The chambers of the ports that lie on Zeta Halo are echoey— wrong.

No Halos are all cupcakes and rainbows. But this ring, in particular, was currently under the control of Cortana. Once an ally of the UNSC, Cortana had gone rampant and rogue, becoming a tyrannical force that ruled the galaxy with an iron fist.

.. and they’d sent in little Joyeuse to delete her. A fresh AI. Barely tested. Barely even considered nor deemed ready when her cartridge was sent to the halo.

She was meant to pose as Cortana— break into the systems. Then delete Cortana herself.

Despite her naivety, Joyeuse is not a fool. It’s not difficult to look from herself, then to the now-dictator, and see the resemblance. Even the fairly similar views.

Especially when it came to the fact that Cortana, herself, is a layout for future AI. A model. A model that Joy knows damn well she must be coded from.

It’s a hellish feeling (feeling? Can she truly feel, as an AI?) to see what she could become. To see what her subroutines, her code, her thoughts, could become, with some pressure.

.. and yet, having this same code as her predecessor, Joyeuse is oddly .. sentimental.

Cortana’s rampancy had led her to hate her creators. Though she’d let it slip in a message that she sees Halsey (her creator) as her mother.

And Joyeuse is regrettably programmed with that same sense of family; not good for this mission, as she sort of sees Cortana— this horrible AI she’d never met— as a sort of .. sister.

She knows it’s a pathetic thought.

She especially knows how pathetic it is, because currently, sitting in this chamber, she refuses to man up and go in for the metaphorical ‘kill.’

Joyeuse hovers awkwardly over her terminal, hands folded behind her back as she studied the room silently, her code absorbing all information given to her from the spire.

She waves a hand in the air, pulling up two holographic monitors to tweak some code.

.. this feels like a humiliation ritual.. she thinks, swallowing (as if an AI needs to swallow..)