When Destiny Burns, Ep. 1: A Halo and Inheritance Cycle Crossover

Chapter 12. 3 I choose to hate pt. 2

The next day, something interesting happened rather early in the morning. They had just left for the final hill when she spotted something from above. It looked like a dragon had crashed there; there was a black trail that indicated that something had skidded across the ground and there was something white stuck in the dirt. Trees had been blown to pieces, rocks were scattered everywhere and her rider told her that he was picking up a signal.

'What is it?' She asked him.

He didn't reply. It seemed as if he was growing more reclusive and isolated with every passing hour.

"Caution," Arya told Eragon and even held an arm in front of his animal when it didn't want to stop. "Ellesméra holds dangers to non-elves. This might be one of them.

Maine being Maine completely ignored her warning and marched past her. She didn't hold out an arm to stop him.

The soldier walked to the edge of the crash-site and investigated the strange object that was hidden within. Before she could warn him, he pulled out an object roughly as large as he was. It was completely white, shaped like square and decorated with a blue gem.

"What is it, Spartan?" Orik asked him and approached with a drawn axe.

"This is UNSC gear," he explained.

"From your people?" Eragon replied. "I thought that you were the only one?"

"There were a dozen others upon arrival," Maine told them. "They died upon arrival."

Orik offered his condolences and Eragon muttered that he was sorry to hear that. The Spartan didn't really look like he cared about their deaths though, as she felt no grief or regret from him. She felt curiosity from him and –as he pressed the blue gem in a certain way- annoyance at the thing's contents.

A white cylinder was propped away inside of the container. It had several round edges to it and as her rider touched it, a skeletal arm extended from it. Immediately she readied herself from trouble, but Maine merely touched another button and folded the thing up again.

'Your people? If they died, how did they leave this?' She asked him.

'They must have dumped it when they flew overhead,' he replied. 'It is likely they crashed somewhere close-by.'

'What is it?'

'This,' he explained with the mental equivalent of a sigh, 'Is an Experimental Field Strip-Unit., or EFSU.'

'What does it do? Can you use it as a weapon?'

'No,' he replied. 'It is used to strip my MJOLNIR and make field repairs should it be necessary.'

The soldier made it sound as if the...Effsuw...had deeply insulted him. As if the thought of something capable of making him naked disgusted him greatly.

It amused her. And it amused her even more when she saw that despite his feelings of disapproval, he still took it with him.

'There is a chance that my suit gets damaged, or that I am wounded beyond normal recovery.' Maine felt the need to justify his actions to her, it appeared. 'Should that happen, this thing will function as six engineers and remove my suit.

'How likely are you to take your armour off?'

'Not.'

She did not approve of that remark, but she respected his need to be with his suit. The deeper she tried to understand him, the more she came to think that something had greatly shaped Maine in the negative. His suit was one of the things that brought him comfort, as it hid his face and with that, everything that made him human.