After entering the VR, Natasha was greeted with the same white room she’d always found upon arrival. What was new and stood out, was that next to the previous Pokémon menu a second screen floated nearby.
As she walked towards the new addition, her surrounds slowly shifted and a low, awe-inspiring Gregorian chant could be heard echoing from all around.
Upon reaching the new menu, what stood beneath her feet was no longer a simple white floor, but the same planet that had appeared during the final moments of the first trailer released for Halo, floating amidst a sea of stars. Off in the distance, she could even see ships, space stations, and weapons platforms faintly shimmering in the sun.
It was nice to see what the planet had looked like before the invasion and the sight managed to bring an impressed grin to the super spy’s face, as she marveled at the view.
Sadly, Natasha wasn’t here for sightseeing and had a mission to complete. So without further ado, she forced her gaze back to the floating menu and inspected its contents.
———————————————
[Halo]
[Campaign]
[Multiplayer - Locked]
[Full Dive - Unavailable]
[Quit]
———————————————
Curious, Natasha tapped [Multiplayer] with her index finger and another message appeared.
—————————————————————
[Locked until completion of Campaign]
—————————————————————
‘Interesting,’ she mused to herself. While this info would normally warrant an inclusion into her report, she rightfully assumed that it had already been in countless others and so she wouldn’t bother. She already knew why [Full Dive] was marked as ‘Unavailable’, everyone did by now, so there was no point checking it out as well.
With her curiosity sated, she selected [Campaign] and another menu replaced the first.
———————————————
[Campaign]
[Co-Op - Locked]
[Halo: Reach]
[Halo: 1 - Locked]
[Halo: 2 - Locked]
[Halo: 3 - Locked]
[Halo: ODST - Locked]
[Back]
———————————————
Once again, she clicked on all the ‘Locked’ options and they all came back with similar messages.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
———————————————————————
[Locked until completion of solo Campaign]
———————————————————————
[Locked until completion of prior Campaign]
———————————————————————
Left with no other choice, Natasha selected [Halo: Reach] and a third menu replaced the second.
———————————————
[Halo: Reach]
[Mission - Winter Contingency]
[Skulls - Locked]
[Difficulty - Easy]
[Scoring - Off]
[Deploy]
[Back]
———————————————
Already, this game was proving to be far more intricate than the first and Natasha was itching to get into the action. She impatiently tapped the ‘Locked’ option and finally received a different answer from those before.
———————————————————————
[Locked until discovered within Campaign]
———————————————————————
That peaked the agent’s interest and earned the game a raised eyebrow. Natasha still had no idea what these ‘Skulls’ entailed, but she was now more than eager to find out.
Filing that bit of information away for later, she moved on and switched the [Scoring] from ‘Off’ to ‘On’, feeling like it couldn’t hurt after reading its description, then cranked up the [Difficulty] to ‘Legendary’. Right after doing so, she tapped [Mission] but the option was greyed out and unresponsive.
With nothing left to explore, Natasha finally selected [Deploy] and as she did so, the soft beep of a countdown timer began.
After playing three muted blips that would one day become synonymous with Halo across countless multiverses, the tone went flat and the background chanting died as the menu faded away.
Flashes of light caught Natasha’s eye and drew her gaze down towards the planet.
Gone was the blue and green orb of life. In its place laid a dying rock, encompassed by scattered raging flames and pillars of smoke that reached into the upper atmosphere.
Looking around, she could no longer find the ships, platforms, or stations that once indicated a thriving civilization. Instead, fields of scattered debris and broken bodies orbited the burning world.
A haunting instrumental began low in her ears as she found her self zooming in towards the lands below. The beating of drums and cymbals soon joined in as she gazed upon a mountain, split in two down the middle.
A cracked helmet, laid smoking atop the scorched earth, came into view as her line of sight panned further downwards.
As the instrumentals rose in tempo and increased in pitch, her view faded to white as the title screen appeared bearing one word; REACH.
And then, she blacked out.
•••••••••••
———————————————————————
[Temporary memory implantation successful.]
———————————————————————
[Note: All received memories are purely for the purpose of a smooth gaming experience and will not be retained after leaving VR. If you wish to bring the skills and knowledge gained from within any ASTIR title back to your home reality, seek out the true VR experience in Full Dive.]
———————————————————————
Natasha came to with a groan while cradling her skull between her hands. With her head down and eyes clenched shut, she read the system message in shock.
“Are you alright Ma’am?” came a voice from her left.
“I’ll be fine Soldier, just a little motion sickness is all,” she said reflexively, before pausing in shock and snapping her head to look at the man with widened eyes.
“Ma’am?” the soldier asked again while looking at her strangely. “You sure you’re ok? You dropped your headgear and it’s ‘bout to bounce out the Hog…”
On instinct, her leg reached out and scooped up the helmet with her boot at the warning. Suddenly, the previous message flashed once again within her mind and she relaxed back in her seat while dismissing the marine’s worries with a wave. Years of training, back in both the Red Room and SHIELD, had led her to being far more adaptable than the average person and so, she swiftly fell into her newest ‘role’.
While inspecting the helmet in her hands, Natasha went over the information that had apparently been seamlessly implanted within her mind.
She ran a gloved hand over the yellow VISR and knew in the back of her mind, that the helmet was called the Mark V[B] and paired with her MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor of the same generation. She flipped it around and placed it on her head with a natural grace that showed she’d done it a thousand times, inwardly marveling at the novelty of it all.
As the woman looked out the side of the vehicle she found herself in, a Warthog she now knew, Natasha found herself reviewing what she knew of her present circumstances.
The date was July 24th, 2552 with her HUD stating that the time was 07:28. She was currently on Reach, the UEG’s most heavily populated colony world, which was located within the Epsilon Eridani system, just over 10 light years from Earth.
Her name, no… her designation was SPARTAN-B312 and she had just been reassigned to a new crew, NOBLE Team if she remembered correctly, after years of counter-terrorism operations against insurgents. From what she remembered in the report about this assignment, this mission was likely to be in the same ballpark.
Though from what she remembered of the trailers, that assumption was highly likely to soon be proven false…