Chapter 0 - Aproaching doom

The night was late. The celestial vault had a bluish color that made darkness at night almost non-existent. The stars shone in the sky, indifferent, cut only by the other side of the ring she was in.
 
The caves, on the other hand, were governed by the darkness that the rest of the Halo could provide. In them, hidden in a shattered Marine camp, lay a surviving Spartan. Maybe the last of her kind.
 
Kathelyn slept peacefully deep within the cave. Her damaged armor did not have the same rest, being in alert mode in case of detecting signs of life nearby. Next to her was a Banished Ravager, no battery. There was a loaded Sidekick on her left thigh: she had 5 rounds left in the last magazine. She had lost the combat knife in some Brute's neck and her backpack of ammo had been lost with Alan and the rest of her Fireteam.
 
Kitty squirmed as she slept, lost in her dreams ... nightmares she had daily about her squad falling. The defeat of the UNSC and the Banished regime.
 
The attack on Infinity. Kitty had been assigned to land on the ring and take the Cartographer from the forces of the Created. She and her fireteam, Purple Team, had exited infinity before the enemy attack. She accomplished her mission, at first, but as the Escape Pods began to land the length and width of the ring the Banished Phantoms began to approach as well.
 
Kitty and her team attempted to establish communication with the only other team of Spartans in the ring to attempt to organize an organized resistance. They did not reply.
 
It didn't take long for the damned Brutes to locate the Cartographer and force their way in. Few lived to the assault. Kitty was one of the few survivors, but she was separated from everyone else and since then she does not know that she was from her Spartans. She was her leader, one of the brightest Spartan IVs, and she failed them.
 
Kitty woke up. She had been like this for a month, surviving and killing Banished without a goal in mind. She sleeping just a few hours at night, if she even tried, and moving between enemy lines. It was easier to kill than to dream, remember.
 
She got up from her rustic camp and went into the caves. There were corps of Marines all around, killed with plasma and the iron blades of the brutes. Kitty felt sorry for her comrades seeing so many dead; they were dozens. The Banished had suffered casualties as well, mostly Grunts, but it was three Human corpses for every enemy corpse.
 
—Excuse me —the distraught Kitty whispered before starting to go through the corpses, looking for weapons, ammunition. Everything that was useful.
 
Kitty was no stranger to death, she had trained to be a special assassin for the UNSC after all, but the sight of so many dead Marines, people with whom she may have shared a meal, affected her. She had turned into a Spartan to avoid things like this.
 
Kitty found an S7 Sniper Rifle with two whole magazines, a miracle at this point. Once she loaded the gun and she had packed the extra magazines for her Sidekick, she got up and walked away to the entrance of the cave. It would be dawn soon and Kitty had to move.
 
0-0-0-0-0-0
 
The human left the cave as the sun entered in the rock. Gib-Kab watched her as she backed away from her, seeing the sway of her hips as she climbed up the main mouth. For the first time all night Gib-Kab realized that the Demon's armor was not black, but purple.
 
The Jackal had entered the cave in search of riches, leaving the Banished camp at the entrance in the hands of the leading elite. She had been hiding all night waiting for the damn Demon to leave her, to let her live.
 
-The hand- whispers the Jackal. A demon lived in the shadows, a demon still lived. The purple spartan had to be put down if the victory of the Banished was to be secured and Gib-Kab will make sure the Demon is to be searched.
 
Meanwhile, Kitty was moving away towards the north mountain. She didn't feel the shadow on her back. The shadow of a hand.