(If you would like to be added to the PM list, just ask.) The party followed Jane through her ship as she talked. Verbatim was constantly looking around with fear and disbelief in his eyes. Camnator was fixated on Jane's torso for some reason Vien could not guess. Vien recognized the interior of the ship with a pang of longing, he remembered being here many times. Jane would often "interrogate" him inside these walls, something she was VERY good at. "The Bane" Jane continued, "is the manifestation of chaos. A phenomenom that spreads disorder like a disease. As it spreads, the very laws of the universe around it cease to exist. Mass can be created from nothing, time can be stopped, energy can be destroyed. Everything you know about the physical world dies around the bane." She stopped at a holographic projector and began to type out commands as she spoke. "We knew very little about how the bane works, as did the forerunners. What we did know, was that the bane first needed a cultural template to begin it's invasion." A holographic menu bloomed over the projector and Jane began to scroll through it until she picked a video to play. "This was the first recorded instance of the bane. We unlocked a secured room on the first halo ring. What you will see is one of the Bane's "Spawn" latch onto one of the grunts, where it will then assimilate it's culture." Jane played the video and it showed a squad of grunts and it's sanghieli leader enter a room not unlike the one that held the flood, only there were masterious dish-shaped disks aimed at the center, where there was a floating orb of light. One of the grunts got excited by the light and got closer, ignoring it's leader's instructions to stay put. Suddenly the orb of light flew into the grunt and entered it's body. What happened next made the entire group watching the video gasp. The grunt's eyes turned a bright purple and it walked up to the sangheili that was yelling at it, and started to hump his leg. At the same time, the eyes of the grunts around the group also turned purple, and they began to furiously mate with eachother. The sanghieli tried to stop the grunts, he threw the one off his leg and barked an order, but to no avail. Suddenly the door opened and more purple-eyed grunts swarmed in and began to overwhelm the elite. They stripped off his armor and began to -blam!- him to death. Then they began to have massive orgies. Some grunts began to give immediate birth, a feat that should have been impossible. The newly spawned grunts already had armor and they began to grow to adult size within minutes."The unggoy culture has always been known for their rapid ability to repopulate. The bane used this as a template for it's manifestation." Jane said. She selected another video and went on. "But the manifestation did not only infect grunts, it infected elites, the kigyar, our engineers, the brutes and even the hunters. The hunters would immediately stop fighting and start rolling on the ground in ecstacy as all the worms in their bodies started.....mating with eachother. But it did not stop with organics. The bane also corrupted our machines. This video was taken from one of our external sensors." Jane started the video. It depicted a majestic covenant fleet of battlecruisers. But suddenly an explosion bloomed on one of the ships, and purple tentacles that looked like they were made of the same material as the ship grew from the explosion and wrapped themselves around one of the other ships. The corrupted cruiser began to thrust with it's turn into the other ship, impaling it with it's plasma cannon. More explosions took place and the other ship began to break in half. More orbs of light identical to the one that infected the grunt, but much larger in size came out of the corrupted ship and began to infect the other ships. Soon the entire fleet was a macabre character of ships having orgies. Vien was appalled, it made no sense. He did not remember anything like this, what was Jane up to? This must be some sort of trick he thought. But he never knew Jane to lie. "Our fleet was destroyed" she continued, "But we were not the only culture the bane infected. The humans, when they encountered the bane, were overrun by oversized fried chicken wings and watermelons with fangs." "The forerunners recognized that the bane needed a culture to thrive. So they constructed the rings to wipe out all cultures that existed, in hopes that the bane would 'starve'. They did this by exterminating all sentient life with one massive wave of energy. Then they sent out another wave that wiped out all memory, both digital and biological. Any organisms that may have survived the rings' first blast was wiped clean of any culture, just to ensure the bane's destruction." Jane said. "In our universe, we did not win against the bane, there were no happy endings like the one your bungie studios created. Humans, the covenant, all that remained of us banded together to fight the bane, but we were overwhelmed." She continued with a solemn tone to her voice. She selected another video "This is the last thing I recorded before I found myself waking in your world. Vien and I were part of the group that uncovered the forerunner artifact in Africa. Unlike the events depicted in your video games, we never figured out how to activate it. It activated itself when the bane attacked earth." The video played and the sounds of battle screamed out of the projection. The camera was from Jane's visor, but it was shaky. Vien saw himself help Jane off the ground. He shouted something to Jane, and she looked up. The sky was filled with tentacles, destruction rained down upon the earth in the form of giant disembodied breasts and soda products. Giant eyeballs began to open in the sky and the groun under Jane began to turn into chocolate. Suddenly blue orbs identical to the portal depicted in halo 3, but smaller in size began to materialize in the air around them. Elites and humans got sucked into them. Vien noticed he was holding something in his other arm, the artifact identical to the one he had when he was captured by the government. They raced for a large covenant ship that was still intact when a giant snarling chicken wing stepped in front of their path. Vien shouted "GO KIALA! I WILL HOLD HIM OFF!" a sword flashed to life and Vien fought the absurd monstrosity. Jane rushed for the ship, dodging the mysterious blue orbs that seemed to materialize all around her. She felt their pull as she passed. Jane pressed a button on her wrist and the door the the ship opened. She stepped inside and turned around and saw Vien running towards her, the dead steaming body of the chicken wing on the ground behind him, bleeding barbecue sauce. Just before Vien reached the ship, a huge blue orb materialized behind him, sucking him into it. Jane screamed and dove after Vien. The video cut off just as she entered it's event horizon. "We could not fight the bane. None of our weapons did any permenant damage. The best we could do was develope a device that froze them in place temporarily, but they always broke through the mute. I awoke sometime later in a cold bitter place. Vien was nowhere in sight. My ship had been sucked into one of those portals, the same one that took both Vien and I. I later learned that I had arrived in the land you call Antartica and Vien had appeared above what is now Area 51. I only found out he had made it after he escaped from that place. But he wasn't the same. I had assumed his weakened spirit and odd behavior was because he was defeated, the bane destroyed our world. Now it is here to start the process over again." Jane finished. The group was silent. Vien contemplated everything he had just heard. It made no sense he did not remember any of it...except for the part where he awoke above area 51. He remembered materializing and falling, and landed on a strange flying machine called a helicopter. He remembered being interrogated about what he was, where he came from. He had tried to explain the events that had occured. For years, he had provided the government with details of his culture, had helped them develop various technologies. Then he used the artifact to escape. But then another fog came over Vien's mind. He couldn't remember how he escaped, only that the artifact helped him escape. Suddenly the entire ship rumbled. An earthquake shook the ground underneath the group and a crashing sound came from outside. Jane immediately activated all the external sensors and displayed them on the hologram. Outside was a large cave, fitted with a bunch of machines and covenant computers. In the wall of a cave, there had opened a large hole in the wall, as if something had burst through it. "By the prophets," Vien uttered, "What has happened?" "I don't know," said Camnator, who was suddenly smiling. "But somehow, I know it's friendly. It's....calling us." (to be continued.)