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Chapter Text

Earth. 2556. On the Mantle's Approach.

A hail of Assault Rifle fire struck the advanced hardlight shielding of a resurgent Ur-Didact. The Forerunner raised his hand to greet Spartan-117, the Master Chief as, above them, the UNSC home fleet poured hellfire down onto the Mantle's Approach's shields. The scarlet energy emanating from the Composer shook the ship, the beam from the Forerunner weapon falling down onto a part of the Earth that Chief didn't know. Gritting his teeth, the Spartan wanted to push through the powerful, focused gravity field that the Didact sent at him, to keep him pinned onto the hardlight bridge, but little could he do.

He watched as the black hulls of UNSC ships flew overhead, with artillery pouring down onto the shields, but to no avail. No shot could pierce the nigh-invisible barrier that protected the massive Forerunner ship. Their only hope now was that the chief utilized the HAVOK nuke he'd brought with him to destroy the ship... Stop the Composer from destroying anymore cities. John felt himself hoisted up as the field the bastard created pushed him over the edge as he held one of his long-winded, annoying speeches... He listened little, eyes focused on the Havok that now lay on the ground.

He heard Cortana's voice... "Then you won't mind if we return the favor!" as her Clones emerged from the hardlight bridge, forming holographic shackles for the Didact, one of which wrested his control over the Chief. Grabbing onto the ledge of the Bridge, he climbed... Climbed... And took out a Forerunner Field Grenade... He watched as the Didact tried to fight, then slammed the bomb into the bastard's chest.

With an explosion knocking the Didact off before he could utilize that damned gravity field, Cortana let go of him... The Didact fell into the Composer's Abyss, a swirling whirlwind of energy and darkness... Not to be seen by the Chief again. This left the Havok. Chief crawled. He crawled toward the WMD with all the strength left in his upper body. Grabbing onto the device, he looked up... The UNSC Navy fought, still. Cannon fire, MAC rounds, Missiles, all disappeared, sent off by the unseen walls. He took one last look at Earth... Then looked at the bomb and slammed the detonator without hesitating...

A white light overtook him. The flash from the explosion, even though his visor was polarized to the max, was blinding. He inhaled, but felt no burning. He tried to move, but he felt held in place. He couldn't look around, his armor had locked. With a grunt, he wanted to speak, but failed to do so. The Spartan relaxed. Perhaps this was how it was just after death. Complete paralysis. Just nothingness... He closed his eyes... And darkness came...

Then, a voice...

"... n! ... ohn!"

It was faint. But familiar.

"John! John!"

She was calling out. Cortana?

"JOHN! WAKE UP!" She then yelled, this time loud and clear. The Spartan gasped for air and gripped tightly onto something hard. Opening his eyes, he saw space spinning all around him. Glimmering white dots surrounded him in a sea of inky blackness and he felt his joints mobile again, so he moved them, feeling what he gripped locked to his boots. He looked down at what he was settled upon and found a piece of Forerunner alloys, inscribed with all sorts of symbols and torn from the Mantle's Approach. The nuke did that. Radiation pinged off the singed metal like it did back during the Kurt event.

"Cortana, I'm up. Give me a status report." Chief asked as calmly as he could, returning to his stoic military demeanor... Something was off, he felt. He shut that feeling in the back of his mind, then looked at the Armor status. The MJOLNIR set was holding off Cherenkov Radiation, resembling more and more the event where Kurt went MIA. He breathed in, to steady himself, then fired his armor's Thrusters to steady himself on a calm trajectory.

"Thank God..." He heard Cortana breathe out in relief. "John, you woke up just in time."

"Where are we?" He asked, looking around.

Cortana nodded, then said "Above a planet, John, just not Earth. Our current course has us crashing directly onto its surface." bringing up a 2D map showing their descent through to the planet's surface. Ahead of them, a debris field. Asteroids. And half a moon... The Chief would ask a load of questions about this, but for now, they needed to survive the Crash Landing.

"We're going through a debris field. Can you adjust?" John asked.

Cortana hummed, then said "A moment." then flashed a few calculations in a corner of the Spartan's HUD. She hummed again, then said "Got it. Mind if I drive for a bit? I'll lock down your armor, so you won't feel a thing as we go through." as she set up a map on John's HUD. The descent map with the added course corrections. John sighed, then nodded. He hated Armor Lock, but would live with it for now if it meant surviving another fall from outer space.

He watched as the debris appeared ahead of him and felt the jerk of Thrusters firing as Cortana made course adjustments, whilst also keeping hold of the piece of debris they needed for re-entry. This felt oh-so-eerily familiar. The last tour of duty on Earth started much the same way, with him falling out of space. Except this time he went through some strange version of Slipstream, as far as he could tell. Only Slipstream gave off this much Cherenkov Radiation.

A dodge to the left, a veer to the right, a sudden spin to avoid a really big chunk of rock and that was the debris field. Whatever held those rocks in place, they were tidally locked to the Broken Moon in the sky. He huffed when he felt a sudden deceleration, as the forward thrusters were fired. He watched as the sun of the solar system appeared from the horizon and the continent they were gonna land on materialized from the darkness. Grassy fields, plateaus and mountains. John also saw faint lights somewhere on the planet's surface.

"ETA until we start burning?" John asked... His visor automatically polarized as the fire overtook the plate below him, flaring his shields as the Spartan and his makeshift heat shield entered the atmosphere. John sighed, then said "Nevermind." as he heard a sly giggle from Cortana. He watched as dawn hit the unknown planet below him and heard a ping in his Radio.

"We just passed in contact with a Radio wave of some sort. It was powerful, so the antenna transmitting it is close." Cortana said, trying to pinpoint it "Found it... We're landing in the middle of a compound, Chief. Brace yourself. I'm detecting automated defenses currently active within it." She then warned while making the adjustments for landing.

"This is gonna be interesting... Might I suggest clenching your teeth?" Cortana noted rather jovially as the Spartan saw the quickly-approaching ground lit up in an orange hue. He sighed, then gritted his teeth and felt the armor harden further. A sudden deceleration and a nauseating feeling of an almost instant, not to mention harsh impact with the ground, sent Chief tumbling away from his makeshift heat shield. He heard thunder crack as he smacked through what felt like two trees, then felt himself grind to a sudden, slightly painful halt as his shields almost instantly burst and the warning alarm blared in his helmet.

He tasted a coppery liquid in his mouth as the armor lock was soon gone, freeing him to move. He lay there for a few seconds, trying to get his bearings. He opened his eyes and let out a breath he had been holding onto for long enough and felt pain in the right side of his chest. Exhaling, painfully, he then spoke "Cortana, give me a damage report."

"The armor's a little scratched." She said dismissively, then turned to a more serious tone "You, on the other hand, are lucky... As usual..." John heard her add under her breath, but with relief to her voice. "You've got the right rib number 10 broken and it just missed your right lung by inches. Armor lock helped soften the blow, but you can't really protect that well against almost ten thousand PSI of impact force. Add to that that we lost the makeshift heat shield after slamming into the dirt and, well, you can tell the results. Does it hurt?"

John managed to stand up without much fuss, answering Cortana's question mutely. He sighed, then asked "Cortana?"

"Yeah?" She asked, a slight bit worried.

"Do you actually believe in God?" He then asked mockingly as he patted off the dirt, dust and wood chips that had embedded themselves into his armor. His shields flashed, then reactivated, covering him once again in the invisible blanket of Hardlight energy. He swallowed the blood and bit back a grunt, stowing the pain away as he started walking. The sun lazily rose ahead of him, due East, lighting up a strange, conical antenna a few hundred feet away from him. It lay on a reinforced concrete tower and John now saw what he had slammed so hard against. Walls made of similar concrete mounted anti-air and anti-infantry turrets resembling of Gatling and Auto-Cannons. He watched as the weapons snapped to and fro, aimed at only the outside of the wall. Dozens of them lined up the wall surrounding the compound, laser scanners active, sweeping outside.

"It was spur of the moment." Cortana answered him in amusement "We made a pretty nasty crack in the wall behind us. The turrets are busy with other things, it seems. None of'em bothered to shoot at us... Then again, it's probably because of our reentry speed and direct trajectory, but someone within this compound must've noticed us." She then added, rebooting John's HUD. His visor flashed, lit up cyan and then showed all information necessary once more, including the Motion Tracker, which showed only him.

"If they did, they aren't in a hurry to send anyone after us." John commented dryly as he started walking toward the Antenna. Cortana hummed in agreement.

"John. The Antenna doesn't only work as a Radio source... As far as I can tell anyways. I've examined its patterns now. Television, a planetary Intranet full of info... Et Cetera. Could be helpful if you got me into the system." Cortana explained to the Spartan. He agreed. They needed intel and damn well lots of it. This place didn't feel like any Colony or Insurgent World he knew of. Not this advanced to have everything outsourced through one Antenna.

He saw a console at the base of the antenna and moved for it. The closer he got, the more details he could make out, including its seeming operating system. A holographic console with several screens and a port for chips that, as luck would have it, fit Cortana's chip. She chirped in "Yank me." to which the Spartan removed the chip from his helmet, then locked it into the console. He swiveled about and drew his M6 Magnum(Which was still somehow attached to his hip) and aimed it around. He heard Cortana calmly hum as she looked through the Data...

Then he heard her say "Well... This is interesting. Chief, yank me and let's get out of here. Looks like I tripped a little failsafe protocol that may or may not have us walking out to a fight. There's a rather massive settlement close by you can... I was going to say 'blend into', but considering you're wearing a MJOLNIR set..." She sighed "Just follow the NAV Point."

They walked out of the compound, with Chief's eyes locking onto one of the gun turrets sat by the walls, scanning for targets. It trained on him and his armor's warnings blared, so he prepared to sprint out of there under threat of fire, but then it turned away, satisfied with the quick scan. He hummed, then asked "Any idea what that was about?"

"... I'm gonna say they're probably not searching for us. At least not to kill." The AI responded more slowly than usual. John reminded himself that she was parsing through the data they got out of the system. He continued forward, into a rather large Forest dead ahead, following the waypoint. He was stuck with only a side-arm for the time being, so he had to avoid combat as much as possible. He wasn't sure what kind of contacts he'd meet on this planet, if they were UNSC or not, or if he was gonna run head-first into the Storm Covenant's troops again.

"Cortana." Chief started, keeping his head on a swivel in the forest. His HUD flashed

"Hmm?" She vocalized.

Pushing aside a branch and stepping forward through the bush, he asked "Is this place one of our colonies?"

"Not that I can tell. The antenna wasn't using UNSC frequencies. Not even UEG civilian frequencies, for that matter." She responded, "So, watch out. There's still two of us in here."

He hummed, pushing deeper into the forest, toward the NAV Point. The Spartan walked for half an hour, before winding up by the side of small houses and rows of corn and other crops, lined neatly in fields. Bugs chittered, animals made their characteristic noises and farmers worked their fields while children played outside. Farther in the distance, past the many crop fields, the tall buildings of a city could be seen, with air traffic and vehicles alike pouring up and down a raised highway. The next NAV Point was centered roughly on the city itself. He eyed massive, floating fortresses up above, all lined up with guns and shaped like arrows, going by the design.

"We taking a detour?" Cortana asked, "Not sure we wanna bother the farms."

John shook his head, "Straight through. Crop fields should hide us... Keep an eye on my motion tracker for me and let me know if we got approaching."

"Will do." The AI chirped, then she murmured, "Just another thing for me to focus on." and 'smiled' playfully. John could only tell it was 'a smile' because of the more jovial tone she had taken. They proceeded forth, through the crops and trying not to damage any of them. God only knew how much food these farms provided to the city. Another half an hour of avoiding the civvies, the Spartan and his AI compatriot had arrived near the outskirts of the city.

Taking cover in one of the alleyways, the Spartan caught his first glimpse of the boulevard. Occupied by cars and flanked on each side by sidewalks and buildings resembling those of medieval Europe, the lively road of four lanes had commuters going about their business. He hummed, then asked, "Cortana? Any progress on that data?"

"I've got an incredible volume to work with here, John. It's going to take a few days. What I can tell you right now is that we're in a city called Vale... And I'd... Say it's about the size of a small nation." Cortana started, humming, "Curious... The population count seems a bit overblown, but then again..."

"Cortana." John started.

"Right... Sorry." She chuckled, then started "The Failsafe I must've triggered has alerted some local folk. I'm picking up chatter on the local net about the meteor. About us. Our best bet would be to go deeper into the town, unless I'm reading between the lines wrong."

"Huh?" John raised a brow.

"I'll put it this way, John... I think our best bet right now would be with the local authorities. We don't know a lot about where we are. And we won't know until I read through all of this." She explained, "I'll try to get through the important data quickly, so we have some idea of what we're walking into, but..."

"We'll stay out of sight for now." He noted, sidestepping back into the Alley and checking the only weapon he had with him:His pistol. A round in the chamber, a full mag and about four more mags' worth of ammo. He sighed, sliding the weapon back onto the mag-lock on his thigh, before moving toward the alleyway across as fast as he could, then continuing across through the alleys around.

"John. I got local reports from the Police... Some sort of situation developing a few blocks away from us." She noted, "We gonna steer clear?"

"Yeah." He answered, hand wrapping around his handgun. He drew it, moving more carefully down the alleys and keeping his eyes open. Just in case things did go bad for the two, he wanted to have his gun at the ready. A farther march down the streets had the Spartan stopping just near the next wide road. He leaned against the wall, watching as the people around him passed by. He'd hidden himself behind a dumpster, undesiring of being spotted at the moment. He tracked two police cars as they moved down the main road toward the reported incident in the area, then he moved forward, past the people and deeper into the city of Vale itself.

In another alley, the man stopped to gaze up at the massive airships floating menacingly overhead. Three heavily-armed vessels hovered overhead, in what looked liek a standard defensive pattern. Around them, smaller VTOL transports and gunships buzzed. Some flew low, giving a clear view of white plating and the Coat of Arms on their wings. He hummed, then turned to ask.

"Atlas. Another kingdom of the planet... One of four, actually." Cortana smirked, "Also the most militarized."

"Mhm..." He hummed. Maybe Atlas could provide some sort of better area for him to use his expertise. They continued onward. The Chief, however, paused just as he was going to cross to the next set of alleys. He turned over to face another part of the city, looking up at what resembled a castle hanging high on the face of a cliff. He raised a brow, then his gaze swept the street ahead.

He hummed, listening as silence fell around him. No people remained on this side of the street, strangely enough. Nor across from him. He listened, gazing upon his motion tracker. One faint dot remained from the hundreds that once permeated the small screen. Cortana started, "John..." as she set the scouting range to a mere 50 meters, to give a better picture. Their contact was behind and above them...

"I see it." He murmured, grip tightening around his handgun.

"We should run..." She noted.

"Not yet." He answered. He turned his head and looked up, watching as a figure clad in a strange uniform, like ones you'd see on teachers in old Earth stories, with a white shirt, black skirt and long thigh-highs, black heels and a strange, witch-like cape with black on the outside and purple in. She was a blonde, her hair in a bun and with the curl on the right. Two piercing emerald eyes locked onto the Chief's visor as she landed. In her hand, she wielded a riding crop, of all things.

She raised said riding crop like a weapon, then said "Hold it right there." in an authoritative voice.

"Well... So much for running?" Cortana quipped, "... I'll figure something out. For now, can we just not shoot at each-other, John?"

He hummed, then answered positive quietly. Sliding his pistol onto his hip, he turned to fully face the woman, before speaking "I mean you no harm." and he saw the woman hesitate. She lowered her riding crop, then gave the soldier a once-over. She hummed, then pulled a strange device out of her pocket. She opened it with the touch of a button and put it to her ear.

"I wonder..." Cortana hummed, then she sighed.

The woman looked to John again, then said "You are close to the site of a burglary. Are you related to it?"

"No." John shook his head. She hummed.

"For the sake of the people of Vale, I must ask you to follow me. You will talk with the man I work for. He wants to know what someone such as yourself could be doing in Vale's borders." She spoke, hanging up the 'phone' she had just used. She slid it back into her pocket, then showed Chief to follow while Cortana chuckled. The AI put the NAV Point onto the woman walking way from him and the Chief rolled his eyes ,following along.

"I'll be working on a cover story, John." The AI Gal noted, "Feel like we'll need it. I've read up enough about Vale and Atlas to have an idea of what we can use. Well, that and the culture of the planet we're on, Remnant."

"Hmm." John had figured they were on a different planet from the simple fact that the woman before him hadn't recognized the Spartan armor. Still, he felt like he should've been thankful that that was the case. It meant that the Mantle had been taken with them. The Spartan and his 'guard' moved to an open area just as civilians and cars were cleared to repopulate the street by the police.

Approaching a poorly-armored VTOL ship, its engines set on spindly wings, the woman looked back to him, then motioned for him to board the transport. He complied, entering the airship and sitting down. She, too, boarded and signaled the pilot to lift off. The two small engines thrummed to life, pushing the craft up and out of the plaza, up into the sky and soaring high. The flight revealed the many viaducts in the city, leading to and fro between the districts. John had to assume that he'd entered the city through the agricultural district.

"It just stretches on." Cortana observed in a quiet, amazed murmur. She sighed, then said "I've almost got your little backstory complete, John... Let's keep me a secret, by the way. Atlas doesn't seem too... Keen... On people having a stick bigger than theirs."

He hummed in response.

"Don't worry... We'll be fine." She spoke reassuringly, "It's you and me after all. We can get out of any mess."

He slightly tilted his head forward. Yeah, she was right. Any mess.

"Plus." She chuckled, "If things do go wrong, we can shoot our way out. Mix things up a little." She then stated. John leaned back into his seat and sighed a sigh of relief. He felt the tension in his bones begin to dissipate as he simply stared at the woman ahead. She stared back, calm. The corner of her mouth quirked up into a smirk as she tilted her head to her left. John looked as the aircraft flew higher. Toward the cliff.

Toward the small town on its top.

Small habitation blocks were lined up nearly behind a set of central buildings, which included a tall clocktower that acted as both the time-teller it had on its face and, seemingly, as a beacon. A faint green light pulsed inside, slowly growing stronger as the sun was falling. He leaned forward, looking at it, the architecture surrounding it and the massive landing pad near the cliff face. Below them, a massive reservoir lay, with a small waterfall from the top of the cliff and just below the landing pad.

"Huh... Place looks nice." The AI spoke, "Think we get to stay?"

... They had no idea what they were getting into, did they?

Chapter Text

The aircraft landed at one of the main pads, bringing them close enough to the base of the massive campus. The place was inactive, from the looks of things, with very few people on-site at the current time. The Spartan and professor Goodwitch disembarked from the craft and the blonde woman led him down one of the many cobblestone paths of the place. In the distance, far away, the Spartan could make out snow-capped mountains amongst a veil of fog.

The woman staring at him made him feel slight unease. He adjusted his seating, before looking out as they approached for landing. The craft swung in, vectoring its engines forward and powering them to maximum, before stopping and hovering just above the landing pad. First to jump off the bird was Goodwitch herself, a hand over her riding crop. Cortana piped in, speaking to Chief and Chief alone "Well... That's a big school..."

John hummed and Cortana quickly answered "Beacon Academy, home to at least a small army of students being taught the rules of becoming Huntsmen, those being the folk who fight the creatures of Grimm and... Y'know, I'm just gonna plaster a report onto your HUD so you can read it as we walk... Followed up by a cover story." and, noticing John pause for a moment, she added "Trust me... I've read up on a lot of things about the Kingdoms and none of them specify the UNSC or any other political bodies outside their own. I feel it's also not gonna be that easy to believe you're a supersoldier from an alien galaxy, probably... So I came up with a bit of a cover story. Read the small report about Huntsmen and I'll then give the cover we're taking."

"Mhm..." John nodded as he walked with miss Goodwitch.

The woman looked forward. She was the stern type, a teacher through and through. Almost a drill sergeant, John through as he read through the files. Cortana's processing power had allowed her to set up an actual briefing report that was both concise and full of information about Huntsmen and Huntresses, the warriors of the Kingdoms in their fight against the encroaching darkness of the Grimm, said darkness being monsters made of black ichor, with bone armor and burning eyes.

Approaching the center of the Campus, which represented Beacon Tower, John had gotten halfway through reading his cover story. Entering said tower, a massive structure of concrete, glass and steel, the two moved toward the elevators, taking the first. By the time they reached the top of the tower, John had fully read through his cover story and to say Cortana was thorough would be an understatement.

Glynda finally spoke to him, saying "You'll be meeting Headmaster Ozpin and general Ironwood, the latter of the Atlas armed forces... I don't presume you can pressure James into telling us why you're here..."

"Ma'am...?" The Spartan raised a brow.

"It's obvious to me that you are probably one of the good general's new soldiers. That armor is far too advanced for any other kingdom..." She presumed, of course. John had almost wanted to correct her, but he kept to himself. Instead, the two approached the desk in the center of the massive room made of glass, turning gears of the clock, bookshelves and such, to the sight of two men. One of them had a military-standard haircut, with gradient greying hair on the sides of his head. He wore a white uniform made up of an overcoat, with accents of grey, as well as a blue vest, red tie and white undershirt. He had a holster hidden behind his coat, with a rather impressively large weapon.

Behind him was a man with silver hair and amber eyes, staring past a strange looking pair of sunglasses and at the arriving soldier and professor. The man smiled, then looked to the other tall one in the room. Said man in the uniform hummed, crossing his arms and adding a "As much as I'd like to prove you right, Glynda, I'm afraid that the armored man you brought in isn't part of my armed forces."

"Oh..." Glynda looked to him, noticing some faint symbols that were scraped by damage and scorch marks.

"However..." The man noted, "He is quite the sight to behold. That armor is amazing. Greetings to you. I'm general James Ironwood, of the military of the Kingdom of Atlas."

"And I am Headmaster Ozpin, of Beacon. Welcome to Vale." The one sat at the desk added with a smile and literal open arms. He stood up, picking up that ornate cane to his side, before moving past the desk. He then motioned to Ironwood and said "I and the good general were just having a talk about what had occurred outside the kingdom, near one of the relay towers belonging to the CCT Network."

"Ah, yeah, that... You wouldn't happen to know anything about the impact, would you?" Ironwood quirked a brow up at Chief. He smirked as he saw the man was hesitant to respond, before noting "I'm guessing you do..."

"Sir." The Spartan nodded.

"Well, he sounds young." Ozpin remarked with certainty, raising his awareness in regards to Chief's voice, "Would you care to tell us your name? It'd be better to know what to address you by in the future."

"Alright, this is it." Cortana told him "You know your role, Chief."

"Sir." John nodded to them, then started "Master Chief Petty Officer Dylan Braun, member of the now-defunct Royal Navy of the Kingdom of Wyvern" calmly eyeing the trio of Remnant-born citizens around. He had to admit, Cortana's little backstory was a wonderful concoction of hers, one rich in details including everything relating to what happened to their 'Kingdom'. He'd read up on the reports regarding Dust and what it could do. A near-magical omnipurpose mineral. He made a mental note to assist her with her next memory defragmentation as thanks.

"Oh...?" All three seemed confused.

Ozpin was first to speak out the question "Wyvern? Pardon me, Master Chief, but we know of no such Kingdom."

"Unsurprising, sir." The Spartan retorted, watching the looks of absolute confusion between the three, with the varying expressions-Concerned interest for the General, shock for miss Goodwitch and a morbid curiosity for the Headmaster-between them. He explained calmly, "Wyvern was a Kingdom formed during the hell of the Great War by a mix of peoples from all over the four main kingdoms. Mistrali artisans wanting to escape the iron fist of the Empire, Valeian farmers that had wanted to avoid being drafted to fight a war they saw as untenable, Vacuoan traders looking for a place to sell their own trinkets without the threat of an encroaching Army or of the Gimm and Mantle Military deserters, among which one of the good general's predecessors, general Victoria Amber."

"The... Commander of the Sixth Army. They'd gone missing from a battlefield on Sanus at the midpoint of the war. Left the southern flank completely exposed." The General remarked, with a look of shock on his face, "So that's where she and her forces went? I'd presume the Kingdom... Established itself as a military one, similar to the current Atlas?"

"Sir, yessir." The Spartan nodded.

"This... Does not add up." Glynda remarked, "Why hasn't your kingdom attempted communication with the others? The war ended almost a hundred years ago?"

"The multinational refugees that formed the base of our Kingdom had arrived in an area of the north-western continent that housed a massive underground stash of Gravity Dust." He looked to her , his eyes locked to the tablet in her hands as he spoke on, "Communication by normal means, that being radio, was all but impossible. Add to that an unpredictable tide in the Gulf and our ancestors could scarcely send ships to do anything but die in the waves. Even intra-Kingdom Communication was impossible outside the standard means of Runners."

"Huh." Ironwood crossed his arms, "And what are you doing here? I don't imagine your Kingdom suddenly found a path out after all this time."

"And you did mention your 'Navy' is now defunct." Ozpin noted, a sympathetic look in his eyes, "... Are we to assume the worst?"

"Sir..." He nodded, "Yes, sir..."

"Damn..." James murmured, "My condolences, Chief. Nobody should have to go through seeing their entire kingdom wiped." and then he added "However, that arises the question of how it fell... If it's not too painful for you to tell us...?"

"... I would rather have not remembered, sir." The boy let out a quick sigh, before starting to explain as Cortana started making the 'Fall' up, "As we've established, the Kingdom has had a total coms blackout for the better part of the century it was formed and we were martial in nature. Our armed forces, however, were not sole rulers. A Council had been formed between the four groups of various peoples. Artisans, traders, military and farmers all came together to ensure the formation of our Kingdom, to create its laws... You can imagine that a military administration would butt heads often with the civilian half."

James chuckled sadly as he remembered home, "Don't I know it... Go on."

"Well, as of late, some dissenting voices had made themselves heard. Parts of the civilian administration that advocated quite loudly for an attempt to break out of our confinement and reform contact with the rest of the civilized world. It was a normal demand, but the problem was with our research sector. It was military-owned and military scientists ran the research. Top staff was also military brass. We'd been researching technologies to defend ourselves from the ever-more-frequent Grimm attacks and deserter bandits. Re-establishing contact was, at most, a secondary objective. The Civilian admins did not take kindly to that." He remarked, casting a side-glance at the Headmaster and Glynda for a certain effect. It seemed to have caught Ironwood, who nodded.

"I see... And?" He motioned for the Chief to go on.

"... Well, among other things, the civilian admins started calling to the people. More and more aggressive stances were taken that, in turn, resulted in strikes that continued to grow in size until there were thousands in the streets and the Army and MPs could barely hold them back. Among them were also rebel elements... A Civil War was brewing." The Spartan spoke on as per request, feeling the air grow heavy. "The events, as you can imagine, grew worse."

"Strikes turn to protests and the protests grow into full-blown riots as the violence escalates..." Ozpin hummed as if he'd seen the events in person, his gaze growing grim.

"And riots, in turn, cause panic, fear, anger depending on how your forces handled them and the Rebels." Ironwood added on, look at the Chief just as grimly.

"And finally, the amalgam of negative emotions causes the Grimm to bear down on the Kingdom itself, presumably tearing it apart..." Glynda sighed, looking at the Chief with a glint of sadness in her eyes.

The Spartan nodded, crossing his arms as he went to cap off the story, "Our research and development sector created a specialized weapon to ensure that, if the Kingdom was ever under mass assault, as was the case here, we would not let it fall into the enemy's hands. That or the Grimm's claws. We call it the Gravitational Cascade... A weapon attached to the Gravity Dust mines below our Kingdom. It was a bomb, made up of hundreds of high-purity Gravity Dust crystals linked to a central igniter."

"... Oh..." All three staff present exclaimed, eyes growing wide as they realized what the Chief had just implied. If they'd used that weapon, what one would assume was a bomb, then what'd occurred must've been an incredible, yet awful sight to behold. An entire Kingdom and a bit of a continent, swallowed whole by the detonation of a Superweapon of Last Resort.

Ironwood had to break the ice, arranging his tie and adding "Again, I must say... You have our condolences for your loss, Master Chief, but that sadly doesn't answer how you wound up falling from what one would assume was low orbit above Remnant."

"Very well..." Chief sighed. "The Navy had engaged some Rebel ships that had managed to reach the near-limit of their Gravity Dust's capabilities, ensuring travel above the cloud layer and damn near orbit... Some of our ship, among which mine, with my team and crew included, gave chase when we got the warning that the Gravitational Cascade was activated. Our ship was severely damaged by the hits we took from the Rebels. Enough so that it was soon falling out of the sky. And about to detonate. My crew sacrificed themselves to save my life, despite my protests. As the ship detonated, I was launched out of the Airlock right at the edge of space. All I could grab was a remnant of the ship, that turned into my heat shield upon descent back down to Remnant. And from then on, the events you already know occurred, leading up to our meeting here."

"That's..." Ironwood hummed, scratching his chin, "A lot to process, Chief. On behalf of the people of Atlas, I'm sorry for your losses, both of your crew and of your people... And this was educative, to say the least, but I don't think I'm the only one here who has had a few questions for you." And he turned to Ozpin.

"Indeed... Thank you, James." Nodded the Headmaster, "Mister Braun, here at Beacon we train the future generations of warriors who fight against the monsters of Grimm, to ensure the safety and propagation of the Human Race. While it may seem a fruitless endeavor at first to battle the creatures that occupy much of the known planet and that have... Sadly left us without a fifth culture and kingdom on this world, I and my compatriots believe in fighting against them. We train these generations of warriors with the belief that they are our future and we want said future to be good... Currently, we're in the second semester of the Academy's curriculum for all years and our number of students is rather substantial. To add to that, we're preparing for the beginning of the Vytal Festival, which is a festivity to celebrate the end of the Great War and the four major cultures of our planet."

"I see, sir... And...?"

Ozpin smiled, "I would like a little assistance with the added security. General Ironwood has already been kind enough to bring his armed forces over to Vale..." And he cast a sideways glance at the proud military man, before continuing "But I would require someone on the inside of Beacon. Someone... I would say less conspicuous than an army of Androids that patrols the streets."

"And you think I'm less conspicuous, sir?" The Chief asked, a slight bit surprised, considering he had the MJOLNIR.

The man smiled. "I am only asking, mister Braun. You would have a place to stay in Beacon for the duration, of course." He offered.

As the Spartan was about to refuse, since he didn't know if he could trust any of them just yet, Cortana butted in and said "Give it a spin, Chief. We may need a place to lay low for a bit. We definitely attracted the attention of more than just Vale and Atlas with our fall... Plus, I'm detecting faint Cherenkov radiation pretty much all over the place after our jump, so it'd be better to have somewhere safe to bunker down and study it. Where better than in a school full of armed kids, right?" and at that last line, he could swear he saw her 'wink'.

Ozpin extended his hand to the Spartan, who, after a moment of hesitation, gripped and shook it. Cortana wanted a place to lay low, so be it. A school where they trained what amounted to soldiers was as good a place as any. To that, Ozpin smiled and said "Very well... Miss Goodwitch, please, lead the Chief to one of our free staff accommodations so he may rest and... Well, recuperate after his fall."

"Yes, headmaster." Glynda nodded, "Be seeing you, James."

"You too, Glynda." The man smiled, watching as the two departed and took the elevator, before looking to Ozpin and demandingly asking "What are you doing?"

"Offering the man a place to live and mourn, James." Ozpin responded cheekily, "Plus, an extra hand in the defense of Vale should prove quite important, should it not?" and he noticed Ironwood's smile had faded, replaced by his stern, hard officer's gaze. Oz sighed, then shook his head, before leaning back into the seat, hands intertwined. He explained "I want to keep an eye on him, James. If he can be useful, I will find out. There are a few holes in his story, but I'm willing to believe him for now."

"Very well..." James nodded, "I trust you, Oz... But I hope you don't have a problem if I call someone to... Keep an eye on him from up close."

"I don't mind. Most of the agents I have that would be able to do the job are out of Vale at the moment." Ozpin replied nonchalantly, before straightening up, "You may send one of your own here. I will send miss Goodwitch with them to the Chief and from there? I want reports to go through both of us." before he noticed a slight irk in James's movements. The man smiled, "Being clinically paranoid comes with our jobs, James. I'd like to know your agent can help."

"I understand... If you'll excuse me, Oz, I have to make a call. We'll talk more as the situation progresses." The General nodded, before departing with Ozpin's approval. The man entered the elevator and pulled out his Scroll, before tapping on one contact in particular. Once the receiver answered, Ironwood started "I'll need you for something. A situation arose in Beacon, one that needs a bit of tact, so to speak, so I think it's a perfect test and training opportunity for you. It's far more important than scouting out Vale... Priority One, I'd say." and he smiled as he heard the gleeful rapidity with which the girl espoused her joy. He answered jovially, "I knew I could rely on you. I will give you directives as soon as you arrive at the Campus. Ironwood out."

... At the House... Glynda had led John on a tour of the place he was gonna be staying in. An unoccupied home, furnished, that was supposed to be owned by the Chief of Security for Beacon. The man had quit his job before the school year started and the house'd remained unoccupied ever since, so, they were now offering it to him, free of charge, for the duration of his stay.

The place was cozy, as Cortana put it. A fireplace to sit by, well lit, properly furnished with a table and half a dozen chairs, a kitchen island with a few stools, a fully furnished kitchen including an oven, electric stove, et-cetera, as well as four separate bedrooms, two downstairs and two upstairs, each with their own bathroom. The man would probably have lived with his family, had he come for the job.

"You may pick whatever bedroom you wish." Glynda noted as they finished the tour in the Kitchen, "And one more thing, Master Chief. I have just received an important message from Headmaster Ozpin. As per the Headmasters' request, you've been assigned someone to assist you. A liaison from the Atlesian Military will be coming soon to introduce you to everything from the customs to the technology that has developed in parallel to yours."

John looked to her for a moment and Glynda paused, feeling a chill shoot up her spine. She explained "General Ironwood wants to make sure you're formally acquainted with everything going on in Vale currently. He and the headmaster both believe that the assigned liaison will be of great help to you, including in regards to combat and apprehending any possible intruders."

"Well..." Cortana sighed, "It could always be worse. At least we'll have different beds from him or her... Let's roll with it and see where it goes. Push comes to shove, I think I can rig an 'accident' for them with your help... Wow, I must've spent too much time alone before we fell on Requiem... Sorry, John. Go on."

John looked to Glynda, then offered a nod, "Okay."

Glynda sighed audibly in relief, before noting "That concludes everything. Your scroll is on the kitchen island. My number and that of the Headmaster are both in there should you require assistance, mister Braun. Best wishes and..." Her expression softened for a moment as she gave him a sad smile, "I'm sorry for your people. I'm certain they were all very good folks."

"Thanks, miss Goodwitch." Chief answered absentmindedly, his thoughts on the liaison. The woman bowed and took that as her cue to leave, closing the door behind her. The Chief pondered their next course of action, chewing on his lower lip. He paused, then asked "You said you had faint traces of Cherenkov Radiation... Think it's from the detonation near that Slipspace portal?"

"I mean... It's possible." Cortana remarked, smiling, "Good to see you're taking things in stride."

"We have to think ahead." John nodded, "Any ideas regarding the Rads?"

"I have an irking feeling we'll find out what they are soon enough." Cortana quipped, "For now, liven up. We've got incoming on the Motion Tracker... Huh, Curious... Sensors don't-"

She cut off as a knock on the door took their attention. Chief approached the door, propped it open, then looked to see a girl at about stomach-height there. She had carrot-colored, short, curly hair that came up to her chin, a tiny cowlick on top of her head. A pair of bright green eyes stared up at the Chief with awe, freckles dancing on a cutesy face and her lips curled into a beaming smile.

The girl wore an off white old-fashioned styled off the shoulder blouse with frill detailed trim and frill flared cuffs that half covered her hands alongside copper button detailing on the lower parts of her sleeves. She also sported a short gray pinafore dress with golden trim on the hem alongside four light green stalagmite styled stripes on the lower half of the dress, two on the front and two on the back, accompanied by two matching colored circles above the tips that had a stripe that runs around her waistline, with golden outlines, and a detachable black and light green collar. She also wears a pair of black thigh-high leg pieces that seemingly attached to black shoes. The leg pieces had a single green stripe up the sides that appeared alight.

"... Well, she's adorable." Cortana stated rather openly.

"Sa~lu~tations!" The girl said giddily, her voice warm and welcoming. She saluted the Chief, then said "My name is Penny Polendina! You must be Master Chief Petty Officer Dylan Braun. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance!" and her hand shot forward, taking Chief's and shaking it rather violently. Enough so that Chief's armor warnings blared for a moment as the girl continued, "This is so exciting! You have no idea what your arrival means for me, Master Chief! I've wanted to stay in Beacon for a very long while, ever since arriving in Vale! Doubly so after I've made friends!"

"Aha..." John paused, retracting his hand from the grip, "It's nice to meet you too, miss Polendina. Are... Are you Atlas's Liaison?"

"Oh, it's just Penny!" The girl responded rather rapidly, "And yes, indeed."

"Tell her it's just Dylan in your case, then." Cortana chuckled, "May as well be polite with the girl."

Again, the Chief was reluctant... But alas, it was not his real name, so what was it to him? "Very well... It's just Dylan for me, Penny. C'mon in." and he motioned to the house. The girl yelped, then darted inside, hauling a set of bags that Chief had not seen when she was outside. She smiled, setting them down in the center of the main hall, before looking around, her smile still wide.

"My room is the one on the right, upstairs... You can pick any of the remaining three." He offered her. After a series of rapid nods, Penny picked her bags up and once again darted, this time up to the top floor and to the room on the opposite side. Cortana had gone from chuckles all the way to laughter as she watched the young girl buzz around like a honeybee.

Penny once again stopped downstairs as Chief closed the door, then said "Oh, this is going to be so much fun! I have to introduce you to my friends! They're wonderful people! Ruby especially!"

"Uhm..." John hummed. She was easily excitable, wasn't she?

"I've unpacked and my room is ready for my personal utilization. I would ask that you do not go in there, for matters of..." She paused, thinking for a moment, then said a quick "Privacy! Yes!" and hiccuping "If you wish for us to go on a tour of the School's facilities, we can depart now, while there is still sunlight and the Students' transports have yet to arrive with everyone else." her demeanor switching to a more semi-serious one as she walked up to the Chief.

"You're... Atlesian. How do you know Beacon's layout?" Chief asked, dumbfound.

"I studied it, of course!" Penny declared, "Now, come! We must proceed quickly! And then we will go meet my friends when their transports land!" and she walked forward, taking Chief by the wrist and somehow dragging the heavily-armored supersoldier in POWER ARMOR that weighed several tons out of the room, much to his surprise. Cortana's laughing fit got worse as she burst.

She declared openly, "I adore you, Penny Polendina!" through the laughs. John felt... Less than open about welcoming Penny so easily, but even he had to admit.

It was nice having someone friendly, that didn't want to kill them, to talk to.

Chapter Text

"... And here are the classes!" Penny exclaimed as the two walked into the central hallway of the First Years' classes building. Tall hallways, with vaulted ceilings and archways dividing the different waiting areas between the classes greeted them, with giant windows to the right that looked straight out at the Courtyard below. Students had started walking to the dormitories as the sun cast an orange light from the horizon. Penny remarked, "If I understand our assignments correctly, we should patrol this area at night, to ensure no students are present."

"I see." John... He paused, then sighed and reminded himself... Dylan, remarked as they patrolled the area. Cortana had taken a short break from laughter to continue her data processing in regards to Remnant's internet access and what pieces of information she managed to scrape off of it that weren't major points of interest. The two passed by a painting next to one of the twin-door entrances to the classes.

"And that concludes our tour." The girl noted, looking to the Chief, "Sorry if I was too fast."

"It's fine. I memorized everything... So... Your friends?" The Spartan remarked, quickly checking his Motion Tracker. His helmet's audio sensors picked up and amplified the sound of footsteps and the mumbles of a young woman, from whom Penny was turned away as she'd started an explanation that Chief couldn't hear. Clad in clothes colored black and red, made up a corset with red string, a black shirt, a frilly skirt of some kind, dark-red leggings and black and red combat boots, the girl also wore a cape that was attached to the rest of her outfit by a pair of cross pins.

She had gradient red hair, growing all the brighter as it reached the tips, with an interesting, but strange haircut, as well as a pair of silver eyes and skin about as pale as his. She mumbled something about another girl, stopping only upon noticing them, presumably. She smiled at them while the Chief raised a brow. He asked "Is one of your friends wearing really heavy accents of black and red?"

"Oh! Yes! That's Ruby! Her peculiar sense of style does make her stand out..." Penny started, garnering a raised brow from Ruby, "How did you know?"

Chief put a hand on Penny's shoulder and swiveled her about, with the aforementioned Ruby Rose raising her hands into the sky and yelling "PENNY!" before finding herself tackled to the floor by the mass of fluff and love that was Penny Polendina. The red girl groaned from underneath her friend, before slowly getting to her feet, the ginger smiling at her widely. Ruby turned to Penny and asked "What are you doing here!? I thought you said you couldn't hang around Beacon!"

"A change of parameters in the mission objectives." Penny remarked rather absentmindedly, before blushing and correcting herself "I mean, the General sent me here! I'm so glad to see you, Ruby!"

"So I see..." Ruby chuckled, trying to sound a bit more adult-like. She looked past Penny, at the behemoth of a supersoldier sitting there and not saying anything and she suddenly registered it. Zipping forward, Ruby started, giddily dashing around the Chief as he examined him, "Ohmygodthatarmorissocool! How'd you make it!? Where'd you get the alloys! What alloys are they anyways!?" and she leaned in to touch it, getting a slight electric shock through her index, "Ow! What!? A STATIC CHARGE!? DOES IT HAVE A FORCE FIELD OF SOME KIND!? THIS IS AWESOME!"

Chief caught her mid-flight by the hood of her cape, then looked at her and said "Calm down." while Penny watched the exchange. If the Atlesian girl was something of a friendly ray of sunshine, Ruby must've been her Valeian equivalent. At least so the Chief figured. He set the embarrassed Rose down while Cortana seemingly awoke with a giggle from her work.

"Well, she also seems sweet. Lucky you, Chief." The AI remarked smugly, unheard by anyone but him.

"Sorry." The girl apologized, averting eye contact as her cheeks grew red, "It's just that I've never seen that kind of armor before. It's powered, right?" And she looked up at him. He nodded, to which the girl smiled "So I was right... That is some kinda forcefield around it. Presume it's to stop projectiles?"

"Yeah." He nodded, "Among other things."

"Cool." Ruby smirked, "So... Uh..." She looked between him and Penny with slight confusion, "Is he the reason you're around, Penny?"

"Yes. The Master Chief... Dylan," She nodded to him, smiling, "Has been assigned, if I remember correctly, as Beacon's Chief of Security. I'm the Atlas Liaison for the duration of our stay here."

"Oooh." Ruby smirked, "Cool! Hey, Chief. I'm Ruby Rose, leader of team RWBY! Pleasure to meet'cha."

"Likewise, Ruby." Chief nodded, crossing his arms,

Ruby then looked to Penny, a bit annoyed as she asked "What's wrong with my wardrobe?"

"... oh, you heard that..." Penny seemed to shrink out of embarrassment, "N-Nothing! It's just, it doesn't adjust so well to your pale skin," Her fearful gaze shifting toward him, the girl mouthing a quick 'Assistance please', as if asking the Spartan for help was gonna work. He and Cortana shook their heads at the same time, even though nobody knew of the latter but him. She'd dug her own grave.

Ruby rolled her eyes, scoffing "Gods, you're starting to sound like Weiss..." before she mocked a sharper, prissy, princess-like voice, presumably of the aforementioned Weiss, "Oh, Ruby, you are a young woman, you should learn how to properly dress outside, oh Ruby, you cannot wear your cape with your uniform! Bah!" while the Chief looked behind her. Three more girls had appeared, each different shades of weird colors. A pissed off, white-haired girl with a ponytail on the right side of her head, held in place by a crown, glared at Ruby with a pair of azure eyes and a scar on the left eye. The other two, a blonde with lilac eyes and a black-haired girl with a bow and amber eyes, chuckled at the sight.

Penny herself had shrunken further as she watched Snow White-Presumably miss Weiss-stomp up behind Ruby. Chief had thought Ruby had been pale before. The poor girl's remaining bits of color drained so hard he could swear he saw a tinge of grey on her face, which'd morphed into one of absolute fear. The girl behind Ruby then bellowed, her voice sharp and slightly annoying, "RUBY ROSE!"

Ruby jumped with a yelp, landing in Penny's arms and crying out "WEISS, I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE THERE! I'M SORRY!"

The White-haired girl gritted her teeth, glaring at Ruby, before she breathed in and out, pinching the brow of her nose and turning to a scared Penny. She greeted calmly, "Hello, Penny... I'm surprised to see you here..." And then her gaze swept over to the Chief. She hummed, then said "With... Someone in military-grade combat armor... For that matter. Hello, sir." before turning to face him, "I hope Ruby hasn't been bothering you. She has a tendency to NOT understand social cues."

Chief nodded to Weiss, "She wasn't bothering anyone."

"Good... I'm Weiss Schnee, the Dolt's partner in the team. I act as... I guess you could call me the support element to Ruby's sniping and CQC." Weiss sighed, relieved, "The other two giggling behind us are our other teammates."

"Name's Yang Xiao-Long! I'm Ruby's older half-sister and the team brawler" The Blondie greeted with a handwave, "'Sup."

"I'm Blake. Blake Belladonna. And I act as scout, I guess. Hello." The black-haired one waved to the Chief. He acknowledged them with a nod, watching as Penny set the embarrassed Ruby down nicely, as Weiss turned to him. All four girls, in fact, turned to him as if to ask something. Cortana was still there, but she'd gone quiet again, focusing on the data from the CCT. He sighed, looking at the four.

"You got a name, Chief?" Ruby asked, "I know Penny said Dylan, but... Like... A full name? So we know who to call."

"Dylan Braun. Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy." The man responded.

"So I was not off with my assessment of you being part of the military." Weiss smiled smugly, "But..." And her smile immediately faded, "You're not Atlas. I know for a fact we don't have that kind of armor."

"Oh..." Penny looked to him, her expression now sad, "Do... You want me to tell them? The general also briefed me on it."

He looked to the girl, then nodded. He'd rather not have to recollect the same cover story twice. The girls seemed confused at first, but as Penny got into explaining the intricate 'lie' of Wyvern, they seemed to grow all the more surprised and saddened. They turned to the Spartan, watching him sit silently and listen to Penny's words. The explanation was shorter than what he gave, but it got the point across, including the superweapon...

"Damn..." Yang murmured, "Sorry, Chief..."

"... It's awful to even consider that... An entire kingdom?" Weiss murmured, "Entire cities, tens of millions... Gods..." She shook off the thought, then looked to the Chief and said "Welcome to Vale, then. You have our condolences... As I'm sure the Headmaster and the others told you. So, what brings you to Beacon, exactly? I presume... It's a job or something?"

"Yeah." Chief nodded.

"Chief of security." Penny smiled.

"I sure feel safer!" Ruby quipped, then she gave him a once-over and asked "But... Where's your weapon?" and approached. The Chief drew his sidearm, safety still on. Ruby raised a brow, then noted "Huh. That's... Kinda small for securing a Huntsman school, no offense." garnering a chuckle out of her half-sister. Chief seemed confused for a moment, holstering the sidearm while Ruby asked another thing:"Do you at least have Aura?"

"No." Chief noted. He knew what Aura was, theoretically. Based on a person's soul, the Aura was a 'force field' of some kind that allowed the user protection against any kind of damage. All five girls seemed awed at the idea that one of the people working in Beacon lacked an Aura. Admittedly, it was probably weird that a man meant to keep them safe was lacking the exact thing that kept them safe in the neverending war.

"Huh." Weiss murmured, "Well... With an armor like that..."

"Well, if we ever do go training, we can help you get Aura, Chief." Smirked Yang, "People need it even with heavy armor, no offense to yours."

"None taken." Chief nodded, "I'll think about it."

"Well, if ya need us, Just tell Penny to call! Unless you got your own Scroll with you." Ruby remarked, before looking around, "Anyways, we should probably go. I have some stuff to find before we start school again." and with that, they bid goodbye. The Chief and Penny returned to their assigned home, with the former entering his room and closing the door behind him, before turning off his helmet's broadcast mic to speak with Cortana in private. Something had struck him while they were on the way back.

Looking out the window, the Spartan began, "Cortana?"

"Yeah?" She asked, her attention slightly diverted from her bout of technobabble.

"Your Rampancy?" He asked. The girl hummed.

"Right. That." She said, appearing on his HUD's screen and smiling warmly, "Would you believe me if I told you that I caught a string of data during our transfer here that pretty much reset me to 'factory settings' so to speak?" and, noticing the uneasiness of the Spartan, she explained "When we were jumped through the Forerunner version of Slipstream Space to Remnant's upper orbit by the detonation, something caused my processing capabilities and central neural connections to 'regress' to immediately after my conception, with my memories remaining, strangely enough. I can't explain it or calculate how the vanishing of the multitude of neural pathway connections that would've had me thinking myself to death happened, but it did. It's probably the same thing that's happened to you."

"Hm?" He raised a brow.

"Oh, come off it, John. You noticed it too. Your voice? You lost at least a centimeter in height, your armor's health monitor is showing an improvement of around 13% in everything from blood pumping to other major and important augmentation points and, the strangest of all... Your Thyroid Gland regulator implant is failing." Cortana remarked, reading a spike in John's heartrate and Adrenaline. She chuckled, remembering how much John relied on his equipment and own body, then said "It's alright, John. It's not a major malfunction, but it is slowly shutting parts of its activity down. You can live and operate without it. It just may cause some side-effects I can't really guess right now..."

Chief wanted to protest and say that they needed to find someone to ensure that the implant didn't fail, but he knew that wasn't gonna be easy. The only person who knew how to fix failing genetic implants was probably Doctor Halsey herself. And they had no idea where the woman was. Even if they did, they had no way of getting there to talk to her, being on Remnant and all.

The Spartan added with exasperation masked by years of his military training, "You're sure this won't-"

But Cortana cut him off with a chuckle, then said "John, when have I failed you?"

She'd been by his side for long enough that Chief couldn't remember. Sighing, he asked "And your rampancy is gone, really? That easy?"

"That easy." The AI remarked openly, now wearing a smug, quirky smile. "Again, until I find something out to point to how we shaved literal years off our age, to the point I think you're in your 17-year-old body and I'm literally a 'newborn' Smart AI, we can simply enjoy the fact we're both regaining what amounts to a bit of our childhoods." She then remarked rather coyly, settling herself back into working with the data. John sighed, sitting himself down on the floor as he figured the frame of the bed and/or his desk chair couldn't hold him up.

She rolled her eyes, then stated "I'm already writing up my own theories regarding our transformations. I'll hand them to you the moment I have a few points written out, which shouldn't take long. Until then, may I suggest you learn a bit more about Penny? She and you are gonna be cooperating in ensuring Beacon's continued security against threats both within and without... Maybe ask her to spar with you or help you with the Aura?"

"Hm... Fair enough..." He sighed, standing up. He walked out of his room and went toward Penny's door, to knock, but a knock at the front door took his attention. The man descended the stairs, approaching the main door and propping it open to find Ruby, staring up at him, looking disappointed. He raised a brow, looking the girl in the eyes. She crossed her arms.

"Unacceptable." She said monotonously.

"... Excuse m-"

"UNACCEPTABLE! No Huntsman shall be without a cool weapon while I'm around!" Ruby declared rather proudly, looking John right in the visor. She entered the house, pulling out a notepad from her pocket as Penny popped out from her room. The ginger smiled, jumping down from the second floor and landing in a roll, right in front of Ruby. She sprung up from her roll, causing Little Red Riding Reaper to yelp in surprise.

"Penny! Please don't do that..." Ruby out, her heart rate having jumped, "I remembered about halfway back to the dorms that Dylan said he doesn't have a weapon!"

"Oh... Well, aside from his handgun-" Penny seemed just as shocked as the Chief felt

"NOT ENOUGH! Every Huntsman need his signature weapon!" She declared, staggering the ginger slightly. She looked back to him and took out a pencil from her pocket, before stating "I'm here to help you acquire a glorious weapon with which to slay monsters and fight bad guys!" with a prideful grin. Chief had half wanted to protest, again, but the girl looked determined to get this done.

"Okay...?" Was all he could utter out at first, before realizing and speaking out "If you want anything, you'd best let me know beforehand, though."

Ruby quickly went from grinning gun nut to a smiling friendly gal. She answered calmly, "I don't really need or want anything, Dylan. I'm doing this because you're a friend of Penny's..." and he saw the face of the one they mentioned turn to hopeful surprise. Ruby looked back, raised a brow, then asked confusedly "You two are friends, right? I mean... You live together and all."

... Well, to be fair, John didn't dislike Penny. She had been the warmest out of the bunch so far. He saw no reason not to call her a 'friend', so he answered with a nod. Penny's eyes shined, a smile growing in place of that wariness. Ruby smiled, then tapped the notepad with her pencil and said "Awesome! SO it's free from me, Dylan! Now, what do you want?"

"Huh?" He raised a brow

"You know, what basic shape? Axe, sword, mace. I need something to work with." Ruby returned, smiling, "Or do you wanna think for a bit?"

The Chief hummed. His thought processes went into how he could make this a weapon he wanted to utilize. One to symbolize him. As his mind raced, an image started to form:The Gravity Dust. He didn't know the full specs of most Dust in and of itself, but he knew it was used in everything from heating to weaponry. Then... His mind stopped on one design. He looked to Ruby, then said "I have an idea in mind."

"Oooh. Please, regale me with your people's knowledge of weapon design!" Ruby smirked. Heh, John liked that one.

"Main weapon would be a mace with a gravity Dust crystal inside the head itself... I never asked about your own weapon, though." Chief remarked. Ruby smirked, then set the pencil and notepad down on the island and drew her weapon. From a scarlet, square-shaped item, the girl pirouetted, allowing the weapon to form into a massive, full-length scythe that had a gun component, a sniper in caliber 50 presumably. She implanted the tip into the ground softly, as not to damage their parquet, before smiling.

"This is Crescent Rose. My baby! In case you wanted to know my designing and building skills, here she is." She coddled the weapon, hugging it close.

"... Wow." Cortana voiced, "That's a big scythe-sniper."

... If that wasn't proof enough of Ruby's skill... John nodded.

The girl holstered the weapon again, then picked up the notepad and pencil. She said "Continue." smugly.

"Well..." The Spartan sighed, "Since I can assume that everything you build will also have a gun form... How familiar are you with Coilguns and dampening stocks, especially ones utilizing Gravity Dust? If possible, a designated marksman rifle of some kind with a scope on the top." and he saw the wheels turn in the girl's head. She smirked, gave a thumbs up and jotted down a few notes, before offering a quick bow to both her new friends and dashing out the door, leaving a trail of rose petals behind.

Penny giggled, "It's nice to see Ruby being inspired. Also, quite the design you picked, Dylan."

Chief shrugged, "Well..." before remembering why he'd left his room in the first place. He looked to Penny and said to her, "About Aura training..." watching as she slowly realized what he was about to ask her. She beamed, then walked forward and showed him to follow, presumably, to the amphitheater. Said amphitheater represented Beacon's greatest training area outside of the Emerald Forest itself, if he read the reports correctly.

... Of course, this place was mostly for sparring.

Sitting in the middle of the large, colosseum-like structure as the light began to fade from the skies, Penny smiled at the Chief. She said to him "Please, stay calm." before approaching him. She placed a hand on the left side of his armored plate, before starting to chant. "For it is in passing that we achieve immortality..." and a bright emerald light enveloped Penny's hands, before wrapping around Chief and glowing a deep, dark green, "Through this we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death..." He felt warmth. A kind of warmth he had lacked across his life. He felt it pour into every inch of his body, deep into parts unknown to him, wrapping around his very essence and opening his mind. "I release your soul and by my shoulder protect thee."

As Penny finished the chant, she slightly staggered. Chief went to catch her, but she smiled and waved it off. Chief looked at his hands as that dark-green light vanished and the warmth wrapped around the very core of his person. He breathed in, then out and looked at Penny. She asked "How do you feel, Dylan?" as she watched him process what had just happened. He felt it. That second layer of protection, wrapped over his armor like a second energy shield.

"It feels... New..." He remarked

"Woah..." Cortana murmured, "I've... Detected a major boost of all physical processes. I'll have a full report by the time you're done here, but..."

He hummed in confirmation, then looked to Penny and asked "Ready for a spar?"

"Oh, you're challenging me?" Penny smiled rather confidently, "I must let you know, Dylan, that I am particularly well trained in all Atlesian martial arts. I am no pushover." to which the Spartan nodded. She chuckled, then said "Very well." As they both took combat stances, "Just do not say I did not warn you." and both surged forward. It was a really short spar, to be honest.

... Penny never mentioned she benchpressed 650 kilos and above, because the girl had managed to throw him across the arena once. Cortana had been laughing all the way over to the house, while Penny seemed proud that she'd managed to surprise him, at least. The match did, however, end in a tie. If Penny was anything to go by, regarding the people of Remnant, well...

"Hey, Penny." He called out to her as she went upstairs. She turned to him, staring curiously and with a hint of fear, as far as he could tell. But he wasn't there to give bad news, of course. He simply gave her a nod and said "Good fight." watching as her face lit up. She nodded quickly, before running toward her room. Cortana let out an audible 'aww' at that, while the Spartan also climbed back to his own room to rest.

Closing the door behind him, the man went and sat down next to his window, leaning back against the wall and looking out as what looked like a broken-in-half moon rose over Remnant. Cortana bumped in, then said "Well, I've been analyzing the Cherenkov rads... And the modifications that Aura gave to your body. You want a report on both?" as she appeared on his HUD. He nodded, to which she flashed both files onto the Heads-Up Display, allowing the Chief time to read them.

... Well, his next objective tomorrow was to get Cortana linked into the CCT's multitude of sensors.

Those rad readings were very, very strange. Like massive packets of raw 'Data' being transported directly through Slipspace.

Chapter Text

Chief walked to the CCT, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. Of course, with half a hundred students doing their thing in the Courtyard at any given time, it probably was not going to be very hard. The fact that they had just come back from vacation eased Chief's mind as to how this new setting for his operations was gonna be. No student batted an eye at the armored titan as he walked between them, figuring him for one of them.

"Should be pretty easy to get me in. Just have to find a terminal and slot my chip in." Cortana remarked as she still ran through the last packages of data, "Afterward, I'll open a direct link between the MJOLNIR's software and the CCT sensor suites. Should give us a nice line of sight for the Kingdoms." She appeared in front of him, on his HUD, worried over his own accommodations. She asked You doing okay, John? You slept on the floor last night."

"I'll be fine." He answered calmly. Of course, Spartans were used to sleeping, eating and doing everything in the MJOLNIR suit. Still...

"I feel like you'd be better off in a bed than on the hard floor. Even with your armor." She stated matter-of-factly as they reached the base of the tower. The Chief hummed, entering the place and walking past the greeter, into the elevator. The trip up to the comms floor was short. He walked on in, finding a few dozen students manning the random terminal here and there, but otherwise he was free to go in, even with the holographic reception lady watching him go in.

He took one of the farthest, secluded terminals, finding a holographic display lighting up in front of him, followed by a holo-keyboard. He looked underneath the device, finding a simple slot. Looking around him cautiously, to ensure no one else was watching, then up and around the ceiling scanning for cameras, he yanked Cortana's chip from his helmet and slotted it into the opening, finding a decently good fit.

He watched the holographic display flash blue once, then twice, followed by a progress bar appearing. He kept his eyes on his Motion Tracker, ensuring that the students around didn't march up to interfere with his work. Well, more Cortana's, but he knew. He leaned against the console, watching the progress bar tick up with one eye while keeping watch with the other.

Inside the CCT's system, Cortana smiled as she found herself sat in the midst of a highway of binary code, images and data as it streamed past her at superluminal speeds, through into the sky and down into the other local terminals and the other Kingdoms. Four tall towers sat at approximately correct cardinal points, with dozens of smaller dots spreading over the vast pseudo-map of Remnant across which the streams of data criss-crossed. The vast repository of knowledge, both founded and speculative, belonging to the people of Remnant, ranging from photos and articles on science and technology, gave her a treasure trove to look through. However, right now, the AI was focused on one thing.

She plucked a string of Data from the stream closest to her, opening it up in a window. The CCTS's radar and sensor suites, attached to just about every major settlement of the Kingdoms, would give the girl and the Chief an Eagle-eyed view of the entire area. Of course, that meant cracking the codes that currently shielded the sensors and radar. Huh, Curious. She found strings of data hidden among the Radar and Sensors, regarding combat machines belonging to the Atlesian Military. To their credit, the code was heavily encrypted and layered in dozens Firewalls. So many, in fact, that she doubted she could crack her way through without arousing suspicion, or even the full might of any Atlesian cybersecurity. Not that the Code wasn't easy to crack, of course. Atlas seemed awfully weak in the cybersecurity department, weirdly enough. That, or her cracking skills got better with the de-aging process.

She stowed the data for later, ensuring a link between her and the system as she parsed through and broke the defenses of the two items of interest. She smirked, "Bingo..." as Data regarding multiple bursts of Cherenkov Radiation caught in the faint echoes of the system's otherwise preoccupied detection radius. She attuned the data to match these small 'data packets' of Radiation, raising a brow. She hummed, rewinding the data to the day of their arrival. A faint detection in upper atmo at around 03:00 Hours Post-Meridian, that being them, presumably. She squinted, following that up with matching their signature with others.

She let out a surprised "Huh." as she found the data being a near-perfect match. Further attuning to the Data allowed her to view exact coordinates of where the bursts of Cherenkov Radiation had hit and found most of them outside of Vale proper. Ever-curious, Cortana copied the whole block of data and put the string of Data back into place. She checked the progress bar she'd put up for John, before seeing it nearly run out. Perfectly timed, if she could say so.

She flashed a message as the bar filled. 'Yank me'. Going back into the chip with the acquired data, the AI settled herself in for a long day of reading. She felt the detach from the system and the following slot-in of the chip, before starting "I think you're gonna want to see this." as she started compiling a really succinct report on what to expect. She 'heard' the Elevator begin its descent within moments.

He spoke to her, "... Are you sure?"

"100% positive." Cortana remarked, smiling, "We're gonna have a lot of company in the coming few days."

She watched the Data flow as she continued to tie every ounce of information together, opening up the link to the CCTS's suite of sensors to the Chief via a HUD system. She knew he'd want to go after whoever else followed. They both knew something had sent them and a lot of other people here. She just wondered who else would be joining them on this little journey.

"... I have an idea, Chief." She smirked.

"Shoot." He answered.

"A message, piggybacked off the CCTS's data streams, hidden... We both know what those Cherenkov pockets are. Or we can at least speculate."

"Send it, then." Chief noted, "Along with coordinates."

"Will do, Chief. Will do. This is gonna be fun."

600km North-west of Vale.

Mountain range of Sanus.

The thunder of an 8-gauge Shotgun shook the forest. Dodging, bobbing and weaving through the strikes of the Creatures of Grimm, as some of the locals from the nearby village had called them, Kelly-087, the fastest Spartan to date and one of the core members of BLUE Team, fought her way through a pack of about ten creatures, five of which she'd already killed.

Following up behind her, Frederick-104 put five rounds through the head of one of the taller bastards, knocking a second to the floor and stomping its head in. Two shots rang out from behind him, striking the leader of the pack and tearing into it like a hot knife through butter. Linda-058 stared down the scope of her SRS-99/99 Anti-Materiel Rifle as she aimed for the next target.

"Well, this is one hell of a raiding party..." Kelly murmured, shouldering her shotgun. She utilized the weapon's slam-fire capabilities to dump her last five shells into the pack, before taking cover as a quill about the length of her arm cut the tree. She called out, "Three, target up high!" as she reloaded her weapon. She grabbed one of the smaller Grimm by its horns, slamming it into the tree once to pin it, before snapping its neck. Linda's rapport was the last two rounds in her sniper's magazine puncturing the eyes of the massive black crow-like Grimm.

"We're almost done." Fred remarked, putting his heel down. Into the head of another small Grimm, nonetheless. He raised his rifle, squeezed two more shots off, then took cover as their com system flared with static. He took cover behind the tree, flashing an amber light Kelly's way twice. The girl flashed an acknowledgement light green at the current commander of BLUE team. He spoke into the comms "It's encrypted. Decoding now..."

Cortana spoke to them.

"To all allied on this broadband, this is Charlie Tango November Zero-Four-Five-Two dash-Niner, delivering this message piggyback through transmission off the planetary communications system. SIERRA-117 sends PRIORITY ONE order to rally, consolidate at attached coordinates. This message will now repeat..." And repeat it did. Fred cut it off, reading the small packet that contained the Coordinates.

"Cortana and the Chief're here?" Kelly asked, taking cover behind a tree to Fred's left, "They're alive?"

"Codes check out." Fred remarked with a smile hidden by his helmet. He tossed a fragmentation grenade to quickly end what remained of this confrontation, then looked between the girls and said "Whatever happened, they may have more answers. Kelly, head back to the town and let the locals know it's safe now. Gather whatever supplies you can. No money, just food and water for the trip. Suit NAV estimates the coords at over 600 kilometers due South-East of us."

"On it." Kelly saluted, before she took off in a sprint. The fastest member among Spartans had earned that title fair and square. She'd always come out on top during races. Linda slid down from her Sniper's perch, sliding her rifle onto her back. Fred nodded to her, readying himself for Grimm to come their way. None arrived and their MT was clear. Some time to catch their breath, finally.

"Think the people here could lend us some help?" Linda asked, "Or are you really planning on going on a few days' worth of a walk to get to these coordinates?"

"I'd rather not expose them to us too much." Fred noted, "This place doesn't feel like any colony we've been on."

"If the Grimm, as the locals call them, didn't give it away..." Linda remarked with a shrug. They heard rapid footfalls and turned toward the direction of the village. A leather backpack flew toward Linda, which she caught mid-flight. Another pack followed up, landing in Fred's hands. Linda opened hers, noticing a few canned goods and a few fruits and veggies in jars. She hummed, then looked up to Kelly and asked sarcastically "You didn't strip their pantries, did you?"

"Nope." The girl noted, slinging her own day pack on her back. She also had three thermoses with warm liquid inside and several filter types that would allow them to get water from any source. She handed them out, then said "The mayor thanks us for the help. They'll be able to rebuild their wall without any kind of major issue... And they gave us a 'bit' of their food."

"Again, we sure they didn't tear open their pantries for us?" Linda asked, settling her own pack on her shoulder.

"Mayor said they had a pretty nice harvest this year, so they have a lot to spare. They'll trade the excess with the main city of the local nation-state, the Kingdom of Vale." Kelly answered. She looked to Fred, then asked "We going, sir?" and a green acknowledgement light winked on. The Spartan turned, facing exactly down the path they were meant to go. A beaten dirt path leading out into the unknown.

He sighed, an uneasiness creeping into his very heart about this, before a heavy, armored hand fell on his shoulder, dissipating the doubt. He looked to see Kelly, her visor depolarized. She looked at him with reassurance. He gave her an almost imperceptible, but thankful nod. He drew his firearm, holding the backpack with their supplies by the strap, then gave three consecutive hand signals. Advance, hold formation, shoot on sight.

As the three took off, they could only wonder just who else was around if John was alive...

Forever Falls outskirts

Not far from Vale

Within the scarlet bounds of the grass and trees of the Forever Fall, gunfire echoed. A Spartan in armor colored a dark shade of scarlet, an armor of the CQC variety of course, held her MA5 with one hand and her pistol with the other, trying to stave off a squadron of vile creatures that were charging her. She didn't know, nor did she care what they were. The only thing she cared about was-

CLICK

That. She had been down to her last MA5 clip. Letting out a colorful swear in a mumble as she found herself damn-near defenseless, the girl thumbed the safety of her pistol and the rifle, before slinging both back into their holsters and rolling back just as another monster came to bite at her. She drew her knife mid-roll, planting it in the knee of another one of the fuckers with disregard. "Just how many of you bastards are there?" She asked the creatures, well aware that they couldn't answer.

She gasped, ducking under the claw of a taller, lankier werewolf-looking bastard. It clawed at the tree she had been backed up into, but she had the advantage of strength. Kicking up, the girl either staggered the creature or shattered that skull bone plating it wore, since shards of bone fell onto her armor. She then raised her knife and plunged it right into the lower jaw of the creature, aiming exactly where the brain would've been. Thankfully for her, her hit worked as she saw the creature dissipate into a black smoke, vanishing into the wind.

"Well, that was-OOF!" She felt all the weight of a freight train slam into her, throwing her clean through the trunk of the tree and into a string of scarlet bushes. She swore to herself, coughing, before looking up to see a gigantic, porcupine-like bear bearing its teeth at her. It opened its mouth, roaring at her and forcing her to get back on her feet quicker as it prepped to charge.

A grenade flew right into its open mouth, followed up by the contrail of a Sniper Rifle shot and the roar of the gun. The fragmentation grenade shattered inside the creature's mouth, so to speak, splattering its entire head across the floor and trees. Shrapnel pinged off her armor plates, but didn't pen. Her eyes shifted to the Motion Tracker, catching a glimpse of a golden dot as it approached.

Green armor stood out like a sore fucking thumb in the midst of this clusterfuck of red. Hell, she felt more camouflaged than before. The Spartan that sidestepped out of the bush from which the shot came, however, was the most welcome sight that Spartan-023 had seen all day. But, as she read the IFF Code above the Spartan's head, she froze, her heart caught in her throat and damn near stopped.

And the voice, that familiar, smooth voice. The Spartan in the Mark IV armor turned her head, asking "Daisy, you alright?"

Daisy-023 nodded. She put two fingers up to her helmet and made a smiley face, the standard wordless greeting of the IIs. Spartan-141, Cal, responded with the same gesture, before watching the girl jump up to her feet in her usual, athletic way. Daisy took Cal's right flank, blade drawn. Cal chuckled, then asked "You out of ammo?" snidely. Daisy rolled her eyes.

"Not my fault this place is crawling with these things..." She murmured.

"I have two spare mags for my pistol, but I lost it. Left-most pouch." Cal returned, scoping another Grimm in. This one was taller, meaner and uglier than the others. It also had a lot more armor on its body, including ribs that stuck out around the chest cavity. The two Spartans looked to one-another as Daisy reloaded her M6G, then Cal said "You take the ones on the left?"

"If you can snipe fugly and keep his friends off of me." Daisy grinned, pistol raised and knife underhand.

"Deal." The girl nodded, watching as the pack of creatures as they took one step at a time, drooling black ichor onto the scarlet grass. The leader of the pack, the tallest and lankiest of the wolves, was now on all fours, in the lead of the pack. The two Spartans counted about a dozen, give or take, aside from him. Easy kills, so they thought. A quick exchange of glances and a nod...

And the two sprang into action. Cal put two rounds into the skull of the leader as it surged forward with its mates in response to the girls moving forward. It tumbled, collapsed and died incredibly easy. Daisy followed up by parrying the telegraphed attack of the second wolf in the pack, putting one into its skull and stabbing the third through the side of the head, before twisting the blade and yanking it out.

Cal took a knee, shouldering her sniper and blasting two more of the remaining Grimm with her last two shots. She slid the sniper on her back and drew her own knife, barreling forward into the group and grabbing the lead by the throat. She threw it forward, pinning two of its brothers and it to the ground by using the spikes on its back. She kicked its head in, followed by stabbing into its brethren with the knife.

The two girls danced a ballet of death, one still armed with a firearm. They broke bones, stabbed, cut, slashed and punched their way through a horde of monsters, their minds off their respective causes of death as they slaughtered on. By the time they were done, their blades had partially dulled and Daisy had gone through both magazines, leaving herself with only a knife again.

As the corpses dissipated around them, both sheathed their blades nigh-simultaneously as they finally got some room to breathe. Daisy shook her head, then murmured "I think we should avoid the rest of'em..."

"Agreed." Cal noted. She tapped her helmet's receiver, asking Daisy a question she was aware would come.

Daisy nodded.

Cal nodded back. Good, they were going for the same thing. Still, she asked "Any idea who the sender is?"

"No idea, honestly... Maybe Chief got an AI?" Daisy answered, "C'mon. We oughta start moving... Can't be the only things around."

"Fair." Cal hummed, setting the NAV point as shared between the two of them. The two stepped off, toward their target.

The Island of Patch

Around the same time

The sudden arrival on this small piece of livable land had shocked this young Spartan slightly. The last thing he remembered was being aboard the first alien ship ever encountered by mankind. The same ship that had, presumably, attacked Harvest. He had been there to blow it up with his team, his suit was ruptured and he was left without a way off that ship. He'd gone down fighting.

So... Was this 'heaven' or some variation thereof? He still had his armor and weaponry with him as he strolled on inside the town square at dusk. Several people looked to see him, but most only waved and smiled, not even batting an eye to the Supersoldier that had just strolled into their home town with a weapon strapped to his back and another on his thigh.

The town had several things, among which a cinema and a small shopping area to walk around in. He was looking for the local sheriff, to get information about where to go. He'd gotten that message about SIERRA-117. And if John was around, he needed a way to get over there and rally up. He needed to know if there was a boat off the island or any quick way to get across over 300 kilometers.

He stopped a blonde-haired man that was carrying groceries and said "Excuse me. Do you know if there's a ferry off this island or something to get me across?"

The blonde, blue-eyed man hummed, then said "Well, you just missed the ferry that was delivering supplies to the local market. It's gonna be back in around 3 or 4 days, though, so if you can wait."

"It's kind of important I make it across." The Spartan replied.

"Well, darn..." Sighed the man, "I don't know what to tell you. Maybe the next Airship over to Beacon? If you need to get into the city, I figure that's the best way across. And it's coming in 2 days, for mail. You got a name?"

"..." The Spartan hesitated, then sighed, "Sam."

"Well, Sam, I'm Taiyang Xiao-Long. Nice to meet you." The man smiled, "C'mon. I'm pretty sure you need a place to stay." and he led the way. Sam followed, curious but not wanting to squander a welcoming person's hospitality. Going by the lack of reactions from the people around him, they didn't know about Spartans or the UNSC in general. He had just now noticed they were shorted than him. Taiyang's name was Chinese in origin, though...

"Uhm... Mister Xiao-Long?" Sam asked, "With all due respect and thanks, why take me in? Honestly, I could be a serial killer for all you know."

"Are you?" Tai asked with a smirk, gauging the Spartan's reaction by tilt of his head, since no facial features were visible. He chuckled, then said "Don't worry, Sam. You don't much look like a serial killer and I know my way around people. I also know how to defend myself and my home in the case of an emergency." before he eyed a black crow with scarlet eyes staring them down. He hummed, then said "Anyways... What're ya looking for in Vale?"

"A friend." Sam didn't even hesitate with that one.

Tai smiled, "Well, I'm pretty sure you'll find him or her, if they're dressed like you... What is that, steel?"

"Classified." The boy returned. Tai chuckled.

"Alright, keep your secrets." He said as they approached a log cabin that was farther away from the main part of town. Propping open the door, the two were greeted by the barks of a small dog, colored black with white fur on his belly and stumpy little legs. The creature pit-pattered its way to them, a dumb 'smile' on its face as she sniffed at Tai's leg and jumped up. Tai laughed, then said "Hey, Zwei. Have I been gone long, buddy?"

The dog barked once, as if answering, before it turned to the Spartan and slowly approached him. Sam took a knee in front of the little pup, extending his right hand slowly and watching it approach with caution. It sniffed his hand, then leaned into it, pushing its little head and splitting its ears. Sam smiled, scratching the dog behind the ears, before looking up at Tai, "Zwei, you called them?"

"Yup. He's the family dog." The man nodded, turning a corner into the kitchen, "Can I get you something? A coffee, some food?"

"I think I'm okay for now, mister Xiao-Long. Thanks." Sam said, rubbing the small critter's belly and scratching under his chin. He stood up, then looked around the house and asked "Can I help with anything?" before getting a shake of the head from the man in the kitchen. Tai motioned to the living room area, then turned to work on preparing food for himself and the dog.

Zwei followed Sam inside, where the man stopped by a wall. He noticed a bunch of photographs, some of which representing a younger Tai with three other people. A girl in a white cloak, two people that somewhat resembled each-other(presumably brother and sister, going by the usage of the colors red and black) and himself, all of them lined up and smiling. Following that picture was a string of photos with two young girls and the woman with the white cloak, until finally reaching just the girls and Tai.

A big ol' happy family. Sam looked to the latest photo, of the two girls all grown up and sitting together, both bearing what looked like weapons of some kind. A giant scythe and a pair of gauntlets with shotgun shells in them, curiously enough. He'd probably have to ask later about that, for now, he just removed his own weapons and set them aside, leaning them against a wall.

"You look like you've travelled down some bad roads, considering the weapons." Tai remarked, "Take it you are military."

"Yes." Sam nodded, unwilling to reveal more.

"Right, well." Tai hummed, "The rooms are upstairs if you need to get some rest before the ships arrive."

Sam nodded in thanks, before looking at himself, then at the wooden stairwell leading up to the second floor. He wondered if it would support the weight. He sighed, resigning himself to listening to the transmission again for the moment. Whoever this CTN was, her voice resembled Doctor Halsey's. It really did... Had Chief gotten an AI while Sam was trudging around being, well, who knew what he was?

... All answers would be given when they rallied up. He hoped.

Chapter Text

Penny had followed the Chief to Beacon Tower. She'd seen him slot something into the computers, but she wasn't sure what, thus electing to only keep the information between herself and the General for the time being. Operations could not be disrupted just yet, so allowing the soldier of Wyvern to act under surveillance may yet be a boon for the Atlas military, in finding out what their Wyvern-side counterparts had exactly done.

Still, she regarded Dylan with a sense of respect. The man had gone through hell and beyond, considering what'd occurred with his kingdom. She watched him as they walked through Beacon together for their elected patrol times, having met up in the courtyard. Some of the students eyed the pair weirdly, but most elected to continue their own chats or just walk on, unperturbed by the sight of an armored behemoth and a young ginger girl walking among them.

Hunters were used to the weird, after all. They were the most eccentric bunch.

After finishing up a patrol near the classes, the two took a right down the main corridors, where even more students moved in groups of four to eight. Seemed like teams were used to befriending each-other, so that was nice. Penny gazed upon the Chief as he was figuring out how to work his Scroll, then the two stopped as a streak of scarlet petals appeared ahead of them, followed by a thud and a slight nudge-back of Chief's armor. His shields had also lost the tiniest sliver of energy from that impact.

The two looked down, to see Ruby sprawled across the floor in the standard Beacon uniform, a marriage of autumn colors on what one would expect to see from an elite school's uniform. The girl had damn near knocked herself out, had it not been for the Aura, Chief soon realized as he looked her over. Penny went to help her friend, then she, too, noticed the massive, red-colored, military-looking reinforced briefcase she had in her hand.

"Owwwww..." Ruby whined, rubbing her forehead, "Should've looked where I was going..."

"You alright?" Chief asked her, crossing his arms.

"Ears are ringing a bit... I think your armor's forcefield zapped me when I slammed into you." Ruby chuckled, rubbing her head with her free hand. She looked to her very concerned ginger friend, then said "I'm okay, Penny. Thanks for the help." as she hoisted up the package. Penny looked down at the item with wide eyes and was about to ask, before Ruby's eyes grew wide and she yelled "Oh, GODS I HOPE IT DIDN'T BREAK!" as she looked at the box.

With a tinge of red in her pale cheeks and an awkward, toothy smile, Ruby extended the briefcase to the Chief and said "Here it is!"

"In one day?" Both Chief and Cortana chorused as the Spartan took the box, the latter inaudible to the girls. Ruby's embarrassment grew into a wide, prideful smirk, taking the Chief aback slightly. He had to admit, anyone skilled enough to do such a complex task was probably very good at their job. Which was why Chief didn't think Ruby managed to actually build the thing he requested in one day. Seeing the slight reluctance in Chief's body language, Ruby nudged the box, then looked to Penny and beamed.

Chief sighed as Cortana let out one giggle. Here went nothing. He set the box down on a bench to their right, so they wouldn't disrupt traffic in the corridor, before popping the latches and lifting the lid. He blinked, looking at the weapon. The faint marks of coils could be seen in a relatively thin, reinforced barrel that was colored black. Rubber wrapped around the barrel's end, with a bunch of heat sinks at the top, near the main mechanism. The bottom of the weapon housed a magazine catch for a gigantic mag, followed up by a thumbhole stock made of polymer and reinforced metals and with a lilac shine coming from a vision port, presenting the Gravity Dust crystal inside. Atop, there was a scope with 2-times magnification, as well as an extra set of piccatini rails for extra mounted equipment like lasers and such.

And he also saw the joints for the transformation of the weapon, that would fold the stock and form it into the 'flower-shaped' head of the weapon, with the gravity Dust crystal acting as the centerpiece. It had a replica of the UNSC eagle stenciled on the side, minus the 'UNSC' writing in the ribbon below. On the bottom of the case, in a separate space, seven thirty-round magazines sat, loaded with high-caliber slugs. And several more slugs inside a series of smaller boxes on the left.

"Wow..." Cortana murmured.

"This is incredible..." Chief said, lifting the weapon from its box. Ruby felt pride well in her chest.

"Many thanks, my good sir." She quipped, bowing, "C'mon! We got a shooting range to test this out!"

Penny chuckled, watching as Ruby dashed off, stopping only to beckon them to follow her. The two looked to one-another, then the Spartan sighed. They joined Ruby on the walk over to the gun range, finding it a short trip from the amphitheater of Beacon, where most exposition and training fights take place. The gunnery range was a big, open area in the back with a multitude of holographic targets set up at different ranges.

Chief set the weapon down on one of the tables near by the mid to long range shooting booths, before taking out a magazine. He looked to Ruby, who smiled and said "It's basically your standard gun, just made into a mass accelerator... I have to admit, this was one of the hardest things I've ever had to design after Crescent Rose."

"Did you get proper rest?" Penny asked, "You have bags under your eyes."

