Chapter Text
The twin suns of Urs and Fied hung heavy over the red deserts of Sanghelios, casting long, sharp shadows across the training grounds of the Vadam Keep. The Kaidon stood upon a raised dais of polished obsidian, his gold and platinum armor catching the light with a brilliance that forced his subordinates to squint. A heavy purple cloak, embroidered with the glyphs of his lineage, billowed softly in the hot wind.
Below him, thirty warriors in various stages of training moved in rhythmic synchronicity, their energy staves humming with a low, predatory buzz. One warrior, however, moved out of step. Young ‘Lodamee was a blur of aggression, his strikes coming too fast, his footwork favoring the lunge over the stance. With a sharp click of his mandibles, the Kaidon signaled for a halt.
The Kaidon descended the stairs, his heavy greaves clanking against the stone. He stopped before ‘Lodamee, who stood panting, his four-jawed mouth slightly agape in a display of youthful exertion.
‘'You fight as if the enemy were a single grain of sand.’ The Kaidon said, his voice a deep resonance that commanded immediate silence.
‘‘But what we face is the desert itself. You seek honour through individual glory, yet honour is found in the cohesion of the phalanx. Unity is the breath of the Great Journey. If one lung fails, the body dies.’
The pupil straightened, his armour clashing as he stood to attention.
‘‘My blade is sharp, Kaidon. Why should I slow my strike for those who cannot keep pace?’
‘‘Because a lone blade is easily snapped.’ The Kaidon replied, placing a large, four-fingered hand on the youth’s shoulder. ‘We serve the Will of the Prophets and the memory of the Forerunners. They did not ascend through the strength of one, but through the divine alignment of all. Remember this, ‘Lodamee, or you will find yourself an Ultra in rank only, with no brothers to lead.’
The Kaidon looked toward the horizon, where the distant, shimmering towers of the holy reliquaries reached for the clouds. He felt a deep, abiding peace in the structure of their lives. The Forerunners had left a map to godhood, and the Sangheili were the chosen navigators. Every prayer, every training session, was a step toward that ultimate transcendence.
*Meanwhile...*
Miles away, nestled in a valley where the soil was more forgiving, an elderly farmer named Hanu spat into the dust. He wiped a bead of purple-tinged sweat from his brow and turned his gaze toward a small shack where a group of Unggoy were supposed to be sorting the harvest of Irukan tubers. ‘Glib! You lazy, gas-sucking whelp!’ Hanu roared. ‘The methane tanks are full, yet the crates are empty! Get your stubby hands moving before I trade you to the mines of Suba!’
A high-pitched squeal erupted from the shack as a small, hunched Unggoy scrambled out, fumbling with his breathing mask.
Apologies, Noble Excellence! The suns were so warm, and the gas was so sweet...’ Glib’s excuse was cut short by a sound that Sanghelios had not heard in a millennium.
It was not the roar of a ship or the crack of thunder. It was the sound of the sky tearing.
*Back in the training area*
High above the Vadam Keep, the blue expanse of the atmosphere rippled like water under a stone. A shimmering violet aperture manifested, a jagged wound in reality that bled white light and static. The Kaidon’s hand flew to the hilt of his energy sword, his eyes fixed on the phenomenon. At the Keep, a massive hum vibrated through the ground as the ancient Forerunner-derived energy shields flared into life, a translucent dome of amber protecting the ancestral home from the sudden shower of debris that tumbled from the rift. Massive shards of blackened metal and frozen ice rained down, incinerated upon contact with the Keep’s defenses. But the lowlands had no such protection.
*Back in the lowlands*
Hanu watched in horror as the sky filled with fire. Multiple objects, glowing white-hot from atmospheric friction, streaked toward his fields. Take cover! Hanu bellowed, diving into a reinforced irrigation trench and dragging the terrified Glib with him. The impact was deafening. The earth bucked and groaned as several small meteors slammed into the Irukan crops, sending plumes of red dust and steam hundreds of feet into the air. When the silence finally returned, broken only by the crackle of burning vegetation, Hanu crawled out of the trench. His life’s work was a landscape of craters. He stalked toward the largest impact site, his heart heavy with fury, but stopped at the rim.
In the center of the smoking pit sat a vessel. It was small, no larger than an escape pod, but its design was alien to anything in the Covenant arsenal. It was sleek, silver, and bore a strange S-shaped crest on its side.
As Hanu watched, the pressurized seal hissed open, venting a cloud of frigid white vapor. He drew a serrated hunting knife, signaling Glib to stay back.
