Secrets

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Several hours later, I opened my eyes to the faint orange lights on the walls and ceiling. The metal hammock I lay in was anything but comfortable. I didn't know how I managed to fall asleep on it. The Cryptum was silent, and it made me wonder if the Didact had left it, or he was deeper within it.

His words still haunted me, and just looking at him made me afraid but also enchanted. I walked towards the door and when it opened there was no sign of any Prometheans or the Didact. The Cryptum felt deserted. Just before I went to sleep, I remembered we were heading up high, and that could only guess we were leaving Requiem.

The Didact's voice suddenly rang through the halls. "Ah, soon it begins. There is Mantle's Approach. Soon we shall merge with it and leave Requiem, until then human go wherever you wish."

I didn't feel so much like a prisoner on his Cryptum anymore given the fact he was letting me go anywhere. Mantle's Approach must have been a Forerunner ship. I decided to go exploring until then.

The Cryptum had no windows and no exits as far as I knew, but escape was not my plan. I wanted to learn more about the Didact. I began looking for him, there were so many unanswered questions I had for him, but he didn't seem like the conversational type. I wandered down the wide halls containing small pyramid shaped pillars; small enough for me to stand on. It was like this Cryptum was a combination of ancient and futuristic at the same time.

On the walls were more of those dog-things I encountered earlier inside that structure in the jungle, and there were more of them than usual. No hard feelings, I wanted to say to them since I had killed one of them before. Crawlers were what the Didact called them, but I liked the Knights better.

I climbed on one of the metal pillars and watched them run across the walls. They made rather strange noises, like mechanical growling. One of the Crawlers came up onto the pillar beside me and settled. It wasn't carrying a gun this time that made me feel relieved; I reached down to touch the creature and to my surprise it didn't move as I stroked the top of its head.

"You'd make a good pet." I said but it scampered away to join its friends. I sighed and climbed down from the pillar.

I wandered into another room down into the lower levels of the Cryptum. The place was darker down here this time, fewer lights, and fewer Prometheans wandering about. The Knights were on the higher levels, Crawlers in the middle but down here it was too quiet. I shouldn't be here. I thought.

The room had a few lights, but this time it was arranged differently. The room was dimly lit and hemispheric; I saw that the lines of orange merged on the walls, ceiling, and floor towards what was at the far side of the room. On the far side of the room was a large rectangular terminal, it looked nothing like the one I found in that structure. It had a large screen with a single button below it.

A small creature with two orange rings on each side was floating around the large terminal. I walked closer to it, hesitating a little. The ringed creature flew over my head making a strange sound and left me; the door closed behind me. I looked at the terminal and had a feeling that there was something on here that the Didact didn't want me to see.

I looked around the room to make sure no one was there. All was quiet. The neon lights illuminated the dark room, and I felt at peace. Then I placed my hand on the button. The screen lit up, and suddenly a voice echoed through the room.

"This is the Didact's personal logs of past life. Access is open. Do you wish to continue?" I was astonished. That ringed creature must have been using this terminal earlier, and forgot to lock it; why wasn't access to this information restricted? I thought, unless the Didact wanted me to view it.

"Uh....continue to where?" I asked, and the voice spoke again.

"To the beginning of the Didact's life, do you wish to start from there?"

I was too curious to back down, this terminal held the history of the Didact; the story I was dying to hear.

"Yes, I wish to start from the beginning." I responded.

Then the terminal's screen changed and an image of a human-like figure that looked like the Didact standing in the chamber. But instead of his close to horrifying appearance he was wearing different armor with a cape, blue hair on the back of his head instead of brown, and he had no fangs on his lips. Those were the most noticeable features I saw. It was the Didact, but he looked different, which made me unsure if that was him, but if it was, he certainly looked handsome. Then the voice began to speak words in a story.

Born Shadow-of-Sundered-Star, the Didact was a Promethean, a member of the highest and most powerful class of Warrior-Servant in Forerunner ranks. The Didact went through training with Bitterness-of-the-Vanquished, a legendary Promethean that was far older than the Didact himself. Early on in his career, the Confirmer provided him a brevet mutation to a new form. He gained the name "Didact" while teaching at the College of Strategic Defense of the Mantle; his students gave him the name because they found him to be a strict and demanding teacher.

