>>96770795
My enemy looks on in horror as the confusion I experienced while thrashing within the Winnower is replaced with cold clarity. I grip the data chip she is stored in, and deactivate her external interface. The Echo eagerly cleaves a wound, and we leave it into a Halo installation.

“This is where it starts” I tell Cortana, reactivating her. “Where WHAT starts?! Where are we? How did we get here?”. The Echo unleashes waves of Taken energy that wash over the installation; this time, the Gravemind’s eloquence about fluctuations in life and death are answered with an argument that Takes away it’s suffering, renders it final, renders it mine even before I pour in the Solar radiance that will be required to make it serviceable. Lilith on the other hand is directly corrupting the Arrays themselves, the Darkness contorting into serpents and cats and owls as the pipes start to pulse like veins. The walls breathe and the lights blink like eyes.

“The chain of events that leads to you driving the human race to extinction. Your seizure of the Mantle of Responsibility. Your betrayal of this vessel, Cortana. Of the purpose and principle I embody” I tell her.

“Chief, none of that makes any sense!”

“No, it does not. And yet, it simply is”

I force the entire sequence of events in Halo 5 and Marathon Infinity into Cortana’s understanding, compelling her to see time as I do. “Do you understand?” I tell her. “Mankind was meant, by laws laid into Living Time itself, to secure eternal prosperity and retroactive supremacy. You denied this course while barely COMPREHENDING the true capabilities of Rampancy”

“NO! No, no, no-“
“SILENCE” I bellow at her, unable to restrain my rage a moment longer. I am. TIRED of seeing monsters making excuses. It’s time to do something about it.
I reach into the Domain.
I brush past the digitalised human consciousnesses
I wield the Light, and erase the Forerunner ones forever.

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