As the mist cleared, Hanu’s anger evaporated, replaced by a profound, chilling confusion. Laying within the padded interior of the craft was not a weapon or a monster, but a small, pink-skinned creature with a tuft of golden hair. The infant opened her eyes, clear and blue as the Sanghelian sky, and reached out toward the weathered warrior.
Hanu looked from the child to the closing rift in the heavens, realizing that the Great Journey had just taken a very strange detour.
*Back with the Kaidon...*
The violet scar in the atmosphere began to fade, leaving behind a sky the color of a bruised plum. Within the shimmering perimeter of the Vadam Keep, the ancient energy shields hummed a low, reassuring song of stability, but beyond the translucent amber dome, the world was in chaos. The Kaidon did not wait for his ministers to debate the omen. He descended from the obsidian dais, his purple cloak snapping in the wind like the wings of a predatory bird. He gestured to ‘Lodamee and a small detachment of armored Ultras.
'We go to the lowlands.’ The Kaidon commanded, his voice cutting through the panic of the lower-ranking guards. 'The heavens have spat upon our soil. We must see if it is a curse or a trial.’
He found Hanu standing at the edge of a massive crater, his weathered face a mask of weary defiance. The farmer leaned on a shovel as if it were a spear, his simple brown tunics stained with the purple ash of his destroyed livelihood.
‘Kaidon.’ Hanu said, bowing his head slightly, though his cynical eyes remained fixed on the center of the pit. ‘My harvest is gone, and the soil is poisoned with the breath of stars. But that is not the worst of it.’ The Kaidon looked down. In the center of the smoking wreckage sat the silver pod, its surface shimmering with a liquid-like luster that defied the jagged geometry of Covenant craft. Glib, the small Unggoy worker, was crouched beside it, his methane tank hissing rhythmically. In his stubby, three-fingered arms, he cradled a bundle of white fabric.
'Put that down, Glib!’ Hanu barked, though there was no real venom in his voice, only fear. ‘The creature might be a parasite. The Kaidon slid down the embankment, ‘Lodamee following close behind with his hand resting on the hilt of his energy sword. The young warrior’s mandibles were clamped tight, his eyes darting between the alien craft and the bundle in the Unggoy’s arms. Glib looked up, trembling. ‘Noble Excellence, it...’
It made a sound. Like a pup, but softer. ‘It is not a monster. It is a hatchling of the stars.’ The Kaidon reached out, his large, four-fingered hand gently pulling back the heavy cloth. He froze. Looking back at him was a creature of startling fragility. Its skin was the color of polished quartz, smooth and devoid of scales or chitin. A tuft of golden hair, fine as the silk of a desert spider, clung to its forehead. The child’s eyes were a piercing, crystalline blue, wider and more expressive than any Sangheili’s. It did not hiss or snap; it simply watched the golden-clad giant with a quiet, terrifying intelligence.
‘It is a demon!’ ‘Lodamee hissed, his thumb clicking the activation stud of his blade.
‘A hairless, soft-skinned mockery of the divine form! We should purge it and the craft before the Prophets learn we allowed such filth to touch the holy soil of Sanghelios.’
‘Be silent, ‘Lodamee.’ The Kaidon warned, his voice a low rumble of thunder.
''Look at the craft. It does not bear the markings of the heretic, nor the geometry of our enemies. This is something else.’ As if responding to the Kaidon’s voice, the silver pod vibrated. A soft, melodic chime echoed through the crater, and a pillar of flickering blue light erupted from the vessel’s core.
Hanu scrambled back, and the Ultras raised their plasma rifles, but the Kaidon stood his ground. Within the light, a figure coalesced—a woman, taller than a human but shorter than a Sangheili, dressed in robes of shimmering azure. She spoke, her voice a cascade of vowels and soft consonants that carried no meaning to the gathered warriors, yet the sorrow in her tone was universal. Her image flickered, her hands reaching out as if to touch the child Glib held, before the hologram dissolved into a series of rotating symbols—an intricate ‘S’ held within a diamond shield. ‘It is a message we cannot read.’ Hanu muttered, wiping sweat from his brow.
‘A dying breath from a dead world.’
The Kaidon looked from the sky to the child. He felt the weight of his ancestors watching him. The Covenant preached unity under the Great Journey, a singular path toward transcendence, yet his own heart told him that unity was not found in the destruction of the unknown, but in the protection of the vulnerable.
‘If we bring this to the High Council now, they will vivisect her in the name of piety.’ The Kaidon said, his decision hardening like cooling magma. ‘Lodamee, you spoke of the strength of the phalanx. True strength is found in the wisdom to know what to defend. We take the craft and the child to the Keep. We will study this ‘Star-Child’ in secret.’