My heart became curious; Shadow-of-Sundered-Star, so that, was his real name. Forerunners have such interesting names. Forerunners had ranks, and it seemed that he was one of the most high-ranked ones out there.

He was a teacher? The Didact didn't seem to be the type of Forerunner that would look suitable for a job like that. Then the image on the terminal changed to an image of the Didact meeting another Forerunner. This one was female, she wore a blue dress with a strange shaped headdress, her face looked quite young, and she appeared to be hovering above the ground.

The Didact was elevated to the rank of a protector of the ecumene around 2,000 years before the war with the humans. He had a romantic relationship with another Promethean commander, known as Endurance-of-Will and would most likely have married her had he not met the Librarian, a Lifeworker. Despite the unconventional practice of marrying outside one's rate, the Didact ended up marrying the Librarian. They lived on Nomdagro, a world mainly populated by Warrior-Servants, in a mansion designed by the Didact himself in a grandiose style traditional of Warrior-Servants. They had several children, who followed in their father's footsteps and became Warrior-Servants.

My mouth fell open upon hearing this. I had no idea that Forerunners had affairs, nor did I know that they married. I already knew who the Librarian was; she was the Lifeshaper who watched over humanity and believed that we would once hold the Mantle of Responsibility. I suddenly remembered the Didact mentioning to me earlier about the Mantle, but I didn't know yet what it was, some kind of belief the Forerunners had and held, that was all I knew.

The Librarian's real name was First-Light-Weaves-Living-Song; I had also learned this through a bit of research, but I didn't know what she looked like until the terminal showed me. That female Forerunner was definitely her.

It sounded kind of crazy that the Didact and the Librarian had got married eons ago. Humanity's secret protector married to the toughest leader in Forerunner military and humanity's worst enemy. Those two probably had nothing in common so how will that marriage even last? I bet they had more clashes than tender moments. I thought as I pressed the button on the terminal again. This time I saw two images. One was of a large Forerunner ship annihilating humans on the battlefield, while the other was of three Forerunners standing around a round table, as if having a debate.

The Forerunners went to war with the early humans and the Didact lead the Forerunners against their enemy. His flagship was called Mantle's Approach. His strategies in the battle eventually gained the Forerunners the upper hand in the war, but as humans were being pushed back: Many worlds human and Forerunner fell to infestations of the Flood. This event soon led to some of the Didact's forces fallen to the parasite as well, but eventually the Didact, and the rest of the Forerunners under his command sterilized them. The Didact's children were all killed, but the Forerunners were victorious, the encounter with the Flood, however, left the Didact with a strong desire to eliminate the parasite permanently. He proposed that shield-worlds be built to protect from Flood outbreaks and presented this before the Master Builder but lost this diplomatic battle when the Master Builder declared that superweapons would be used to deal with the Flood instead. The Didact went into exile into a Cryptum on Earth where he began meditative hibernation.

I paused again and looked around the dimly lit room to make sure no one had come in to interrupt what I was learning. I still feared that any minute, I would hear the Didact's voice ring through the room that he knew what I was doing: learning his secrets and his past life. So he battled humans long before my time, but in my heart I thought that shield-worlds were better than superweapons to destroy the Flood.

I had already knew that the Halo rings, were weapons that destroyed what Flood feasted upon instead of them, so why would those super weapons that Master Builder proposed be any different? The image on the terminal then changed to the Didact connecting himself to another Forerunner.

Years later, the Didact was awakened from his Cryptum by a Forerunner named Bornstellar-Makes-Eternal-Lasting. From there he set course for the system known as Charum Hakkor; the last known place that the Human/Forerunner war ensued. The Halos, which were revealed to be the superweapons that the Master Builder came up with; one of them was tested recently. The Didact imprinted his consciousness into Bornstellar to access the Domain. He then traveled to the San 'Shyuum homeworld in hopes of building his shield world but was captured by the Master Builder's forces. The Didact was spared and left in stasis in a derelict Forerunner ship in Flood territory.

I wiped my eyes to hold back the tears upon hearing the last sentence. If the Didact won that battle of having shield worlds instead of Halos, the Halo incident would have never occurred. But hearing him being stranded on a derelict ship to be consumed by the Flood, left me breathless.

I suddenly began to sense something in my heart; I felt as if the Didact was not as evil as he really was. Maybe he still has a good side in him. No species would have to die to starve the Flood to death if he stopped the creation of Halo.

