User:The Black Phoenix

Introduction
As flood infect beings they steal the intelligence of the being. Sharing it between each other and ultimately with the puppet master 'Gravemind'. However one Infection Form gained something else, the ability to think on its own. If controlled directly by Gravemind this is another case, but on its own it can overcome instincts and more intelligent decisions to produce self preservation.

Release, Infestation, Enlightenment
Upon the station above the gas planet Threshold the flood were studied, and upon the heretics moving into the station they were released. One Infection Form found its way to a Sanghelli completely off guard, it quickly infected the alien and began mutating the Sanghelli and devouring its intelligence. However its long starvation had caused it to lose much of its deadliness and the Sanghelli was not consumed, still able to force its body to follow its own orders. Slowly the Infection Form recovered its strength and began devouring the Sanghelli's remaining independence. As a Combat Form it blindly charged the Arbiter as he tried to slaughter his way to the Heretic leader. Luckily it survived though his body was now useless. It left, but it was different then before, it was more independent from the Flood though still a Flood and out for food. Finding more beings to infect it attacked with its Flood brethren, however he did it more cunningly and was more prone to self preservation. The instant a Sanghelli's shield went down it had its new host body and also more intelligence to gather. Through the knowledge of the host it learned the location of a certain hanger containing his chance to escape. It rushed and found its way to the hanger where a Phantom flew away and it found the corpse of the Heretic Leader, it wasted no time in getting inside the fighter and escaping the facility as it plunged into the gas giant.

Battle of Installation 05
Upon leaving the installation the Infection Form in its host body flew straight to the remains of Installation 04. With its destruction it had no where he could go and no way out of the system. However it soon noticed the massive covenant fleet and the great planetoid 'High Charity' which it quickly began recalling from the memories he stole from his two hosts so far. The ships were preparing to leave from what it could tell, getting near the fleet he saw many of the ships began emitting the glowing field that he recalled from the stolen memories as 'slipspace travel'. Flying near one such ship it crashed into the ships hull, the shields were down, and it was yanked into slipspace along for the ride. The transition almost ripped the fighter apart but it had jammed far enough into the hull to survive the travel. It arrived above Installation 05 with the rest of the covenant fleet, but with no way to get down to the ring. However with another stroke of luck this was fixed, as engineers went to the outside of the ship to fix the small damage done to the hull they also fixed his Seraph starfighter, and had to remove it in order to fix the hull. As it lay drifting it sped off towards the ring with no Covenant being the wiser. Sooner or later it found the Library and crash landed near it and abandoned its host body in order to avoid becoming a Carrier Form. Eventually it got into the Library itself and found Humans and Covenant both in huge battles with sentinels and his brethren. He soon collected more hosts but abandoned each of them in turn as soon as their intelligence and memories were his. It adopted the name 'Fallenmind' as he grew in sentience and independence.

Covenant Civil War
Upon the break out of the Covenant Civil War 'Fallenmind' was on the In Amber Clad as it crashed into high charity. While the many flood were on High Charity he infected one of the remaining councilors, lucky that the councilor’s shield had previously been knocked out by a nearby plasma grenade that 'Fallenmind' was narrowly able to notice and escape. Using the Elite's knowledge of High Charity he went to docked Phantoms and watched bemusedly as a swarm of his flood brethren attacked and eventually killed the Prophet of Mercy. When the Master Chief began his path of slaughter through Covenant and Flood alike he hid then when the chief had passed went to a remaining phantom followed by many of his brethren. Flying from High Charity they boarded a Reverence-class Cruiser floating in space infesting it and forming a Brain Form in the control center. As the fleets fought the flood controlled ship hid outside the battle, trying again to board more ships with drop ships and slowly taking more covenant ships. Eventually the forerunner ship left and the covenant abandoned High Charity to the swarm. Currently 'Fallenmind' has moved on from the councilor body in order to avoid becoming a carrier, now waiting for his chance at more food.

Capabilities
Fallenmind has absorbed many hosts and knows how to operate all machinery very well. Weapons are no problem for it and it's rather good with an energy sword due to its infection of a councilor elite. Normally flood Infection Forms won't leave a body unless it's not longer usable, like if their arms were lobbed off, however Fallenmind switches to steal as much intelligence as he can and to avoid becoming a carrier form.