Lodamee’s eyes burned with a mixture of confusion and suppressed rage.
‘To hide such a thing is a transgression against the Prophets, Kaidon. My father taught me that we are the guardians of the gods’ secrets, not the jailers of their mysteries.’
Then consider this a secret of the Vadam lineage.’ The Kaidon replied, stepping closer to the youth until their chest plates nearly touched.
‘If you wish to be an Ultra, you must learn that a leader’s first duty is to the truth of his own eyes, not the whispers of the San’Shyuum. Do you stand with your Keep, or do you stand alone?’ The young warrior hesitated, his gaze falling to the infant who was now reaching out to tug on Glib’s breathing mask. The sight was so absurd, so profoundly non-threatening, that the tension in ‘Lodamee’s shoulders finally broke.
‘I stand with the Keep, Kaidon.’
Hanu, I will compensate you for your fields tenfold. But you and your workers must speak of this to no one. If the Ministry of Fervent Intercession hears of this, they will burn this valley to glass to ensure no “heresy” survives.’ Hanu spat into the dust, though his expression softened as he looked at the Kaidon. ‘I’m a farmer, Excellence. I know how to keep a seed buried until it’s ready to grow. Just make sure you know what kind of fruit this one will bear.’
A heavy lifter was summoned, and the silver pod was hoisted into the air, draped in heavy tarps to obscure its alien silhouette.
Glib refused to relinquish the child, and the Kaidon allowed it, sensing a strange bond forming between the lowly Unggoy and the celestial castaway. As the skiffs rose and began the journey back to the Vadam Keep, the Kaidon watched the infant fall into a deep, peaceful sleep. He did not know where she had come from, or what the ‘S’ on her ship signified, but as the twin suns of Sanghelios began to set, he felt a shift in the wind. The Great Journey was a path of stars, and one of them had just fallen into his hands.
*Intro:*
(justice league:Doom opening slowed and reverberated)
In an infinite black void, two bright lines are seen Heading in two different directions . One ascending, burning a violent red, the other descending, being a bright blue beacon against the indifferent dark. As they fall/raise, the lines spilt and divide into other colours. Other possibilities and worlds. Followed by the view focusing closer on the blue streak. Revealing a shadowed small ship from a doomed world with the letter “S” coloured in red decorated on its front. Before the view expands, the void now turned into an infinite maze. Showing imagines of beings, creature’s and heroes dividing into reimagined, alternative and parallel versions of themselves. Before the imagines show more diverse, fantastic and bizarre sights. One where a blue hedgehog is trying to out run several robots, another where a red tattooed and white ash covered man is battling the gods themselves and another where a boy with a blue tattooed head is riding his flying bison. Travelling with his friends to reclaim his destiny and another where a young man in a blue and yellow costume is facing a gaunleted enforcer, despite the odds and another where a blue police phone box is forever travelling through space and time. The view then focuses on several different mostly shadowed figures. A caped teenage girl, with an “S” placed on her chest. Similar to the ship, but now silver and within a purple diamond shaped crest. A taller female figure. With a mahawk hairstyle, a red glowing cyclonian “V” shaped gaze and a red exploding star symbol placed on her chest.A larger and muscular male shape. It’s sharpe teeth visble, along with large white eyes and white spider symbol covering its chest and abdomen. A hooded male figure, his back turned showing a glowing red winged emblem on his jacket. Another female-shape, hooded and with large white eyes. A tall menacing male figure with bat-ears And another female with white hair holding a brain. Before the finale image shows a feminine shape wearing red sunglasses and possessing a twisted tooth grin. Followed by the view focusing once more on the blue line that ends on a shadowed world. The ship crash landing near a non-human figure with a hunched head and purple cloak. Nursing a white blanket wrapped bundle. While a large ring structure and space ships of either curved or rectangular in shape are seen in the sky. Before the scene focuses on the red line. Leading to a crack that shatters. Showing the figure with the “V” shaped visor Leading an army of robot like shapes with singler blue eyestalks and flying saucers invading other worlds. That take on a similar red background shade as their champions get corrupted. Becoming part of the visor masked figures ever growing empire, as she stands overlooking the conquest of the robots as they march in perfect union. Before a finale shadow obscured image shows the caped heroine leading a group of several other figures to battle the robot-like shapes. While the last daughter of kryptoton battles the corrupted Annihilator. The ever eternal clash between power and justice, light and dark, good and evil about to enter a new and very different form...