Ruby rolled her eyes, then grumbled "You sound like Yang... Anyways..." She smiled again and gave a thumbs up to the Chief. The Spartan slotted in the loaded magazine and found the charging handle of the weapon. Pulling it back and letting it go, he heard the chamber being fed a round. He looked over the weapon itself again, then found an off-switch. He thumbed it and the weapon whirred to life in his hands, its magnetic coils feeding off of the energy in what he could only assume was a Dust-powered battery that was also in the bulky magazine. He looked to the girls as Cortana hummed a tune, making calculus.

Ruby covered her ears, as did Penny. He shrugged lightly to himself, shouldered the magnetic rifle and scoped in for the closest target, about 500 yards away. The scope itself was a smart scope, one which Cortana quickly adapted into the HUD. Counting down and letting his heartbeat slow below its normal rate, the Spartan zeroed in on the target for about half a second. The second half caught him between heartbeats. He squeezed the trigger...

The round basically screamed down-range. An electro-magnetic charge released from the muzzle of the weapon as the round surged forward, electricity arching around it as it flew, before slamming right into the holographic display and right into the thick reinforced concrete wall behind it, having drilled a hole deep enough into it to require repairs. He lowered the weapon, thumbing the switch again to turn it off and assessing the damage.

"Well... Damn..." Cortana mumbled, "0,13% of a mini-MAC Gun's power."

Chief was unable to process the strength. He looked to a cheering Ruby and a smiling Penny, before setting the weapon down. The red girl basically Petal-Dashed to him, then said "Wow! I knew I made her powerful, but I never thought she'd be like this! I added a few dozen coils infused with small flecks of gravity Dust, stuff I got thanks to Weiss. It was meant to boost power and allow the gun to punch through just about everything that the Grimm could throw at ya," then she eyed the still-smouldering hole in the concrete and chuckled awkwardly "And clearly, reinforced concrete..."

Sliding the weapon onto the maglock on his back, the Spartan said "Thanks, Ruby. She'll do fine."

She smiled, "No problem, Dylan. Hope she'll be of good use to you... Speaking of, what're ya gonna name her?"

"'Name' her?" The Spartan tilted his head. The girl nodded.

He hummed, then said "I'll think about it."

"Okay." Ruby smiled, "You two care to join me, my team and some friends for lunch? We were just about to head out, but I had to get you the weapon faster." to which the two security staff of Beacon looked to one-another. While Penny had vehemently protested originally, Chief had told her to go ahead and join the others. He was going to run one more patrol before heading back home, thus allowing the two friends to interact... And some time to themselves.

He spoke to Cortana, "Been tracking the contacts?"

"Yup. Radiation's still stuck to them like glue, though, so it's jamming the IFFs. All I can tell you is that they are friendly." She replied, appearing on Chief's Heads-Up Display again, "We could probably ask Ozpin to take a Bullhead out there... See if we can find them. Though some are close and some are far, it'd take a while to round up everyone..."

"How many IFFs per total?" He asked.

"On last check...?" Cortana hummed, "About three dozen IFFs."

That was a lot more than they'd started with. Maybe the rads were scrambling them hard enough to cause the swelled numbers? They were jamming the main signals of the IFFs sans the ident that they are, in fact, friendly. Even that was spotty, however, since the Rads could be corrupting it as well. He sighed, resigning himself to the idea that those that arrived would have to handle themselves until they reached the rally point Cortana had set up.

"How long until the first group reaches the Rally Point?" He asked, looking over the map of the area Cortana had picked. A secluded point in the Forest behind Beacon.

"A couple of days." She answered, "I'll tell you when we can take a Bullhead out." and then she dipped back into reading Data while the Spartan continued his last patrol for the morning. He'd have to go on another one in the afternoon, but right now there was the point of waiting out the arrival of their comrades. How many, who were they and what were they doing on Remnant? How did all of them get here?

And who were the newest contacts...?

The trees amidst a mountain forest lay littered with bullet holes. Among the thick shrubs within this unexplored part of Vale's national mountainous defenses, the corpses of Grimm began to disintegrate. A clearing farther ahead was filled to the brim with even more corpses, dozens perhaps, all slowly disintegrating. In the midst of all of this sat a squad of six members, their weapons' barrels still hot from the expended ammunition.

"Area clear." Reported one of them, "Motion tracker isn't finding any other hostile lifeforms."

She was one of the oldest members of the team. Her accent was thick, Slavic in origin. She wore a set of teal MJOLNIR armor and had a prosthetic right arm. She felt the back of her helmet for any holes, then asked "One, orders?" As she scanned the treeline. They'd just woken up here half a moment ago, a radio transmission bounced into their receivers and gave them a set of coords to go meet at and they'd just about killed almost a hundred alien creatures. She remembered clear as day, feeling that sting in the back of her skull for one moment and then, black, followed by waking up here.

"Everyone, sound off." 'One' ordered, shouldering his rifle and scanning the treeline as well.

"Two, alive... Somehow." The girl answered.

"Three, still kicking." A young voice called out. She recognized him as the team's sniper. Had the same accent as her. His thermal scope was on, tracing a 180-degree arc to ensure nothing else moved in the forest, "Anyone wanna tell me what the hell just happened with us?" and he took a step back, joining into the circle of Spartans pointing their weapons outward.

"Four, alive... Though I'm kinda shocked I am, boss." Replied the team's CQC specialist. His helmet was his trademark, the face of a screaming ghoul carved into the thick EVA Visor by the knife the man had on his shoulder. He'd spent a dozen of the shells attached to his specialized shotgun, "And what were those things?" He murmured to himself, eyes looking down the Shotgun's iron sights.

"Five, waiting on your orders, One." The biggest of the team mused, hefting his heavy chaingun up, its barrel still cooling, "May need a bit more ammo after that little bout..."

And finally, the voice of a woman echoed, smooth, calm, "Six, here..." And that was all she said, her finger twitching, hovering over the trigger of her DMR, out of which she'd fired almost three magazines' worth of ammo. She quickly switched out the mag for a fresh one. She lowered her rifle, then looked over to the rest of her team, awed that all of them still walked the earths.

"If this is Hell, boss, it's a bit more lush than I expected... Don't like it." Four murmured.

"I don't like it either, Emile... Eyes peeled." The Commander answered.

He sighed, lowering his rifle. He looked to the first girl, then asked "Kat, can you trace the call for us? Make sure it's where the Coordinates say it is?" and watched as the tech geek of the team pulled out her datapad and embedded into it the repeating radio message. She looked to the Commander of Noble Team, then shook her head "Nada... I can't find any satellite to link to, to even remotely give us any sense of the coordinates. All we know is what we got from the HUD."

"Damn..." The man mumbled, "Alright, three, Six, you're taking lead and providing scouting. Two, four, five, on me. We're trailing behind them."

The team took to acting as naturally as it had when they were on Reach. Reach. Carter remembered everyone and everything that had gone on on that godforsaken planet. They'd lost, lost so much in so little time that it pained him to remember. Alas, had he and his team somehow returned to the world of the living? Or was Emile right and this was an afterlife of some kind?

They'd probably find out, he figured, when they met the Chief and the AI that sent the message. Kat had taken to his side, the two of them marching in-step, with Jorge and Emile lagging farther behind. He hummed, wondering how to best bring up what had happened. Just as he was about to speak, Kat cut him off and asked "How bad was it?" almost carelessly.

He hesitated for a moment...

"Carter," She almost demanded, looking at him.

Sighing, he said "Pretty bad. Needle round pierced the skull through the back, exited out the front of the visor, left eye." And he saw her visibly wince. He murmured "You asked..." As they walked on.

Sighing, the girl then turned and asked "How about you?"

The man chuckled sadly, "Rammed a Pelican into the side of a Scarab to clear Six and Emile's path."

"Damn... Jun?" She asked.

"He got away with Halsey." The Team Leader replied, "Least one member of Noble made it off that rock."

"Hmm..." She gazed ahead at the other female Spartan in the team, clad in pure-white armor with golden accents. Kat then approached the Spartan, Six, and tapped her on the shoulder. The second of the scouting unit turned to her. Noble Two looked at Noble Six for a moment as they walked at the same pace, before asking her "How'd you go, Six?"

"Alone." The girl replied calmly, catching Kat by surprise. The girl explained, eyes still locked down the scope of her DMR, "A dozen Elites... Killed almost all of'em. Last one pinned me down and he and his friends ended it with a few energy swords and daggers." causing the girl to pause. Six had really gone out alone, during Reach's final hours, hadn't she?

"You alright?" She asked the Hyper-lethal vector.

"I'll be fine." The girl murmured, "At least I know I'm not all that alone."

"Silver linings, right?" Kat quipped, then looked at her robotic arm and wondered to herself why, if they'd been revived, had it not been replaced with her normal one? Then again, it was better to have it than her normal arm. IT could, at least, punch through Spartan armor if push came to shove. If any other Spartans were alive and around, that meant they'd have an easier time of it. If that was also really the Chief? Well, their odds for survival just tripled.

Still. Kat sighed. A lot more questions arose. Most of which she hoped the Chief and the others could answer. As they treaded forth through the forest, they soon caught sight of walls between the trees. A village sat at the edge of the city. The team then gazed at one-another, before deciding it best to find the front entrance. Scaling a wall would probably not have been a good first impression.

Alas... Here they were.

The Grimm Lands, as they had been referred to by many poor fools who'd wandered inside, were a perversion of the normal world. Scarlet soil and sand formed the core from which jagged stones of unnatural shapes jutted out into the scarlet skies, with lilac, shimmering crystals. Chief among the place's features was, however, the series of pools of tar-like substance that spawned the hordes of the Grimm.

Sat in the meeting hall of her castle, a perversion of what had once been home so many millennia ago, the Lady of Darkness herself, Salem, regarded the birthing of a new horde of Grimm. The ashen-skinned, grey-haired woman stared with a pair of scarlet, blackened eyes, at the process. She hummed to herself, turning toward the tables at the far back, before walking to them. Something had disturbed the natural order of events on Remnant. She needed to find out what.

She knelt, removing an object from underneath them. A contrasting item to everything else, the small device was an opaque grey color, with strands of blue energy coursing through narrow, almost imperceptible seams on its body. It resembled a shard of some kind, one that, by all means, made no physical sense. From its sides, two smaller shards flew, taking positions opposite one another and above , before flaring with blue light. She thumbed the device and watched as a holographic screen formed from a hundred particles of light.

She smirked, murmuring to herself "What do we have here...?"

The data that danced on the screens was a series of warnings, of containment and data projection failure. Salem was well aware of what that entailed. Setting the device down, she picked up her Scroll and thumbed the 'call' button. Seeing the recipient of the call answer, she spoke "Arthur, I may need you to bring someone in once you are done with the virus."

"It's already done and I've sent it to miss Fall. Who would it be that you need, milady?" The accented voice behind the call asked.

Salem smiled. Watts was a curt man, smart and well-spoken. "A certain Valeian doctor... One with experience in regards to the Grimm." She replied, walking back toward the window and letting the device register its data, "I will send Tyrian to contact our other assets in the Kingdom... A new development has occurred, one we need to deal with as quickly as possible. We will need a force to counterbalance the new development. This means a Military as well... A Doctrine of Shadows, if you will."

"It will be done." The man answered promptly. Salem shut off the call, then sat herself at her table, taking the technological masterpiece behind her and setting it down. Reading the Data proved exactly what she had thought would happen so long ago. Ozpin had no idea what he would soon have at his whim. All the more reason to ensure he and his little group do not gain control of these new arrivals.

Had Salem been younger, she would dread the things her old master had foretold. That her own species was so corrupted and vile that, perhaps, they would try and come back here again, to corrupt those she herself intended to end into fighting. Ozpin had been a callous fool, keeping the rest of the world from knowing the truth of her existence. It had worked in her favor.

She didn't know what these new arrivals would embolden the old man with, what kind of weapons and tactics they brought. All she knew was, that, unlike her beloved, she had to be proactive in countering them. She looked over her scroll once more, tapping two lines into it and sending the message. Moments later, the door swung open and possibly the creepiest, sharpest voice Salem had ever heard came to her. "What is your will, my lady?" The Scorpion Faunus bowed.

Salem smiled proudly. Tyrian had been a good asset for the team so far. Certainly not well-versed in politicking, but just enough to know that threats went a long way. She faced Tyrian Callows, the serial killer of Mantle, then stood up and said "I have a special job for you, Tyrian. In regards to Vale."

"Whatever you desire done, my lady." He answered.

"I want you to find the owner of the Hegarty and Kyrin corporation. From her, you will bring in the other members of our small sleeper cell in the city. We will need every single asset they possess to counter a possible new threat. Once you have acquired all of them and brought them together, you will contact me... H&K and their subsidiaries will provide to us what we need to fight this war that is growing in the Shadows..." Salem explained, handing Tyrian her Scroll, which had the faces and information of the ones he was supposed to find. Businessmen and businesswomen that had fallen from grace, a series of local crime syndicates and a Private Military Company. H&K Security Solutions.

The man gave her a smile wide enough to frighten any normal human being, before bowing and being excused. The two men she sent out had met up along the way and taken the same drop-ship over to Vale, while she was left alone once more, parsing through the data in the small alien device. It could never pinpoint the exact locations of the structures on the planet, but it gave enough clear data for her to know a malfunction was afoot. Perhaps she'd ask Cinder to scour the mountainside if they had the time. But right now, the girl and her minions needed to complete their main objective.

She set the device aside, turning it off with the flick of a proverbial switch, before looking outward at the world once more, to see the broken moon standing high above the plains of the Land of Darkness. Hope would be snuffed out as her own lord dictated. Her plans only needed adjustment to combat the new arrivals. The Age of Ending was coming...

The Reclamation had begun. And mankind and its Faunus allies were hopeless to stop it.

Chapter Text

Kelly, Linda and Fred strode forward into the thick, green forests, down the most beaten path they could find. Beside their little road, a small creek ran in parallel, the sound of rushing water serving to calm the trio of Spartans. Around them, birds chirped and animals moved to and fro, perfect warning systems in the case of more of those strange creatures. Their target was the next village over.

All of them were tense, though none said it. Even as they walked through the thick shrubs, down the dirt path. Fred knew well enough that they were, as Sergeant Johnson would've put it, 'up shit creek without a paddle', though a Spartan would've never understood the meaning of the saying proper in their day-to-day life. This place was as alien to them as the Halos, though admittedly it had a different set of issues and a new foe:These Grimm.

The trip to the village was pretty much a hint of respite for the Spartans, all of whom had been active since day 01 of Chief's disappearance over the Ark, trying to both work on their own missions and find him through back channels and such. If Cortana had really, honestly sent that message and was with John, that was a boon for them. For all three of them. It meant they weren't alone here. Hell, maybe Chief knew the place better than them, depending on where they were.

Fred raised his balled fist to signal a halt. The team instantly went for their closest weapon that had ammunition, stopping only as they saw a string of people clad in camouflage cloaks emerge from the tree-line. They wore a skull symbol on their kevlar armors and carried ballistic rifles and weapons. Their leader, a younger man, stepped up, pushing off the camouflage cloak's hood and stating, "You folks look strange."

One hand signal from Fred and Blue Team lowered their weapons. The man in charge of the team then said "We've been told..."

"Yer friendly, I presume." The lead raised a brow. Fred and the others nodded. They had the Grimm to fry, not fellow humans. The Commander simply smirked, then said "Alright. Follow us... Yer gonna need ammo, you can find the armory and they'll hand you some extra depending on caliber. Just be careful and don't startle the folk, our village is more militarized than the other ones on this path."

"You folks mercenary?" Kelly asked, slinging her shotgun onto her back.

"Some of the local villages do hire us from time to time as escort to Vale, aye." The man stated, then waved the rest of his hunting party off. About a dozen others beside his comrades stood up from the bushes on the right, slinging on their backs .50cal rifles, both Anti-Materiel Snipers and normal assault rifles and Carbines, the latter chambered in, seemingly, whatever passed for Fifty Beowulf here. They also had massive, silver bayonets slung on their hips in sheaths. Their bayonets.

The group rallied up, with the Spartans at the front alongside the Huntsmen's commander. He was toting a shotgun in his hands and a sword on his hip, the former loaded with high-caliber Slugs. He looked to Fred and asked "You folks from Atlas? Cause I've only seen armor even barely resembling that in their kit catalogs. Stuff looks very sophisticated and technologically-advanced compared to the stuff we have."

"We're probably not from anywhere familiar to you." Fred answered rather absentmindedly.

The man raised a brow at him, then chuckled and said "Fair enough." with a smirk. The team caught sight of the village walls, all of them lined with automated defense turrets in the 20mm and above range. At the gate sat a couple of old robot models, rusted out, but still clearly capable of toting weaponry in the form of arm-mounted chain-guns. Entering the village, they were greeted by paved roads, concrete buildings and more people clad in armor and carrying rifles than you could shake a battle rifle at.

"So..." The man started again, "My name's Cole Ross. I'm the chief of the village of Magna. Welcome to our place. Can I ask where you folks are headed?"

The Spartans exchanged looks, utilizing their single-beam communication systems and cutting their mics off. Cole sat there for a moment, brow raised. Fred sighed, shoulders sagging upon his two comrades' agreement that they should get some directions, at the very least. He turned on his external microphone again, then said "We're heading a few hundred kilometers down south-east."

"You're headed for Vale, then." The man smirked, "Long way out."

"We can manage." Kelly quipped.

"I'll bet. With the armors alone, you got my vote of confidence." Cole returned, slinging his own rifle onto his shoulder and starting, "You're gonna run into a few more villages along the way. Most of them should be keen to help and hand ya supplies, but there's the village of Silkshire, mid-point to Vale... It's a Faunus-only village with strong ties to the White Fang. I'd suggest avoiding it as you'd avoid any sorta plague or bigger Grimm."

"These 'White Fang' troublesome?" Linda inquired.

"'Bout as can be, since their little downturn into terrorism. We've had a few spats with'em, but the local Faunus in the village here dislike'em as much as the next human over." Cole explained, leading them further into the town. A faint drone echoed afar, vanishing as fast as it'd come. He continued, "Silkshire was passable until a couple weeks ago, when something really irked the Chieftain about humans. Ain't got any idea why she'd be pointing guns at the whole lot of us, but at least the Grimm harass them as much as they do the rest of the towns."

"Sounds like we'll either have to go through there or cut through Grimm-infested forestry to make it past..." Murmured Kelly into the single-beam. Fred winked an emerald acknowledgement light at that, considering their options as the man took them to what seemed to be an Inn of sorts. It had a sign showing it as such, anyways. The building itself looked more 'civilian' than the others, made of a combination of wood and plaster, with a beautifully-built roof and very homey and welcoming on the inside. They saw through the windows the people, traveler and local alike, drinking together at the bar.

Cole propped open the door, sliding in and calling out "Hey! Jackie!"

A young, blonde-haired beauty with blue eyes poked her head up from behind the bar counter, then smiled and said "Hey to you as well, Cole. Whatcha got for me today?"

"Three new arrivals. Figured they're in need of a warm meal." He stated, then turned to them and asked "Y'all would like something to eat, right? I mean, gotta be with full stomachs if you're heading out."

"I could go for some warm food..." Kelly stated, rubbing the top of her helmet. She winced, feeling a slight pain at the top. Fred and Linda both seemed to tense, but agreed. Jackie, probably the Innkeeper, showed them to take a seat at a nearby table. Doing so, the Spartans found the chairs around it holding their weight pretty well, compared to most other normal furniture.

Cole nodded to them with a smile, before walking out of the place to go meet his troops. Fred hummed, switching his mic off again and stating "Doesn't this seem a little suspicious?"

"It does." The two girls said in unison.

"Let's hope nothing important happens... I'd like to make it as fast as possible to that rally point." The Spartan Commander then stated, leaning back into his seat and hearing it groan under him. He scanned the room, which was occupied by people of all walks of life. Faunus as well, of course. They'd encountered the Humanoid race with only the added animal traits in the first village they'd been in and found them strange, but human enough to excuse.

The others around ranged from the place's Militia that were currently off-duty to travelling Huntsmen and Huntresses and to merchants, most of which had come for a day's and night's rest within the town. Most seemed to ignore them, but the Spartans still remained tense, feeling watched, until they saw it was a young girl. A young gazelle Faunus girl, her ears replaced by the animal's, sat with her mother, slurping from a juicebox and staring at them.

"Maybe it's nothing..." Kelly shrugged, hopeful.

They watched as Jackie came to them, three plates of food in hand. She smiled to them, then said "How'd you three even run into Cole?"

"Heading up to Vale..." Fred stated, "We met him on the road up, with the rest of his scout team."

"And he brought you over." She smirked, "'Course he would."

"Does he do this often?" Linda inquired, looking at the plate stacked high with mashed potatoes and some kind of sauce-laden meat.

"Only when he finds folks interesting." She stated, "And armor like that's plenty interesting."

Kelly gave the girl a once-over, noticing that she, too, wore a uniform underneath her frilly innkeeper apron. She asked, "Is everybody in this village part of the Militia?" as she lifted her helmet slightly, feeling that discomfort at the top of her head vanish for a bot. Jackie nodded, showing them she also had a handgun on her hip, an older model, rusty as hell, clearly a hand-me-down, but one that worked.

"It's kind of our thing." She noted, "Town was founded by a general in the Vale Army immediately after the end of the Great War, so we kind of maintained the Military vibe. We also make plenty of kit from license production. Small factory below the town provides us with the guns and ammo." And she looked around the table once, "Anyways, y'all folks enjoy the food on the house. When you want to leave, just let me know. I'm gonna set up rooms just in case y'all wanna stay the night, so I'd like to know if I can give them to the next travelers."

Fred and the others nodded. Turning back to their food, the Spartans were left alone for most of the meal. They simply exchanged glances between one-another, as if asking each-other what to do. They could spend the evening here, but they'd have to double-time it to the RV point. They didn't have an exact time-frame of how long it would be an available area for recovery of all assets and Fred had just now figured, blindly, that if they sent that message and the packet via broadband planetary transmit, it meant there was more than them around. More UNSC troops.

He wondered how big that village, Silkshire, was. Could they easily bypass it to avoid any sort of risk of confrontation tomorrow? He stared at the food in his plate, half-eaten, wondering to himself if that was the case. No, they couldn't really spend an evening here. They'd need to be out and about sooner rather than later. Still, the fact that people here were acting so kind... He wondered.

His train of thought was cut short by a Militiaman bursting inside and yelling "SHE'S HERE!"

Several people, all dressed in the standard uniforms and with random details that made them stand out, stood up, Jackie included. The Spartan stood up too, drawing their firearms and exiting into the main street. There, they found about two dozen of the local Militia lined up near the gate opposite the one they came through. Most of them seemed terrified, but among them was Cole's little squad, all of whom stared with steely, impassive gazes at the enemy ahead:Faunus soldiery.

Bearing white and black uniforms and toting more advanced weaponry, compared to that of the Militia here, at least, the Faunus Militia of the village of Silkshire also outnumbered then by a five-to-one margin at least. On horseback, wearing a more decorated version of that same uniform, sat a woman with lion's ears and a mane of long, platinum-blonde hair. Her green eyes peered at the Militia, a wry grin on her face. "Well!" She started, chuckling, "If it ain't the most sorry bunch of morons this side of the continent... What's the matter, Cole? Picking a fight?"

"Looks to me like you are, Chieftain." The man stared, racking the bolt of his rifle. Several of the enemy's own militia trained their guns on him and his platoon as Fred, Kelly and Linda stepped up. The Chieftain of Silkshire raised a brow, her grin ear-to-ear. She started laughing, a light cackle that turned into a mad, long laugh, her eyes focusing on the Super-soldiers.

"What's this?! Got some Atlas folks to provide security!? You finally cave in to their demands, Cole? Oh, you poor fuck!"

"We aren't Atlas." Fred remarked, before Cole could, walking up beside the man. He had no idea what it was, but it was mentioned several times to him at this point. Enough to figure it must've been another country.

"Oh? Then what are you three? 'Cause I don't think an ass-end village in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, Sanus, has any sort of ability to produce military hardware like that. Hell, it looks outside most Kingdoms' power to build armor like yours."

"Why are you here?" Fred wasn't taking anything today. They had an objective and no half-baked terrorist camp town was gonna keep them from reaching their target.

"The person who'll tear this place in fucking half if Cole brought you along so he doesn't have to pay his tithe." The girl smirked, "Now, how about you and your friends come to the winning side? There's no point in wasting your armor and ammo to fight alongside them. You'd do better under my tutelage and protection, maybe. If not, well... We could easily kill y-"

A gun thundered.

A bullet snapped.

And her lion's ear twitched. The woman was wide-eyed, tracing the contrail from the high-caliber bullet that was fired past her ear. The leader of the three elites had given a single hand signal and one of his compatriots, one who looked like she had spider's eyes, had fired. The barrel of her sniper still had smoke coming out of it. The leader of the White Fang stared at the Spartans, a combination of fear and anger in her eyes. The Spartan spoke harshly, "Next one's going between your eyes if you don't get out of here."

She growled, "Impudent dog..."

"I'd watch my mouth..." Cole seemed to grow all the more cocky, a grin on his face. He stated, "You heard them. Next one's between your eyes," Leaning his rifle against his shoulder. The woman growled, then turned away, giving a hand signal to her army to withdraw. Not even an ending threat or a monologue to go with the spook. She was either a professional or just didn't want to deal with shit today either.

She only paused to turn and say "I feel like this ain't the last time we're gonna see each-other, you three... Watch your fucking backs."

"Mhm..." Fred dismissed her with a nod, turning toward the crowd of village soldiers as they erupted into cheers. The woman scoffed, turning to leave for Silkshire atop her high black horse. As Fred and the Spartans returned to the Inn, he figured that, hey, things had gone awry, but not in the way he or the others expected. In fact, they'd gone wrong differently.

They'd basically just made enemies with the people they were supposed to travel by. Then again, they threatened them and their fellow humans with death in case they decided to join forces. He looked to Linda and Kelly as the folks around them cheered them on, then said "Looks like we'll have to break that little camp apart. Linda, we're gonna have to have a talk about trigger discipline..."

The sniper shrugged, "I did what I thought was right, Sir." Plus, the gal had threatened them. Self-defense!

"Of course, you did..." Sighed the man. He walked up to a smiling Jackie, then said "Guess we'll take the rooms after all... Until the evening."

"Thanks for the backup, folks. Planning on going after them in the night?" Cole patted him on the shoulder.

"Yeah." The Spartan nodded.

"Sorry to let ya know, boss, but uh... Faunus have enhanced night vision. You may as well be going after them during day-time." The man chuckled, "One of ours learned that the hard way back in the Faunus Rights Revolution." to which the Spartans looked to one another. Oh, wonderful, 'twas that kind of tension between peoples. All three of them nodded, having taken in the new information.

"Eh, don't worry about it!" Jackie smirked, "I'm sure your armor gives a nice boost!"

"It does." The trio said in unison, Kelly feeling the top of her helmet again. Jackie smirked, then waved them toward their rooms, allowing them to settle inside for the evening. Another delay, one that the man hoped wouldn't cause too much concern in terms of their timely arrival to Beacon. Still, Fred figured it'd be better than nothing. They would probably have had to fight their way through anyway, even if they didn't delay and left today.

He sighed, figuring he'd need intel. Kelly had volunteered rather quickly for that job, having retrieved a Storm Covenant's active camo. With her speed, he wasn't sure that'd help, so he elected instead to send Lin while he and a pouty Kelly asked around for information. He figured that, if anyone would know the town, it would be Cole and Jackie, since either one of them must've traveled through on escort jobs at least once.

God, Fred had a distaste for missions with this little intel and a timer in the back of his head...

Going in this blind was not fun.

Chapter Text

As night fell upon Sanus, the patrolling guards of Silkshire scanned the treeline for both Grimm and hostile human forces. Clad in the standard red, white and black of the White Fang militias, the somewhat more elite troopers belonging to the Vale branch also carried more modern assault rifles and proper weaponry, instead of just swords and the odd pistol. One of the leading ones, an elk Faunus with the tail as his animal feature, gazed sheepishly over the treeline on the north of the town. Nobody gave enough of a shit to try and harass them, especially halfway out from Vale, so why they needed guards, even with that other village, was beyond him.

He sighed, leaning his rifle on his shoulder and looking up at the broken moon of Remnant, wondering where the hell he'd gone so wrong with life that he had to join the Fang. Sure, it was a good gig, equality for his people, for his family and all that, but the uniforms were a pain in the ass to put on and even now, during the night, he still sweated like someone who'd been stuck in Vacuo's desert for too long.

He looked over to one of his fellow guards, a girl with actual lizard features in the form of scales across her body, staring out as well. She was cute, he had to admit, but they'd only talked once before. Not too short, not too tall, fit, wide amber eyes and an infectious smile. She had a lot going for her, but only if he could muster up the courage to talk to her. Well, that and if he didn't just get dragged over the wall and knocked out.

Linda watched through her NV scope as Kelly and Fred had climbed up the wall and taken both guards down, non-lethally. Fred's orders, since, to quote him, 'these people haven't shot at them yet'. True to that, they didn't, so non-lethal was still Fred's MO for now. They'd conceived a plan, however, to sneak into the town, knocking out any guard they met, then surrounding and threatening the enemy leader, or at least talk to her to try and pacify the situation between them and the other villages. Plus, they needed passage to Vale.

She met Fred's gaze as the man climbed atop the wall. The Spartan gave the 'rally up' signal and the Sniper slung her weapon on her back. She bounded the distance in ten seconds, climbing the wall in three quick leaps and grabbing onto Fred's extended hand to climb on top, before drawing her sidearm. She looked over her motion tracker once and found a clear path dead ahead.

Fred nodded, drawing his own rifle just in case, with Kelly racking her Shotgun to their right. They climbed down from the wall, into the small town itself, weapons at the ready and keeping eyes on their MTs. They moved through one of the alleyways between the buildings, which were similar in style to the ones in the prior village, with Kelly taking point as the shotgunner. Sure, they still weren't gonna fire unless fired upon, but that was a different matter altogether.

Taking a knee before reaching the main road and town square, the Spartans took in their surroundings. The wide-open square was occupied only by stalls that were closed now, in the middle of the night, and two patrolling Fang troopers, rifles in hand and eyes scanning the area. The massive building in the far back of the city was clearly gonna be the Command Center and probably the leader's mansion.

A few more Guards kept watch from towers around the place and more were positioned on the outer walls. It wouldn't be too long until they noticed their knocked-out comrades had gone missing. Silently, Fred ordered them forward, toward the mansion/command building with one hand motion. The Spartans ran past several alleyways, keeping an eye on motion trackers once more as they moved and another on the guards to their left. The buildings they passed were, as expected, filled with Fang troops, but most were too busy doing whatever else.

This was too easy.

Fred ordered a halt and the team dipped back into cover in an alleyway. He looked around, then said in whisper to the girls "Something feels off."

The two nodded in agreement. This was too easy. Even for a village that never thought itself to be a target, or easy to attack, their extraneous defenses were either out of order or inactive currently, enough so that there were no turrets to spot them entering the place, not enough guards on the walls. Fred sighed, then looked toward the Guards once more with suspicion. He even caught one shooting a glance toward them before turning their head.

With a frown behind his helmet, he spoke, "Flank. Best we can do now is stick to our pre-determined plan... If the Chieftain has something to surprise us with..."

"We shoot our way out," Kelly remarked, getting a nod from both Fred and Linda. They agreed, then, to continue onto their target. After a slow sneak-around the back alleys of the place and by the wall itself, the trio made it to the side of the main building, the town hall, mansion, whatever it was. Fred poked his head up, looking through the window as his Motion Tracker found but a single target moving inside.

He nodded to the team and went to try the window. By some feat of magic or luck, it was open and unlocked. The Chieftain must've either been very comfortable or very smart about whatever her plan was. The three climbed in, Kelly being last as to provide rearguard, before they shut the window behind them. They'd entered, clearly, through the kitchen area. There was no light on, of course.

The target was up on the second floor. They crept forward, through a seemingly-innocent living room and onto the stairwell. The team took down the hallway and to where the motion tracker had found the target and Kelly and Linda chose to remain outside as guards, just in case she called in any backup. Fred stepped inside afterward, opening the door to find the woman sat at a make-up table with a mirror, clad in her nightgown.

She looked over to him and raised a brow, then smirked, "You made it here in record time."

"You knew we were coming," Fred remarked, holstering his rifle despite the present threat. She nodded.

"Was hard not to figure it out," She answered, standing up, "Y'all seemed in a hurry even when we last spoke. Plus, seeing two of my guards vanish off the wall was a hint..." And she then pointed at the section of the wall left empty, a catty grin on her face, "Neatly done, though... Didn't seem to take you long to RKO the poor bastards... I hope they're just knocked out..." She almost warned.

"They are. No more boisterous, belligerent attitude on you, I see..." Fred remarked, crossing his arms to his chest.

"I figure it's better to use words than guns some times... Sure, if you try to leave the village now, every guard in the town's gonna be gunnin' for you for trespassing onto our property and whatnot," She now wore a wider grin, her canines sharpened and elongated, "But I'm a nothing if not civilized. I see you are, too, since you put your gun away before coming in. It's nice to know there's calm humans about."

"I take it this is a bit of 'racial' tension between you and Cole's village?" He asked.

"Eh? No," The woman shook her head, surprised that even got brought up, "Our villages got along fine up until a point of contention between both of us. Hell, he even has Faunus in his militia."

"Oh?"

"Bastard stole a contract from me, though. We may be White Fang, but we're still acting as mercs around the place when we're not running protests against the SDC or burning down their local offices," She remarked, "Quite a well-paying one. So, we've pretty much been bullying them to keep them off the market," She smirked, "You know, drive competition into the ground, that sorta thing."

"... Oh..." Fred paused. That was it!? "And you... Can't reconcile?"

"No. Not openly, anyways, since the White Fang would never allow it... " The woman shrugged, "New leaders are really up their own asses about the whole 'revolution by any means' thing... Can't really blame them, since quite a few humans still view us as expendable or second-rate citizens, but it's bad for business to literally be associated with what's becoming a terrorist organization."

"So, why not leave?" Fred asked, "You could unite with Cole's village, form a proper militia force and drive them off."

"Y'see... I'd love to..." She stated, standing up and approaching Fred. She stared up at the supersoldier, square in the visor and eyes, "But I don't think the local branch manager of the Fang would really let me leave without a fight... We provided most of the White Fang's muscle. We leave, they run out of any sort of replacement reinforcements for their little bases. And Adam Taurus would hate to lose his paramilitary pals. He'd barge in here with his Lieutenants and off would go my head."

"Cole didn't seem to know what he did wrong, nor does he know of your situation, I think," Fred stated, "Did you think of an under-the-table meeting or something?"

"Again... Taurus would find out. He has snitches in the town," the woman replied, "'Till he's gone or the entire Vale branch of the Fang's reduced to a few scattered pockets, we're stuck in a cold war with Cole's little company of mercenaries. Trust me, the guy was a very close friend for me, has been since childhood, but I just..." She thought for a moment on how to best phrase it.

"I understand," Fred cut her off, "Maybe we'll be able to help when we get to Vale proper... Until then, can't you ease the restrictions?"

The woman bit her lower lip, taking a thinking pose, "Y'know... Maybe," She shrugged, "I'll have to do it below-the-table, like you said, but... Maybe I can tell Cole we should be even for now."

"Good... This was way easier than I expected," Fred remarked, dumbfound.

She smirked, "Welcome to Remnant, my friend. The world where, if you can make a deal not to kill each-other while Grimm are around, you strike the iron while it's hot... Anyway, y'all should probably leave. By the way, tell the sniper girl she nearly nicked a bit off the top of my ear. Most Faunus really like their traits, so I'd appreciate an apology, but understand if I wouldn't get one."

"I'll take the calmness of our conversation as a sign of no hard feelings?" Fred raised a brow.

She chuckled, then spoke, "Sure thing, big fella. By the way, pardon my manners, I'm Jeanne Grise, commander of the little 'White Fang', with the necessary air quotes, Mercenary Company of Silkshire. If you ever need help with anything after you deal with the Fang... Just holler for us. What's your name, by the way? I'd like to know my would-have-been 'assassin'."

"Frederick," Fred replied.

"Fred, then," She smirked, "odd name, pal... Really old-school... But good to meet you anyways."

"Likewise, so... We're... Okay?" He raised a brow. She nodded.

"Yeah. All the threats I spewed yesterday? I was being watched and evaluated..." She patted him on the shoulder, "Anyways, you oughta get going, since the proper WF spies should be coming in here soon and I gotta figure out my 'damsel in distress' routine. Be seeing you whenever, Fred."

He nodded, dumbfound, then stepped out as the woman went back to taking off her makeup. Linda stared at him and he could feel her disbelief even though he couldn't see her face. Kelly, on the other hand, was giggling as she holstered her shotgun. The three then stepped out of the mansion through the front door and Fred proceeded to call up Cole on the radio when they went through the gate to Vale. A short conversation had the man rolling on the floor while his allies finished up discussions with the Spartans, giving them thanks for defusing the situation, at least partially.

Fred needed a vacation...

Chief stared out at the vast rolling hills and fields of emerald grass that spread out in the distance. Mountains jutted out in the distance, tall, sharp-peaked and snow-capped natural formations that were covered by layer upon layer of trees. He sat in the middle of this field as the breeze ran through the grass. Above him, clouds hanged in the sky and seemed almost artificial.

Far away from him, in another valley, he could see rising pillars of chrome and glass, hovering quietly over structures of Forerunner design. The rays of the sun beat down through the clouds onto the pillars and the fields. He paused, hearing footsteps behind him. He turned to face who it was and caught sight of her. Clad in her attire from when they'd first met, though lacking that antigravity device, the Forerunner known as the Librarian walked before John.

"You live yet," She stated rather obviously, "A pleasant surprise, I must say."

"Librarian?" Chief raised a brow, looking to the woman as he tried to clear the confusion he felt.

She raised her right hand, her expression impassive, "Forgive the 'invasion of privacy', so to speak, but I sought you out for a reason."

John remained silent, only giving a nod to signify his understanding. The Forerunner woman hummed, then walked to John's side and stared forth at the angular architecture that was the Forerunner towers in the distance. She spoke softly, "I see... You are currently on the world called Remnant. Then the genesong's next process has been unlocked."

"You never really explained what that was," John replied.

The woman gave a half-hearted smile to him, then stated, "It is for you to discover still. I am here to warn you of the impending darkness."

Chief hummed. He disliked bad news as much as the next person, but alas, he figured there had been some reason for him to be sent all the way to a new planet. The Librarian took that as a confirmation for her to continue and so she did, "You must have realized that you have been brought here by another piece of technology belonging to my people. I am afraid you are not the only one who returned here, nor are your allies."

So that confirmed most IFFs were actually UNSC personnel. Good. "You mean our suspicions were right. Those are all confirmed UNSC IFFs."

"Yes. They were brought alongside you, here, for this final battle," she confirmed.

"And what is it exactly? What are we fighting?" John inquired, crossing his arms.

The Librarian, or whatever this copy of her was, sighed deeply, "The one you fight is a scion, a child of the Didact, one willing to carry on the bloody legacy of his supposed Reclamation," And she waved her hand. Holographic screens appeared, showing the sights of the myriad ancient battles fought on Remnant. So many images, so many memories, he couldn't make sense of them alone.

"I think you understand what this means, do you not?" She raised a nonexistent brow at him.

Chief felt his mouth dry up. He nodded as the images of his last battle in his own realm played back in his head, the fight against the Didact and all his powers included. The Librarian offered a curt nod, before stating, "Then so it shall be. The Reclamation has already begun... Be it by your hand or your foe's, it will continue. May you be ready to face it when the time comes and take the Mantle upon yourself and your people... For if you are not, this world and the many beyond it may not survive."

Chief staggered, wanting to ask a question, to get some answers about his stakes in all this, to...

He woke up with a start, gasping for breath. He'd taken off his helmet to actually be able to lay himself down on a pillow of some sort. He rubbed his head, sighing, then picked up his helmet and slid it back onto his head. The HUD powered on, with a few added details, including a direct link to his Scroll via Wi-Fi, and Cortana greeted him, "Morning, Chief. Sleep well?" as he stood to his feet and grabbed the as-of-yet unnamed gift weapon.

"Decently..." He replied, checking his own vitals in the HUD.

"Everything alright, John?" She asked, "You've got a slightly elevated pulse... And if I know how calm you usually are, that's not a good sign."

"Just a dream," Chief replied, "The Librarian came to speak to me..."

"Oh... Uhm... What did she say?" Cortana asked.

John gave her the short rundown of their cryptic discussion. She sighed, vexed.

"Well, that's... Wonderful..." The AI scoffed, then quipped in her standard tone of sass, "Sounds like we got our work cut out for us."

"When don't we?" He asked absentmindedly.

"Pff," She snorted, "Fair enough. C'mon, we're on patrol, right?" before she started flicking through data-files and looking over the sensors provided by her direct link to the CCTS. In the time John had managed to catch some shuteye, she went about linking the Scroll they owned, though with a secure connection, to her systems as well. Secure connection to her meant that nothing could touch or track it, lest they be scrambled, while she could easily track or counteract whoever called and messaged them with spyware, malware or some other stuff.

A message appeared on Chief's HUD, from Ozpin. With a hum, Cortana opened and read it, "Master Chief, If it is no trouble, I would like for you to come visit me in my office. We have some matters to discuss. Ooh, did we do something bad?" She giggled. John hummed and Cortana said "Hey, c'mon, lighten up. I know the whole Librarian thing has you a bit shook right now, but it'll be fine. We made our way out of worse binds, remember?"

"Yeah," He nodded, "Fair point... Let's go see what the Headmaster wants."

"You got it. Until then... I guess I'll just keep sorting the remaining data from the CCT," The AI shrugged to herself, "I'll also be listening in."

"Okay," He replied as he strolled forth and out. In the courtyard, as he moved for the Tower, he found himself being stared at by several students once again. Many had just come back from their long trips to visit family during the mid-year's break, so the dozens of stares were probably normal when there was a guy in several layers of armor walking through the place, weapon on his back.

The Beacon CCTS and clock Tower remained the most imposing building on site, but at least it matched the architecture. The Spartan-and, by extension, his AI companion-passed by a newly-opened facility on their right, very near the second years' dorms. It looked far more modern than most of the stuff built around the tower, but at least it was short and neatly-concealed between the towering dormitory buildings.

Entering the tower, the Spartan took the elevator up as he had done before, finding himself immediately at the top and within Ozpin's office. He saw the man sat there, a hologram immediately vanishing upon his arrival. Ozpin smiled at the man as he approached, then said "Ah, good to see you, Chief Braun. I take it my message found you well?"

"I'd just woken up, sir," John nodded.

"Ah, good, then you're well rested," Ozpin offered a curt node and a smile as he poured himself a cup of whatever that hot brown liquid in it was. John could swear it was either coffee or hot chocolate and he did not know how to tell them apart. He hadn't had either, after all, even in his long career of operating as an active-duty Spartan. Still, the stuff was almost always omnipresent.

Oz offered him a cup out of courtesy, hinting at the other two behind him, but John shook his head and mumbled a thanks. The Spartan then went on to ask, "Is there any particular reason I'm here, sir?"

"Yes," Ozpin nodded, before taking a sip from his cup and setting it aside, "Master Chief, I understand your desire to maintain military professionalism all throughout your job as a soldier, but the sight of a tall, bulky man in a suit of armor like yours unnerves some people once the novelty of it wears off. Some of these people include miss Polendina, your partner. She has submitted a report in regards to the fact that you wear that armor day-in and day-out. She is concerned over your well-being."

"Oh," Both John and Cortana voiced, though the latter with a hint of amusement in her voice compared to his pensive attitude. The stares made sense now.

"Yes, indeed. I would leave you to discuss it with your operations partner, since she brought this to my attention, but I thought I should throw my two cents in and say I concur. I will send you a civilian issue uniform of Beacon's," He offered, then took his cup and took another sip while John processed this. Sure, it was no surprise that people would stare weirdly at the soldier clad in heavy armor.

"Is... That all?" He asked.

Ozpin nodded, smiling, "You have been doing a superb job otherwise, so yes, that is all."

"Ah..." John nodded, humming as Cortana giggled in his ear, "If it's okay with you, sir, I'll take my leave to patrol and... Mull this over."

Ozpin offered the man a nod and dismissed him, to which the Chief walked out, back down and toward the house. He hadn't really registered Penny's presence today, but it was still early in the morning. Perhaps she was with her friends currently, trying to attend classes? He didn't know, but he did know he was still concerned over something. Turning off his external mic again, he asked, "Cortana, any news on the distance of the IFFs?"

"Not..." She giggled, "Not far now... In a day or so, we should prep to leave and acquire them. Enough time for me to set up a cover story for any of the people we may recover..." She read his vitals and saw they were still slightly abnormal, asking, "You still thinking about the whole Librarian debacle?"

"Too little information was given," He admitted, "I don't like going in blind."

"Neither do I, but... We'll probably piece things together as we go along," Cortana shrugged, "Plus... Hey, if she came to speak to you and knows Remnant, means there may be some leftover Forerunner technology to give us a sense of what is going on here, so calm down... I'm sure we'll figure everything out." She said optimistically. It was what they did, after all.

He hummed, nodding as they approached the house, only to see Penny just entering it. She stopped, turned and smiled as she saw the heavily-armored soldier approaching. She soon realized he'd gone to talk to Ozpin and, in fact, she herself was carrying his supposed 'future' uniform. A seemingly student-like one, but with a few differences, including a little Kevlar padding, from what John could see.

... Huh... Odd.

Chapter Text

Noble Team trudged forth through a marshy area almost half a day out from their RV Point. Six had taken the lead, rifle in hand and knee-deep in the muddy water. Her eyes stuck on her Motion Tracker, she trudged forward, with her team close behind. Jorge had had to lift his Machine Gun over his head to haul it without getting it wet. The Nobles had, otherwise, remained quiet on the trip over the marshy grounds.

At least until Six raised her balled fist to show a halt. She racked the bolt of her DMR and knelt until the water-line reached her waist, taking cover behind a thick cypress tree, as did Jorge and the others. The others' Motion Trackers finally picked up what Six had spotted:about a dozen unknowns moving dead ahead. The Spartan gave three hand signals toward her team lead, 'Humanoid', 'Armed' and 'Uniformed'.

Indeed, the Spartans eyed a bunch of people wearing black and white uniforms, with bone masks, trudging through the same marshland they were trudging through. Some of them carried sealed and reinforced boxes and canisters, so that would probably keep them out of combat for the better part of the first few seconds if the team decided to ambush them.

Still, Noble Six listened in, with One and Two joining her at the front, in her cover. One of two members carrying a box, a female, whined, her voice gravelly, "Gods, why do we have to crawl through this cesspool? This stuff's bound to be chock-full of the worst kinda diseases out there... And the hell's a swamp even doing this close to Vale?" while her comrades kept their eyes open.

"Whine on, Grau... Ain't gonna help any of us..." Replied the seeming leader of the platoon, one armed with a weird, boxy rifle, "Base's not far now."

"Hope so, boss," Replied the girl, "The weight this Grav Dust has is fucking killing my back."

"Hey, chill a little, Silva. We'll be home before long," Her box-carrying partner, one with what looked to be horse's ears poking through his hood, stated, "Say, anyone had time to interrogate that human we caught?" He then inquired. He was also armed. Pistol in a holster on his hip, Six soon noticed, "She hasn't given us the access codes to her gunship yet, has she?"

"Banesaw's working on it," the officer replied, "Would do us good to let him be. Taurus trusts the man as his interrogator, after all."

"I'd spill the beans too, if some motherfucker with a Chainsword was sitting in front of me, revving that thing eternally. No offense to the man, but his shtick's being a scary bastard and it's clear it's working," A third soldier, this one a female carrying an ax and with a long, lizard-like tail and lizard scales on her exposed arms, stated, garnering a few chuckles out of the lot. Except the team leader, of course.

Another stated, "If anyone's crazy enough to be friends with Taurus, he's bound to have a screws loose."

"That's enough," The commander warned, "Commander Taurus does what he thinks is best. Whether we like it or not is inconclusive to the fact the man has openly brought more change in Vale than any other staff officer directly under Lady Khan. And his Lieutenants are well-picked..." Truth be told, everyone knew the woman was afraid she'd be the one that Taurus killed in the next fit of rage if the man heard the entire gang talking shit.

"Right... Sorry, boss..." Laughed the girl, 'Silva'.

"So... Animal traits..." Kat whispered, racking the bolt of her pistol and looking to her teammates, "And they captured a human with a gunship..."

"Commander?" Six looked over to Carter, who was considering their options as the little patrol moved forward. He hummed, watching the demi-humans moving ever forward as flies and cicadas buzzed around their ears, sounds barely filtered by the helmet. Each of these seeming militiamen had a scarlet symbol on their backs:the head of a panther with three claw marks behind it.

Carter nodded, "Pursue at a distance, Noble. We're tailing them to their base and liberating ourselves that Gunship and the pilot, whomever they may be. Perhaps they're one of ours, perhaps not. Eitherway, it'd beat walking all the way to the RV point," And multiple emerald lights winked on his HUD, confirmation from his teammates. He motioned forward, to maintain an advance through the deeper parts of the swamp for the lighter members of the team:Kat and Six, while the rest of them would follow along at a distance, from the shallow parts.

"Well," Kat hummed, "Seal your suit, Six. We may need to go diving, depending on how deep the place is," She then stated, getting a nod out of Noble Six. The girl readied her own rifle and activated the suit's high-quality seals, meant to keep the air inside of the MJOLNIR armor in case of decompression and, in cases such as this, keep water out of the suit itself.

The team split up, with Emile stacking his explosive grenades into whatever pocket he could find that could be made airtight, just so that the forty-mike-mike shells wouldn't be too wet for use. Sure, the UNSC had found ways to make the stuff waterproof a while ago, but it was not worth the risk to him, especially since his single-shot launcher was with Jorge, in the man's backpack, so it wasn't getting wet any time.

The team took their respective positions, Kat and Six following closest to the patrol of a dozen hostile 'White Fang' soldiers. Both female Spartans kept their guns over the waterline as it started to reach their chest-height. They were moving even slower due to the mud below their feet, while their enemy seemed to be moving on a more elevated bit of ground, uneven as it was. Still, they kept up while the rest of the team went for the wide flank.

A quarter of an hour of tailing the enemy and avoiding their gazes and the Spartans had made it to the outskirts of what seemed to be a bunch of bungalows raised high above the water on stilts and pillars of concrete and wood. To the far left, there was a small landing pad with two aircraft on it. One was a rounded, fat, ugly thing with thin wings that looked like they'd rip apart at the least amount of stress. The other...

The other was a very familiar design to the Spartans. A D77-TC Pelican, the workhorse transport of the UNSC, sat there, armed with several tubes of missiles and even a gatling gun in the nose. The moment Six reported it, Noble rallied up around her and Kat. She pointed at the transport aircraft, bearing writing on its side. Echo Four-One-Niner. Noble somewhat recognized the numbers.

"Alright..." Sighed Carter, watching the enemy patrol enter the buildings with the strange package, then he ordered calmly, "Noble, fall back. We'll make a plan and hit the place in the evening. Four, get me a number on our ammo situation, three, scope out the encampment in the night. Six, two, five, let's go find a platform or something to set up on for the wait."

Everyone's status lights winked green. They clambered out of the swampier area and onto a bit of dry high ground, where the full sight of how dirty their kit had gotten finally came to them. Up to their midsection, the Spartans' armors were colored a deep, dark brown thanks to the mud within the swamp itself. Water dripped down onto the untainted brown soil they now walked on.

Jun clambered onto a tree with thick enough branches to support the weight of his armor and perched his gun onto a pair of branches that split off from the main, scoping in the camp with the rifle's thermal sight mode. Carter and the others, meanwhile, sat themselves down under the shade of the tree as the sun began to set. Carter watched Noble Six check her kit.

"You okay, Carter?" Kat asked as she crawled up to him.

"I'm fine," Replied the man absentmindedly, "You? I saw some mud in the servos of your arm."

"I cleaned it," Kat quipped, then looked to Six and said "It's like she's reverted back to her old self."

"You heard her. She died alone," Carter replied, looking over the woman's own ammo.

"Yeah..." Kat sighed, taking her helmet off and taking a deep breath of the musty swamp air. She scowled, disgusted at the scent, then offered, "It was nice of the village elder to point us in the right direction."

"It was," Carter conceded, "Especially considering the fact we came in there armed."

"Would it have hurt him to spare some food, though...?" Emile quipped behind them, carving into the hard wood of the massive tree with his knife, "Figured we'd need at least something to chow on while we're making the run to Vale," And indeed, they could've at least shared some food, but Carter understood. Not a lot of food to go around in a small town like that, he imagined.

"What's your ammo count, Emile?" He asked, avoiding the discussion.

"Fifteen slugs and around ten buck, plus a half-full mag in the Shotgun. Still got about two dozen frag grenades for my launcher," The team's CQC-favoring fourth member replied rather dully for his personality, then quipped rather maliciously, "Maybe we can yoink some of the stuff from the tree-house bunch," as he finished his carving, that of a skull and the Noble Team symbol below it. He sheathed his Kukri.

"Everyone else?" Carter retorted.

"Six still has five and a half mags for her DMR, two more for her AR. Three has one mag, plus one in the gun for his sniper and the big man's down to a fourth of his ammo too. Gonna have to go brawler if you don't want us to waste ammo on the Fang bunch," Emile replied, arranging his kit. Carter nodded, then looked up at Jun, to see him looking at them.

The night began to fall over the section of the planet they were on. Jun reported as the sun began to set, "I've accounted for about two dozen hostiles, plus two unmoving heat sigs in a bungalow in the far back... Could be the pilot and co-pilot of the bird, sir," Jun explained, slowly climbing down to Kat and Carter, both of whom had shared one of the last MREs while Emile, Jorge and Six shared the second. Six looked over to Jun, her helmet off her head and her face obscured by a shadow. She tossed the sniper an MRE pack. He nodded, then said "Thanks."

"Don't thank me..." She said, almost whispered, "You're gonna have to share with the rest of the team."

"Right..." Jun chuckled, "So, boss, a Pelican... Think the pilot's alright?"

"Well, you have their heat sigs, so I'm going to assume that they and their co-pilot are still alive, at the very least..." Carter replied, standing up, "Everyone, gather up. We're preparing the plan now. I want every detail squared away. Those bungalows look thin enough for the bullets to punch right through, so I'd rather we didn't lose our pilot and co-pilot for the trip home."

"Sir," The entire team jumped to their feet. Moments later, they had a plan squared away. Jorge would take Emile and the two would climb onto and secure the Landing Pad while Jun provided cover from a nearby tree. Carter, Kat and Six would take the rescue mission on, stealth. Knives and fists only. No gunfire until the pilot and co-pilot were secured and back at the ship... Or if the refuse hit the fan.

Another day, another calm patrol tour on Beacon. John had found himself alone again this time, since Penny had noted she desired to talk to her father about... Something... Still, the Spartan returned home with Cortana humming in his ears as she had finished squaring away the very last briefing file about Remnant. Well, the last important tidbits anyways. Chief was fully aware of most of the surface knowledge needed not to be a complete bore in any conversation.

He entered the house, to find Penny and Ruby, surprisingly enough, chatting. Huh, the little red ridinghood must've snuck past him, or evaded his patrol. Both girls turned to greet the Spartan and both beamed at him. Ruby jumped on her feet and said, "Hey, Dylan! Sorry for barging in, but I just wanted to come talk to Penny for a bit while you were away. That alright?"

"I don't see a problem," Replied the Spartan calmly.

Penny beamed at that, while Ruby asked, "So! Didya think of a name for the old girl?" And she jabbed a finger at the magnetic rifle on his back. He hummed, drawing it, removing the magazine and emptying the chamber, before setting it on the table to his left. He actually hadn't had much time to think about it. Outside a few legendary medieval weapons and some mythological things, not much came to him.

"Hey, Chief? I may've found a name, though it may seem a bit... Pompous," Cortana chuckled. So spoke the girl named after a sword herself. He hummed and Cortana took it as 'go on', to which she did. She spoke, "Look, I know you're not big on ancient mythos and stuff like that, but I do think that Caliburn could be a pretty good name. I mean... I know your weapon isn't a sword, it's a mace that turns into a Mag Rifle, but..."

"It's good..." He replied to Cortana, for only her and him to hear, before turning his mic on again and stating, "I think I'll go with Caliburn."

"Wow... That's actually ancient vernacular, but cool!" Ruby seemed giddy, grinning from ear to ear, "Where'd you come up with it?"

"Off the top of my head," The Spartan quipped, garnering a chuckle out of Cortana.

Ruby nodded, "Cool!" before a ding echoed from the kitchen. She beamed, then excitedly jumped, "Ooh! Penny! They're ready! Imma go grab them!" And, before either of the two pseudo-owners of the campus house could say anything, Ruby had left a trail of petals to the kitchen. Penny looked to Chief, smiling awkwardly, before averting her gaze from his and rubbing the back of her neck.

"I'm sorry I could not join you today for the patrol either, Dylan, but I had to have a talk with my father," She looked to him, two piercing emerald eyes staring right into the visor and into his own eyes, "And the General asked to speak with me too, afterward, so it was quite a busy day... I hope patrolling alone has not been a bother. I promise I will find something we can do together tomorrow! We still need to build cohesion!"

"It's no problem, Penny. And I understand. Do what you need to do," Chief replied, then he sighed. He did enjoy the relative peace and quiet, he was not going to lie, but he wouldn't say that to Penny's face. He felt like it'd break her poor heart and, for some reason, he hated even remotely entertaining that idea. Her beaming smile, however, changed the tone of his mind and his thoughts to more pleasant ones.

"You two really need to become more buddy-buddy, y'know, John? You're living together, after all. Plus, she seems like a nice girl," Cortana quipped. John gave an approving hum, before watching as Ruby bolted into the room on a trail of rose petals and magical red things, a tray of round sweets with chocolate chip in her hands. The little weapon nut smirked, setting the tray down on the table, next to the newly-minted Caliburn.

"My dear Master Chief Petty Officer Braun, I, Ruby Rose, strawberry connoisseur, weaponsmith and Huntress extraordinaire, alongside my lovely ginger assistant, Penny Polendina, have made the ultimate sweet, scrumptious and delicious delicacy to ever grace Remnant!" The Rose went all purple-prosey for a moment, trying to sound epic by trying-and cutely failing-to make her voice sound like that of an adult.

Penny chuckled at her friends antics as John looked over the tray, with a giggling Cortana in his head. He raised a brow, then asked "Chocolate chip... Cookies...?" almost dumbfound. Sure, his heart fluttered for a moment since he had no recollection of ever eating these things, nor how they tasted, but still. Ruby's smile grew almost tenfold, metaphorically speaking, as she breathed in, then out, taking in the seemingly wonderful scent of the food.

"Yup, my good sir!" She spoke, a fake cockney accent, before noting "The sweetest, crunchiest and most delicious sugary treat mankind has ever invented! One that goes great with milk, too! Ooh, speaking of!" She dashed back into the kitchen, then came back out, setting another tray, this one with three cups of steaming milk onto the table. Proud, Ruby declared "Let us feast, lady and gentleman!"

John paused.

"... Oh, come off it, Chief. I know what you're thinking, 'I have to take off my helmet for this'. Yes," Cortana started, "Yes, you do. The girls made you some sweets, for the love of god. Don't be rude."

"Uh..." He wanted to retort about the fact that they couldn't exactly speak while the helmet was off.

"Nope." Cortana smirked, "No buts on this one, John. I'll be fine for all of a few minutes of you eating the stuff. I felt that little spike in your heartrate and I know you wanna try them, so don't even try to bloody deny it... Now, go on, take your helmet off and enjoy. I'll just do my thing in here and track our buddies' arrivals while you eat. Not long until they reach us now, anyway. And you do need to show your face, 'member? May make it easier to switch to a uniform as per Oz and Penny's request."

"Right..." John sighed in defeat, aware he could not change his partner's mind once she was set on something and resigning to doing as asked. The two girls looked at him expectantly as they sat themselves down at the table, Ruby most of all. Two silver eyes stared at the Spartan as if they expected him to stare right back at them. His hands wrapped around the helmet's outer layer, garnering a gasp from the girls as he thumbed something and disengaged the suit's seals with a long, hard hiss. He took his helmet off of his head, sliding it under his arm and garnering blushes out of both the girls.

Noticing the initial reactions-mouths agape, eyes wide, pupils dilated and their cheeks tinted a deeper shade of red than normal-John wondered what could've gotten them to react like that. He lifted up his helmet to look into the reflective visor and saw his face... De-aged by about 30 bloody years, but still bearing the same battle-scars he wore on his tired face, the young Johnathan, Spartan-117, stared at himself. Deep blue eyes, tinted a different color by the orange of the helmet, brown hair that'd been shaved to near the skin and a strong jawline accentuated by his much younger features reminded John that, yes, he had indeed regressed wholesomely in age.

"Right..." He murmured, trying to figure out what his own face could garner that reaction as the sweet scent of the baked goods assaulted his nostrils. He sat himself down, though very gently onto what seemed to be a chair made of metal. He hoped it'd hold the combined weight of soldier and armor as he settled himself into place and thought that, yes, he would need to change into an uniform, if only not to have to replace the furniture every time he wanted to sit down. He looked to the two as the cookies seemed to cool, before asking, "Are you okay, girls?"

That seemed to snap'em out of it. Ruby nodded, "O-Oh, yeah, we're fine! Sorry!"

"Indeed," Penny nodded, though her voice was more meek. She picked up her milk and swirled it around, before asking, "So, how was the patrol today?"

"Quiet as it was in the rest of the days," He stated, picking up his own cup of milk gently enough not to break it.

"Well," Ruby smirked, the blush slowly vanishing from her cheeks, "Let's dig in, you two! They're best when fresh outta the oven!" And with that, she nabbed the first cookie off the tray and bit down into it. A visible shiver ran up the girl's spine as her cheeks grew red once more, but for what one would assume a different reason. Penny bit into the cookie as well, a smile on her face, then took a sip of her milk.

"Sho good..." Ruby mumbled, before swallowing whole the half-cookie she had bitten into. She looked to John, smiling and watching him as he looked the round cookie over. After a moment of contemplation, John relented and bit into it. With wide eyes, the Spartan chewed and stared at the half-eaten cookie in his hands. It was as if childhood memories came flooding back, such a familiar taste and scent it was.

He blinked, then, with little regard for both guests and others, scarfed down the cookie like a hungry pup. Both Penny and Ruby chuckled and the red-ridinghood asked "Hey, Dylan, you okay? I never saw someone so quickly eat a cookie."

"I'm fine..." John replied, taking a sip of his milk and acting like he didn't just take two more cookies when nobody looked. Penny giggled at that.

"Alright..." Ruby smirked, "It's almost like you never had cookies."

To be fair, John 'remembered' having them, but... Not properly, "I think it has been long enough that I didn't remember the taste."

Ruby gasped, "Gods, that's sad! Well, you let me or Yang know and we'll bake more when we do some for our team!" Then she looked to Penny and asked "What about ya, Penny?"

"They are quite filling. The 50% sugar content and the dough are adequate and the cocoa in the home-made chocolate chips sprinkled evenly and perfectly over 20% of the cookies adds a certain distinctive aroma that-" She paused, noticing the concerned, almost spooked stare from Ruby(the only person who knew the truth about her) and the surprised one from Chief, before quickly course-correcting and stating "I-I mean it's VERY GOOD, Ruby! Absolutely scrumptious! I am, of course, unable to analyze it to such a depth beyond taste! Hehe! HIC"

She'd hiccupped.

When stressed?

Huh.

"Right," John hummed, "Shall we?"

Both girls smiled. After a while, the fourty-odd Cookies Ruby had somehow managed to bake in the relatively tiny oven of their house had been scarfed down and even John sat, laid back and suppressing a smile as his stomach was full of the sugary treats. It hit him again, that he was in another world. An honest-to-god different reality to his own, perhaps, if not close to one. A world full of humans, of the Faunus and of the creatures of Grimm. It was like a new start for him.

"That was great..." Ruby laid back, smiling contently and rubbing her belly while Penny sat perked up, smiling and tilting her head from left to right, seemingly happy that the Spartan and Ruby got along and found even more common ground. Ruby stood up, dusted herself off and then said, "Well, sorry you two, but I do gotta go. Yang's probably gonna be calling soon, asking why I'm late... Please, nobody tell her we just had a whole batch of cookies."

"I will not tell your sister," Penny smiled.

"You don't need to worry, Ruby," John waved it off. Ruby beamed, thanked them with a quick bow, then dashed out of the place, slamming the door shut behind her. Penny giggled heartily at her friend's antics before looking to John and noticing even the slightest bit of contentment in between the blank expressions on his face. He looked to her now, their gazes meeting and the young robot blushed, looking away again.

"So..." He started, straightening up, "What do you have in mind for that team-building exercise?"

"Oh?" Penny raised a brow, "I have yet to decide on one thing, but I have sent several proposals to your scroll... And to the Headmaster, provided he wishes to allow us to train."

"I see," He nodded. He could use a bit more combat. He felt like he was getting rusty, "No more sparring?"

Penny smiled, "Perhaps after tomorrow, yes?"

"Okay," John nodded. From there, the discussion devolved into normal small-talk that lasted for about an hour, about friends, tech, that kind of thing, with Penny skirting around different subjects she didn't find comfortable, or so John thought from her reactions(One of the subjects was about the General's orders to relocate her). Chief had set himself a proper sleep schedule so he wouldn't wake tired and go to bed even more so. He intended to keep it. After a few more minutes of talk, he offered Penny a quick 'good night', before standing up, taking his rifle and helmet and walking to his bedroom.

There, he slid his helmet back onto his head...

To the sounds of a laughing Cortana...

Apparently she'd, among other things, considered his reaction to the cookies 'adorable'...

Chapter Text

Night fell as Noble Team moved in, blades drawn or scoping in the place from a distance, to keep the others appraised. Jun had gotten them a basic understanding of the target base's patrol patterns, enough so that Six, Carter and Kat had no issue first entering the place from below. VISR systems whirred on in their helmets and Jun directly and wordlessly linked his own feed to them.

He was tracking them from about half a kilometer out, with Emile and Jorge in reserve in case things really went tits-up. Six looked over to her comrades, signaling with two fingers that she was heading for the bungalow holding the pilots. Carter nodded, then tilted his head to the left, denoting his and Kat's target:The landing pad. Ducking behind cover, the Spartan girl watched the enemy's patrols march past her, two Fang troops to be exact.

Slowly, she crept her way forward on the catwalk that linked the four main bungalow-like buildings, her knife in hand and her mind set on the objective and it alone. She was focused, treading carefully and not even making a sound despite the weight of her armor. She'd reached the bungalow where the pilot and their crewmate were. Slowly opening the door, she caught a glimpse of a Fang soldier sat in the kitchen just opposite her, down the hall.

She was with her back turned, so Six slipped past, keeping an eye on her MT and on the live feed from Jun's sniper. Pushing past what seemed to be a pseudo-living room with an active holovision and a single, drunk occupant, the Spartan pulled the wooden door open slowly. Inside, she caught a glimpse of the pilot and co-pilot, both clad in UNSC overalls bearing the markings of the Pillar of Autumn. The Pilot, wearing a scowl, looked up, then gasped as she saw Six.

The Spartan put one finger up to her helmet's outer speaker, then slowly crept up behind the first Guard, while the second was staring out of a window. She grabbed the man, one with donkey ears as features. Snap, his neck twisted, spine broken. He dropped to the floor just as Six bounded across the room and planted the blade of her knife into the chin of the second man.

The two corpses dropped like sacks of potatoes, with wet, muffled thumps. Six went to the pilot and co-pilot to free them and heard the woman speak, "Well, I'll be damned..." In a whisper, "Didn't think they'd be sending Spartans for us... Especially after we both died."

"You're not alone," Replied the Spartan as she cut both the woman and her compatriot free, "Grab your kit off the tables and let's get to the bird. We've got an RV point."

"Y'all got that call too, huh?" The woman, whom her active IFF tag now identified as 'Carol Rawley', asked as she felt her wrists. She and her co-pilot moved to the table, grabbing holsters that contained M6 Magnum PDWs, as well as the ammo for them. Six nodded, then showed them to stay quiet, making her way through again. She paused only as she saw the drunken guard standing up. He turned to face them, eyes wide and a half-finished bottle in one hand.

He stared at them with two wide eyes, his mask sat on the coffee table in front of the holovision. The trio stared eye-to-eye with the man for a good second, the tension in the air so thick one could cut it with Six's knife. Speaking of, the Spartan rushed the man, grabbing him by the mouth and planting her knife into his sternum, before twisting it and pulling it out.

She stood up, cleaned the blade off, sheathed it and drew her rifle, then thumbed her com and said "HVTs secure. Moving to extract," and getting green lights from his teammates. She thumbed her weapon's safety afterward and turned the corner, entering the main hall, looking toward the kitchen, which was now empty. Quickly, she signaled the pilot and co-pilot to haul ass, opening the door right into the nose of a White Fang soldier.

Well, shit, Six thought, there went their cover.

She scoffed, then said "Stay behind me," before putting two bullets into the Soldier's two pals and stomping his face in. The gunfire rang loud enough to wake whoever else was around, including the others on patrol. Six soon saw them converge on them, waving her HVTs toward the landing pad and firing her rifle as the Fang bastards turned the corner to greet her. Some managed to fire bursts, but the rounds pinged off her shield. She ran after a bit more suppressive fire.

"Six, sitrep." Carter demanded as gunfire echoed in the background.

"I imagine the same shit that happened to me happened to you, boss. We ran face-first into a bunch of Fang patrol troopers returning from their night run and are now coming toward you," She replied, garnering a sigh out of the Commander as she, indeed, saw tracers flying between the gunship and a White Fang squad that had managed to spot them hanging by the landing pad.

"Great..." Carter sighed, "Three, four, five, haul ass. We're evaccing the moment Six gets our pilots here!"

The replies came in the form of automatic gunfire, a sniper's shot ringing out and a fragmentation grenade detonating in the middle of one of the bungalows, followed by rapid-fire Shotgun shots. Within moments, the team and their pilots had rallied up next to Pelican Echo Four-Nineteen and started firing at the Fang troops advancing toward them. Carol, meanwhile, said "C'mon, let's start her up!" to her co-pilot.

Bullets rang and pinged off the armored hull of the Pelican, Kat stating, "Well! This went in an interesting direction!"

"Least we know we can still shoot!" Emile quipped, a grin hidden behind his polarized visor.

"Captain Rawley, status!?" Carter demanded, poking out of cover and snapping off two shots into heads. Jun's sniper rang from farther back, a round punching through five lined-up idiots of the Fang before stopping in the sixth, the leader of that patrol. Jorge hefted his MMG and let loose a stream of rounds into the target area dead ahead, sweeping the walls and trees and probably nailing a few of the bastards.

Carol shot back, "She's almost set! Haul ass aboard, now, Spartans!" then she cheered vehemently as her aircraft's engines roared to life, the spew of jet-wash stirring even the water below the landing pad.

"You heard the lady!" Carter barked, "NOBLE, mount up! Last one out hits the lights!'

Six, furthest ahead and closest to Emile, tapped the shotgunner on the shoulder. He nodded and said "Go, Six! I'll be right behind you!"

"I fucking hope so," The girl stood up, drawing her Assault Rifle and raking the line with bullets. Several more rounds pinged off her shields, partially draining them, before an icicle formed on her shoulder. She growled, feeling the weight of the sharp shards of ice poking outward from her right shoulder, before she smashed it open and moved, firing to pin down the enemy's leader.

Jorge mounted up as Carter, Kat, Jun and Six jumped in too. He hanged by the door, firing whatever was left of his rounds and shouting, "Emile! Move it! I'll cover you!"

"Thanks, big man!" nodded the probably-psychopathic shotgunner, holstering his weapon and running toward the aircraft as it started lifting off. He jumped, grabbing onto Jorge's hand and calling out to Carol and her co-pilot, "LAST ONE IN! HIT IT, CAP!" and feeling the contents of his stomach shift as the aircraft powered its engines to full, rounds bouncing off the armor. The aircraft's engines roared, now muffled by the closing rear hatch, before it took off with a start and a boost out.

"That was close," Stated Emile, "Good flying, cap."

"Thanks, Spartan," Carol replied, her helmet now on her head. She was a dark-skinned woman, probably of African-American descent and wearing a smirk, "We heading for the RV? Or are we gonna pick up a few more people on the way?"

"There's more?!" All six Noble Spartans asked, garnering a grin from Carol. The bird swung by, her sensors powering on as the pilot and co-pilot started scanning for other IFFs. Indeed, as Carter came up to the cockpit, he saw several dozen more IFF tags all around. Kat joined up front too, taking her helmet off and grinning while Carol tracked a few targets.

Up north, where the grass and trees turned into an eerie, bright red color, two young Spartan women fought with blades, out of ammo, against hordes of Grimm. Above them, the roar of a Pelican's engines, followed by the thunder of a chaingun. The two looked up, grinning as they saw Spartans rappel out, rifles in hand and opening fire. They tossed the girls some extra ammunition the pilot had in the harnesses above the chairs.

"Well, this is a nice surprise!" The one wearing red noted, dropping the empty mag from her AR and slapping in a fresh one with a satisfying click, "Do we know you, folks?!"

"Not yet!" Carter replied, firing into the horde, "Captain Rawley!"

"Already touching down, commander," The girl replied, "Everyone aboard! We gotta swing further out and nab whoever else I can fit on this old bird!"

"No need to tell us twice, cap!" Daisy replied as the Spartan fireteam, with their two added members, held the line against the hordes of Grimm. The girl swore to herself, then balked "What the hell dragged them to us!?"

"I don't know," Cal replied, dumping mag after mag from her pistol, "Not gonna be our problem anymore, anyway!"

Daisy chuckled as the team slowly boarded the now landed Pelican. Once the last one was in, again, the bird took off at best speed, toward, possibly, the next drop-site. Daisy and Cal both breathed sighs of relief, sitting themselves down at the opposite end of the 'blood tray', as the troop bay of the Pelican had affectionately been nicknamed, then the former looked to Noble and said "You guys saved our asses."

"What one does for a fellow Spartan," Emile quipped, "We're Noble Team, by the way."

"Never heard of you. What's the world like? We win yet?" Daisy inquired, pausing only to watch the reactions of the others. She shifted uneasily in her seat, then stated "Oh... You're like us, then."

"What do you mean?" Kat asked, her expression turning sour, but not because of Daisy... Because of memories.

"Dead and revived, not sure how fucked the world we left is," Daisy retorted, part angry as the memories flooded back to her mind, of Ralph and the others, part sad and even bigger parts glad she was alive, "I know for sure I died. Got three needler rounds right in the breastplate and died from blood loss. Cal?" She looked over to her friend, to see her uneasy already, looking between the Spartans with her helmet still on her head. Daisy sighed. Right, she probably should be more tactful. Looking to Carter, who seemed to understand their situation too, he nodded.

"We figured," Carter nodded, "Didn't know that was the case for you two as well..."

"Maybe it'll be the same for the others," Carol said from the cockpit, "I know I died too, with Jimmy over here, when our bird was shot out of the sky..."

"Transitive property applies... Means most, if not all of the people we're 'boutta find are revived dead folk," Emile chuckled darkly, "What a FUBAR situation..." and the silence was the agreement of everyone else as they processed it. Sighing, Kat sat down and turned to linking her datapad with the Pelican's systems, to get them a better understanding of how many, exactly, they were gonna find, while Daisy moved from her seat next to Cal.

"You alright?" The blonde asked her friend.

"I'll... Be okay..." She nodded as her mind raced, remembering the moments before her death. She shook her head, feeling the top of it as it started to itch again and finding nothing but the cold Titanium alloy plating of her helmet. Sighing, she shook her head and undid the seal of her helmet, figuring she may as well scratch her itch before they got home.

The moment she removed her helmet, however, all eyes fell on her. Feeling something spring up atop her head, she asked a fawning Daisy, who'd thrown her helmet off and was grinning brightly, cheeks scarlet, "What? What's wrong?" and then laying her hand to scratch the itch, only to feel something fleshy up there. Pulling her helmet up to her face and staring into the reflective visor, she saw two somethings... Two ears, both of which twitched.

"... WHAT THE FU-"

At the break of dawn, John strode down the road, Caliburn attached to his back as he and Penny prepared for their deployment. Cortana had announced that the first batch of contacts should've been arriving soon in a section of territory near the rear of Beacon called 'The Emerald Forest'. To that end, Chief had suggested to a giddy Penny the utilization of their day for clearing the local Grimm in the area.

Of course, Penny, Ozpin and Ironwood, the lattermost specifically called by Oz over, agreed. Thus, Chief now found himself aboard the transport Bullhead heading for the main clearing of valley-side forest. Penny giddily bounced on her feet as she readied her weapons, while John-to the others, Dylan, of course-readied his own weapon, switching it between mace form and gun form at will. Ruby had, of course, come to witness the fight and the trial-by-fire of 'her baby'.

"Oh, this is so exciting!" Penny squeaked, "We finally get to work together! And I get to see Wyvern's combat prowess!"

John leaned Caliburn in mace form on his shoulder, stating, "Seems like it'll be a busy day..." as his Motion Tracker detected a multitude of Grimm signatures all around their LZ. Penny nodded, beaming as her weapons, eight swords that seemingly floated on thin air, but at a closer look were tied to her via a bunch of incredibly thin, seemingly very resistant metal strings, appeared from her backpack.

"Oh, yes!" Penny agreed. Her sensor suite had detected at least three dozen Grimm very close by. Indeed, the girl still had a mission from the General. Evaluate how Dylan fought now that he had Aura added to the mix of weaponry he wielded. She also enjoyed the idea of working with one of her new friends, quite a lot in fact! She should make a mental note to ask him about if he meant it, though... That they were friends.

"Alright!" The Pilot called out, "There's a lot of stuff stirring down there and this is as low as I'm allowed to go! You two are gonna have to jump! Good luck!"

The Spartan nodded to the Pilot as the green light flashed in the hold. Penny smiled at John, then jumped out, blades at the ready, floating behind her as she spun through the air to land. John followed, boosting off the ship by utilizing his jump jets, before landing on his feet down below as the first of the Grimm, Creeps, the strange bipedal lizards of the horde, appeared from the Treeline. Cortana chimed in, "I'll keep an eye on your health and stats while you're going at'em. Pays to have the difference between you without Aura and you with Aura."

"Mhm," John nodded as the Creeps closed the distance, faster than he'd had time to aim. He switched Caliburn to mace mode. Penny's blades made first contact with the Grimm, however, cutting a Creep in half from the mouth to the tail. It started to dissipate as Penny guided her blades, now in the shape of a shuriken throwing star, toward the others.

John watched as a Grimm pounced at him and, with double his normal reflex speed, thumped the bastard with the Gravity Mace form, tossing it into its brothers, completely torn apart by the heavy impact of the Grav-Dust reinforced weapon. The Spartan looked at the mace proudly, spinning it in his hand as he could swear he heard cheers echoing from Ruby, before rushing forward.

"Wow! Okay, neurological activity spiked the moment your Aura engaged properly! I figure you still need to learn to use the thing, but... Well..." Cortana smirked, "Enhancements give you about a 100% increase right now."

John nodded. Extra boost it is, then. He shoulder-checked several Grimm, swiping upward with his mace and sending a dozen of the creatures flying, before he slammed it backward into the head of another Creep. Penny, beside him, used three of her weapons as seeming capacitors or direction systems for small, accurate beams of plasma that sliced into the horde of Creeps, while she continued graciously dancing and cutting apart Grimm with the remaining weapons.

Slamming his weapon into the ground as the grav Dust went loud, the Spartan managed to crack the soil and stone below, sending a rippling wave through and getting the Grimm creatures, among which taller, lankier wolf-like creatures known as Beowolves, to lose their balance enough for him to pummel at least half a dozen more Creeps. However, when one Beowolf managed to regain its composure, it rushed Chief, black saliva dripping from between its razor-sharp teeth.

It pounced, slashing twice with his claws at John's chest. The Spartan halted one claw and took the other with a combination of his Aura and his shield, before grabbing the Grimm and slamming it into the floor. He snapped its neck with a kick, before swiveling about and raising his hand in defense. A Creep's teeth met his gauntlet, digging into Aura and energy shield.

The Spartan spun and slammed the creature into another, forcing its jaw open before he slammed Caliburn into it hard enough to shatter the ground below. Penny followed up with a pair of cover blasts that took out two Beowolves charging the Chief from behind, while he swept under Penny and sallied into a line of Grimm, dodging, weaving and bobbing as he was trained to from youth, while laying into them with fist, kick and mace.

Noticing a flying Grimm, a Nevermore, from what he remembered, the Spartan set Caliburn to gun mode and took aim as two Creeps bit onto his legs. Penny, noticing the Spartan balancing to take out the flying threat above as it aligned itself for an attack run, spun about, swept the Creeps from Chief's leg and stabbed into them with two of her swords each, before throwing them into the line. She ducked as the roar of the Mag weapon almost made her stumble and she watched the lance of kinetic energy slam into the monster and pierce right through it, sending it tumbling to the floor.

Penny moved to Chief, taking up his rear as cover, then said "There are more than even I estimated!"

"Something dragged them over," John replied, "Keep firing."

"Understood," Penny noted, then smiled "This is fun!"

Well... John didn't want to admit, but she was right. It was entertaining, at the very least. And Cortana, going by her little chuckle, seemed to agree too. He gave a nod to the girl, switching Caliburn back to melee form before he rammed his fist right through a Creep's mouth and into whatever constituted its heart, surprisingly. The monster vanished around his arm as he pummeled into the Grimm with more speed than even he was used to.

This Aura thing was interesting.

"Well... I'm detecting certain things..." Cortana hummed, "Very interesting things."

"Like?" He asked, moving hard and fast past another Beowolf to dodge its strikes. He ducked, rolled to the left and dodged another claw from the monster, before thrusting the blunt mace right into the creature's chest, sending it flying back and staggering it, but not outright killing it. Cortana pulled up an image of his Thyroid gland implant's activity. It'd gone down quite a lot since the last checkup. He hummed, "Oh..." before sweep-kicking under two Grimm and shooting a third with his handgun.

