Date: June 7th, 2551

Location: High Charity

The remainder of the Purification’s Battlegroup approached the Covenant capital world of High Charity.

High Charity was a small, barren planet about the size of a moon, and after the formation of the Covenant, it became their capital. The planet underwent intense modifications. The entire lower half of the planet was carved out at replaced with an enormous city structure that towered downwards, giving the capital an almost mushroom-like appearance.

Technically, it was a planet, but it was more like a ship than anything.

The six heavy corvettes docked at several of High Charity’s many ports. As the crews unloaded and began conducting repairs on damaged sections, a group of Sangheili warriors disembarked one of the heavy corvettes and began making their way to the throne room, and one was carrying a small metal orb that glowed blue.

Hopefully unbeknownst to the Humans, they were there invading Reach for more reasons than just to glass their precious colony city. They were looking for something, and they found it: an ancient artifact.

The warriors didn’t know what it was, or why the Prophet himself had asked for it specifically, but they had their orders to acquire it, and carried it out with deadly efficiency.

The Spartans may have suspected something, but even the Demon himself couldn’t do anything about it now.

They boarded the elevator silently and went up to the throne room. The elevator was silent, and they wouldn’t be able to feel it move if it wasn’t for a faint rumbling in the floor.

The doors opened again to reveal a large throne room. The curved, purple walls went up thirty feet and gave it a dome-like shape. At the far side of the room was a sleek throne, painted a slightly lighter shade of purple, hovering only a foot or two off the ground.

A small, shriveled, old alien sat on the throne. He wore robes that almost resembled that of a priest and had a tiny crown on his head. He was the Prophet: The Covenant’s leader and religious head.

He had pale gray skin with decades of wrinkles spread across it. Standing up, he would be less than five feet tall, but he was so old he practically couldn’t. Thin white strands of hair dangled from his chin in a long goatee, and he had a neck like a turtle.

The Prophet rotated to face the Sangheili. His eyes widened with joy when he saw the one carrying the artifact.

“You found it!” He exclaimed in the alien language. His voice was low and gravelly with age. “Give it to me.”

The one carrying the artifact stepped forward and held it out. The Prophet hovered towards him and snatched it from the warrior’s large hand.

The Prophet studied it with intent, turning the sphere over and over in his tiny palms, perplexed by the blue glow.

The Sangheili stood there in silence, a bit confused. One in particular: the Sangheili Warrior Commander, stepped up and spoke. He wore armor similar to the others, but it was painted red and had a white stripe running down the middle of it.

“Prophet, I must ask: what is this artifact? Why did you need this so badly that we lost so many warriors to get this?”

The Prophet turned to face the Commander. He had a look on his face as if the warrior had just asked a stupid question with an obvious answer.

“This artifact?” He spoke. “It is the key to finding the secrets of the ancient world. It is the map to their most powerful weapons, and the thing to finally destroy the Humans once and for all.”

The Prophet kept fumbling with the artifact until he found a small, barely noticeable metal button. When he pressed it, the lights intensified. A large holographic projection illuminated the room.

It was clearly a star map. The Sangheili recognized many of the stars and the planets, represented by tiny blue dots. One dot stood out. It was blinking red.

The Commander looked up at the red dot and asked. “What is that?”

Everyone’s attention turned to the dot, including the Prophet’s.

“That is where our solution lies.” The Prophet replied.

The Commander went wide-eyed in amazement. It seemed almost unreal. “Finally.” He spoke. “The tool to end the war.”