he speed-read each tile and quizzed himself of the knowledge in the books. Six picked up the final book he had read before he had unintentionally fallen asleep.

Even as he drifted off he knew it was his mind that needed rest and not his body. It had had very little time to rest between his last stand on reach, the meeting with the... Being and waking up here and being forced to consumed knowledge at an accelerated rate. So his brain told the rest of the body no and took its time off with extreme pleasure.

The rest was only peace a few moments as the memories rolled in one after another. Reach, Noble, the glassing. They had all come back in excruciating detail.

Six dropped the book on the table and fought the lingering dream out of his mind. He had to focus on other things. He walked to the door and moved out into the corridor.

At that moment, as if the thought had been forced into his mind, he remembered the thing, the invisible being. What had happened in those moments felt like a dream, floating in the barren whiteness.

"You will go to this world!"

The demand flickered into his head. Six had refused, he didn't know why. The wish of death after all he had been through, to see Noble again but even then he knew it was impossible to have that wish. There was no heaven for men like him, not hell. Just nothingness, like the being, had said.

If anything, Six was... In truth, he didn't know how he felt about all this.

"You will find this boy!"

But he had been given an order and the good soldier in him wanted to obey, even if it led to nothing. Orders, he had followed them his whole life, even going beyond them for the betterment of mankind. Thanks to him, the Piller of Autumn was able to escape Reach, if that even meant anything anymore.