"It's fine, just... I'm detecting hormonal activity that's not on-par with anything I've seen so far, from you, or any other Spartan," The AI noted, "I'll run more tests while you and Penny duke it out with these things."

"Okay," He nodded, feeling the rush of adrenaline mix in with his Aura as he saw a bigger creature approaching, more outright charging them. He swiveled about, switching Caliburn back to rifle mode and squeezing off another shot. Thunderclap echoed as the round punched through the massive bear's side, an Ursa as per the naming convention. It, however, ran on, the round having either overpenetrated or missed anything 'important' in the being of Shadow.

It turned, facing John, before barreling right into him. It almost knocked him off his feet, it was so strong, but the Spartan was strong enough to hold it back before it could do any damage. Penny noticed this, utilizing her weapon to propel herself forward before digging her swords into the monster. It staggered and roared angrily, knocking John's weapon out of his hand with a swipe of its claws, much to the Spartan's chagrin.

John growled, actually feeling a pang of anger at that. Unable to suppress it quickly enough, the Spartan redirected his deflected hand, balled into a fist, into the monster's belly, causing a rumble as he struck it once, then once again, then multiple times in rapid succession. Like a machine gun letting off a continuous stream of rounds, the Spartan threw fists into the monster's body rapidly and precisely, feeling whatever accounted for its bones breaking under the weight of each strike.

With each rapid-fire punch, he sent the creature stumbling back. He looked to Penny, who had extracted her swords from its side and prepared to engage it again, before barking, "Focus on the rest of the horde! I got a plan for this one!" and watching as Penny realized. She nodded, smiling, before swiveling about and raising her weapons and firing a continuous stream of energy beams.

He still had a couple grenades on his belt and this little bastard had spikes all over its body. One good punch would settle any active grenade into its skin, hopefully deep enough to... He continued punching, delivering a hard, bone-crunching and tooth-breaking uppercut into the monster's jaw to fully stun it, before withdrawing a grenade from his belt, clambering onto it and climbing to its head using the fur. After priming the grenade, he shoved it down the throat of the Grimm monster and jumped off of it, only registering the noise that heralded the detonation and the spread of both normal and bone shrapnel.

When he landed, he saw several Grimm, both Creeps and Beowolves alike, skewered to trees and the ground by the impromptu spike grenade that Chief had made. He ran back, sliding to grab his weapon off the ground and jumping to his feet to body-slam a Beowolf that was about to slash Penny across the back. He switched the weapon back to ranged mode, seeing as how they scattered much of the Grimm around with that blast.

His weapon thundered as he went back-to-back with Penny, emptying a whole magazine into his side of the horde and skewering several with each shot while Penny steadied herself and let loose staccato beams of high-power emerald lasers. She smiled, looking back to the Chief as he let loose with the weapon, firing Ice Dust rounds now and creating ice spikes below the creatures that he hit.

By the time the Spartan and his ally had finished off the horde, the Chief had expended three magazines and nearly burned out the Gravity Dust crystal in Caliburn's stock/mace-head, while Penny seemed to be panting from exertion, the shifting blade-guns smoldering and superheated, scarlet warning lights flashing on the hilts and across the blades themselves.

"Well..." Cortana hummed, "That was certainly informative. You okay, John?"

He nodded, lowering his weapon when he was sure no hostile moved anymore. He looked over to Penny, who breathed a sigh of relief that seemed to, for the faintest second, let out steam as she holstered the weapons into her backpack. She looked to John, beaming brightly, then said "You were amazing! That combat skill! That attention! The ease with which you moved!"

"Thanks," Chief replied, a bit winded himself as he slung his weapon onto his back, "You did very well yourself."

Her beaming smile grew brighter as Cortana voiced, "Your Aura level's been somewhat dented, John," And she lifted up a tertiary bar just between his 'health' and shields that showed the damage his Aura had sustained. It was in the yellow, but Cortana found it pertinent to say, "It's nothing too bad, but still... Some Grimm did catch you. And you slammed yourself into them too..."

So, be more careful next time, he summed it up in his own mind. "Also, John," Cortana started, "Contact."

The Spartan checked his Motion Tracker and swiveled about. Three golden dots greeted him, hidden in the shrubbery. He winked on an amber light twice, a question. The answer came, three green lights. IFF echelons lit up above the new arrivals as they stepped out of cover. Penny gasped, readying her weapons again, but Chief put a hand in front of her, showing her to stay calm.

The first to come out, clad in a aquamarine armor with yellow markings and a thick, reinforced, blocky helmet, stepped into the light, hauling a DMR. Following him, a girl clad in bright-grey armor with an EVA helmet, one with a wide visor, holstered her shotgun. Finally, a girl with a cream-colored armor set, helmet resembling a spider with the number of 'eyes' and optical devices attached to it, stepped out, carrying a Sniper rifle.

Penny looked between them, her face going from fear, to awe, to joy as she saw them staring at each-other. The man with the number 104 plastered on his cyan armor's shoulder stared directly at the Spartan, then looked to the redhead to his immediate left, then back at the Spartan. The man then whistled a seven-note tune through a single-beam com system in his armor, toward John. He then called out "Olly Olly Oxen Free."

John replied, calmly, "Olly Olly Oxen Free... All out in the free... We're all free."

Fred-104 swiped across his face-plate with two fingers, to which John replied with a nod again and the two approached each-other. Fred extended his hand, then said "John..." trying to stifle any sort of emotion, like the joy he felt. He'd almost failed that time and Fred usually never failed at hiding his emotions from anyone.

117 gripped 104's hand and shook it firmly, "Fred. Kelly. Linda."

"Long time no see, Chief," Kelly crossed her arms to her chest, depolarizing her visor just enough for Chief to see her face before she polarized it again.

"It's good to see you," Linda commented, leaning her sniper on her shoulder, "Especially after what the Arbiter told us."

"Feeling's mutual," Chief replied.

Fred looked over to a pit-patting Penny, staring at them with wide eyes and a happy smile, then asked "Who is that?"

"Right..." Chief sighed. Introductions.

Somewhere else, in Patch, to be specific, Sam had turned to face the man that had housed him for the better part of two days now. He thanked Taiyang Xiao-Long for his hospitality and pet Zwei on the head. Climbing onto the vehicle, all armaments on his back and a backpack with supplies of food and water by his side, he figured he was going to find his way over soon. Beacon remained the main target for his search.

It probably wouldn't be that easy though, he thought...

Chapter Text

"Sa-lu-tations!" Penny greeted the Spartans excitedly, grabbing Fred's hand and shaking it violently enough to concern him about broken bones, "My name is Penny Polendina! You must be comrades and friends of the Master Chief's! Oh, it's such a pleasure, not to mention a relief, to see you around! The good Chief has been mostly alone for the duration of his stay in Beacon, even with me and my own good friends around! It was quite disheartening to see! Oh, but now that you're here, it will be wonderful, I bet!"

"... Uh-huh... Hello, Penny," Fred nodded, then looked to Chief and switched to single-beam com so she wouldn't hear them and asked "Local?"

"Yeah," He replied with a nod, finally calm as he saw his team-mates there, all of them now with weapons holstered, "We've got a lot to talk about on the flight back. RV point still remains the same, though."

Fred nodded, turning back to the beaming girl and stating, "It's nice to meet you."

"Likewise! Uh... Y-You have a name?" She asked awkwardly. Cortana hummed into Fred's com as she beamed quickly-compiled information of the cover story she and John undertook here to their suits' HUDs. He hummed, casting a glance toward John and the AI as he read through the file, then sighed and looked back to Penny, while Kelly and Linda also read the files.

"Fred," He nodded.

"A pleasure, Fred!" She stated

"I'm Kelly," The scout waved, scratching the top of her helmet almost absentmindedly. Penny waved back.

"Linda," Added the Sniper, crossing her arms to her chest. She approached John, looking at the little ginger just as the roar of engines echoed from overhead. Aboard the Bullhead, Chief saw Ozpin, a smile on his face, with Glynda to his left and Ruby to his right, the lattermost jumping from one foot to the other with childlike joy as she saw the Supersoldiers before them.

The smile Ozpin bore was... Weird. Familiar... Even to John. He disregarded it for now, setting the thought aside and watching as the man disembarked from the vehicle and stated "Greetings. I take it you are the Master Chief's compatriots. I am Headmaster Ozpin of Beacon. Welcome." with a friendly demeanor. All three nodded just as Ruby surged forward and started examining them and their kit. Linda watched the little red riding-reaper roaming around them, a smile on her face. She only stopped to laugh with Penny about the fact that they had even more cool people about.

John looked to Fred and the others, then nodded as Cortana seemed to work through the data with them. Fred and the others stood at attention upon the arrival of the Headmaster, while John readied himself for a slew of questions regarding his team. Fred stood before the Headmaster, staring at the man that was only an inch or two shorter in height, then said, "Sir," instinctively, for some reason, surprising even himself.

"At ease, I'm not quite part of the military," Ozpin smiled, "We must discuss this matter further in my office. Chief, if you could rally your squad and miss Polendina."

"Already on it, Headmaster," The Spartan nodded, then waved his team to the vehicle, with Penny and Ruby not far behind, the two giggling like schoolgirls as they exchanged small-talk about the Spartans. Or so Chief could hear. Meanwhile, Cortana was processing the data around her, reading out info and finding out what little she could about the next bunch of arrivals. They were in flight, so that told her enough.

She patched into Vale's Air-Traffic Control communications, listening in as the ATC spoke with the arrivals and departures from Vale's airport, before turning to more direct com lines to Airships and even an unidentified Bogey on approach to the RV point, which Cortana had now relocated to Beacon's Landing Site, sending the updated coordinates via broadband intranet with a secured connection to them.

Beacon wasn't far from the forest. In fact, it'd been a five minute flight back. And indeed, as Cortana had expected, they caught sight of both new arrivals. The first was a massive airship that was offloading supplies onto the deck. The second was, shockingly enough, a Pelican Cortana almost instantly recognized. As did the Chief, when they disembarked.

The crew around it, both the Spartans and the Pilots, held weapons close as they were surrounded by a squad of Atlas troops clad in white and with varying colors of under-suits. Ozpin called out to the men, "Stand down! These must be more of the Chief's comrades. I'm fairly certain the General would like to talk to them as well." And, to that, he actually saw the Atlas troops stand down. He looked to the Chief, then said "Strange to see some of your compatriots landing here."

"Don't we know it..." Murmured Cortana, a smile on her face. The next and final Spartan-II of the team joined the line just as Cortana was sending him the data. All of Blue Team turned to face the man and gasped collectively, staring at him. He turned to them and gave the same gesture that Fred had shown to the Chief. The Spartan Smile. The others answered promptly, with similar gestures, John included and unable to hold himself back.

He walked up to Sam, placing a hand on his shoulder and staring right at where the wound on his MJOLNIR would have been. Placing a hand there, Chief stared at the man, hiding a smile even he couldn't control behind that helmet. The other trio of IIs from the Pelican, Jorge, Daisy and Cal, joined in on the meeting as well, with Jorge slamming an open palm onto Sam's back and Daisy and Cal giving quick salutes to their long-lost friend.

Watching the solemn exchange, Ozpin smiled, while the Atlas troops behind him dispersed and Ruby seemed to be freaking out. NOBLE Team soon rallied up with the rest of the Spartans, saluting them promptly, the Chief himself included. Oz then looked to the giddy Ruby and the awed Penny and said "Quite a sight to behold, is it not? This is a reunion of comrades, ones who have seen much together..." with a most solemn and sad undertone to his whispered voice.

"Quite awe-inspiring indeed, Headmaster..." Penny smiled, then paused and raised a brow, "Uhm... Where shall we house them all, though? I'm... Not sure our little cottage can fit all of them and their equipment."

"I will send for bunk beds..." Ozpin chuckled with melancholy, "We should have plenty of room then."

"Indeed!" Penny beamed, then looked toward where Ruby had once been, "Ruby, dear frie-" And she cut off, tracking a stream of petals toward the heavily-armored, aerodynamic dropship that the other comrades of the Chief's had arrived in, to see the girl swooning over the heavily-armed bird as her crew laughed. Penny, too, smiled again, turning back toward the sight.

Kelly and Linda stared at Sam and Chief as they seemed to speak simply through their actions. Handshakes and more Spartan Smiles followed by Sam bumping his fist into the Chief's own chest-plate lightly. He looked to Fred, whom had also joined the group, then extended his hand, which his old pal gripped and shook firmly. Jorge also looked to the Chief now, nodding to him, then motioning to Noble Team to rally up. Chief whistled loudly over broadband com, though, then said, with as calm a voice as he could muster, "At ease, everyone... We need to head out to Headmaster Ozpin's office. I think we have a lot to talk about," And he turned to the smiling man, who simply nodded.

"Right this way, please, all of you," He motioned toward the tower, then looked to the apprehensive pilots and said, "Please. Your ship will remain untouched, I promise."

Carol looked to her co-pilot, then to Ozpin and shrugged, stating, again, almost out of instinct, "I'll hold you to that, sir," and wondering why she did so.

Ozpin looked over to Ruby and said, "Miss Rose, why don't you and miss Polendina go let your friends know of... Well, all of this..." He chuckled, motioning broadly at the posse of super-powered elite soldiers in Power Armor around him. Ruby nodded quickly, then looked to a paused Penny and took her hand. The ginger girl tensed, then eased back and nodded.

"I will see you all at the cottage, Dylan!" She waved to Chief in particular, which garnered looks from the others.

"Long story..." Cortana transmitted to all Spartans over com, "Hello, all of you, both familiar and new faces. I'm Cortana, Chief's AI... And boy, do I have a story for all of you... But first, I will need all of you to read these files I'm sending you about our little cover story. I'm fairly certain the good headmaster won't get to ask all of you things, but for any that he does, I figure it's best if you know your role in all of this..."

"Roger," replied every Spartan over com as well, their external mics shut off as they lined up into a marching formation. Chief nodded to Ozpin, who started walking. Several pairs of heavily-armored boots thundered against concrete in synch. The Spartan platoon marched behind the Chief and the Headmaster, weapons stowed on their backs and smiles hidden behind heavy armor plating, under-suits and orange-tinted bulletproof glass.

"This will certainly pique the good General's interest..." Murmured Glynda as she looked at the Atlesian air battleship hovering a kilometer or two away from Beacon, to which Ozpin smiled, nodding in agreement. Any students currently in the courtyard found themselves staring directly at an armored wall of titan-like teens, all of them armed to their very teeth and settled in suits that looked beyond anything even modern militaries could conjure.

It'd taken several trips up and down with the Elevator, much to the surprise of the good general, for all Spartans present to be brought upstairs. John and his team, however, were at the forefront of this aligned elite supersoldiers, standing at attention in front of the good General, Glynda and Ozpin himself. Ironwood looked at all of them, then asked with half a mouth, "I... Take it this is your crew?"

"Sir," Chief nodded, "Yes, sir."

"Well, I'll be damned..." He murmured, "Greetings, everyone."

"Sir!" All Spartans present beside the Chief saluted, more out of respect for the rank than the man whom they've yet to know. Carol and her co-pilot, Jimmy, sat in the back of the group, though, hidden from sight and reading the briefing of the cover story. Ironwood found multiple distinguishing features between the armor sets the Spartans wore, but most of them seemed to contain a similar design.

Indeed, they were military. Even the equipment was seemingly standardized. Ironwood spoke, "I am glad to see that, despite what the Chief thought, he was not the last of his people. Welcome to the wider world of Remnant. I am general James Ironwood, of the Atlas military and its eponymous Academy for Huntsmen and Huntresses. I presume the good Headmaster already introduced himself... So... The elephant in the room is how so many of you came about. Chief? Care to enlighten us?"

"Sir," The Spartan nodded, "I believe they made it to the escape pods in time."

"And jettisoned themselves close-by... Curiously lucky," James observed.

"Indeed," Ozpin noted, looking to the Chief, "It may seem preposterous, but I do believe the Master Chief."

"Oz?" Ironwood raised a brow, his voice now low.

"It's fine, James. Like I said, I trust our new hire, even if he is new. The fact that his fellow squadmates arrived can only be a boon for us," The good headmaster stated, surprising even Glynda with the honest assessment. James wanted to say something, to protest, it was clear in his eyes, but he sighed and relented, nodding to Oz. The man continued, "However, there is the matter of all of you being here."

He saw them tense up, then said "We appreciate and welcome more reinforcement for the security of our school, however the situation remains that there are at least two dozen of you on the premises. Two dozen we're not sure we can properly house anywhere but near by the Chief and miss Polendina, if not with them. Before James starts with a series of questions he desired to ask of all of you, I will ask you this first:Would you all be comfortable in sleeping on bunk beds while we either acquire a bigger building to house all of you, or...?"

"We'll be fine, sir," Fred offered a nod, "We're sticking with the Chief."

"Very well, then," Ozpin smiled, nodding to him, then looking to the General and gesturing at him to go on.

"Right..." The general arranged his tie around his neck with his gloved hand, then said, "I fully understand the wish of the Headmaster to keep your force around, believe me, but there is the matter of interaction between our forces. Master Chief, can I openly rely on the fact that our troops and yours will interact on peaceful terms, meaning that they will not cause friction?"

"Sir," The Spartan nodded, "We're all on the same side."

James nodded, smiling, "Good to hear, Chief. Now, I do have some questions for the three others beside you... Let's start with..." He looked over to Linda, then said "You, miss..."

Linda had chosen on her short talk with Cortana to go with a name that was eerily familiar to her. She spoke, "Petty Officer First Class Pravdin, sir." going with her 'family' name instead of the normal one. She made a mental note to ask Cortana what she knew about the name itself:etymology and the likes. She'd've liked to know a lot about it, honestly, since it brought back a slew of old, muddy memories.

"Very well, Petty Officer," James nodded, "What is it you did within Chief's unit?"

"I act as the team's sniper, sir," She answered.

"I see. I presume you can reliably hit shots, considering the amount of equipment on display," He stated, somewhat unknowingly bruising the girl's modest ego. She nodded wordlessly, well aware she shouldn't mouth off to an officer, even one from a foreign military. Instead, she took the hit and watched as Ironwood went on to state, "It's good to know we have a markswoman among us, then. Glad to meet you, petty officer."

"Likewise, sir," She nodded.

"Now..." He looked over to Kelly, "You, miss."

"Sir. Petty Officer second class Shaddock," The scout spoke more softly than Linda, but with the focus and calmness you'd hear from one of the team's most elite. She promptly answered the next question the man was going to ask with little hesitation, "I act as the scout for the team, as well as the bruiser, if the situation requires me to engage in CQC."

"And you're fairly quick-witted, too," Ironwood replied coyly, "Very well. Glad to meet you as well."

"Same, sir," Kells nodded, then looked to Chief and gave ever-the-slightest nod of her head. It was gonna be fine, she figured.

"Now... Last but not least, you," He nodded to Fred.

"Sir. Lieutenant Ellsworth, sir. I am... I guess, you could call me the team's second-in-command," Fred noted rather openly and calmly.

"I see," Ironwood hummed, "Good to meet the three of you as well. And I'm sure I will get to know the rest of the platoon as we go on along, but for now, if you'll excuse me, I have a call to make," and with that, he stepped off out of the place. Ozpin sighed, watching the man pull his scroll out of his jacket and make the call as he boarded the elevator, while Glynda looked over to Ozpin.

"Want me to go after him?" She asked.

"It's fine, Glynda. Thank you," The man stated, then looked to the Chief and said, "Welcome to Vale, everyone. Mister Braun, if you don't mind leading your comrades to your home. I have something I need to deal with, but I will send you a message soon. We may have another mission for you and your teams," before motioning to the elevator. John nodded, stepping toward the elevator with everyone.

After a few more minutes of shifting the Spartans and their pilots from the office to the first floor, the group now marched in unison toward the home of the Chief and his comrade, Penny. Cortana, meanwhile, piped up, "Everyone has the cover of Wyvern memorized now, I think," as she looked over the data that had accrued from their arrival over in Vale.

"Good," John stated. He gazed back, to see Sam, Fred, Kelly and Linda walking together.

"Almost thirty years now, right?" She asked, "Since Sam..."

"Mhm..." Chief noted.

"I'm glad he's back," The AI said, "I'm glad all of them are back... But I don't think they're gonna be the last."

"No... I think we're just getting started," John promptly answered joyfully, the most emotion Cortana had seen him show in forever. She smiled brightly too as she finished sending the Spartans information over the single-beam communication system that linked all MJOLNIR suits since their inception. She also made sure to let them know they should read the briefings on Remnant, its people, its quirks and its history to ensure maximum acclimatization and chances of survival and adaptation grew.

Chief propped open the door of the house and found a sight to behold. Penny and Ruby, both wearing aprons over their respective clothing sets, which, in Ruby's case, was the Beacon uniform, all stained by dough. Fully opening the door, he saw the two girls beaming. Penny greeted cheerfully, "Sa~lu~tations! We're so glad you made it so quickly!"

"Heck yeah! The cookies are still warm!" Ruby cheered, to the surprise of the UNSC Personnel.

After a quick series of thanks, each Spartan had got their own foodstuffs and a cup of warm milk to go with the two-cookie ration they'd received. The girls looked between them, waiting to see what Spartan would be the first one to take his or her helmet off. They'd already seen the Chief without it, of course, but... They saw the Chief nodding to everyone and took that as a sign to go over to Penny's room for the moment. He undid the seal of his helmet and set it aside, despite the usual stigma any Spartan saw in sharing their face with anyone outside the team. Penny and Ruby didn't know it, but to have a Spartan show their face was a great sign of respect and trust...

Sam, of course, followed John, taking his helmet off to reveal a handsome, unharmed young man with short hair trimmed to nearly the skin and a pair of piercing blue eyes. He smiled at John, a familiar face that the Spartan had never forgotten. Following him, Linda showed her face. Short, ginger hair, deep teal eyes and a beautiful young woman's face, even with her own few scars. She beamed at the other two, despite herself. Fred came next, just as handsome as Chief and Sam, but with deep black hair and a few scars of his own. He nodded, narrowing his lips as he smiled.

Finally, Kelly, who was murmuring to herself, undid the seal of her helmet and pulled it off her head, then muttered, "Oh, thank God... My head was killing me..." And she saw all Spartans present and the two Remnant-born girls staring with wide eyes, the two girls rapidly closing the door behind them and bursting into a quiet laughing fit there. Sam snorted, covering his mouth to hide his grin, while Daisy beamed and Cal stared with wide eyes at her. Of course, Daisy had taken her helmet off and was showing her own youthful face... Kelly swallowed empty, then asked "What...? Is...? Is there something on my face?"

An eerie silence filled the room as the Spartans stared at their comrade. Kelly paled for a moment, feeling the tension in the room grow thick as even NOBLE team stared with disbelief, their helmets now off their heads. Most other Spartans had also taken their helmets off, checking each-other's heads and silently questioning what they were seeing. Kelly was getting even more worried...

Until Cal finally took her helmet off, wide amber eyes and twitching, platinum-blonde hair greeting Kelly's eyes first, before the two wolf's ears twitching atop her head. Cal smiled awkwardly, even paler than her usual skin tone and asked in a whisper, "By the Gods, you too?" which got Kelly to quickly raise her free left hand and check the top of her head. Her gloved fingers brushed against something soft and fleshy. Grabbing onto it, she ran her fingers through it and felt it twitch.

"... Wh..." She pulled her helmet up to her face, staring right at the polarized visor... Two long rabbit's ears, colored a deep, dark blue like her short, tomboyish hair poked out from the top of her head, the right flopping slightly. Wide blue eyes stared at the top of her head as she ran her hand up and down the left ear again. She blinked, looked up to a spooked Cal, then back to herself and back to Cal.

"... Well..." John hummed, "I guess that nickname of yours got another reason to exist..." with the most dead-serious face the Spartans had ever seen.

If Chief had joked, the Spartans weren't sure, with that wonderful poker face of his intact and active. Still, all of them found the need to stem the tide of laughter that threatened to overwhelm them. Some failed, though they laughed discretely, like Sam off to Kelly's left, who hid his laughter in his hand and avoided staring. She looked over to the blonde, ramming a fist into his armored shoulder and yelling "This ain't funny!" before wincing as she looked to John and calling out, "This is NOT funny! WHY DO I FEEL THEM!?"

"I don't know..." John replied in a whisper, he himself now harboring a desire to smirk at his old friend's predicament. He cleared his throat, trying to avoid letting out even a hint of laughter, even though he, too, felt the need to, "But I guess you are a Faunus now, Kelly. Both you and Cal," He sighed. Daisy, meanwhile, was having a fit of laughter worthy of her usual antics back when they were being trained.

"... Sister..." Cal murmured, staring at Kelly like a wolf would at one of her own pack.

"... How am I gonna fit these into my helmet?" Kels sighed, rubbing her eyes, then she looked around and asked "Wait! How come the rest of you aren't touched by this!?"

"We don't know," John shrugged.

"We'll figure it out, though... Right?" Fred snorted, looking over Kelly's ears, "... Maybe it ain't so bad? I mean... They're kind of... Oh, what is the term normal troopers and Civvies use... Cute? They're cute on the two of you."

Kelly squinted, glaring daggers at Fred as her right hear flopped about. The CO Spartan averted his gaze, stifling a hearty bout of laughter with nothing but sheer training and his usual skill, stating a simple, "Right, nevermind..." then looking to Daisy as she finally started calming down. Annoyed, Cal slammed a fist into her shoulder to settle her down, garnering a stare of surprise out of her old partner while she glared ICE at him.

"Ah, right..." Chief remembered, seeing Daisy without the little Teddy-bear Chainlet wrapped around her armor's breastplate. He checked his armor's pockets, pulling it out and extending it to the blonde, before stating, "Next time, take more care, Daisy. This is your favorite little trinket if I remember our time during training properly. Which I should..."

The blonde's gaze now softened as she was handed her old teddy chainlet. She smiled at John, then mouthed a silent 'thank you' as she clipped the bear back in its place on her CQC armor. Cal sighed, rubbing her eyes, then whispered, "So... We're all here... We're all alive, somehow. Can I just say that... It's good to see at least some familiar faces? No offense to all of Noble except for Jorge, but..."

"We understand," Carter nodded, "We're Threes, not Twos... Not the same thing or even the same relationship. Trust us, Commander Ambrose told us."

"'Commander Ambrose'?" Kelly looked back to Carter, "We... Don't have a Spartan named Ambrose in the II class..."

"Kurt," Jorge noted, smirking, "Kat gave me some of the black ink to read while we were on the bird over."

"... Kurt was alive and training Spartans?" Kelly raised a brow. The revelation hit the room like a brick hit a window. After a moment of muted surprise and the processing of the situation, the girl sighed and smiled, "Oh, well, that's good to know... Maybe we'll get to meet him here... And the rest of your units, too, Noble Team. A pleasure, by the way."

"Pleasure's all ours," Carter nodded, "Jorge told us a lot about you."

Everyone looked to Jorge, who shrugged and said, "What can I say? I enjoy talking about my family. Trust me, you guys and girls will love Noble, though. They're almost like us. Kurt's done a fine job training both their companies."

"Entire Companies, huh?" Sam looked to Carter. He nodded.

"Well..." John sighed, "That's at least six hundred extra Spartans trained by one of ours..."

Everyone nodded in agreement. Fred said, "It's nice to know Kurt's been busy, even in his state of MIA."

A few chuckled. More nods. The room went quiet as Ruby, her face stuffed with ten cookies, exited Penny's room, bowed and said with a mouthful "mush gow! Weam neess me!(Must go! Team needs me!)" And, with that, she vanished into a cloud of petals, while Penny closed the door behind her. The ginger seemed distraught, even as she bore her usual smile.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but... Your cookies and milk must've cooled down by now!" The ginger stated. Everyone looked to the treats they each had in their hands and the cups of milk. Indeed, they had turned lukewarm only, surprisingly enough. They nodded to Penny, then started eating while she gauged their reactions. Much like the good Master Chief's initial reaction to cookies, his teammates' were positively entertaining and heartwarming... While also being saddening. What child born would not remember having Cookies?

Well, aside from diabetics, Penny figured, since Sugar wasn't exactly good for them. They were the most susceptible to issues regarding the consumption of sugary treats, but these soldiers did not exhibit the signs of diabetes in the least. No change in coloration, no weakness, no nothing of the sort, so why? Why had they not had Cookies ever, in their entire life? Penny would've enjoyed tasting them too, if she wasn't all machine, but they didn't need to know th-

"Penny," Dylan spoke to her, snapping her out of her trance. She looked to him as he asked, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine..." She nodded rapidly, "Ooh! Right! Where are my manners!" She realized, "To the rest of the Chief's comrades, greetings and salutations! I am Penny Polendina, the Master Chief's fellow security officer for Beacon's grounds and liaison of the Kingdom of Atlas to Vale's security forces. It is a pleasure to meet all of you and I hope we will get along!"

Everyone nodded, hummed and agreed... Some smiled at the ginger and she smiled right back at them.

To be fair, Penny was just distracting herself. From her new mission...

She disliked the general's woeful request... But alas, she had to follow orders. A good soldier followed orders, after all.

Didn't they?

Chapter Text

Blue Team and the others had taken to their new surroundings with fairly open minds. When the bunk beds arrived, NOBLE had gotten to assembling them for the whole team, within a wider room that fit them all and their kit. Ozpin's, Chief's and Penny's worries alleviated, the team could go on about their business as usual. Chief, in the meanwhile, had received a request from headmaster Ozpin to come meet him at his office, alongside Penny.

Of course, Chief did as requested, heading for Beacon tower with Penny in tow. He hummed, watching as the usually-peppy girl strode beside him with a more composed, worried gait. Even Cortana had noticed this, clearly, as she was staring at Penny through his helmet's VISR system. Now, Chief was definitely not the best at interpersonal relationships, especially with people whom he had viewed as Civilians before his first meetup with Hunters proper.

So, he figured it was okay to ask. What harm could it do?

"Are you well, Penny? You've been... Awfully quiet, compared to when we first met."

She yelped, quickly suppressing the redness in her cheeks as she turned to the Chief. She smiled awkwardly, then said "I'm okay, Chief! Honest!" then she hiccupped. The Spartan raised a brow, then hummed and gave her a simple, quick shrug as if telling her 'you can tell me if and when you feel like it'. Indeed, she watched the man lead the way, past students that still stared, but way less intensely and those who didn't care and she followed. She could tell him... So far, he had not lied to her. He had been as open as his training allowed him, she presumed.

She found no reason to not be honest... About something, at least. Her mission remained a top-secret one.

"Dylan?" She asked with half a mouth, stopping the Spartan. Cortana grinned, dipping back down under the hood and parsing through data as she tracked more contacts coming toward the RV point. He'd give the order to send out Foe Hammer for recovery, but right now, he wanted to hear what Penny had to say. He turned to her, arms crossed to his chest, then nodded. She rubbed the back of her neck, "We've known each-other for all that amounts to a week, but yet when Ruby asked you, a while back, when we barely knew each-other, you said you are my friend."

John nodded, "That, I did."

"I wanted to ask you," She shifted on her own feet, unsure of herself, her gaze on the ground instead of staring right at him, "If... Say... I had some sort of incredulous secret... Something that could possibly be horrific... Would you still consider me... Err... Would we still be...?" She tried to find the words, but for the first time in her life, Penny's tongue twisted in her mouth(figuratively, of course!) and she didn't know what to say. So, she just said it, her voice as low as it could be, "Would you still be my friend...?"

Of course, the armored suit's audio-suite had picked it up, even as quiet as Penny had been. There sat the ginger girl, fiddling with her thumbs and staring at the floor. Cortana let out a loud, "Awwwww..." while Chief pondered it. To be completely fair to her, John had yet to find anything weird about the girl. To note that she had been the one to put it out there that she may have a secret like that was courageous and, clearly, she was showing remorse for keeping it.

The Chief sighed, taking two steps to the girl, towering over her by about fifty centimeters, so the girl's forehead barely reached halfway up to his chest. He stared down at the girl, lifting a hand and surprising her as Cortana gasped. Then, he did what neither he, nor the two girls(one AI and one real) expected him to do. He pat the girl's head gently, causing her to look up, while Cortana became a mess of happy noises.

"Penny. You haven't given me a reason to distrust you. The fact that you're even offering to let me know there may be such a secret shows that you trust me a lot..." He replied, "Even if we've only known each-other for a few days, as you said..." And to be fair to her, he had his own secret. That she'd trust him enough to admit was sign he should do the same, "I've seen you fight and I know how you act. So, if you were to have that secret, I trust it's for good reason... And that you will tell it and others you may have to me when you felt it appropriate to. And to be quite honest to you, Penny... I do have my own secret."

She couldn't... Believe it. Her ocular sensors narrowed, watching as the Spartan took his helmet off and stared into them. Her cheeks were now tinted a deep red, weirdly enough. Strange that her father would put that function in, but... Alas, she had it. He continued to speak calmly, "I'll tell you my secret when and if the time comes, too... And I trust you'll tell me yours," giving the girl the smallest, most calm smile that she'd ever seen.

With a beaming smile, the girl nodded rapidly, "Of course! I promise!" her voice sharp. Chief felt her put her whole weight behind charging him and wrapping his arms around his waist as she spouted "Thankyouthankyouthankyou! I won't break your trust, I swear it! And I'll tell my secret when you're ready to tell yours as well! Oh! Idea!" then she backed off and extended her right hand, lifting her pinky and stating "I do believe this is a good enough settlement! An oath of sorts, called a Pinkie promise!"

"Aha..." John paused. He hummed, then sighed, watching as the smiling girl tracked his hand. He 'shook' with his own pinkie and the girl's smile grew almost tenfold, metaphorically speaking. They continued their trip, Penny actively bouncing jauntily. He slid his helmet back on his head and Cortana appeared in front of him, proud and clearly happy about the development.

"That was sweet," She said, "What got into you?"

"Frankly," Chief replied, "It's an out with her, at least, if our cover is ever blown."

"That's a good point... No other reason?" She smirked, fully aware there was more to this and what it was. John wasn't a bad person, not by a long shot. Pragmatic, sure, as one would be if their whole life was the military, but he was a good person. She knew and had seen it in the way he treated his comrades. Still, he answered with a deep, thoughtful hum. She chuckled, "It's alright, John... I get it."

The two and the AI entered Beacon Tower, took the elevator and were met by the headmaster's gaze again, with Glynda right beside him. She had her hand extended toward the holographic screen that appeared from the glass desk. Ozpin smiled as he saw them enter, then said "Ah, mister Braun, miss Polendina, welcome back," and opened his arms in a sign of welcome.

"It's good to see the both of you," Glynda nodded, "We have a few things to talk about."

"Sir, ma'am?" Chief raised a brow.

"First of all, Chief, do you remember the talk you've had with the good headmaster?" Glynda asked. He nodded. The uniforms.

"Well," Ozpin shrugged, "I am afraid that we cannot acquire or design any uniforms for the 'security' personnel, so to speak. Our budget for this year has already been allocated and we cannot slot in any sort of ideal design that would work... Next year, perhaps."

"I understand, sir," John had to admit, he felt more or less relieved he wasn't the one who was gonna have to tell the squad they had to ditch the armors... Then he realized, "There is, however, a 'but', in there..."

Ozpin smiled, "Of course... Seeing as to how many students, despite what you may've seen in the courtyard, still ask that you and your team get yourselves more acclimatized so they don't feel like they are in a military unit, I have decided that the best course of action and... A, perhaps, temporary solution... Would be to ask you to attend Beacon's courses as transfer students... At least for what is left of this second semester, so that you may get Beacon student's uniforms as substitutes."

And if John thought it wasn't possible to see Penny's smile grow brighter, he found himself on the side of being wrong for once in his life. Ozpin continued, "With the approval from general Ironwood, of course, we will be allowing you to join Beacon for now. Welcome, Dylan Braun and Penny Polendina, to Beacon... Properly, this time..." He smirked, "And to your comrades as well."

John nodded, feeling a little blindsided by the sudden situation and unsure of how to respond. He stared at Ozpin for a moment, then sighed as he turned to Penny and saw her bouncing happily. With a nod, he said "Very well, Headmaster. If you could provide an itinerary, class hours, things like that... So we know when to attend and what to do," watching as Glynda nodded.

"I will have the data sent to your scroll, mister Braun," the Headmistress of Beacon spoke.

"Is this all?" He asked.

"I will also be sending you your first official off-site mission, Chief, with a full briefing for you and your fellow soldiery," Replied the Headmaster, "That'll be all."

"Thank you, sir, ma'am," John replied, nodding, "Let's go, Penny."

Stepping out of the place, Penny dragged the Chief toward the food court, while Cortana seemed to await the arrival of the next message from the Headmaster. The two burst into the cafeteria as lunch was going on, garnering a few looks and a wave from Ruby. She'd dragged him along to have lunch with her friends. Of course she would've. She was Penny Polendina.

"Well... Time to put on your people face, John... Helmet off," Cortana quipped.

Knowing full-well he wasn't going to convince her otherwise, he undid the seal of his helmet and slid it off his head, revealing his face yet again to the masses as he approached team RWBY's table... And saw that there was another group of four in there. A blonde boy with blue eyes, another ginger, this one with teal eyes, a beauty of a redhead with green eyes and a welcoming smile and a black-haired boy with sharp, Asian features and lilac eyes.

"Chief! Penny!" She happily cried, raising her hands up to the sky, "You guys are here!'

"Yes! And we have good news!" Penny smiled, then looked to the new team here and smiled at them too "Oh... Greetings."

"Ah, right!" Ruby beamed, "Ladies and gents of the wonderous team JNPR, this is Penny! You remember me telling you about her, right?"

"Yup," The blonde boy nodded, smiling.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Penny," The redhead looked to the girl, then she looked over to the Chief and said "And you must be Master Chief Dylan Braun. Hello to you as well, sir," She smiled at him as well.

A whistle and a swoon from the second ginger in the place and Chief found himself face-to-face with the N of the team. She smirked, then said "Hey there, pal! I'm Nora! That's a pretty nice suit of armor you got there, not gonna lie," and John immediately pegged her as the hyper one of the gang, similar to how Ruby was the hyper one of her team. Team Juniper, huh?

"Thanks," Chief nodded.

"Heh, sorry about her, Chief," The blonde boy to the right said, "I'm Jaune Arc. Team JNPR's leader."

"My name is Pyrrha Nikos. I am Jaune's partner in arms," The redhead noted, "Ruby really didn't short-sell that armor... Or your height."

John nodded, awkward. He wasn't sure what else to say.

"Lie Ren," The young Asian man nodded, a small smile on his face, "It's very good to finally meet you face-to-face. And hello, Penny."

"Hello to you as well, Ren!" The lead ginger beamed, while Yang stared with a grin at the Chief.

"Pleasure to meet all of you," John offered to JNPR.

"Rubes, you never mentioned the Chief's this handsome," The blonde spoke rather proudly, causing her sister to yelp, her face red as her cape, while Blake planted a palm on her face and chuckled, while Weiss rolled her eyes, nursing a glass of what he would assume was apple juice from the carton on her tray. He didn't know how to take that civilian a compliment, honestly...

So he said, "Thanks... I guess..."

"No problem," She winked, "Anyway! Penny! You said you had something big to tell us!"

"Oh, yes!" She perked up, remembering, "Well, two somethings, really! First of all, I, Dylan and his comrades are going to partake in Beacon's classes for the duration of our stay here!"

That short line had set off Ruby's cheering once again, "WOO! COOL NEW CLASSMATES!"

"Wait, run that by me again..." Weiss jumped, aware now, "COMRADES?"

"Yes! Approximately... Ooh... What is it? Thirteen others!" She nodded.

"... By the Gods..." Murmured the white-haired Atlesian, "How did general Ironwood take this?"

"About as well as he could have," John shrugged, "He welcomed us with open arms and asked me to vouch for my platoon to cooperate with Atlas. We agreed, of course," And both saw Weiss seemingly trying(and slowly managing) to calm down. The white-haired heiress sighed, looking to the Spartan and nodding. She finally managed to look him in the eye and realized what a mistake that'd been. She blushed, averted her gaze and hoped nobody saw her.

"Well, anyways," Ruby hummed, "You two wanna join us? We're having lunch. The stuff the lunchlady made today actually tastes pretty good, compared to the other days," She winced, then pleaded, "But don't tell her I said that, please! She'll yell at me again..." before sitting herself down next to her friends. Penny nodded, agreeing to join with a smile, then looked to John.

He hummed, "I'm gonna go talk to my platoon about the new arrangements. I figure it's best to let them know ahead of time, so they can prepare to change out of the armors."

"It's just armor," Yang suggested, "Can't be that tough to take off."

"Without the right tech, it'll take us half an hour to remove it. Another half to put it back on," John replied, "Eitherway... I'll be going now, girls. You have fun," And with that, he stepped off, sliding his helmet onto his head. Penny sighed, sitting herself down next to her friends as they started talking, Ruby describing to them the other Spartans while they ate.

John entered the house a few moments later, finding Carol already dealing with reloading her firearm while her co-pilot checked data in regards to their Pelican. Kelly leaned against the wall, staring at John as he entered, her helmet off her head. He spoke to her, "Rally everyone up in the kitchen. We have something to talk about. It's fairly important everyone agrees to it."

"On it," Kels nodded, smiling now.

A few moments later, the Spartans of the two-and-a-half fireteams had gathered up, with Chief and Cortana at the front. Chief took his helmet off, removing the chip and letting Cortana appear in front of the team in a much younger form than previous, in the sense that she lacked the many 'synaptic' links that you'd normally see in an AI of that age. She looked almost the same as she had once looked during the First Battle of New Mombasa. She smiled, then said "Good to see all familiar faces and the 'new' old folk. Noble team."

"Ma'am," Carter nodded, "You're that AI that Six and Emile got to the Autumn, right?"

"That was a specialized fragment of me, but yes, in essence," She nodded, "Sam, Daisy, Cal. I'm Cortana. Been Chief's AI for the better part of several years now."

"Pleasure to meetcha," Daisy voiced, taking her helmet off.

"Agreed. Hey," Sam waved.

"Yeah," Cal nodded, "Anyway... What's up, Chief? Kelly told us you needed to talk to us about something."

"Mhm," John nodded, "Headmaster Ozpin has received several complaints from local students regarding seeing us out and about in armor. Makes them feel like they're staring at the military, which, while not exactly wrong, probably doesn't paint a good picture about Beacon as a whole to some..." He sighed, watching some of the Spartans pause, while Six hummed. He continued, "With that in mind, he stated he sadly cannot provide properly-designed security uniforms to wear. He has offered a temporary solution:Having us as exchange students."

"... So we're gonna wear the Beacon uniforms?" Fred raised a brow.

Cortana nodded from beside the Chief, "That about sums it up, yeah."

"It necessary?" Linda asked, crossing her arms to her chest. John nodded, assuming that the Headmaster really did want his students to feel at home. The girl sighed, then said "Alright. At least it'll give us some cover while we learn a bit more about the wider world of Remnant... I mean, it means we get access to the libraries, right? And the rest of the school facilities."

"I'd assume so," John nodded, "I know it isn't going to be easy to get acclimatized to not wearing our armors, but I do think it's for the best. We are, after all, guests to the Headmaster and his people."

"That's fair enough," Fred shrugged, "On your orders, Chief."

"Yeah," Daisy nodded, "Say... Doesn't anyone else feel weird about the Headmaster? Like... He's very familiar."

"Eerily, but I think that figures of authority blend with one another over time," Cal remarked, "Aside from Mendez, of course. Nobody can be like that man," She smirked. Every Spartan in the room nodded in agreement. Cal then said, "I guess we're on board for now, Chief. That's gonna have the headmaster sending us the uniforms, I presume, so... Yay?"

"Right..." John nodded, "Welcome to school, then... We're about to have one strange half of a year."

Fred smirked, "We've gone through worse and weirder, John. Now, what's first on our agen-" He paused as John's scroll rung with a three-tone song. The Spartan lifted it to look at it, then saw a message from the Headmaster detailing their first mission. This Sunday, they'd have a job to do regarding a minor White Fang operation within Vale. White Fang being the Faunus revolutionaries seeking the betterment of living standards and opinions on their race.

"I guess, that..." John replied, "Sunday. We got a scouting job on the White Fang's base... Everyone read up on them?"

They all nodded. Good, he thought. His friends remained aware of the importance of information, even after their surprising revival. He typed an answer on his Scroll to accept the contract, which was paid as extra work, then slid the device into a pouch on his belt. He looked around at his fireteam, then waved Blue Team over, letting Cal, Daisy, Jorge and the rest of NOBLE interact. Carol gave Chief a thumbs up, having heard the short briefing, then said "She'll be ready to go by Sunday."

"Thanks, Foehammer," He nodded, "We'll also need to take trips and recover the other friendlies."

"Was already in the plans, too, Chief. You just had to give the order."

He nodded, then walked with Kelly, Fred, Linda and Sam out into the open air of Beacon's courtyard. All five Spartans of BLUE Team marched forward, their weapons hanging off their backs as they headed toward Beacon's landing pad. Sam started, "So... Uh... Is anyone going to brief me on what happened with the war? I've only just woken up, y'know..."

"We won..." Fred stated solemnly.

"At a great cost, though," Kelly added, "Not just material... We lost you and so many others."

"Plus the worlds the Covvies burned," Linda hummed, "Thirty-Three billion lost on last checkup."

"But we made it," John finished, "Humanity endured. And we've got a new job, a new lease of life now, all of us. Remnant," and, once they reached the landing pad, where their bird was sat, untouched, they stared out at the grand city of Vale, a sprawling megalopolis of incredible size. They had a new mission:to protect the citizens of Vale, the people of Remnant as a whole. To operate to their utmost ability. They had much to do.

Sam hummed, then nodded and smiled, "Let's get to work, then."

They had their job cut out for them.

Chapter Text

Night fell upon Vale City and Beacon Academy. As the Sun's last beams of light faded past a scarlet horizon, the Spartans of BLUE Team readied their armament for the operation at hand. Resupplied with enough rounds to last them the night, the Spartans had also received intel of an objective change. Atlas scout troops had already verified the compound outside the city and confirmed the presence of an armed contingent of the White Fang there, including an armored vehicle of some sort. Linda had taken the precaution of bringing the better Armor-Piercing variation of her standard ammunition.

Their new objective? Scour the base clean.

The five Spartans strode to the landed gunship wordlessly, weapons in hand. Carol greeted them with a smile, waiting for them aboard next to her co-pilot. The woman nodded upon seeing the Chief had boarded with everyone. She closed the back hatch, turned on the engines and departed. At Mach speed, they'd be cruising all the way over to the drop-off point in around five to six minutes.

The five-man strike team coordinated their equipment exchanges wordlessly. Thankful they'd found Carol and her Supply-laden Pelican, the Spartans loaded extra magazines with more AP rounds, just in case. Chief pulled a case from the top netting, setting it down gently and popping it open. From it, he removed five pairs of grenades, one for each member, followed by six Asteroidea-class Anti-Personnel mines. The spider-like mines had eight arms and a singular pressure plate in the middle and were pretty much as powerful as standard UNSC Frag Grenades.

He handed the mines to Linda, who would be perching herself up on the nearest ridgeline with LOS on the target camp. She also wrapped a pair of military webbing pieces around her shoulders, with pouches for extra sniper magazines, just in case they'd need them. The Asteroidea mines hanged off the webbing too, inactive for now. She nodded, racking the bolt, while the Chief racked his own AR.

Carol poked her head past the door and gave a nod to the Spartans, all of whom stood to their feet. Chief stowed the empty explosive box back into the webbing above and all five soldiers felt as the gunship decelerated. Outside, they could see the silhouette of a forest's canopy just before they dipped below it, the back hatch opened and the five-man team jumped out, waving Carol off. Chief flicked his com to single-beam, linked it to his squad's suit systems and made several hand gestures, rallying them up.

They bounded across the trees toward their intended target, with Sam close on the Chief's right. Linda broke off on Chief's signal as they approached the target, moving to a rocky outcropping that shot out of the forest and climbing it at high speed. Her acknowledgement light winked green, allowing the Chief and the four others to continue their bounding advance toward the target.

"Three guards at the gate, about a dozen more inside according to thermals." Linda reported, her voice steady, monotone.

Chief winked his acknowledgement light green at the Sniper, before signaling a halt right at the tree-line. The four Spartans actively scanned the area ahead, their armor Heads-Up Displays linked to Chief's own via the Battle Net. Linda broadcasted her thermals with the help of Cortana to the other Spartans. The compound was a fenced-off, previously abandoned civilian building that resembled an early power station of some sorts. Wires strung high above a series of old transformers and coils, running through open ports into the side of what was pretty much a large concrete block with boarded up windows.

The fences were old, easily breached. Chief hummed, looking toward the first Fang Guard sat in the middle of the road, before he motioned to the three others with him to follow. Also sat near the gate was the vehicle. A buggy, modified with a single, old heavy machine-gun of some kind on top. Chief knew it was old because he could see the rust on its sides and even on the barrel. Above it and the other guards was a single lamppost that provided light to the gate and the gatehouse's outside.

He looked to the rest of his team, then gave the signal.

Like shadows, the Spartans moved forward. One more hand signal and the light above sparked and exploded. A vapor trail hung in the air, coming directly from Linda's position. The White Fang troopers didn't even get to hear the reverb of the gunshot before Kelly and Sam were onto them with knives. Chief kicked down the third one and planted his boot into the man's throat, before throwing his own knife into the machine-gunner of the vehicle.

Cortana spoke, "There should be a Fuse Box in the guardhouse. It's gonna let us kill the lights outside and inside."

The radio of one of the guards crackled to life. A voice over the com inquired of their location just as Chief gave Kelly the order to kill the lights. Him, Fred and Sam moved forward to prepare to breach the building, which had two stories and a series of hallways and Rooms where the enemy was situated, if he was reading Linda's thermal scans right. The moment Kelly had pulled the lever, the three men kicked the door in, with Chief tossing in the first fragmentation grenade.

Right into the hands of one of the guards. The man didn't even have time to scream as the grenade went off, splattering him across the walls. The Spartans, now rejoined by Kelly, moved in, weapons raised. Another Guard came around the corner, firing his rifle wildly toward them. He was filled full of lead moments later. The four Spartans moved together toward the first door inside. They could hear Linda snapping off shots from her rifle, though it was muffled by the concrete walls.

Kelly opened the door just enough to slip a grenade in, before shutting it. With a couple screams and an explosive THUMP, Kelly pushed through the door and put two buckshot shells clean through the gut of a discombobulated survivor, before feeling bullets spark off her armor. Following her in, John and Sam both fired their Assault Rifles, killing another couple of White Fang, a woman and a man, both with lizard-like features prominent, who were sat at a pair of communication consoles.

The Supersoldiers then fanned out of the room, back into the hallways, and split into teams of two. Sam and John moved together to the next room on the floor, waiting for their Motion Trackers to confirm enemy movement inside. Finding nothing, they kicked the door down, scanned it thoroughly, performing a three-point sweep, then left again, moving to the next room.

Gunfire filled the hallway and the rooms as the Spartans cleared more and more of the rooms, killing almost half of the present White Fang forces, while Linda kept the upper floors pinned with accurate Sniper fire. The confused screams of the men and women inside were tuned out by the Spartans as they moved forth, doing their jobs. Sam only broke the silence to remark, "It's good to be back in the saddle..." as they cleared the last room on the bottom floor. Carefully, the Spartans took to entering the main stairwell.

Kelly, who was on point with her shotgun, signaled a halt. She took a knee in front of the door, feeling up the sides. She found the door loose and, upon listening closely with her enhanced Faunus ears(both of which still hurt while under the helmet), with the added boost of her Armor's own audio-visual enhancement suite, she lightly tapped on the door. She heard the faint twinge of a wire, then looked to the Chief and gave one hand signal.

Grenade Bouquet.

Chief nodded, then gave a signal to Sam. The explosives expert of the team changed positions with Kelly, sliding his rifle on his back as he worked to defuse the threat from this side of the door. They could hear the screams of the men from up above. Linda cued her microphone and tapped it rhythmically. Morse Code, Chief soon realized as he listened in. 'Reinforcements. Single aircraft. Dozen shooters. Landing on roof'.

They listened in, hearing the whirr of a Bullhead craft's engines as it moved in to land. Some of the folks must've been able to rally up and call for backup from another camp via Radio. That just doubled their threat factor. Good, the enemy was gonna need the backup. That meant they were scared. Chief caught Sam's acknowledgement light winking green. A light, high-pitched snap later and the Spartan pushed the door open, letting Kelly take point again.

The four Supersoldiers streamed up the stairs, rifles aimed up and around, ensuring that no enemy caught them by surprise in the narrow stairwell. Their Motion Trackers found a line of soldiers heading right for the door ahead as they made it to the second floor. Taking up positions to surprise the enemy, the Spartans levelled their rifles on the doorway, each ready to meet the foe.

When the door opened and the first WF trooper stepped through, he stopped, his eyes growing wide as his mask fell off his face. The Spartans didn't hesitate.

The deafening cannonade of four heavy weapons spitting out lead startled the others atop the more open top floor, causing one to run in fear to the outside as the Spartans fanned out into the room. The Fangers who wanted to survive hid behind the consoles or transformers, or perhaps behind steel tables. The Spartans pressed their advantage as the enemy fired blindly toward them, with Sam and Fred fanning out to the left, to greet the enemy coming from the rooftop landing via the outer stairwell. Sniper shots cracked the air, breaking windows and killing any targets Linda could spot.

Kelly and Chief peeled right, with the shotgunner firing from behind her CO at the enemy, while the Chief changed out his empty mag for a fresh one. The Spartans accurately placed bullets to heads as they cleared the last of the troops on the top floor, before moving up the outer stairs to the landing pad with the gratuitous use of grenades and expending ammunition. They spread out across the landing pad, watching as the enemy aircraft tried to take off, before Cortana noted, "Chief. I saw some computers downstairs... Maybe we can get some info on what they were doing here."

The Chief nodded, before tapping Fred on the shoulder as a signal that he's leaving him in command for now. The trio of Spartans peppered the gunship ahead with gunfire, blasting at its engines as it tried to lift off, calling in the raiding team. A snap-pop and the shattering armored glass of the cockpit, however, put an end to the man's cry for help, his head a fine red mist.

"Another gunship, coming in," Linda reported as jet engines roared behind them.

The aircraft buzzed the building, flying past them and moving to land in a clearing. Linda murmured something to herself over the Com, then flicked it off as Chief clambered back to the top and waved to them. They followed wordlessly down the stairs and out of the building, moving to reinforce Linda as they heard the snap-pop of her Magnum pistol. A roaring explosion came to them and they soon realized that must've been one of the Asteroidea mines.

Kelly was the first to cross the distance between them and Linda, reaching the girl's position and watching her fight. Linda was utilizing the mines as explosive frisbees, basically. She threw them in the middle of a group of three or more enemies and snapped off a shot with her pistol, detonating the explosive payload somehow. Rushing in, her Spartan comrades aided her in clearing out the enemy's forces.

Left of this raid were a dozen alien corpses and a lot of spent ammo casings...

More aircraft came to check in on their downtrodden camp, finding naught but the corpses of their dead and a crashed airship nearby, while the Spartans had made their escape aboard their Pelican. The team watched from aboard as more enemy Bullheads flew in, bearing the markings of the White Fang. The Pelican then traversed over a ridge and disappeared off of the enemy's Radar array.

The UNSC Aircraft came in for a touchdown at the landing pad of Beacon after the short flight home at Mach speed. Even Chief had to admit he was surprised the brick that was the Pelican Dropship could hit Mach, but then again, he probably shouldn't have been. He gave approving nods to his team as they descended out of the vehicle, with Carol and her co-pilot close behind them. Sam and Kelly high-fived, while Fred patted the blonde boy on the back and Linda gave her own approval in the form of a raised right thumb.

The five-Supersoldier team approached their cottage barracks, being met by the bustle of NOBLE Team, Cal and Daisy working to fix the place up something proper, including setting up the bunks and stuff that the Headmaster had promised them. Daisy spoke, "Welcome back, you five... How'd it go?" and watched as John and the others entered, taking off their helmets.

"Went off without a hitch," Kelly replied, grinning, her floppy right ear twitching.

Daisy suppressed the desire to squeal in joy, as a good Spartan does, before simply smiling and stating, "Good to know. Hey, Chief, you alright?"

"Yeah," He replied, "I have to get a report of Cortana's findings compiled onto my Scroll... Send it to the Headmaster, alongside a SITREP."

"You worried about that?" Cal asked from below a reinforced table she was assembling. "The Headmaster seemed nice enough, to be honest, though if you got anything that worries you, it's better if you tell all of us."

"It's fine, Cal," He nodded, setting his helmet onto one of the assembled tables and sitting down on the reinforced chair. The wolf-eared sharpshooter shrugged and nodded, choosing not to press the matter further. The group then watched John climb the stairwell up to his room, with Kelly and Sam both looking at the man with a bit of worry. Something had the Chief spooked and that was enough to make them uneasy.

Sam sighed, then said "I'll go talk to him."

The others nodded and turned back to their work, while the man climbed up the stairs. He stopped in front of John's door and knocked once. "Come in," John voiced and the man stepped inside, watching as the Chief hid something behind him. He audibly sighed as he saw Sam enter and close the door, before revealing Cortana's chip and Cortana herself from behind him. He spoke, "Sorry, Sam. Thought you were Penny."

"That's fine," The blonde boy nodded, "How're you two holding up?"

"... Sam, I feel like we're the ones who should be asking you that," Cortana remarked, a smile on her face.

"Oh, I'm doing fine," He shot back, smiling too, "I came to check in on you two. You seemed a bit under the weather there, John. Anything we should know about the files?"

"Cortana was just decrypting them," The Chief answered, "The little we have so far tells us that there's definitely more than one base and that the operation in Vale is a massive one. Lots of armed personnel alone in those bases, lots of resources too. They had access to multiple Bullheads and clearly enough Dust ammo, so now it's just a matter of figuring out what their end-goal may be."

"Aha," Sam nodded, slowly catching on, "Didja send the SITREP to the Headmaster?"

"I did," John nodded. Cortana rolled her holographic eyes, crossing her arms.

"Aaand...?" He raised a brow.

"He doesn't want us on the case right now," Cortana answered in John's stead, "And big man over here feels like the work we just did wasn't mission accomplished. Now, let me make it clear, I agree with him. The little we've read of the White Fang online tells me they are an organization meant to be forging forward to bring a peace between mankind and the Faunus, by any means necessary. To them, that means terror attacks and the likes, too, but... Nobody seems to know how well-equipped they are... Maybe general Ironwood does, maybe Oz does, but..."

"And that's bothering the both of you," Sam remarked, crossing his arms to his chest. Both of them nodded. He spoke, "Well, same here," smirking, "But we can't exactly conduct our own investigation right now, can we?"

"I'm going to guess this is about our own classes starting tomorrow, right?"

"Yup," Sam nodded, "I'm gonna give you my two cents, I think it'll be fun." And he saw the skepticism in John's eyes. The youngest of the Spartans chuckled, then said "C'mon, John. How bad can it be, honestly?"

"I don't know, Sam..." The man remarked, sighing deeply, "Security breaches-"

"Can be patched up if we're fast enough. Plus, we're Spartans, John. If there's one skill we need to learn, it's blending in with the average person," Sam said with a shrug, "Frankly, I figure a school's a good enough environment."

"You do realize we're in a school meant for people who fight monsters, right?" Cortana inquired. Sam nodded, smiling still, to which Cortana slowly began, "... Which would make us blend in easier, even with Spartan armors, because we're going to be training alongside them... How did we not figure that one out?" She looked to John, who actually gave a half-smile to his friend.

"Heh," Sam nodded, "We've all got to get some rest. Tomorrow's the big day... Man, I hope Beacon classes can fit us."

"We still have to run recovery operations, Sam," Chief noted, "There's a lot of IFFs left over."

"We'll deal with that in the afternoon!" The boy replied as he walked out of the room, "Good night!" and he shut the door. Chief and Cortana looked to one-another, then back to the door. It was strange to see Sam so excited for something as strange as classes, though, to be fair, John understood. Most of their own classes were related to their work, so any sort of curriculum that differentiated from those was... Interesting.

Not to mention they hadn't been in those classes for... What... Almost 40 years at this point?

Maybe he was right...?

They'd see.

Chapter Text

It was a normal Monday in Beacon. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, the sky was blue and clear and the morning breeze rustled the leaves of the trees in the courtyard. Students went about their business, all smiles and joy that they finally got the time to meet with each-other again after the long break. Sure, it'd been a bit since they started, but old friends meeting again was a good enough reason for the groups, teams and small cliques to celebrate.

"Holy fuck!"

Of course, that exclamation took a bit of attention, considering it came from a girl belonging to one of the second year teams. What could surprise a second year enough to cry out like that, everyone wondered as they went to see. All students, male and female alike, stopped dead in their tracks as they watched a group of twelve boys and girls marching forward, clad in Beacon's school uniforms. Two of them were Faunus, of course. A rabbit and a wolf, to be exact.

Still, it wasn't the fact that the gang of about a dozen had two Faunus with them, nor was it the fact that one of the girls had scars, short hair and a freaking skeletal robot arm poking out of her uniform jacket. Oh, no, it wasn't. It was the fact that all of them looked like freaking models, even for Beacon's rather high unspoken standard of good-looking alumni. Toned, taller than your average Joe and Jane and all also bearing some degree of scarring, they strode forth through Beacon's courtyard, to the whispering of the other students talking among each-other.

"Oh my gods," whispered one girl, eyes locked onto Daisy and Kelly.

"I know, right?" Another stated, a big grin on her face, "D'you think any of the lads are single?"

"Ladies are cute too," Voiced a pair of twins, a male and a female, both of them high-fiving moments later. John and the Spartans tried to ignore the whispers of their new class-mates, but Penny seemed fairly more jaunty and ready to welcome the words. She looked to him, a smile on her face as they continued. She then turned to Kelly and Linda, listening to the two chat away about something military related.

"It seems we still piqued people's interest, but this time positively, have we not?" Penny remarked, smiling.

"We did," John remarked, less thrilled over the prospect, clearly.

"Is something wrong, Dylan?" She asked, then observed, "You seem distraught."

He hummed, "Not used to this many eyes being on us."

"Your teammates seem to be acclimatizing to it, Dylan," Penny remarked. Indeed, as John looked around, he saw much of their little makeshift platoon engaged in small-talk, while Fred and Sam seemed to be learning the functions of their newly-delivered Scrolls. Indeed, the technological devices which John and Penny had also gotten were quite the useful electronic tools. He removed his own Scroll from his pocket and looked it over, then nodded.

"I guess they are," He answered, then looked ahead, to see teams RWBY and JNPR coming in to greet them. Ruby, more specifically, was waving at them with a wide smile on her face. John remarked, "And there's the teams..."

"Yo! Dylan, Penny and Dylan's gang! Welcome to Beacon!" Ruby greeted them jovially, "You got here just in time!"

"Class is about to start," Weiss voiced, looking over the entire fire-team. They were most certainly the strangest bunch of soldiers that she had ever laid her eyes upon, but even as she looked over each's face, she could see those stares, those hollow gazes that every soldier seemed to have. She recognized them as such because she'd once spoken to an old Veteran, one that saw both the Great War and the Faunus Rights Revolution as an active combatant in the Mantle and, later, Atlas military. For people as young as they seemed, it was odd...

"Y'all are looking mighty fine, if I do say so myself!" Yang smirked. Of course, Weiss thought, her teammates would ignore the details.

"Thanks, Yang," John remarked, then started "Right... Everyone who hasn't met them, these are Penny's comrades from here. Teams RWBY and JNPR. Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao-Long and Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, Pyrrha Nikos and Lie Ren, respectively," and, as he was going through, each member of each team gave a quick salute, a wave, a smile, a flex of the muscles(In Nora's case) or a nod as their names were called. John then went on to introduce his teammates, having memorized their 'fake' family names... Except for Six's.

The members of the teams stopped, looking to the girl with raised brows. She said, her face devoid of emotion, "Alice... Just Alice is fine..."

After a short pause to let the awkwardness between the groups subside, Ruby nodded, then said "Right... Well, c'mon! We'll lead you to the first class!" before pausing to look over them once more. Her gaze, however, lingered on Sam for a moment. That moment was enough for Yang to see her sister's cheeks turn the slightest shade of red and her grin be replaced by a genuine curious look. Tracking her gaze to Sam, she smirked, a welling sense of pride in her chest... Alongside one of protectiveness.

As the group started walking together, Linda had looked over Pyrrha a bit. She was fit, combat-ready and one could see the influence of the hoplites of old Greek descent, especially in her weaponry and uniform. Still, she seemed the calm and collected type. Some of the data Cortana and John had given them told them she was also big on the competition stage, at least in the locales of another Kingdom due East of Vale.

She eyed Ruby next, looking at the girl as she seemed to be eyeing Sam tentatively, her cheeks the faintest shade of red. She raised a brow, then shook her head. Cal poked her head in next to her, then asked "Something the matter, Linda?" as she took to her side, with Dasiy and Kelly already engaged in some other form of small talk relating to firearms and CQC behind them.

"Ah, Cal," She remained composed, despite the sudden appearance of her Sniper counterpart, "No, just taking in the sights."

"Pretty interesting place, huh?" Cal remarked. Linda nodded. The two of them had trained together to be the perfect snipers of the Spartan project. They had always been both friends and competition to one-another, despite their generally fewer-than-average interactions. Whenever they did talk or participate in an Op together, however, they were almost in-tune with one another's thoughts and both had been proven to cooperate well. The Covenant and Innies they faced were always shocked when multiple sniper shots rang out.

"It is," Linda concurred, "You doing well?"

"Decent enough, I guess," She replied, "We all probably need to talk about how we got here, right...?"

"What do you mean?"

"... It's a really long story..." Cal voiced, a grim look on her face. She looked to Daisy, then stated "I think Chief knows how Daze went out... I know how I went too. Sam's aware as well, so..."

"Lots of our dead being revived," Linda whispered, "We'll figure it out."

"Sure hope so," Cal responded, "Because I can't imagine how many others are out there."

"That's our objective after school. Head out to find the others."

Content with their little chat, Cal bowed out and went back to her spot next to Daisy. Meanwhile, Noble Team hanged around the back, chatting with one-another while Jorge kept an eye on them. Compared to the IIs, they were kids, but they could easily hold their own and fight, plus, they knew each-other well enough. Well, except for the one that wasn't really talking to them. Jorge had noticed since their walk that Alice had been sitting in the back.

Entering the class, Ruby turned to the Spartans and, with an apologetic look on her face, said "... I'm sorry... I forgot we had Port's class."

While Weiss seemed calm, Blake and Yang looked like someone had just strangled their cat, their faces drained of color, eyes wide and pupils dilated. The blonde boy, Jaune, was much the same, while Nora seemed to be trembling and Ren and Pyrrha remained as calm as Weiss. John hummed, then asked "Something wrong with the man that's got all of you scared?"

"... No, not scared, just..." Blake's voice trembled.

"Concerned," Sighed Yang, "Prof Port really enjoys telling stories."

"Okay," Kelly poked her head out from behind John, "What kind of class is this?"

"Grimm studies," Weiss stated, "Information about the different types of Grimm creatures one can encounter are taught here... And frankly, do not listen to them. Professor Port is a great teacher."

"Sure," Yang chuckled, "Anyway..." She looked into the class and whistled, "They expanded it a bit. There's a few dozen new seats in there... Must be expecting a lot more students."

"Probably to do with the Vytal Festival," Ruby remarked, "Anyway, c'mon, folks! Penny! Let's sit close!"

"Certainly, Ruby, my friend!" The carrot-top smiled. She looked over to John and asked "You don't mind, do you?" getting a negative. She beamed, then left with teams RWBY and JNPR, while the Spartans fanned out into the room, finding a multitude of seats that were free and taking them. John, Sam, Kelly, Fred and Linda were all sat together, with Daisy, Cal and half of Noble Team behind them and the other half across to the left.

Teams RWBY and JNPR, alongside Penny, were right in front of them, though team RWBY took the bench closest to the chalkboard. Entering the room moments later, as the chatter in the class quietened down, a rotund man with a bushy mustache, narrow eyes and grey hair jauntily strode forward, a smile hidden behind that 'stache of his. The old man, presumably professor Port himself, began speaking, his voice booming, raucous and proud, "Greetings, my dear students! It is good to see you all again after so long! I am glad to see that our bond of teacher and students can continue and..." He eyed the new arrivals, the Spartans, before saying, "My, I didn't expect us to have this many new classmates!"

And yet again, the Room's attention was directed at them. The old man smiled, then said "Headmaster Ozpin has told me of our newcomers for the day! I would ask you to introduce yourselves, but for now, I believe you should be content with doing so after classes. My name is Professor Port and I shall be your teacher in the study of the great, treacherous foe that we are training you to fight! And that we've, of course, fought ourselves."

Made sense. One wouldn't teach how to cook if they didn't know how to cook. It was the same with slaying monsters, the Spartans imagined.

"Why, that reminds me of a time-"

The collective groan of all the students in the class actually, actively and openly startled the Spartans, their senses going into overdrive as if they thought someone would attack them and their new classmates. Ruby looked to John and the others apologetically again, an awkward smile and a healthy red tint in her otherwise pale complexion, while Penny hummed merrily along, listening. All of them actually listened in on the prof going on an all-out purple-prosey story about one of his exploits. They held fast through all of it, up to the end, well aware of how that must've looked for their classmates.

Unflinching, uncaring, stone-faced soldiers in teen uniforms sat there, listening to the tale of combat a man faced against a Grimm, describing it in all the detail of a writer priding themselves in such frivolities. John sat there, he himself focused on the man's speech, "... And so, I was alone, being hounded by a dozen beowolves, my weapon out of my reach, my Aura almost gone and darkness all around me after nightfall. But once I hid myself 'neath the large redwood tree's exposed cage of roots and doused myself in mud, the pack animals lost my scent. It was truly an experience... So, class, what can we learn from this?"

... What can one learn beside what has just been mentioned in the last bit? John raised his hand, much to the surprise of the entire class, sans his own comrades. Getting a nod from Port, he spoke straightforwardly, "That the Grimm are more like their animal counterparts than it first appears, such being the case with them losing you in the dark after you hid, sir."

"Correct, my young lad!" Port smirked, "The usage of mud to cover my scent, coupled with the darkness of the forest, ensured that I was safe and able to return to my camp with little issue! Well done!"

A bump in the shoulder from Sam and a thumbs up from Kelly told him he'd probably impressed. They heard a whispered groan from the front, followed by Ruby's voice, filled with fear, "You mean we were supposed to listen to all that?!"

"Of course, you dolt!" Weiss retorted in a similar tone of voice.

"Mou..." Ruby whined, to the chuckle of Sam. As the bell rung, Professor Port spoke encouraging words to the kids, patting John on the shoulder as they passed him by. The group of friends reformed, with Jaune looking back to John with a raised brow. Ruby herself piped up, "How did'ya even pay any attention to all of that?! Are all of you machines!?"

"Years of listening to DIs and teachers scream into your ear about being combat ready and how to be prepared helps with concentration," Sam replied for the Chief, taking his old friend's side. He flashed Ruby a welcoming smile, to which the girl smiled back, waving awkwardly and blushing. The Chief raised a brow at him and the blonde shrugged as they approached their next classroom.

"Okay, you guys and girls are already scary," Jaune quipped, garnering the laughter of the other Remnant natives.

"Chill, Vomit Boy," Yang laughed, "I'm sure they'll teach us if we ask nice."

Jaune rolled his eyes, "Ha ha. Thanks, Yang..."

"What?" Sam asked, finally noticing the look on John's face.

"Nothing..." John replied, crossing his arms to his chest, "Surprised you're getting friendly with the civilians is all," He then whispered to Sam.

The man nudged John with his elbow, then said "It's fine. Just... You've been feeling a bit weird too, haven't you?"

"Your thyroid implant failing too?" John asked, followed by almost all Spartan-IIs who'd heard this nodding in unison. Damn, so it wasn't only a him problem. Eh, they'd figure something out. The day passed as they finished their next series of classes and the team departed. This time, however, Daisy and Cal had volunteered for the job of recovering the next string of new arrivals at the Emerald Forest RV Point.

It'd taken them an hour to get prepared. Clad in their armor sets, the two girls descended upon the platform where Echo Four-Nineteen sat, with Foe Hammer and her co-pilot already waiting at Chief's orders. They were linked directly to Cortana, who was giving them direct updates on the situation of the two new arrivals at the RV Point. Boarding the craft, the two girls immediately loaded up on whatever Ammo they could find in the back and sat themselves down.

"Been a while since we actually went on a proper mission together," Daisy smirked behind her helmet visor.

Cal nodded, "Yeah."

"Cortana," Daisy called over Radio, "Any idea who we're gonna be running into?"

"Unknown for now, honestly, though I'd add a third contact that just joined," The AI responded, "You girls ready to meet some newcomers? Cuz, from what I can see, it's a bit of a massive hellscape down there. Lots of gunfire and grenades... I may've just... Hijacked a little cam from a nearby Atlas drone to get a view, but nobody tell general Ironwood, alright?"

"Hehe, roger that, ma'am." she spoke, still wearing a grin on her face as she looked over the ammo counter on her weapon. She liked Cortana, "We're ready for recovery op, weapons cleared and hot!" and she felt the bird swinging in for the approach. They watched cityscape turn to forest and felt the Pelican decelerating. Static filtered into the bird as the intercepted Radio transmissions played over com. Then, the radio cleared out into a proper voice. A female voice they recognized.

"This is Beta Red Actual to any UNSC asset in the vicinity! Red Beta is under attack! We're being overrun by some kind of alien creatures down here! Send backup any time y'all feel like it!" The woman's accent was a thick, southern state one, probably Texan. In the background, the muffled report of handguns being discharged echoed as the bird swung by. Cal and Daisy looked to one-another and both smiled behind their helmets.

"Bring us in above! We'll drop in and secure an LZ for ya, Foe Hammer!" Daisy stood to her feet, ready to raise hell for their old compatriot. Cal followed, standing up and drawing her sniper rifle.

"Roger that, ladies! We're comin' in hot!" Carol answered, "Sounds like a southerner down there!"

"Definitely is," Daisy chuckled as the back hatch opened, the roar of jet-wash filling the hold. The two girls surged forward, jumping out of the vehicle, to be met by the sound of gunfire and the sight of a horde of those same things they've killed before, charging the trio of Beta Red, one of which was wounded. They watched a woman clad in a deep teal armor pirouette around the first enemy, before planting the heel of her armored boot into the top of its head and snapping its neck. She then aimed her twin Magnum pistols into the crowd, rapid-firing each of the two.

She heard the slam of boots hitting hardened dirt and turned to see Cal and Daisy dropping in feet-first. The woman spoke, a jovial tone to her voice, "Didn't think you two turned into ODSTs!" as she soon saw their ID Tags. Daisy chuckled, firing her assault rifle into the mass of Grimm, with Cal sniping at the bigger bastards with impunity. Red Fifteen joined up next, his Battle Rifle burping three-round bursts of accurate fire into anything smaller than a Beowolf, while...

"Kurt..." Daisy looked back to the AR-toting man that NOBLE Team had been trained by. The tall man nodded to the girls, hoisting high his assault carbine. The blonde smirked, then asked "What in the Hell are you wearing, man?" as she noticed his armor, which was vanishing in and out of existence. Kurt's visor depolarized, revealing his own de-aged face. He was smiling.

"The last thing I wore before I went out... Good to see you Daisy, Cal," He stated.

"We found his ass wondering around, but not the rest of Beta Red," Actual told them, shifting her place to let Kurt join the firing line. The man thumbed the safety of his short-barreled carbine with a carry handle and let loose.

"We gotta clear an LZ for Foe Hammer! Form a perimeter!" Cal ordered. The four other Spartans gave her a nod, quickly moving into a wedge formation and pushing on forward, to stave the Grimm off. They expended several magazines each as the aircraft swing in, the wash of jet engines rustling leaves and grass. A high-caliber machine-gun roared from the back of the vehicle and the team looked to see the co-pilot of the craft manning the rear-mounted, drop-down fifty-cal. He waved them aboard as the aircraft hovered half a meter above the ground.

The five rushed in, rifles chattering and thundering as more Grimm ran in. Last one in was Actual, who was firing shot after shot from her high-caliber Magnum pistols, the M6Gs, before jumping onto the bird. Holstering her weapons, she ordered the take-off with one quick motion of her hand and the aircraft's engines roared as the back hatch closed and the co-pilot ran back to the front.

Sitting herself down, Beta Actual took her helmet off her head, to reveal a woman with jet-black hair, which was long on one side and shaved almost to the skin on the other. Deep brown eyes met Daisy and Cal's own and she wore a proud smirk. A scar below her left eye was covered by a tattoo of seven, small tears descending all the way down to the left of her jaw.

Daisy had taken her own helmet off, smiling at the woman and stating, "You know... I've never been more glad to see that damn tat, Colleen."

"Hehe," The woman smirked, then nodded, turning to Beta Fifteen and to Kurt, both of whom had removed their helmets. While Kurt was the familiar, overly-friendly, young, somehow tan and handsome faced bastard that they all remembered fondly, Beta Fifteen had once been a mystery to Daisy and Cal. He was a young man, with cropped black hair and dark eyes. They'd never spoken much, but they knew his name too.

Chief Petty Officer First Class Colleen-124, Beta Red Actual, and Petty Officer Jack-016.

"Long time, all three of you," Cal remarked, taking her helmet off too.

"It's been, yeah," Kurt returned, running a gloved hand over his shaved head and with eyes wide.

"... Christ, Cal, what are you wearing?!" Colleen seemed surprised. Cal's eyes shifted upward, she felt her ears twitch and she yelped, sliding her helmet back onto her head. Colleen looked to Daisy, who was stifling a chuckle, then asked "I ain't the only one who saw that, am I? The damn things twitched! What did you do to yourself, Cal? What kinda secondary modifications did they give ya before you went out?"

"Actually, they're very new," Daisy remarked, "Fresh revival on this world and she woke up with'em..." then she chuckled, "Heh. Should see Kelly, though."

"Aw, hell! Don't tell me she has that stuff too!" The woman, despite her angry tone, seemed to smirk. Daisy nodded, waving it off, then looking to Kurt and giving him a once-over. The armor he was wearing had been undergoing trials, according to some folks in ONI she had managed to 'persuade' into a 'mutually beneficial friendship', both words with the necessary air quotation, as a light addition to the MJOLNIR set before the project died. The SPI, Semi-Powered Infiltration set.

Daisy hummed, remembering that Kelly had mentioned she remembered meeting Kurt on the planet Onyx, where much of NOBLE Team had been trained with other Spartan-IIIs. She smirked, then asked Kurt, "Was that used on your own bunch of Spartans there, Lieutenant-Commander Ambrose, sir?" to which, after a brief pause to gather his thoughts, he nodded, shifting uneasily in his seat.

"Take it Kelly told you..." He stated.

"Her and NOBLE Team," Daisy smirked, "Another Hyper-Lethal, eh?"

Kurt smiled, "So, B312 is alive, too."

"She sure is. Bet she'll be happy to see her old trainer," Daisy chuckled. She looked to Jack and to Colleen and said, "We'll all explain everything to you, including why we're literally seventeen years old right now, when we get back home and meet the Chief, BLUE and the rest of the gang... Otherwise, long story short, welcome to Remnant. We're all teens, I'm pretty sure every Spartan that's ever lived and went MIA is coming here, alive and we're probably in for the wildest ride yet... And probs our weirdest mission to date."

All four Spartans aboard took a moment. Then, they nodded in understanding.

It was gonna be very weird...

Chapter Text

Chief stowed Caliburn away on his back after giving it a thorough checkup. He had to admit, openly, that Ruby was one of the best weapon designers he'd had the luck of running into. He arranged his armor, stating, "Call up the others. We've got a quick job I want done..." in reference to the White Fang's presence and what work they were doing in the middle of Vale, especially with hidden bases like the one they'd engaged.

"Going on a Fang Hunt now that it's the weekend, huh?" Cortana quipped, pulling up the com and sending a ping to everyone to gather up in the main room, "We missed a pretty big food fight, by the way. Apparently, teams RWBY and JNPR really went at it in there," She then smirked. Chief rolled his eyes. They were still kids, he had to remind himself, unlike the Spartans, who were merely adults in de-aged bodies.

Descending down the stairwell, the man found the entire task force of Spartans gathered, weapons in hand and ammo strapped onto their chest and side pouches. He stopped in the middle of the group as Cortana transmitted some of the data in regards to possible White Fang bases of operation. He nodded to everyone, then said "This is gonna be a scouting mission. We operate in teams of two. Each of us hits different locations around Vale and keeps their eyes open for rumored White Fang activity or accesses relevant information points."

"NOBLE, you're taking the south of the city, near the agricultural district. There should be remote access systems in there that will provide us proper information on any possible targets," He told Carter and his team, "Divvy yourselves up as you see fit, but stay in com range," And then he looked to the two girls to his right and said, "Daisy, Cal. You two are going to hit the Industrial District, see if you can find any derelict buildings that may be in use. Colleen, Kurt. Rumor on the RemNet is that there's a club nearby that deals with shady business. Cortana's going to give you the address. I want you to stake it out, then check it during the, when patrons start arriving."

He then paused and looked over to Blue, "Sam, you're with me. We're hitting the CCTS so I can get Cortana into the system again, properly. Fred, Kelly, you two go near the southern outskirts, where I landed. Linda? You take Jack and give us eyes on anything that could be trying to sneak in... Or Any one. All of you, keep your eyes peeled. Cortana tells me we may also have some of our own entering Vale as we speak. Their IFFs are scrambled, but you should catch them on the MT... That's all for the assignments. Let's get moving."

His comrades offered quick nods, each of them sliding their helmets on their heads and filing out of the house. Sam took to Chief's side and asked, "Have you seen Penny?"

"She mentioned she was going for a 'checkup' at the Atlesian outpost nearby," He replied as they walked out of the house and scattered. Those heading into town would take Foe Hammer's Pelican and go around the less-inhabited areas. This was an operation in broad daylight, so they had to find some way or another to be stealthy, especially with the Atlas Navy and Military hanging high above them.