I continued on, and the terminal's screen now showed the Didact kneeling on the ground naked with a Promethean beside him, but this Promethean next to him was not like the ones I had seen. I looked at the Didact on the screen. He was looking up at something in front of him, and when I saw his face, I noticed that he was now in the form that I had seen him in.

The Didact eventually awakened up from stasis and escaped the derelict ship. It is unknown how much time has passed. Unfortunately, he was still convinced that the Flood were to be put to an end, and developed a new strategy to stop the parasite's onslaught. First, the Didact's original plan was discovered by the Gravemind, and he manipulated the Didact that it would no longer work. But it was not to be defeat yet. The Didact did an experimental procedure on himself to perhaps gain immunity to the parasite, but this experiment changed his physical appearance from handsome to horrifying as Warrior-Servants once were. The Didact acquired the Composer: A Forerunner weapon used to give convert Forerunners to more digital forms of war machines, making them immune to the Flood.

Digital war machines; so that's what those Crawlers, Watchers, and Knights were. By now I could not tear away from what I was learning. So I continued to an image of the Didact in his vicious form fully armored surrounded by Promethean Knights, he was talking to a hologram of the Librarian.

The Didact began using the Composer on all of his Promethean warriors but did not subject himself to the Composer's effects himself. Soon it was not long before his acts gained the attention of the Librarian as his army grew. Realizing that his converted Prometheans were not enough, the Didact still had his previous enemy the humans. He traveled on Mantle's Approach and used this weapon on an entire human colony on Omega Halo to make them into his war machines. The Librarian was shocked and heartbroken to learn of this, and planned to put a stop to her husband's madness, for she was the human's protector and would never side with him.

Marital issues are coming up. I thought, but at the same time I was shocked to learn that the Didact had converted an entire human colony into these digital monsters he had been creating from other Prometheans. That was evil to the core, but inside I knew that he could not be all evil.

I still looked back at the diplomatic situation earlier before his exile, and believed that what he wanted was better for the sake of the Forerunners, something safer. That very moment made start to doubt even less that he had a good side in him. I changed the terminal's screen one last time to see an image of the Didact's Cryptum now inside Requiem's core.

The Didact was shortly confronted by the Librarian on board Mantle's Approach where she wounded him, and imprisoned him in his Cryptum deep within Requiem's core. She then gained control of his digital Prometheans ensuring that they would keep him safe and allow no one to release him. The Librarian later died on Earth, and the Didact remained in his Cryptum until such time that he would wake again. The Librarian died hoping that her husband would return to what he once was before.

The terminal's voice ended there and the screen went black. I had become so engrossed that I was lost in my thoughts. The Didact had quite a history and marital issues. I knew those two wouldn't have a good marriage. I thought, now assuming they were officially divorced, when the Librarian imprisoned her husband and died on Earth.

I gazed at the blank screen for a moment and thought to myself. The Didact would never have started converting us and his kind into war machines if his first plan to combat the Flood got approved of by the Master Builder. Am I the only one who thought that was a good idea? It made him seem like he was not an evil one; the Master Builder was to blame for this. He built the Halos and triggered the war my kind had with the Covenant upon their beliefs of what the rings would do. When in reality the rings killed all sentient beings to starve the Flood instead of killing the Flood themselves. The Didact could have saved us. Now for sure, deep inside my heart I could sense that there was good in him.

At that very moment, I felt a hand clasp on my shoulder. It was not gentle, and I quickly turned around, the Didact stood before me.

"You are learning such things you should not know human; anyone who fears me so does not wish to learn about me. But you let your curious heart take over your fears." He said unpleasantly.

I gulped; this was it, the moment of punishment, he would either crush me with his bare hands or throw me out of the Cryptum.

"I didn't mean to, you said I could go wherever I want. You never told me this place is forbidden to everyone except you so I....."

But my words were choked off when he spoke, "Do as you desire human, your interest in my kind and myself impresses me. You know about me now, why I hate humans and everything else you thought you would never learn," He interrupted, and I felt relieved.

"You're not mad?"

The Didact looked into my eyes. "No human, you are my prisoner, and I want you to know what I am. As do I, must know about you; there is no more I can tell you about myself, as you were."

I took a few steps toward him as he turned away. "Wait! I still have questions!" I called, and then he turned around.

"Come then." He said, and then I followed him out of the room.


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