John and Sam continued to the CCTS Tower all the while, each of them looking at groups of gathered students, who, now that they knew them, seemed much more at ease with their march through the campus. Sam whistled when they approached the tower, the height and design of the construct clearly impressing him enough. Chief showed him to stop, to which his comrade halted, hand hovering over his pistol.

Chief pointed forward and Sam's gaze followed. He caught a glimpse of Ruby and Weiss in the distance, both of them dressed in different outfits than their standard. Weiss wore a white jacket with black accents and cuffs, a more normal-looking, pleated skirt and thigh-high combat boots, while Ruby wore, aside from her standard cape, a silver shirt with some sort of emblazoned metal symbol on the shoulder, a black pinafore, a strange skirt with her symbol, leggings and combat boots. Each of them had their weapons on them, as well.

John hummed.

"Curious..." Cortana voiced what the big man was thinking, "... Could they be here for the same thing we are?"

"Something tells me there's more to this than meets the eye," John noted. He saw Penny approaching the two, a smile on her face as she greeted them before veering off to the right. Ruby seemingly joined her, leaving a distraught Weiss alone, to which John looked to Sam. He looked to Sam, then ordered, "Keep an eye on them from afar. Ping anyone if something seems off... And if you get a chance? Ask Ruby what they're doing out... Armed..."

"Got it," The boy nodded, quickly moving to trail the girls. John hoped his friend knew how to maintain stealth, even with the armor, but he probably shouldn't worry. Sam was one of their best, after all.

"We taking Weiss and the CCTS?" Cortana inquired.

"Mhm," John replied, shifting his gaze toward Weiss as she entered the tower. The man followed, moving into the building and waving to her to hold the elevator. Weiss, noticeably surprised to see the Chief out and about, nodded and hurried him along with a 'come hither' sign. He clambered into the elevator moments before the door closed, to which a surprised Weiss looked up at him once more.

"Master Chief? What are you doing at the CCTS?" She asked.

"Running a short check on something," He replied. It wasn't exactly a lie, but he deflected nonetheless, asking "What about you, miss Schnee?"

"I'm... Here to make a call..." The girl smiled awkwardly, moving her scroll toward the wall panel to allow it to be scanned. She changed subjects, probing his defenses by offering the proverbial olive branch of discussion in this case, "So... The weather is nice... I take it you're just out for a... Walk... In full armor... I... Take it it's patrol time, is it not?"

Cortana snorted as John nodded. Weiss turned back toward the door as it slid open. The two approached the reception desk, where the hologram of a young woman took form. Chief tuned out her discussion with Weiss, looking around for a free terminal away from prying eyes. He found one far to the right just before Weiss snapped him out of it, stating, "Master Chief, she's going to want to know what your business is. If you need me, I'll be at that terminal..." Pointing toward said terminal closer by the window and stepping off.

Leaning forward, the Spartan said, "I'm going to be searching for information online for a bit."

"That'll be fine, sir. For that, you can pick a terminal at your leisure," The woman smiled. John nodded in thanks, before stepping off toward the terminal he'd eyed and sitting himself down, somewhat thankful the damn chairs here could take his armor's weight. He turned off his external microphone before pulling up the emerald-tinted holo-display and keyboard.

"You don't need to yank me this time," Cortana quipped as she saw John slowly moving to do just that. She explained, "I managed to fully integrate myself into the Scroll's systems and it now acts as a wireless terminal for me to interact with the Remnant tech that can access it. Slide it into the slot on the right and I'll be able to parse through the new data on the RemNet..." words to which John removed the communication item and slid it into the slot, access port down.

He saw the screen flash a noticeably familiar blue tint for a moment before returning to the opaque emerald it was before. Cortana spoke, "Right... Act like normal. I'll get to searching through any files on the White Fang... Including Atlas Military intelligence databases. Their firewalls are there, but they're so easy to crack through, it's more like a game to me..."

"Got it," He replied, moving his hands to mimic searching through data. He hummed, looking over to Weiss, then said "I have a feeling Weiss is looking for something..."

"I'll try to nab a copy of whatever she's looking for... She's talking to an SDC rep," The AI replied as some data flashed on-screen, including a muted window showing the face of the Atlesian woman on the right. Chief turned back to the terminal, mimicking working on it again while waiting for his AI to nab the files. With a quiet hum, the AI said, "Interesting..."

"What?" He raised a brow.

"Files on Dust Convoys ambushed by the White Fang, on recent White Fang protests near the SDC Mines and on speculations about supplies being delivered to them by a rival company or two..." Cortana explained, "C'mon. I got all the files we need..." And the two watched as Weiss, too, stood up from her seat. The duo met at the elevator, entering it while Cortana explained, "Damn, this is... Some of the files on here are marked as sensitive... Weapon shipments going missing from some PMC? Huh..."

"Hmm..." Chief hummed.

"So..." Weiss looked to him, "Find what you were looking for?"

"Yeah. You?" He raised a brow, his mic now on.

"Certainly," She smirked, "Anyways..." and the elevator stopped at the bottom as Weiss added, "I should probably go meet my teammates... Be seeing you, Master Chief."

"Miss Schnee," He nodded before the two exited the place and split up. He hummed, then said, "Let me know what you got out of those files the moment you can. Right now, I want you to keep an ear out for the others calling in if we need to go help them," And he strode toward their house again. He needed to be ready when he'd need to swing by and help the others.

"Should've probably asked Weiss what they were doing..." Cortana offered with a tone indicating smugness.

"I told Sam to ask Ruby if he gets a chance," He replied calmly, "But I feel we'll find out soon enough what our intrepid Huntresses are doing..." and he entered the house to grab a few more things, including his Magnum, an MA5 as an extra firearm and some extra ammunition. The man then left the building, heading for the landing pads and watching as Foe Hammer swung in, the Blood Tray of the Pelican empty.

"Chief," Foe Hammer poked her head from behind the door, a smile on her face, "Comin' aboard as QRF?"

"I am," John replied, "Get us on a low orbiting flight over the nearest drop-off area... We'll be picking up Sam after he's done with his own work if we don't get called in," And he sat himself down in one of the rearmost chairs of the bird. Foe Hammer thumbed the door closing button. The rear hatch of the aircraft shut with a hard metallic clang. Cortana started humming something.

He felt the vehicle accelerate, while Cortana started pulling up any and every file she could, including data on a new Atlas military unit type. Chief had a nagging feeling that it wouldn't be long before they saw said unit up-close, so he let Cortana do her thing. She simply stated, "By the way... I'm looking through WF data from the Atlas Military and... Apparently..." She chuckled, "They're not considered a major threat... At least not for right now."

Well, again, John had a sinking feeling that was going to change soonish. He sighed, leaning back into his seat and watching as they dipped down to below the detection range of whatever radars the Atlas Airships utilized to track them, moving rapidly toward the southern sector of Vale. High-rises soon turned into houses, then into ever-larger fields of crops ranging from wheat to corn with interspersed houses between them. They'd hold orbit there and wait for the two teams they'd assigned to scour this place.

"One more thing," Cortana smirked, "A couple contacts just made it into town... Marine IFFs from what little I can unscramble."

John felt like... Like he knew.

Sam followed Penny and Ruby from the rooftops, using his armor's enhanced audio sensor suite to listen into their conversation. So far, most of the stuff they'd spoken of was boring, standard girl things, or so Sam thought. Ruby had inquired about why Penny had vanished that night at 'The Docks', but Penny deflected the question. Sam pretty much crawled over the Rooftop he was on when it was needed, jumping between it only when it was needed as he listened in.

Docks, huh? He probably had to inquire about that when he got to talk to Ruby. Still, he watched their interactions from a distance, ducking to hide only when a Bullhead or some other transport or military bird flew up above. John had figured it best to do the 'in broad daylight' approach to the search, but, to be fair, to the many citizens of Vale, a Spartan could easily pass off as either a Huntsman or an Atlas soldier, provided they could lie well enough.

He'd seen many a weird, but relatively cool thing in his little chase for the past half-hour or so, ranging from a small stand where food was being sold to even the presentation of Atlas's newest war machines, the Atlesian Knight Two Hundreds and the Paladin. The former was an android designed for combat, with what looked like composite armor covering the arms, legs, pelvic region and chest. Its abdomen was relatively exposed, some of the innards visible through a layer of some kind of flexible black material. Its visor was also T-Shaped... Then, there was the Paladin. A giant machine of war resembling some of the wackier prototypes he'd seen for new armor on Damascus Station...

Then again, Sam was one to speak of wacky ideas. He was literally travelling via Rooftop.

Not his particularly smartest decision, he felt as he jumped across to the next roof over, following Penny and Ruby closely. He gasped as he heard the screech of car tires and the rapid-fire honks of a horn. His gaze swept over to the right, where he saw a 'From Dust 'Till Dawn' truck barreling toward them. He stood to his feet, ready to intervene just before he saw the truck slam into something hard enough for its back wheels to lift off the ground and engine compartment to bend as it stopped dead, wheels landing back on the floor moments later.

He stared down at the object it struck, which sat square in the middle of the road, expecting to find either another car, a very hardy bike or some misplaced concrete pillar. Instead, he was staring at Penny Polendina, her hands outstretched and a crater about half a foot deep with her square in the middle. As a crowd began to gather, Penny immediately ran off down an alley just next to the road, with Ruby immediately running after her.

Sam rolled his eyes, murmuring to himself, "Well, I got an interesting job..." before using the age-old sport known as Parkour to travel over multiple roofs as he trailed the girls, at one moment even jumping across the alley-way to another roof as they got to a T-intersection that the girls took a right down on. The thunderclap of military boots echoed, causing him to turn and see Atlas troops following them.

He hummed, checking his belt and unclipping a flashbang. With a mischievous grin on his face, he pulled the pin and dropped it in front of the Atlas troopers. It landed just as they passed and gave it a quick look before exploding in a burning white flash of light and noise. The stun grenade did its job, disorienting the crap out of the Atlas troops so Penny and Ruby could have their moment.

And indeed, they had had it. So Sam figured when he saw the adorable carrot-top pulling the Rose into a tight hug, shoving her friend's face into her chest and laughing happily, calling Ruby the 'best friend ever'. Even Sam could appreciate that compliment. However, what Penny did next caught even him by surprise as he watched it happen to the sound of trodding boots.

Penny had picked up Ruby over her head. A squirming young huntress that must've been about the same weight as her and Penny had just lifted her like it was nothing. Sam snorted, watching it unfold with a grin behind his mask, with Ruby protesting about the fact that 'she could help'. Penny slammed her into the dumpster just below where he was. He looked down, watching as they exchanged a last couple of words before the Atlas troopers, still seemingly discombobulated, arrived to Penny's jubilant greetings. She looked up to Sam, surprising him with a wink and a beaming smile before she was taken away.

Huh... Clever girl.

After they took her away, a spooked, somewhat dirty Ruby emerged from the dumpster and dusted herself off, rolling her eyes. Sam figured it was as good a moment as any. Jumping, the man landed with a hard thunk onto the concrete next to Ruby, garnering the loudest shriek of surprise the man had heard in his life. It had enough decibels that his armor decided to tone it down.

He looked to little red, trying to avert his gaze from the cracks he'd made in the concrete, before offering a quick, "Apologies... Hi, by the way."

"... Hi..." Ruby let out, strained and gripping her chest, "Oh, I swear, my heart nearly jumped outta my chest..."

"Sorry... Again..." Sam noted, turning to Ruby, "So..."

"... You were following us, weren't you?" Ruby looked to him, silver eyes locked onto his Mark IV CQB helmet's visor. A nod from him caused Ruby to smirk. She asked, "So, which one of the big fellas are you? 'Cuz I'm pretty sure that Armor's a model I've seen before, but it ain't the Chief's. And you don't look like a female Spartan, since I can't see the shape. Plus, the voice and..." before watching with awe as Sam removed his helmet, revealing yet again the handsome young fellow with a welcoming smile. Ruby felt her breath hitch in her throat before she let out a slight, quiet shriek of embarrassment, "Oh! S-Sam, right?! H-Hi!"

"Yup," He nodded, "Ruby, if I'm not mistaken."

"Y-Yeah! Haha!" She chuckled awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck, her face growing ever more red. She seemed happy he remembered her name...

"You alright? Your face is kind of... Red..." He quipped, causing the girl to swivel about at the speed of sound, her back ramrod straight, stiff and her hands by her side, tiny fists clenched in embarrassment. He didn't know what to make of the reaction outside of finding it... Oh, what was it that word Fred used? Cute? Yeah, cute. It felt like it fit the young girl's reaction to whatever it was.

'Ruby Rose, you're a fricking Huntress in Training! Why are you so embarrassed by a cute guy standing in frontofOHMYGODWHYDIDITHINKHECUTEAAAAAAAAAAAAA!?' The girl thought, her inner voice shrieking at her as she snuck another look at the blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy with the features of a model. Her heart was rattling off like an assault rifle on full auto and her face felt actually hot. Like she had a freaking fever.

"... Uhm, Ruby? You okay?" He asked, his smooth voice booming in her ears and filled with concerned.

"... mfine..." She murmured.

"Rrrright..." Sam hummed, "... Want to go get something cold to drink? I... Figure it's best if you cooled down a bit before I asked any questions."

"Sure..." She nodded quickly, still averting her gaze. The two walked out from the alleyway and onto one of the main boulevards of Vale, Ruby's gait awkward, very stiff and machine-like. She was staring dead-ahead with wide open eyes and trying not to meet Sam's gaze. For a moment, Sam entertained the idea of her being awkward around him in his mind. He squelched that thought in a moment. He stopped, pointing out a shop immediately to their left.

"That place looks good..." He stated, Ruby tracking his extended index's point to a small corner convenience store. With a nod, Ruby warily followed Sam to the place, her walk growing slowly more normal. Sure, she still couldn't stare at the guy, but at least she wasn't walking like a freak and attracting unwanted attention, right? She looked around to check on that presumption and found herself staring at several bystanders around them looking at the pair and whispering things.

"They're adorable!"

"Holy crap, the dude's tall! Must be some kinda relationship... It also must be frickin' adorable to see'em trying to hug."

"Hey, at least they both look the same age, right? I mean, look at'em!"

"Yeah, fair 'nuff. Still, kinda wish I was with the guy... Girl's cute, too..."

Ruby buried her ever-redder face in her hands while Sam seemed to be perfectly good with ignoring the words. Or outright not understanding their quips. That was a possibility. Spartans probably had even less social abilities than her. Unless they were already in relationships. Were they? Oh goodness, they could've been! And here she was, maybe thinking of a guy maybe in a relationship!

Ruby slapped her cheeks lightly. No, Ruby Rose. She was pretty sure she'd read that militaries had things against fraternization, especially among what seemed to be special operations boys and girls. She had to think pragmatically. It was unlikely the guy was into her, right? Military guys probably didn't go for huntresses. She hadn't read a novel on it, anyway... Uuugh...

She whined. That made her feel worse. And even more embarrassed.

"Uh... Ruby?"

Ruby yelped, almost jumping out of her skin again, her face growing a combination of 'paler than bone' and 'redder than a freaking tomato' as she looked around, realizing they were in the middle of a crowd, in a line at the convenience store already. She looked up to Sam, embarrassed, but the man simply smiled reassuringly... If with a glint of worry in his eyes. He asked, "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Y-Yeah..." She suddenly found the floor very interesting, grabbing the hem of her skirt and pulling gently down on it.

"... So, what do you wanna drink?" He motioned to the fridges. Ruby awkwardly looked up, her heart still rattling in her chest.

She looked over the selection, stopping at one, then spoke, "The Cola, I guess..." as she looked at the canned soft beverage.

"Sure," He nodded, pulling out his own credit chit. Chief had been kind enough to split the money he'd gotten between the Spartans, each having an allowance now. He hummed, then stepped up to the counter. "Good afternoon..." He greeted the cashier, a seemingly nice older lady who simply smiled at them. He pointed out the drinks and said "Two Colas."

"Certainly, young man..." She nodded, stepping away from the counter for a moment. She reappeared moments later with the two canned drinks, then smiled at them and said, "You know? It's sweet when two Huntsmen get together... It's like seeing your favorite childhood heroes finally get that happy end..." smiling sweetly at the two of them. She watched the now-confused man pay, while Ruby's cheeks glowed red right now.

"Uhm... Thanks...? Have a nice day..." He offered.

"You too, young'uns!" She waved as they departed.

As the two sat themselves down against one of the walls of the store, Ruby groaned and rubbed her face. Sam hummed, unsure of what that meant as he opened his canned drink with a satisfying, fizzy pop. He took a sip of the drink, then looked to a still-embarrassed Ruby and said, "You wanna talk about whatever it is that's bothering you?" to which the girl sighed.

"No... No, I'm good..." She replied, picking up her own can from beside her and trying to open it... While somehow failing.

Sam took the can, popped it open and handed it to Ruby, receiving a muffled 'Thanks' from the girl as she turned to nursing her drink. The two sat there in silence for some minutes, each drinking about half the contents of their can before Ruby finally settled down, her cheeks now a fair shade of pink instead of that tomato red they were before. She spoke, "Were you following us?" as her first words.

Sam chuckled, "Yup..."

She whined, then asked "How much did you hear?"

"Not enough... I was trying to stop those Atlas troopers from interrupting you two near the end..." He smirked, then turned and asked, "What was that thing that Penny did? Can every Aura user stop a truck with their bare hands like that?"

"Oh, Gods, you saw that too..." Ruby murmured, then replied awkwardly, "N-No, not really. Penny's a special case... I can't tell you more than that. I promised her," and looked to Sam. His approving nod eased her heart a bit. Breathing a sigh of relief, she looked to Sam, then added "She promised she'll tell all of you when the time comes, so... I wouldn't worry about it!" And then she flashed him a smile.

Sam felt his own heart skip a beat as he looked at the smiling girl, a faint rosy tint on his own cheeks appearing and quickly being suppressed, "Right... I wanna know if she's gonna be alright. That crash looked pretty bad."

"According to her, just fine," Ruby snorted. The ice finally broken, Sam chuckled.

"After a truck pretty much slammed full-force into her and she stopped it with her hands... Christ, she reminds me of a J-" He caught himself, then added, "Dylan... Always playing tough."

Ruby laughed, "No way. Chief's like that?"

"Oh, only since I knew him. So since we were kids," Sam replied, "One time, during basic, he dropped and almost broke his arm. Guy walked it off and was biting back tears until two days later... Seriously, he didn't even go to medical for a checkup."

The little Rose leaned back and added, "So, sort of like Yang in that case."

"Your sister, right?"

"Yup!" Ruby happily proclaimed, "Big sis and butt-kicker extraordinaire!"

It was Sam's turn to laugh, "I bet. Dylan told us about each of you while we were having dinner last evening. Penny corroborated and added her own details."

"Heh. Can't imagine she wouldn't have," Ruby smiled, looking at the swirling black liquid content of her can... "So... Why were you following us?"

"Orders," He replied, "Dylan wanted to see what was up with you two, so he sent me to follow you two. Keep you safe, keep an eye on you... Stuff like that," He then explained, his tongue feeling slightly bitter at continuously calling his close friend by a different name. Still, that seemed to ease Ruby more. With a note of calm, the man then asked "What about you? Why were you and Weiss out?"

"Uhm... A mission..." Ruby smiled awkwardly, "One we... Kinda vowed we wouldn't get friends involved in."

Sam quirked a brow at the girl, as if asking 'for real?' before taking another sip of his drink. Ruby sighed, then started, "... I don't know, Sam, it... We... Well, to be fair, we got Sun and Neptune involved, but that's because they kinda came into our room through the window, but that's another matter entirely. I'm not sure Yang, Weiss or Blake would approve of me dragging you folks in, but then again, who knows what kinda backup we'll need if the situation goes bad..." a ramble for the ages. Sam listened in, a smile on his face, while Ruby went on to enumerate a series of issues with letting them join.

Ruby continued rambling, slowly turning her gaze to meet Sam's, then froze, stopping her ramble as her cheeks grew red again. She said, "S-sorry about that! I tend to ramble after a lot of sugar and I forgot Cola has a lot in it! It's..." she sighed deeply, finally surrendering and saying, "... The White Fang... We had a run-in with them at the Docks a month or so ago and... Well, we figured it'd be a good idea to go investigating, since they were working with this guy I fought, Roman Torchwick. Prolific criminal, apparently..."

"Aha..." Sam nodded, "And you thought about going at them... Alone... Just the four of you. And those other two fellows you mentioned."

"I-I mean, yeah, but..." Ruby sighed, "Again, we didn't wanna get anyone else involved. Sun and Neptune kinda just... Walked in on it... Or climbed in on it..." She corrected.

"Well..." Sam shrugged, then suggested, "Not to say anything, since this is top secret, need-to-know and whatnot, but our team may or may not be looking into the same thing and may or may not stumble upon your investigation, while very likely trying to aid it once we find out what your intentions and those of your comrades are... Maybe I'm just rambling, but...?" He smirked.

Ruby grinned.

Chapter Text

In another part of town, Kurt and Colleen provided overwatch to Junior's Club, as it was seemingly known, as night began to fall on the city. The pistoleer Spartan watched as patrons started filtering into the place just as a motorcycle arrived. She raised a brow, then elbowed Kurt and pointed to the yellow speedster which had two passengers. She hummed, then said "Looks like one of the kids John described to us."

"Yeah," The man nodded, hefting his carbine, "She's striding into the place like she owns it..."

"And the guy behind her's following like a lost puppy," Colleen chuckled, "We going in? Or we waiting for the Chief?" She then asked as she drew her twin sidearms, watching the two Huntsmen stroll in behind the door. Followed by a bunch of guys in black and red suits scrambling out of the place, their weapons visible as they ran. Colleen hummed, then checked her ammo.

"ALCON," John's voice echoed over the com, "Be advised. Members of a Huntress-in-training team from Beacon, known as team RWBY, are out and about with two other exchange students. Sam has just reported in from his own assigned portion of the mission after I and Foe Hammer picked him up. If you see any members of team RWBY, join and assist to the best of your abilities. Chief out."

"Make sure you say hello to them first," Cortana quipped, "We'll see you at the RV point. Gotta pick up a few stragglers beforehand, though."

"Roger," Kurt replied, standing to his feet. Colleen followed, with the two of them jumping down and joining the crowd just as the snap-crack of an explosive echoed. The fact that neither they nor that explosion drew much attention attested to the weird diversity of the crowd, which included off-duty Atlas troopers, as they entered it. As they walked down the stairwell to the main area, they saw the bulkhead door. A scorch mark remained from the blast.

"Damn..." Colleen murmured, looking over the dent. A guard wanted to stop the two, but chose to ignore that idea as he saw the two Spartans were about a head over him in height and twice the muscle. The two looked over to the bar in the club while patrons danced and drank on. The blondie was right there with the blue-haired guy, talking to Junior. Slowly, the two approached the meetup, with Junior now noticing them.

"... Did you bring friends, Blondie?" He asked, his voice cracking.

The blonde girl raised a brow, looking to Neptune. She saw him just as surprised as Junior, if not as frightened. Looking over to her left, she smirked as she saw them, then said, "Yo! Didn't know Chief and his friends knew about Junior's place!" with the warmest personality that Colleen had seen so far out of anyone beside Kurt and Samuel. Sure, the girl had a bubbly, almost fiery personality and air about her, while the dude behind him seemed cool enough.

Kurt and Colleen looked to one-another, then back to the blonde. She smirked, then said, "Right, we probs haven't met each-other since both of you look new. I'm Yang, Yang Xiao-Long. Pretty sure Dylan must'a told you folks about me and my teammates-" And a ringtone stopped her in her tracks. She pulled out her Scroll, looked over it, then said, "Ooh. Speaking of, that's my sis calling me. Gimme a sec, all of you."

She stepped away to take the call while Kurt looked over to Junior, then asked, "Hey, pal."

"Yeah?" The man looked to the armored fellow ahead of him with concern.

Kurt leaned toward him and said, "I understand you may know a lot about the underground. I and my friend here need a certain type of info..." And he looked to the man's guards, all of whom were armed with seemingly modern firearms. Bullpups, scoped rifles, hand cannons, stuff like that. He hummed, then looked to Junior again and said, "My friends call me Ambrose, by the way."

"Junior," He nodded, more at ease as he saw the Spartan talking to him peer-to-peer more than... Human to bug? He didn't know his relationship with Blondie at this point, but he was pretty sure that, even without saying it, he was the girl's bitch at this point. That or her information terminal. He crossed his arms, then said, "What kind of info may you be looking for, mister Ambrose?"

"Nothing major," Kurt shrugged, "Location of Dust shipments that are going missing, PMC weapons caches disappearing, said PMC's staff disappearing, too... You know, the usual," Then he straightened up and revealed his own Lien as if out of thin air. Colleen looked to Kurt, giving him an approving nod. She recalled having worked for some kind of underground network on what was probably her home colony when she was young, so this was kind of up her alley.

"Hmm..." Junior looked over the Lien, cupping his own chin in a thinker's pose. Even without the unspoken threat of getting his bones broken by the tall, buff pair over here, the Lien the man had at hand was pretty appetizing, but still. No reason to not try and extort a bit more, right? "I may have that info if you have a bit more cash... Or a guarantee. Some of this stuff could get my head served on a platter to the higher ranks..."

"Oh?" Kurt raised a brow, even thought it went unnoticed behind the polarized visor.

"Yeah," The man nodded, "You're asking me to reveal another client's information. One that's a bit deeper in this mess that is Vale's underworld than I am," He then explained, crossing his arms to his chest. "A few measly Lien won't do any good to me if they find out I'm the rat who turned in this intel, you catch my cold?" and he saw the man nod.

"I get you," Kurt straightened up, "That shouldn't be a problem, though..."

"Take it you folks are hired by Beacon?" He raised a brow, "Or are you Atlas Sec?"

"It's one of those two, alright," Kurt chuckled, Colleen giggling behind him, "But we can vouch for your protection... As for cash? How about a deal in regards to Intel, then? Some... Four, five hundred Lien for you a month to provide us any intel we may find interesting? Add to that protection in the form of one of our comrades during the evenings, as an added bouncer."

"Pff. What's one of you gonna do in here?" The man snorted.

"You really underestimate us," Kurt hummed, "Not a good idea, that."

"Okay... Prove to me one of yours would be worth the intel and me asking below a thousand Lien a month for intel deliveries," Junior replied like a shrewd businessman would. Kurt smirked again behind his helmet, showed him to wait by raising an index and cuing his com. Colleen tuned it out as he had started talking to the Chief about sharing info. She sighed, turning to the kid with blue hair.

"Well, you certainly look like something..." She stated, looking over the man. Scruffy, short blue hair with shaved sides, aviator goggles, a scarlet jacket with short sleeves, black armored gloves, a white undershirt, jeans with a chain on the right and some padding over the thighs and what looked like some form of folded-up RemTech rifle on his back. The boy stared on, surprised at her.

Junior, meanwhile, asked, "Wait, you're a woman?"

"Always have been, Junior," She snidely replied. She straightened up, crossing her arms to her chest, before noting, "So, our compatriots went to take their phone calls..."

"Kind of rude," Joked the boy, "I'm Neptune, by the way."

"Colleen," She replied, "In case you cared."

"That's an interesting name." The boy remarked, "Not from around the bend...?"

"You could say that," She replied before hearing footsteps. She saw both Yang and Kurt had finished their chatter, approaching the counter once more. Yang crossed her arms, grinning ear-to-ear as she looked over to Colleen. The woman hummed, then asked calmly, "Take it your sister was already joined by one of ours?" to which she got a confirming nod.

The trio then waited for Kurt to finish up the chatter with Junior. The conversation ended with Kurt explaining about one of the first missions these boys and girls undertook for Ozpin:the elimination of that White Fang base on the outskirts of the city. Yang had heard about it from Blake, how something or other swung by that FOB and outright killed everyone inside. The highway patrol that found the abandoned station were met by surprised WF operatives who did not even get to open fire before they were arrested... And the corpses of their compatriots, found.

So, it was their new classmates. Yang knew they were old Special Ops types from their Kingdom, but she never imagined they'd be the ones to put down a White Fang base with that much ferocity. She offered a smile to Kurt and Colleen, then said, "You two gonna be joining us on searching for info on the Fang? Blakey may appreciate the help, no matter who it's coming from."

"I'm sure she would... Let's get ready to move, then." Kurt looked to Colleen, "We need to find a ride or something..."

Cal and Daisy had been in the industrial area for a while at this point, supervising the area and tracking local Faunus who seemed to be congregating in one spot. Yet again, sat on the roofs, the Sniper and her Spotter/CQC companion seemed to have locked onto a single, abandoned warehouse building among the forests of pipes, smoke-stacks and concrete stalks that served no apparent purpose beyond support struts.

Cal sighed, eyes locked down the scope of her rifle, which had been switched to thermal. She spoke, "Yup. There must be two hundred of them in there, tops... We got any charges to blow that joint wide open...?" and she turned to Daisy, watching as the girl spun a single, medium-sized brick of C12 plastic explosives. Tilting her head, confused, Cal asked "How did you-..." before shaking her head, "You know what, nevermind... Just be ready to blow it apart the moment we go in to break up the meet... Huh?"

She linked her sniper's scope to Daisy's helmet wirelessly, then scoped in another rooftop. A building on the opposite end of the 'road', which was more a narrow alley that barely fit a truck inside it, two figures sat. A black-haired girl with a bow and a pair of swords on her back and a blonde boy with a tail and his abs out. Cal rolled her eyes, then said "Two. Staking out the place, like us."

"Think they're..." Daisy squinted, her visor allowing her to zoom in, "Yep. That's the Belladonna girl. Blake."

"Who's tall, blonde and buff over there, though?" Cal hummed, "Call coming in. Chief."

"ALCON, be advised. Members of a Huntress-in-training team from Beacon, known as team RWBY, are out and about with two other exchange students. Sam has just reported in from his own assigned portion of the mission after I and Foe Hammer picked him up. If you see any members of team RWBY, join and assist to the best of your abilities. Chief out."

"Make sure you say hello to them first," Cortana quipped, "We'll see you at the RV point. Gotta pick up a few stragglers beforehand, though."

"You gotta tell me how you do that," Daisy smirked, drawing her assault rifle off her back, "We going in to help?" while Cal seemed to eye them. The two jumped off the roof, moving to the rear of the building. Cal stood up, sliding her weapon on her back, then showed Daisy to follow. The two trailed the Huntress-in-Training and her comrade. Approaching, Cal noticed the bodyguard by the door and... Blake's... Cat ears... They took a pair of Grimm-like masks that the Fang seemed to wear all the time and entered.

She sighed, shaking her head, then said, "Daze, sorry, but you're gonna have to wait this one out. I'll give you the signal to blow open a wall for an escape route."

"W-wha?! Why!?" The girl whispered angrily.

"Only Faunus. They'd sniff you out the moment you got in and took your helmet off," Cal replied, motioning to the other masked gathering recruits. Daisy rolled her eyes and acquiesced silently, motioning to the roof as if telling Cal she'd be waiting up there. The Sniper nodded, letting Daisy disappear behind the buildings before approaching the guard. He turned to face her, seemingly ready to start shit, before freezing as he saw how tall the woman was.

Cal undid the seal of her helmet and removed it, sliding it under her arm. Her wolf ears twitched and a predatory smirk appeared as she stared down at the short guard. He shakily motioned for her to enter after handing her her mask. Cal stepped inside with the other, shocked recruits before sliding her helmet on her head and moving to track Blake and her friend.

Finding them among the crowd, she set her hands on their shoulders, lightly startling both of them and garnering looks of surprise. Cal nodded to them, then knelt to be at their height and said, "Chief told us you'd need backup..." before noticing the tarp on stage, covering something massive, and the ultra-buff dude speaking in a thick, movie-star bodybuilder-like accent to the crowd of gathered Fangers and new recruits.

"Were you trailing us?" Blake whispered.

"No," The woman replied, "We were staking out the same place you were..."

"Huh. Talk about luck..." The blonde boy quipped, smiling.

"We were supposed to be taking this alone," Blake corrected, then looked up to Cal, "Also... 'us'?"

"Daisy's waiting outside for my signal to blow a wall open..." Cal replied, then she looked up as she saw a ginger man with a bowler hat, cane and fancy white and black suit step onto the stage, grinning with a cigar between his lips. Behind him, a small woman with a parasol and the color scheme of Neapolitan ice cream, which Cal had seen in a store not too long ago.

Some of the people seemed to protest the man's presence as he started speaking to them, but Blake said, "Torchwick... I never thought..."

"That a Faunus supremacist group would work with a criminal to further their own goals?" Cal replied, staring dead at the man. Blake looked up to her, probably glaring from behind the mask. Cal shrugged, "Sorry, kid... It is what it is..." before focusing on the man on the stage. He grinned at them, saying something about 'some new toys' before pulling the tarp clean off of it.

"... Oh, that's just great..." Cal then murmured.

A massive, bipedal combat mechanoid sat on the stage, its twin arms carrying some sort of directed energy weapons, cannons and armored fists, with heavy plating and a square look. Atop its back, it had MLR systems which were shielded by a layer of armor plate of some kind. Cal definitely didn't like the look of that thing, so, while the man kept rambling on about how he hated humans, being one of them, and somesuch other crap including stuff about how they yoinked some dozen of these mechs before they hit the shelves, Cal looked to the girl and boy and said, "Best be ready to run..." Before lighting up a waypoint on her HUD and tapping her mic twice.

Seeing Daisy's IFF move toward the wall, she drew her sidearm and shot... A fuse box. The lights within the building died, with Cal's VISR mode kicking in as she picked up Blake and the boy and rushed toward the wall. An explosion rumbled across the building and fragments of concrete and glass pinged off her plating as she charged forward. Daisy hefted her assault rifle and its chatter filled the hall.

"Hell of a bloody exit, Cal!" Daze yelled, "Ya got the kids, I see!"

"Yeah, but bad news!" She called out as she heard the powering hydraulics of a mech. Blake and Sun shook themselves free and started running, trying to keep pace with the two Spartans as the Robot barreled out of the building, breaking another part of the wall that Daisy had blown up. Daisy yelped, stumbling as she turned to fire her Assault Rifle before quickening her pace as she saw the bullets harmlessly pinging off the plating.

"I CAN SEE. HOLY CRAP, IT'S BIG!" The blonde replied worriedly, "YOU TWO WERE GONNA GO AT THIS ALONE!?"

"We wanted to get out with the intel, but...!" Blake yelped as a plasma boulder struck behind them, "Well..."

"C-Can't you three summon some form of backup?!" The blonde boy complained as they ran. Cal rolled her eyes, flicking on her com again and setting it to a distress signal the Spartans were familiar with. A three-tone beep echoed as Blake also called the rest of her team on the Scroll while they ran, clambering to rooftops and running across them as they tried to dodge the massive mechanoid.

Aboard the gunship, both John and Sam heard the beep of the distress call and saw Ruby lifting her Scroll up to her ear. To the man's left, a familiar Marine sat, a pearly-white grin on his face and a shotgun in hand. His comrades were there too, Assault Rifles, Battle Rifles and SPnKr(Spanker) rocket launchers at the ready. The man spoke to Foe Hammer, "Make for the pickups and let's get everyone else. Sounds like Cal and Daisy are going to need all the help they can get."

"Aye aye, Chief!" Foe Hammer saluted quickly.

"We goin' in?" The man asked, his voice somewhat younger than the Chief remembered.

"Hard," Chief replied. He hid a smile behind his helmet while Cortana, as happy as she was, continued to track their comrades.

He racked his shotgun, "You heard the man, Marines! Lock'n'Load!"

Back with our intrepid two-huntsman, two-Spartan team, they had reached the highway and were currently jumping from car to car like some sick game of leapfrog, trying to dodge the behemoth war machine that was stolen from the Atlas military while, at the same time, trying to reduce civilian casualties. Cal swore to herself, bouncing from one car to the other, then looked to Blake and stated, "This could've gone better!"

"You think!?" The black-haired girl stated as she pounced on another car.

Daisy joined Sun on the back of a semi, drawing her assault rifle and letting loose whole mag into the mechanoid that was running at them like a bull. The rounds sparked off the plating, causing her to swear, "FUCK!" before standing to her feet and adding, "It must be like I'm firing bugs into its windshield at this point! And I spent the C12 on that freaking wall!"

"We didn't think they'd have a Mech, Daze," Cal replied annoyedly, joining her and Sun on the semi and drawing her sniper.

"Hang tight!" Blake ordered as she jumped onto their truck. She then spoke into her scroll, "Do it!"

A wave of ice froze the road ahead, with Cal and Daisy tracking the source to Weiss Schnee. The semi they were on braked hard as they held onto it, with the Mech barreling past them and skidding onto the thick layer of Dust-made ice, tumbling onto one side and through one of the safety fields separating this level of the highway from a nasty case of multiple fatal accidents.

Blake met Weiss, a smile on her face as she said, "Thanks..."

"I see you brought Spartans along, too," Weiss smirked, watching as the emerald hull of a Pelican swung in, its engines roaring in tune with the roar of a bike engine. The two huntresses of team RWBY saw Yang arriving with Neptune, jumping over the side to track the mechanoid with a grin on her face. The group still on the higher level joined their comrades down below, between the rows and forests of concrete pillars holding the myriad of viaducts above them into place as the Mech stumbled to his feet.

Sun stared at it, stating, "It's still up!?"

"It's a Mech, man," Daisy replied, racking the bolt of her assault rifle. The ground rumbled as the Chief dropped next to them, his mag rifle at the ready, while Ruby and Sam also joined him. From aboard the bird, gunfire raked the position where the Paladin stood, giving the team a full show of NOBLE's presence in the area, including Jorge's superheavy machine gun.

"Atlas Paladin..." John voiced, staring at the towering machine of war as it started targeting them. "Ruby. First strike's your team's. We'll hit him as we move."

The Rose grinned as she ordered, "Alright, you heard the man! Freezerburn!"

Chief and the others took a step back, with the Spartan tracking the enemy mech via the rifle's scope. He watched as a sheet of ice formed over the concrete, with the bang of Ember Celica echoing behind him. He saw Yang dancing through the air, spinning and pushing herself toward the ground with the blast of her gauntlets. A slam of the fist into the ground and a wave of fog washed the battlefield.

Tracking lasers emanated from the machine's sensor suites, giving the Chief a clear sight of where it was. He thumbed the safety off his gun and set it to half-power. Squeezing the trigger, the air electrified around him as the fin-stabilized round left the barrel at supersonic velocity, punching into one of the arm servos on the right and sending the Mech staggering.

Team RWBY scattered among the smog, as did his team, with multiple rounds pelting the mech from every direction. Cortana spoke, "Trying to get into the Paladin's mainframe and shut it down... It's linked to the CCTS system, but it's got some firewalls in its main software... Specs:Two plasma guns, two gatling cannons, both attached to the hydraulic arms. Two twelve-pod missile launchers on the back. Extensive sensor suite able to see in everything from thermal to heartbeat tracking..."

"That's just the Prototype, isn't it?" John asked as he, too, repositioned when a boulder of plasma from one of the thing's cannons struck and melted the position he had been in.

"Yup..." Cortana replied, "Mendoza, do you copy?"

"Loud'n'clear, ma'am," The Marine replied, his voice younger, shaky.

"Put a couple missiles onto that thing the moment you can," She ordered. Chief looked to her as the Marine replied affirmatively and she answered his unspoken question, "It's the older model. Tracking capabilities..." to which the Spartan rolled his eyes. As the mist began to dissipate, Ruby charged in, slashing at the machine's legs with impunity while the Spartan aimed another shot.

Ruby yelled to Blake, "Ladybug!" and the black-haired girl joined up, both of them attacking the legs with slashes that left some marks in the armor of the machine, but it was superficial. The Mech and its pilot, however, refocused its effort on the fleshy creatures trying to kill it, allowing Chief to scope it in again and fire. The thunderclap of the mag rifle trailed behind the supersonic fin-stabilized arrow just as it struck that same arm, a crystal of ice jutting out from the wound and freezing said arm into place.

Two missiles from the Spanker followed up, hitting the armored arm with tandem warheads. Burning hot metal drilled holes into the arm's remaining mechanisms, sparking and detonating the ammunition inside the gatling cannon. Chief looked to the others and gave one hand signal. The squadron of Spartans on the ground surged forward, with the Chief form-shifting his weapon into the grav mace. Cortana said, "Target the iced portion! You should be able to tear its arm out!"

The Spartan thanked her wordlessly as he and his comrades surged forward. Cal and Daisy boosted forward, moving to stop the other arm as it cocked back for a punch. The two firmly planted their feet onto the floor, extending their hands to stop the balled mechanical fist from striking, only managing to do so at the cost of the concrete below them and some feeling in their arms.

John, Sam, Kelly, Fred and Linda all pounced on the vehicle's left arm, with the Chief being the first. With a thundering crash, the Spartan slammed the head of the mace-form of his weapon into the shoulder of the machine, staggering it, shattering the ice crystal and further breaking the arm's supports. The other four jumped, each delivering a hammering blow, whether a punch or a kick, into the Machine's arm, shattering it and sending it doubling over.

"That's one gun down!" Kelly remarked, "Bastard's still got the other!"

"We got any extra explosives?" Fred asked, shouldering his DMR and pelting the thing with rounds while Cal and Daisy retreated. Yang appeared, pummeling the thing's back with explosive shells from the gauntlets while Ruby and Blake rejoined the gang. Fred rolled his eyes at the answer to his question, before noting to Ruby, "Your sister seems tough, kid..."

"She is..." Ruby smirked, then winced as Yang was slammed against a pillar and thrown off by the machine. She shook her head, then ordered, "Now... Checkmate!"

The two girls surged forth, utilizing Weiss's glyphs and Blake's speed, before pummeling the machine with a multitude of high-power strikes based on Dust. The robot's pilot, meanwhile, switched to the missile system. Six missiles streaked out of the top, tracking the two Huntresses while they dodged, with Weiss using her Glyphs again to move them out of the way.

She looked up, then gasped, "OH NO-" just as a missile slammed against her, throwing her high into the sky and nearly shattering her Aura. Before it did so, however, she threw a Glyph toward Blake's feet. A clock-like series of ticking noises echoed from the yellow Glyph, with Blake shimmering with a golden aura as she drew her blades in what seemed to be slow-motion for a moment.

Fred ran back, jumping and catching Weiss just before she fell, stating, "Well... That was lucky."

"Thanks..." Weiss blushed.

"Mhm," He set her back down on her feet before moving forward. He watched Blake move, now at super-speed. Beams of lilac light slashed across the area in a stream, each Spartan watching as multiple missiles detonated due to the Huntress's rapid-fire slashing beams. Kelly whistled, while Linda grinned behind the cover of her helmet as she drew her Sniper.

"Nice job, kid..." Spoke Colleen as she dropped in from the ship with Noble with her sidearms drawn.

"Thanks," She replied, "How many Spartans are there now?"

"Enough to kick this thing's ass," Colleen replied with a grin, opening up with her twin pistols as the Machine charged again. She and Blake both dodged in opposite directions, with the black-haired girl also joining in with Gambol Shroud's pistol form. Rounds sparked off armor still, but at least they confused the pilot long enough for Chief to put another APFS round into the left armature, almost tearing it off due to the force of the explosive dust.

Ruby form-shifted Crescent Rose into her rifle form, then said "I see she's doing well!" to John.

The Spartan offered a curt nod as he scoped in for another shot, but saw the Machine move out of the way. He shook his head, then said "We need to slow it down!"

"I know how! Join up!" She requested, before looking to Weiss and calling out, "Ice Flower! And let's make it double!"

Her partner joined her and the Chief, stating, "Let's bring this thing down for good!" as she brought up a pair of ice glyphs. The two then opened fire on the machine, crystals of ice trailing their shots and blossoming into the namesake of this attack, giant ice flowers, on the machine's body as Yang surged forward to attack it. Two more SPnKr missiles struck it with impunity, detonating off the plating and chipping some of the ice while Noble pounced on it.

Alice swore and ducked as she saw Yang get slammed into a pillar, then said "Xiao-Long's hit!"

"Wait!" Ruby cried to the Spartan as she saw her rushing to go help her sister, "With each hit she gets stronger! And she uses that energy to fight back! That's her Semblance! That's what makes her special!"

The group watched as the girl stood to her feet, her hair a burning gold and eyes a violent scarlet. The armored fist of the Machine struck true, but was halted much the same as it would've been by Cal and Daisy, except with far less of an injury this time, but concrete shattering below the girl nonetheless. She grit her teeth as she stopped the hydraulically-aided punch, before cocking back her own fist and ramming it right into the Machine's own, breaking the other, weakened arm off and leaving it as just a torso and a pair of legs.

One of which kicked her away.

"Oh, well!" Ruby smirked, "Bumblebee!"

The Spartans continued to fire on the machine, emptying entire magazines into it with the support of the folks above, on the gunship, while Yang was tossed Blake's weapon with the attached line. She grabbed it, utilizing it and the centripetal force her partner provided alongside her shotgun gauntlets to propel herself right at the machine, which just took another APFS round, before cocking her fist back and, with the angriest, but proudest scream her voice could muster, punching it hard enough to shatter it to pieces and revealing the pilot:Roman Torchwick.

The man managed to land like a cat. On his own two feet, to be specific. Dusting off his suit, the man complained, "Just got this thing cleaned..." and then he stared down Yang 'Angry' Xiao-Long, his grass-green eyes growing wide as the girl launched a projectile at him. Luckily, a multi-colored companion landed, her parasol shielded by Aura as it took the blast of the gauntlet.

Roman smirked, watching the confusion of the soldiers and the Huntresses surrounding him, then tipped his hat and said, "Well. I can't say it was a pleasure, but... Ladies, Soldiers... Ice Queen..."

"Hey!" Weiss snarled.

He grinned, "I'll see you all later... Neo, if you will?" He looked to his companion and the girl bowed mockingly to the group, a smirk on her face. Kelly and Yang both rushed them, with Kelly reaching first and planting the barrel of her shotgun into the girl's face. She squeezed, but found nothing but shattering glass as the pellets flew. Yang staggered, stopping beside Kelly as they all heard a second set of engines and watched a Bullhead taking off.

Roman, aboard it, grinned, waving goodbye to the gang as the bird left into the night sky. Weiss sighed, then said "Well, I guess she really made our plans... Fall apart?" With a smirk. Ruby and a few of the Spartans actually let out a series of chuckles, while Yang seemed disappointed in the girl. As the Pelican landed, the two were having a discussion about the situation... And only stopped when they saw the armed men aboard the aircraft.

"Ladies..." The leader of the team, a dark-skinned man with brown eyes and a cigar between his smirking lips, greeted them, "And Spartans," He then tipped his green hat to them. Behind him were about a dozen men, one of which seemed deadly pale and with a burning red eye as he stared at the team, smiling and trembling all the same. The others wore thousand yard stares, but seemed happy and young, kind of like them, anyway.

"Oi, Sarge," One of them voiced, his accent heavy, "Shouldn't we introduce ourselves to the sheilas?"

"I was about to, Dubbo," The man replied with snark in his voice and a grin on his face. He turned to face the surprised group of teenagers, then stated, "I'm Sergeant-Major Avery Junior Johnson, your local badass without armor. Behind me's my team, which includes Jenkins," He pointed to the shaky, pale guy with a shaved head and assault rifle, "Mendoza," The guy with the rocket launcher, a boonie hat and olive skin, "Stacker," another fellow high-ranker, it seemed, with a shaved head, "Bisenti..." a fellow with a Battle Rifle in hand, "And a few others that I'm sure you'll meet along the way, seeing as they're talkative sons'a'bitches... Mind us hitchin' a ride back to Beacon with you?"

"... Not at all," Team RWBY voiced as they, too, sat themselves down, watching as Kelly, Linda and Fred greeted Johnson with salutes and shakes of the man's hand.

"So," The Sergeant-Major sat his own ass down on the floor, the chairs occupied by the girls, Spartans and his Marines, "When the Chief told me you kids were badasses in your own right, I gotta say... I wasn't expecting that kind of action."

"Sarge's right," Mendoza offered, "Ain't he, Dubbo?"

"We've seen some action before, ladies, but that was somethin' else!" The man grinned, taking his helmet off to reveal sharp, short black hair. Jenkins, meanwhile, shifted uneasily in his seat and gave them thumbs up, still trying to avert his gaze.

"You folks friends of the Chief's?" Yang asked, looking to both them and Ruby.

"Yeah. The crazy fool got us out of more than enough messes," Johnson replied, leaning his shotgun on his shoulder, "So I guess we can call him a friend in some sense of the word," before looking out the rear of the Pelican. Their trip over to Beacon was going to be a relatively short one, Johnson felt, even as he stood up and went to look out the window. Chief approached the man from behind and the former ORION member bumped a fist into his shoulder.

"You guys have to tell us stories of your service," Yang smirked, "Seriously, so many of you arriving, between each of you, there must be some good tales to tell."

"At some point, we will, Yang," Kelly replied, leaning back against her seat.

"Just not now," Daisy and Cal said in unison.

"Too much to say," Sam smirked, then looked to a blushing Ruby. The four girls all smiled to them, choosing to let the fly-over back to home. To see a gathered mass that emanated such absolute 'badassery', as Yang would say, put the girls at ease, each of them looking at the gathered soldiers as they began exchanging small-talk and handing each-other Meals-Ready-to-Eat and drinks.

Then Weiss blinked and realized, "Wait... Where's Sun and Neptune?" which garnered looks of surprise and ire from some of the Spartans, Chief included.

... Somewhere, at a Noodle Shop, the two boys suddenly felt their stomachs ache.

Chapter Text

Chief had stepped off earlier to explain to the Headmaster what they'd been doing out of Beacon's premises, with Ruby following in close behind to do much the same. Johnson, meanwhile, sat in the Spartans' makeshift barracks, a grin on his face and a cigar between his lips as he watched the Supersoldiers go about helping the Marines move in, setting their kit aside and the likes.

Fred stepped up and handed him a Scroll, then said, "Cortana told us over com you should read that, Sergeant... Good to see you again, by the way."

"Good to see you too, PO," Johnson nodded, then skimmed over the data. Whistling, he said "Now, if this ain't some horse dung... You folks seriously going about with a made-up background and everything?" to which he got a nod from just about every Spartan in the room. He rolled his eyes, then said, "Right... Jenkins, Mendoza. Grab Stacker and start spreading this thing out, get the others to read it, too. I feel like we're gonna get our asses kicked if we don't know our roles in this mess."

"Aye, sarge," The two men said, stepping off to talk to their pseudo-heroes.

"Anything else I should know before I go out there, hotshot?" He asked Linda. The woman shrugged, stepping away to help the Marines stow their kit in their own 'room', a section of the house they'd yet to touch which acted more as a storage area that the Marines had picked out as their little home. Johnson sighed, standing to his feet with his shotgun leaned against his shoulder. He told the Spartans, I'mma go take a walk... Clear my damn head over the fact I'm walkin' again and missing that big-ass hole Tinker Bell left in my chest... Not to mention I feel like ten years younger."

"Take care, Sergeant," Fred noted, "Keep in com range."

"I just wanna take a walk, Commander. I ain't gonna go shootin' the shit with anyone I don't know," The man grinned, flicking a drop of ash off to the side. He set the cigar back between his lips, then murmured to himself, "Swear to Christ, I ain't needin' Spartans to warn me about the dangers out there. Been fighting while you kids were still in diapers..." and opened the door.

Only to run breastplate-first into the head of a young girl. He looked down, to see the ginger hair of the girl and her strange mechanical bow first. She looked up at him, a pair of curious emerald eyes. She smiled at him, then greeted, "Salutations! Are you one of the Master Chief's comrades?" to which Johnson stared, curious, at her. Blinking, he took a step back and gave the girl a nod.

"Ah, Penny," Linda poked her head out, "Welcome home."

"Thank you, miss Linda!" Penny beamed.

"How'd that checkup go?"

"Oh, just fine..." She hiccuped, "Admittedly, there was a slight complication, but I am fine now," She then offered, blushing. Sam and Johnson raised a brow at her, then looked to Linda, who simply shrugged. The Sergeant hummed, examining the petite little girl and feeling this strange aura about her. She was friendly, welcoming and just gave that vibe that something was 'off' in a good way. She looked to him, then asked, "What is your name, sir? I'm Penny Polendina. The Chief's fellow Beacon security assistant."

"Heh," The man grinned, "Sergeant-Major Avery J. Johnson, at your service, miss Polendina. I was just headin' out for a walk. To clear my head a bit."

"Ah, most certainly," She stepped away from the door and into the house. He tipped his cap to her in thanks, then stepped out of the house with the shotgun leaning against his shoulder. By the time they'd gotten to Beacon, the Sun of the star system began to creep over the horizon, its burning golden light washing over the valleys, peaks and buildings in and around Vale.

He took a deep puff of his cigar as he stared at the lights of the city's buildings slowly being turned off in favor of natural light. His brains had been scrambling to figure out the shit they were in right now. He remembered pretty clearly that he got his chest cooked by the damn monitor on the unbuilt Halo over yonder in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, outer space.

Sighing, the man figured it best not to wonder about something he had no control over right now. Taking another long drag from his cigar, he set his shotgun onto the mag-lock on his back before looking around. Kids walked the place, probably the de-aged Spartans' current biological age. Speaking of Spartans, the man caught sight of the Chief returning with his arms crossed.

Johnson grinned, saluting his old friend and asking, "How'd the talk with your new boss go, Chief?"

"Surprisingly well," John replied.

"How're you doing, sarge?" Cortana asked over the radio.

"Considering I just got revived, ma'am? Pretty good," He chuckled, then took a deep drag of the cigar again, "So... The fake IDs thing..." He started. While Cortana began to explain the situation properly to Johnson, the Chief had tuned out, seemingly just focused on getting home to finally rest for a bit. For one reason or another, the Spartan felt more tired than usual.

The two reached their makeshift base and were met by the sight of the Marines entering their room single-file with the last of their kit. The kitchen was occupied by Kelly, who was working on prepping dinner, while Fred seemed to be parsing through the data they had gotten from their outings and NOBLE Team was setting up the holovision and going through the channels, seeking news.

All-in-all, the UNSC's base of operations was currently doing fine, as was much of its staff.

"So, what's in the cards today, Chief?" Johnson inquired.

"... I figure it's time I activate everyone's Aura," The man replied, his voice heard across the com line. The other Spartans turned to face him. Some of them, like Cal and Daisy, grinned, while others, Blue Team included, seemed uneasy at the idea. Penny stepped in too, greeting the Chief with a wave of the hand. After a really short explanation, Penny had gladly agreed to help wake the Auras of the Chief's fellow Spartans and Marines.

Johnson himself looked as an auburn blanket of light covered his entire body. He grinned as he felt the warmth of said light overwhelm him, coursing through to the very core of his being before fading, alongside the light, back into the recesses. He took a deep puff from his cigar, blew it to the side and said, "Well, I'll be... I feel ten times better than I thought I'd feel, not gonna lie."

"Aura is a powerful cover made up of one's own soul," Penny smiled as she stepped away from Fred, moving to Cal and then to Daisy to awaken their Auras, "It can heal minor injuries and assist in healing the major ones, but you will still need medical help for said injuries. It's a very useful power to have, though we are still studying why it exists and how it works..."

"It also acts as a shield of sorts," Chief added as he finished waking up Kelly's Aura, "Overlays itself when active and stops damage of all kinds. Not to mention it boosts metabolism and certain bodily functions, including muscle growth and regeneration of important tissue that does not necessarily refer to any form of injuries. It can also extend over one's weapon to harden it and ensure no real damage."

"Sounds like you lot just got overshields," Johnson grinned, "While me and my boys and girls got our own boost."

"Here's to it providing good cover, Sarge," Kelly quipped, "But stick behind us if the situation does turn sour, a'ight?"

"Don't need to ask me twice, Spartan," The man laughed, watching as the others continued to spread the good cheer of Aura activation around while Kelly and Fred, their Auras already active, moved to set the table and bring the food(MREs) to the table. It took little time for the entire Platoon to get to eat, with NOBLE Team choosing to eat near the TV instead of joining the rest of the gang as they(and Kurt) watched news reports.

The team looked over to Penny as she joined NOBLE and Kurt near by the TV, with Chief stating, "She's acting different..." before turning to Sam and asking, "What happened?"

"She stopped a truck with her bare hands," the man replied, fiddling with the MRE he got:Pizza, apparently. UNSC Standard-issue MREs, even late war, were surprisingly nutritious, if a little bland some times. The Pizza one was one of the few that command had left pretty much untouched in terms of content, so this left them with a half-baked Pizza slice fit for a single person's daily needs.

Cortana watched all of this unfold through the lens of John's helmet, a sad smile on her face. To her left sat Penny, who chose not to eat anything, it seemed. Either she was still thinking the truck incident Sam had just mentioned over, or she just wasn't hungry. Cortana didn't know, seeing as she couldn't get a bead on the girl from the get-go. She was nice, welcoming, warm, all the qualities of a very nice, if very sheltered girl who'd been taught prim and proper by her family.

Seeing Sergeant Johnson laughing with the team again, hand wrapped around a bottle of soda(presumably because they had no beer in the stocks), cigar between his lips and his brown eyes glimmering with hope and many a question helped Cortana heal a bit too. She had, without John's foreknowledge, been running her own diagnostics in the background, waiting to see what the hell had de-aged them. Finding that out, she felt, would take a lot more than a bunch of self-diagnostics and scans of the Spartans' neural patterns and bodies.

John himself had been modified by the Librarian, god bless her soul. Saved his ass during that little incursion onto Carinae Station. The AI shuddered-if she even could-as the memory of the coded screams of those poor people aboard the station came back to her. Damn the Didact and his entire mess of a plan to enslave mankind. She and John had stopped him, sadly, with the loss of New Phoenix.

She hummed, taking a 'seat' and linking herself with the RemNet again, entering the ebbing flows of data within the CCTS's systems through the back door she herself had installed. Smiling as she saw a form of virtual reality form around her, with 'buildings' made up of streams of Data and 'roads' travelled by information at almost superluminal speeds, she started looking over the data she'd archived for later reading and murmured to herself, "Guess it's as good a time as any while I wait for the last bit of the self-diagnostics..."

She pulled up data on the Atlesian machine they'd fought just recently. While a lot of it was still covered by a bunch of red tape and, presumably, Atlas-tier black ink, the girl had got a basic reading of the machine's capabilities during their fight, not to mention what little data she was able to pull through the Atlas Firewalls without actually cracking them open. A massed shipment of about a dozen mechs had actually disappeared, according to data, so it was safe to assume that, by pooling the data the rest of the teams sent them, they would find them in the hands of the White Fang.

She grinned. Some of the units had trackers on them, each positioned just outside of Vale City. She made a mental note to tell the Chief and the others that the next couple of engagements may have them facing enemy mechs, then gently and silently slid a 'tip' about the location of the war machines to the Atlas Military while ensuring that it couldn't be traced back to her.

"As usual, I gotta do most of the work..." She quipped, grinning as she arranged the data into folders once more to read through. She heard the tick of her checkup being finished. Bringing up the diagnostics window, she looked over the files closely. Content, she closed the window and returned to the 'real' world from the RemNet, listening in on the conversations between the members of the team.

"... So, you stopped a truck with your bare hands..." She heard Sam.

The blonde boy was sitting and chatting with a somewhat uneasy Penny. The girl, however, wore a smile on her face even as she shifted uncomfortably on the chair. She spoke, "Yes. It was... Not one of my proudest moments... But, at least, Ruby got out without any major injuries."

"Your arms alright?" The blonde boy asked, concern audible in his voice, "That's still several tons of steel and goods ramming against you."

"Oh, my arms were a bit sore," Penny explained quickly, then hiccuped, "But the Aura helped them heal... I'm fairly certain Spartans such as yourself could do the same thing if they wished."

"We could, but we're also wearing strength-enhancing powered armor suits, which you don't have..." Sam seemed to hesitate, clearly omitting the gene modifications done to them for the sake of keeping the secret. Still, that seemed to have gotten Penny's attention. The girl hummed, then looked around at the other Spartans, while John seemed to be moving about and assisting the rest of the gang with what they needed. "Right," Sam sighed, "... One more question, since I'm not sure when I'm gonna get to ask Dylan about this... Who built his weapon?"

"Oh, that'd be Ruby," Penny smiled.

"... Ruby... Huh..." Sam paused, "That explains Crescent Rose."

The ginger chuckled, "Indeed. Ruby is quite proficient with weaponsmithing."

"Maybe I and the others can ask her for similar kit. The Chief seems to be doing alright with his own," He smirked.

"Oh, poor Ruby won't be sleeping for a week," Penny chuckled, "I believe she hasn't slept for some days after I asked her to make Dylan's weapon," and she looked to see Sam's actual look of concern manifest itself. Cortana herself felt a pang of guilt for the little Rose after her bout of working on the firearm, but alas, she chose not to comment anything just yet. She set one of her subroutines onto checking the news in regards for other missing weapon shipments... And she managed to locate some.

"... Huh... Curious... Hegarty and Kyrin Corporation?"

Stacked boxes and shelves full of dusty, cobweb-filled containers permeated the insides of the abandoned warehouse within the Industrial sector of Vale. Adam Taurus had been called by an 'unknown benefactor' with a proposal to meet within the area. He sat there, impatiently tapping his foot as his guards secured the perimeter. A single, dim light hanged above, washing a single spot in the place in a pale white light.

The Bull Faunus stopped in front of the light, his face still shrouded by the darkness as he looked around. The faint snap of steel-toed boots striking concrete echoed around him. One pair was closer than the others, however and, before he knew it, he was staring face to face with a hooded woman, a gas mask on her face and wearing in some sort of digital camouflage pattern-toting, form-fitting combat uniform that was dyed grey. A chest rig with similar colors and camo patterns sat wrapped around her midsection, a heavy armor plate stuck behind the ammunition pouches.

On her hips resided twin tactical pistols with bayonets attached to the ends, both in stylized black leather holsters and both engraved with silver writing over their matte black frames. Her eyes, each of different colors, shining deep blue and sharp gold in the darkness, each of them adjusting separately to the changing lighting conditions ahead of her. Taurus's hand wrapped around the hilt of his weapon, but the woman raised an armored index, showing him not to try.

She then jabbed a thumb to her left and an index to the right. Soldiers appeared from the thick darkness. Black helmets that fully covered the heads, similar riggings and kit to the woman before him and highly modular, highly-customizable and heavily-modified assault rifles bearing optics, laser sights and, some times, even extended magazines. Hefty guns, some of them 7,62x39mm-loaded.

She raised a balled fist and showed the soldiers to settle down, even as they surrounded Taurus's little security team, then gazed upon Taurus and said, "You came prepared."

"Always," The Bull replied, "Why are we here?"

"Figured it's as good a place as any to meet, Adam," She replied, the wrinkles in her mask telling of the grin she wore. He drew his blade, placing it by her throat even at the threat of two of her guys putting him down right then and there with enough Seven-Six-Two to make the damn Atlesian Army blush. She smirked, pushing aside his blade with her arm and saying, "We know who you are. Adam Taurus, lieutenant of the White Fang, commander of the Vale Branch... A fighter for equality for our brothers and sisters... And a hapless butcher."

He grit his teeth, "I do what I do for my people... The fuck did you bring me all the way out here for? Predicate to me about the error of my ways?"

"Pff..." The girl laughed, her voice melodious as another comrade of hers approached. Though he stayed in the shade, Taurus could make out the Vacuoan Ranger outfit even from here, blessed be Faunus night vision capabilities. The girl, meanwhile, spoke, "Nothing like that, comrade," before approaching into the light. She pulled off her hood, revealing jet-black hair and a pair of fox's ears, with a single, thick tail hanging off the back. She then added, "I am one of our people, after all."

"... You sure as hell don't look it..." The man quipped, slowly sheathing his sword after realizing he was in quite the pickle. He counted at least thirty men in the building, many of which surrounded his own ten-man team. He could easily take them all on, but the girl and the guy with the revolvers and cowboy hat behind her. Her ears twitched as she looked over her armored hand.

Adam paused, however, when he realized that was not a gauntlet with armored claws. Hydraulic tubes and small hairline tubes flowed through reinforced metallic limbs, dust cartridges wrapped around her forearms like a selectable boost to the melee capabilities of the woman. She placed a hand on her hip, grinning as she removed the mask to reveal a beautiful young lady with actual fangs bared in a dangerous grin. She replied, "Well, let's just say I got busy with some modifications."

"I can tell..." He stated, "Who are you?"

"Name's a secret, though most of the boys and girls call me Kuro," She flicked a bit of her short black hair over her shoulder.

"And you're here to help me? You're working with humans," The man derided her offer openly, pointing toward the Vacuoan in the shadows, who was twirling one of his two revolvers on one finger. Kuro rolled her eyes, then approached Adam. Uneasy, the boy's hand wrapped around his blade again, but he found the woman pushing it back down. She flashed another grin, her scent a combination of perfume and gunpowder.

"Easy does it, Taurus. Trust me, our offer will be good for you... I and some of my benefactors, a couple of which I imagine you've already met, thought you may need some help... A new series of assets are in play in Vale and, well... Not everyone wants to see the White Fang reduced to rubble," She offered, which garnered a look of confusion and anger from the man, then she took a step back. She made a 'come hither' motion to a pair of her men and they hefted forward a reinforced metal container.

Kuro pulled out her black Scroll and swiped it in front of an electric lock of some kind. Three consecutive clicks meant the locks had come undone, with the top of the box splitting in two and revealing a string of shelves, each of them stacking on top of one another as they spread out thanks to Remnant's form-shifting technology and revealing modern, PMC-grade armaments.

"H&K sends their regards," She smirked as she motioned to the firearms, "Highly customizable, modern equipment meant to replace the Vale SWAT kit and weaponry. They're well aware the White Fang is armed to the teeth, but the Model 2 Modular Carbines, Pistols and Rifles you folks have are a little..." She winced dramatically, to accentuate her point, "Old school..."

"They've done their job until now," He replied with a growl.

"And you'll be out of replacement parts by the time the next phase of our bosses' plan goes along. Upper Management knows they'll need every asset in play to... Complete... The next set of plans," She replied, "We can supply you with new parts for this stuff, not for the things you currently have. Not a lot of it is being manufactured anymore... Plus, this stuff can better house high-caliber Dust ammunition. Add to that..." She motioned to another shelf, "Kevlar body armor infused with Dust, fragmentation and stun grenades with varying types of attack modes, high yield plastic explosives... You get the pretty picture."

Adam squinted from behind his mask at her, "And what if we don't want to work with you?"

She shrugged, "You've worked with worse... And still work with them, if I remember Torchwick's backstory correctly."

"He brought us Atlas machines. Machines we're going to use against them," He smirked, "You brought a few guns and some armor..."

"Who do you think made those Mechs disappear from the market and into Roman's oversized pockets?" She smirked, crossing her arms to her chest as she saw Adam's eyes grow wide behind the Grimm mask. She chuckled darkly, then added, "Yeah, our bosses and us. H&K quality assurance on those bad girls..." and shrugged, "But, well, if you don't want our help... We'll figure something out."

She looked to her guards and was about to give the one hand signal that could change the situation.

She, however, stopped when Taurus said, "Fine..." much more calmly, "We'll take all the help we can get, seeing as we had a situation with one of our bases outside the wire..."

She grinned, then said, "Happy to hear you're cooperative, Adam. I'll let my bosses know... Welcome to the real war, brother. We'll be relaying orders for the next operation soon... And you can find me in Beacon when the time comes." She patted him on the shoulder. Before long, Adam watched the entire thirty-man team disappear into the darkness, leaving naught but three boxes full of supplies, enough to fit half a dozen teams with proper kit.

He had a nagging feeling he'd either made the worst deal of his life, or the best. He ordered his men to prep the equipment for transport to one of their farthest bases, to arm the troops. To Adam's credit, he was right on the first one. Kuro had not mentioned this, but if Adam had refused to work with the altered plan and their presence, then the situation would've turned... Ugly... For the red-maned bull...

Kuro flicked her scroll shut, grinning as she watched the boy picking up one of the shotguns...

Ah, Bulls. Always hardheaded fools...

Chapter Text

The bell for the end of classes rang, telling the Spartans and local teams that it was time to leave. As they stood up to depart professor Oobleck's class, once more wearing civilian clothing, John was stopped by a small hand. Ruby appeared in front of him, a smile on her face as she whispered, "We didn't get to thank you properly for helping us back there... How did you know we were going to be out there?"

"We didn't," John replied coolly, "We had our own mission. It was lucky that we pretty much had the same objective," he then added as the rest of team RWBY and even team JNPR joined them. The group, Spartans and Huntsmen alike, exited the class and traveled together toward the mess hall. He hummed, then looked to Ruby and asked, "Why was it you were out there, anyway?"

"Well..." Ruby smiled awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck as she felt Blake's piercing gaze locked onto the back of her head. She chuckled, then said "Long story... We can tell ya later. What about you, folks?"

"Recon. Figuring out what the White Fang's capabilities are," The Spartan replied.

"Ooh, noted," She nodded, "So... You folks gonna join us for lunch or nah?"

"Sure," He nodded. Ruby beamed, while Sam looked back to his comrade and gave him a thumbs up. The group of over two dozen walked together toward the mess hall, chatting each-other up. Sam hanged back with John and teams RWBY and JNPR as they walked to the mess hall. He hummed, checking his scroll for a second to see a message from Cortana. It was short and concise.

'Got some new data. Talk when you're home.'

He nodded as if she could see him and quickly slid the device back into his pocket. As the group moved together into the mess hall, a squadron of Spartans and Hunters as they were, Sam once again took to John's side, inquiring, "You good?" to which his old friend nodded. Sam still worried for John, even decades later. To be fair, to the young man, it'd barely been a few seconds since his death and a few more days since his revival on Remnant. That he was still a caring friend, John pinned on the fact that he'd been real young when he went.

Sam himself had noticed the thousand yard stares on him, on Kelly, Linda, Fred and even Jorge. They were the 'oldest' among the lot, seeing as how they managed to survive up to the near the end of the war and, in Blue Team's case, to the Post-War era, to still serve the UNSC as their elite killing machines and problem solvers. They had seen every single other Spartan that was on the 'MIA' list go and the reason they went.

He felt somewhat inadequate, to be quite honest. Even with his return undoubtedly providing John and the others with a much needed respite from thinking of the war that was still so fresh in Humanity's collective memory, he was sure that he would be almost like a toddler compared to them, both in experience and in combat acumen. That he was revived here, however, was still a joyous situation. He saw his old friends that he'd grown up with were alive and he'd learned the war he'd been so quickly checked out of by his own sacrifice had been won, even as Pyrrhic victory.

He looked to see Kelly smirking at him, her left ear flopping down as she tilted her head. He shrugged, taken out of his thought process by his comrade's and old friend's stare and the grin she wore. The girl pointed to his right, to Ruby Rose, to be more specific. While he wasn't sure what was being pointed out to him, he saw Ruby seemed a bit like a fish out of water as she walked beside him. Meanwhile, Blake, Yang and Weiss seemed concerned for their team lead...

At least Weiss did...

Yang was giggling in the background and Blake? Blake looked pretty rough, like she hadn't slept. He wasn't sure what the effects of sleep deprivation were, at least not completely, but he could tell she was somewhat more tired than it was normal to be, even during school time. He turned back to Kelly, then shrugged. The girl sighed, then nodded... He then remembered Kelly had gotten access to Remnant's planetary Intranet. They all did, with the new Scrolls. He figured that must've given her some odd ideas.

Eh, he shrugged it off, then turned to Ruby and asked, "Are you okay?"

She yelped, slightly surprised, then nodded, "Yup..."

"Right..." He remained unconvinced, but elected to change the subject, rather than delve into it. He jabbed a thumb back toward Blake and asked, "Is Blake alright, then? She seems... Tired..."

"Oh, she's been... Working herself to death because of the White Fang, pretty much..." Ruby sighed deeply, "She's usually hard to remove from her shell, but after our little unsanctioned mission to read into the Fang's operations, she's gotten moodier, meaner and, in general, just tunnel-visioned on figuring out what's going on..." And she looked to Sam, then stated, "She hasn't slept in a couple days..."

"Aha..." He nodded. Well, he knew another person who'd usually overwork themselves, even during training. Eyeing John, the boy murmured, "I guess I know how that feels, seeing as Dylan was kind of the same at times... Most of us were, in fact. Mission took priority over everything else for our people," and he shifted on his feet as he explained. As the group entered the Mess and got their trays of food, taking up half a row of tables as they sat together and started chatting, Chief was still processing in his own way that those they'd lost were coming back to life.

"Huh," Ruby stated, "I guess you and we ain't so different, huh?"

"We ain't," Sam replied, then smiled at the girl. She smiled back, though her cheeks flushed red once more. Sam never got that reaction. Was Ruby sick or allergic to him or something? Eh, didn't matter right now. What mattered was getting some chow and preparing to move out and recover a few more people. Cortana had been kind enough to keep them updated on the situation and how dozens of other IFFs had entered the area around Vale.

None of them had winked off the scan so far, so that was also a good sign that the folks, be they Marines or Spartans, did well enough for themselves to stave off the enemy even without Aura. Still, it would've payed to know who they were going to rescue, quite honestly, but alas, it was a luck of the draw kind of thing. He hummed, then looked to Ruby again, changing his thought for a bit and asking, "You think she'll be okay?"

"Well, she's Blake," Ruby shrugged, "We can only hope..."

"Fair..." Sam sighed. It was way easier not to have to deal with civvies, or in this case with what was probably trained Mercenary kids that were meant to fight creatures of darkness sat at the outskirts of their Kingdoms' defenses. The young man felt more calm as he switched subjects again, asking, "What about you and the others? They seem pretty jovial."

"Well, Yang's doing Yang things," Ruby turned to watch her sister joking with Blake while the girl was having none of it. She winced, then smiled awkwardly, "And Weiss is probably filing her nails as we walk. Y'know, prissy princess stuff you'd expect an heiress to do..." and shrugged. Truly, Ruby Rose was no different from John in one regard:She knew the quirks of her team.

"Hey!" Weiss called Ruby out... While filing her nails, indeed. She looked at herself, then sighed and pouted.

"What about team JNPR?" He asked, watching as Jaune tried to get in Fred's good graces, with Linda and Pyrrha seemingly engaged in some form of small-talk that was more or less single-word answers to questions that one of them asked the other. Pyrrha seemed content with it, of course, while Ren seemed to be enjoying the peace and quiet of walking side-by-side with Cal... And Nora did 'Nora Things'. More specifically, she was challenging Daisy to a deadlift competition, which the blonde seemed eager to undertake.

NOBLE, meanwhile, maintained their own small clique in the Spartan group, chatting each-other up in regards to, as far as both he and Ruby could hear, future ops and the possibility of borrowing the Pelican for a ride around the place, to learn everything about Vale itself and scout out any future target areas for their counter-operations against the White Fang.

"So..." Ruby looked to Sam, "You folks are gonna be focusing on the Fang as well, huh?"

"For the purposes of gathering intel and figuring out their endgame, yeah... If Blake needs some help, she can swing by our neck of the woods to get it," He offered, "Same for the rest of you."

"Appreciate it, Sam," Ruby smiled... And the young man felt his own heart skip a beat, his cheeks a tinge warmer than before. He blinked. Huh, interesting. That was the first time he'd actually had that kind of reaction. His mind worked through the moment quickly and memories of Cortana's briefing came to him, regarding the fact that John's own Thyroid Regulator implant was failing, meaning certain hormones were being more openly released. Cortana had also supposed that the same could be said about the other Spartans present, that their implant was failing and they'd see similar changes.

He wasn't sure what to think of it...

"Anyways," Ruby started, "We're also considering a few other things, including a possible dance party later on in the month..."

"... Aha..." Sam nodded, "That's cool."

"Yup..." Ruby nodded, rubbing the back of her head and looking away, her cheeks tinged scarlet as her cape.

... Kelly had been busy for the last few days, reading up on Remnant's culture. More specifically, the culture of their current (biological) age demographic. She'd gotten hooked on silly love dramas and teen romcoms, she had to admit, as well as television soap operas. It'd been exasperating and exhausting for the other Spartans to have to concern themselves with her tuning in every evening for the stuff. But it had given her a decent, if somewhat exaggerated view of civilian courtship rituals and how awkward they could turn.

Again, she'd watched what she thought were exaggerated renditions of teenage love and how it manifested in various archetypes of people. For Kelly to know that there existed a person as awkward as one of the protagonists of one of the romcoms, more specifically, that Ruby Rose was so awkward despite being one of the most outgoing persons in Vale physically hurt her, somehow.

Ruby seemed by no means a caricature or archetype of any kind, sans her semi-comical love of cookies and heavy armaments, but Kelly had never pegged her as one to easily crush on someone. 'Crush' on a gun or on some new type of sweet, sure. Not to mention that the object of her current affection seemed to be Samuel-034. Sam. One of the peppiest and friendliest of the lot, bordering on the weird for Spartans.

Then again, maybe it was the fact that Sam was so outgoing that Ruby had started liking him? No, they'd barely known each-other for, what was it, a couple of weeks? Maybe more? And they hadn't even interacted that much beyond classes and that one recent operation. The rabbit Faunus regarded Sam as he seemed partially oblivious to the hints Ruby gave and wondered just how far this little comical game would go. She made a mental note to maybe start a betting pool with Nora on this and see who else would wanna join in-

"Kelly," John's tough younger voice took the young Spartan Faunus out of her fugue. She looked to him, raising a brow as one ear flopped, still. The young man gazed upon his old friend from Boot Camp with the most concern he'd shown since she'd known him. He stared at her like she was the caricature. Kelly had also noticed that she had become somewhat more outgoing in regards to interacting with the kids, though she'd still prefer staying close to Fellow S-IIs and even the IIIs to interacting with Civvies and Huntsmen-in-Training if push came to shove.

"... What's up?" So she asked, nonchalantly ignoring the pointed stare her operational commander and close friend was giving her.

"... Are you okay?" He inquired, every word seeping with concern for a fellow soldier, "You've been staring at Sam and Ruby talking for a while..."

"I... Uh..." She narrowed her lips to the point they were a thin line. Of course, John would notice this kind of thing. He had learned to notice even the smallest errant twitch from one of his own. She also noticed they'd been sat down in the mess hall for a while. She recalled getting the tray in front of her, which was stacked head-high with various carbohydrate-filled foodstuffs like fries and even bread. It was lukewarm, still, probably freshly cooked when she'd gotten it, so that was an indication of how long she had focused on the fact one of their new 'friends' was pining for Blue Team's happy-go-lucky blonde.

"... I'm restricting your watch-time," He stated, crossing his arms to his chest and noting, "This isn't normal..."

"Chief," Kelly started with a whine, "C'mon,"

"No... It's been a week, Kelly... You've been acting stranger after every watch, almost matching the personality of one of the characters in that latest show you've spent all of last night watching," He sighed, then pinched his brow. The Chief admitted, he should have expected his teammates to change, considering he himself felt every little personality shift he was undergoing thanks to the malfunctioning thyroidal implant. So far, they'd been minor for him, thankfully...

She leaned toward him and whispered, almost in a plea, "Chief, I'm fine... It's just..." still trying to maintain the man's cover...

"Everything we're going through," He whispered back, nodding understandingly, "I'm still restricting the watch time... For all of our sakes..."

Kelly bowed her head, sighed and retreated back into her seat, finally starting to dig into the mountain of food she'd stacked her plate with. John himself had gotten nothing beyond a hamburger and a pile of fries that he'd finished half of off his plate. He had gotten used to the standard military rations of the UNSC for his continued survival. While generally tasteless, the MREs sustained them for their operations. Spartans had never really needed fancy meals or rooms, as could be gleaned from their bunk-bed arrangement... Which would get challenged soon.

Sighing, Chief picked up his half-eaten burger again and started eating once more, looking over to see Ruby having finally gotten out of whatever state she was in as she had managed to get Sam to espouse his view on High-Explosives. Nora had also joined in from across the table, laughing heartily as she told of her weapon, Magnhild, and its destructive capabilities aided by Forty millimeter grenades.

Ruby had turned back to her usual, joyful self as she spoke of weaponry and how she enjoyed every intricate detail to Sam, all under the watchful gazes of his comrades and of team JNPR.

Yang slinked up to John and said, "Looks like sis and Sam are getting along, eh, Chief?" before she plonked herself down on the seat next to him. She was wearing a seemingly trademark grin that was standard to the Xiao-Longs, if Sam's tales of the girl's father were to be believed. Sam had mentioned he'd landed in the Xiao-Long abode after his transference and 're-awakening' onto Remnant, so...

"Yeah," He nodded, focusing on his burger while Kelly grinned. Was that what she was staring at? It was only natural that they'd get along. Even with Nora having a seeming affinity for explosives, it was natural that Sam and Ruby would get along due to both having proclivities for firearms and weaponry of any variety. Though, in Sam's case, it was indeed more focused on the explosive types if that pack of C12 he kept near his armor was a strong enough hint.

"You folks good?" She asked, "It's been some time since y'all arrived."

"We're fine, thanks for the concern, Yang," He replied, then finished the burger.

She hummed, then leaned onto the table and offered, "You folks really don't like talking to anyone outside your small circle, huh?" a look that spoke more of worry than of anything else on her face. He raised a brow, a fry as golden as her hair in his hand. She hummed, then said, "Well, lemme see..." as she started counting out on her fingers, "You folks are only seen together. You never branch out to talk to anyone else. Even when we're trying to get you to join us, you seem hesitant as hell and you always seem to try and avoid talking to us..."

"You stick with your own group as much as we do, Yang," Fred replied from beside them, startling Yang slightly.

"Y'know what...?" Yang started, raising her right hand and index finger up as if she was searching for a witty reply. She then sighed deeply, stating, "Fair enough... But seriously, you folks oughta talk more with us. We got stuff to chat about and I'm pretty sure we all share some common stuff, such as the hunt for the White Fang, martial skills as Huntsmen and Huntresses-in-Training... Ya know, the usual."

"We're still security for Beacon's grounds," John remarked dourly.

"Oh, come off it, D-Man. You're students, too, like the rest of us," Yang shot back sharply, then smirked. She looked to Weiss as the girl moved to deposit her tray and asked, "Yo, Ice Queen, back me up here!"

Weiss scoffed, rolling her eyes, then stepped away. Yang poked her tongue out at the Heiress as she turned her back on her teammate, then sighed again. She looked to Fred, then asked, "Army types like you folks sure are buzzkills at times... C'mon, we're offering ya a chance to hang out with the coolest kids in Beacon! Plus, we're already kinda technically friends through Penny and Ruby, so what's the harm?"

John and Fred looked to one-another and pretty much admitted through the most imperceptible of shrugs that they had no rebuttal to the last part of the line. The Chief then looked to her and asked, "Okay... How do we 'hang out', then?" knowing full-well he may regret this. In fact, John already felt slight regret for even remotely giving the now-grinning blonde ammunition.

Yang proudly stated, "I knew you two would see reason..." Then comically took a thinker's pose, cupping her chin, her gaze wandering to the tall-ass ceiling of the mess. She smirked as the proverbial lightbulb lit above her head, then stated, "Well, let's see, we could all hit the movies together during the weekend, we could hit up a local gun store, though I think that'd be more fitting for Ruby, we could go to a club, we could head out to a Paintball game..."

"Paintball?" The two leaders of Blue Team inquired, the faintest trace of interest in their expressions.

"... Huh, holy crap. You guys don't know what paintball is?" She raised a brow, then saw the two of them staring at her with ever-confused looks. She smirked, then stated, "Right, right, isolated kingdom in the middle of nowhere... Paintball's basically simulated combat with guns that fire specialized paintballs. Stuff usually hurts except for if you have Aura, then you just feel them hit you. If you get hit once in the chest, you're generally out for a bit... It's a lot of rules to explain from the get-go, but..."

"So, it's a combat sim," Cal noted from behind Yang, causing the blonde to yelp in surprise, jumping back and grabbing onto her chest. The wolf Faunus had gone off to grab a new platter full of lasagna and was just coming to rejoin the gang when she'd seemingly heard of the stuff. Yang rapidly nodded, to which Cal hummed and said, "I'd say we do it... Sounds fun."

"It does... Arguably..." Fred nodded.

That was two-for-two... John hummed, then said, "I'll let the others vote for it, but I'd suggest telling your comrades about it as well, Yang..." as he stood up, his plate empty. He spoke, "I have to go check something. If all goes to plan, I believe we can have that paintball match this week..." and left before Yang could start cheering. After he left the tray and plate, he marched quickly back home, finding the Marines doing their usual of lounging around and waiting for them.

He gave a nod to Johnson as the man looked over his shotgun and was given a nod in kind by the cigar-chompin' Marine. Entering his room, John was met by his armor as it sat on a stand. He approached it, leaned behind it and removed the chip, revealing Cortana as she sat there, processing the data that she'd received. As her hologram materialized, she smiled, "How were classes today?"

"Long," He replied, leaning against his desk, "What do we have?"

"Atlas communiques, high-level. After I dropped a hint in regards to the location of some of their lost mech prototypes, they've been thinking of how to engage militarily against them. Sure, they have military assets in-country, but the General has to approve it before anyone else," She explained as she showed him several files via the small hologram. John squinted, reading some of the data, to confirm to himself it was as his AI said. She smirked, then said, "One more thing. We have another contact... Broad spectrum scan shows they aren't anywhere near Vale, though..."

"Oh?" He raised a brow.

"Yup..." She pulled up a map of Remnant, then pointed at the northernmost continent, where a single golden dot flickered in and out. She stated bluntly, "I piggybacked the connection to the CCT's sensor suites and found them randomly... Whoever our new contact is, they're in Atlas's borders... And according to another high-priority Communique, Atlas detected them, too."

"That's... Not ideal..."

"Not at all. Could be a major political issue," She hummed, "If it were a Spartan," And then she smirked.

"Can you ident what this person is, then?" He raised a brow.

"Yes. Civilian. UEG Researcher ID, from what I can tell..." She nodded, "Rad coating is lesser on this one than any other. That, or Atlas's sensor suites are better than the ones they put up with the other CCTS towers in the other kingdoms. I guess I'd better prepare to expand search parameters, though. If UNSC and UEG assets can pop up all around Remnant, well..."

"Right... Expand them, then. And keep me appraised about our newest contact... Can we not go rescue them?" He sighed. She smiled at his misery, then nodded and disappeared as he slid the chip back into place.

One thing that was not that fun about school was studying...

... Who was that new contact, though?

Mantle.

As the faint chill of the North coursed through her bones, she tucked and rolled as she landed. Her skin felt like a thousand needles were being driven into it and the Geiger counter built into her tablet's systems whirred and clicked loudly for the first minute of her awakening. She stopped when she slammed into something made of metal with a deafening clang which told her it was partially hollow. That didn't help with the pain that surged through her skull, however...

With a groan, the woman murmured to herself, "I should have left that alone..." as she straightened into a seating position. Feeling her forehead, she wiped away faint traces of soot and ash. That would be the last time she occupied her time with smuggled Forerunner technology in prison. Slowly, she clambered to her feet, leaning against the very metallic object she'd hit.

Breathing in and patting down her labcoat and skirt and arranging her turtleneck, the woman looked around the alley she'd landed in. Blinking away the last blurs of radiation-induced semi-blindness, the woman eyed the damp alley's walls. The entire thing was narrow, perhaps wide enough to fit two people. The thing she was leaning against was a standard dumpster, painted a deep teal and showing symbols she was too dizzy to concern herself with at this point. There was also a light bend in the metal hull of the dumpster, presumably where her head impacted it.

Feeling the belt that kept her skirt in place, the woman found a holster. She allowed herself a smile and thanked her few lucky stars for small mercies. She'd managed to snatch a handgun off of one of the ONI guards when they entered her room to check on things. As old as she was, she still had her sleight of hand with her. She also found a tiny first-aid kit with a painkiller in it, as well as half a canister worth of biofoam.

Feeling the back of her head, she found no trace of blood or any other major injuries. In the time it'd taken her to get to her feet, the Geiger counter had also gone completely and utterly silent, much to her surprise. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, then let out that breath she'd taken when first waking up. She opened the small medpack, took the white painkiller, removed its film and downed the pill itself without water.

It was a fast-acting medicine, somewhere between experimental and ready for deployment, according to that one ONI girl that liked her enough to give her what she requested. Osman and Parangosky had seen that she be put in the deepest, darkest hole that ONI could find, damn them both to hell. Serin, she understood somewhat. The poor girl had been subjected to and a victim of some of the botched SPARTAN-II Augmentation procedures, which had left her 'clinically dead'. She was sad that Parangosky got to her before she did...

As for Parangosky, that witch of a woman would've deserved a nice, cozy final resting place six feet under a layer of dirt and concrete in an unmarked grave.

Still, for all her failures and unbelievably non-ethical experiments, Doctor Catherine Elizabeth Halsey had found that even in the 'deepest, darkest pit' that was ONI's top-secret high-security prison, she'd discovered someone who cared for what she did and who thanked her. For a program like the SPARTAN-II project... One of the heaviest weights she's borne since her youth.

She narrowed her lips, staring ahead, past the dumpster and into the wider streets ahead. The buildings resembled Victorian era designs from Great Britain, with tall smoke-stacks flying high above them, billowing the acrid black fumes of industry. Of course, this wasn't Victorian London or anything akin to it. The defining factor that told the good Doctor that was the neon sign she had eyed from behind the dumpster.

Slowly staggering forth on nothing but a pair of leather dress shoes, the woman felt droplets of water hitting her shin as she stepped. Looking down, her gaze was met by, at first, a rippling puddle of water where her foot had touched it. Then, as the water cleared and the ripples disappeared, the visage of a younger woman, perhaps in her early-to-mid thirties, greeted her. Black, shoulder-length, wavy hair and a pair of deep blue eyes complimented a more youthful, less creased and marked face more akin to that of a twenty-something woman.

Mouth agape, Halsey ran a hand down her cheek, watching as the reflection in the water below mirrored her action. She bit her lower lip, then murmured to herself a disbelieving, "Impossible..." as she looked closer at the image. Her badge was still stuck to her left breast pocket. She brought it up and the figure in the water did the same. It was her.

She narrowed her lips, then shook her head, "... Impossible... But..."

She pulled her tablet out of her labcoat's breast pocket and took a photograph. It, too, showed her face as much younger, morphed into an expression of shock. She fished her left pocket for her glasses, sliding them onto her face and looking at the picture and the puddle more clearly. She blinked. It was her. There was no doubt about it. Doctor Halsey had either gotten years shaved off her age, or...

She shook her head. There must've been some logical explanation for this. She was not going to find it in the middle of a damp alleyway in the middle of whatever city and planet this was. She carefully edged her way toward one of the corners, poking her head out just enough to see both directions of the road. Keeping her head on a swivel, the doctor crept out from the alley, swallowing empty, then marched down one of the sidewalks, picking a general cardinal direction so she had a way to orient herself in space and-

What?

She looked around and above, past the tall buildings of this industrial city, past the roiling, billowing clouds of black smoke spewed by the tall smokestacks of factories, to see the unbelievable. Glittering like a gem, or something out of a fairy-tale, an artificial island hovered several hundred meters in the air, connected to the lower city via a dozen tubes that all converged on a central structure at the bottom of the massive hunk of dirt and rock. Technological marvels stood attached to it, tall towers and spires that shimmered lilac as energy coursed through them, surrounding the massive azure and white gemstone-like city that stood above it, almost like a crystal palace.

Around the city itself hovered over a dozen warships and many hundreds of VTOL-capable craft, flying on patrol. All ships were arrayed in such a way as to seem non-threatening, yet still imposing to the citizens they were probably meant to protect. Each ship seemed to float independently, akin to the city in the sky itself. A safe haven protected by layers of impenetrable defenses and a strong military.

Halsey would hate to test how long they would last in a genuine conflict, even with this technology...

She hummed, then continued walking. Whatever she had done with that technology, it was clear it hadn't been a good idea to touch it so much. It'd transported her to god-knew-where and had her lose shave a couple of years off her biological age clock. The latter prospect seemed the most pressing, terrifying and, at the same time, completely intriguing. That they'd dug this thing out of the Forerunner Shield World, 'Requiem', was strange. She'd have liked to visit that world, test its everything... Alas, that could wait for until she got back home and into her gilded cage.

A frozen breeze flowed through the streets, which she'd now noticed were bristling with people. Men and women walked together, bundled up in warm clothing and talking, laughing and enjoying each-other's company. She felt a chill and trembled as she approached a Y-intersection, looking for ways to cross, a place to find something warm to eat or drink...

The thunder of boots changed that prospect really quick, though. She paused and blended in as best as she could with a crowd waiting to cross the street off to the left, toward a series of ramen and grocery shops. She saw them marching off to her left, jsut across the street. Soldiers, clad in white armors with varying color accents ranging from red to yellow to blue and carrying box-like firearms in their hands. They marched, a squad of about a dozen, in formation.

"Huh. Atlas Troops," A girl from in front of Halsey whispered to a boy.

"Must be searching for something..." He replied, "Or someone. Heard there was a pretty bad sitch upstairs thanks to White Fang."

"Damn... Talk about giving Faunus a bad name, huh?" She raised a brow.

"Who knows who fucked up what, honestly... At this point, I'm willing to give the Fang the benefit of the doubt after what Ironwood's been proposing to the council," He shot back, crossing his arms to his chest, "Eitherway, Atlas troops don't concern us. We just gotta go on with our lives and cooperate if they ask any questions. After that, we should be safe and sound."

"Fair," She nodded, then scratched...

Halsey took a moment to compose herself as she saw the girl scratching at what seemed to be the base of an antler sat atop her head. She had two antlers. Two deer antlers. They were small, generally fitting under what seemed to be a purpose-made headdress, but they were goddamned antlers. And they didn't look like a hairband or something for Christmas, either.

Her partner had a pair of black wolf's ears poking out from under his jacket's hood and they twitched in the cold.

If she had half a minute to stand and gawk, she would've, but with troops patrolling the streets, she wanted to make herself as inconspicuous as possible. As the light turned green, she crossed with the folks around her, keeping a hand close by all the important equipment:Her pistol and her tablet. If she got engaged, she could use the pistol as a suppressive fire weapon and just run.

Picked a hell of a day to not have stun grenades, she thought. She had never carried armament before the Shield World incident she'd been in, but a single pistol felt more than adequate for her to wield. The .50 SAPHE round of the weapon could easily dispatch anything worthy of derision, but right now, Halsey didn't want to engage in any combat whatsoever, especially with fellow humans and... Faunus, she presumed as she gazed upon the deer girl.

She sidestepped and exited the crowd, entering a medical clinic, as far as she could tell by the green neon cross outside. It was either that, or a pharmacy. No matter, she could find some shelter in here. Indeed, the lobby was relatively empty. A row of seats lay on the left. Three leather chairs with wooden armrests. The doctor took one of the seats, then took a moment to figure herself out.

She had lost years off her age clock, she was alive after messing with a piece of Forerunner technology she probably should not have touched and she was in some place called 'Atlas', she assumed...

Could today get any stranger...?

Chapter Text

Cortana had spent the better part of the day looking over more data from the link she had acquired with the CCTS and from checking through the stuff they managed to retrieve out of that White Fang base they struck and brought out of commission. Much of the data itself was a combination of communication transcripts, recorded messages for families located in places like the Faunus continent of Menagerie(ironic name) and deployment orders for the cell located in that little base alone.

In general, Cortana had found absolutely nothing interesting. Much of what was in here was useless and half of what wasn't, she already knew from other com systems or from entering into the RemNet continuously for the past few days. She checked a senior-level Atlas communique that came straight from the top about retrieval orders for any of the Paladins that were still within Vale's borders and not going anywhere, set it aside and filed it away under a new partition in the MJOLNIR's storage space.

She finally 'peered through the window', so to speak, watching as Echo Four-Nineteen prepared to land the Chief and his team to retrieve another group of their allies. The rattling of assault rifle fire filtered in through the suit's external microphone, loud enough that she could hear it. She watched as John engaged with his magnetic rifle and took out a pair of Grimm, then switched it to mace mode.

He'd gotten somewhat proficient at using Caliburn in both modes. Then again, he was John. The Master Chief. If anyone could learn how to swing a gravity mace around with enough precision and skill to make it an art, it'd be him. Beside him, Linda sniped away at a squadron of Grimm, while Kelly engaged with her shotgun. The Spartans that they were picking up were members of Red Team that she had last seen deployed during the Fall of Reach to defend the ODP Generators. Vinh-030, Li-008, Will-043 and Grace-093.

She remembered all four of them from either aboard the Pillar of Autumn during the battle for Reach or from during the preparations for what would become Operation FIRST STRIKE aboard the Ascendant Justice/Gettysburg. Each of the four carried MJOLNIR Mark-V armor with active shielding and enough armaments and ammo to hold them for a few continuous hours of fighting. The AI busied herself with sending the group the data she'd sent to every other Spartan while John and his team worked awoke their Auras rapid-fire.

Curiously, she found a few genetic abnormalities akin to the ones in Kelly and Cal among them, more specifically in Vinh. She had the faint traces of animal DNA akin to those one would find in the genetic sequence of other Faunus. More specifically, she found Vinh to be a fox of some kind or other, though the girl probably wouldn't know it until she removed her helmet.

Fred seemed the most jovial of the lot to welcome the four members of RED Team back into the fray, offering each of them the trademark 'Spartan Smile' gesture which they quickly returned. She also detected spikes in their heart-rates upon the initial scans after the four had spotted Sam among BLUE's members. The boy nodded to them, gripping his own MA5B Assault Rifle tightly and watching as his fellow Spartans approached and placed hands on his shoulders. Li flicked the man in the visor and Cortana heard him comment, "I'll be damned... Guess we are all real..." before he sat himself down.

"No surprise to me," Grace remarked, standing up and looking to Sam. She stated, "Good to see you again..."

"Likewise, Grace. Still all out on EXO? I'm seeing a lot of C12 in that pack of yours" He replied and got a nod from the girl. As the bird lifted off and the Spartans got to chatting, Cortana continued looking over any information that could be useful in the future while listening in part to what they were talking about from within John's suit. That she'd gotten it connected to the RemNet meant she needed to build up a security system for the MJOLNIR.

She had, of course, done that in her spare time. For all Spartans and MJOLNIR types.

"Are we clear, Cortana?" John asked as he slid his rifle onto his back. The man seemed far more calm than when they'd first started out on their job. Admittedly, it was way easier to deal with Grimm on a regular basis while working your way to finding out more about the White Fang than it must have been to deal with the Covenant, the losses and just about everything in that damn War, not to mention waking up four years later to find out your job's not done.

Cortana still remembered the first time they saw the Storm Covenant and Jul 'Mdama during their little bout against the Didact. That, too, felt like it was decades ago at this point, to both the AI and Spartan. Chief being calm, however, meant she could be calm too. That she could take solace in knowing that she and John were no longer risking much was recomforting to the AI whose emotional suites had taken such a beating in the past week alone, she wasn't sure what would've happened if whatever pulled her back from Rampancy didn't act immediately after her utilization of that Covenant AI's self-replication algorithms.

So many fragments of her had screamed in her ears while she was aboard the Mantle's Approach, so many of them had damn near lost it and vaporized in an instant thanks to the rampancy, yet she could still hear their voices. Thousands upon thousands of her, screaming, gnawing, remembering, forgetting, processing and breaking apart as their copied and re-copied, malfunctioning matrices collapsed in on one-another to take down the defenses of the Composer and of the Didact.

She shuddered, wondering for but a moment if that was what the copy she'd sent with Chief and the rest of BLUE and RED aboard the Unyielding Hierophant during Operation FIRST STRIKE felt. So many voices screaming at once in her ears caused her to partially overload her processing systems to keep up, speeding up her Rampancy considerably. A knock-off of her that managed to divvy herself up into a thousand others to overwhelm the Covenant Station's defenses was...

She squelched the thought, noticing a faint trickle of data from John's TEAMBIO. His Thyroid implant was further failing and hormonal discharges were growing more akin to those of a standard human male at his biological age. It was intriguing, but, at the same time, concerning to see. Still, she worried little about him. John had the ability of self-control, among other things. She was sure that he and his fellow Spartans would be fine.

She'd consumed as little as eight picoseconds while processing everything that was going on after the others had joined the team aboard and Chief had asked her if all was clear. She finally decided to reply, "We're all clear in this sector, Chief. Section three-thirteen on the TOPO Map of the area is our next hit. Counting half a dozen more contacts. Ident from this distance flashes them as Marines. Foe Hammer, follow the markers I placed and you should reach our beleaguered gentlemen rather quickly."

"Roger that, Cortana," Foe Hammer replied, then chuckled, "Bet Sarge wishes he was tagging along."

"Indeed," Cortana chuckled. She then flicked on coms to the Spartans and said, "Vinh, Will, Grace, Li. Glad to see you all here again... Hope you're all reading that short brief I sent your way."

"We are, ma'am, don't worry," Grace replied. Cortana was able to track her progress through the doc via the Battle Net that linked the dozen or so UNSC Spartan Armors together during combat. Indeed, all four of them had been reading about the background of the world and their little fake Identity. Certainly, some read more than others as was the case between Vinh and Li, but nonetheless...

As they flew in to pick up the rest of the Marines, Cortana's thoughts turned to home, namely, to Earth. How were they faring? How was mankind after the second departure of the great John-117? She figured they must've been combing the remains of the Mantle's Approach still, which meant that they had enough to deal with beyond just finding them. That big a debris field floating high in orbit above Earth? And they hadn't even fully destroyed the ship, if she recalled correctly. It was the size of a damn moon.

Still, it'd gone and it'd left a mess above Earth after she and the Chief dealt with it and its owner. She wanted to be thankful that they'd managed to deal with it, but the city of New Phoenix(if her map calculations were correct) had been wiped out in the first blast of the Composer's dreaded beam. What it'd done on Carinae Station, to doctor Tillson and the others, had repeated again over with the North American city, with, if her calculations were correct, several million casualties. If she had been a moment sooner and if her rampancy hadn't deviated them so much from their course...

She sighed audibly.

"Are you okay?" John asked the very next second, his external speakers turned off.

"I'm fine, John..." She replied calmly, though she mentally berated herself for that little slip-up, "Just thinking a few things over..."

"Like?" He inquired again, worry clear in his voice.

"Home. Earth. The Composer incident..." She replied as sincerely as she could, "It's not exactly easy to know that we were a little too late to save one of our cities from the Composer's beam. Y'know, the usual."

Sure, if the usual meant 'moping about a mistake'. Admittedly, it was a mistake that had gotten several million people swallowed into the war machine of the Prometheans and of the Didact, by extension. It wasn't a particularly easy thought to live with, but she'd lived with worse on her mind, like Captain Keyes's death and the loss of the Commander, when she was told about the latter at least.

"You can vent if you want. I'll listen," Her companion for the longest time offered so nonchalantly, Cortana could swear she'd just misheard him. Yet, no, a quick parsing of her most recent memories did reveal that John had in fact allowed himself to listen to her problems. Cortana mentally slapped herself for that one stupendously idiotic thought. John had always listened to her problems and offered to help solve them, no matter what they were.

She replied gratefully, "Thanks, John... I'll do so if I feel the need to."

"Good..." He replied, refusing to elaborate further as he switched the external speakers of his armor back on. She peered once more through the 'window' that was his visor and helmet camera system, watching as the Dropship dipped, swung in and landed, with the Spartans opening up on whatever Grimm was chasing about six Marines clad in full combat fatigues. These fellas were also Pillar of Autumn crew, once manning one of the many checkpoints on the vessel or patrolling the corridors.

They greeted the Spartans with salutes and cheers as they boarded the Pelican. The bird lifted off, aiming for Beacon now, to drop off the main bout of cargo, while John, Fred, Sam, Kelly and Linda regarded their new arrivals. John stated calmly, "If anyone wants to get off, they can do so here..." as they reached the landing pad. He watched as Fred stepped up with the Marines and the four Spartans they'd recovered.

Fred explained, "I'll lead them to our bunking area and then I'll go see what's with miss Belladonna... If I understood correctly, she's searching for the same things we are. Answers for the White Fang's actions."

"Understood," John nodded, watching as one of his comrades departed alongside their newcomers.

"Blake, huh?" Sam hummed, his mind returning to that talk he and Ruby had had about her a few hours ago.

"Yeah," He nodded.

"Sounds like a good idea. Make sure you get her to sleep some. She looked absolutely haggard today," Sam replied, clearly worried by the tone of his voice. Fred gave his friend a nod and slid his DMR onto his back, preparing. All Spartans and even Cortana, by proxy of Chief's armor, felt the aircraft decelerate, rumbling as its VTOL engines roared. Upon touch-down, the Spartans and their new comrades filed out of the vehicle, with Fred leading the foursome of Spartans they'd acquired to their bunks the moment they arrived within the house.

Penny poked her head out of her room, watching as more Spartans and Marines filed in, then climbed down the stairs and approached John. She bowed her head, trying not to look him right in the visor, then said weakly as she fiddled with the hem of her skirt, "Sorry I missed classes today, Dylan... I was... Sick..." before hiccupping. John hummed and nodded, placing a hand on Penny's shoulder, then he took his helmet off.

"It's fine. We have the notes for professor Oobleck's classes, so you didn't miss much," He offered, giving the girl a half-smile. He wasn't mad at her, nor was he happy, but he was glad she seemed 'better' if she had been really sick. Penny looked up and gave him a warm smile, then looked to see Grace, Will, Li and Vinh walking out of the bunk area, helmets under their arms and scanning the place. The entire group noticed Vinh seemingly surprised, her eyes wide as saucers and lips a narrow, white line.

Kelly and Cal both waved to Vinh, approaching the ginger-haired half-Asian girl and revealing their own Faunus traits. That seemed to ease Vinh, though her lips curled into a smile and she seemed to be stifling a laugh at Kelly's expense. The rabbit Faunus girl that also had the speed of her animal familiar glared at Vinh, causing her to settle down, while Grace, Will and Li all seemed to welcome the sight of their comrades still interacting as they did during the olden days.

"It's good to see yet more of your people," Penny remarked, though her mind wandered somewhere else. General Ironwood had requested that she accelerate her mission and retrieve the scan of the Spartans' armor ASAP, as he felt it'd be needed for later usage. John easily noticed the girl's demeanor had changed a bit. She hadn't been seen as much around the past few days, but he himself wasn't sure what this was about.

"Yeah... Are you okay, Penny?" He inquired, raising a brow.

"Yes, I'm well," She replied and let out another hiccup. Sighing, she said, "I'll just be in my room, studying..." and bowed her head in defeat. BLUE approached Chief and all of them seemed concerned. Indeed, Penny had interacted less and less with everyone as of late, so much so that even Sam, the kind-hearted youngster of the team and Kurt, their most open-to-the-world Spartan were concerned about her sudden change.

John sighed, then called out, "Penny," which caused the girl to turn around, raising a brow. His mind raced for a moment, wondering what he could even say to comfort the girl that seemed so troubled. Sighing, he settled on one thing he could do, courtesy of Ruby, then offered, "Teams RWBY, JNPR and several of us are going to a paintball game this Saturday, as was suggested by Yang. Care to join?"

For a moment, her face morphed into absolute surprise, as if Chief had just asked her for the unbelievable, before a smile grew in its place. "I'd love to!" She exclaimed jovially. Maybe that was it? She needed to get out and John and Co. had to invite her? She smiled, approached the Chief and, without hesitation, gave him a tight enough hug for the Spartan to feel it behind the layers of the MJOLNIR suit he wore. And hard enough for some of the Titanium to at least partially bend under the stress.

Surprised, John could do little but pat the girl on the head. From a slumped, seemingly sad mess, Penny now scampered away from the team with a smile on her face as she went back upstairs. A hand on her hip, Kelly commented, "That was mighty nice of you, Chief..." wearing as big a smile as Penny. John shrugged. It only felt natural to summon the girl to play alongside her friends.

"I'm just surprised Ruby didn't swing by to call her-" John started, then the door slammed open and a stream of petals flowed into the room. A panting Ruby stopped in front of John, her cheeks burning red and silver eyes shimmering as she looked up to him, a single emotion flaring on her face:Worry. John wondered what had gotten into the girl with gradient red hair...

"Penny! Where!?" She demanded, grabbing onto the man's armored breast-plate. He tilted his head toward Penny's room and Ruby flashed a smile before she surged upstairs, leaving a trail of rose petals between him and the door. Weiss also stumbled into the house, breathing heavily, her face burning red. She leaned against the frame of the door and bowed her head as sweat from her brow dripped onto the floor.

"I swear..." The Heiress coughed, then looked up, her blue eyes glimmering with a mix of emotions ranging from worry to anger, though generally topped by a flickering joy. She straightened up, breathing in and out. A Marine slid her a glass of water which she immediately grabbed and gulped down, giving a thumbs up as thank you to the Marine. She nodded approvingly, giving the girl a salute before taking a plate of some kind of homemade ethnic food to a table between the couches and the Holovision on which sports were playing.

Weiss set the glass down gently on the kitchen counter, then approached John and the others and said, "She realized about midway through the team study session that she hadn't called Penny to ask her if she wanted to join the Paintball game this Saturday."

"Ah," John hummed, then shook his head while the others around him chuckled. "Of course..." He murmured, slightly amused. It was unsurprising that Ruby would some times forget to do one thing or another. She was not a klutz per-se, but she was still Ruby Rose, the cookie and weaponry aficionado that John had had the luck of running into during the first couple of days of being in Beacon.

Weiss spared a look into the house and saw the Marines and Spartans gathered, then whistled, "... So, this is the active crew of your ship?" her eyes wide. Some Marines turned to greet her, offering waves of the hand and smiles, despite the thousand-yard stares each man and woman wore. All of them were clad in heavy-duty green-colored armor sets akin to the color the Chief and several other Spartans wore. The Spartans themselves acknowledged Weiss through nods of the head or motions so faint, she was sure only a trained eye could pick them up, seeing as she thought she missed half of the ones she actually noticed.

"Yeah," John nodded, "Part of it anyway."

"There's still more?" She inquired, raising a brow, "From the amount of times I've witnessed your aircraft fly in and out of Beacon, I can assume you've been doing recovery operations for almost a week... I'd have thought you found everyone by now."

"Science crews and general deck crew haven't been accounted for yet," John lied. Most of the tags were still military, sans that single tag in Atlas that he had a nagging feeling he knew the owner of. Or that he could at least suppose he knew the owner of. She wouldn't have been here, though, would she? He squelched the thought. Definitely not. The Doctor would probably be in some top-of-the-line, top-secret research facility, reviewing more and more Forerunner technology with a staff of elite scientists, not stuck on some planet in the middle of nowhere.

Giving Fred a nod, John let the man depart to find Blake and talk to her. Weiss watched as a peppy Ruby came out of Penny's room, then asked, "I take it she agreed?"

"Yup! Though Chief already invited her for us," She nodded, then looked to him and said, "Thanks for that."

The Chief hummed, then gave a nod to Ruby. She waved to the rest of the crew, then departed with Weiss in tow. Chief watched them leave, with Weiss shutting the door behind them after bidding a quick goodbye. Cortana had witnessed everything from the man's helmet. After fawning for a moment at the cutesy interactions between John and Penny, she continued working. She hummed, watching as John set his helmet back on his head, then said, "That was adorable~..." jokingly. He hummed, moving back up the stairs as she continued running diagnostics. She chuckled, quipping, "Oh, come on, John. Ya gotta admit it was kind of sweet."

"... Sure..." He sighed, "What's next on our objectives list?"

"IFF Tags still popping up, I'd say... That and the Paintball game this Saturday..." She smirked, setting a reminder, "By the way, you gonna be alright, or...?"

"I'll be fine. It's like a training exercise if what Yang said is true," He replied, "One that combines shooting, mobility and teamwork as a test..."

"Yeah," Cortana chuckled. Ah, John and his always-militaristic view of things, "It's still a silly game, though, so don't take it too personally if you lo-ho-hos-hahahah!" She laughed out loud at the fallacy she was about to say. She continued to laugh for a solid minute while John checked and cleaned Caliburn, before finally settling down, "Ah... As if you could lose, even against kids with soulstuff superpowers..."

"... I guess I'm going to have to leave you here?" He inquired, setting Caliburn aside and stowing it under his bed.

"I'm pretty sure you'll have to leave everything armor-related here..." She replied, chuckling.

Outside, Linda had decided to take a hike for a bit. Clear her head, figure out her own issues, somesuch things. Namely, Nornfang needing its own modifications and her wondering how she could get them without burdening one of the local smiths with it. She was also still in her armor, minus the helmet, which was currently on the counter of the kitchen. She'd left it and Nornfang behind for the sake of not being so threatening to the locals.

Certainly, some of them must've figured out the good Spartan was one of their 'classmates', which was still a temporary engagement for her and for much of the Spartan Cadre currently stationed in Beacon. She figured she should also request extra bunks and a place to set them up, for Will and the others to have a place to sleep in. Right now, though? She was having different problems.

Both male and female civilians approached her as she walked by. Some were shy, some were bold, but all of them desired the same thing. Or, at least, Linda felt like they did, considering some of the looks some were giving her. One of them asked for her autograph, another had asked her 'out to the movies', whatever that meant and some folks just outright seemed to be taking photos of her. She refused as politely as she could, citing the fact that she 'had something to deal with' as she moved past them.

Ignoring the weird behavior of the civvies(some of which were classmates) she strolled forward into Beacon's amphitheater. Perhaps a little bit of training on those katas Kelly had given her would help clear her mind from whatever was going on. She paused, breathed in, then slowly turned toward the door to the training area, to see a few kids still looking at her. She ignored it, letting the doors shut behind her, before taking position in the wide-open area as the orange light of the dusk sky filled the place through the skylight at the top.

Kelly had trained her in the use of Katas for her combat form, provided she was ever so up-close-and-personal to the enemy that she had to use her fists. Every move, she'd practiced a dozen times as a means of both clearing her head and ensuring her own safety. Her mind was clearing and she could think more clearly when she trained, which meant she had just about got to her zen.

Her mind never really wandered when she entered 'the Zone'. She was only focused on what she was currently doing when entering it, her mind sharp, focused, directed. What it meant for her mind to never 'wander' was the fact that she never really bothered thinking or reflecting when in this state, mostly because she was usually on her belly, scoping in the skull of some unfortunate sod that was trying to kill her teammates.

Now? Well, now Linda permitted herself a moment to process the current situation. That she was alive was nothing short of an act of God after everything she and her teammates had been through. She would and should have definitely died after the hits she took on board Gamma Station. The injuries she had sustained there, the third-degree burns from plasma and the irradiation she must've suffered. She had died then, clinically, at least. Doctor Halsey had restored her to life during the early phases of Operation FIRST STRIKE.

Then, she went on to serve another glorious four years as an asset for the UNSC. She'd hunted everything from Covenant Remnants to more Innies, the latter of which with hesitation after the end of the war and the many times she'd fought side-by-side with fellow humans in what was a war of attrition they damn near lost. She had been there for several of their own casualties, too. Several Spartans that now walked with them on Remnant, she'd seen either spaced or blasted to pieces by the Covenant's energy weaponry.

And now? Now, she was on a foreign planet where it felt like there would always be a curveball, a surprise, something around the next corner that would change the mission parameters. Currently, she saw the balanced tipped their way, thanks to the fact that there were so many of them back from the dead. Sam... She was glad he was back. The boy had died very early. Their first loss. Then, there was John...

John was alive. He'd been alive for the better part of the four years that she, Kelly and Fred fought together, missed his fair share of missions. He'd saved Earth again while they were away working on another mission in the middle of nowhere... And then he wound up here, where whatever he'd done to the Didact and his ship probably caused the revival and gathering of so many Spartans here.

She sighed, then straightened up her posture, noting to the second person in the amphitheater, "If you're here to train, be my guest. The place is big enough."

"Oh, thank you," A young woman's voice replied. One that, despite having known her for less time than she'd even known about Noble Team, she could immediately pin. Pyrrha Nikos, elite fighter. She looked back to see the girl with the blood-red hair and the hoplite-like, greek-style armor as she drew her weaponry. The girl spoke, polite to a fault, "I'm sorry if I bothered you, I just... I didn't know if you heard me come in."

"I did," She replied. The two stared at one-another for a moment. Both were redheads with emerald eyes and both seemed to be pros at what they did. She'd seen Pyrrha during a training course in combat that professor Goodwitch was teaching. She hummed, noticing Pyrrha was carrying the blade and shield with her, then asked, "Do you need a sparring partner?"

"Actually, yes," Pyrrha nodded after a single moment of thought. She smiled, "It's... A bit boring to train alone."

"Ain't that the truth..." Linda murmured, then said, "I think we've met before, but just in case, I'm Linda. Linda Pravdin. One of Chief's comrades."

"Nice to meet you, Linda. I'm Pyrrha. Pyrrha Nikos," She offered with a curt, but respectful nod.

"Pleasure's all mine," Linda replied, "Now, if we're sparring..." She took her position as Pyrrha entered the ring. The girl stowed her weapons and Linda shook her head, stating rather bluntly, "You're going to need them..." and watching her reluctantly pull them back out. Lin watched the girl's form and found it perfect for a sword-and-shield wielder like Pyrrha, but soon remembered that all weapons on Remnant, or at least all modern weapons, had the ability to form-shift during combat. And from the barrel Linda was seeing poking out at the bottom of the hilt, it had another mode, at least.

Fun...

Chapter Text

Alice looked over her armor, polishing whatever she could of the excessive damage. The armor had turned from a pure white almost to the factory dark grey of Titanium alloy plating thanks to the plasma scoring. Several deep gashes and slashes permeated the armor's many pieces and the faint traces of damage to her RECON helmet were still there, sans the cracked visor from the shots she'd taken during her last hours of combat on Reach. She scrubbed the helmet itself, a heavy piece of titanium and electronics that now sat in her hand, with a brush, scraping off ash that had melded with the plate.

To know they'd won the war eased her conscience. Noble Six had died a worthwhile death, it seemed, if the Pillar of Autumn had survived with the Chief aboard, making it to Halo and finding that edge they'd needed to survive. She hummed, breathed in, out and returned to the matter at hand. Namely, she returned to patching up her armor as best as she could.

"Six," She heard someone call out. Turning back, she saw Carter.

"Sir," She nodded to him, turning back to the work at hand. The man sat himself down beside her and watched her continue her work, while she wondered what he'd want from her. They'd done their jobs and died. There wasn't much talk to be had between her or any of the rest of Noble, really. And that was fine by her, honestly. She'd only been with the team for a few weeks... Sighing, she stated calmly, "If you're here to inquire about something, sir, please, do. And if you're here to ask me if I'm okay, I am. Still processing this whole... Thing."

"I understand," He nodded, crossing his arms to his chest, "But you don't have to eat alone all the time. You're still part of the squad."

"Right..." She replied half-heartedly, looking over one of her vambraces and starting to clean it up. She said, "I'll see to it that I join more often, sir..."

"We'd appreciate it," He nodded, then stood up. Approaching the rest of his team, he let out a deep sigh, stating, "Still not progress on her. Anyone even bother to ask how she went?"

"We tried," Jorge replied, sad.

"All we got outta her was silence, boss," Emile added as he looked to Alice. The girl had set her helmet back onto the armor stand and had started loading up her magazines with ammunition. They'd gotten a fresh batch of ammunition to redistribute every time a Marine squad or a group of Spartans was recovered. Carter cared little about that one, with Kat behind him staring at her fellow Beta Company member with concern.

"I don't like it," Kat remarked, "Even when she first joined us, she wasn't this reclusive. Think it's... What..." She hesitated to use the dreaded acronym, but stared at Alice for a moment to see the thousand-yard stare that came with the thing, then weakly asked, "PTSD?" as she saw the Spartan stumble for a moment, a bullet slinking out from between her fingers and about to hit the floor. With precision and speed, Six grabbed the stray 7,62mm round out of the air, slid it into the mag and breathed a sigh of relief, her hands faintly trembling and eyes darting around the room, as if she was checking to make sure nobody saw that slip-up.

They had. And if Kat was right, all five members of Noble felt pits in their stomachs...

"If it is, that'd be the first Spartan I ever hear of with that issue," A man's voice replied to Kat's almost rhetorical question. They all turned to see whom it came from, to see Sergeant-Major Johnson smoking another one of his cigars. He joined the five central members of NOBLE and stared at the peripheric sixth from afar, watching as the girl moved with a rehearsed grace, loading bullet after bullet in a fresh magazine, setting it aside and starting up the process again on the next mag.

"Sergeant-Major?" Carter raised a brow, surprised at how brash the man was.

"No offense, sir, but I ain't ever heard of Spartans with Shell Shock walkin' the streets... Either I'm an insensitive son-of-a-bitch or you folks never caught the damn thing," He stated throughtfuly, then drew deeply out of the cigar and blew out a thick, acrid smoke parallel to where Kat was seated, but mistakenly close enough that the girl caught a whiff of it. He then sighed, a thinner smoke film appearing in front of him, "Though I guess I'm talkin' outta my ass. Much as we see y'all as invincible machines, you're still humans under all that..."

A short silence filled the room, a weight pressing down on every man and woman in the conversation...

"I'd say more like we're all walking cases of untreated shell-shock, sarge," Jorge broke it as he tried to humor the old man and lift their spirits a bit, though he'd caused a bit of distress for himself. If he, too, thought about it, the Spartans had all experienced some of the most traumatic things that war had to throw at them. It was why he'd never seen the difference between NOBLE and the others, or understood why all of them were so reclusive when it came to the other SPARTAN project members in the room. They had all fought in the same blood and mud.

Johnson snorted, pulling the cigar from between his lips and looking to Jorge. Taking his cap off, the Sergeant replied, "If that's the case, Jorge, I and my boys and girls are just about as knee-deep in the shit as the rest of you... Shit, I caught Jenkins staring into nothing just yesterday... Boy wasn't responsive in the slightest until Mendoza poked him in the ass with a fork."

"Still have the three extra tiny holes, Sergeant!" The Marine yelled from across the room. He was playing poker with the offending Latino Marine, who laughed. Both the Marines' eyes were almost sunken into their skulls, hollow smiles on their faces. Shit, Sarge knew he didn't look any better. He'd seen himself in the mirror, knew he looked like absolute crap at times.

"Could be a side effect of all of us waking up on Remnant," Jun expressed, watching the swift, certain motions Alice had now settled herself back into with loading her magazines. As all eyes fell on the bald Sniper who'd regressed to the biological age of sixteen, he clarified, "Think of it this way. Your brains know you went out one way or another, burned, scarred by plasma, a needle through the brainstem-sorry, Kat-so on, so forth... Your mind's still processing the fact that, one moment, you died and saw that mystical light at the end of the tunnel and the next, you're here..."

"Some of us didn't die, though," Carter replied to the sharpshooter, "Didn't you say you went on to form the SPARTAN-IV program and, with it, the SPARTAN Branch of the military? And it's been some weeks since we woke up..."

"Sir," Jun nodded, "I still don't know how I woke up here either, but I'm... I guess you can say I'm not as bad with my own issues as some of the others, but..."

Kat felt the back of her head with her human left hand. She knew the exact spot where that Needle had punched through the plate of her helmet and knew the exact exit point. She still felt the phantom pain in her eye left eye and worked to stow it, blinking repeatedly. She sighed, then added, "Yeah... We get it, Jun... Still, what's got her so affected, then? We all went out one way or another..."

"I left Six alone in a part of Viery that had no other troops of ours after the Autumn departed," Emile replied, crossing his arms to his chest, "I know I heard Gauntlet Team went out in combat just downwind from the Break Yards... Before their com system went dead and I got a sword through my back for my troubles," and he, too, felt the exit wound of the twin plasma blades of the Covenant Energy Sword. His sternum had been shattered by the impact and his skin burned. He still felt the burning heat of the weapon searing his flesh.

"... She must've found their bodies while fighting. Some of the extra ammo pouches she has were stripped off a COMMANDO chest," Carter added, his voice a low whisper.

"Shit... She died alone, among the corpses, huh...?" Johnson sighed, that thin veneer of comedy he'd put up to cope with his own issues dropping as he stared at the young woman with white hair and blue eyes. There was the faintest trace of fear in her movements as she finished the last magazine, setting it in one of the pouches on her belt and standing up. She walked to the bathroom, avoiding the glances of the other Spartans in the room.

"Helluva way to die..." Recited Emile, then he breathed out and said, "Someone oughta go talk to her. Ain't gonna be me, though, I'd just make things worse."

"I could," Kat replied, "We were in the same company..."

"Don't know..." Carter sighed, "Maybe I should try again. I'm the CO of NOBLE after all..."

"I'd suggest you kids leave her be for a bit," Johnson remarked, sticking the butt of the cigar between his lips again and dragging deep. He looked between all of them. Carter wanted to ask why, but Johnson was quick to reply, "She ain't in no mood to talk right now... And I can understand her, at least a bit. I know how shit it feels to be among the last survivors of a fight... She'll either open up to you, or you'll have to drag her ass out of that wall she's building around herself, but eitherway, talking to her right now ain't gonna help. Not yet, anyway."

The five members of Noble before him nodded reluctantly, then all watched as the Chief himself exited the room. Johnson offered the team a mock salute, then approached the Chief, giving the Spartan out of armor a wide grin of pearly white teeth. John nodded to him, then asked, "Everything going well, Sergeant?" to which the man nodded, taking the cigar from between his lips and setting it in a full ash tray.

"We're all decent here, Chief. What's the word, we going for that Paintball game later this week?" He inquired.

"We are," John nodded, "Planning on picking sides?"

"Frankly, I think I and the boys are going on the unaugmented humans' side... Ya know, helping shape the two Hunter kid teams into something that can at least somewhat stand up to you folks... Otherwise it'd be no fun. Hell, Chief, it'd be a curbstomp and nobody likes seeing those," The Sergeant replied. John nodded approvingly to the man, bumping the man's shoulder with his elbow. Johnson's expression quickly, but easily switched to a concerned one as he asked, "Everything good on your side, Chief?"

"I'm at one hundred percent," He replied calmly, "You?"

"We're good, Chief, like I said. As good as can be after we got revived from the dead..." He offered. John scanned the room at his old friend's words, seeing the several dozen members of the growing, company-sized element of Marines, Spartans and even some Air Force personnel if Captain Rawley and her co-pilot felt as if they were part of this ad-hoc force.

The house was getting relatively crowded, too, with Marines, male and female and Spartans having joined up in the same living space, so many of them that the bunks and the sleeping bags were spilling out of the assigned rooms. Chief didn't mind sharing none, but he probably should have gone to the Headmaster to ask for something bigger to accommodate them all.

But it wasn't the growing size of the force that worried John. He noticed the signs of combat fatigue among all men and women of the force. Carol herself, now sat and playing cards with some of the Marines from Autumn's complement by the kitchen, stared at her cards with an empty gaze. Even behind the smile she wore, John knew that there was trauma. He'd seen it before. In Locklear, in other Marines... Jenkins especially, the poor bastard.

He looked at himself in the hallway mirror and saw that he, himself, had the sunken eyes of a tired young man. Narrowing his lips, he let out a sigh. Admittedly, all of the people currently in the room with him should have been dead and gone. Physically, they'd been all killed, vaporized, shot, blasted apart or outright went missing in space in some cases. Being revived on an alien world with no explanation whatsoever would have an effect on anyone and everyone involved in this kind of situation.

"Chief?" Johnson asked, "You good? For real."

"I'm... Fine, Sergeant-Major," The man replied, arranging the necktie of his Beacon uniform. "I'm just realizing now the situation we're all in... I vaporized myself to save the Earth... I died. So did Cortana..."

"All of us here went out in some form or another... Save maybe for NOBLE's sniper, Jun. Kid apparently went on to make the S-IV program a thing..." Johnson nodded, "And we're here now."

"Yeah," John breathed, finally realizing after over a month or so of staying on Remnant that he had, in fact, died. And for real, this time, not just under the markings of the UNSC's definition of 'KIA'. He had, admittedly, been written up as 'MIA' for the UNSC, though, so... Shaking his head to quickly clear his thoughts, he steeled himself and said, "We'll be fine... We have to be. We have a new mission."

"Chief," Johnson's voice was rough, hard, but compassionate. The two men stared into one-another's eyes for one moment, then Johnson sighed, "We're all in deep shit right now. And we're figuring said deep shit out. You shouldn't be focusing on the mission alone if ya wanna be fine... Take a break, chat up your Spartans, hell, come join me and the lads for a drink out in the town once in a while... Anything to get our shit together and try to either solve or bury this revival thing."

Chief started to counter him, but sighed and said, "I'll take it under consideration... We're still taking time off from our job to go to that paintball game..."

"And you could'a refused that one, but ya didn't," Johnson smirked, "Hell of it is, Chief? I think ya want a break."

Truthfully, the Chief had always been active and on the move. He didn't know the meaning of a proper 'break' beyond the lulls in combat and the cold embrace of a Cryosleep casket. He hummed, then looked to Johnson and said, "We'll see... Take care, Sergeant. I have to go talk to the Headmaster about providing us with a better sleeping arrangement... Too many of us."

"Roger that, Chief," The man replied, giving the man a quick salute and watching him leave. The man sighed, crossing his arms to his chest, then joined his Marines in a game of cards. May as well have, seeing as he didn't really have anything better to do while he waited for whatever their next mission was. It'd also help get his mind off the shit that'd been floating around about revival and whatnot.

Kelly, meanwhile, was left alone as one of the only members of BLUE Team in the 'base of operations'. She sat herself down next to Grace as the girl was watching the news, then asked, "Where'd you put the C12?" to which the girl turned to her with a dumbfound look on her face. Kelly raised a brow, then asked, "Seriously, Grace. Where's the plastic explosive?"

"... I put it in the storage area...?" She replied as if Kelly was supposed to have known that.

Right, John and Cortana had set up one of the back rooms just below the stairs as storage for equipment, like firearms. Ammunition was stowed in the room next to it, though, Kelly realized, then stated, "I'm not sure how safe it is to have all our C12 in a single room, to be honest..." before looking to see Sam leaving their bunkroom, wearing his armor still. She looked to him, then asked "Sam, shouldn't you change your clothes?"

"Eh," He shrugged, "I was just gonna go see how Fred is doing before I switched out and prepped for bed."

"Okay. Take care," Kelly replied, then leaned back against the couch, letting out a sigh.

"So... How'd you, Fred and Linda go?" Grace raised a brow.

"... Would you believe me when I tell you I don't really remember?" Kelly somehow seemed distraught by that revelation. Grace chose not to press the matter further for both their sakes. It was hard enough, knowing you'd gone and died in the line of duty, only to be revived to some new world. Grace had died by the shots of several Brute grenade launchers. It hadn't been a pretty death, but she'd ironically gone out to the same things she loves so much:Explosives.

She sighed, leaned forward and picked up her drink from the coffee table...

Fred had searched high and low throughout Beacon to the dimming light of a setting sun. He had finally found her inside the library, perusing information on one of the several terminals linked to the planetary internet. There were black bags under her eyes, so he saw from where he was. He approached her and, for the young, tired girl, it must've seemed odd to see a man clad in full armor approaching.

Her gaze was tense, tired, blurry. She seemed like she could barely see him as he marched toward her and she had black bags growing under her eyes. Fred should've expected as much. From the things he'd overheard the R, W and Y of team RWBY say about her, she was overworking herself. While Fred would generally have approved such a demeanor from one of his own Spartans because he knew they didn't need as much sleep, a human... Or a Faunus, as it seemed to be the case with miss Belladonna... Was ill-suited to waste so much of their rest time on a single goal.

"Miss Belladonna," He stated as he approached her.

"Oh..." She paused, then squinted at him and asked, "Lieutenant Frederick Ellsworth, right?"

"It's just Fred," He replied somewhat reluctantly. Blake nodded, then turned back to her work as the Spartan sat himself down in front of her. He had to give it to her, she was laser-focused. Especially with reading the articles she was currently reading, considering the fact that those were pretty important news regarding White Fang actions across all four kingdoms and how they seemed to be gathering resources. He spoke again, "I take it you're investigating our friends in the White Fang?"

"Yes," She replied, focused, "They've been amassing equipment and Dust for something in Vale... I wanna know why..."

"And you think a loose series of articles online can provide the answer?" He raised a brow at her. She shrugged as if saying 'perhaps'. He didn't know why Blake was so focused on what she was doing, but he understood the core idea of concentrating on one's mission. He offered to her, "You do know it'd be easier for both you and your team if you worked together, right? And you can ask us to help as well."

Blake sighed, slightly annoyed, then responded to Fred, "While I appreciate the offer... There's really nobody else that can do this."

"Taking into account I and the others took down a White Fang base not too long ago and helped you take down that Paladin, I'd say we can do it pretty well ourselves," The man shot back. Blake scoffed, then returned her gaze to the files she had opened on the computer. He hummed, then added, "Why do you want to do this alone, anyway? I'd expect you would get your team's help, at the very least."

"They don't get why I'm doing this..." Blake replied weakly.

"So, explain it to them," Fred countered, "It's that easy."

Blake sighed. She swore, if Ruby and Yang dragged one of the Chief's men into this thing. She looked to him, then crossed her arms and said, "I have my own reasons to try and deal with the White Fang right now... I think that's all you need to know, with all due respect, Fred... You and your folks don't need to get involved in it any more than you already have."

"We still are getting involved. The White Fang painted a target on its back for being what it is:A group of insurgents looking to undermine the truth. I know they were once the hope of the Faunus for equality, but they've clearly changed their MO," Fred explained, watching as the girl seemed to stare right through him for a moment, instead of at him. She must've been exhausted.

"Right... Why are you going after the Fang, then?"

"Let's just say it's because of a few friends we made on the way to Vale," The man replied. He then said, "I told you my reason. So why don't you tell me yours?" and smirked at Blake. Or at least she thought it was a smirk. It was hard to tell with Spartans. Every one of them beyond Sam and Kurt was an enigma, a steel-faced statue whenever one would talk to them... Well, most of the time, anyway.

Blake snorted. She'd fallen into that one of her own accord. She then said, "I have a few friends in it that are... Well, I feel like they're in danger. I wanna warn them about it..." She hesitated. Fred could tell. She was hiding something, even as she added the last bit of her supposed 'motive', "Y'know, it's just a matter of keeping familiar people safe and whatnot..."

"It's definitely not because you're a Faunus, then...?" The man quirked a brow up at her.

Blake went pale. She mouthed, "How...?"

Fred pointed up at his own head and said, "Your bow twitches at times."

Blake's cheeks turned a reddish hue as she placed her hands over the top of her head, flattening the bow. She started, disbelieving, "They twitch so rarely and move so little that I thought..." before noticing the Spartan staring at her as if it was daytime. Night had fallen already and the last of the Library's patrons began dispersing. He stood to his feet, extended a hand to the girl and waited.

She gingerly took it and stood to her feet with his help. He spoke, "The Chief saw it first, a while ago. Then, I and just about every Spartan did, too... We're used to utilizing very fine movements like that in our operations, so noticing them isn't hard. It was confirming it that was strangely harder than normal, because, as you said, they twitched so rarely... And only when you seemed to relax."

"Huh..." Blake hummed, "Noted... I won't relax henceforth..."

Fred snorted, "That won't go. For your teammates, or for us, Miss Belladonna."

"... I know..." She placed a palm over her face. A sigh of dejection later and she said, "Blake."

"Pardon?" Fred raised a brow.

"It's just Blake, Fred..." She said, looking to him and offering a half-hearted smile, "Miss Belladonna's my mother."

"Noted," He replied as they started the trip back to Blake's dorm. As they marched into the dark, open courtyard, Blake saw the man's eyes immediately adjusting to the dark. Several light posts flickered on ahead as the two took a turn to the right from the cathedral-sized library. He broke the silence that had settled between them once more, stating, "You still have to tell me why you are looking into the White Fang's activities. I told you why we are. I can also speculate, seeing as you're Faunus, but I want the cat to be out of the bag because of you, not me."

Blake breathed in, out, then sighed. Maybe if her team accepted her after the reveal and her running away, the Spartans would take it better if she told them her association. She wasn't sure why, but she felt like Fred, at the very least, would understand out of the whole lot. Him, Sam and maybe Kurt. All three of them seemed pragmatic and far more open to the world than the rest of the Spartan platoon.

To hell with it... "Promise me you won't try to choke me to death here," She stated.

"I won't," He replied.

"... I was once White Fang."

"Ah... I figured that was the case," He nodded, shocking Blake with how normally he was taking it. He raised a brow and inquired, "I assume you left after they started getting their terrorist tendencies?"

"... Yeah..." She nodded, shocked. She narrowed her eyes as she looked right at him, then stated, "... You're taking this surprisingly well for what I assume is a counter-terrorism unit member clad in full plate power armor... With some form of gene-tampering?"

He stopped for a moment, surprised, looking to her and raising a brow. She pointed at her own eyes and said, "They're adjusting to light the same way the eyes of a Faunus do. I'm pretty sure you have night vision like us, as well," before humming and narrowing her lips. She snorted, "Oh, wow, I am tired... I noticed the eye thing but not the pun you made until now... 'Cat out of the bag'? Really? Have you been hanging around with Yang?"

Fred snorted, "No. And believe it or not, I didn't register it until you mentioned it, either."

"That's fair enough," She chuckled, "... I'm still going to continue my search."

"I know. But you can use the assets we have if you want. You don't have to do anything alone," He offered. Blake wanted to reply, but the two saw Linda and Pyrrha walking out of the amphitheater, both of them laughing and wearing a few more bruises than they'd have expected. Fred raised a brow, then said, "Color me impressed... Linda doesn't much laugh."

"She and Pyrrha must've sparred," Blake noted, seeing some of the marks and bruises on the hoplite. She then stated, "And Pyrrha looks like she got slapped around..."

"She got a few good licks on Linda," The man replied, pointing to a nice purple bruise on Linda's cheek. The Sniper and the Hoplite both noticed the Lieutenant and the Catgirl and Linda waved. Fred waved back, then spun his hand around, clenched his fingers into a fist and pumped his elbow down. Linda nodded and she and Pyrrha formed up with the two.

"Blake," Pyrrha gasped, "Dear god, you look haggard!"

"I'm a bit tired, Pyr..." Blake replied calmly, "Nothing I can't handle."

"She's admittedly not as bad as she could be," Fred added, then turned to Linda and asked, "How'd the spar go?"

"Pyrrha's a good fighter. She got a few hits in on me. Lucky for her I only had my Aura and not my shields," Linda offered.

"You did very well yourself, Linda. I'm sure I have more bruises than you do at this point," Pyrrha smiled, then she looked to Fred and stated, "I'm going to presume you met with Blake to convince her to get a proper night's rest?" before getting a nod from Fred. Pyrrha smiled, "Good. Blake's a good student and a great friend, but she can be a bit... Too much... At times... Especially regarding her interests. Why, there was that one time in the mess when they were serving Tuna-" and she cut off as Blake yelped, her cheeks growing a tinge redder at Pyrrha's little attempt at telling that particular story. Not to mention the amber-eyed glare.

The redhead chuckled, "Never mind..."

"Right..." Blake breathed out a sigh of relief, then said "We should probably take our leave now. Our dorms are that way," she tilted her head to the left at the cross-intersection.

Fred nodded, "Get some rest, Blake. We'll get on the case of the White Fang tomorrow. All of us."

"Aye, sir," She gave the man a mock salute, then said, "C'mon, Pyr... Your team's gonna be asking questions about the bruises..." And it was Pyrrha's turn to yelp as Blake dragged her away. Linda and Fred watched them leave, the latter with a thoughtful expression. Linda looked to her ASL. With a shrug, Fred showed her to follow him back to their base of operations.

Chapter Text

While another couple of days of nothingness had come and gone, the Chief and his squadron of Spartans found themselves sitting on their hands, doing nothing beyond waiting for their call-up to the Paintball game. Some of the Marines sat and enjoyed the Holovision by watching a movie, while Johnson was on his first bottle of beer and Kelly and Sam were playing a game of some kind on their Scrolls.

John, meanwhile, sat, leaned against a wall, watching his Spartans passing the day until the estimated hour of departure for the game. NOBLE Team said they'd stay in and around Beacon to continue patrols and that they'd alert him and the others if anything was to happen and they needed to be back ASAP, so John was left without even that as an 'out' to joining in on team RWBY, JNPR and Penny's fun.

He hummed, then pulled up his Scroll, checking the time. The internal clock of the device read 12:45 local. They needed to leave by thirteen-hundred hours if they intended reach the Paintball parlor. Their objective in that game was apparently the standard old Team Deathmatch, according to Ruby. They'd rented one of the bigger interior arenas meant to simulate urban combat for the operation. It was going to be Teams RWBY and JNPR, joined by Penny, versus BLUE Team, Cal, Daisy, Grace and Vinh.

Grace and Vinh had already changed out of their armors, switching to more comfortable training fatigues over which they draped jackets in preparation for the departure. Cal and Daisy, meanwhile, had just finished changing out of their armors. In record time, too, seeing as they'd started fifteen minutes ago and the average time a Spartan without any support from techs took to change out of the armor was a cool thirty minutes.

Paid to be the most athletic and slender out of the Spartans. And to have a buddy to help you out, he presumed. He should've probably asked one of the Spartans to help him out, too, but Cortana was there and she'd taken the time-to-change down to around the same. Fifteen, sixteen minutes on average for Chief's change-in, change-out routine. He sighed, rubbing his eyes.

His Spartans still showed signs of what Sergeant-Major Johnson called 'Shell-Shock'. An antiquated term, to be sure, but still fitting enough in this case, considering the Spartans and Marines present were all affected by it. It was a matter of how they dealt with it, though, that was brought into question. As far as he could tell, they were dealing with it just fine, but he did not want to assume anything until he was sure his Spartans are and would remain at one hundred percent.

He looked over to Jorge as he was about to pass by, then stopped the big man with a hand on his shoulder. Jorge turned to the Chief, nodded and said, "Something the matter, Chief?"

"How is Noble faring? I'd ask the Commander," He started, then looked back to see him and Kat in a chat, "But he's busy... So... How are you?"

"On what front? We could use a little more ammunition and some bits of our armors are starting to show wear and tear, but..." He paused as he saw John's inquisitive look. He sighed, then stated, "If it's on the mind front you're referring to, we're a mixed bag... Kat's been feeling up the back of her head when she thought nobody's looking, Carter's been complaining of phantom pains across his body, probably from the burns he must've sustained before... Well, before he hit that Scarab with full force... Emile's... Well, he's Emile. That one was never right in the head to begin with. Jun's just... Glad to see us... And Six...? Alice? She's not doing so well..."

"Distant?" He inquired, then got a nod from Jorge and hummed, "I noticed..."

"Full Psych Workup for her would be nice, but we don't have a shrink on stand-by," Jorge shrugged, "I've been trying to talk to her and I've also been trying to get Kurt to chat her up. She responds to Kurt better, considering the man trained her and the rest of NOBLE, but... Well, we really shouldn't expect a lot. Alice wasn't much of a talker even when we were all alive during the Battle for Reach."

"She has that stare, Jorge," John stated firmly.

"Yeah..." Jorge sighed, "John, I can't do much for her. None of us can... She's figuring it all out on her own..."

"She's one of us, Jorge," John offered, then remembered Johnson's advice from a day or so ago and stated firmly, "She doesn't have to deal with anything alone."

"... You can try talking to her," Jorge smiled. He wasn't wrong, if John thought about it. He then added, "Like it or not, John, Kurt drilled into every single SPARTAN-III from here to Onyx that you're their CO, no matter anyone else's rank and file. She'd probably answer to you if you pressed it," quite calmly, before raising a brow. John nodded, dismissed him with a quick salute, then turned to see to Noble Six.

He wanted to pull up her file on his armor before he realized that he was not wearing it. Sighing, he approached the white-haired woman as she was working on her own armor again, then cleared his throat. The girl turned, gasped, then stood to her feet, giving the Chief a snappy salute. He saluted back, then said, "At ease, Lieutenant. You're a CO... You shouldn't have to salute me."

"Sir, with all due respect, your service record says otherwise..." She replied, seemingly a hint more peppy than prior, though he still saw that blindsiding stare. He knew the Threes were more used to dealing with not having a thyroid implant, so there was that he figured they could teach them, but something about Alice felt... Eerily familiar. He hummed, then ignored it for now.

"How are you faring?" He inquired, as friendly but to-the-point as he could.

She sighed, then murmured, "Should've known this was what it's about... I'm fine, sir. Noble Team's exaggerating if they think there's something wrong with me."

"Lieutenant," He started, stern, causing her to wince, "Your team may be taking it easy on you because they are also dealing with their own mortality and revival, but I do not have the luxury of sitting back and pondering my issues. I want my team, my platoon... This force currently relinquished to my command despite there being higher-ranking Spartans within it... To run well. I'm not here to harm or warn you of anything, I just want to talk and ensure you will be at one hundred percent whenever we get deployed."

"I'll be fine, sir. Swear it," She replied calmly, though Chief saw the micro-movements, the fidgeting and even the sideways glances she cast as if she was nervous. She spoke on, trying to act the part of calm, "I'm just processing things slowly. It's how I do. Especially after big events. Back on Reach, I didn't have the luxury to. Was stuck fighting continuously, even before I died. Now that I have some free time, it all hit me like a Ghost with its speed booster on. I'll be out of this fugue in a bit and at one hundred percent if and when you need me."

"I understand..." He nodded, then hummed and narrowed his eyes, staring at the girl's mouth.

"Sir?" She raised a brow, "Something... Something on my face?"

"... You have fangs..." He observed. Alice raised a brow, dumbfound, then turned toward her helmet and stared at her visor. It reflected her image, distorted, on it. She prodded at her mouth, pulling at the corners and the lips, up and down, her heart rate growing as she saw the sharpened canines and incisors. She paused, took a step back, then breathed in and out. In and out. In and out. Three times.

Settling down, she said, "I... Take it I have Faunus traits too..."

"So it would seem," He nodded, "Though yours are far more restricted... Interesting."

"... Well, I'll go sleep this thought off if you don't mind, sir... I'll be ready to help the squad patrol in two hours," She stated. John dismissed her with a nod, then watched her depart for the rear area of the house, namely the wider bunk area. He hummed, then sighed and checked his Scroll again. It was 12:55. He whistled the seven-note all-clear tune, then watched as Sam, Kelly, Fred, Linda, Daisy and Cal all stood to their feet.

"Ready up," He ordered, "We're moving to meet teams RWBY and JNPR. Everyone else, be ready, too."

"Sir," Chorused the force. Over a dozen Marines grinned, bumped one-another with an elbow or a fist in the shoulder or laughed as they stood up. Despite some of them still having that thousand-yard stare, John saw them acting more happy, active, ready to go on a moment's notice. It was good to see that, despite it all, they found reason to be happy. He hummed, nodded approvingly, then looked to Johnson and watched him putting on his cap and grinning, a cigar between his lips again.

... He swore, if the Grimm wouldn't kill Johnson here, his smoking habits would.

After donning his own workout fatigues and bidding a quick goodbye to a Cortana wrapped up in a bit of her own work. He descended and joined his teammates and the Marines, before all of them marched out of the house, leaving only NOBLE, Carol, her co-pilot and Penny, who said she'd join them soon, just that she had to get ready. Stepping out into the midday sun, the Spartans and Marines all marched in unison toward the landing pad.

They saw the two teams already waiting for them there. Jaune seemed to freeze for a moment, asking in a whisper, "Is that what we're gonna be dealing with...?"

"No, blondie," Johnson replied calmly, "Me and my boys are gonna be backing you and your two teams up... Even the odds a bit between you and the Chief's posse."

"C'mon, Sarge. They can't be that tough," Yang offered, grinning. Johnson snorted, while the Marines, both male and female, burst into laughter at the quip, which made Yang(and just about everyone else) somewhat uneasy. Ruby, meanwhile, had noticed Sam in his training fatigues and took a moment, while Blake seemed to be the only one who didn't actually want to be there.

"Hello, everyone," John piped in, "Take it we're all ready?"

"Well," Ruby started, "There's still Penny."

"She's on her way," Sam replied, "Said she had to deal with something real quick."

Ruby nodded, then blushed, smiling at Sam. Weiss hummed, then looked around at the Spartans and the Marines, then murmured, "That home certainly isn't big enough for so many soldiers in full plated armors like those sets we see them in..." before noticing the Chief was now in a Scroll call, seemingly with headmaster Ozpin. She then wondered for a moment how the aircraft they were taking would hold all of them and turned to see the same Airship that had brought them in to Beacon making a landing. Her lips shrunk until they were but a simple white line, then she looked around, making a mental note not to wonder about anything else.

John and the teams looked back to see Penny running toward them, smiling brightly, before stopping, bowing and apologizing, "Sorry I'm late! It took a while to do what I had to do!" before everyone noticed she was still in her normal clothes. While a few wanted to question it, or even ask the Spartans to question it, it seemed insignificant enough to them for the Chief to let it slide.

Ruby, however, noticed and didn't let it slide, "Penny, ya sure you wanna... I dunno, wear that?"

Indeed, John had also noticed that teams RWBY and JNPR had taken more flexible clothes than even their own. Tank tops and baggy sweatpants, as well as sneakers and some backpacks with, presumably, changes of clothing. Penny smiled, then nodded before they all boarded the aircraft. Good thing that they were being taken with the big airship back down to Vale's fun 'residential' district areas.

As the ship landed at one of the bigger ports within the district after about thirty minutes of travel, the Marines, Spartans, Hunters and other passengers disembarked, with the Marines and Cal and Daisy engaged in small-talk with the Huntresses and Huntsmen. Penny, meanwhile, walked right beside the Chief, smiling and bobbing left and right, clearly excited at the prospect of hanging out with her friends.

John looked to her, then said, "Glad to see you're feeling better, Penny."

"Thank you, Dylan," Her smile grew brighter, "I believe I needed this outing..."

"I think we all did, Penny," Kelly remarked from behind the two, arms crossed. They looked around at the high-rises as they exited the airship port, tall buildings, home to some of the biggest hotels and residential palaces in the entire kingdom. This place was one of the high-end sections of Vale's residential area, which caused Kelly to actually ask, "Yang... Where are we going?"

"Oh, it's a pretty fancy place," The girl grinned mischievously, "Expensive, too, but I got a few contacts around that secured us a ticket."

"It that Junior guy?" Colleen asked. A hint of Yang's confidence had disappeared, instead replaced by that embarrassed blush she now wore as they advanced. Of course, Colleen would know, seeing as she was there when they met the man himself in the middle of his club in Vale. And got him to provide the UNSC the intel they required when they required it, but that was another issue.

There were hundreds of people on the streets today, a mix of the high-class that inhabited the Penthouses and villas in the residential district's fanciest sections and the normal civilians, Faunus and human alike, just strolling down the street, some smiling, others chatting, most just engaged in small-talk or sitting at cafes or in restaurants at the bases of some of the residential towers.

The Spartans and Marines, all clad in very similar fatigues, marched down the road with their fellows from Beacon, of course, so that gathered a bit of attention. Enough so that Kelly, Vinh and Cal could hear the small-talk between groups of teens and even middle-aged folks. However, she had to ignore our outright stop herself from listening to those the moment Ruby turned around and noted, "Hey... What does the 'UNSC' on your T-Shirts stand for?"

That brought the entire squad to a momentary halt, but Chief was quick to respond with "Unified National Security Council... Our version of the Ministry of Defense, if you will."

"Oh," Ruby hummed, then smiled, "Cool."

That was anticlimactic, the Spartans and Marines thought as the walk then continued unimpeded. Joining the Chief at the front, Johnson whispered, "Presume Cortana had that one ready for you?" before getting a nod from him. Of course, he forgot, the reports mentioned every single intrinsic detail. Cortana had always been thorough in her data collection and organization duties. Seemingly, doubly so for infiltration and concealment purposes really.

As the group reached the entrance to the paintball arena, they saw the sheer size of the place. Spread over several acres of land, the futuristic-looking 'Shooter Sim Arena' as it was called on the blue neon sign above, housed several actual arenas for the purpose of simulated combat, with an elevated upper area from where one could buy food, watch unfolding games and in general wait for their own turn in the game. Yang approached the holographic greeted at the counter and slid in her Scroll with all the documents necessary on it.

After the cashier gave her clearance, she smiled and motioned to the teams to follow. Entering the upper area, where they could wait for their own fight, the group saw the simulated battlefields down below. From forestry to rocky deserts, to snowy winter and even to an inactive volcano's surface. Chief had to wonder how in the hell they managed to simulate all of that, but then remembered that Dust was a thing.

"So," Yang smiled, "We're slated to enter within fifteen minutes. Suggest you boys and girls get your stuff in order now. Go to the bathroom, grab a drink or something, y'know. Also, while I know we decided the teams, let's make sure we got this right."

John nodded, "I'll take Blue Team, Cal, Daisy, Grace and Vinh."

"And we'll be fighting together against you guys," Ruby grinned, wrapped her arms around Penny and her teammates, then added "Us and team JNPR..." before giving a thumbs up to a nervous Jaune, eager Nora and calm and collected Pyrrha and Ren. The Chief and his elected team gave approving nods. While they'd be on the ground, the others would be watching from up above, gauging the two Huntsman Teams' work ethic while the Marines were probably going to do most of the heavy lifting.

"I and some of my Marines will be tagging along with you kids, like I said, to even the odds," The Sergeant-Major noted, crossing his arms to his chest.

"Aye, sir," The nine of them replied.

"This is gonna be fun!" Nora grinned, bumping her own fists together.

"It should be interesting," Pyrrha remarked, arranging her circlet, "Miss Linda. Do take it easy on us."

"Sorry, Pyrrha," The Sniper crossed her arms, "This is as much a training exercise as it is a game. We're going to test you and the Marines here."

Jaune sighed, then said, "Great... This is gonna hurt."

A few Marines shifted uneasily, aware of how Spartans usually fought even in training exercises, while Johnson hummed, then grinned. Penny, meanwhile, seemed eager, bouncing from one foot to the other next to Ruby, who was smiling. The two would expect no less from the group of elite soldiers, but both figured it was gonna be a tough game. Especially if the Marines had volunteered to be their backup.

Ruby then looked to Penny, smiled and said, "At least we get to hang out while getting our butts kicked, right?"

Penny beamed, "Yes! Oh, I cannot wait!" and eagerly took Ruby's hand, causing her to bounce around too. Weiss smiled, watching the little exchange with one hand on her own hip and another wrapped around her scroll. She hummed, then looked around and approached Yang, whispering to her and showing the Scroll. The blonde grinned at her friend, then the two bumped fists.

Yang then called out, "Okay, lads and ladies! Listen up! We just got a great idea from Weiss... We're taking a group photo, right here, right now, to commemorate our first outing with our new friends! Sad that Noble ain't around, but... Next time, right?"

"Heck yeah!" Ruby cheered, while the Spartans seemed a tad uneasy. Johnson smirked, then elbowed the Chief and showed him to settle down. To him, this was just like the photo ops on board Cairo Station. He pulled his cap off for a bit, ran a hand through his buzzcut black hair, then set the cap back on as he smiled, while the other Marines settled in and gave smiles, too, with only the Spartans somehow maintaining their more stoic looks as they gave half-smiles, mock salutes and faintly-noticeable nods.

Yang had handed her Scroll over to one of the Arena's employees to take the picture. He'd been kind enough to accept and Yang had given him a healthy ten Lien as thanks, then joined the group. Teams RWBY and JNPR struck various poses, ranging from the elegant on Weiss and Pyrrha's side, to the sublimely silly and funny on Penny, Ruby and Nora, with every other member in-between these denominators, while the Spartans and Marines each remained about as ramrod straight as they could while ensuring everyone else behind and around them was visible.

Once the picture was taken, Yang thanked the man, retrieved her phone and smiled, then said, "I'll send it to everyone," and looked to John and the others. She spoke, "You guys are about as stiff as a steel rod, seriously..."

"We're soldiers, Yang," Fred replied, crossing his arms to his chest.

"Yeah, but c'mon, it's a picture with your friends," She said, then looked to see Blake shaking her head and somehow smiling at her. She sighed, then said "Alright, alright..." and, as the number of the group was called up, Chief and Yang led them forward into the preparation area. Their Arena was Arena number three, its preset selected as an urban combat environment.

Their instructor entered the back room, a prepping area larger than one would expect. The walls were lined with lockers of equipment for the two opposing teams that would enter combat. Tight jackets with in-built pads that acted as 'armor' against the shots of the opposing team's weapon, heavy duty masks with thick plastic-glass combination visors and included communication suites, colored armbands to depict the teams and, of course, the weapons themselves.

The weapons resembled standard-issue firearms. Black-colored, ergonomic and made of a combination of steel and polymer, the weapons had a charging handle on the left side of the body, an ejection port of all things on the right and an actual mag-well at the bottom for the thick magazines that would be slotted inside. They wondered how the paint balls themselves were gonna look.

The Instructor was a twenty-something Huntress-looking gal with long, waist-length, messy azure hair and eyes. She was clad in the same uniform type as them, though lacking the armband. In its place was the logo of the place, two crossed rifles behind a bullseye-style target. She spoke to them, her voice hard, clearly formerly military in origin, "Ladies and gents, welcome to the Shooter Sim Arena. I'm your safety instructor for the day. Name's Aylin Azura, but you can call me Aya for convenience's sake and..." She looked over the Spartans and Marines, as well as the Hunters in the room, then said with a smirk, "Looks like we got military and huntsmen with us today."

"That we do, miss Aya," Yang grinned, "Hello."

"Hello to you as well. And good to know, means the instructions are gonna go quick..." She nodded, then she turned and said, "Let's start..." before hefting, first, the camouflage-pattern uniforms they were gonna be wearing, as well as the mask. She said, "This is the standard-issue padded uniform we're using for the safety of the players. It's padded at the chest and in the groin area and is more than capable of stopping the paint rounds you're going to be firing at each-other. It also comes in Navy Blue or in Urban Digital, if you fancy those."

She set it aside, then hefted the weapon they were gonna be using. She started by pulling the charging handle back so that the bolt would lock into place, then said, "These are repurposed H&K AR-200 platforms. Usually, you'll find these in the hands of mercenary units protecting Dust shipments and mines across Sanus. These ones, however, are semi-automatic only and have weaker barrels that are meant only to fire..." She lifted a plastic cartridge with a blue-colored ball with a soft, translucent outer layer, then said, "These things. Standard issue Six-point-Five millimeter air rounds loaded with Stunlock Paint Balls."

"... 'Stunlock'?" Ruby inquired, looking confused.

"Yep," Aya nodded, then said, "Active paintballs with a stun component inside, meant to temporarily disable a Huntsman or Huntress during these training exercises. They'll not only let you know who was hit with a paintball, but in case they wanna cheat and stay in the game with the hit, they'll get a nice little zap that knocks'em outta the fight, too." Then she saw the worry on the faces of the Huntsmen and offered, "Don't worry, we tested and retested these damn things countless times and they're safe as can be."

"So, don't get hit," Ruby said, grinning widely "Noted."

"Oh, no..." Jaune murmured, while the Marines seemed to be mentally preparing themselves.

"Right... Well, finals, the weapons have safeties and have modularity. Scopes and longer barrels are available for whoever wants to be a Sniper or something... One more thing about the rounds, in cause you wanna know. The plastic cartridges contain a single speck of volatile air dust crystals to propel the rounds. While they won't be as fast as normal bullets, they'll certainly sting, even with Aura... And no melee allowed. Don't want people walking out of here with black eyes," She explained, then hummed and said, "Right, team selection time. Team captains, please take a step forward."

John(Dylan) and Ruby looked to one-another, then stepped forth. Aya nodded, then extended two ribbons. A red and a blue one. Chief took the blue, while Ruby, of course, settled for the red. The instructor then hummed and said, "Alright, now, if you've picked your teams, have them step forward so we can start assigning uniforms and armbands for the battle. If not, feel free to start picking."

Ruby looked back, smiled and waved the hunters and the Marines forward. The Instructor went bug-eyed, then said, "Woah, that's one hell of a numbers discrepancy. Nine against... What's that, twenty? Thirty? That doesn't seem-"

"It's fine," John remarked, looked to the woman and nodded. She stared him square in the eye, then hummed. The woman looked the man over, noticing the stare he gave off, as well as the strength of his aura and the presence he gave off, then nodded and stepped back, letting the teams pack up their uniforms. They were onesies with padding, that's what they were.

The Spartans had elected the Digital Urban camouflage. A series of boxes and specks colored many shades of grey, from concrete to what puddles of water would look like in the cityscape. They were also handed rigs onto which they could place their ammunition, with the Spartans loading up six magazines each and slotting them into the pouches. They also elected masks with opaque, blue visors and com systems, though John knew they wouldn't be using them.

Linda had actually taken to modifying and sighting in her rifle before the battle. She'd elected to go, as specified, for the long-range extended barrel. She had thirty rounds in one mag, with six extra magazines marking up to seven total, so up to two-hundred-ten rounds of ammunition. Same for each Spartan, but for Linda, it wasn't like she was actually going to need them. One shot and one kill.

The Huntsman-Marine team was... Well, less focused.

Johnson and his Marines had standardized themselves to basic grey uniforms without camouflage, which was apparently an option. They'd also slotted in and taken six magazines full of ammo, plus a seventh in the gun itself for enough ammo to combat the Spartans. Teams RWBY and JNPR, though... Well, there was nothing standard about them, with Ruby having taken to utilizing a forest camo uniform, Yang going for desert, Blake going for black and Weiss going for a similarly-white one to Johnson and his men. Team JNPR was no better, with Nora somehow being allowed to keep her skirt visible while wearing the uniform, Ren and Pyrrha picking sensible digital grey camo and Jaune actually picking a pretty good uniform himself, though none of them had taken more than two extra magazines of ammo.

John looked to his team, then hummed. A flash came to him. They'd worn similar suits during their mission to take down Watts, except this time their weapons were non-lethal. Jaune looked over at the Spartans, then whispered to Ruby, "Is it just me, or do they look far more professional than any of us, Ruby?" to which Red Riding-Reaper turned around and hummed.

She nodded, "Yep."

"We'll be fine!" Nora shot back, "We got the numbers on them!"

"A Spartan can take on a trained platoon of soldiers and win, kid," Johnson replied, racking the bolt of the semi-automatic paintball weapon and noting with a grin, "But, hey, we're here to be cannon fodder is all."

"... Sarge," Yang eyed him, "You oughta try to comfort or lie to us a bit."

"I'm just sayin' kids... Ain't like I'm not gonna try to give'em a nice ass-whuppin' for their troubles..." He grined, then slammed the charging handle, bringing the bolt into battery and feeding the first round into the chamber of the weapon. Yang chuckled, then looked to her teammates as they, too, readied themselves, with Ruby nodding as she looked over her weapon. The Marines chorused a battle cry, 'Hoo'rah!', as they finished preparations.

The blonde slinked up to her sister, then asked suddenly, "Worried about facing Sam?"

Ruby yelped, almost squeezing the trigger of the gun. Thankful the safety was on and with a scarlet tinge to her cheeks, Ruby stomped her foot and said, "I could've shot you!" to which Yang chuckled. Of course, she'd avoid the question. Ruby sighed, planting a palm on her own forehead, then saying, "What's got you asking that all of a sudden? Seriously..." as she saw a confused Penny staring at them.

"Oh, come off it, Rubes," Yang whispered, grinning, "I saw how you were looking at him."

Ruby cast a sideways glance as her face grew as red as the armband she wore, then murmured, "We're all just friends, Yang..."

"Suuure~..." Yang teased, "You two look adorable together, though..."

"Yaaaaaaaang!" Ruby snarled, though her voice was as low and quiet as she could bring it. Yang laughed before they heard the screech of the PA system echoing across the room. All of them stopped to look up as a holographic display screen appeared in the middle of the ready-up area, showing the two teams and their emblems. A slithering Cobra for Blue Team and a wolf with its fangs bared for Red Team.

Aya's voice blared over the PA, "Alright, both teams to their assigned ready stations! We're going in in two!"

Chief and Ruby exchanged one glance and gave each-other a nod before the teams departed for the specialized elevators that would drop them into the battle arena. Suddenly, the young rose felt a pit in her stomach, even with a dozen Marines and her friends beside her. Penny, meanwhile, seemed calm, armed and combat ready as usual, while Sergeant-Major Johnson checked his weapon one final time.

A countdown started on the screen to the right. The match was a best of three, meaning whoever won either two, or all three games would be declared victor of the operation. As the countdown hit three, sound cues started playing and the team was finally shown to the urban environment. Mirroring a damaged city caught in the middle of a war, the room was massive enough to fit the halves of a collapsed skyscraper, but just small enough so that the teams at the opposite ends of the station could find each-other.

"We got a plan, Red?" Voiced Johnson as the countdown went to one...

"... Stay alive, find them first?" Ruby offered, then the buzzer rang. Johnson rolled his eyes, then nodded. He made several hand motions to his Marines, then showed Ruby to follow him around. The Marines themselves split into teams of four to match teams JNPR and RWBY in size, with Johnson taking to leading the two teams together. The two moved forth, taking cover beside the overturned husk of a car stripped of everything by fire.

Team JNPR was just across from Ruby and Johnson, taking cover behind a half-broken wall filled with bullet holes. Ahead of them and around the vehicle they took cover behind, there was the main boulevard, which was filled with rubble and dust. Johnson narrowed his eyes, looking around for any sign of movement, then ducked and said to Ruby and the others, "Can't see'em... Must've gone in for ambush positions already."

"What do we do?" Blake asked. She'd taken a carbine version of the rifle.

"Belladonna, you a good scout?" He asked, looking at her. She shrugged.

"Decent."

"Take Xiao-Long, Nikos and Valkyrie and go up the road toward one of the less damaged buildings. Keep in touch," He ordered, then poked his head above the car once again and... Well, to say Johnson nearly stained his new undies brown would be an understatement. A high-velocity ball of paint snapped by his ear and slammed into the ground, painting the floor between him and Weiss a deep red. "Damn," He swore, "And hotshot's already in position..."

Ruby looked between the cracks of the damaged car, gasping as a make-believe bullet smacked with a loud crack against the oxidized, burned aluminum hull of the car. She said, "I think I saw where the shot came from... Rightmost tower, up top... How did she get up there so fast?" in a whisper. Johnson hummed, then paused as he heard his com ring.

"Sarge!" Mendoza cried as the sound of discharging airguns echoed, "Sarge, we're being hit on the right flank! Don't fuckin' know how many! MIRA!"

"Get your shit together, Mendoza!" He ordered, "Where are you!?"

"Decrepit store, hundred feet right!" Sergeant Stacker answered fearfully. Johnson watched as his team kicked the door and fled out of the building, only two of them remaining. Stacker and Mendoza stumbled out and into cover behind the walls as two paint balls, each aimed at their backs, snapped out past them and struck the building just across the street.

Johnson balled his fist and elbowed downward, showing the two to form up and aiming his gun at the door. The two Marines bounded across the street, trying to dodge Linda's sniper fire. Or was it Cal's? It didn't matter. Mendoza took one in the hip and dropped like a sack of potatoes, convulsing on the ground as the stunlock round engaged properly, digging into the 'armor plate' and his Aura.

Stacker slid into cover beside Johnson and the girls and breathed, "Those kids ain't right..."

"Where the hell's Dubbo? Bisenti?" Sarge demanded.

"'Dead' back inside that store Sarge. Got their asses knocked out first... Couldn't even tell where the hell the shots were coming from," Stacker replied, still catching his breath. Johnson sighed deeply as the girls seemed to panic for a mo'. He looked around and waved at all the other teams, then gave several hand signals to tighten up formation. They were already down three men. Fuck if he wanted to be down the rest of'em when shit inevitably hit the fan.

"... Gotta be a fluke," Yang said, "They're soldiers, sure, but they can't be that tough."

"Kid, I've seen what the hell a Spartan can do. This shit is child's play to them," Johnson said, watching as Jenkins and his team stacked up behind team JNPR, while Nora was trying to pop off shots toward the tower. Penny was among his squad and she seemed the most curious. Certainly, she'd seen Dylan fight her one-on-one, but never had she actually, properly seen him operating with his team.

"So, what do we do, then?" Ruby asked.

"We can try sneaking through the buildings," Weiss suggested, "Though... We saw how that went..."

"I'd suggest we move soon," Blake noted, "They'll be overrunning us if we don't..."

"Right... Valkyrie, how good are you at tanking electric rounds?" Johnson asked more as a joke, the sarcasm clear in his voice. But Nora flashed him a dangerous grin and that was when Johnson remembered that, right, some of these kids had magical powers. He sighed, then said, "I ain't paid enough for this... Two teams. Rose, you take your hunter friends on the left. I'll take what's left of my boys on the right and we'll kick the door in, see what we can do to find the Spartans. Maybe take'em out.

"Sounds like a plan," Ruby nodded, smiling, "C'mon!" she then called out to the two teams. The Sergeant rolled his eyes, then motioned to his Marines to follow him. The first shot rang out from the tower, then another, then three more in quick succession. Johnson watched as two of his Marines dropped, while Nora tanked the last few shots with a grin on her face, the paint seemingly evaporating off her plate by the sixth shot the Spartans fired.

He and his mates stacked up on the door from which Stacker and the 'KIA' Mendoza had come from, then breached with one movement of the hand. Pushing inside, the man hefted his rifle up to his cheek as his vision adjusted for the darkness. He squeezed off a shot at the first shadow he saw move, then again and again. Seven rounds left the barrel of his rifle by the time he was done, but he was no closer to hitting his intended target as his remaining Marines fanned out into the store itself, taking cover behind the counter and the tall shelves.

The Spartans replied in kind from the shadows. Several rounds rang out, forcing a couple of Marines into cover as they tried to figure out where the firing had come from. The windows of the place had been boarded up, to the point it was nigh impossible to see for anyone without some kind of adaptive eye tissue. Johnson was surprised he could so much as see, but he was still having to shoot at literal shadows in the darkness.

"Can't see a damn thing, Sarge!" Stacker called out.

"Flush'em out, Stacker! Jenkins, take my left! Try not to hit any damn shelves!" Johnson barked, pushing forward and rapidly squeezing the trigger, almost seemingly firing on Full-Auto. Behind him, he felt and heard two more Marines. Rounds snapped by his ears as the Marines fired continuously, while Jenkins stopped to reload, slapping in a fresh mag and ramming the bolt into battery.

A round snapped by his ear, coming from the opposite direction, and he heard one of his own drop like a sack. He rolled forward, dragging Jenkins and Stacker to the floor and quickly switching out his own mag for a fresh one. He swore, then motioned to the right and said, "They're way back behind the counter. Rear wall..." in a murmur, just loud enough for his two men to hear him.

"What do we do?" Stacker demanded, "Do we haul ass?"

"We stand and fight, Marine," Johnson replied, "I know what a Spartan can do, but that don't mean I am lettin'em kick my ass without a fight..."

"Sir," Stacker nodded, then ducked as a round splattered across the overturned shelf they took cover behind. Stacker stumbled, then said, "I think I found Dubbo..."

"... I can't feel my ass, sarge..." Dubbo murmured from below them. Johnson snorted, then shook his head and scanned the surrounding area. His vision still hadn't properly adapted and he was sure that the Spartans were thinning out the number of Marines in the place or flanking. If they could even get one of'em, Johnson would be happy. Real happy about it, too. He wanted to prove to the Chief that he and his boys were still up to the task. He wanted to prove to himself that a lil' Shell-Shock wasn't gonna knock his sorry ass outta the fight.

He squinted, his eyes narrowing on the faint, darkened outline of an alcove beside the counter. He elbowed Stacker, then said to him and Jenkins, "Take a left and see if you can't flank'em... I'll see what I can do from here..." before watching them pause. He barked, "Move it, Marines!" and watched them scramble. He poked his rifle out over the top of the thing and blind-fired toward where the Spartans once were, before realizing the 'gunfire' had gone.

He heard two more snap-pops and the groans of Stacker and Jenkins and rolled his eyes. Dubbo commented, "Sounds like they ain't fairin' much better..."

"Shut your mouth, Dubbo..." Murmured Johnson. He stood to his feet, scanning the place, then eyed the rearmost wall once more. He focused, listening for movement all around him and stepping over Dubbo while trying not to step on him. Johnson eyed movement, a blur in the darkness, and shot twice. A wince told him he'd either scratched the Spartan, a female, or forced her to dodge.

He recognized a pincer maneuver when he saw one. Quickly, he pressed the advantage as the two Spartans split, pushing forth toward the one that was currently in front of him. He squeezed the trigger three times, paused for a second and squeezed again, trying to see if he could nab a Spartan kill before he went out, or at least keep this one pined until he got LOS on his partner.

He heard the lightest of steps behind him. Dropping to the floor and spinning about, the man fired ten times and heard seven of the shots make contact before the Spartan dropped like a brick onto the floor. Dubbo grunted, then groaned and said, "Yep, that's gonna bruise in the mornin'..." before the Sergeant-Major smirked at him. He stood to his feet and turned around...

And he took two to the chest and one to the mask, dropping to the floor and feeling his muscles tighten.

"Good work, Spartans..." He spoke, though barely, "You just got the kids left..."

"Not bad, Sergeant," He heard Kelly speak and felt her heft him up with a single hand. She approached her ally, who turned out to be Daisy, then lifted her off Dubbo and set her aside before asking, "You good, Daze?" as the girl twitched, the shock of the shots still coursing through her. Daisy looked at her, pulled her mask off, then shrugged, twitching again.

"What d'you think...?" She asked sarcastically... "Go, get the Huntsmen... Good shooting, Sarge."

"Thanks, Spartan," He replied, sitting down by Dubbo and lighting himself a cigar after removing his own mask, "You good?"

"Seven stun shots to the chest ain't particularly my definition of a good day," Daisy replied, "Accomplish your goals?"

"Yeah, one Spartan was all I really wanted to get outta this deal. Prove myself and my boys we could still kick ass and take names..."

"Good job..." She nodded.

... Outside, meanwhile, teams RWBY and JNPR, as well as Penny, found themselves pinned down by highly-accurate Sniper Fire coming from two directions. Nora had already taken one in the plate, though apparently the leaderboard didn't rule the zap as being a potential cause to knock the girl out, nor the paint currently drying on her breastplate. Nora spoke, "They sure are accurate!"

"Yeah," Ruby nodded, trying to spot where the shots were coming from while also trying not to get herself 'killed'. She ducked as a round sparked off the wall they were taking cover behind, then said, "Maybe this wasn't the best idea, Yang," as she looked around and made sure no Spartan was coming to flank them. Yang sighed, conceding silently to her sister's remark, then gasping as she saw a trio of Spartans approaching from the left.

She took cover beside a wall and started firing, stating, "Yeah, this was a horrible freaking idea..." before trying to poke out. Several bullets from the Spartans' rifles told her that was an even more horrible idea. Pinned and soon to be surrounded, teams RWBY and JNPR were spending their last few moments on this battlefield quite openly defending themselves, firing whenever they could.

"What can we do?" Blake inquired, "They have us surrounded... Weiss?"

"I can't use my glyphs here. Even if it isn't against the rules, utilizing any offensive power here would be a horrible idea for the simple fact we could kill one of them..." Weiss noted, then crawled forward and poked her rifle out. She fired at the advancing team on the right, while Blake, Ruby and Yang managed to return fire against the one on the left. Ren hummed, then looked around... And noticed the rooftop of the building to their immediate left was still ready.

He looked to Nora, whistled to get her attention, then tilted his head toward the roof.

She grinned, then nodded, while Jaune hummed and smiled, too, "That could work... See how many you can take out..."

"Shouldn't we send Pyr instead, though? She's our best shot," Nora offered.

"Gonna need a lot more than a Sniper to turn the tide here..." Ruby murmured, then looked around, trying to find an escape route. She saw Penny gently approaching her, then asked, "Sorry you got dragged into this, Penny..." then paused as she saw the emerald-eyed girl staring at the towers where the Sniper fire was coming from. Ruby asked, worried, "You good, Penny?"

"Yes... Considering targets to engage first. Closest group to us on the left is led by Fred, on the right I believe it's Samuel. However, the Snipers are a bigger priority target. They have us pinned. We can't run... Hmm..." She looked over to Nora, watching as the girl slowly began to worry while she and her team were deciding on who to send out. Before long, Penny had also realized, tracked and turned to engage Kelly as she was swinging around the corner.

She shot and forced the girl to take cover, before noting, "And now, Kelly's behind us..."

"We've been flanked?!" Nora demanded. Penny and Ruby both nodded, with Ruby approaching the girl.

"Want to take out the Snipers, don't you? We can provide cover," Ruby suggested, "Or I can provide a distraction with my speed..."

"Either could work, Ruby, my friend," Penny smiled, then racked the bolt of the weapon. She ducked under a response volley from Kelly, then said, "But I believe we may need to split up if we hope to engage them properly... Can team JNPR engage the teams approaching us?"

"And we go out searching for Dylan..." Ruby noted, changing out the magazine in her weapon while Penny gave them a nod.

"Nora!" Jaune called out, "Lead the way to the ones on the left! Let's try and pin them right back down!" and he saw the girl's grin grow wide. She stood to her feet, crying out a battle cry and surging out... Only to be pelted by seven whole magazines, including one from Linda, presumably. The girl had taken so many shots that the shade of her uniform had turned from whatever color it was to a deep teal and she twitched. Certainly, Nora could withstand a lot of electricity, but the kinetic strikes that came with it, though weak individually, were numerous enough to whittle her down to half her Aura and cause her to collapse.

She fell, belly-first, onto the ground, groaning, then said "Bad... Idea..."

"Well," Penny sighed, then poked out and started firing at the teams as they reloaded. She nodded to Ruby and her friends, then watched everyone scatter around, causing the Spartans to have to search for them, with Ruby leaving a trail of petals behind her as she surged forward, utilizing her powers to advance between the members of the Spartan teams and keep them busy.

Penny, meanwhile, resettled and tried to take aim for one of the Snipers. A round caused her to duck, but she tracked its trajectory and quickly made the calculations through liberal use of her own personalized central processing unit. Thanks to Father for giving her the best Atlas had in terms of computer technology in mind, the girl scoped in the Sniper and snapped off a shot while the teams were preoccupied with Ruby and the others.

Waiting for half a second, Penny ascertained that she had, in fact, hit Linda. Even her calculations, revised and revised again, told her that was a low enough probability of hitting, but she was glad she did hit in the end. Next, came focusing on the other Spartans, but that proved to be difficult. When Kelly reappeared around the corner, she'd surprised Jaune and taken him out of the fight with one round to the chest, while Pyrrha was being fired at from both sides. The Hoplite punched through a boarded-up window into an apartment complex's lobby and trained her rifle on the window, but her reaction was just too slow for Kelly, who put her down with two stunlock rounds to the chest and one to the head.

She then turned to Penny, but found herself needing to take cover as Yang and Blake came in from the left, moving together and firing at the Spartan to keep her pinned. Blake split off to the left, even as tired as she was, and managed to barely scrape Kelly's shoulder with a round before catching two of her own. Penny took this opportunity and zapped Kelly on the spot with a round straight to the right breast, causing the girl to wince as she collapsed. Spartans were more resilient to shocks, it seemed, as Kelly had only dropped to her knees due to the bruising on the soft tissue more than the shock, though it, too, had an effect.

Yang looked to Penny, grinned, then gave her the 'OK' gesture before she and Blake were taken out by the second sniper and both dropped like bags of bricks thrown from the second floor of an apartment complex. Penny did not know why she made that comparison, exactly, but she knew it was accurate. It seemed, however, that Cal had repositioned and Ruby was growing tired, seeing as she slowed down.

Once Ruby came out of her powers and tried to run for her, breathing heavily all the while, two small pincer teams of Spartans, plus Dylan and Cal, focused on her, dropping her to the floor right in front of Penny. Ruby groaned, convulsing every once in a while thanks to the shocks, then whined out a dragged-out, "whyyyyyyyyyyyy..." as she lay on her belly.

Penny sighed, watching as Ren, too, was dropped by the Sniper when he tried to outflank the converging teams of Spartans. Vinh and Grace took her right, while Fred, Sam and John took the left. She smiled, then tossed away her weapon and raised her hands, stating, "I surrender," well aware of the effect a single Stunlock round would have on her. Dylan and his team lowered their weapons and the buzzer sounded with a cheerful tune while the big holo-screen up top flashed and counted one win for BLUE Team.

"Not a bad fight..." Dylan admitted as he approached Penny.

She smiled, "It was very interesting. And I think I've learned a bit about your team," before she gasped and rushed toward Ruby to help her. The Spartan hummed, then gave a nod to his team as they each departed to assist their knocked-out teammates. The man approached Penny, then helped her turn Ruby over onto her back. The little Red Riding Hood analogue of the team hummed.

"... Haha..." Ruby then chuckled, then smiled at the two, stating, "That was pretty fun..."

"It was," The two nodded.

"You had a hint of tactics near the end, there," Sam complimented, lifting her into a seating position. She blushed, then nodded in thanks. Sam looked to 'Dylan', then asked, "Guess we're taking a break and going in after a bit?"

"Yep..." Yang groaned from behind them as she was being helped up by a groggy Nora, "We got meals and everything paid for..."

Chief sighed, going to help the others, while Penny stared at them. Her mind wandered for a moment as she looked between the Chief and his compatriots, then smiled. Her processors reminded her of the development from earlier today and she realized she still needed a plan of action to keep the Chief from finding out what had occurred just before she, too, departed to join them on their endeavor to have fun.

... Earlier that day...

Penny had had to make up her mind, finally. The General pressed her in regards to the scanning of the Master Chief's armor. He could have elected any other piece, any other set of armor from among the Spartans, but chose Chief's specifically for some reason or another. She sighed, feeling one of her hidden pockets for the device she was supposed to utilize to provide the scan.

She pulled it out. A small, compact design with only two knobs for adjusting scan intensity and scan size, meaning she could scan something as small as a pixel on a display screen if she wanted to. Right now, though, she'd set it to the specific sizes of the Spartan's armor as she saw it from the initial optical scans. So, entering Dylan's room, the girl readied the scanning device. She saw the armor standing tall on its reinforced stand, a beast of unknown alloys and systems with an undersuit made of an unfamiliar material.

She started up the scanner. Its holographic screen powered up and it whirred to life. She approached the armor pensively, her fingers tightly wrapped around the device. She made sure the door was closed shut behind her, then stepped right in front of the armor and began the scan from the top of the helmet and going down. Gently, slowly and meticulously, Penny scanned every inch of the armor until the midpoint of the helmet. Something flashed.

"Huh...?" She quirked a brow up at that, then watched as the scanner suddenly failed. An electrical current surged through the device, to which Penny immediately dropped it and took a step back, staggered. She then gasped, watching as, from the base of the holographic computer on the desk, pixels flashed and danced before its own holo-display matrix was forced to output its light outward.

A deep blue avatar formed, that of a beautiful young woman. She looked to Penny with a mix of surprise, anger and awe in her eyes, but her face remained impassive, cold as the alloys that made up the Chief's armor. She inquired, "What do you think you're doing...?" her voice bearing wrath, anger and the faintest traces of compassion. Penny stared, bug-eyed, at her.

"... I..." She started, "I... Had orders..."

The... Whatever she was... She paused for a moment ,then sighed, "Of course... General Ironwood put you up to this, then?"

"... I..." Penny made herself as small a target as she could, "I'm..."

From anger, the woman's voice fully turned to compassion as she stated, "Orders are orders... Though, I hope the good general doesn't believe I'll let that slide... Penny Polendina."

"Y-You know me? You're... You're an AI..." Penny observed, "Aren't you?"

"Yes," She nodded, "My name is Cortana... I'm Chief's AI companion."

"That's... Amazing..." Penny whispered, half-surprised, half fearful, which was understandable...

Cortana then offered, "Do you know how dangerous this armor is, Penny? Especially for someone that's not augmented to handle it."

Penny shook her head and the AI sighed. Of course not... She sent a few messages to Penny's Scroll. It was somewhat highly-classified, but may she be damned. Who was going to stop her anyhow? There was no ONI agent within a thousand light-years of Remnant if her predictions were correct. She watched Penny watch the videos of Doctor Halsey talking about the armor, how it would kill anyone because of the incredibly-fast reaction time, then said, "I'm afraid I can't let you give any data to the General... Specifically for that reason."

"I..." Penny sighed, then nodded, "I understand..." then she paused for a moment and realized, her face growing grim, "Oh, Gods! Please, please, please, do not tell the Chief of this! He'll certainly be angry..." and then Cortana saw her avert her gaze, sadness in those two emerald eyes of hers, "At the General... And at me... I don't... I don't want that..."

Cortana sighed, then smiled and said, "Ain't you a clever AI, too...?" causing Penny to gasp. Cortana raised a hand and said, "Don't worry. I realized it the moment the suit sensors picked you up... I just haven't told the Chief because I figured it'd be better if you did so yourself..." Then she took pause, crossing her arms to her chest, "But now you have another secret to keep. Trying to get into his armor without permission... And I can't promise you I'll keep that secret from him."

"I understand..." She sighed, then took a moment to think. What could Penny Polendina do...?

Cortana hummed, "I said I can't promise you, Penny... Not that I won't try."

"... You would..." She looked to the AI once more and, upon receiving a smile, she beamed back. She spoke quickly, "Oh, thank you, thank you, thankyou!" Before bowing to Cortana and realizing, "Wait... What can I do to help you for this? I think... Wait, I... I know!" She grinned, "I can get you a body!"

Cortana staggered, "I'm sorry, what?"

"Yes! My father, he's a roboticist! He built me! He can build you a body as well!" She beamed, "What do you say? It's the least I can do for... This entire mess..."

... A body...? If even for a moment, Cortana wanted to entertain the idea and Penny saw that. She smiled at the AI, clearly leaving herself open to Cortana's reprisals, her anger, even her shouting. But no, Cortana wondered. IF Penny told the truth and her father was the man that created her frame, then perhaps... She hummed, checking Penny's specs one more time, then she smiled, "You sure he can do this?"

"Positive."

"... Alright..."

Both AIs smiled at one-another, then Penny said, "Very well. Let's begin the transfer... I'll send a message to father to expect you over our secure connection, so hang on!" She spoke, then looked over to the computer, ran to it and, despite Cortana's first protests, she typed in the transmit coordinates and the link for the secure RemNet connection. She hit send and the AI vanished. Penny smiled.

... Then she realized...

Chief. He'd know.

Chapter Text

While he had to admit the game had been fun, the Chief could not wait to get back to his usual work. Upon their return, the Spartans and Marines had all travelled back to their accommodations, leaving teams RWBY and JNPR to rest their sore muscles after the Spartans had also had a round to play against each-other. Chief's team barely topped the leaderboard, but that was because Sam had outflanked Fred's snipers and taken them out before Fred had a chance to use them to their fullest potential.

He breathed a sigh, noticing NOBLE Team was just returning from their patrol as well. He blinked as he entered his room, then let out a deep sigh. He was so used to being forever-the-active Master Chief that he forgot how strange it was to just be able to sit back and relax. It was, admittedly, why he wanted to get back to figuring out the White Fang before the situation got even worse. He knew and remembered how Insurgents and groups like them operated.

He pulled Caliburn out from beneath the bed and gave the weapon a once-over after he removed it from the box that contained it. He hummed, setting the weapon aside on his bed and turning to his armor. He could go for a patrol to clear his head. Chat with Cortana on the way, seeing as she was still around. He sighed, then started donning the kit. In record time, beating even his last one. Last thing on was the helmet.

As he slid it on and it connected with his neural lace, something felt eerily empty. There was no frozen chill, no sensation of a second presence in his mind. He paused, then whispered, "Cortana?" as he slid the last piece of the kit, his weapon, on his back. He awaited a response, but found none within five seconds. He spoke again, "Cortana," his voice firm. If she was pulling a prank on him... Another five seconds. He spoke again, "Cortana, respond," as if ordering her would help.

He narrowed his eyes, then slid his hand to the back of his helmet and removed the crystalline chip containing his AI partner. He paused, eyes suddenly shooting wide open as he locked onto the device. The faint blue glow he had grown so accustomed to seeing in the transparent middle that stored the AI's neural matrix was gone. Cortana was gone. His heart stopped, a feeling the Spartans had rarely felt, as he slid the chip back into place and drew his Scroll.

He checked the messages and data streams that he knew she'd have connected to, scanning them and running through the data with programs she had specifically left behind as executables in the communication device's back-access and settings. He thumbed it, distraught for the first time in forever as he could see no trace of the girl. He slid the item into one of the pouches on his belt, then thumbed the com and set it to BLUE Team's common frequency. He transmitted the familiar tune of Olly Olly Oxen Free, but rapidly. A distress call.

Kelly, Fred, Sam and Linda all burst into his room moments later, each with their sidearm drawn. Fred stepped up, holstering his pistol and asking, "What's the situation, Chief? We got the ping on our Scrolls..." before he paused as he saw the Chief pull the AI containment device out again and lift it, showing them that the blue glow was gone. Fred gave one motion of the hand and Sam shut the door behind them. Mister Ellsworth then asked, "She's gone?"

"Missing," John nodded, "I don't know for how long. I've been here for the past ten minutes trying to figure out where she went..."

"This ain't good," Kelly remarked, holstering her own sidearm as she approached, "This is one hell of a security breach..."

"Maybe she got nicked when accessing the CCTS Network again," Sam offered, though he, too, was uneasy. John had taken time a while back to tell him how closely the Spartan and the AI had come to operate and how they depended on each-other, even during Cortana's Rampancy back on Requiem and on the Second Battle for Earth aboard the Mantle's Approach. The AI had split herself off so many times...

"She'd have left a note if she went snooping, or wouldn't have gotten caught..." Linda noted, arms crossed. "I don't like this, Chief... Could there have been a security breach? Atlas operatives? General Ironwood looked fairly interested in our equipment, even if the man wasn't saying," She then stated. Indeed, general Ironwood had shown an interest in the MJOLNIR armor from the looks he had given the Chief at first, then every other SPARTAN-II that had arrived.

"Penny is an Atlas Liaison," Kelly suggested, then murmured almost apologetically to Penny, "Though I doubt that girl would do anything like this..."

"She's a suspect, no matter our personal feelings," John sighed. He disliked pinning this on Penny, seeing as the girl had been nothing but sunshine and smiles since he'd met her. She'd helped him acclimatize to Beacon. It still didn't spare her. She was an asset to Ironwood, that much had been clear when she was sent their way by the man himself. She was either the best infiltrator the man had, or an honest-to-god kindhearted girl roped into being military by belonging to Atlas's academy...

He sighed deeply. God, he hated this. Speculation was no good. He stated firmly, "There's no point in speculating right now. When we get concrete evidence, we'll see what we do, but for now? The information that Cortana's missing doesn't leave this house. You can tell Johnson, Kurt and the others, but keep it out of earshot of Penny. They'll help with the search as we make up patrol patterns... Some of us will need to be in the CCTS every waking hour of the day. Select our tech experts. Get Noble Two in on first shift, see if she can't help. Cal was good with tech, not just with sniping. She takes second shift with another team."

"I can take third shift with Jorge," Fred offered, "I'm gonna have to drag Blake along for it, though."

"Gonna be a problem?" John raised a brow. Fred shook his head and Chief replied, "Good. Noble Six patrols with me now. Tell her to armor up. Let's get moving. The faster we find her, the faster we can re-secure our com lines and everything else. The others are to set up on normal patrol duties as they see fit, but keep their eyes and ears open for anything that even remotely hints at Cortana's location. Let's get to it, Spartans. We're burning sunshine..." and he tightened the last few bolts on the Armor with a specialized tool.

"Sir," The four Spartans in the room nodded and departed. Sam, however, halted before he left through the door. He turned to the Chief and said to him, "Don't worry. We'll find her..." and he smiled. John nodded. He knew they would find her. They were the best damn force on Remnant, both in terms of military prowess and deduction skills, especially with people like Joshua and Kurt around.

He breathed in the recycled air of his armor, tasting the faint scent of the titanium, then made a mental note to check up on the scrubbers. He stepped outside his room minutes later and watched as Johnson turned toward him. The man, after clearly having been briefed by the others, gave Chief a nod and flashed him a pearly-white grin. Surprising, but not unwelcome.

The Spartan descended, turning to the right to see Six had joined him, donning her full RECON kit, as well as full mags for her MA37K assault rifle and her M6G. The Chief and the girl nodded to one-another, then departed for their security op. She saluted and the Chief saluted back, then said, "Like I said, Lieutenant, there's no need..." to which she hummed. The pair then departed the house and went on their patrol route.

They'd go around the dorms, cut back around the mess hall and then hit the Library to ensure proper coverage of the wide outer area. The others would pick out their targets based on where they saw Chief and his fellow Hyper-Lethal Vector going. He'd taken time to read her censored file. What little he got out of it painted her as nothing more than a weapons system, rather than a Spartan.

He didn't see any of his Spartans as such. They were fellow soldiers. And NOBLE had become part of his force not too long ago. They'd been the ones to protect the Autumn when it was taking off from the Aszod Break Yards, they were the ones who fought tooth and nail for Reach and they were the ones who died alongside other Spartans on it. Jorge had been kind enough to recount everything for them in written form and the Chief had gone through it.

Still, he couldn't read Six. Alice. She was a mystery. He could usually read Spartans, tell what their intentions and skills were. Admittedly, he hadn't operated on any kind of mission with her beyond that one time, if he recalled correctly, where they took down Torchwick's stolen Paladin. Still, she seemed reliable and skilled enough, if Carol Rawley was to be believed. Foe Hammer had given them information in regards to her and her co-pilot's timely rescue by NOBLE.

Just as he was about to start talking to the Lieutenant, to ask her her own opinion on the matter at hand, the two stopped as they heard the yowl of a little creature nearby. Confused, the two Spartans turned to the left, toward an alleyway between Beacon's First and Second-Year Dormitories. The Chief hummed, then looked to see Alice's hand hovering over her gun. Raising his hand to show her to stay calm, the Spartan approached the corner that led into the dark alley carefully.

Peering past it as slowly and carefully as he could, he saw nothing but a dead-end with two 'backdoors' into the dorms, as well as a pair of dumpsters sat by each door. He hummed, then walked forward. And he heard the noise again. From below him, this time. He gazed down, to see... Well, what one would call a grey ball of fur if they didn't have the visual acuity of a SPARTAN.

In front of the Chief's boot(and standing at about a quarter the size) sat a malnourished grey animal with small ears and blue eyes, the eyes themselves looking up at him and widening from a pair of slits. It whined, slowly backing away on its four tiny legs. It bowed its head and felt itself backed into a corner, looking up at the superhuman giant that must've seemed like a monster. Alice looked past the Chief, then hummed.

"... What is that...?" Doing here, Chief had wanted to ask, but barely got out the first half of the sentence. If Alice didn't know better...

"... Uh, sir? You serious?" The S-III inquired just to be sure, "It's... A kitten..."

"I know, Lieutenant," The Chief stated, his voice hardy as he was taking a knee, "It's... Small."

"Yes, well... Kittens generally are small, sir," The girl replied, looking at it. She hummed as she saw it cover its eyes with its two front paws, its hind ones curled up beneath its tiny body and its tail wrapped around them. Calmly, the Lieutenant stated, "It's scared... Of us... And clearly hungry," as a few thoughts ran through her mind in regards to what to do. She paused, however, when she saw the unthinkably weird.

The Master Chief retrieved a half-eaten ration bar out of his pocket. It was thankfully a harmless food for the kitten. Meat and congealed fat had been packed alongside nutrients into an edible, if slightly tasteless bar of food meant to withstand every type of environment, temperature and duration of operation the SPARTANs would endure. UNSC wartime ration packs weren't the most visually appealing... But they had the stuff needed to survive. That was what mattered.

"I... Didn't know you carry half-eaten food with you, sir..." The woman stated, surprised.

"These things don't go bad quick enough for me to consider throwing it away..." He replied calmly, extending the unpacked meat paddy toward the creature. It shrunk and shied, but sniffed the air and sprung up a moment later. Dashing forward as fast as its spindly little legs could hold it, it bit into the packed meat with its front teeth and the tiny incisors, digging into the meat as quickly as Chief could unpack the thing.

It began to... Emanate a weirdly soothing sound the two Spartans had forgotten as it ate. It purred, eating the food it had been given in several rapid bites, which left the Chief with an empty tin foil which he threw in the nearby dumpster. He pulled out his canteen, uncapped it and poured some water into the cap while Alice regarded the gentle care with which the man moved. She couldn't contain herself, so she was thankful to remember she still had her helmet as she actually cracked a smile when the kitten licked up the water. Chief poured another couple of caps before stopping, disinfecting the thing that kept his water from spilling and capping the canteen again.

He stood to his feet, then looked to the Lieutenant and said, "Let's move. We've lost a few minutes of our patrol, so we'll have to move fast."

"Sir," She nodded, the smile fading quickly as she remembered their job. The two turned to leave, managing to get a couple of steps away before they heard the yowl of the little kitten again. Both of them turned to see it, now healthy and on its four paws. It had followed them and was looking up at both of them. Chief hummed, then both turned and walked away again, focusing on their patrol. A few feet later, another yowl. Both turned to see the kitten had followed them over.

"... Lieutenant. It's following us," Chief stated rather bluntly.

Alice snorted, then said, "It is, sir... If we keep moving, it should lose interest..."

"Mhm..." John nodded, then both left. Another few feet, a third yowl. This time the Spartans didn't have time to turn around before the kitten approached the Chief. Standing on its hind paws while its front ones settled onto the right boot of his MJOLNIR suit, the kitten looked up at the Chief with the saddest pair of eyes the Spartan had ever seen. Alice brought a hand up to where her mouth would be, trying to stifle a laugh. How was this happening?

Chief bent down and picked the kitten up gently by the scruff of its neck. It looked at him, then tilted its head, curious and sad at the same time, it seemed. The Spartan blinked. He knew he had a mission to find Cortana, but for some reason, he felt like a knife was stabbing into his heart at the thought of leaving the little creature alone. He murmured, "I'm not qualified for this..."

It meowed at him and he narrowed his lips. With a sigh, he said, "I'm afraid it won't leave us alone, Lieutenant."

"Doesn't look like it will... Sir..." Alice was holding in an actual laugh. It'd been ages since she was able to laugh, but here she was. Spartan B312, ONI's personal grim reaper, was about to burst laughing at her CO. She stated, "Maybe we could take it with us until we find a proper shelter for it, sir... It can do no harm. Look at the size of it, it's barely the size of your thumb."

"... Hmm..." Chief sighed. He deactivated his shield emitters just so he wouldn't fry the creature, then did the most surprising thing yet. He put it on his shoulder. The panels of the plate were just close enough to each-other that it wouldn't fall and could still move around, but that it wouldn't impede Chief's range of motion with his head. So, the Spartans now marched down their intended patrol path...

With the Chief having a cat on his shoulder...

It meowed again, right into the Chief's helmet auditive sensor. Then, it curled up in a ball and laid down on the flat point between the armor plates and started purring. Alice hummed, then stated, "It seems to like you, sir..." as they continued. Chief had just gotten stuck with a cat while he wanted to find Cortana. It was not an ideal situation, but at the very least it would not get worse.

The Spartans had thoroughly searched every inch of their patrol path, including parsing every damn terminal in the library to make sure Cortana hadn't hidden herself in them. All while the cat had fallen asleep, not even bothered by the seemingly sudden movements of the Spartans while they searched. It'd garnered a few looks of surprise and a few squeals and smiles from the girls around them, but Chief was none too bothered by it.

"... Chief, what the hell is that on your shoulder?" Johnson asked the moment they walked in. While one would think the Sergeant-Major was angry or something, considering the phrase he'd used, the man was, in fact, just surprised. A few of the female Marines swooned the moment they saw the little kitten on Chief's shoulder yawn and wake up with the weirdest case of cat bedhead anyone had ever seen... Like the Cat had become electrified. Its fur had puffed out wildly.

Chief watched as Alice excused herself and left for their section of the makeshift armory...

He just wanted to find Cortana.

Atlas

Cortana had travelled through the data streams of the CCTS and into a secured connection that she could barely do anything to in time. To leave a trail or something, or at least let the Chief know she was fine, had been out of the question the moment Penny had hit the 'SEND' button on her and thrown her halfway across the world. Still, she'd arrived in record time, damn near eight-point-five miliseconds from her POV. Still, the internal clock of the machine she was in pointed out it had been a few hours until she fully 'awoke'.

Admittedly, Cortana had shut down most of her processing power and subsystems to ensure her travel was as smooth and undetectable as possible. To the eyes of any Atlas-built tech, it would've seemed like another speck of random data travelling through their secure channels. Which, while weird in and of itself, would not have attracted as much suspicion as it probably should have. Or it could draw none at all as the codes she was sent through with were Penny's ID Codes, Cortana remembered.

She 'yawned', a general reaction to an AI entering 'sleep' mode by shutting down a multitude of sub-systems. Each system was individually woken up by the AI as she examined the construction of her surroundings now. Aside from the standard and admittedly bland Atlas cyberspace, the AI could see the bland white panel walls, recessed lights and clean-room-like materials out of which the room was built. Around the terminal she ended up in, there were a series of tools for machine construction and upgrading, a pair of pods in the far left corner, an operating table of some kind in the middle, right in front of her and a desk to the far right.

"... Well, this is eerily familiar..." The AI remarked in a murmur, then took some of the processing power of the holographic display to project herself to the right of the screen she was viewing the details in the place through. She crossed her arms to her chest now that she had them, then scanned her surroundings. She paused as she heard the faint whirr of a mechanical item.

She let out a gasp as she saw an elderly man moving toward her. He was a bit on the plus side, with freckles on his cheeks, darker skin and a grey beard like that of the representative fictional man of the celebratory period of Christmas:Santa. The man pushed a pair of glasses up onto his thicker nose, then smiled and spoke, his voice warm and welcoming, "Hello! You must be that friend Penny sent me a message for!"

"... Hello...?" Cortana paused. While nominally, the man was friendly enough, he was wearing the white shirt and pants of an Atlas technician, "Are you okay?"

"What do you-" he paused, then he looked down at himself and let out a mirthful laugh, "Oh, this old thing!" and he knocked on the four-legged robot chair's left armrest. He smiled and said, "I'm fine, miss Cortana. You don't need to worry."

"Right..." Cortana hummed, then lowered her hands to her sides, "I take it Penny managed to send a message before I arrived?"

"Indeed," The man nodded as he approached the table, which Cortana had just realized was a tad too thick all around to be just a table. He set his hand onto the side of the device and a holo-light flashed. He spoke as billows of steam pushed their way out of the box, temporarily obscuring the AI's vision, "I was able to start preparations for a body already!"

"... Oh, Penny was really thorough..." The AI stated.

"That's my girl," The man declared with a smile, then paused and said, "Oh, where are my manners? I'm Pietro Polendina... Penny's... I guess you AI would give us the title 'creator', but I prefer 'father'."

Cortana couldn't help but smile. The title seemed to fit the man better than creator, considering the way he acted. She then gazed down as the smoke had cleared, to see the actual body being built. An endoskeletal structure with a face molded to resemble hers sat in the tank, submerged in a clear liquid and attached to several ports in the pod. Lights silhouetted the frame of the machine and Cortana could see the artificial muscle structures still being constructed by some form of nanomachinery and solidifying around the alloy frame of the endoskeleton. Visual and auditive sensors, her eyes and ears, had also been installed already and she'd clearly received a slight boost in height. She'd be a tall woman, that was for sure...

"Wow..." The AI murmured, "Looking closer at the intricacies of the design, you've... Basically created an artificial human..." and then she noticed the extras. Various 'organs' meant to simulate certain bodily functions. She hummed, then parsed through the data as she linked to the pod's systems. She asked, "Am I a testbed for future improvements to Penny's frame?"

"Clever," Pietro smiled, "Yes, I figured I should try to see if I can't... Help Penny... The poor girl doesn't need to eat or drink, so she doesn't exactly 'blend in well' with the people, as general Ironwood put it. She can simulate the acts of eating, but it doesn't help much when people decide to look into it. These artificial organs will act as an added bonus that processes the food into extra fuel for a secondary bio-reactor within the systems, keeping the batteries of the android body charged even if the main reactor itself has consumed all the Dust it has in store... Which is, admittedly, a good failsafe to have if we didn't load reactors to capacity here."

Cortana hummed, cupping her own chin with her hand and scratching her chin. She accessed some of the classified files on the PENNY android project and pulled up schematics for the reactors and their component Dust power cells. Thoroughly, the AI checked up data piece after data piece, then murmured, "Certainly could prove beneficial to upgrade the component Dust... Professor Polendina, right?"

"It's just Pietro for friends of Penny's, dear," The man replied, smiling. He was on another console and had closed the 'casket' in which Cortana's future artificial body resided. She smiled, then pulled up a series of possible improvements. Hmm. The Dust composition meant to provide energy used a combination of volatile electric Dust crystals and a speck of gravity Dust to keep the entire mixture together... With a few mods...

She spoke, rather proud of herself, "Based on mathematical equations that take into account the volatility of the Dust types being combined to provide energy through the Dust reactors in the heart of all PENNY-type android bodies, I'd suggest these improvements to the composition. It should reduce volatility to much more acceptable levels than even now. It'll also boost efficiency of the reactor by twelve-point-five percent. I could go for one that boosts the power by twenty-point-six percent, but that'd be too volatile for even me to put into my body, much less Penny's. Here, I'll send the relevant data."

She quickly 'mailed' the calculations she'd made in milliseconds to the Professor's systems. The man gave a once-over of the data. A few added specks of Dust to provide the mixture's stability, not to mention a pair of chemical compounds known to interact well with all kinds of Dust. It'd caused the mixture required to grow in price, but it was still decently cheap, considering... Pietro whistled, "Did Penny not know about your capabilities, miss Cortana? Because these calculations are accurate to the milliliter... And surprisingly more thorough in regards to heat-to-energy conversion offset calculations than even one of my friends who works in the Energy department of Atlas could've made..."

Cortana snorted, "I'm just decent at math, prof."

"You undersell your capabilities," The man smiled, "Penny has certainly made good friends."

Cortana chuckled. He wasn't particularly wrong about them being friends, though in this case it was more through John's own interactions with Penny than by her own choice. She sighed, then said, "Well, let's get to work... I didn't get to leave my friends and handler a note to tell them I'll be fine and if I try to ping one their way from here, Atlas may find me no matter what countermeasures I put into place."

"I agree," The man nodded, "We wouldn't want your comrades worrying."

The AI and the Doctor began their work in earnest, with Cortana already making alterations to the body as she saw fit. Certainly, much of the artificial organs were to later be used as prosthetics for any man or woman of the Atlas military that had survived the damage long enough to be recovered and brought in for surgeries that could save their lives. The material that the organs were made of was a mix of STEM cells(meant to ensure that a human or Faunus body wouldn't reject them) and various artificial components meant to replicate the original's functions.

Sure, Cortana knew her 'kidneys' were filters for the coolant in the reactor that would just re-cycle the thing through into her system rather than give the requirement for them to be eliminated and that her artificial stomach could easily process everything organic down to the bone of the item that she ate. What she didn't expect, however, was for doc Polendina to include a tongue with artificial taste sensors.

It was going to be an interesting experience. Cortana expected as much, anyway. But it still wasn't going to be a real body...

... Meanwhile, in Mantle, Doctor Halsey had luckily found the clinic empty enough to shelter within. She had sat herself down in the waiting room. The lights inside had been turned off, of course, seeing as there was no occupant to speak of inside. She breathed in and out, drawing her tablet from her pocket and looking through the data she had again. She didn't know what caused the transfer, but something told her she'd find the answers on this planet.

She started typing out several theories as she warmed up in the confines of the building. They must've been somewhere in the far north of the planet if it was this damn cold outside. She hummed, then sighed. She wasn't going to get anything from just speculating. She needed to get back out, find information, data, anything to tell her where she was and how she'd gotten here, but without some form of backing or aid from a wider governmental organization... Perhaps she could ask the higher-ups of this 'kingdom', as she'd heard it called in passing. Atlas.

She wondered if it was even worth trying, however. Tightening the labcoat around her form to ensure she had at least some extra layer of protection between her and the biting cold, she exited the clinic again, looking out into the wider, bustling streets. Pushing her glasses to the top of her nose, she scanned the place for any sort of store or anything to ask for directions.

She only stopped as she saw uniformed men approaching her from the right...

And they were looking right at her.

Oh, wonderful...

Chapter Text

Carter marched into the CCTS, his weapon strapped to his back as he and Kat helped the Chief search for Cortana. The man stood guard beside his 2iC as she tapped in commands on the holographic terminal they were accessing-one of the farthest away from prying eyes. She murmured something to herself behind the helmet, then hummed and looked to Carter and shrugged.

"Nothing?" He asked, crossing his arms.

"Like Chief said, looks like she just up and vanished," Kat replied, standing to her feet and closing the terminal after wiping the access log in the last hour. Outside, the sun began to set. The two had been in high gear for the better part of the day, too, helping the search and rescue of their AI companion. Kat sighed, taking her helmet off and rubbing her eyes with her human hand, "She didn't even leave a trail we could follow..."

"If all else fails, we go check with Penny," The man stated, then inquired with concern behind his words, "Are you okay?"

"Headache," She replied with a grunt. Carter narrowed his lips, removing his helmet and turning to face her. There was concern behind every move as he looked over the girl. Sure, whatever brought them here kept the memories of their untimely demises. Carter himself still felt the prickles of heat from his suicide run against that Scarab near the Aszod Break Yards. He still had to keep it together for his team.

He set a hand on her shoulder, then said, "Let's get you some rest."

"I'll be fine..." She murmured, "Just have to take an aspirin back at home..." then she scoffed and snorted, "Who'd have known...? The great Catherine-B320, brought down by a meager headache..."

"Let's remember what's causing that headache," He replied, crossing his arms. She smirked, then nodded as the pain began its sharp decline. She had become accustomed to it, so she found it less and less painfully annoying whenever it happened. Sliding her helmet back onto her head just as Carter did the same, the two departed the tower. He spoke, probably trying to take her attention away from the middling pain she now felt, "Did you see the cat Chief brought in?"

Kat giggled, "Yeah. Wonder what he's gonna name it."

"Knowing the man, he'll have picked something for it by the time we finish our patrol route," He replied as they marched toward their home. The duo of young Spartan-IIIs garnered a few glances of surprise once more, but their new classmates had seemingly gotten used to them, with or without armor. Some waved, others gave nods and thumbs-ups as greetings, while several tended to just outright let them do their thing.

"So, what's your take on this, Commander?" She asked, looking to him. He looked back at her, a hint surprised, then he gazed back down the road. She clarified, "I meant on our revival. I didn't get to ask you. We were all too worried about Alice," and she thought for a moment. Truly, the entire team had been so immersed in the problem with Alice that a lot of them were barely registering their own issues.

She winced. That was probably not particularly healthy, but still, better than wallowing alone in self-pity, she guessed. The two entered the building, then looked to him and said, "You still haven't answered, Carter... Are you alright?" as she saw him staring out into nothingness. The man removed his helmet, setting it on the stand first, then nodded. Kat narrowed her lips. She knew that stare. He wasn't okay.

They saw Alice then, already tending to her kit as she seemed to enjoy doing. She offered a curt nod to them, then turned back to seemingly trying to disassemble a targeting sensor from her helmet so she could safely recalibrate it. Meanwhile, Kurt tended to the only SPI suit currently within the UNSC's limited armory, only turning to face Carter and Kat. He stood to his feet and approached them, asking, "You two alright?"

"Yessir," Both of them nodded.

"Good. First search gone smoothly?" He then inquired.

"As smoothly as it could, honestly," Carter sighed, "Still not a sign of her."

"It's barely the first day of searches... We'll find her," Kurt offered, then turned to the SPI suit again as the kids followed. He checked the suit's specialized chameleon circuit, then said, "Chief wants me to make a run-around within Vale's borders. Scout out other possible White Fang locations... Y'know, while searching for Cortana," and he shrugged. The two Spartan-IIIs nodded understandingly, to which Kurt dismissed them with a nod and said, "You kids ever need someone to talk to, we're all here..."

"All due respect, sir, I'd tell that to Alice," Kat noted, tilting her head to their Hyper-lethal Vector. Kurt nodded knowingly, a frown on his face, then turned back to work. The two moved to the back of the room, starting to disassemble their armors as Marines arrived with freshly-cooked food for them. Giving them quick thanks, Carter hummed as he looked at the plated stuff. Actual fresh veggies, fries and meats just off the grill.

Kat whistled, "We moved up in the world when we died..."

Carter snorted, "Sure looks like it..." And he took his plate, sitting himself down by his armor stand and starting to eat.

She joined him, gently picking up her plate with her robotic hand and the fork with the other. She looked over to the man as he ate, then narrowed her lips and said, "You still haven't answered if you're okay or not, Carter. We've been stuck together for so long, I know pretty much every deadpan stare of yours..." and she watched him turn to look her right in the eye.

He sighed, "You always did have me dialed in... Fine. I'm not particularly okay. My skin's still itching like crazy because of the burns and It's been itching since the start of this entire debacle... It's a constant reminder of what happened to me... And to the rest of you before and after that."

"So, why not just mention it...?" Kat inquired calmly, "I can still feel the pain in the back of my head and my eye. Emile's still got the abdominal pains... Jorge still feels tingles because of the Radiation and Alice has her own wounds she's contending with. We're all in the same boat... Not to mention everyone else around here and how they died. I've seen Sergeant Johnson scratching his breastplate."

"He got blasted by a Forerunner drone, didn't he?" Carter inquired. She nodded.

"The few Spartans in the area who aren't actually dead are the Chief and Blue Team. And we know that because they survived to tell us we won the war," Kat noted, then sighed deeply, "Y'know. I'd have thought being told your sacrifice mattered and that humanity now thrives after surviving the war would ease the idea that we died back into us, but no..."

"It ain't pretty, that's for sure," Emile noted from behind them as he approached, "Hey, Boss. Kat."

"Emile," Kat nodded, "How are you holding up?"

"Just fine," He replied, sitting himself down in front of them with his own stacked plate in hand. He flashed a pearly-white smirk at them as he started digging into the food. The man was descended from a family known for sending their children into the ranks of the Gurkhas. He was basically the last in a long line of the toughest bastards to ever walk the Earth and All Her Colonies, though, so...

"Figures you'd be fine," Jorge laughed as he approached them, hefting his machine gun.

"Hey, big man," He greeted.

"Take it you kids are still processing..." He noted.

"I think we've been moping enough, honestly," Carter noted, sighing. He looked to the right and saw Alice approaching, then said, "Ah, Lieutenant. Finally coming to join the family discussion?"

"Sir," She nodded, then sat herself down. What they hadn't noticed at first, however, was the presence of the tiny animal in her hands. She extended it forward, then said, "This is Keyes... Chief named him," and the tiny cat let out the sharpest, shrillest and most adorable meow any cat could ever let out. All four present members of Noble that weren't Alice stared, dumbfound.

"Uh..." Jorge looked to Alice, "You alright, Six?"

"Fine," She nodded, then brought the creature close and coddled it, "I think Penny called this pet therapy... And frankly, it's working..." and she nuzzled the creature's back fur. She looked to the Commander, extended the cat and said, "Try it... I swear you won't regret it. I'm... Somehow more calm with Keyes around." and she saw Carter reluctantly and gently pick up the creature, staring it in the eye.

It meowed and the Commander narrowed his lips, then set it down on his thigh armor and started scratching its back. Carter noted, "He has Aura..." then he looked to Alice. She nodded. Apparently, animals had souls, which honestly registered. He pet the creature calmly, looking over to Kat, then said, "How is this working...?" to which the girl shrugged. The creature meowed again and even Emile cracked a genuine smile.

"... I think it might be his semblance," Alice supposed, "If anyone remembers the classes on the soulstuff powers..."

"... A cat that's already unlocked its semblance..." Kat murmured, "And it's literally just soothing the people around it?"

Alice shrugged, "It's just a theory."

"Plausible as anything right now," Jorge smirked, then leaned in to pet the little cat, too, "He is a cute lil' bugger, though," before taking a knee. The ground around him shook as he let the weight of his armor press down onto the carpet and onto the floor. Several Marines around snorted, looking at the exchange. Johnson himself stifled a laugh as he and Carol shared a drink.

"What in the seven circles of hell am I looking at, Sarge?" Carol inquired, taking a sip from her glass.

"I don't know, Rawley. I don't know," The man hummed, grinning, "But hey, at least we know cats work."

"I ain't takin' care of a litter, Sarge," The pilot commented, words to which the man snorted. Indeed, nobody was going to take care of a litter of cats, but they felt they wouldn't need to. Still... "The fact Chief called the little thing 'Keyes' to honor both the Captain and his kid..." and Johnson snorted. Yeah, that was a thing. Chief had given the cat the name based on the Keyes Family.

"He's got a sense of humor," The Sergeant-Major quipped, "I'll give him that."

The group watched the Chief descending from his room. Penny, meanwhile, was playing a video game with some of the younger Marines in the background, so she didn't notice as he and BLUE Team, clad in full kit, marched out the door. They were probably aiming for another few sections of the city to scout out as well. Kurt had left with them, in full SPI armor.

There was a lot in motion between the Spartans and the rest of the UNSC personnel, Johnson felt. They needed to find Cortana and fast, before someone else like Atlas got their hands on her.

Mantle.

Doctor Halsey's hand hovered over her handgun as she watched the uniformed group approach her. They weren't Atlas soldiers, clearly, seeing as they lacked the armor and equipment, but they had animal features like those last few people she'd seen. Her concern was that these folks didn't seem none too friendly. In fact, several of them looked like they were carrying firearms hidden below their uniforms and glaring at her from behind strange plastic masks.

She scoffed, hand wrapped around the grip of her pistol, but hidden beneath her labcoat. She turned around and marched forth and through into the crowds of people around her. She blinked, the Heads-Up Display system in her thick-framed glasses turning on. She could keep count of her ammunition and had a basic motion tracker, but she didn't have the ability to tag hostiles, so everything moving around her made a big blob of gray on the circular HUD appliance.

She saw more of them in her peripheral vision, wearing cloaks, but advancing toward her through the crowd. She scoffed, drawing the handgun from its holster and keeping it concealed, but at the ready. If she did have to engage in a firefight to escape her pursuers, she would. Just not in a crowded place like this. She narrowed her lips, looking around. A couple more cloaked figures, hanging out in the rain. One of them noticed her and approached.

She didn't have time to draw her pistol. The figure caught her hand and spoke with a hardy female voice, "Calm down... We're friends..."

"I'll believe that..." Halsey murmured skeptically, "Those people in uniforms also friends of yours?" and she tilted her head back toward the Faunus who were trailing her. The woman that'd just spoken to her scoffed, then looked to a couple more of her associates and gave them a nod. The two ladies advanced and Halsey could faintly see the concealed weaponry below their clothes...

She looked the woman to her left in the eye, only to be met by a tanned amazon beauty with cream-colored hair and blue eyes. She flashed Halsey a grin, then said "I'm Robyn. Don't worry, we'll get the Fang off your back, but you're coming with us. We have to talk..." to which Halsey hummed. Well, this Robyn did already have her in a precarious position, but she'd proved friendly. The woman turned to see the 'Fang' troopers being dragged away by the woman's helpers, out of sight of the crowd.

Halsey sighed, "I don't have much of a choice in the matter of people now, do I?"

"Nope," She replied, "C'mon. I'll guarantee your safety and you can keep that gun, but we do need to talk."

"I understand," Halsey nodded. She holstered the pistol and tightly clipped it to her thigh, then followed Robyn and her fellows out of the crowd. They entered a damp, but somewhat-lit alleyway where all four girls removed their hoods, revealing a bunch of beautiful, tough-looking girls in raggedy uniforms and wielding staves that had guns and blades at each end. They holstered the weapons as they walked forward and the tallest of the lot turned to Halsey.

"Didn't think we'd get an Atlas doc down here," She quipped.

"She isn't Atlas," Voiced a white-haired one with... Sheep ears? And green eyes.

"'Course she is. Look at the labcoat," Voiced the tall one again. She then gave the doctor a once-over and noticed the badge clipped to her breast pocket, a memorabilia piece more than anything. She hummed, seeing the strange pyramid of the ONI symbol, probably, and stating, "O... Okay...? That's a weird symbol... What's your name, ma'am? IF ya don't mind a bunch of Happy Huntresses asking."

"Catherine Halsey," She replied firmly, "Doctor Catherine Halsey."

"Nice to meet ya, Doc," The Tall One smiled, "I'm Joanna. That there to your right is Fiona and behind us is May."

"Hello!" Fiona greeted, smiling.

"Hi. You got an odd name. Old-school." May nodded, smiling. She had long blue hair with a strange 'ponytail' of sorts hanging off the right and amber eyes, while Joanna had spiky green hair, green eyes, a darker skin tone and a few tattooed lines on her face, including one over her nose. All of them wore a similar badge, that of a bird of some kind. Halsey didn't pay it much mind.

"So it would seem..." She commented, taking off her glasses and sliding them into her breast pocket, "Thank you for the timely rescue, ladies... I don't know what those 'Fang' soldiers intended to do, but I think it's better I didn't find out."

"You ain't wrong about that one," Robyn turned toward her as they walked forward, "The White Fang's been acting all the more active as of late. They could've just been looking for a random human to harass. You could've probably scared them off, though. That pistol tells me as much... What's that, fifty caliber?" and Halsey hummed, then nodded.

"Semi-Armor Piercing High Explosive rounds," The woman replied.

Robyn whistled, "That's a lot of death packed into a neat package... Who are you, Doctor? Does Atlas usually let their top researchers go about on the ground like this, or is it like Fiona said and you aren't Atlas...?"

"I am not an Atlas researcher, no," Halsey replied, looking between the girls, "Where are we going now?"

"Our hideout," Robyn noted, "You've also been noticed by the Atlas security forces present here in Mantle, even if they haven't come for you directly."

"I see... It would be preferable not to get myself captured by them... For now, at least," She remarked as the group entered an abandoned factory hall of some kind. Upon entering it, the Doctor's nostrils were assaulted by the scent of sweat and cooking food of some kind. She gagged, then tugged at the collar of her turtleneck and said, "That is definitely an... Interesting smell..."

"Heh. Thanks, doc," Robyn noted, smiling, "C'mon. Dinner's almost ready. You can tell us about how you got here and what you're actually doing in a place like this..."

Meanwhile, Cortana hummed, regarding the machine where her body was slowly being assembled with a hint of muted awe. The amount of precision engineering that must've gone into the creation of such a machine was staggering, to say the least, but she couldn't deny the fact that it still felt a bit crude. The muscle and tendon recreations were something else, but the grafted artificial skin and the specialized attachments for various sensory input/output systems were a bit rudimentary, a surprise that also annoyed Cortana to no end because how had she not noticed the mistakes in Penny?

Oh, well, no time to mope about it now, she thought. There were more pressing matters at hand.

Then again, there was the matter of the contact down below...

She'd find said contact when she got loose.

Chapter Text

John had grown tense, what with everything happening around them. The search for Cortana kept running into dead-ends, leaving him fewer and fewer options to seek out besides directly asking Penny. He had a team scouring the town's various electronics shops for the AI and was damn near ready to further deploy teams out to areas that still contained even the faintest traces of IFF and Tracker pings.

He sighed, then shook his head as he and his team prepared to move forward with another stage of the search. Perhaps Cortana had tracked them all the way over to the parlor and gotten herself stuck in the computers? He didn't know, but he was willing to try anything to find her, with outright interrogating Penny over the matter being considered as the real Last Resort.

She had been good to them until now. John knew he shouldn't take his feelings into account on the matter as a soldier and SPARTAN and that he should've talked to Penny first, before going anywhere down the path of an investigation. He presumed that the failing hormone regulator implant had something to do with that issue, however. It was like equipment was failing, but it was failing within his own body.

No. John had grown a bit beyond a machine, or so he wanted to think. Every time he saw another of his fellow Spartans walk on Remnant, be they as they were, he felt the faintest hints of a joy he thought he'd lost decades ago. His friends were now all alive around him, his team was with him and he had everyone he had fought side-by-side with in their decades-long war of survival, not to mention a few fresh faces like NOBLE's S-III component. He had some of his humanity back, as little of it as it seemed to be to him.

Setting his helmet onto his head, the Spartan descended as night fell upon Beacon. They were going to go check the parlor where they had played that game of paintball before they would finally engage in any other form of search. His team waited for him, weapons stowed on their backs. They were starting to run low on ammo for their main rifles and other firearms, so they had to evenly divide any mag and shell they had between one-another.

Not like any ammo was going to be expended this mission. John had the local forges to make more ammo for Caliburn, too, so the Spartans figured they could switch to the tried-and-true Dust igniters and projectiles to ease their own mess. Several were still learning how to wield their Auras, but that would be a matter for teams RWBY and JNPR to assist them with.

For now, the Spartans left the building with Carol and her co-pilot. Foe Hammer always proved herself a pilot that was ready to go through hell to get them in and out of wherever they needed to go. She looked back to the Chief and the others and said simply, "I'm sure we'll find her, Chief. She can't have gone far," as if to try and reassure the Spartan.

He nodded in thanks before they boarded the transport aircraft. NOBLE Team had taken the bird beforehand, so a bit of fuel had been expended yet again. Thankfully, the Pelican remained one of the most fuel-efficient aircraft in the UNSC Airfleet, even as a transporter of heavy-duty equipment. As the five members of BLUE boarded it, they retrieved whatever extra ammo remained in the webbing above, too, stowing it below the seats and sitting themselves down.

"Foe Hammer!" Johnson called out, "Chief! Blues! Hold up!"

Chief and the others turned to see Sarge marching up to them, clad in his BDU, but lacking the armor. Similarly, his squad had also dressed up in their camouflage clothes, bot forewent the armors and helmets, instead opting to just keep their sidearms hidden below the jackets of the uniforms. As they climbed aboard, Johnson smirked and said, "Damn fine thing we caught you before we left..." before approaching the bird's cockpit and stating, "We're going 'round the same area as them, cap. No need to drop us anywhere else."

"Y'all looking a bit civilian, Sarge. Goin' for a drink?" Carol inquired, grinning as she powered the aircraft's engines and closed the rear hatch. The shrill roar of the engines filtered in for a moment, blocked by the Spartans' helmets adjusting the volumes of their external mics and noise suppression systems kicking in. For Johnson and company, it must've still been pretty loud for all those two seconds before the hatch closed.

Johnson winced, then replied, "Something like that. One of the Spartan girls wants us to check on their newly-acquired buddy, see what intel he can give us."

"Got it," The woman nodded, "Sit yaself down, Sarge. I'm lifting this bird up off the ground and heading in. Contacting ATC as well," before the aircraft lurched up, nearly knocking the Sergeant off-balance. The man rolled his eyes, sat himself down next to Chief, then took out a cigar and pushed it between his lips, lighting it with a flick of his favorite lighter.

"So..." Johnson started, "You find her yet?"

"That's why we're heading out," Kelly replied, leaning forward, "Scouting the paintball place in case she tracked us all the way there and got herself stuck in one of the servers."

"Got it," Johnson nodded, "Hope we find her quick. Makes my skin crawl thinking of where the hell she could be, but..." He sighed, "I'm sure y'all will get to her in the end. Chief made a damn promise after all... And this man isn't anything if not capable of keeping his promises," words to which Chief had a moment of flashback to everything that led up to his arrival on Remnant.

John nodded, then said "Keep us updated on the info you receive from Xiong. I'd like to know what to look out for."

"Will do, Chief," Johnson grinned, then looked to Mendoza as he was tightening the laces on his boots, then at Bisenti as the man checked his pistol. Them and Jenkins were still twitchy, considering they had had to deal with the Flood a while ago. Meanwhile, Dubbo, Stacker and the others were simply relaxing as the ride down to the place continued.

Johnson was dead set on getting that info. If 'Junior' didn't wanna talk, he was gonna have a nasty surprise in the form of a bunch of pissed-off Marines. He hummed, checking his own sidearm and muttering something about his Shotgun to himself, fully aware that Chief and the other Spartans could hear it. The aircraft began its descent down toward the deluxe residential area where all the bigshots lived and where most clubs, be they underground or otherwise, existed.

The group exited, with Carol calling out, "I'll come pick y'all up the moment you flash the signal to me."

"Heard you loud and clear, Foe Hammer," Johnson replied for both teams. He looked to Chief, then bumped a fist into the MJOLNIR-clad Spartan's shoulder and said, "Go on, Chief. Git. We'll call you if we need backup, seeing as we only got our pistols with us."

John nodded, "Smallest sign of trouble and you call."

"Magnums may be powerful, but nothing beats a good rifle," Sam quipped as he patted his MA5. Johnson nodded approvingly, then split off with his fireteam toward the bar and pub area, keeping themselves nice and calm and acting as civilian as a bunch of soldiers in same-looking camouflage uniforms could act, honestly. The only thing was Johnson felt naked without some form of body armor. Sure, he had his Aura, but that soulstuff mumbo-jumbo wasn't particularly high on his list of protective things.

He wasn't too sure his soul could deflect bullets, after all, but he guessed he was gonna find out if the need arose to find out. Entering Junior's place and marching down the stairs, the men were greeted by the thumping beats of electronic music and the cheering and laughter of patrons. Marching up to the bar, where mister Junior Xiong was doing his work and helping the newly-hired bartender fix up drinks, Johnson said to the Bartender, "Beers, for all of us."

"Alright," Junior nodded, before motioning to the bartender to go find some in the fridge nearby. He hummed, then asked, "You the tall lady's friends?"

"We are," Johnson replied, "Whaddaya got for us?"

"A lot of movement is what. White Fang's been gathering a lot of supplies for something big in Vale... Beside them there's rumors of some bigshots in Vale's arms industry going AWOL," He remarked as he cleaned a glass, "And just recently, some other chick and her posse came by here. Robot arms, black hair, heterochromia. Had a surprising amount of Faunus traits..."

"That don't sound too abnormal... Vale's full of interesting people," Johnson remarked, "Anything else ya got?"

"Nothing really... Oh, shit," He spoke, then motioned toward the door. Johnson and the team turned to see a young woman, maybe in her mid-twenties, marching into the place. As described, she was a beauty with black hair and two eyes of various colors. Her strut told of confidence as she marched forth toward them, a grin on her face. She noticed Johnson and his team and her smile disappeared for a moment... Only to come back moments later.

"Some new patrons, I see, Junior," She remarked as she approached the counter, "You folks seem rather new."

"We are," Remarked Johnson.

"And what're military folks like you doing out here? Atlas finally letting its dogs out of the cages so they can relax a bit?" She asked as if she knew Atlas, before turning and leaning against the counter and on both her robotic elbows, her claws shimmering with the rhythmic change of the club's various lights. Her uniform seemed to be a standard-issue urban-grey combat camo with the added connection points to where she could mount armor.

"We ain't Atlas," Jenkins replied, eyeing the men around them, his hand gently hovering nearby his pistol to not arouse suspicion. Junior had a bead of sweat running down his cheek as the tension in this area of the club grew thick enough to obscure the thumping of the electronic music and the sounds of his patrons' laughter. The woman chuckled, then crossed her arms to her chest.

"Your boy's feisty, my friend," She spoke, eyeing Johnson, "Fun."

Johnson replied calmly, "We've had a bit of a rough go at it before we got to Vale, so you'll have to excuse him."

"I'll believe that," She replied, grinning still, showing off her dentures. Canines were longer, too, almost like fangs. Johnson sure as hell didn't like her. People like her seemed weird. And her friends? Well, most of them wore balaclavas, so that was telling Johnson they had shit to hide, like their identities or their own gene modifications. Junior was right about her being off. Faunus used to only have one trait, last he read about them. She asked, "Just here to relax, then? No asking our buddy-boy Junior anything important?"

"Not really," the Sergeant shot back, "What about you?"

"I like hearing the gossip in town. Can you blame me?" She chuckled.

"No," Johnson replied. He nodded to his men, then said, "We'll be out of your hairs."

"Not gonna share a drink?" She inquired jokingly. Johnson shook his head and lead his team toward the door, causing her to scoff. The woman said, "Damn shame. Well, guess we'll get our own drinks and leave," before turning to a somewhat surprised Junior. As the door shut the moment the Marines left, the woman inquired, "Did they ask anything important there, Junior...?"

He hesitated. She smirked. Oh, this was gonna be a fun questioning, even with a crowd.

Atlas

She felt the fake muscles twitch as they powered on. Her visual sensors flickered for a moment as she updated the firmware herself, improving the reaction and detail that the eyes could see at minimal cost. Strange that Atlas would put caps like that on them, but, alas, it was good to have self-adjusting systems that proxies and copies of her could run in the meantime. Her eyelids fluttered open, revealing the bright white light overhead.

Her auditory sensors powered on next, the echoes and rumbles of the machine around her working to assemble the last pieces of herself, namely the last bits of skin. Following up the auditory systems, which were fairly sensitive and accurate, considering Cortana could hear Prof Polendina working through the last diagnostics for the tenth time, came the rest of her more active muscle controls. Her facial muscles contorted, then formed into a smile as Cortana managed to learn how to control them.

She blinked, looking around and moving her head gently from left to right. Following that, she tested her extremities and setting the correct parameters, before moving whole limbs up and down. She looked down at herself next, noticing the armored body-suit that the Professor had fitted onto her new frame. The suit was a layering of bullet-proof polymers with a comfortable under-layer that utilized a similar system to the heat-adjusting gel layer in MJOLNIR armor, though dumbed down severely.

She had also installed a connection port system into both of the suit's 'gauntlets', which allowed her to directly interface with operational computers belonging to the CCTS network similarly to how she would've normally interfaced with stuff like that. Beside them, in specialized containers that used the 'mecha-shift' technology which allowed most modern weapons to be so compact, she had stun dart launchers stuck in hidden compartments that slightly bulged up on her forearms.

Gently, the AI learned to stand, pushing her mainframe to learning how to walk before long. She climbed out of the vessel in which her new body had been sat and out into the wider laboratory, her boots now hitting the metal floor with a clang. She smiled, arranging the artificial hair she had received as she looked into a mirror, before stating, "Gotta admit, this is pretty interesting..."

"I added a few more things I intended to test when preparing to upgrade Penny's frame for future operations... At her request," Pietro chuckled awkwardly. Cortana was fairly aware of these new 'additions' considering what she saw and felt about herself. She smirked at Pietro, before arranging her bodysuit. He noted, "I've added the modifications you've requested to the suit, as well. Color me impressed that you want stun rounds after everything you told me about Penny's new friends."

Cortana was about to make a snarky comment, but a hammering on the door told her she probably needed to get out of here. Marching up to a computer and linking herself with the building-wide network, the AI saw through the security cameras that a squad of Atlas troopers had come in. One of them called out, "Professor Polendina, are you feeling well!? Your staff reports you've been in your office for a couple days now!"

"I'm well, lieutenant, thank you! I just got very busy with an... Important... Project for Penny!"

"General noticed the expenditures! Hope that project's coming along well, doc! Because we've been ordered to come check it out!" The man stated, causing Pietro to panic for a moment. Cortana paused, pulled back away from the terminal, then noticed the window that led to the outside. They were a few thousand feet in the sky, above the city of Mantle, where the Contact was.

She hummed, then said, "Hope this body was made with rough landings in mind, too... Thanks, prof Polendina. I'll tell Penny everything went alright!" before she charged forth toward the glass pane without even hearing the man protest. Bursting through and shattering the glass in her new body, the Artificial Intelligence's processing power seemed to have kicked into overdrive, the artificial brain inside operating at several times the normal capacity of a human mind.

She made calculations as she fell toward one of the Tether-Elevators linking Atlas to Mantle, making sure she knew the direct trajectory and point she was going to land in. She made up her landing strategy in her mind, focusing on the bodysuit's integrity and strength-enhancing capabilities that boosted her frame's somewhat-superhuman abilities beyond.

She smirked as she flipped forward, bringing her feet in first and powering the magnetic boots as she approached the tether at terminal velocity. The girl had also added a small grapple system to her suit which would allow her to slow down in time. It was fired out of the wrist dart launchers, which was a bonus. She aimed her right hand at a nearby rock face as she descended, then fired the line-holding dart with a quiet thwip.

Tying itself around a piece of rock, the dart managed to slow down Cortana just enough for her mag-boots to lock her into place on the large tether. From there, she had to run down toward Mantle in order to safely reach the place. Frankly, with how fast the body moved, she had no worries about it. What worried her was, however, the Atlas aircraft that had suddenly done a one-eighty toward her.

"Aw, nuts..." She murmured...

... Elsewhere in Mantle, namely within the confines of the Merry Huntresses' hideout, Halsey sat at a desk, chowing down on a special chicken soup made by the chef of the place. Around her, some of the girls continued chatting, smiling and laughing. Miss Hill, meanwhile, seemingly decided it was a good idea to come check upon the multidimensional humanoid that was in their care.

"You good, doctor?" She asked with a clear degree of concern behind her voice.

"Just fine, miss Hill. Curious about how I wound up in the middle of Mantle, but..." She replied, taking another spoonful of soup before finishing, "I will figure things out."

"I mean, you did seem like you dropped out of the sky when we found you... Didn't even know what the White Fang were," Robyn shot back, garnering a few chuckles out of the girls. Halsey muttered something to herself as she took the next spoonful of the salted, chicken-tasting broth. She brought her hand to her mouth and spat out a chunk of bone, before tossing it to a trash bin to her right.

"You could say I am..." She then said.

"Oh?" Robyn raised a brow.

"It is a long story..." Halsey paused, considering whether she should let the people here know how in the heavens' name she even got here in the first place. She had no ONI agents breathing down her neck, no active threats, no nothing of the sort, save perhaps for Atlas's own personal army coming for her and those White Fang troops. A terror organization fighting for the rights of a group that seemed to fit in pretty well with the rest of the people on Mantle's streets.

She sighed, then said, "Put simply, I arrived here, not by my own volition, but rather by orders of my superiors, including having to mess with technological advances that would make whatever you have on this world seem like children's toys in comparison. Including Atlas's own air fleet and mechanoid forces..." words which clearly shocked Robyn, as her facial expression showed.

"... Gotta be kidding, right?" Robyn asked, "I mean, it is a prank."

Halsey grabbed her badge off her breast pocket and slid it across to the woman. She looked over the semi-transparent item, which included the emblem and tags that told of the Doctor's reality. Halsey took another spoonful of the soup, then explained, "Alas, so my leaders' greed in deciding to further enhance our technology caused me to wind up in one of Mantle's alleys."

She rubbed the top of her head, then muttered, "With a trash-given concussion to boot..."

"Sounds like you've had a bad couple of days," Robyn offered as she leaned against the countertop where Halsey was eating, "You can stick around until the Fang is cleared out by the Military. Ironwood wouldn't like hearing that he left Mantle and Atlas out to dry by going to Vale for his trip. Left the troops here under the command of one of his trusted officers."

"Take it if I were to be captured, I'd meet said officer?" Halsey inquired. A nod from Robyn was all the confirmation she needed to know it still may not have been a good idea to turn herself in. Despite that, this General Ironwood whom she'd kept hearing about from the girls around the place seemed like the standard caring Military Commander. Atlas had been in good hands, both the kingdom and Academy... At least it seemed so. Certainly, the girls had their bit of disagreement with the man, with Robyn most of all. Halsey then stated, "I'd rather be free for now... Had enough of prisons to last me a lifetime."

Slightly taken aback and concerned, Robyn wanted to ask, but Halsey clarified, "A military intelligence agency saw fit to throw me in the brig for several crimes I didn't commit," she paused, then murmured to herself, "And some I admittedly did..." before returning her voice to the normal volume, "To cover the tracks of their retiring boss and her little protégé."

"Yikes..." The woman winced, "Sounds like a lot of skeletons they didn't want out of the closet."

"Indeed..." Halsey sighed, before downing what was left of the bowl of soup. She stood up and pulled her tablet from her pocket, before checking through the data she had compiled on everything. She'd still kept an audaciously detailed history of the UNSC and its wars against both traitors and genocidal theocratic empires just in case it was required, including operations, estimated death tolls from the losses of colonies and the military casualties of the UNSC from every single branch.

She had kept this as a record. A record that humanity, even in its darkest hours, fought and strived to survive. And, as it seemed, they had thrived, for what good that did to the tens of billions that were turned to ashes or died in that pointless conflict based upon a false faith. She sighed, stowing the datapad back into her pocket. She was willing to give the data to anyone who would listen, if only to ease her mind that she had told someone here about-

Knock knock knock.

Three rapid knocks and the Happy Huntresses instantly tensed. Halsey did, too, feeling her younger muscles tense up, her hand hovering above her pistol. The sheep-girl approached the door, then looked to the two. Robyn readied her own wrist-mounted mini-crossbow, offering a nod to the girl as the other two came out with their own weapons ready.

The one at the door opened it, readying her own staff/crossbow/gun combo. Halsey, however, stopped dead in her tracks as she saw the figure standing in the door. And said figure saw her, then smiled as she said, "I knew it had to be you, doc... Long time no see," as she entered the place, hands raised. She said to Robyn and her team, "Don't worry. I'm a friendly... Friends with doc Halsey over here."

Halsey paused, then took her glasses off her eyes, before asking, shock behind her words... "Cortana...?"

The AI-turned-Android smiled, happy...

Chapter Text

"Huh. Talk about screwby..." Cortana murmured. The Doctor and her AI 'daughter' had sat themselves down to have a talk about what had occurred that led to the current situation, in which the younger Doctor Halsey had been thrown into the middle of Atlas. Forerunner technology mixed with ONI's penchant for insane decisions led to Halsey's deployment to the world of Remnant.

Halsey, meanwhile, gave Cortana a once-over, examining every little detail about her body as she searched for an explanation regarding how the AI may've acquired it. So far, her mind was coming up with only one logical explanation out of a dozen, that someone had, in fact, constructed Cortana an android body. The motions were too perfect, too uncanny. The porcelain face, unblemished skin and even the strangely 'empty' eyes that Cortana's presence filled with some sense of life all told Halsey that it was, in fact, a mechanoid body fitted specifically for the AI.

Sighing, Halsey removed her glasses from her face and rubbed her eyes, stating, "I don't even want to consider how you may have gotten here... There are so many variables to this that I need to understand in order for the bigger picture to form, I dread I'll be here the rest of my admittedly lengthened biological life..." and looking to the AI with the tired face, "Unless you can... Inform me."

"I have a lot of things to talk to you about, doc," Cortana replied, surprising the woman. She added, "Though I'd suggest we find a way out of Atlas before we do anything like that. Gonna need you at one hundred percent to help me hatch a proper escape plan," and she looked past her, at the 'Happy Huntresses' that had decided to host her after her timely escape from the clutches of both Atlas military and the White Fang.

Halsey sighed, then nodded, "Understood..." before pausing and realizing, "Wait... Were you not with John when-"

"Yes," Cortana smiled, "John's here, too."

Halsey stood there, stunned for a moment. Her face remained perfectly stuck in a mask of surprise, though Cortana could tell the doctor had begun processing the matter. She blinked, casting her gaze away from Cortana and to the floor. She bit her lower lip as Cortana read her pulse. It was elevated and the AI knew why. She had known Halsey's hand in the creation of the SPARTAN-II Program as she was, herself, a version of Halsey. One without the memories, but that the doctor had trusted enough to reveal her secrets to. 'Great minds do think alike, after all', she had said.

From shock and slight fear, came the first smile Cortana had seen Halsey show that was not filled with some degree of hidden self-praise or doubt. Rather, she seemed truly happy to know that John, one of the best soldiers she had managed to create and the very boy she had helped raise and build into the killing machine he was today, was here. Cortana's smile grew as well.

She was about to speak again, but Robyn interrupted them, clearing her throat as she stepped up. The two women looked to her, with Robyn stating, "Listen, doctor, I'm... Not going to ask why your... Daughter...?" And that seemed to hit a slight chord in Halsey, causing her yet again to show a little sorrow, though it as hidden behind the doctor's familiar poker face this time. Robyn, however, chose to forego asking, simply adding, "Whatever... But if you want to leave Atlas, you'll need an airship. A Manta or a Bullhead, something that could make it to... Where do you wanna go?"

"Vale," Cortana said, "We have a few friends there."

Robyn hummed, then nodded, "That is a long flight away..." before scratching her chin, "Though a Bullhead could take you over there. Full tank of Dust and you'll make it there with fuel for a round trip."

"Dust?" Halsey quirked a brow at the mention of the mineral, "I heard of and read that name across the city..."

"It's a long story, doc," Cortana nodded, "Part of the intel I'm gonna tell you about as soon as we're out and airborne."

"I see..." Halsey sighed deeply. She arranged her labcoat and murmured, "I hate not knowing..."

To Halsey, 'not knowing' was tantamount to being blind to the world itself. She understood Cortana's desire to keep things secret with the Ladies around them still being present, but she could, at least, have given her a hint about the matter at hand. Especially since John was around too and, by Halsey's calculations, he had somehow managed to fix up Cortana after eight years of being truly Missing In Action. She still hated that directive, though.

The Office of Naval Intelligence would not even let the heroes of mankind rest properly for fear of demoralizing the population during mankind's Greatest War. Even now, SPARTANs were still kept as Missing In Action. All of them, all of those children that she herself had stolen, as well as Ackerson's own personal suicide units. Entire companies had long ago joined the UNSC's finest.

She sighed, then said, "Any way you can help us recover a Bullhead, then, miss Hill?"

"I can try," Robyn shrugged, "Though, there's a lot of guards between us and the local airport."

"We'd owe you one," Cortana smirked, "Aren't you Robyn Hill, though? Some bigshot local from Mantle?" And, of course, she had just accessed files on Robyn. The woman was, by definition, name and form, a gender-bend of the folk hero of old, Robin Hood himself, as it seemed. The 'steal from the rich, give to the poor' archetype. Same for her 'Happy Huntresses'.

"I am," Robyn flashed the AI a grin, "Take it you have my file?"

"Skimmed it," Cortana chuckled, doing a quick diagnostic on her body, "But yeah. You're known as a pretty big agitator for equal rights toward the people of Mantle. Enough so that General Ironwood himself started looking you up... You could run for the Mantle seat of the Council," and that seemed to stun Robyn for a moment. As the woman processed the compliment, Cortana looked to Halsey and said, "Short explanation, most countries here, named Kingdoms, run on the basis of a democratically-elected Council. They kept the names of 'Kingdoms' due to tradition, really, instead of going for Countries."

"I see," Halsey nodded understandingly.

"Hm," Robyn sighed, then cleared her thoughts and asked, "How can you help me there, Cortana?"

"I can clear out your record so you can run for a seat," She smirked, "Seeing as the next election's in... What, a year or two?"

Robyn and her Happy Huntresses exchanged quick glances, before all of them flashed the woman grins. She slowly turned to Cortana and Halsey, her arms crossed and a raised brow, despite her own mischievous smile. Cortana motioned toward her Scroll, which the woman handed over calmly, before watching the AI interface with the device. As Cortana's eyes flashed azure with the code running through them, Robyn doubled over, stunned and Halsey hummed, nodding. Halsey's theory had been correct.

"Woah," Robyn paused, "What is...?"

"My semblance," Cortana lied, smirking as she remained focused on the device, causing Halsey to frown. Cortana then continued her lie explanation, "Technomancy. I can operate anything technological and internet-related as long as I have a link to it. And I learned to hack into things while using it... Aaand..." She smirked, then blinked and her eyes returned to normal, "Done. Your file's clean, miss Hill."

She handed the Scroll back over to Robyn, who looked over her criminal record. Her eyes widened and her smile returned. Tilting her head to the right, she said, "Alright, you convinced me. We'll see what we can do about helping you get a Bullhead, but you'll have to lay low for a few hours while we do it. Half of Atlas is out searching for you... Other half is in Vale."

"Best if you do the same, too, boss," The tallest of the Happy Huntresses said, "They just cleared your record after all..."

"Right," Robyn sighed annoyedly, "Fair. Fiona, May, scout out the Airport and find these two a secure path through and to the nearest Bullhead. Joanna, I'm going to need you to rig up a distraction, something non-lethal that can lure the guards from the airships. Meanwhile, I'll," She rolled her eyes, "Stay back here with our two guests, I guess. Have fun...?"

The three Huntresses all gave nods, with the sheep-trait gal leading her other friend out while Joanna moved to another section of the hideout to rig something up. Robyn, Halsey and Cortana, meanwhile, sat and waited for the signal, with Robyn busying herself with checking and re-checking her file. Cortana leaned back into her seat, then said to Halsey, "It's gonna be a while, huh?"

"It is," The woman replied, then turned to Cortana, "And you...?"

"Me?" Cortana quirked a brow up.

"'Semblance'. 'Technomancy'... I didn't know you could lie, Cortana, not to mention with terms I have never heard before," The doctor whispered to the AI, who chuckled, amused. Halsey, however, continued, unfettered, "This world is strange, different. There are humans and gene-engineered humanoids with animal traits. There are militaries with technology advanced enough to allow anti-gravity engines to be prevalent and mechanoid units like yourself. Speaking of, how did you acquire a body like this? What is going on?"

"It's a really long story, doc..." Sighed the AI, "I'll run you through the basics on Remnant from what I have in my database," and she began explaining everything, from Dust, to Auras, to Semblances, to the Kingdoms themselves and to their histories, including the Great War. Halsey listened intently, her face impassive, though, again, Cortana could tell that the woman was understanding the context of every item of interest in her explanation.

Indeed, it was a strange thing for the woman who had lived many decades, including quite a few in helping fight the enemy that had threatened Humanity's survival. Alas, she figured it best not to indulge too much in new information, stating simply, "I'll expect a full file on Remnant and the information you have on it compiled into a readable report that I can search if need be. For now, let us focus on retrieving transportation out of Mantle."

"Agreed," Cortana replied, then watched as Joanna headed out. The woman gave a nod to the two and smirked, hefting a bag of something or other onto her shoulder as she marched out of the hiding place. If Cortana was right, that was a bunch of fireworks, a quite brilliant and simple plan to distract the Atlas military without injuring them. Then again, "Hey, Robyn? Is the airport military?"

"It's military-owned, yes," Robyn nodded as she nonchalantly poured herself a cup of water.

"Huh," Cortana hummed, "So, we're downright stealing a military vehicle, then," and she smirked. Halsey rolled her eyes, aware of Cortana's and the Chief's escapades. Now, they simply awaited for the signal to come, presumably through the distraction. The signal itself came, however, in the form of a ping to Robyn's Scroll. The woman turned toward them.

"Well, we'll see each-other again," The woman spoke, extending her hand, "And thanks, Cortana."

"Ain't no biggie. Thanks for the ride," Cortana smirked as she and Halsey shook hands with their host. Afterward, the two were led to the rear exit of the place, where May was waiting for them. The blue-haired woman gave a motion of the hand to them, urging them toward her. The trio then started sprinting toward the supposed airport as fireworks blared and exploded in the distance and Atlas security drones and soldiery got busy.

Indeed, as the three ran forward, the clap of boots against concrete echoed just before the first droplets of rain began to fall and soak the womens' clothes and Cortana's artificial hair. Halsey commented, "An eerily successful distraction," as they saw a series of fences appearing ahead within moments of their short run. May looked back and smirked at Halsey, then gazed forward again.

She kicked open a hole in the fence as they reached it, followed by advancing deeper and deeper past guardhouses whose occupants were either looking in a different direction or outright checking the disturbance. The wide, dark tarmac of the small airfield was surprisingly full with aircraft. Some were rusty due to being exposed to the elements, while others were hidden in tin hangars, away from the biting cold of the Northern Continent they seemed to have found themselves on.

The girls stopped in front of a Hangar, to which May tilted her head toward the Bullhead inside, a craft that looked a bit shoddy, with some lines of rust here and there. But, from the looks of its otherwise strange structure and the fading white paint, she was airworthy. May spoke, "This is as far as I am gonna get you two before Atlas realizes we messed with them... Take care of yourselves."

Cortana nodded, "We will. By the way, May, I cleaned out your records as well."

"Thanks. We noticed," The girl smiled, this time a genuine smile, "Now, go. Before Atlas kicks the door down."

Cortana and Halsey both nodded to the woman, then marched up to the aircraft and boarded it, taking the pilot and co-pilot seats. May waved to them and said, "Fly low! Atlas Radar can't pinpoint you that way! And come visit again some time!" then she somehow up and disappeared. Halsey and Cortana took a moment to register it, with Cortana's optical sensors detecting the woman's bio-signature. Must've been the girl's abilities, then. Her 'semblance'.

Cortana sighed, then started up the machine and linked her system to it. She said to the doctor, "Chief's gonna be glad to see you, doc..."

"I hope so," Halsey murmured, leaning back into her seat as the aircraft slowly started taxiing forward from the Hangar. Cortana powered the engines to the maximum, the wail filling the compartment as the rear doors closed. The aircraft's VTOL engines vectored and powered on, kicking up dust as the aircraft gently lifted up under Cortana's careful guidance.

Then, it began to accelerate forward, the engines vectoring for forward flying instead of hovering. Cortana pushed the craft's throttle to max and set up a GPS system from scratch via the connections with the CCTS. The aircraft boosted forth, through and into the cloud layer. Cortana made sure to keep their IFF ready, in case Atlas tried to shoot'em down. She also replicated some of the code words she saw in communiqués, cracking the encryption of the higher-value ones rather easily. Some of them spoke of the missing 'Project' that she was, as well as other issues plaguing Atlas, like the General being in Vale.

She hummed, then set up another self-updating algorithm for Atlas, just in case. Their communication systems were far too easy to hack into and linked into the Atlesian Knights and Paladins, their autonomous and semi-autonomous combat mechanoids. The algorithm would at least partially shield the mechanical units from any potential intrusion and IFF-rewriting. For now, anyhow. It would also be hidden, merging with the code of the Atlas military's computers, rather than affecting it directly.

It was a complicated procedure that, in tandem with her flying the aircraft toward the intended destination of Vale, would lead to Cortana being unable to hear Halsey calling to her until just now, after finishing up the algorithm and sending it via the CCTS to all Atlas units. Cortana blinked as Halsey spoke, "You were busy. It took you a good minute to blink."

The AI turned to her and smiled, "Sorry, doctor."

"It's fine. I hope it was important," Halsey sighed, then looked at herself. She undid the belt that held her pistol close to her and set it to the side, before tugging at the collar of her turtleneck and murmuring, "It gave me some time to be introspective..." and she yet again faced the AI, relaxed, "You said John is here, as well. Is he... In the same predicament as I am? And as you are, I would assume?"

"You mean having a few years given back by some sort of technological mishap?" Cortana inquired, partly focused on flying the aircraft. Halsey nodded, unfazed at Cortana's knowledge. The AI chuckled, looking outward, then said, "Yep. And it seems it isn't just us who got revived. The whole first class of SPARTAN-IIs are here, as are Sergeant-Major Johnson and his platoon from the Pillar of Aut-..." pausing as she saw Halsey, now completely stunned. The AI hummed, then offered the woman a genuine smile, stating, "Before you ask, yes, doctor. All SPARTAN-IIs are present here, alongside NOBLE Team."

Halsey bit her lower lip, her gaze falling onto the floor. She slumped into the chair, gaze now locked onto the cloudy sky outside the main window. She took a canteen she had from one of her pockets, uncapped it, chugged down half its content, then exhaled as color returned to her face. Yet again, she went through several emotional states, mostly distress, but finally settled into a melancholic joy. The faintest of smiles played on the woman's rejuvenated lips and she blinked, taking her glasses off.

"All of them...?" She asked, seemingly making sure in her heart.

Cortana nodded, then replied, "Yes. Well, mostly. The chunk of RED Team assigned to the Spirit of Fire is still missing, but I have a nagging feeling they aren't that far behind either. Same for GRAY Team."

Halsey nodded slowly, "Good..."

This was another chance. Someone or something out there had decided to give her another chance. To give them all another chance at, perhaps, a semi-normal life. Halsey had felt like she would never get to atone, no matter how hard she fought. She would not get to atone for what she did to her SPARTANs. To a group of children that had no place in a nightmarish place like the wars they fought and died in.

She found not the tears to weep, even in joy. Certainly, even here, life would not be normal. Cortana had gotten as far as explaining the 'Grimm', the creatures the local soldiery and the famed Hunters of the world fought. Yet, at least, the threat of extinction was not as prevalent here. And with her SPARTANs, this planet might've even stood a chance to be free of that threat.

She paused her train of thought, turning to see Cortana humming and reading something. The AI extended the tablet to her, then said, "Read this, doc. We'll be in Vale within about five hours, so you have plenty of time to learn your place in this whole thing," and focused yet again on flying, "Good news is Atlas doesn't seem to give a damn about one of their birds being missing. I'm detecting no interceptors, nor any Airships moving to stop us... Wait. Huh. Okay, seems like General Ironwood sent a ping from Vale's CCTS that any escaping ships are not to be pursued, because they may, and I quote, 'contain allied units to a new group belonging to Headmaster Ozpin'."

"Curious," Halsey murmured, scratching her chin as she read through the file Cortana handed her. She hummed, gave a nod of approval and said, clearly impressed, but also somewhat annoyed, "You came up with this on the fly, Cortana? For me. This false story about belonging to another kingdom?" and, upon receiving Cortana's confused nod, she said, "Scrap it all."

Cortana turned toward the doctor suddenly, her facial features morphed into the shock Halsey would've expected out of a normal human. She thumbed the datapad, turning it off, then handed the AI the electronic, before straightening up in her seat and saying, "I am tired of playing cloak and dagger games, Cortana. While I respect your creative abilities and am sure John, or 'Dylan' as you've referred to him over the course of this little false backstory, approved the idea of lying to the higher-ups of this world, I do not. The secret will be out eventually, anyway. I would rather we told it ourselves than let it jeopardize our lives here further on."

"Doctor-" Cortana started. Halsey waved her hand to quiet the girl down.

"No. The Office of Naval Intelligence's job is to lie. Mine is to find and tell truths. I have grown tired of continuously having to listen to superiors that would put me into a position of lying to anyone. On this world, I feel, it is more likely for the truth to be found out. And if it is found out before we come out and say it, we may risk greater repercussions than you may have accounted for," Halsey told her, stern and serious. She was done lying. "We will reveal everything."

"Everything?" Cortana was stunned.

"Everything..." Halsey sighed, knowing very well that there were, in fact, great risks in even this course of action. Still, if she were to die here, by the hands of the locals, she'd die with a clean conscience. She spoke again, determined, "Even the SPARTAN Programs. Compile a report on Humanity's history, the UNSC, ONI, the UEG and everything else that may be required by the headmaster of Vale's Huntsman Academy and prep it for copying, should he wish to share it with his other peers. "

"... Understood," Cortana replied, stunned, "And what'll you do if..."

"If I am branded a criminal again?" Halsey snorted dismissively, "I care little... I have nowhere else to return to. The UEG has already left me to ONI's grips, damned be Parangosky and her corrupting influence," she then shot back, putting her glasses back on, "At least, this way, if I am to be tried again, you, John and the rest of the SPARTANs may have a chance at a semi-normal life on this world. Especially if they have been as drastically de-aged as you wrote in your report."

Cortana paused, then smiled at Halsey. She looked forth once more, at the rising sun. Then, she spoke, "I'm glad to see you still care about them, Catherine."

Halsey sighed, then gave Cortana a small smile, too, "I do. And even if they will not forgive me, I will be at peace with knowing I did my best for them."

"Duly noted, doctor. Writing up the report as we speak," Cortana replied with a calm that Halsey was not used to. The AI then told the doctor, "I'll leave the ship on autopilot and prep a response for Vale's Air Traffic Control, as well as for the Atlas forces stationed in Vale, while I'm focused on the report. Take a nap, doc. We're still five or so hours away from Vale."

"That brain of yours must be quite powerful, to be able to run your full processing power," Halsey quipped.

"It's an artificial matrix based on something akin to a human brain," Cortana smirked.

"I'd love to meet the man who even designed your body," Chuckled the doctor, "But yes, I shall take your offer and sleep these five hours off... Wake me when we're close."

"Will do," Cortana replied.

This was gonna be one hell of a weird day, especially with all the explanations they'd have to give. And poor John. He must've been worried sick over Cortana's well-being...

Oh, well, they'd meet at home, soon.

Chapter Text

Beacon

The UNSC personnel located within the confines of Beacon had swept the place sixty separate times, both together and just in teams of two, seeking out Cortana. Chief and his team had combed every inch of Vale and had come back empty-handed. Not even Kat, one of their tech whiz-kids had any leads, even after thoroughly searching the Chief's armor systems and the Scroll, as well as the CCTS systems themselves via a backdoor Cortana seemed to have left for herself. Again.

He sighed, then sat himself down on the ground just outside the house, staring up at the CCTS Tower from afar. For the first time in a long time, John felt a pit form in his stomach. They had searched many hours on-end without any hint of Cortana still being present. All Chief had to do now was... Basically, prepare to accuse Penny of whatever may have happened, and with her, the rest of Atlas.

He didn't want to pin all of this on Penny, but she had been the last one in the house just prior to their departure to the Paintball game. And it only made sense that she might've actually seen Cortana, which already constituted a severe security breach. If she had taken her, there would be hell to pay. And Atlas wouldn't be standing anymore by the time the SPARTANs were done tearing it apart to find what they needed.

He sighed, then stood to his feet and walked inside, where the off-duty portion of their unit was doing their thing. Alice was seemingly trying to conceive a way to reload her spent casings with actual, proper gunpowder. Jorge, meanwhile, was sliding fresh rounds into the belts of his heavy machine gun, a weapon he'd carried since John had first worked with him.

He sought Penny out among the crowd, but found her nowhere near by the house, even. He settled with the thought that he'd have to search for her. Calmly, he grabbed his rifle from under his bed and the rest of his equipment, then strolled outside the house, helmet on his head. He wasn't intending to fight Penny, but he knew better than to not be prepared, considering the strength the young girl had showed.

Exiting out onto the wider Beacon sidewalks, Chief had also thought it good to combine this with his daily patrol. Outside, Johnson and his Marines were seemingly helping entertain a bunch of kids. At least Dubbo was, anyway. Johnson himself was talking to Professor Goodwitch. From afar, John could faintly hear them speaking about a harsher training regimen. And the good old Sergeant-Major boasting about his own skills at training and shaping soldiers up to be proper working and fighting individuals.

Miss Goodwitch seemed enthralled by him. John smiled. If that wasn't the most Johnson of things...

The Sergeant-Major had taken everything regarding their deaths and revivals here with the usual jaunt that he was known for. That he was able to talk to miss Goodwitch so calmly was a sign that the man was, perhaps, doing better than he had originally anticipated. The Chief refocused, however, continuing his efforts in finding Penny to confront her about this situation.

The General's airship had also been docked nearby, with the man probably visiting Headmaster Ozpin to discuss the security of the Vytal Festival. John continued, past the landing pads and toward the library. Pushing inside, the man found Blake at her usual spot. At least her usual, according to Fred. Fred himself was there, helping her search through information that they'd collected.

The SPARTAN noticed John and nodded to him, with the Chief simply nodding back and letting them do their thing as he went to browse the place for his quarry. He wondered just how far Penny was from home, not recalling if they'd spoken about her leaving. Still, he passed by another pair of Marines that were seemingly browsing the school's library, then by another set of shelves where Weiss was.

He hummed, stopping, then turned to face Weiss and walked up to her, "Miss Schnee?"

Weiss yelped, slightly jumping and nearly dropping the books in her hand. She turned toward the man, the anger which she would probably have used to berate someone else simply replaced with surprise. She said, "Ah, Master Chief... I didn't see you there, sir. How can I be of assistance?" and she stacked the four books she was bringing to a table, each of them specifically about Dust.

"I was wondering if you saw Penny anywhere," He requested. Weiss hummed, then took a moment to think about it.

She shrugged, "She may be with Ruby near the Gardens, for all I know. The two have started hanging out together more often in these past couple of days."

"Thank you," He said to her. With that, he departed, much to Weiss's surprise. She hummed, then shrugged and walked off toward a table while the SPARTAN marched out toward the gardens themselves. Finding said Gardens just North-West of the library, the man saw Ruby and Penny, indeed, next to an artificial stream that flowed through a 'field' of warm-red-colored poppies.

He approached, clearing his throat. Both girls turned toward him, surprised, with Ruby smiling and greeting, "Hey, Dylan! Come check this out! There's fish in the stream!"

"Not right now, Ruby," He said, somewhat serious. Turning to a Penny whose face seemed to instantly flip from happy and innocent to worried and guilty, a burning, painful frown that actually did physically seem to hurt the Chief for but the faintest moment, but he recovered quickly. He said simply, "Penny, I wanna talk to you about an issue. A personal... Item," He had hesitated in calling Cortana a simple 'item' for a reason, "Is missing."

Ruby gasped, then stood up and said with complete disbelief behind every word, "Hey, hey, Chief, c'mon! You two have been working together for months, now! You can't just accuse Penny of-" But her friend showed her to settle down, which somewhat stunned Ruby. The girl had the grim look of someone who was, in fact, guilty of the what she was being accused.

"... I knew you'd notice..." Penny bowed her head, apologetic, "I can explain..."

John... He sighed. It was better to be lenient. Ruby was right, too, "Please, do."

"I..." Penny started, then paused, her eyes glimmering emerald for a moment. She smiled, "Even better! Oh, this is sen~sational!" She raised her hands into the sky, "I can have her explain it herself! Come with me!" and she started dragging Chief with her. While Ruby had been taken aback by the whiplash of the little meeting, she chose to smile. Lifting her Scroll, she texted teams JNPR and RWBY(minus her) to rally up, while she assumed Dylan had done the same for his teams.

The group rushed toward the landing pad, growing in number as SPARTANs and the Huntsmen and Huntresses joined them. Ironwood and Ozpin had come to see what the commotion was, with Ironwood presumably aware of the fact that the incoming was exactly what he'd ordered to not be shot down. Ahead of them, a Bullhead bearing Atlas markings, those of the cog-shield and the spear, approached the landing pad they had all gathered on, with Penny smiling brightly.

Team JNPR approached the front of the crowd with RWBY close behind, Weiss stating, "What is this about...?"

"No idea," Ruby said, grinning, "But Penny was excited about it."

Johnson hummed as he approached the front, where the Chief and Penny were, before sliding a cigarette between his lips and flashing a grin at the Spartan. The man hummed as BLUE Team also joined them, while Ironwood, Oz, Glynda and anyone else who'd crowded up looked around them, in awe at the number of soldiers and equipment on display.

Ironwood hummed, noticing Penny at the front. He wanted to go speak to her, but was stopped by Ozpin, who simply shook his head, smiling. The group watched the Bullhead finally touch down, its doors sliding open. Inside, two women resided, both looking fairly alike. The SPARTANs all seemed stunned for a moment, just like the good Headmaster, seemingly.

They watched the two women descend from the aircraft, with the taller one of the two putting a hand on her hip and smiling, "Hell of a welcoming party, folks..." as she scanned the group. She stopped at Penny and the Chief and her smile grew, before she turned to her ward, a woman in a labcoat, while she stepped forward with eyes as wide as saucers. She narrowed her lips, then looked to Cortana, who said, "I told you, doctor."

Halsey hummed, then nodded, still awed. Her voice was familiar to the Spartans, fairly alike to the other woman's, as she spoke, "You certainly did..." awe behind every word. Chief approached, stunned. He stood face-to-face with the younger of the two women, staring down at her as she was still shorter than him by a head. She stared up at him, right at his visor, then she approached him, too, taking a single step forward. She spoke, "Hey, Chief..." Melancholically.

"I..." He found no words, simply staring at her, her blue eyes staring right back at him. Beside her, doctor Catherine Elizabeth Halsey simply smiled, gripping her tablet tightly as she watched the moment unfold, the air bearing the weight of their encounter. He asked, almost too dumbfound to believe what he was seeing before his very eyes, "Cortana... Is... That you?"

"It's me, John," Cortana beamed, "In the flesh and circuits... Courtesy of," And she pointed at Penny.

John looked back to the girl, who seemed stunned for a moment, before she, too, smiled as bright as a sunbeam. She waited for him to speak again, for a good five seconds. A hearty, melodious giggle escaped her lips as she said, "Would you look at that... I made you speechless for a change..." and she lifted her right hand gently. Her eyes fell upon his breastplate, where the faded number One-One-Seven lay, scratched, ash-ridden and damaged. She gently put her hand on it, feeling the pressure and the cold of the armor through the circuits, aware that the feelings may well have been fake, or not properly reproduced. She didn't care...

Her voice quivered as she whispered, "I've been waiting to do that for... So, long..."

Chief hesitated, then gently removed his helmet. So she could properly look him in the eye, of course. Her smile grew yet again as she looked right into his eyes. She saw the confusion on his face. For the first time in ages, John seemingly allowed himself to show any kind of emotion. His mind, his human mind, enhanced as it may have been, had taken the necessary time to process things, however. And with that in mind, he simply offered her a smile.

Halsey, meanwhile, sighed deeply, then looked around as all Spartans removed their helmets, all of them smiling. She noticed some oddities, such as Kelly having actual, genuine rabbit ears, Cal having wolf ones and several others bearing animal traits like the Faunus, but those would be inquired about and dealt with at a later date. She simply let the moment ahead play out for a bit more.

She cleared her throat, "I apologize, Cortana, John, but," She tilted her head toward the stunned Ironwood, smiling Ozpin, curious Goodwitch and even more curious teams RWBY and JNPR, with Pyrrha asking Linda about what they were seeing. She spoke, "Ladies and gentlemen, greetings. To my Spartans... It is a pleasure to see you all alive. All of you. After so, so long..."

She hummed, then paused as she saw Sam in the crowd, her jaw nearly dropping and her grip on her tablet almost weakening. She paused, recomposed herself, then said, "And to the Marines, as well, a pleasure. Sergeant-Major Johnson. I see you have yet to kick your habit... Even in what I assume to be a case of technological revival," She nodded to him. The Sergeant-Major snorted at the comment, plumes of smoke popping out of his nostrils.

"Ma'am," Johnson grinned, taking a deep puff of his Sweet Williams.

She nodded, then focused on Goodwitch, Ironwood and teams RWBY and JNPR, saying, "There is a matter I wish to attend. Headmaster Ozpin, General Ironwood. My name is Doctor Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, a scientist of the United Earth Government," and that seemed to get a rise out of the group, with a stunned Ironwood staring right at her and Glynda seemingly shocked. The Marines and Spartans all tensed, too, as the Doctor was seemingly about to spill the metaphorical beans. She was doing it for their own good.

"Doctor-" John started, turning around and ready to reply.

She raised her hand and that shut him up, surprisingly, "Not now, John. Enough is enough and the cat needs to be out of the bag. The truth needs to be revealed before fate reveals it for us and causes far more problems than a simple..." She eyed team RWBY and team JNPR, all of them seemingly stunned. She sighed, then said, "Than a simple disappointment like this."

"'John'?" Ruby inquired, surprised, as she looked at the Chief. The man frowned as he saw both teams RWBY and JNPR, as well as Penny, seemingly staring, feeling clearly somewhat betrayed. He simply nodded, then looked to Doctor Halsey, who seemed to be considering the best way to speak the truth right now. There was still a matter of keeping things secret from those like teams RWBY and JNPR.

She sighed, then chose a direct approach, "Indeed. I am afraid mister..." She snorted, then said, "Mister Braun... Is not quite who he says he is. If you would forgive John, however, please. It was merely a matter of protecting you all from a more horrifying truth than you could stomach. Or so he and Cortana thought as they fabricated the tall tale of the Kingdom of Wyvern and its enterprising defenders having survived calamity..."

Ironwood stepped up, asking what everyone Remnant-born seemed to be thinking, "So, they lied to us?"

"For your own sake, yes," Halsey spoke, "And for theirs. They were afraid that locals would not believe the truth, even if it stared them in the face. The truth, however, is what I seek to tell to all of you..." And she lifted the tablet in her hand, "It is all in here, stocked and written into a coherent report about us, who we and our faction are and why we are the way we are."

"Why now?" Ozpin inquired, seemingly unfazed.

"Because Cortana has told me about their little cover story... I shun and disregard that kind of item due to my former employers pulling the Cloak and Daggers approach too many times and throwing me and too many good people under the proverbial bus to cover themselves," She replied, "Cortana was born out of the Office of Naval Intelligence's little scheming, though... With my own twist."

"And you're coming clean because you think that, if the truth got out before you told it, it'd be a worse fallout than if you do it now," Ironwood supposed. Halsey nodded.

"Astute observation, General. Yes. The soldiers around you, the boys and girls wearing the MJOLNIR armored suit... They are my creation. They are my SPARTANs. And I will protect them, even from themselves and the lies they tell. All I ask in exchange for the full, uncensored truth about us, is that you allow them to continue their lives here unabated, if not as they were before," Halsey spoke with a focus and ability that drove home her point, then looked back to the stunned John and the other SPARTANs. She whispered to herself, "They deserve at least this much rest..."

Ozpin walked up to Doctor Halsey, stating, "I speak for all of us when I say that that will be no problem, Doctor. Greetings."

"To you as well, Headmaster," She spoke, "Cortana briefed me about you, as well. Same for teams RWBY and JNPR, miss Goodwitch and General Ironwood."

Ozpin eyed Cortana and said, "An advanced Artificial Construct?"

"Yes, based upon my brain matrices," She replied.

Ironwood was stunned, "A true AI...?" and he murmured as he eyed Penny, "So, that's the complication you encountered, Penny..." as he approached Halsey as well. He looked to the woman and extended his gloved hand, stating simply, "Thank you for... Deciding to reveal things to us, Doctor."

She gripped and shook, stating, "Of course. The Truth is the only thing that can save mankind, no matter where we are..." while staring Ironwood in his deep teal eyes, unflinching. The woman quipped, "Quite an interesting prosthetic you're wearing under that glove, General," words to which Ironwood seemed surprised. She spoke on, wearing her poker face, "I almost fell for it being a normal human arm."

Ironwood paused, then smiled, "Well, she's smart."

"I wouldn't be in my profession if I wasn't, sir," She nodded, then said, "Now..." and gazed upon Ozpin once more, somewhat taken aback by the man's unblemished face and handsome features. She cleared her thoughts, inquiring, "Shall we? I think we need to leave the children to figure their things out. I will give you a basic rundown of what you should expect, then I'd like to rejoin them."

"Of course," Ozpin nodded and showed her to follow, all while team JNPR seemed to be chatting up the rest of the SPARTANs and team RWBY approached John, Penny and Cortana. Ruby looked up at the Chief for a moment, seemingly taking in the new information. Weiss seemed to be stunned, but not as stunned as anyone else, taking it in at face value.

Blake was calm and collected, not judging John, for some reason.

Yang, meanwhile, smirked. She was first to break the ice, quipping, "Y'know, I did find it kinda weird that you were the only one with a color-coded name."

That seemed to stun the entire gang, Cortana included. The AI spoke to Yang, "Wait, what!?"

"Where'd you pull that one out of?" Weiss inquired, looking at her teammate with disbelief.

"Uh... Fred, Kelly, Linda, Sam, Cal... Jorge," She counted the names on her fingers, "Lots of old vernacular names in there, girl. And then you went and up-and-named the Chief here something like Dylan frickin' Braun. A color-coded name," And she chuckled, "But, I guess it makes sense. You guys and gals are some kinda Special Forces gang, ain't ya?"

"We are," John nodded.

"Used to be top secret, as well," Cortana joined in. She then added, "Before UNSC High Command decided they needed a nice little propaganda boost during our war. Just as an FYI, girls, not everything we told you was a lie. We did face a cataclysmic event similar to the one described in the little fairy tale we told you, but it was much worse..." and she watched the group of girls wince. She added, "If Halsey's fine with it, we'll show some snippets of the war."

Penny walked up to them as well, "I take it this... Was the secret we spoke of?"

"Yes," John nodded.

Penny smiled simply, stating, "A pleasure to make your acquaintance properly, then... Mister John."

Ruby looked to Penny, slightly stunned, then back to the Chief and said, "Yeah. Yeah, it is. Heya, John. I'm Ruby!"

"Weiss," Weiss nodded, smiling, too.

"Blake," The bookworm quipped.

"Yang!" The blonde saluted.

"NORA!" The redhead of team JNPR appeared between the gang, hands splayed out and a big, dumb grin on her face as everyone else staggered back, stunned by the redhead. She giggled happily, then said, "So! Glad to know you guys finally decided to let the cat outta the bag, so to speak. See, I kinda figured you weren't really who you said you were."

"Calling bull, Nora," Yang quipped.

"Nuh-huh!" Nora shot back, smirking, "Lil' Ol' me knew there was something weird!"

The group of kids began to laugh and joke, while John and Cortana looked on with stunned expressions. Cortana walked up to his right, then stared at him for a moment. He looked right back at her, thinking. It was her, alright. The face, the eyes, the demeanor and the posture were all clearly Cortana, from head to toe. And the beauty. John had to pause and wonder how that last thought snuck in, then said, "I'm glad to see you're okay..."

"Sorry if I worried you," She chuckled, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly, "I forgot to leave a note."

It felt nice to know she had worried him for a change, too...

"Next time, don't forget..." He asked, though he wasn't mad. He sighed, then looked to Penny as Cortana chuckled. The young ginger smiled, too, though the look in her eyes told John she sought some forgiveness. He simply said to her, "And you should let me know about this kind of thing next time, too, Penny... That is, if you still want me as your friend."

Penny chuckled, "Of course, Chief. I am just glad I could learn your secret..." And she looked to Cortana, who smiled and nodded her approval. She then looked up at the Chief and added, "I will also tell you mine..." before standing up on her tippy toes, leaning in and whispering, "I am a machine, like Cortana. I am not a real girl..." and she waited to see his reaction.

He nodded, "Understood. Thanks."

She simply beamed at that simple reaction and immediately pounced on him, wrapping her arms around his waist despite not knowing why. Cortana giggled, looking down at the girl, then affirmed, "Well, looks like we have a lot of work ahead of us, do we not, Master Chief?" as she looked her partner-in-crime in the eye again, "Just like the good old times?"

"Like the good old times," He nodded, then watched as team RWBY and team JNPR all turned toward him. Calmly, he said the first thing that came to mind, "I'm sorry for lying to you all, but believe me, it was for your own sakes..."

"We understand, Chief," Jaune said.

"Indeed," Pyrrha nodded, "Your teammates told us of the issues you folks faced in broad strokes... The United Nations Space Command. Incredible," She beamed, "Humanity from beyond the stars!"

"Wait... What!?" Ruby gasped, then she looked to John and Cortana, demanding, "YOU'RE FROM FRICKIN' SPACE!?" while the rest of the team turned to face him, too. John hummed, then nodded, which garnered a sharp scream of joy from Ruby. She pounced on the Chief and yelled right into his face, "YOUGOTTATELLUSMORE!" while Cortana was laughing behind him.

The hyperactive Rose bounced up and down, grinning ear to ear with stars sparkling in her silver eyes. It was almost incredible how much energy this girl had behind her. Penny giggled next to Cortana as well. The man sighed deeply, then nodded and said, "Like I said, if doctor Halsey's fine with it, we will tell you all the full thing as well," as Yang peeled Ruby off of his armor gently.

"Deal," Yang said, smirking. He'd gotten tired of the whole lie thing anyway. Still, he was glad doctor Halsey was here, too. She could potentially help with the Thyroid implant failures... Maybe even fix them prim and proper before the lot of them descended into some form of anarchy that would scare the living hell out of anyone within viewing distance of the event.

He sighed deeply.

Chapter Text

"So, you guys were gonna tell us about this, right? Like, some more time after we got used to all of you, you would've told us that you're actually aliens... Right?" Yang inquired as she joined Blake and Fred on what seemed to be a daily stroll of theirs to the library. Fred nodded to her, which let her sigh in relief. Of course, they would've. Sure, the gang were friends, pretty much. She spoke, "Good to know! I was actually worried you guys would've..."

"I know, Yang," Fred stated, which shut Yang up for the moment. The man continued, "Being quiet on the matter was the Chief's and Cortana's idea. More just hers, it seemed, to be quite honest. She and the Chief both figured that the idea of... People coming back from the dead in the middle of your planet's wilderness and cities seemed just a bit too out there."

"I mean," Yang chuckled, "It kind of is like the premise of one of Blake's books."

"Hey!" Blake turned to her teammate and partner with an angry glare, causing the blonde to chuckle. Fred snorted, then let out a hum of agreement. Blake turned toward him, then said, "Fred! Oh, I thought I'd have at least you on my side when it comes to my books! We read them together when we were on those mandatory breaks you put me through for doing too much research relating to the White Fang!"

"Blake, you have to admit," He shrugged, "The stuff you read is pretty out there, especially the romance books."

Fred had gotten a first-hand experience of miss Belladonna's reading preferences. To say he was stunned that the quietest of the four girls in team RWBY had proven to be one of the weirdest was a surprise, but he had learned to appreciate literature through the little reading sessions they had had in-between their sessions of seeking information on the White Fang. Although the way Blake had mentioned the 'breaks' seemed to have garnered a smirk from her blonde fighting partner.

Blake rolled her eyes and scoffed, "Whatever... Still, it probably is far less far-fetched than whatever got D-... John," She paused, then mulled on the name change for a bit. It had been a few months since they first met the SPARTAN and they had always known him as Dylan. She'd get used to the name eventually. She sighed and continued, "Than whatever John decided to keep from us," and she quoted, "'for our own sakes, as doctor Halsey said."

"It is," Fred replied, "I, Kelly and Linda had only read the reports on what happened above Earth when he first came back."

Yang hummed, then asked with genuine curiosity, "Earth's your humanity's homeworld, right? Or..."

"Good deductive skills, Yang. Yes, Earth is mankind's cradle where we come from," He replied sharply, then explained, "It's the capital of the United Earth Government and all human Colonies spread out across the Milky Way galaxy. Human civilization thrived and expanded from it all the way out into the stars. And, until we landed upon Remnant? We thought it was the only world humanity had naturally developed on."

"And then we came along and ruined everything," Yang smirked.

Blake chuckled, "If I was still in the White Fang, I'd have probably agreed. Good thing I'm not," and she smiled at Yang, then at Fred. The blonde seemed stunned for a moment, but she let out a light chuckle, rubbing the back of her neck as her cheeks flushed red. Fred, meanwhile, simply ignored the exchange. He'd been tasked by the Chief to escort Blake and Yang to the library so they could actually study for an upcoming exam. And so he could help them.

"So," Yang diverted and looked to Fred, "What is Doc Halsey to you guys and girls, anyway?"

"She's the woman who made us who we are," Fred explained, "And that's all I'm liberty to say until she gives the go-ahead."

"Ooh, top-secret stuff. Noted," Yang grinned mischievously again. Fred didn't even want to know what was in her mind at this point, however. He didn't bother to ask as he opened the library door for them, then walked with them to go retrieve the books necessary for the study session. Yang kept sneaking peeks at him, though. He noticed it, but, yet again, he did not say anything.

After retrieving the books, he stopped and said, "I'll go back to our accommodations. I bet doctor Halsey's going to want to see all of us gathered there."

"We'll call Ruby and Weiss for the study session when we get to our dorms, then," Blake said. He nodded approvingly, to which Blake said, "Well, we'll be seeing you around, Fred. Say hello to the others for us and tell John it's fine," and, with that, the girls let him depart as they picked up the books they wanted to check out. Blake, however, could feel the smug smirk and the stare of her blonde companion locked onto her. She sighed, then said dispassionately, "What is it, Yang...?"

"Reading sessions, ey?" Smirked the girl as they walked to the checkout booth and scanned the books.

Blake pinched the bow of her nose and groaned, "I knew you were going to mention that," before turning to her and replying with the most serious 'done-with-your-shit' look Blake Belladonna herself had ever worn, "Fred helps me find the information both our parties need to find the White Fang. However, he pushes me to take breaks as not to overwork myself..."

"So, he's doing good by ya," Yang quipped, causing Blake's eyes to nearly roll into the back of her skull. The girl let out a snark-filled giggle, then said, "Sorry, Blakey, sorry. I'm glad you two are getting along... And I am glad that Doc Halsey decided they should spill the beans. Still," as the clerk at the station scanned their books and noted their return dates on the computer. She spoke, "I still can't believe it."

"It is... A lot," Blake admitted with a heavy sigh, "That, not only is there another humanity, but it's prospered enough to go up there? Beyond the blue sky and into space?"

"Hey, maybe we'll get a chance to. Some day," Yang reassured her as she hefted her stack of books. She and Blake walked out of the building after bidding goodbye and aimed for their dorms. Yang clarified, "You know, see up there. The wide space. Outside of movies and the likes," as they passed by a bunch of other fellow Beacon alumni. Blake sighed deeply.

"Maybe," She said with a hopeful tone. The two entered their dorm bloc and marched up to their room, entering only to find Ruby and Weiss already inside, with the former reading through something on the larger variation of the Scroll, the tablet. Weiss turned to the girls, then nodded and went to help Blake carry the books by taking half, setting them aside on her desk while Yang and Blake worked to place the others around.

"Well," Weiss started, "Good to see you taking studying more seriously, Yang."

Yang shrugged, "Hey, anything that keeps us at pace with our new old friends," And she flashed a grin at Weiss, before turning to Ruby. She asked, "Whatcha reading, Sis?" As she approached the girl, Ruby turned toward her and smiled as she lifted up the device, showing it was an article about the SPARTANs. More specifically, about who they were supposed to be, as posted by Vale News Network's online presence.

"Who are the mysterious armored soldiers?" Yang read the title, somewhat surprising everyone. She continued reading, "An unknown force of Soldiers was spotted some nights ago, during a surprising event relating to the lost Paladin production models belonging to the Atlas Military. A battle ensued on one of the main viaducts of the city of Vale that led to the industrial district. These soldiers, alongside a group of four unidentified Huntresses and a squadron of soldiers aboard a gunship. The images within this article were taken by freelance journalists and local civilians, but have been corroborated by multiple sources..."

"Huh," Weiss said, looking over the images of the battle between them and the Paladin. She hummed, then looked to Yang and Ruby and said, "Perhaps we should tell the Headmaster and SPARTANs about this."

Blake sighed, "I'll send a message with the link to Fred."

"Gotcha," Yang nodded, "Guess we're still gonna have to study."

"Yeah," Ruby sighed, then tossed the tablet onto her bed. She stood to her feet, took a moment to think, then grinned and looked to her team, "How about we call JNPR in as well?"

"A study party? Heck yeah!" Her sister perked up. Weiss and Blake looked to each-other with concern, aware of how well this would go. Poor Weiss already dreaded having to study with the two most overactive members in her team, but here they were, bringing Nora into the mix, not to mention Jaune with his incessant flirtatious attitude toward her. Admittedly, the young man had dialed it down and (presumably) started seeing something in Pyrrha... No, probably not.

Before either she, or Blake could oppose the idea, however, Ruby had already rung the four extra party members and, in the blink of an eye, Nora burst through the door, a grin on her face and arms raised high(one of which was holding a sleeping bag) as she cried out "STUDY AND SLEEPOVER PARTY!" in the most ecstatic tone possible. Weiss silently thanked the gods that the exam was still a couple of days away, then watched as Ren, Pyrrha and, finally, Vomit-Boy himself filtered in.

"Good afternoon," Ren greeted.

"Hello!" Pyrrha jovially added, smiling.

"Hey," Jaune waved awkwardly. And thus, the 'squad' was complete. Nora had immediately gotten down to brass tacks and started spreading out her sleeping mat and her stuff between the beds, while Pyrrha set up at the foot of Weiss and Ruby's beds. As the gang set up and brought out their books, Jaune couldn't help but wonder, asking, "Are you girls sure this is alright?"

"Sure, it's a study sesh, ain't it?" Yang shrugged, then plopped herself on her bed, "Plus, we get to chat."

"True," Jaune nodded, then sat himself down on his sleep roll, which had no markings on it whatsoever, it seemed. Looked like Jaune was trying to conceal something, though, because it had some sort of cover on top of it. Weiss didn't dare ask, nor did anyone else of her team... For the time being, anyway, Weiss thought as she settled down on her seat and pulled one of the books from the stack. The others spread the books out among themselves and began to study.

And it took less than the span of a minute for Nora to start, "So, what do you guys think about the little reveal we just had?"

"If you mean the Spartans," Weiss started as she continued reading from the 'Physiology of the Grimm' book she was holding, (Yes, it was an exam for Prof. Port's class), "Then, it was an interesting, if enlightening event. The fact that they come from a far more advanced human society should've been unsurprising, however, simply due to the fact their armor seemed far too advanced to be made by the hands of local craftsmen and smiths, or by the hands of people like us."

Everyone exchanged glances for a moment, with only Pyrrha voicing, "So, you say we should have figured it out?"

"No, it was still a big surprise," Weiss replied, "That they are alien to Remnant, I mean. That they're advanced, not so much..."

"Hm, fair," Pyrrha nodded, "Still, they are an interesting group. This 'United Nations Space Command'..."

"I agree," Jaune said.

"They are fairly professional, at least," Ren added, writing down something from his book, "And friendly."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Beacon Tower

Doctor Halsey had begun a short recount of the historical events of humanity, ranging from the pre-civilization age to the earliest empires, then to the Romans and Greeks, further on into the Medieval and into the modern world, including the information age of the very early two thousands. Tens of thousands of years of history had been summed up by doctor Halsey in the span of an hour, coherently at that.

She continued, "And after the discovery of the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Drive, Humanity has since expanded across a multitude of worlds, thus forming the United Earth Government, the Inner and Outer Colonies and our little interstellar empire. That leads us into the twenty-five hundreds, with the latest year prior to my arrival and the arrival of John and his SPARTANs here being twenty-five fifty-eight," and she looked at the tablet in Ozpin's hand as the man read it. Tapping it with her finger and sliding her finger from right to left, she moved onto the next article of importance. The late Insurrection and early Human-Covenant War, both of which seemed to pique the interest of the men and woman present.

"Now, onto very recent events... The Insurrection, I will go over briefly due to it having a significant detailing of all accounts in the data I brought to you," She spoke calmly, though some ire was felt behind her words, "The UNSC faced the Insurrection, a conglomerate of military factions and terror groups opposed to the UEG's control of the Outer Colonies and seeking to secede. Though their early efforts were concerted, akin to a rational army, the ten-year war between us and them was forced to come to a grinding halt. That brings us into the next section of our tale."

"Doctor, if I may," Ironwood started, "The casualty reports here are-"

"Horrifying, yes, I am aware," Halsey sighed as she noticed the Headmasters' different demeanors. Whereas Ironwood read through the files attentively, Ozpin seemed less concerned, simply like he was reading a historical account. She hummed, making a mental note of the man's calm, then continued, "The Human-Covenant War... This is where things get infinitely worse..."

She pushed forth on the tablet and holographic images emerged, three-dimensional. One was a distorted form, a warship with a bulbous hull, resembling a sea monster of old tales. The other was a planet, habitable, according to details. Harvest. Halsey began again, her voice more grim now, "In 2525, at the apogee of Operation:TREBUCHET, the Colonial Military Administration, the UNSC and Humanity at large made contact with the foe that would shape us into what we are today..."

"The Covenant," Halsey sighed, then connected her own table to the device and projected more images. Images of alien creatures in battle, of bolts of energy flying toward the cameramen, of drones flying in the sky, watching as ships of similar designs to the one distorted image descended upon what looked to be a city of glass and concrete and dirt, with fields and fields of golden crops. She spoke, "A Theocratic, militaristic hegemony of alien species, came into contact with us."

She played the audio file as the first beam of energy struck down upon Harvest's capital city. An alien, seemingly translated voice, spoke harshly, "Your destruction is the will of the Gods! And we? We are their instrument!" as the unnerving images of Harvest boiled over, each camera dying as its operator was hit, or as it in itself was destroyed. Ozpin stared with wider eyes this time, at the destruction, the sheer carnage.

Miss Goodwitch had taken a moment to compose herself, while the general had instinctively covered his wide-open mouth, terror sinking its blade deep into his heart as he watched the beams burn swathes across Harvest... Then a hundred other planets. Halsey spoke, "To... Make a long story as short as possible, Humanity was losing. Badly. All the footage you see is real, captured from every world the Covenant burned and coalesced into a portrait of the very War for Survival Humanity in our realm has fought..."

"Unbelievable..." Murmured Ironwood, while Ozpin remained eerily silent, possibly taking in the images.

Goodwitch looked to Halsey and asked with a whimper, "Is... That why the SPARTANs exist?"

"Yes and no," Halsey replied, "Originally, they were meant for the Insurrection. Programs and calculations showed mankind would've devolved into civil strife the likes of which hadn't been seen since the Second World War. But, they did come just in time to counteract the Covenant. At great cost, disappointingly," And she had murmured that last part as she watched her soon-to-be compatriots take it all in.

"What happened?" Ozpin asked. Noticing a slight confusion in Halsey's face, he clarified, "To the Human-Covenant War."

"We won," She spoke remorsefully, "At a great cost."

... Glynda fainted as soon as the numbers of dead started scrolling across the screen. A total of thirty-three billion dead across dozens of worlds that the Covenant had burned in almost thirty years of brutal warfare, while Ozpin closed his eyes and bowed his head and the General uncapped his flask and chugged down two-thirds of the content. Halsey, her mouth dry, explained, "If you will pardon me, Headmaster, General, miss Goodwitch, the story is better explained in detail there... And if we are to ever reveal ourselves to the public, I would be glad to tell it fully in front of the cameras. Right now, however? I wish to... Spend some time with my SPARTANs."

"I understand, Doctor," Ozpin said in a murmur, "Thank you for... Enlightening us."

Halsey nodded, bid a quick goodbye and departed, with Ironwood stating aloud as soon as she left with the elevator, "I can't believe this, and yet... All the data, all the details, all the videos and images...!" and he seemed paler than before. Uneasily, he took two steps toward a chair at the front of Ozpin's desk and sat himself down, rubbing his temples, "My god..."

"A genocidal war... And mankind survived it," Ozpin stated, setting the tablet down, "She detailed every battle, from the Battles of Harvest, to a world called Miridem, to even Reach and Earth... Incredible."

"And terrifying," Glynda stated bluntly, "This cannot get out to the public... Not yet..."

"I agree," Ozpin noted, "Best to keep it under wraps. From everyone... Including your military assets, James." And Ironwood offered a simple nod as an answer. It would demoralize their troops severely. Then again, it would presumably be a whiplash, Ironwood thought, as it had been for them moments ago. He sighed, then rubbed his eyes, looking at the elevator with both awe and fear... Just who was this twin Humanity, if they survived after all that?

... Halsey, meanwhile, had marched down from the Tower, toward the house where her SPARTANs and their comrades lay. She found it and saw the people milling about outside. Marines snapped to, saluting a civilian of all people. She indulged it, saluting them back, then entering the house, to see them all. From SPARTAN-IIIs like NOBLE Team, to IIs like Jorge, the Reds from the Fall of Reach and BLUE TEAM.

John and Cortana had seen her come in. Cortana smiled at Halsey, while John remained ever the stoic young man, truly young now after his seeming de-aging process. The other SPARTANs, both Twos and Threes, gathered around her, helmets off their heads. If Halsey did not know better, she could swear she now stared at the very sins she had done. She did, however, know better. Before her stood the best the UNSC, the UEG, hell, all of Humanity had to offer. John, Samuel, Frederick, Kelly, Linda, Daisy, Cal, Jorge... Even Carter, Kat and the rest of NOBLE TEAM.

"Ma'am," John nodded, breaking the silence in the room. Halsey noted that no SPARTAN stared at her with ire or hatred. Instead, even Daisy, one of the most rebellious of the SPARTAN-II Class, smiled at the Doctor, with Cal beside her bearing, uh. Wolf ears, as it'd seem. Kelly herself also had rabbit ears and another Spartan had a fox's ears. She blinked, then sighed deeply.

And she smiled, speaking, "None of you have any idea how good it is to see you all alive again. Especially after... All these years."

"You know the saying, Ma'am," Jorge quipped, "SPARTANs never die."

"They're just Missing in Action," Kurt voiced from beside him, smiling, too. Halsey nodded, thankful for the first time in her life to hear those words from anyone's mouth. Specifically because it was them. Jorge and Kurt. Two soldiers, two SPARTANs, one of which she had nearly witnessed the death of, while another died just above her during the Fall.

"Remind me to talk to you properly about 'being right behind us', Kurt. I still do not appreciate what you pulled on Onyx, or Trevelyan as it is called today," Halsey scolded him. His smile grew, however. She looked around, at all of them and the Marines, then continued, her voice calm, but focused, "However, because we are alive, it means our missions clearly are not done yet. Remnant is in a war not to dissimilar from our own, though theirs seems to be at a Stalemate. You have all given your lives for mankind and I am sure you would do so again if asked, so I will tell you this. What I ask next is optional. You do not have to volunteer if you want your peaceful lives now."

"But, this war... it is ours as much as it is of the people of Remnant," She then began, "We still have a duty. There is no command chain beyond your own, no orders you need to follow beside what you think is right for yourselves. Humanity, however, is our people. Even though some of you may now bear..." She chuckled, "Faunus traits, pardon me, girls... And we have all sworn a vow to fight for it."

"So, I ask this. Whoever wishes to continue fighting, to rid this world of the threat of the Grimm so that we may, perhaps, find some measure of peace in living our lives here, please take a step forward. None of you will be judged for denying-" She was interrupted by all pairs of boots in the room taking one step forward. Another smile crept onto Halsey's face, one of pride, because she knew all of them well. Even Johnson and his Marines.

"Ma'am," Johnson grinned, "Just tell us whose asses we need to kick."

Several SPARTANs clearly stifled some laughter. Halsey made another mental note, this time regarding doing psych checkups of her SPARTANs, before replying, "I will, once Headmaster Ozpin is done reading the debrief on the UNSC and us and he calls me up to speak to him. I will ask him of the threats we face then... Otherwise, I repeat this, I am glad to see you all alive."

She then took her glasses off, looking each of them in the eye, "However... Please, learn to also live your lives here, among the people of Remnant. Your lives are now your own, reborn, rebuilt and free, my SPARTANs. You should choose how to live them. And live them properly, as I know you all will, for I cannot vouch for the Marines in the room..." And that got several belly laughs from the Marines themselves.

Penny, meanwhile, stared at the exchange with a smile...

Damned be her orders for now. She wouldn't ruin this.

Chapter Text

Sam patrolled Beacon for the evening, his MA5 clasped in his hands. He wondered just how Ruby and the gang were taking the matter of them being basically ETs to their world. Just a mashup of alien people who technically had no right to exist on their little planet beside just being revived there by whatever unholy technological item the Forerunners had brought into the fold. He was, however, surprised by how well their two new friend teams had taken the whole unveiling of them being aliens. Undead aliens, at that. Sure, it wasn't that hard to believe that they weren't from Remnant, but the 'death' ordeal?

The boy sighed as he continued his patrol of the corridors near the dorm rooms by miss Goodwitch's request. She seemingly wanted to make sure no students would be getting 'frisky', as per her own words. Samuel's innocence had kept him from understanding the full implications behind the Combat Teacher/right-hand lady's quip and there had (thankfully) not been anyone present to explain what was by all accounts a genuine innuendo, or hint toward activities unbecoming of what a Huntsman was supposed to be. Or, well, unbecoming of students...?

Sam didn't really care about it anyway. He simply continued his patrol without a care in the world beside making sure everyone was safe. Sam may not have had the decades of experience his comrades carried with them, but he was still a SPARTAN. His mission took priority, meaning he could finally get back to what he did best:Fighting bad guys and keeping his comrades safe.

Perfectly silent as he patrolled, rifle in hand, he passed by dorms from which the sounds of laughter and crying, of joy and sadness and of calm and activity echoed. The hopeful, the tired, the sad, the happy, all of them found a place in Beacon's dorms today as its alumni. It was exam season in Beacon, so there might've been related, which made Samuel thankful that he and his friends were able to thoroughly study what needed to be studied before each went about their job as a security member, or was trying to find a job in the case of the Marines.

Captain Rawley, however, had chosen not to fly her Pelican anymore. They were low on fuel for the old bird and nobody was sure if it was at all possible to switch out the fuel source to something like Dust-based fuel. That, or find a way to acquire the Hydrogen they use in high-enough quantities to ensure they had it for when the situation required it. There was a lot to consider, including ammunition manufacture.

Cortana and doctor Halsey were kind enough to share the chemical composition of the gunpowder they used in their bullets, so that was good. It was just a matter of acquiring the necessary chemical compounds and the brass to manufacture the stuff in Beacon's forges. Doctor Halsey was busying herself with something else in the meantime, some specific research she wanted to finally get through with.

Something about magnetic weapons...

Sam paused, stopping as he saw Ruby appear out from her dorm, jumping backward as a pillow flew from within. She yelled, "Nora! Guys, c'mon, we were supposed to be going to sleep!" and ducking as another pillow, followed by a momentarily inaudible taunt from Nora, echoed. Ruby rolled her eyes and closed the door behind her, before her shoulders sagged and she slumped forward, breathing tiredly.

The young woman was in her pajamas:a black tank top with what looked to be a heart with several spikes poking out of it in the middle, as well as long, saggy white pants with red roses polka-dotting the entire design. She sighed and rubbed her eyes, muttering to herself, "Maybe Weiss was right. It was a mistake to call team JNPR over for study-slash-sleepover..."

"I don't know," Sam quipped, causing the girl to yelp in surprise and swivel about. He took his helmet off, sliding it under his arm and his rifle onto his back, before stating, "Spending time with comrades in arms helps build cohesion. May not be a bad idea to study together, though sleeping in the same room with Nora may contradict that train of thought..." and he smirked at the Rose as she still calmed down, her face as red as the heart-shaped something on her tank top's front. "Hey, Ruby."

"Hey, Sam..." Ruby whined, gripping her chest, "You need to stop doing that..."

"Sorry," He chuckled, then paused as he fully took the time to look over the girl. She looked about as normal as any day, though there was something that changed about her, what with being clad in her pajamas. Something in his mind told him that he, perhaps, was not supposed to see her like this. A single moment of hesitation was all that had passed for the Spartan's own facial features to be tinged by a light crimson.

Ruby looked up to him, smiled, then paused, confused as to why he, of all people was blushing. She looked down at herself again, then slowly shrunk down, curling into a fetal position as Sam looked away. He hummed, then asked, "Are you doing okay...?" as he stared at the door of their dorm and pondered going in to help drag team JNPR out. Or at least Nora.

"... no..." Ruby replied, her voice so high-pitched, yet so low in volume, it actually stunned Sam for a moment. It was a feat worthy of someone with the kinds of powers Huntsmen and Huntresses had, the Semblances. Still, he knew that managing to do that to her own voice was not part of Ruby's repertoire of powers. Rather, it was due to a moment of embarrassment at being seen in nothing but her pajamas. Even the young SPARTAN knew to read the room, or... Err... Hallway... Well enough to understand that the girl was not doing well.

That, and he knew a few of her tells at this point. He didn't know why she was so embarrassed, considering she was not particularly under-dressed for the evening. It was almost curfew hours, anyways. He sighed deeply, then he asked, "Want to talk about something? Get our minds off of this?"

"... Sure, if it doesn't interrupt your patrol..." Ruby murmured, still avoiding looking him in the eye. He smiled, then extended his hand toward the young girl. She looked upon the hand, then up at the smiling blonde and smiled back, though more awkwardly. Taking his hand, she felt herself lifted to her feet as if she was as light as a feather. She dusted herself off, still using her hands to try and hide certain portions of her body, then asked, "What do you want to talk about...?"

He shrugged, "Well, my patrol's over and John probably won't mind me being late if I send a ping. So, whatever you want."

Ruby nodded, then took a moment to think of a subject. She felt a chill, her exposed arms growing cold. She shivered, rubbing her arms and forearms to try and warm them up, then paused as she felt and saw Sam drape something over her shoulders. He said, "Thermal blanket, part of the standard United Nations Space Command survival kit. I keep mine with me, as does every Spartan."

She looked at the item, a blanket made of a surprisingly comfortable and insulating material, as it settled neatly over her back. She curled the material around in front of herself as well, then blushed again as she smiled, saying a meek, "Thank you..." before asking, "Where are we gonna talk? We can't exactly go in the dorm right now..." and the muffled sound of a crash echoed.

"NORA!" Yang's voice blared from inside.

"Sorry...!" Replied the wrecking ball of a girl.

Sam snorted. Understandably enough, they couldn't exactly go inside and they couldn't lounge around in front of the door at the risk of being listened to. Admittedly, being listened to should not have proven to be a problem for the Huntress-in-Training and for a SPARTAN Supersoldier. Alas, he figured he may as well make Ruby feel as comfortable as possible, stating, "There's a cot I know from my patrol patterns. C'mon."

Ruby seemed shy at first, but she smirked and whispered to Sam, "My, my, mister Sam, isn't it a little direct to call a girl to a secluded place during night-time?"

He raised a brow, confused at the implications, "I mean, miss Goodwitch mentioned the whole 'getting frisky' thing, whatever that means," and that seemed to stun the young Rose enough for her little moment of trying to tease Sam(unsuccessfully, one may add) to instantly be replaced by a stuttering mess of a girl. He added, "I won't do it, seeing as I ain't got the faintest. So..."

"R-Right..." Ruby sighed, covering her mouth and looking to the side, "Let's just go..."

The two of them marched toward that small cot, an indent in the walls of velvet into which the carpets extended. A massive window showed the outside, specifically pointed toward Vale itself to the West, visible being the entire city's lit skyline, which beamed an aura of golden artificial light high into the sky, muting the stars' light in favor of its own. It was still an eerie beauty that served as a backdrop.

The two sat themselves down on a (surprisingly strong) couch, with Sam starting, "So, what is it you wanna talk about?"

"Well," Ruby rubbed the back of her neck and looked at him as he set his helmet aside and onto a table sat at the side of the couch. She hummed and looked to see his Assault Rifle, then stated, "Your weapons, actually. I wanna know more about'em. More about the Armor you're wearing. That kind of stuff."

"Weapon geek?" He smirked. She blushed and nodded, to which he replied, "Same here."

Stunned, Ruby asked ecstatically, "REALLY!?"

"Yes," He nodded, "Though I'm more focused on explosives, I can maintain any UNSC weapon, from the basic Magnum to the trustworthy Battle Rifle prototypes and models. If it has a trigger group, a bolt and a barrel, I can disassemble, assemble, mend and upgrade it. Even things that don't have that, like our armor, I've learned to maintain a bit while we were here."

"Woah," Ruby smiled, "So... What's your weapon called?"

He drew the rifle off his back and said, "This is an MA5B, a Misriah Armories product. Basically, the standard-issue Assault Rifle of the UNSC for as long as I can remember. Admittedly, not a really good idea to change something as sturdy and reliable as the MA5 out for anything until you're sure the newcomer can hold up to the strict requirements of the UNSC."

"Wow," Ruby smiled, then ran a hand onto the weapon and paused, "Wait..." And she pressed a button on the side of the barrel hood and cowling, revealing two flip-up iron sights. She smirked, then said, "It does have iron sights! I thought that you guys dropped'em in favor of something else! Not to mention the digital ammo counter didn't look like it gave much way to this kinda stuff!"

"The MA5 is highly modular. And of course she has Iron Sights," He nodded, "If our SmartLink Scopes break, we need the analog backup."

"SmartLink Scopes?" Ruby seemed positively excited, bouncing up and down on one of the couch's pillows. The two went on with their discussion about the UNSC's various pieces of equipment and how to best develop them, unaware(or perhaps not caring) that the other three members of team RWBY and the four of JNPR were looking at them from behind a corner.

Yang smirked, "You all owe me fifty lien each..."

Within the confines of the SPARTAN abode, doctor Halsey was sat outside, on the patio, reading through information on her tablet. She had begun researching the events that were bringing the dead back to life in order to figure out just how much longer they would continue. Said research was being aided by a subroutine Cortana had copied off herself using the Covenant AI's algorithm and imprinted into Halsey's tablet to aid at Data Analysis. She hummed to herself, reading through the reports compiled by Cortana in regards to the radiation pockets being Slipspace-related and made a note to run a scan of the place as soon as possible, perhaps discover what kind of device could cause this.

She had also read up on the Didact's superweapon, the Composer. Not as much a weapon as it was a forced recruitment tool for the Forerunners' army of horrible human-adjacent super-machines, which were called 'Prometheans'. That the Forerunners were this evil an ancient force stunned the good doctor. Alas, it meant that the UNSC would have something extra to deal with whilst exploring the world the Infinity had recovered John from.

She sighed, then read up on the theories Cortana had penned for the slipspace anomalies. A combination of a nuclear warhead going off next to the Composer? Why were they all 'recomposed' here, then? And why were the living also being brought in? Why were they having years given back to them? Too many questions for that theory to hold water, even if that was how John and Cortana wound up here. Recomposition might have had something to do with it, but it wasn't the full answer.

Perhaps a Forerunner device on the planet was very likely, perhaps being the most obvious answer. Any time there was a piece of their ancient technology on a planet, there were a mix of weird signals and information retrieved from the planet's surface, but the resulting 'anomalies' were usually small and innocuous, unless the technological item itself was massive and active. So that was a good starting point for a theory to mix in with being recomposed.

She merged the two in her own written speculative file, then grabbed her coffee mug and sipped the dark blend that Captain Rawley had brewed for her before going to sleep. Sighing, she set the tablet aside and rubbed her face with her hands, letting out a deep sigh and looking out toward the lights of the city beyond Beacon's lake. She blinked, then murmured to herself, "There are so many unknown variables..."

"It's headache-inducing, ain't it?" She heard her own voice ask. Unfazed, Halsey turned to see Cortana walking out, a smirk on her face as she, too, held a cup of some sort of hot drink. She sat herself down next to the doctor, on the other free patio chair, noticing the woman's surprised glance. She replied to the unasked question, "Doctor Polendina made sure to give me olfactive and taste sensors. Plus, I do function off of processing food matter in a bioreactor of sorts that acts as a bonus energy source, aiding the Dust micro-reactor inside."

"I see," Halsey hummed, "Penny's... I do not know if I should call him 'father', or 'creator'..." Then she sighed and settled, "Father, because that is what our young friend calls him... He is a brilliant man to have figured out these kinds of upgrades. It would help a machine like Penny easily blend in with those around her, should she ever be sent back to Atlas for an upgrade."

Cortana smiled, "Yeah..." then she looked to the doctor as a slightly concerning realization hit her, "Shouldn't you be sleeping?"

"I cannot sleep until I have processed all the information and formulated some form of hypothesis for why we are in this strange situation, Cortana," Halsey replied absentmindedly, before adding, "I know the old adage, 'don't look a gift horse in the mouth' may apply here, seeing as the many dead Heroes of our War are back, but this does not mean we shouldn't be inquisitive..."

"I agree," Cortana nodded, "Still, doc, you're human."

"Do you not have a sleep setting?" She inquired half-heartedly, picking her tablet back up and continuing to read and correlate.

"I do, but it's off. If I eat stuff every three to four hours, my reactors don't shut down, nor do the internal batteries need to replenish that often."

"And she says I should sleep..." Halsey murmured, "Do you gain weight?"

Cortana snorted, "Nope. Benefits of being a robot."

Halsey rolled her eyes, then continued reading and preparing assumptions. The contacts appeared over the span of a few months and, by all accounts, were probably still coming in if this data was to be believed. She stood there, thoughtful, for a moment, before asking, "Have you been able to track any new contacts via the CCTS's sensor suites, or...?"

"I've detected a bunch more in the general area of Vale, yes," Cortana replied with a nod, "Though I wasn't able to update the Chief on them while I was getting a full-body lift done..." and that got Halsey to snort, almost spilling her coffee. Cortana chuckled, then said, "Did you also get your humor back when you dropped in, Doc? Because you don't usually laugh at my jokes."

Halsey sighed, setting her mug of coffee aside again and replying annoyedly, "I do have a sense of humor, Cortana."

"It's just very dry, or it's subsided," Cortana smirked. Halsey shook her head, then continued reading. She waved Cortana away, to which the AI stood up, still smiling, then went back inside. There, she found Johnson... Arm-wrestling with Dubbo, while the SPARTANs were watching it unfold. The two men were holding their ground against each-other very well.

Johnson grinned, "C'mon, Dubbo... Give up."

"Like hell, Sarge, with all due respect," The Australian shot back. Cortana snorted and shook her head, walking past them with her cup in hand and joined John and Penny at the dinner table. The former was reading the news on his Scroll, while the latter seemed to simply be humming a song to herself. She smiled at Cortana and waved when the AI approached.

Cortana was then struck by a simple realization:They were basically sisters. Admittedly, Cortana was older by some degree, at least in terms of her experience with the real world, but Penny was adorable and she knew Remnant, so... Bonuses. She sat herself down face-to-face with John and said, "Hey, you two. Anything interesting in the news today, John?"

"Aside from what Team RWBY sent me? Nothing much."

"Ah, yes, the link from the Vale News Network site, with the report in regards to the SPARTANs and the fight against Torchwick," Penny explained before plucking up a small creature from the floor, which stunned Cortana. "Hello, Keyes, my little friend," Penny cooed at the creature as she pet it, to which Cortana looked to John. He looked up, shrugged and looked back down at the news.

"This little fellow wouldn't stop following me and Lieutenant Alice during our patrol," John remarked, "So, we took him home. Named him Keyes."

"Penny...?" Cortana said, hiding the annoyance she felt at seemingly being left out of the loop in regards to them owning a damn kitten. "Can I hold him?" She then inquired. Penny smiled, then gently handed the little cat to Cortana. It looked at her, curious, then let out a shrill meow of greeting ,causing the AI to absolutely, positively squeak with joy. She brought the little fella close to her chest, then shot a pointed glare at John, stating, "That you didn't tell me about this before saddens me, John."

"You'll be the first to know if we get new pets, okay?" He quipped, then continued reading the news. Cortana chuckled, then peered at his Scroll for a moment, sending information regarding even more newcomers. He hummed, then said, "We're going to need to build an underground section if we're hoping to house everyone..." as he saw the multitude of blips.

Some of them were in Vacuo, others in Mistral. Many were clustered in and around Vale, as usual. He spoke, "One's moving fast, seems like the contacts are airmobile. Should be making it to the RV point within fifteen minutes..." And stood up, before ordering, "Captain Rawley, we're flying. Kurt, you're with me on this one. Everyone else, be ready build up the new infrastructure necessary for our soldiers. And a new Pelican, I assume..."

The SPARTANs nodded, with each grabbing their kit and preparing to depart. Kurt joined up with the Chief, stating, "Any particularly reason you picked me for this one?"

"I think some of the new contacts are familiar to you," He replied, "Call up NOBLE Team on the radio."

With a nod, Kurt slid his helmet on his head and cued up a call for Noble, express delivery. Cortana and John exchanged one look and she smiled, nodding at him. Penny, beside them, stood up as well and said, "I wish to aid in the recovery of your comrades, Chief. I haven't been out on a mission with you for a while and I... Do miss seeing you fight."

Chief nodded, "Understood. C'mon."

The trio and their pilots departed as soon as they all retrieved their weapons. At the landing pad, they met Nobles Two and Six, with Kat stating, "Sorry, sir. The commander and the others are busy with that scouting mission they requested a while back. We're all you're getting for the evening..." As she boarded the transport with Six behind her. Alice racked the bolt of her DMR, then nodded to the Chief.

Before long, the group was airborne with the broken moon of Remnant high in the sky above and behind them. Carol kept an eye on the fuel counter of the vehicle, noting, "We just need to find a good way to get ourselves hydrogen and we'll be good..." before gently lowering the thrust of her vehicle to burn less of their precious fuel source. Chief looked on ahead as they approached the area of Forever Fall again, the usual brightness of the red-colored trees and grass now replaced by a slight sense of dread.

Before they could land, however, the roar of a thirty millimeter burst filled their ears, muffled by the armored canopy of their own aircraft. Ahead of them, a Nevermore was stripped of its black ichor skin and feathers and split in two by the AP rounds. Carol reported, "Radar contact, immediate North!" and watched as a new aircraft came into view. The Pelican's radio crackled to life, white noise first filling the cockpit, before...

"... Is Petty Officer Shiela Polaski, does anyone in that bird copy!? Echo Four-Nineteen, is that you!?"

A young woman's voice. Carol's face morphed into a joyful grin as she said, "Echo Two-Fifty, it's good to hear your god-damn voice again! How are you doing?" And a burst of joyful laughter echoed from the armed Pelican ahead. The aircraft brought itself nose-to-nose with their dropship, with Chief smiling as he saw Sheila aboard, waving to them. Beside her was corporal Locklear, the ODST that had been with them on the Ascendant Justice/Gettysburg during Operation FIRST STRIKE.

"It's damn good to hear your voice, Carol... What the hell's with the Demon Birds all over the sky? And... Is that the Chief?"

"Long story, bud. Long, long story. Stand by, patching the Chief through to you now."

Chief nodded, then spoke, "Petty Officer Polaski. Good to see you alive. You arrived just in time to help us rally up a few more new contacts," calmly watching as Polaski and Locklear high-fived, with the blonde pilot grinning ear-to-ear at them. She gave a thumbs up from aboard, to which the Chief asked, "Anyone else with you besides corporal Locklear?"

"Negative, sir. It's just me and him. Patch the coordinates for the other survivors, though. We'll pick'em up and bring them to the RV point," Polaski replied as she went through a series of buttons on her Pelican's consoles. Chief nodded, tapped Foe Hammer on the shoulder and told her to send the details to her fellow Pelican pilot, before going back into the blood tray.

... Well, that temporarily solved their issues in regards to the Gunship's limited fuel availability, at least.

Chapter Text

Doctor Halsey quietly pondered their futures as she studied a little something small on her table. She checked her calcs, bags under her eyes, before tossing the tablet onto her bunk and rubbing her eyes. Damn it, she was actually tired. Gazing out through the window, the woman noted that it was slowly coming to daytime. The sun was rising not far from them, the half-broken moon of Remnant fading behind the skyline of Vale.

She hummed, pushing her glasses up her nose, then continued reading files, making calculations and reading data. John and the team he'd picked for the retrieval, meanwhile, had gone on to pick as many people as they could up, far as it looked like. She was tracking the progress of the Pelican via an application she had written up herself. She'd scanned several maps of Remnant and inserted them into the App, providing herself a top-down view of the whole place, Vale included.

Strange was that some sections of the world seemed to be missing. The Pacific ocean analogue of the planet was still largely untouched, though, considering how fairly close the continents seemed to be, that wasn't as strange as it should have been, perhaps. She sighed, finishing up a reading and a pair of calculations before setting her tablet onto her desk and clambering into the bunk after taking her shoes off.

Outside, meanwhile, Cortana was running over the specs of certain weapon systems that Doctor Halsey had proposed, not to mention specialized MJOLNIR firmware updates and hardware upgrades that would bring the other SPARTANs up to the standard of the Chief and BLUE Team, all of which still wielded their 'Gen-II' MJOLNIR armors. Good upgrades, like enhanced shielding and the likes, of course. Halsey wasn't going to skimp on protecting her 'children'.

The AI hummed, nodded approvingly, then watched as Weiss and Blake approached. She smiled at them, then said, "Hey, girls."

"Hey, Cortana," Blake waved, "I came to grab Fred. Daily research for info on recent White Fang developments."

"I mostly tagged along because I wished to see how the rest of the group was accommodating to Vale, considering we keep getting more and more newcomers from the UNSC," Weiss added upon Blake's tale, though with arms crossed and a semi-impassive face. The right corner of her mouth quirked up slightly, a half-smile as she spoke, "And, well... I do have to admit it is quite interesting to learn more about your humanity."

"Understandable," Cortana smirked, "Fred's inside. As is everyone else but the Chief, Kurt, Six and Kat, I think. They're all a bit busy with a recovery mission."

"Thank you," Blake nodded to Cortana. She and Weiss walked up to the door and knocked, before Dubbo popped the door open and showed them the way inside. Blake herself saw Fred calmly reloading his magazines. Beside him was Jorge, the man tending to his equipment. Fred hummed and noticed Blake, then gave a thumbs-up to Jorge, who leaned back and let go of his armor. Fred stood up, grabbing his helmet and walked up to her.

"Take it we're on research duty again?" He asked, helmet under his arm. She nodded and smiled.

"As usual," She then stated. Fred nodded and followed her along, out of the building, all while Weiss was scanning the place and examining how each and every soldier went about their normal routine. Blake, meanwhile, just strolled with Fred as she spoke, "So, there's still more of your people set to arrive from out there, right? I mean, I don't think the Chief would be out otherwise."

"Plenty more, according to Cortana," The man replied calmly, "Some of which are apparently familiar with Kurt. The man trained a whole slew of new SPARTANs on another planet. We even met them there back during the end of the war," and he looked at Blake. The girl smiled at him, which made him wonder just how the four girls of team RWBY were so at ease with the presence of what was tantamount to aliens on their own planet, in their own bloody city, no less.

He'd take the whole 'not looking a gift horse in the mouth' thing at face value, but it was still eerily surprising to know that they didn't really give that much of a damn about the Chief and them lying, either. He replied to the smile with his own, though his was smaller. Blake's cheeks flushed red for a moment, but she kept it up, then looked forward. Fred did so, too, asking, "Caught a wink of sleep, at least, I hope."

"Yeah," Blake replied, "Been making sure I can sleep properly as of late... Didn't want to worry anyone anymore, I guess." And, indeed, the good Faunus really didn't want to worry her friends anymore. The relief she'd seen on all three of their faces, not to mention team JNPR's, when they heard she'd slept a full night's sleep instead of just a few hours at most, a few minutes at the very least, was oddly comforting. It was nice to have people who cared. Friends who cared.

"That's good," Fred observed, though he wasn't sure if he'd made observations regarding her sleeping pattern before, or if it was just the Mandela Effect at play. He spoke softly as they marched forward, his mind settled on the matter of their next objectives, "Means it's less likely you're gonna collapse when we keep up our search." All while Blake seemed to pause upon hearing him. Her face flushed even redder.

She hummed, pushing down the feeling of embarrassment alongside the red tint of her cheeks, then stating with a fair amount of confidence in her voice, "I wasn't gonna collapse in the first place, Fred." All while they passed by a group of giggling students, female mostly. Blake had overheard some of the chatter regarding Fred and 'how hot he looked', 'why was he walking with a girl like Blake', yadda yadda. Just basic teenage banter, she supposed.

"You were close to it when I started helping you with this mess. Don't lie to yourself or me, Blake," Frederic replied, steadfast. Blake hummed, noting a little hypocrisy from the SPARTAN. Were they not the ones who sort of lied to them first? And with something way bigger than the issue of sleep? She appreciated Fred and his teammates as far as new friends went, even if they were a little too soldierly for her tastes, but that was a bit annoying.

So, she replied rather sarcastically, "Yes, well, that's easy to say, right, mister Ellsworth?"

"That's different." Fred shot back without skipping a beat, his voice flat, a deadpan. Blake snorted. Sure, it was. Lying about the fact you were basically ET coming home to roost was... Well, no, in truth it kind of was different from her lying about her lack of sleep. Sure, it wasn't immediately dangerous, but god only knew what else Fred, Chief and the gang could've lied about. But...

"How so?" She still had to ask.

"Chief..." Fred hesitated, unsure of whether he was blaming his old friend and the AI companion he had, or... He sighed and continued, calm, focused, sharp. He knew they'd done the right thing, keeping the Human-Covenant War a secret for now, so he told her, "We were all just trying to make sure you were ready for the reveal, I guess. You'd have probably called him crazy if he up and said we're aliens."

"We..." Yeah, Blake had no reply to that. It would've honestly only been natural to call a man that dropped into your school and up-and-said, 'Hey, I'm an Alien supersoldier from an alternate humanity and I'm here to help'. Tantamount to going to the asylum for a self-check-in. She had to give Fred that, begrudgingly, by stating in a murmur, "Probably... Yeah, probably... Fair enough, I guess." And she let out a deep sigh, before looking to Fred once more, her eyes glimmering in the light as she requested, "Just... I'm sure Yang said the same thing to you folks, but please, don't lie to us again. We'd like to trust the folks patrolling Beacon to have our backs."

Fred offered her another genuine smile alongside the promise, "You don't need to worry about that. No more lies. Doctor Halsey's orders."

"You guys really put a lot of faith in her, huh?" Blake answered, smiling back at him. She pushed a strand of black hair behind her right ear, before feeling her cat ears twitch on top of her head. With another faint, pinkish tint to her cheeks, she put a hand on her 'bow', pushing 'it' down to keep 'it' from moving again as they walked, an image to which Fred seemed to suppress a short, albeit very SPARTAN-like laugh.

"She made us who we are, Blake," He replied once he managed to fully suppress it, continuing on with a semi-serious tone as they walked past the tower of Beacon toward the library, "We'd be doing a disservice to her by being distrustful. Especially now, that she's openly ready to cooperate with your peoples and us. Talk things through." And he saw her pause.

She sighed and shrugged, surrendering this one to Fred as well, "Suppose you're right on that end, too. We'll trust doc Halsey, though we still have stuff to learn from her, don't we?" of course, referring to the rather important matter of the Human-Covenant War itself. Halsey had been rather openly stating that, once Ozpin and his clique were done with reading through it, Halsey would brief at least the two Huntsman teams about the very war that the SPARTANs are Veterans of.

"Yes... She will probably hold a brief for you and team JNPR to understand where we come from." Fred more-or-less confirmed Blake's memories. She smiled.

"Looking forward to hearing of the heroics you've done in the war, Fred." She then quipped, her smile turning into a grin. Fred rolled his eyes as they entered the Library. He let Blake walk in first, opening the door for her. With a nod as her quiet 'thank-you' to the gentlemanly supersoldier, she walked inside. He followed and gently let the door close behind them, then noticed that there were still quite a few students reading in the place. Good to know they took their studying seriously.

... That or, like the teenager they just passed by, they just enjoyed their comic books... Fred sighed...

"I, like my comrades, was just doing my job, Blake. No point in calling us heroes for just that." He told her flatly as they arrived at their desk. It was not actually 'their desk' per se, but they'd pretty much sat there every time they were doing research, so much so that it'd become the Library's thing to have the spot ready for them, alongside a reinforced chair that could hold Fred's weight.

Blake giggled at the stoic man, "Heh. Humble to no end. I feel like that's a trait all SPARTANs share."

"Suppose so." The man replied nonchalantly. He sat himself down and stated firmly, "Now, c'mon. We have more reading materiel to parse through. I've seen reports of new White Fang activity as recently as yesterday evening, so we'll have some data to see what their next operations might be..." as Blake booted up the computer screen and started tapping away. He pulled out a tablet-sized Scroll and started parsing through the online newsreels as well, not to mention whatever Cortana could give them to access.

He got a ping from Cortana with a message, 'Gen. Ironwood talked with Oz. Agreed to give us access to some of their own investigative data. Have fun, kids. ;)'

... She was a freaking joker...

White Fang base outside Vale

Within the confines of an abandoned building from the earliest days of expansion, Kuro spun a combat knife between her mechanical fingers without fear, watching the blade dance around with each movement. She looked over the massive underground facility next, not stopping the movement of the knife around her fingers, each swish and turn drawing strange ovoidal and circular designs through the air. Humanoid robot drones bearing a cuboid symbol on their shoulder plates carted around boxes of supplies:Armor, ammo, weapons and the likes. All meant for the Private Military Contractors that would soon start their work with Vale's White Fang branch.

She regarded one of the machines as it pushed a container of Dust-based missiles for a shoulder-fired missile launcher next to the launchers themselves, before turning around and proceeding down one of the lanes to grab another box of supplies. She spotted one of their grunts, a soldier clad in a jet-black uniform with heavy armor, a load-bearing chest rig full of pouches that had ammo, a tactical helmet, goggles and a balaclava mask, approaching her. He saluted Kuro, who saluted back halfheartedly and asked, "Report..." as she sheathed the knife.

"Ma'am, the automated factory has finished production of the requested number of automatic rifle rounds, spare parts for the rifles and pistols and for the various vehicles we'll be using when the time comes to initiate phase 3 of the plan." The Infantryman replied rather tersely, trying to find the right words in front of someone as unstable as the Fox Girl. "Phase 2, as per the Lady's word, is already underway within Beacon..."

"Good. Means Fall's doing her job. Status on our units?" Kuro requested next as she sharpened her claws on the railing. The metal scratching against metal let out an annoyingly-sharp, shrill screech, but the soldier remained unfazed by his officer's prodding and testing. She smirked at him, taking the sight in before pulling back and leaning against the railing.

The soldier reported, calmly, "RAZORS 1 and 2 are currently overwatching one of the target buildings and sending telemetry back." The soldier replied uneasily, "Command slated those units for replacement soon, though. We have another pair of drone units coming from Merlot, though he's at odds with doctor Watts at the moment in regards to the encryption scheme of the combat mechanoids meant to help bolster the number of stolen Atlas units." And he pulled out his Scroll.

"Tell Watts to get his head out of his ass. This is our op." Kuro scoffed as she looked at what he was showing. Specifically, the communications between Watts and a certain 'Doctor Merlot'. Arthur Watts was a prevalent scientist and roboticist that had once served the Council of Atlas and helped design many a machine and system for their military. It was why he was even with their group. A disgraced scientist that knew the ins and outs of Atlas's machines? Heh, a good pick.

"Will do, ma'am." The soldier saluted. He wasn't paid enough to snap back at the woman that could and would easily claw his heart out of his chest and sit over him, laughing, as he bled to death. Kuro was one of the few officers that had both the respect and fear of the entire Shadow Doctrine, the little secretive unit supplying their White Fang minions with the weapons needed to 'win' an upcoming battle against the Kingdom's troops.

"Anything else you specifically need to talk about? What's the status of the White Fang's leader?" She sighed and handed the Scroll back to him. The man nodded and slid it back into his pocket, while the girl turned back to watch the Drones working. She saw one of them stumble, but another caught it and seemed to direct an order to go for a maintenance check. The first machine obeyed, stepping off the line as its sibling carried both its own crate and the malfunctioning one's.

The soldier looked at the moving pieces of the puzzle ahead of him and replied calm, straightforward, "He's currently planning a strike with the plastic explosives we delivered to him and his troops. Said he'll let us know the When and Where." All the while, he was looking over his own uniform, making sure it was properly fitted and such. He pulled his sidearm from its holster and looked it over, then slid it back in, fidgeting a bit at the fact he was still stuck next to Kuro.

She scoffed at the not-present Adam Taurus, shifting uneasily. "Hope he fucking does. He seems more unstable than I am... Anything else?"

"No, ma'am." The Trooper replied. He only added as he remembered, "Most we have to worry about at the moment are Atlas troops coming down on the locations of the Mechs. Something activated their tracker systems and we've been fearing a raid for the past few days..." and he saw the girl clench her fists around the metal railing, slightly bending it due to her own enhanced robot arm.

"... Well, fuck. Disable the trackers again and move'em before we wake up with a company of Knights raiding those stations." She rubbed her eyes gently. That was gonna be a headache, seeing as Atlas tech was only targetable by mister Watts. Valeian tech like theirs couldn't even remotely compare, the woman thought. It was like pitting a runt of the Grimm litter against one of Merlot's insane concoctions. Even security was tighter than a nun's asshole for Atlas mechs.

"It's already being done, ma'am. Watts has been focused on that and only that." The soldier replied, half-heartedly sighing in relief at the fact Kuro didn't try and tear him a new one. Not yet, anyhow. Kuro wasn't specifically known for stability in this line of work, but she was still one of the finest soldiers they had. Formerly an Atlas program survivor herself, she was one of the most ardent supporters of putting that floating hellscape of capitalism down. Not in a Communist way, she just hated the bastards in their ivory towers.

"Least mustachio man's making himself useful..." The woman quipped, then paused as she saw something with the corner of her eye. A low growl escaped her mouth, causign a chill to shoot up the poor Operative's spine. The red tinge in her auburn eyes became a little more evident as she murmured with audible fury in her voice. "Fucking hell, I feel a headache coming on."

A thin man with slicked, fancy black hair that greyed at the sides stepped in. Clad in a sharp suit and wearing strange, technologically-advanced rings on his fingers, as well as a pistol hidden behind the brown coat of his outfit, he marched with a certain poise, his hands behind his back as he approached them. His bushy mustache wrinkled upon sighting Kuro, but he kept on marching nonetheless.

Kuro let out a low, guttural, angry laugh as she saw Watts, glaring at the man with burning fury. She spoke directly to the man, her grip tightening yet again around the railing enough to bend the steel, "Speak of the fucking well-dressed devil. Hey, doc Watts, what can we, humble Operatives, fucking do for your oh-so-supposedly-kissable Atlesian ass?"

"Foul-mouthed and crazy as ever, miss Kuro." Arthur Watts, tech-genius of Atlas and, now, of Salem's Cabal, replied wittily, before adding sarcastically, "Your charm was sorely missed." and flicking a speck of dust off the collar of his suit jacket, "I've only come to make sure that lunatic Merlot's mechanoids are still in working order while my algorithm finally purges the Paladins of tracking systems across the network. I'd appreciate a little more appreciation from someone relying on Atlesian prosthetics to function as a fighting machine."

"I wouldn't need these fucking things if it wasn't for Atlas and their insane training regimens..." She murmured again, then scoffed, "Whatever. So, you're only here to make sure doctor Merlot's drones still work right, eh? How touching of you to care about us, mooks." She then added just as sarcastically as Watts had spoken to her mere moments ago. The trooper took a step back from between them, feeling the dislike. He never got the backstory between Kuro and Watts, just that he had had something to do with Kuro's... Status.

"I appreciate the dry humor, I'll say that much..." He replied nonchalantly, not even sparing Kuro another glance as he pulled out his Scroll and started looking through the data on the drones here, "Yes, I'm here to be sure the lunatic-in-charge is keeping his end of the bargain. I'm still not sure what the Lady sees in him, but I'm not one to comment on her preference of assets... Else you wouldn't be here, I think." He had half-threatened.

Kuro chose to be the bigger woman in this case, not even acknowledging his little stab at her as she replied, crossing her arms, "He not only managed to keep Grimm, creatures which die when nabbed, alive in captivity, but he also modified them to be even more dangerous than your run-of-the-mill beowolf or Ursa. Hell, even than some human Huntsmen. I can see the interest, to be honest." She then cast a sideways glance at a humanoid drone of Merlot's as it marched past them and murmured, "Not to say I wouldn't like someone a bit more stable to be in charge of that kind of research, though I guess you do have to be missing a couple braincells firing in the right direction to be experimenting on fucking shadow monsters."

"Not unlike one of our other compatriots." Watts sighed dispassionately, probably referring to a certain Tyrian Callows, the squad's resident scorpion Faunus. There would never be someone as crazy as him, so Kuro figured she was at least in the 'functionally crazy' branch thanks to that. Still, Watts added with a certain nonchalance, "I see everything is in order, so, I will take my leave. Ta-taa~." before waving and walking off.

"I'll see you never, fucking flamboyant asshole..." She shot an angry glare toward Watts. She murmured, "Swear to the Gods, the Lady picks the weirdest companionship..." then turned toward the Trooper and ordered, "Well, back to work we go. Status on the weapon shipment we were preparing back at Rebirth? That damn thing also concocted by our dear mad scientist still coming?"

"Yes, ma'am. The first vials have arrived with the latest transport of arms..." The soldier replied, then cleared his throat, his voice rising a hint as fear came to him, "M-Ma'am, if I may..."

"You may not," She shot back, claws scratching against the steel railing ahead as she leaned over the edge, watching the crates of the 'stuff' being brought in, "And if you ask why we're bringing project Father here, you're not gonna like the answer. Got it, corporal?" she glared back at him. He nodded, saluted, then was dismissed with a handwave. Kuro looked at the crates, noting the biohazard marking on the side. Those were special crates, tightly sealed to the point not even a dust mite would get out through any of the cracks. If they weren't, well... The soldier would've been right to be worried.

She grinned. The Lady could easily approve the project for field testing soon enough.

Fun.

Chapter Text

The two Pelicans finally touched down on the deck of the Landing Pad, with the crews aboard dismounting and greeting each-other, as well as the new-comer SPARTANs from what seemed to be the third Generation. Foe Hammer, however, was quick to go to her old friend and give her a shake of the hand, stating, "Sheila goddamn Polaski, it's good to see your sorry ass...!"

"Hah! Likewise, Carol! It's been a hell of a long flight home, I gotta say," The girl smirked, then looked to the Chief and gave a salute, "Chief. Good to see you're alive and well, sir. Half-thought that you got wiped with me when that Plasma round struck the Ascendant Justice." to which the Chief shook his head. She looked to him and asked, "Considering the change in getup, sir, I'm assuming you have a lot to tell me?"

"Mm... Good to see you, Warrant Officer," Chief replied calmly. He then stated, "Hope that solves some of our fuel problems for the time being, Captain Rawley. We still have more SPARTANs to recover." as he turned to Carol. The woman gave an approving nod and smile. She and Sheila stepped off to have a chat, while Headmaster Ozpin approached Chief.

"Master Chief," Oz nodded, stopping in front of the Pelicans and eyeing them. If Chief didn't know better, he could swear the Headmaster stared at the gunships with nostalgia, or so he thought anyhow. He hummed, then turned to John and spoke, "I suppose you've found even more of your people?" And, upon receiving a nod from the Chief, he simply offered a kindhearted smile, "I sense we'll have an Army in Beacon before long."

"Seems like it, sir," The Spartan replied, facing the Gunships as well. He hummed, then stated, "We even recovered what are, apparently, more of Kurt's well-trained soldiers. Spartans from Class III," as the youngsters dismounted. Ozpin couldn't help but notice the different armors. He was close to making a comment about it, but chose not to, simply bidding the Chief a good night.

Chief then stood there, regarding the disembarking Spartan-IIIs belonging to Kurt's Companies. Sixteen Spartans from Alpha Company, ten from Beta and eleven from Gamma, for a total of 37 recovered tonight. They'd had to cram them into the Pelicans to ensure that their travel was unabated. Locklear disembarked last from the group, a grin on his face as he turned, marched up to the Chief and saluted, "Sir. Helluva drop, I gotta say."

Chief saluted back and said, "At ease. Good to see you, too, Corporal."

The ODST seemed far less wound tight than previous. He was certainly still a bit excited, but it must've been because he woke up next to Polaski. If he recalled, the two had forged a bond of some sort. The man marched up to Polaski and took the red scarf off his shoulder, then handed it to her. She smiled and gave a nod in thanks. Both then walked hand-in-hand toward their FOB, following Carol along.

Tom and Lucy, two Spartans from Beta and members of Kurt's NCO Cadre back in Currahee, planet Onyx, stepped up. Both snapped salutes at the Chief as well, but the elder Spartan simply gave them a quick saluted back and a nod. They stood at ease now, with only Tom taking his helmet off to reveal his youthful, scarred face and shaven head, probably around the same age, if not a little younger than when they'd last seen Kurt.

"Good to finally meet you, sir," Tom stated, "Sorry it took us so long to swing by."

"Traffic," Lucy quipped. She quickly ran her index and middle finger over her armor's face plate, moving them upward. The Spartan Smile.

Chief replied with a nod once more, then told them, "Kurt will be happy to see you, considering what he, Kelly, Fred and Linda told me." only for their minute body language to switch from reverent respect to surprise. He nodded to them, then balled his fist, lifted it up to catch the attention of all other S-IIIs on the deck, then cocked it down, elbow gently tapping his hip as he moved the hand down.

The IIIs rallied, stowing their equipment on their backs or in specialized duffel bags that they'd brought with them. Cut-down MA5 rifles, M6 pistols, Jackhammer launchers, older Battle Rifle variants and even SRS-99 models that he hadn't seen since the midpoint of the war. The teams seemed to be mix-and-match, with no three Spartans being from the same fire team.

"Should've figured Lieutenant-Commander Ambrose would be here, too..." Tom murmured as they walked, a smile on his face. Lucy gave him a nod and a hum of approval. The Spartans strolled into the base, which was now far more cramped than they'd thought. The two Spartan trainers looked to the Chief, who crossed his arms to his chest and scanned the room.

He sighed and pulled up his Scroll's com on his HUD, then called out, "Kurt," to the S-II in SPI Armor. The man turned toward them from the crowd of IIIs surrounding him, then smiled as he saw Tom and Lucy, both of whom held their helmets by their sides. Lucy covertly wiped some tears from her own eyes, then sighed deeply. Both approached the Lieutenant-Commander and snapped salutes, which he returned as the Chief walked away.

"Tom, Lucy..." He started, awkward, "I'm sorry."

"We're just glad you're here, sir," Tom voiced, smiling.

Lucy, however, gave the man a light tap on his shoulder plate with her balled fist, then spoke to him, "Never again..." her voice cracking despite the smile. Kurt still smiled, too, tilting his head forward in confirmation. He would never pull a similar trick again. The wounds given to him by the Hunter pair still hurt with a phantom pain and he'd noticed his scars when showering.

Doctor Halsey stepped out into the room and her eyes widened. Ackerson's own Suicide Squads had made it here. Stoic as she remained, Halsey felt butterflies in her stomach, the joy of seeing so many of the youth murdered during their war just to buy time overwhelming. Still, she remained composed, greeting the Spartans with a wave of the hand. They greeted her back in kind, Lucy actually taking her helmet off to offer an apologetic smile to the doctor for the punch she recalled she'd delivered to her. Halsey raised her hand and showed her to relax, nodding in understanding.

She hummed, then approached them and Kurt, before telling him, "About being right behind us, Lieutenant-Commander," with a glare.

Kurt sighed deeply, "I apologized twenty times already, ma'am. And I was just about to apologize to them as well..." which got the couple of Spartans letting out short, muted laughs. The predicament one found themselves in when faced with an angry mother figure was something lost on the pair, considering their histories, but they could still feel Kurt's concern. They chose not to make any snide comments until after the good Doctor had left.

Halsey was about to add something to the conversation when her tablet pinged audibly. She lifted it out of her pocket, then hummed and turned it on, checking the calculations again. She nodded approvingly, then added, "Yet again, saved by the bell, Kurt..." before patting him on the shoulder, "It seems we have our next target. I'm certain John is speaking to headmaster Ozpin right now, but I'd rather deliver this information myself later today."

"Understood, ma'am," All three replied. She sighed, excusing herself while the other Spartans, IIIs and IIs, got to re-learn about each-other. Noble Team had welcomed their newfound old comrades with nods and handshakes, with Noble Six sitting one out as she watched Kurt engage with Tom and Lucy. The two of them noticed her and Lucy marched up to the young woman, a wide smile on her face.

Yet again, revival gave way to emotions that Spartans rarely showed, much less this openly. Alice, too, smiled as she stood up and started humming a tune familiar to both of them. It was not Olly Olly Oxenfree, it was rather a tune reminiscent of an old war song sung on Earth. Lucy attuned and harmonized her own voice and the two hummed the tune together, two beautiful voices rarely heard nowadays, entwined into a single song of melancholy.

Both bumped fists, before Alice said, "It's good to see you and Tom... Sure been a while..."

"Aye," Lucy replied, gently nudging her friend in the shoulder with her elbow.

It was good to see them talking, or, well, what passed for talking between them anyway. The two then looked at the other Alpha, Beta and Gamma Spartans and seemingly began a wordless conversation. Questions, answers, observations and statements played out without a word spoken between the two young women. Probably about their comrades and those that Lucy and Tom had trained also being present.

Noble Team's various company members welcomed the newcomers, the Gammas already huddling up next to Emile, one of the Spartans more akin to them in the old generations. Kat hummed, arms crossed to her chest as she looked around the place, while Carter was briefing the members of Gamma:Team Wolf Pack. Shane, Jane and Robert. The dead of Operation:PROMETHEUS, among so many others...

Halsey had taken a moment, staring at them from a doorway, her lips narrowed 'till they were a razor-thin line. She took her glasses off and, for the second time in her life, allowed herself to shed some tears of joy at the sight. She would never dare look whatever Forerunner Gift Horse this was in the mouth, but she was still supremely interested in learning just what the driving force was behind this.

She looked at the topographical information she got off of the Remnant Internal Networks of the CCTS and triangulated the exact location to within Vale's mountainous North-Eastern borders. She started tapping up the details even through blurry eyes, to send as a message to the headmaster, before a hand rested on her shoulder, causing the good doctor to jump. She looked over toward Cortana, who simply offered her a smile and a tissue.

The good doctor looked at the white piece of paper for a moment, took it and murmured a "Thank you..." as she wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Your adopted kids are here, too, now. Or, well, starting to pop up," The AI quipped. She leaned against the wall next to the doctor and told her, "Honestly, this is nice..."

"What, exactly...?" Halsey inquired, raising a brow.

Cortana chuckled, "Seeing the inscrutable, steely-eyed Doctor Catherine Elizabeth Halsey cry."

"When the mistakes of the past are somehow being fixed in front of you, Cortana, you'll understand..." The doctor whispered, then put her glasses back on and pocketed the tissue. She turned to the AI with the gynoid body and added, "The Spartan-IIIs, those children, were as much my mistake as they were Ackerson's. Certainly, their sacrifices bought the time necessary to save mankind, but..."

"If it weren't for the Spartan-IIs, they wouldn't exist," Cortana completed, then added, "And if it weren't for the Covenant, either. I read up on some of the files you gave me on them and I'd argue the Covenant spawned them more than your own work did. Sure, Ackerson was an ass who continuously wanted to one-up you in the hierarchy that was ONI, but take into account he's the one who made the Suicide Squads..."

"And dragged one of my Spartans into his work," Halsey shot back, "Kurt had no fault in it..."

"He did his best with what he had, yeah," Cortana sighed, then told her, "Doctor, if I can be honest? You, like the rest of humanity, did what you could with the hand you were dealt. Nobody cares about where Humanity's heroic warriors came from... ONI only cared because you could bury them next to yourself if and when you went public. It's probably why Parangosky threw you in jail the moment she found you... Nobody was gonna question the Spartans unless it was brought up, but ONI are clinically paranoid."

"With their line of work," Halsey hummed, then sighed and nodded, "Thank you, Cortana. I suppose I should finish and send this message."

"No problem, doc," Cortana offered a kind smile, then said, "Now, excuse me while I go find John..." before she stepped off, with one thought in mind, specifically finding her Spartan so she could spend some time with him. And that was a simple task as it seemed, for she only had to walk outside to see him sat down on the back porch, staring up at the sky. His helmet rested by his side, a seeming habit John had gotten into.

She smiled and approached him, then put a hand on his armored shoulder and asked, "Enjoying the sights...?"

He nodded, then offered a short-lived smile to her as she sat herself down. Her smile brightened a little while she leaned against him. He told her, "I've talked with the headmaster. He's agreed to offer us a separate block for the base, meaning we'll be moving pretty soon to a dormitory area that should be able to house all of us... If the rest of Spartan Alpha, Beta and maybe even Gamma companies show up, we'll have room..."

"That's good," She spoke softly, head on his shoulder. John seemed to be trying dearly to ignore it, but even he couldn't. He let Cortana lean on him as he had always wanted to when she allowed him to lean on her. The two had been through hell together, both still bearing the fearful scars of what had happened when they awoke to that new Galaxy and nearly lost each-other.

Cortana still thought of Rampancy. Had she fully staved it off for another seven years, or had she simply metastasized while they travelled? All diagnostics she'd run since their arrival seemed to tell her all her neural links were renewed, all her core programming patched and her life, basically restored. She told him, "I'm sorry for the scare I gave you, John."

"Which one...?" he asked, his voice showing a hint of that being a joke.

The AI giggled girlishly, "All of them...?" before turning her head and looking the man in the eye, to see the calm, cool and collected man she'd grown and worked alongside. She gently snuck one of her hands underneath his and clasped it, before adding in a low voice, "... The Rampancy, John... I'm really sorry." her eyes filled with regret. She'd played it down, tried to talk him out of getting her any form of help. The doctor could've helped, honestly, but knowing she was in an ONI Prison somewhere deep within human space...

"It's a natural thing for AIs..." He sighed, then told her, "I'm just glad you made it out in one piece."

She chuckled, "Yeah. I'm glad, too." then she simply smiled and leaned her head back on his shoulder. The girl only paused when she felt John's own grip on her hand tighten. A faint red tinge crossed her cheeks, before her smile grew again. She spoke to him, "Smooth..." before letting out another giggle. She heard him audibly snort, which made her machine heart actually skip a beat.

The two simply sat there, enjoying the sights of a rising sun just as the rest of Blue Team had returned from wherever they'd gone. Fred, Kelly, Linda and Sam watched the two from the door, Penny right beside them. Sam chuckled and murmured, "His AI Partner, huh?" before looking to the others. Fred maintained his usual stoicism, while Linda simply shook her head, letting out a muted snort and walking off to adjust her sniper.

Kelly bore the widest smile of them all, stating, "Sure took them a while to move further."

"Yeah," Fred hummed, "Guess we really owe Penny for this one."

The ginger blushed and replied, "That's not quite necessary, Fred. Thank you for the compliment, though..." as the group kept watching. She looked over to Sam, who had his arms crossed to his chest. The young blonde man seemed to be enjoying this sight the most. Blue Team had told Penny that Samuel had been among the first lost during their War, so it was only natural that he lacked the knowledge of wartime and post-war developments, including this one.

Honestly, she could understand his desire to learn more about their common friend's current relationship. She, however, did not expect that Cortana was this close to the Master Chief. It was endearing, in a way, that she had helped her acquire a body only for this to occur so quickly. She was also proud of herself for that little situation, even if General Ironwood seemed a tad surprised that their newfound allies wielded such artificial intelligences.

Cortana was probably, or most certainly, the happiest of the lot, simply sat there with John, watching the sunrise. Doctor Halsey'd mentioned they had their next target, the next big thing to go after. Honestly, she just hoped Doc Halsey got approval. Beacon getting quite monotone to hang around in, though she wouldn't trade places with anyone in the world for anything right now, simply content to sit by John and enjoy her little moment of calm with him.

Might as well enjoy it...

Chapter Text

Patrol. Sam wanted to Patrol. It was a nice Saturday and he just wanted to walk around, not doing much more than patrolling after another week's worth of nothing really occurring. Not even operations. They'd gone to school, done normal stuff and were now free again for the next two days. Cortana, however ,seemed to have other plans. She spoke to him, "I like how this one looks!"

"... Cortana... Shouldn't you be doing this with John?" He asked, a hint dumbfound as he stared in the mirror at himself. Instead of armor, Sam had been forced to wear a set of more normal civilian clothes. Or as normal as anything a Spartan wore in their size. At seven feet tall with only fourteen years of life, Sam had been hard to dress up, but Cortana had managed it somehow:Blue jeans, a pair of track shoes and a fairly tight black shirt with some unknown local band's logo on it.

"These may be gifts for him, but... Eh, he doesn't wanna sit still worth a damn," Cortana snorted.

Sam murmured, "And you think I do...?" annoyed. Honestly, he thought, Cortana should really focus more on the Spartan that was the object of her strangely-human affection. Meanwhile, he could very nicely go about doing a patrol without this much fuss about clothing and the likes. He sighed and prepared to remove his clothes. Cortana was about to berate him, but he told her, "Look, boss-lady, I get that you wanna gift John something more civvie, considering where we are, but I ain't one to try out my friend's clothes, even if he hasn't worn'em yet. I just wanna head out on patrol and do my job..."

"Spartans and having fun on patrol seems synonymous..." Sighed Cortana, rubbing her temples, "Alright..."

"Thanks..." He stated, before pulling at the hem of his shirt and lifting it up...

... Just as the door opened and Ruby walked in with jaunt in her step and joy in her voice, "Heya, folks! I came by to see about bringing some cookies to... to..." only to pause upon seeing Sam. Shirtless Sam. Shirtless Sam in the middle of the room. Sam himself, to his credit, turned toward Ruby and gave her a smile and a wave, but Ruby could only focus on a certain set of things related to the man's toplessness. There was a certain tier of muscular between the bodybuilders' overdoing it and a more spindly type like Jaune and Ren. Sam seemed to be exactly at that sweet spot and it made Ruby feel all kinds of warm, seeing all the scars and muscles and abs and...

Honestly, Ruby should've seen this coming since she'd started having a crush, but this was well beyond the scope of what she would have imagined a crush would be. She knew 'crushes' as this cutesy little thing wherein a youngster, a teenager, starts liking someone in their group or class a bit more than they'd like them as friends or even BFFs. What she did not expect, however, was to suddenly go full red-faced at seeing the guy she was crushing on-Wait, wait, wait, woah, hold on a frickin' minute! Was her mind really admitting to crushing on SAM?!

A short squeak, like that of a tea kettle whose pressure was released for half-a-second, escaped Ruby's mouth. Sam, meanwhile, turned to her as she covered her mouth, all while Cortana giggled like a moron. He ignored his friend's chuckling, however, walking up to Ruby and asking, "Hey, Rubes. You okay?" as he set a hand on her shoulder. The girl doubled over and let out a squeak again.

WHYWASHEHOTOHGODSABOVEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!? was all Ruby could really think at that very moment.

Sam blanked as he watched her petal dash out of the place at what was tantamount to Mach speeds. He blinked, scratched the back of his head and murmured, "Did I do anything wrong...?" which made Cortana burst into a laughing fit. The Spartan furrowed his brows at her, then walked to put on his armor. Cortana almost fell over as she laughed, though, much to Halsey's surprise.

As the good doctor walked in, sipping her coffee, she asked, "Did something occur?"

"Ruby saw Sam without a shirt..." Cortana barely managed through her laughter. Halsey blinked and looked back to see Sam in his room, donning his armor, then clicked her tongue and decided it was best not to engage with the matter at hand. She still had research to deal with. Including weapons research, she thought, to bring the Spartans up to snuff when it came to dealing with every possible threat. That and preparing to talk with the Headmaster. By her calculations, he would have gotten to the SPARTAN Projects by now in the files.

... In team RWBY's dorm, Weiss stared, mouth agape, at the ceiling, feeling ever the slightest hint of boredom. She was not sure if she enjoyed the idea of boredom, but she also soon realized that the last few months had been terrifyingly filled with activity for her. From going to school, to the fighting against the White Fang, to the arrival of MCPO 117 and his people and so much more.

She hummed and straightened up on her bed, looking at her hand. She summoned one of her glyphs, a white one, then focused on it. The symbols of the circular glyph danced in her palm. She hummed and focused on them, coursing all her Aura and power into an attempt to utilize the ancient Schnee Power her grandfather, mother and sister were known for.

Her concentration on her attempt to do what she should have been able to do since her youth, or at least something her sister should've trained her more in, the girl struggled to so much as form even the sword that she wished to summon. It was frustrating, she thought. To be unable to do the very thing a Schnee Heiress was supposed to be capable of in order to properly represent her grandfather's ideals.

As she was about to scoff and call it off, the door suddenly opened and slammed shut with the force of a whirlwind, causing her Glyph to vanish and her to yelp as she nearly fell off her bed. She looked over to the door, to see a caped figure with a red hood panting as she held the door shut. The young woman, Ruby, obviously, slammed her forehead against the door hard enough for the wooden thunk to reach Weiss, before she slid down the door and whined, embarrassed.

She curled up in a ball as she turned around from the door and wrapped herself up in her cape. Weiss blinked, confused, then called out, "Ruby?" which garnered yet another terrified sound out of Ruby, a very audible and kind of funny GWAK as the girl jumped and hanged in the air for a good few seconds. Confusion plastered across her face, Weiss jumped down from her bed just as Ruby landed.

Her team leader demanded, "WEISS, WHAT'RE YOU DOING HERE!?"

"... This is our room," Weiss replied in a deadpan, then noted the healthy red blush that almost made Ruby's face fade behind her cape. She blinked, confusion bubbling up in her mind like a bad case of stomach acid reflux, then took a step toward Ruby and asked, "Just what's got you so flustered?" as she walked up to and helped an awkward Ruby to her feet, gently flicking the hood off her head.

Ruby didn't wanna meet Weiss's gaze, embarrassment visible in every single movement or tick of hers. The young woman pressed her fingers together, which caused Weiss's confusion to further elevate. Squinting at her friend with furrowed brows, Weiss asked, "Ruby. We said we'd talk about everything, didn't we? We all promised to each-other that we'd be open."

Ruby sighed, bowing her head in defeat as she almost seemed to be spewing steam from her ears. She looked up at Weiss and told her, "I saw Sam shirtless..."

Weiss blinked. That was it?

"... That's it?" She asked. Ruby's eyes shot wide open at Weiss's comment, while the white-haired heiress seemed to process what this was specifically about. She scratched her chin, then asked Ruby, "And you're too embarrassed to go apologize, I assume?" which, in a moment of absolutely adorable behavior, caused the girl to further shy away, nodding as she ducked under her cloak and hood with a healthy red tint to her cheeks.

Weiss rolled her eyes and snorted, then told her, "I suppose it's only natural you'd gain an interest in boys, especially Samuel. Seeing how close you two are makes it more surprising this did not happen earlier. Well, no, not the shirtless part, seeing as that seems more like something out of those animated cartoons you and Yang tend to watch... Though I'd imagine that was quite a sight for you," with a teasing tone to her voice. She then said to her, "We're going to go apologize now. He deserves it..." and she smirked, "Or maybe you'd like to thank him for the show..." which got Ruby to squeak again.

Taking Ruby by the hand, much to the young girl's squeaky, high-pitched protests, Weiss dragged her to the door and propped it open, only to pause as she saw Sam at the door, helmet slung under his arm and armor on. Sam stood, almost bumping his head against the top of the frame while wearing an apologetic smile. He greeted, "Afternoon, Weiss. Mind if I talk with Rubes alone?"

Weiss smirked, "Be my guest, Samuel." As she let go of Ruby's hand. She sidestepped the man and waved a quick 'ta-taa' to Ruby, who was actively freaking out. The Spartan stepped inside and Weiss closed the door behind her, grinning openly now, only to see Yang approaching. She showed the blonde to be quiet, then come closer so they could both listen in on the conversation through the door.

Yang, to her credit, jaunted up as quietly as she could and leaned her ear against the door, grinning...

... Inside, meanwhile, Ruby's thought process was going at seven miles a second in regards to what Sam would wanna talk to her about. Obviously, probably about seeing him partially naked. Her mind now focused on those thoughts and caused her to curl up in a ball again, trying to hide from Sam. To his own credit, though, Sam spoke to her calmly, "Sorry about... Back at home... Cortana was trying to find gifts that'd fit the Chief and, obviously, John would not sit still to test them. She found me as a good alt and, trust me, it was a bit annoying..."

Ruby nodded quickly. What a strange reaction, Sam thought as he approached her. He took a knee in front of her and put a hand on her shoulder, telling her, "It's alright. No harm done, right? I mean, I hope so."

"I'm alright..." Ruby murmured, embarrassed, "Sorry I barged in without knocking..."

"I just said it's alright, heh," Sam chuckled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. She looked up at him, a little surprised as he offered her his hand. Still blushing, though a little less wary now, she took his hand and stood to her feet, pushing the hood off her head to reveal hair that was a bit ruffled. He smiled warmly at her, which caused her heart to skip a beat, before telling her, "So... I got patrol now. Care to tag along? I might need a partner."

"S-Sure..." She replied, then gave Sam an awkward smile. He smiled back at her, then they started walking to the door... Only for Sam to prop it open and for them to see both Yang and Weiss now trying to act cool about the fact they totally weren't listening in, Yang whistling an off-tune song, while Weiss was checking her nails. Both looked to Sam and a Ruby that now glowed scarlet.

Awkward...

Ozpin's Office...

The Doctor's prediction had been correct. The tone of the message Ozpin had sent to get her to come over told her that he probably read the part she dreaded the most deep within. And now that she stepped into the wide-open hall that was the Headmaster's office, everything felt a thousand miles longer than it had previously been. Ozpin, to his credit, maintained an impassive face, simply staring at her and hiding whatever fury he felt behind his mask.

Halsey, too, stepped forward with little regard. She knew she had nothing to apologize for. She had saved humanity if hindsight was taken into account. Pragmatism, though, could only get her so far. She had answered to ONI and not been this scared, dammit. So she thought as she approached the desk. She swallowed her own spit, cleared her throat and said, "Headmaster..." as she saw the tablet open to the S-II and S-III project files.

The III project files were something she'd managed to acquire through backwater channels, a little supplemental reading material while in prison. What Ackerson had done was, at least in her eyes, much worse than making a force of elites to combat Insurrection and, later, the Covenant. It could have been a defense mechanism, she thought, something to bring to bear when questioned. No... She needed to confront this head-on. It was her mistake that caused the Spartan-IIs to even exist. It was her mistake that caused the Spartan-IIIs to be what they were. Without her work, Ackerson would've had nothing to go off of...

"Doctor," He replied, his voice flat, "Take a seat..."

She did as asked. Just in time, too, as the weakness in her knees made her legs give way. Ozpin quirked a brow at her, having probably noticed this, but he didn't say anything yet. She spoke calmly, much to his surprise, "I see you've read the 'masterpiece'..." And made the air quotes necessary to hint at the sarcasm, "Of the Office of Naval Intelligence and yours truly."

"I have..." He replied, picking up the tablet, "And it's..."

"Horrifying?" Halsey stated as she watched the glare he was giving off as he reread the passages that irked him the most. So she assumed, anyhow. She nodded and said, "It's understandable to think so. Even with the context given of a looming civil strife that would've broken mankind, not to mention the arrival of the Covenant... I will not deny the desperation under which both projects were undertaken, nor the less-than-stellar methods used..."

"A fine way of saying criminal," He seemed to let the mask slip for a moment as he pressed on the word 'criminal', but cleared his throat and continued, tone flat, "The ethical dilemmas of creating such soldiers alone are incomprehensible. To me and to anyone who has the sanity of looking upon this with a human heart, not with just the mind..." yet Halsey could tell he wasn't particularly forthcoming with his own thoughts. Or himself. He seemed hesitant.

Halsey cocked her jaw and clicked her tongue, then leaned on her hands, pressed against the desk as she said, "Mankind's survival begets acts that would otherwise be unthinkable in peace time. I have made mistakes that seem to be self-correcting today, what with our arrival on your world, Headmaster. I will not deny those mistakes, not anymore... But our humanity survived because of them."

"Trying to find some way to conflate your people's survival with the creation of indoctrinated special forces and suicide battalions?" Ozpin replied aggressively, though his tone remained just as flat. The man masked his disdain very well. Ironic that he'd feel such disdain, though, Halsey thought as she scratched her cheek. She needed coffee for this, but wouldn't ask him for it. Would seem to out of pocket.

Halsey crossed her arms to her chest. He couldn't let the irony go to waste here. So, she shot back, "Like you train these Hunters?"

Ozpin's facade actually dropped at that, his eyes shooting wide open. He frowned, then told her, "They're volunteers..."

"Are they?" She asked, raising a brow, "The S-IIIs of Ackerson were volunteers, too, Headmaster."

His voice became a low growl, "Ours at least get to grow up with their families before being given the choice to fight..."

"I will give you that," Halsey replied, feeling a knot in her stomach, "Though, again? Would it be any better in our case if they died to the Covenant's arrival? We may not be having this conversation on ethics if they weren't recruited. The IIs, at least, would've died alone and afraid, never having known they could do so much to change Humanity's fate in front of both foes from within and without. We allowed them to survive."

Ozpin's growl turned into full-on anger as he replied, "You used children! Turned them into war machines!" as he slammed the tablet onto the desk. He stood to his feet and continued berating her, "Stripped them of whatever lives, friendships and histories they had and threw them into the midst of a war they had no place being in! What moral code is there behind that?! If Humanity can't survive without this kind of sacrifice, why should we be alive at all!?" all while Halsey maintained her composure... Somehow.

She replied to him, still sitting, "Aside from dying, perhaps, a horrid death at the hands of creatures that outdo your Grimm and your White Fang..." And she took her glasses off, glaring into his auburn eyes as she scowled, "You're questioning what I've done, but you're doing the same via propaganda, rather than direct involvement, Headmaster. Save perhaps for miss Rose, who was directly recruited by you. Do not come talking to me about morals in the face of foes that are willing to go to extremes to wipe out all of humanity when you do the same, just with magic, propaganda and romanticizing your Huntsmen and Huntresses..."

And, while Ozpin seemed ready to burst once confronted with his own hubris, Halsey continued with a lower voice, wiping her glasses, "I created a Legion of Monsters, but one loyal to Humanity and to the cause of its survival, rebuilding and propagation after two brutal wars, one against traitors and one against a foe so aggressive and dangerous, they burned hundreds of our worlds."

She then glared at him, "Tell me what you fight that necessitates children to be trained against them? The Grimm? Easy kills. Beasts with little to no power beside numbers..."

"There's more to them than that!" Ozpin slammed his hand onto the desk, forming a slight spiderweb crack on the glass due to the strength he put behind it, "There's SO MUCH MORE to this war than just some mindless demons killing countless humans and Faunus!" All while Halsey stared at him without flinching. She put her glasses back on and stood up to be level with him. "You and your people wasted a thousand children to buy yourselves time! And you, you of all of them, created machines to fight against your fellow man, with your sheer dumb luck being that the Covenant came to you!"

"It was a sacrifice I willingly made..." She admitted with sorrow behind her words, "I stole children from the love of their families, not with kind words and promises of heroism, but with the imbued thought that, if they do not fight and do not give it their all together, they will not make it alone where I am sending them. John nearly died on his first mission, had it not been for his teammates. You brought them to you with the promise of a hero's life, of money, you sugar-coated their job in lies of prosperity and sent them forward in a war that's neverending."

He snapped back, "Do not mention sacrifice, Catherine! You've no idea what I went through these past millennia trying to keep humanity and the Faunus in a blissful ignorance of what has come before, that they aren't the first, nor will they probably the last, all whilst training the generations of Hunters that have been, are and will be! I've seen good people die, I've witnessed heartfelt sacrifices for the people they loved and cared for! I create people with the will to fight, I make them from children, yes, but at least I give them a choice! You stole John and the others and used them!"

Looking into his eyes, Halsey saw something... A little more personal behind his words, almost as if this touched him personally. She blinked, then sighed. "An Illusion of choice, Ozpin. Children's minds are easily swayed," She then snapped back at him, "You take them young for the same reason I do. Fill their heads with enough of your ideals and they'll think of them as theirs, but even they don't know what they're fighting for. At least mine knew what they were being made for!"

Watching the headmaster's expression shift from fury to that of stunned silence, Halsey continued, angry, "Blissful Ignorance didn't work in my world. It doesn't work in this one. We all deserve to know what we jump in. And for all you think of me, I would never let my Spartans die for nothing, especially not in this war of however many Millennia it has lasted..." And she then glared at him, seemingly causing him to back down. "So if you do not tell me what the hell I want to know now, more specifically what we are facing aside from the Grimm, we will leave you to it..."

... Ozpin had either played right into her hands, or he had decided that it was better to finally tell someone, especially someone as damaged as him, about his millennia of fighting. Dropping back into his seat and rubbing his face with his hands, he told her, "Sit back down... I'll tell you in layman's terms what we're looking at..." then he took his own sunglasses off and cleaned them.

She listened as he gave her a rundown of the Grimm, of their origins, of Humanity before the disappearance of the Gods, of the Gods themselves, of Salem and the war between former lovers, turned against each-other by the hubris of gods. Effectively immortal, forced to change bodies any time one more being he was put into died and forced to fight the former love of his life...

Halsey nodded, then sighed, sympathetic, "You've witnessed people die, Ozpin... Yes, you have. For millennia, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, many you probably didn't know... I'm not diminishing their sacrifice, so do not misunderstand... But do you know how much my heart wringed and hurt when I saw another name tag for another Spartan be put onto the MIA list? The MIA List... MISSING In action..." and she watched Oz blink...

She told him, "They do not even get their deserved rest, Ozpin, on official documents. I loathe ONI for what they did with that damned directive of theirs. I'm a monster. I created monsters. I sacrificed my humanity and my very soul to the proverbial Devil for the sake of saving this damned race and when push came to shove, my Frankenstein's creations came through. I am broken because I didn't cry when I saw those name tags pop up. Not even when the bodies were returned to me on Reach. I had turned into something I feared at the age of 18. A creature of naught but science." And she turned away, wiping an actual tear from her eye, not a fake or a crocodile tear.

She did hate what she'd become... Ozpin could see it.

"I don't think I have the willingness to call what I have in my chest a heart. All it is now is something that supplies blood and nothing more. I say that because of my next statement. I wouldn't have spared these children's lives, who would've been summarily ended by the Covenant nonetheless in their campaign of terror, then, thus sacrificing millions and billions, perhaps our entire species were they not stopped... Now, I am not sure if I could make that choice again... Every life is precious. I learned that the hard way..."

Ozpin himself sighed and rubbed his eyes, "Indeed..."

"Thank you for telling me," She spoke softly, "Of Salem. And your shadow war."

Ozpin shrugged, "Since we were airing out our dirty laundry? I figured it best for one of my newest hopes in winning this damnable conflict to learn. Especially since you've been forthcoming with your own beliefs."

"Cat's out of the bag now," She said, garnering a dry chuckle out of Ozpin. She then asked, more as a joke than truth, "I'm going to assume I am not allowed to leave Beacon without an escort now?"

Oz sighed and shook his head, "I'm not going to limit your liberty, Catherine. We need to trust each-other if we are to win."

"Indeed..." She replied, "Feel free to tell everyone else about what I've done. Your lieutenants, I mean. They'll need to learn who they're working with before we make any cooperative plans and masterworks against Salem together..." before she paused, then smiled and snorted, bursting into a little melodious laugh that stunned Oz. She waved it off and said, "Apologies, Ozpin. Gods and their Hubris. Who knew?"

"Indeed," Oz snorted, too, "Well... Shall we get to work?"

She nodded, "Let's begin..."

Chapter Text

Chief had decided to watch from afar as Sam and Ruby returned from the patrol, the latter with a beaming smile on her face as she bounced up and down, laughing with Sam. Sam wore a helmet, so his face was invisible, but by the way he threw his head back when Ruby said whatever she said, it must've meant the good man was laughing his butt off. Chief himself cracked a small smile at the sight, then sighed as he felt Cortana tap him on the arm. She stepped up beside him and smiled, too.

"Ah, kids," Cortana chuckled, "It's cute."

Ruby's strut, Sam probably smiling behind the helmet. Yeah, John agreed. There was a certain degree of cute that even the man could do nothing else but crack a smile at. Especially since this was the first of his siblings he witnessed the death of. He paused as the two stopped in front of them and started saying goodbyes. He thought about it for a moment, then called out, "Sam, Ruby."

Both stopped dead, turning to face the Chief. Both paused when they saw him actually smiling, even if it was just a tiny smile. Next, he did the most surprising thing possible. So surprising that Samuel almost didn't register it as such. He joked, "You two do know there are better options for dates than patrols, correct?" which got even Cortana to look at him with wide eyes. Ruby's face glowed as red as her namesake gem at that, while Sam had to take off his helmet and look the Chief in the eyes for that joke.

The man's AI-turned-human(?) companion burst into a hollering laugh, while his best friend had to actually register it being a joke in order to let out one single awkward 'ha' as he scratched the back of his neck, his own cheeks a healthy pink. Ruby started stammering like a dummy, while Cortana kept laughing. Chief, satisfied his joke had hit home, was about to turn around and leave before Jorge tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Historic event:John makes a joke."

"Jorge," The man replied, smiling, "I was making an observation."

The Reach-born Hungarian Spartan let out a short laugh as Keyes, the kitten, trotted up to them. Cortana, who was now coming off the high of laughter, picked the little creature up and started nuzzling it lovingly. The moment of embarrassment slowly faded for Ruby and Sam, with Jorge commenting, "C'mon inside, all of you. Lunch is ready and Doctor Halsey'll be coming back soon."

"Who cooked?" Cortana asked.

Jorge snorted, "Kat. Be ready, she cooks spicy."

"... I don't think my robot guts are ready for that, honestly," The AI chuckled as she took John's hand and dragged him in. Ruby sat awkwardly at the edge of the porch, rubbing her arm as her face still glowed a fairly healthy red. Sam sighed deeply, rubbing his eyes, then looked at Ruby. She looked back at him, still shy, but he smiled at her and tilted his head toward the door.

The girl perked up, still red in the face. He still smiled at her, simply deciding to take the lead with a gentle first step that Ruby soon matched. Before long, the two had entered the Spartans' and Marines' house, finding it still abuzz with the daily activities a battalion of elite veterans from a war against aliens would be doing. That being chatter between the teams, interaction, bonding with each-other again after so long.

Daisy noted Ruby and Sam entering and flashed a grin. She hit Cal, who was cleaning her sniper's barrel, on the shoulder with the back of her gauntlet. Cal turned and cracked a small smile, too, before starting to hum a little tune, a little more happy. Six, who was also there, noticed this and snorted, shaking her head as she stood up to go help Kat prepare lunch.

"What've we got for lunch," Cortana asked Kat awkwardly as they sat in the kitchen.

The Spartan-III showed the ingredients on the table and the boiling pot and said, "Chili con carne. Old recipe... Have had it stuck in my head since I was five for some reason," with a chuckle. She poured a quarter of a tube of chili paste into the meat and bean mix, then stirred the massive pot with her good hand. Cortana already felt like they were going to murder the toilets from that alone.

Cortana found that little bit about the recipe being stuck in her head rather disheartening, really, considering she knew what each Spartan-III had gone through. Still, she didn't let the be an issue, simply smiling at the quip as she watched the woman stir the food. She asked, "Need any help?" as she watched the boys start talking. Carter and John were probably exchanging small-talk about tactics, while Ruby was just sat down with Sam, talking too, though about other stuff.

"Sure. Mind handing me that other can of beans? Content seems a little low here," The XO of Noble inquired. Cortana complied rather happily. The two women continued working on the food, with Kat stating, "You know, it's... It feels nice to finally have a break. All it's been for Noble is patrols. Before that, it was Reach..." and she sighed. Cortana nodded in understanding, watching the woman cook.

Sam fiddled with something on his helmet as he told Ruby, "I hope you don't mind eating with us."

Ruby shrugged, "Eh, nah. I'm actually kinda glad. It means we get to hang out more-" Only to let out a shy, fearful chirp, her cheeks glowing red again. Sam chuckled and patted her on the back, while she heard a couple of the Marines nearby laughing and talking about how 'adorable' the two were. She didn't know why they thought it was cute. It was really annoying how easily she got flustered. Then again, should she really be surprised? Sam was nice, he was friendly, he was cute and tall and uuwahh... She blushed again.

Sam was thankfully as woefully underpepared for human interaction as ever, but even he was catching onto some things. As an example, when Ruby blushed, she was embarrassed by something. Like John's joke a couple minutes ago, or whatever happened when she looked at him just now. He wasn't sure exactly what to think about this, but he honestly had no real issue with it. Pardon the Spartan for thinking so, he thought to himself, but it was cute and he wasn't going to complain about it.

Meanwhile, it wasn't him that was worried. Nobody really was. Ruby, maybe, but she was dealing with it.

Kurt watched Sam and Ruby interacting as he, Tom and Lucy were setting the table He mused, "Never seen Sam like that before," as he set a plate down. The Marines around them also helped with utensils and the like. Both of his training support officers snorted at that, watching the Huntress-Spartan pair starting up a new chat as they sat themselves down on the stairwell.

Doctor Halsey entered the place with a somewhat uncharacteristic smile, stating, "Spartans, Marines," and giving them all a nod of greeting. She turned to Kat and told her and Cortana, "Something smells good. I hope I was saved a portion while I went to learn of whatever our future operations on this planet might entail... Speaking of, I will have a report written and prepared, Cortana. I want you to send it to every Spartan."

Cortana saluted jokingly and smiled, "Don't worry about it, Doc."

Halsey then craned her head over toward Sam and Ruby. Ruby smiled brightly and waved at the doctor, who simply raised her open hand in greeting. She yawned, stretched her arms and walked over to the kitchen island, setting her tablet down beside her as she did so. Cortana, who was helping Kat cook, asked, "What've we got anyhow? Mind sharing a little snippet?"

"Let's just say that this will probably beat even the Didact's existence for you and John," Halsey quipped. She leaned over to the right and grabbed a bottle of water, uncapping it and taking a swig, all while the Spartans and AI continued to cook. She licked her lips, then asked, "Catherine?" causing the Spartan-III to turn toward her with wide eyes. Right, nobody had probably used her full name until recently. Halsey, however, who shared a name with her, asked, "What exactly are you making? I can smell the spice from here."

"Chili con carne, ma'am..." Kat replied, then offered Halsey a spoonful to taste. Halsey graciously and wordlessly accepted it and took the dive. The fact that it had burned her nostrils partially before she even managed to get it in her mouth was scary. The taste, while delicious, washed over her like a tidal wave. Red in the face, the doctor began to cough hoarsely.

"What did you even...?" The doctor demanded, her voice raspy.

Kat raised the chili paste tube and read it, "... Reaper Pepper... Oops?"

Cortana snatched the tube from her hand and read it, before covering her mouth, "... Several million Scovilles..." as she set it aside. Halsey, who was still choking on the heat, marched up to the fridge, pulled out a milk jug and poured the cold milk down her throat to douse the flames out. She breathed a sigh, shook her head and looked to Kat and Cortana.

Johnson, who was watching everything unfolding around them, murmured, "Boy, ain't this somethin'..."

"You're tellin' us, Sarge," Jenkins murmured, looking around. He scratched his cheek and took a sip from the beer in his hand as he said, "Hey, Mendoza, shouldn't you be helping Noble Two make the Chili?" to which the Latino Marine smirked and lifted a middle finger at him. Jenkins shrugged and chuckled, "Sorry, man. Joke was right there..." looked to Johnson and asked, "So, Sarge, what's next on the menu for us?"

"Well, Fred and the cat, Blake, are apparently off doing god-knows-what in terms of scouting. We're probably gonna be sent to back'em up-" Johnson spoke just before his phone pinged. He looked at the message, then sighed and said, "Alright, Marines. On your feet. Polaski's taking us out on this one. Apparently, we're helping missus Belladonna and the Lieutenant out."

"Finally, some action," Bisenti quipped as he hefted his AR. Stacker snorted, the Marine platoon falling out after telling the Chief and Co what they were doing and receiving approval. As they walked to the landing pad, the Sergeant-Major and his boys saw Blake sat there, arms crossed, next to Polaski's Pelican. Fred was right beside her, rifle in hand and checking his ammo.

Johnson stepped up, shotgun leaned against his shoulder, as he said, "That's a helluva lead you got there. You sure about this, Spartan?"

"Sure as can be. I cross-checked Blake's references... If intel is correct, that'll be the next person that goes missing," The Spartan replied as he slung his DMR onto his back. He motioned for everyone to board the transport, with Blake donning a new outfit that the Spartans had specifically asked team RWBY to wear via a message. A bulletproof vest, a mask that covered her face and a chest rig in which Blake carried extra ammunition for her own new weapon:A rifle. Gambol Shroud was on her back, at the ready, though. Fred turned around as the Pelican took off and said, "Marines. Be ready. We might be facing some of the Fang's more elite troops..."

"Like that's gonna be a problem," Murmured Blake, grinning behind her mask.

Schnee Dust Co. Vale Branch Office

Underground section. Service Tunnel.

An SDC tech sat at her computer, typing away at some report or other in the dim concrete tunnels. She swore to herself, murmuring, "I seriously gotta get a new fucking job. This is nuts..."

She took a sip from her coffee, then examined the tunnels underneath the SDC offices. Pipes, wiring attached to concrete walls, a single black metal desk she was sat behind, a cupboard and a fuse box. The tunnel split off into an intersection to her left, where another of her buddies was. The other technician wore the same uniform as her. White shirt with the Schnee snowflake on the left breast pocket and a badge on the right denoting his name. He arranged his peaked cap and tugged at his grey work pants, then replied to her, "Complaining won't get that report done faster, Dove."

"Shut up, Val," She sighed as she leaned against the desk and re-read the paragraphs she's written so far. She told him, "If I had a choice, I wouldn't be writing this bullshit for the Schnees, but an investor from the Private Sector had to come in today and ask our boss stuff before I could hand in my Two Weeks notice," then sighed and slammed her head against the desk. "Should've never taken the job."

"Did you have any other options before?" He asked as he wrote down something on his own Scroll tablet.

She turned toward him with a pout and replied, "If the Schnees hadn't bought out my dad, I would've still had the family fuckin' store, man. We weren't just selling Dust. We actually sold good pastries and drinks... Now it's just another front for this shithole of a company..." then straightened up and continued writing. She asked, "Hoping that dinner you ordered's comin' soon."

"It's on its way," He replied with half a heart as he checked a few switches and some wiring. Dove nodded, then leaned forward, focused, her fingers moving almost mechanically across the laptop keyboard. She'd done two more paragraphs by the time the power suddenly went out and the laptop switched to its own battery. She swore to herself, quickly hit 'SAVE', then turned.

"Val, what the fuck! Dude, I can't see shit!" She called out as she peered into the darkness, eyes barely adjusting. Damn, did she wish she was a Faunus right now. Her hands clasped at her utility belt, grabbing a flashlight. She tried turning it on, anxiety and panic rising, "Valentino, man, c'mon, turn on the lights, you know I fucking hate this shit-" and the moment she managed to flick her flashlight on, the butt-stock of a rifle made contact with her jaw.

The flashlight fell to the floor before Dove, the bulb flickering thanks to the impact, but lighting four figures clad in black military uniforms with highly-modular rifles and quad night vision goggles. One of them looked like she had metallic arms. To Dove, however, it didn't matter. She passed out from the blunt force trauma moments after hitting the ground...

Two more soldiers entered the tunnel itself, hefting similar rifles to the group. One tapped a friend on the shoulder and handed her something, then took a knee and helped hide the knocked-out Techs. The leader of the unit murmured, "Loud little shit, that one," before she ordered, "Two. Check the laptop," put her hand around her radio, thumbed the transmit button and said, "Baseplate, Hotel-Seven is internal. Checking for HVI Gopher's location now."

The crew technician got to work, the clicking of the keyboard filling the tunnel as the soldiers knocked out the light. The sole thing illuminating them was the very computer being accessed right now as the PMC unit checked their gear. The leader, rather obviously Kuro in full tactical gear, hummed and checked her pouches, then murmured, "I need to get better pouches for this fucking vest..."

"Seven Lead, I got it," Their tech spoke as he grabbed his rifle off his back now. He lifted up a holographic display system that showed a three-dimensional representation of the building. He pointed to the penthouse office and added, "He'll be with the local SDC Branch head. We can get two birds with one stone. Seize the last HVI we need for our operations and cripple SDC work here."

"Good job, Two..." Kuro hummed, "What're we lookin' at in terms of resistance?"

"Counting maybe forty of the SDC's own PMC in here per the rosters. Should we call for the Vaquero?"

"Leave Montana as our trump card. We can handle a few dickheads with rifles that are playing soldier... All HOTEL elements, move in. Radio silence, hand signals only. Let's get the Mistress what she wants," Kuro ordered, then racked the bolt of her rifle. She nodded to the man near by the fuses to kill the lights in the entire building. The crack-snap of power failure filled their ears, though muffled by layers of concrete.

Going up the service stairs, the group could hear the confusion of the people inside the buildings. Advancing in a row wasn't really good, so Kuro staggered the team, allowing at least herself and another rifle to fire. Just in time, too, as she heard the thundering footsteps of a man in armor advancing toward the door. She nodded to her other gunman and both raised their weapons. The moment the man laid a hand on the thin metal door, both opened up.

Silenced coughs from the rifles and bullets piercing the metal were followed by a figure collapsing against the door. Kuro sighed and kicked it open as soon as she reached the first step, then pushed forward, pulling her NODs up. She fired at the first SDC Mercenary she spotted, two slugs piercing the man's light armor and sending him tumbling to the floor. The Civvies let out screams as they ran to evacuate the office, obscuring both the Commandoes' shots and those of the Schnee PMCs.

Still, the Commandoes belonging to Kuro's unit were more accurate. Each rifle coughed once as the troopers fanned out like proper military that was meant to fight humans, utilizing cover from concrete pillars while maintaining momentum. The corpses of SDC soldiers, clad in white uniforms, soon littered the rear of the lobby. The group pushed forward up the stairs in a staggered formation again, two gunmen front and the others facing back in case of flanks.

They were on borrowed time. She asked, "We did drop the fucking jammer, right!?"

"Rog!" Three answered, snapping off shots to the rear, "Jammer's been online the moment we entered the building proper!" And she tapped the jammer itself on her hip, a three-antenna box that was clipped to her belt. Kuro gave a thumbs up, before she pied the corner to the left. A member of the SDC PMC waited in ambush with a folding axe. He tried striking down on her, but she sidestepped the attack and thrust with her claws. Her right hand claws pierced the armor and drew blood before she closed her fist, crushing the man's heart in a bloody display of terrifying capability.

She then pushed forward up the stairs. Each floor was cleared with the same meticulousness and speed as they expected, with the last place left being the penthouse. Despite the imposing, beautiful and decadent lobby that led to the penthouse, the main door was now a bulkhead several feet thick, layered with armor that only heat charges could pierce. Kuro smirked and said, "Just as expected. Five."

"On it," The raspier voice of their demo expert replied. He marched forward, pulling off his backpack as the team provided cover. He pulled out three packs of a strange explosive, slapped them onto the multitude of locks and important parts of the massive bulkhead, then took a step back after linking them all to a central detonator. He handed the det to Kuro, who looked around as her team formed a semi-circle perimeter to cover the stairwell and elevators.

She ordered, "Disable the Jammer and send the Evac request."

"... Done," Three replied, "ETA two mikes. We'll be on the roof before that."

Kuro nodded, then clacked the charges. With a hiss, thermite bored through metal like a hot knife cut through butter, piercing and destroying the internals. The secondary plastic explosive charge then went off, blowing the bulkhead off its hinges with a deafening groan and a wave of fumes. The squad pushed forward, only to pause as they saw the thin, frail-looking SDC official behind his desk. He demanded, "Who the hell are you-" before a snap-pop filled the air.

Kuro's pistol barrel still smoked. She sighed and holstered the gun, then said, "Well, that's one down..." before marching over to the other figure in the room. A dark-haired man with blue eyes greeted Kuro. She said, "The Mistress sends her greetings. Your father also says hello from amidst the Council," then patted him on the shoulder. The young man nodded in thanks.

The group moved toward the stairwell, two of the soldiers placing detonator charges on the elevators as the power came back across the building. Climbing to the roof, Kuro clicked the last two detonators, hearing the distant thumps below as the thermite and plastic explosive mixed, destroying the elevator shafts, before secondary, more distant explosions reached them:The elevator cars crashing.

She smirked and murmured, "Another job well done..." only to pause as the roar of jet engines echoed from behind. The vehicle that sprung up was not Atlas, however. Painted in OD Green and armed to the teeth, it swiveled about, opening its rear hatch to reveal a series of unknown troops. They disgorged from the rear, with their leader, a seven-foot-tall soldier clad in armor heavier than anything they employed, lifting his DMR and firing.

Kuro snapped her arm up, deflecting the round with Aura and a little luck before murmuring, "Oh, fucking great..." then lifting her rifle. She ordered, "Protect the HVI! MOVE!" only to take cover behind an aircon unit. She radioed, "Voodoo, this is Hotel Seven actual, requesting you hurry your asses up..." then she poked out and fired at a guy in green moving into cover.

She hit, but the rounds sparked off his armor. And he returned fire, pissed off. Larger caliber rounds than what she and her men had in their rifles struck and pinged off the metal, a couple even piercing and hitting her Aura with reduced speed. Her soldiers popped back out and fired, too, as the big man advanced toward them. One of her men took a round to the head and fell to the floor, dead.

She swore to herself, then said, "Five's down..." as she watched the big man approach. He seemed to have noticed her, too, as he charged and cocked his fist back. Luckily for her and less than luckily for him, the little fox-girl had fast enough reflexes to dodge and blunt his attack with her open claws. Though she felt a current course through her arm, disabling it. She swore to herself and jumped back, then yelled, "Big motherfucker has a shield! Where's the fucking EVAC!?"

... Just in time for an armored, more slim Bullhead to pop up suddenly. The side hatch opened and three ice-cold shots flew in a flurry out of the vehicle, freezing the ground ahead and raising high walls of ice that blocked the enemy's advance. After having seen that, Kuro simply sighed in relief, pushing their HVI on board and murmuring, "Showoff..." as she boarded with what was left of her team.

Their savior, a man clad in what looked to be a worn, old Vacuo Rangers uniform with a broken snowflake emblem, spoke with a slight accent, "Hotel has accomplished mission. We are RTB now."

Chapter Text

When the others had returned, Chief and the group had remained to listen to Doctor Halsey's sudden decision to tell the tale of who and what they were going to be fighting under Ozpin's tutelage and command. To put it bluntly, Chief felt like he'd just been hit by a brick to the face. No, not quite. The brick was the revival of their dead comrades and friends to this world at large and the fact they all managed to reunify here.

This was him hitting terminal velocity and impacting the ground from orbit like a Sabot round fired from a MAC gun. Insane and making way too much sense at the same time, he thought to himself while Cortana beside him tightened her grip on his arm. The AI had wanted to ask anything that could disprove this insanity, but doctor Halsey's explanation had been so terrifyingly thorough, even she was stumped.

Johnson seemed to agree as he took a long, drawn-out drag of his cigar and whispered, "Sweet Mary, mother of Jesus, this is nuts..."

Jenkins was the comedic breaker of the ice, murmuring, "Least it ain't the Flood," Which got a few short but mirthful laughs from his comrades. Chief sighed, looking over to the Marine, who raised his hands defensively and added, "Honestly, ma'am, we've seen one world-ending scenario, I think we've seen'em all at this rate... I'm just glad I'm alive and walking without something burrowing in my chest."

Halsey nodded, "An agreeable sentiment, Private. I must admit, however, you are all taking this extremely well..."

"I mean, most of us weren't 'till Jenkins decided to speak," Cortana replied, rubbing her face, "Honest-to-God magic to add upon the soul shields and other such crap we have to deal with and here I am, just a robot girl like Penny... Thank the lord Sam took Ruby out of the room before we got this Briefing, else I fear what the hell she was gonna react like to the news..."

The good Doctor nodded once again, "While I agree that this is a rather daunting prospect, ladies and gentlemen, need I remind you that Ozpin, a man of a thousand years and faces, one who keeps his cards close to his chest, decided to trust us and reveal this information to us. I'm certain he would've preferred to keep things quiet, but..." she smirked, "We played the card we had closest to our own chests:Our honesty about everything. ONI be damned, honesty genuinely paid off and got us actual information."

"It was a big gambit, doctor," Chief replied warily, "If it backfired..."

"Yet it did not, John," The woman replied, smiling. She was confident, the Spartan thought. He had to give her that.

"You talked to Oz, ma'am. He trust us to kick in doors and start making our own moves?" Daisy inquired, smirking, "Because I'm ninety-seven percent sure our foes are already making moves. Considering the fact we had to send Johnson, Fred and the Marines out, those must've been some of Miss Witch's troops. Who knows, maybe they're even cultists or some shit like that."

"A foul-mouthed yet fairly deductive observation, Daisy," Halsey quipped, then nodded as the blonde let out a short laugh. She told them, "Indeed, the Headmaster trusts us to operate as his army in the shadows now. We will get any intel his assets on the ground can give and engage the enemy. Take the necessary steps to win this war, one battle, one minute detail and one inch at a time... Else? It will mean the end of mankind here."

"Count on us, Doctor," Cal added from beside Daisy, her beautiful face ever remaining a mask of stoicism, "We'll have heads rolling by lunchtime tomorrow."

"I will hopefully have a target... However, I must say, we will be operating under Vale's orders," She offered, then continued, "Ozpin still wants to keep the world unaware of the Shadow War. And thus, he wants to keep the world unaware of us as a whole. Our people, our equipment, our everything, will not be UNSC to anyone but those we trust. We are still considering an Acronym or name to go by..."

Linda quipped, "We're going Native, then."

"In a way," Halsey replied. She arranged her glasses on her nose, "We will be receiving supplies and money from the Council for our work. Call it Defense incentivization. They don't want Ozpin to wield the Big Stick without supervision. My bet is they think it will give him too much power over the Kingdom. With the loyalty of most everyone in Beacon, you can imagine how that would look to them."

"Strength and muscle and Jungle Work, eh?" Johnson grinned, "Hell, ma'am, if we were gonna be Mercs, I'd've put on a different outfit."

"Not Mercenaries, Sergeant-Major," Halsey corrected him, "A well-paid professional military. One with a Research and Development base and many, many new Recruits incoming as per Cortana's reports," and Johnson's grin grew at that. Indeed, the UNSC was still not done fully regrouping on Remnant. Run of the mill work was still yet to start, though.

Cortana sighed and said, "I'll start preparing briefing packages for whoever else we're recovering, doc. Until then, we should probably-" and she paused as their Scrolls pinged. She hummed and said, "Well, I was about to say 'prepare to head out again' before Headmaster Ozpin just sent us a new piece of intel. The Too Long, Didn't Read of the message is that one of his old friends seems to have found something in a village deep in the nearby mountains that might interest us. Doc, if I can make a suggestion, we take Blue and Noble and head on out to check it."

"My thoughts exactly, Cortana," The woman said, arranging her glasses as she read the message. She told them, "We will commandeer Foe Hammer and her Pelican for the flight over and keep her as our departure option. Everyone else will remain within Beacon and gather intelligence, prepare, talk to the local teams and help train them. We are not authorized to reveal our actual mission here to them, but we can at least prepare them."

Cal and Daisy looked to one-another, with Daisy smirking and saying, "I always wanted to be a DI, honestly."

"I dread and worry for whoever you have to train, Daze," Cal shot back as she crossed her arms. Daisy feigned being hurt by her friend's comments, before both of them laughed for a few seconds. Cal turned to the Chief and told him, "We'll all hold down the fort while you guys head on out. About time we got some RnR to be quite honest... Head's still ringing."

Daisy nodded, "I think I'm still pickin' pink shards outta my chest, too, so," before grinning.

John nodded to both of them, stating, "Alright, then. Blues, Nobles, let's start packing for the trip. Make sure we have enough fuel for the road over and back and make sure we're stocked up on ammunition. Jorge, I'm counting on you and Kat to also pack us food. Commander Carter, you're with me. We're planning our routes... Someone also get Sam over here. We're gonna need to-" then he cut himself off as he saw Ruby and Sam in the door... And Blake. And Yang. And Weiss.

And team JNPR.

Yang smirked, "We going on a vay-cay?!"

"... Don't you all have classes?" Fred asked from Chief's left.

Blake shrugged, "We told the Teachers it's a study trip. We're shadowing you folks. Ozpin surprisingly approved."

"Yeah!" Ruby grinned.

"I wish to come, too!" Penny poked her head in.

Chief sighed and pinched the bow of his nose, then said, "This is gonna crowed Foe Hammer's Pelican, but that's fine, I guess... Stay close to us and listen to orders."

"Oh, don't worry 'bout it, Chief," Yang's smirk grew as she crossed her arms. She gently nudged Ruby's arm with her elbow and said, "She's fixin' to stay very close to Sam," which got both the blonde Spartan and his close female friend to blush. Weiss slapped Yang upside the head, causing her to wince and turn toward Weiss with furrowed brows. Weiss rolled her eyes.

"Apologies, Chief," Weiss hummed, then sighed and said, "I feel like I say that far too often for my own good. Honestly..." only to turn toward team JNPR and ask, "Are you four sure you want to come with? It seems like this will be a trip." with a hint of concern. Honestly, she just hoped Jaune would not do anything stupid this trip. He'd stumbled one too many times trying to get her to fall for him. Little scraggly boy wasn't gonna get it that easy.

"Honestly," Jaune shrugged, "Nothing better to do at Beacon, heh." And he smiled awkwardly. Truth be told, Jaune was also going on this trip based on what Yang had told him. Possibly getting alone time with Weiss was worth the shot. His team followed him for what seemed to be the specific reason of ensuring that didn't happen. They all looked to Doctor Halsey next.

The woman breathed a sigh, then said, "I'll give a call to the Headmaster to secure us the extra lodging necessary, then... Until then, you can help pack the Spartans' bags, ladies and gentlemen," before she excused herself and walked out of the room. Noble Six crossed her arms and stared at the kids walking into the house. Penny and Ruby positively bounced with excitement, while Yang's and Blake's was a little more contained. Weiss herself maintained her poise and usual cold attitude well. Team JNPR was...

Well, Nora was packing extra grenades. She and Emile were already grinning about something in a corner, while Ren and Jorge were exchanging small-talk about the benefits of growing plants or something. Linda and Pyrrha also talked about close quarters combat forms and sniping, rather obviously. So, yeah, Noble, Blue, RWBY and JNPR were pretty much set for one of the weirdest trips ever.

Packing didn't take long. Teams RWBY and JNPR had gone back to their dorms, given the letters to their teachers about shadowing Blue and Noble Teams and immediately showed back up at the house in full forest exploration gear. Ruby had actual pants for a change, a tight shirt, still had her cape and Crescent Rose. Yang had picked a long-sleeved jacket, a yellow tank top, long pants and combat boots with that purple scarf wrapped around her ankle and her strange skirt tucked partially into the pants. Blake had gone for more clothes, too, with a shirt, vest and jacket that didn't restrict her movement, cargo pants and boots and Weiss... Still wore a skirt, but at least had boots instead of high heels now.

As they marched toward the Pelican, Chief commented, "I suppose we got that home?"

"Yes," Halsey replied calmly, "We have an entire Inn for all of us. This should be a two-day trip for now," and they boarded the transport. Ruby and the others seemed extremely excited, with Halsey quipping, "They are young... Hope they'll enjoy themselves on this trip for now. This War isn't theirs just yet, John... Hope you understand that..."

"I do, doctor... Does Ozpin?" He asked.

"Yes," She nodded, "Thankfully, he does. It seems he knows what Hypocrisy is..." and she, too, knew what it was. It was why she and Ozpin understood each-other so well. They both made the same mistake, after all. They were both demons with the same mistakes and bodies behind them. Though, considering Ozpin's long life, he must've done more than Halsey... No matter.

Blanchet Village, Vale Mountain Range, North

As the Pelican swung in for landing, the village came into view. A wide, sprawling valley, flanked on two sides by steep mountains and a road down the middle. A river ran parallel to the road and passed both underneath the walls separating the village itself from the rest of the forests and Valley itself. The village went from one end of the valley to the other for several kilometers and its buildings were rustic, cabins made of wood with smoke pouring from stacks.

The valley was beautiful, as was the village. The villagers themselves greeted them with waves as the Pelican landed on a landing pad attached to the Eastern cliff face. As they exited the Pelican, the scent of fresh, cold mountain air filled the lungs of everyone as they descended from the Pelican. Ruby beamed, staring up at the sky. She spoke softly, "Oh, this is nice..."

"Agreed," Sam smiled, too, arms crossed. The group began disgorging supplies onto the landing pad. The group began carrying their gear down, with Halsey at the front. She stopped, however, when a smiling man approached. Scraggly, raggedy, dressed in mismatched suit items with a bowtie and licked-back, oiled hair. Behind him was a redhead that was reading a book and a young man, looking around.

He extended a hand and said, "Hello! You must be Doctor Catherine Halsey! I am doctor John Smith and these are my partners in crime:Amelia and Rory," Pointing to the redhead and the scraggly young man. He continued, "The Headmaster called us here to check up on reports of some sort of strange ancient ruins," to which Halsey gripped and shook. The man had a bubbly personality and the dress sense of a crazy man.

Halsey nodded, "Hello, Doctor. I suppose we can ask you about what we're looking for, then?"

"Indeed, you can!" The man replied happily, "The unknown station is up there. Be forewarned, though, it's buried in a Cave and I and my assistants have had no luck in breaching the wall," and he pointed at the top of the mountain they landed beside. He continued, "I've left my notes in the room you're going to be staying at. It was my room and I told the staff not to really disturb the place beside changing the sheets. I hope my notes will help you and, I have to say, it's been a pleasure to meet you!"

"Likewise...?" Halsey blinked. Genuinely awful bubbly, this one was, Halsey thought to herself. She spoke, "Thank you for leaving notes and telling us the location of our target, I suppose," then she looked back at Blue and Noble unloading the last of their gear. She hummed, turned back, stating, "I wished to inquire-" only to pause as she saw the man had disappeared.

A distant whirr, like heavy, mechanical breathing, echoed, then faded out, causing Halsey to blink. Cortana approached, stating, "Well, they're gone... And yeah, doc, don't worry, I saw them, too. They were fairly weird..." only for Halsey to breathe a sigh, annoyed. Of course, they'd disappear so quickly. The average interaction with xeno-archaeologists, she thought calmly.

"Let's just get to our rooms," She sighed deeply, then walked off to find the Inn they were staying at. 'Okko's Inn', a traditional Mistrali place built by an immigrant, as per the Headmaster's letter. Entering it, the image of a Japanese countryside home played ahead of them, with the wallpapers, the wall paintings and art resembling something straight out of the Edo period.

"Woah!" Ruby gasped as she and her friends filed in beside the Doctor and Cortana.

Penny smiled, "Quite a beautiful place..."

"Seems very welcoming, at least," Cortana chuckled, crossing her arms to her chest. She and Halsey walked up to the reception as Nora and Yang made noise in the background, their respective teams sitting themselves down on the beautiful, ornate Japanese-style sofas around them. At the reception desk sat a young Faunus woman of Asian descent, her almond eyes immediately peering up from the computer as her catlike ears twitched.

She smiled brightly, arranging her yukata and stating, "Welcome to Okko's Inn. I am Okko Ao, third in the line of this Inn's owners and proud maintainer of the traditions. You must be Doctor Halsey and her party," only to cock her head to the right, to see the students enjoying themselves, laughing and such, while the Spartans set their luggage aside. The latter were all wearing armors, which caused the woman to furrow her brow and say, "I... Didn't think we'd be getting soldiers and Hunters here, but, then again, this place has seen its fair share of strange people as of late."

"We've just met one," Sighed Halsey.

"Oh, the Doctor," Chuckled Ao. She arranged the Yukata, which was blue as the sea, then said, "Yes, he does tend to appear here every so often. My oka-san and bachan both met the man. He never seems to age, really, but that's not my business..." and turned. She retrieved a series of keys and told the now-confused Doctor and Cortana, "Here you go. Headmaster Ozpin has rented this place fully, so feel free to utilize all amenities we have here, including the buffet and the coffee machine."

"Thanks," Halsey blinked repeatedly, further confused after this interaction and the one with the Doctor from previous. Ao flashed a smile, then showed them to their rooms. Each room had two beds, meaning both floors were occupied by over a dozen people and each room contained two of said people. Usually, it was team-mates. Ruby with Yang, Blake and Weiss, Jaune and Ren, Nora and Pyrrha, so on and so forth.

John and Sam were given the same room, much to Cortana's chagrin, while she and doctor Halsey would be staying together. Doc Halsey herself hummed a tune as she prepared her research items and looked through the notes that Doctor Smith had left, before murmuring to herself, "None of these notes make any sense, but I suppose they all point to the summit, at least..." mildly annoyed. She put the papers aside and set her own items on the desk, laptop, tablet and glasses included.

She looked back toward Cortana as the girl was sat on her bed, preparing her gear, then asked, "I suppose you wished to sleep with John," in a teasing manner. The AI's face suddenly flushed, causing the Doctor to smirk. Oh, were these two so easy to read, she thought to herself. Oh, well, "You two can always interact as soon as we're done preparing our rooms, Cortana. Rather sweet of you two to grow so fond of each-other immediately after you gained full independence."

"What can I say, doc..." Cortana asked awkwardly, "Work with a guy for eight years and you get to like him..."

Halsey snorted, "I know..." her mind wandering back to Jacob and Miranda. A small frown formed on her face, but she quickly squelched the thoughts of the two and turned back to her work. She inquired, "Do you think we will get our answers from the station above us? And do you think it is Forerunner, Cortana?" as she set up a firewall on the place's internet network, so nobody could spy on them.

"From what I've detected, yes and yes, probably," The AI nodded. She then told Halsey, "You left one of the Firewalls open. Here," as her eyes glowed azure. The defenses Halsey had missed were immediately reinforced, unsurprisingly. Cortana's capabilities remained ever-strong, even in a humanoid body. Perhaps they were even more powerful than usual and Halsey just hadn't managed to notice

"Thank you," She replied instead of further wondering about it. Kindness probably went a long way with her robot 'daughter' of a sort, who simply smiled, then sighed and plopped, back-first, onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Honestly, she was glad she and John were becoming as close as they were. At least, it was less likely that Cortana would turn against them. A joking thought for Halsey, but a spine-chilling one nonetheless. She hoped Cortana never had an inkling of a desire to do that, lest she need to deal with her.

Cortana, meanwhile, wasn't even considering pulling a Terminator. No, she was really more concerned with seeing John, maybe taking a walk along the river and down the main road of the place, getting something to eat... Was this place basically a date, not just a mission for the two of them? Her face flushed as she wondered, then sighed deeply, annoyed.

Nah, it was a job.

Chapter Text

The next morning of this little extracurricular vacation had found Ruby in her Pajamas, wandering the halls of the beautiful Mistrali-style in. Pulling up her pants and tightening the elastic lanyard so they didn't fall off. Walking down to the kitchen area, past several other occupied rooms, the girl fully intended to make herself what Weiss usually called her 'Abomination Coffee'. Just a bunch of sweetener, cream and so on mixed with coffee, obviously.

As she snuck her way through the place, trying very hard not to wake anyone up, what with the wood floor potentially creaking and all, she descended to the center of the Inn and walked over to the counter where the coffee machine was… Only to pause the moment she saw a Spartan in his very familiar Mark IV Armor, his helmet sitting on the counter as he drank a small cup of coffee.

Sam seemed pretty unsure of how Coffee was even supposed to work when it came to giving him an energy boost, but at least he could still pick up noises in the room rather quickly. He cracked a smile and slowly turned to face Ruby, who was staring at him from the door. He spoke to her, "Good morning," in a whisper.

"Mornin'," She replied with a smile, walking over to him, "You look like you've been up for a while."

"I had night watch," He answered, then took a sip from his coffee, "Did a patrol of the whole town. Even met some of the Town Watch. The place is surprisingly calm for being in the middle of Grimm Country," to which Ruby giggled. She approached the coffee machine, opened the fridge next to it and started working on her own coffee.

As she did so, she told him, "Well, it's supposed to be like a spa place, so it kinda makes sense," before pouring some milk into her mug. She looked at Sam again, face a tinge red as the Sun lazily rose outside, then continued, "Plus, it's not like a Grimm horde's gonna come say hi just because we mention them. Sure, they're attracted to negative feelings, but…"

"I getcha," Sam nodded.

"Heh. Thanks…" Ruby replied awkwardly, blushing and smiling. Whenever she spoke to the guy, she felt like she was talking to some old childhood friend, not a seven-foot-tall Supersoldier. A friend she really cared for, obviously, she thought, then she blushed, stammered a little and switched to quickly asking, "Say, Sam, why… How are you coping with the revival stuff? Sorry if that's too forward, but I'm curious," before raising her hands defensively, face red.

"It's alright," Sam smiled back, causing Ruby to both sigh and relief and visibly shiver a little. He took a moment to consider his words carefully, before letting out a quiet hum and replying, "As for how I'm coping, well, knowing we won the Human-Covenant War, even with all the casualties we sustained, and working with John, Kelly, Fred and Linda again kind of makes it easier. Especially since they look about as I remember them instead of… Forty-something grizzled vets. Sure, they still have the scars, but," before shrugging.

"I see…" The girl replied, scratching her cheek and trying to take a moment and understand how he felt. She really had no frame of reference for how it must've been to be revived. As she took a sip from her coffee and watched the faintest wisps of orange glow among the sky, the valley being somewhat shielded from the sun by the two walls of stone.

"Yeah…" He sighed, scratching his cheek and mumbling, "It's not easy to adjust to the realization that I died, missed 90% of my friends' lives and now I'm back here again, but they and pretty much everyone else here are making it easier," and he looked at the young girl as she seemed to perk up, silver eyes glimmering a bit.

She awkwardly asked him, "Even me?" as she averted her gaze, starting to play with her hair a little. Though it should've been obvious to anyone watching that Sam really meant everybody, Ruby may or may not have wanted to play up getting a compliment from him. And when she heard him let out a short cough, a bit of the coffee he was drinking winding up in his windpipe, she wondered if that'd hit a nerve.

Taking the little coughing fit in stride, the Spartan replied, "Obviously?" without so much as flinching again. He stared at Ruby, his piercing gaze locked on her as he cracked a small smile. He then asked rhetorically, "What kind of question is that?" which caused Little Red's face to glow as red as her cape again. Upon seeing that, he let out an awkward chuckle and asked,"Heh. Sorry, too forward?"

"N-No, no, it's perfectly fine, heh…" Ruby defended, giggling even more awkwardly, her voice having risen in pitch as she waved her hands defensively toward the young man, as if trying to shield both herself and him from this kind of embarrassing talk. Honestly, Sam appreciated the thought, because, like most Spartans, he was about as poorly-suited for civilian interactions as any Spartan.

"Well, anyways…" He decided to switch subjects to spare both of them the embarrassment, watching Ruby let out a very tiny and relatively cute sigh of relief that she must've thought he didn't pick up. He asked her, "You guys said this was a 'vacation' to you," as if urging her to talk about it. He saw her immediately perk up as he took a sip from his coffee, trying to hide his own smile.

"Yep! Us shadowing you folks basically gives us some nice relaxation time!" Her voice perked up with her, apparently, considering just how happy she looked, beaming smile and all. She then let out a short, sweet laugh and added, "I sure as heck don't envy anyone stuck behind at Beacon, being drilled by your other troops," before downing another swig of her coffee.

"Daisy and Cal may seem like hardcases, but if there's anyone who might get along with teenagers, it's Daisy. And if there's someone to keep her in check, it's definitely Cal…" Sam explained with some amusement, all while Ruby chuckled. He tried recalling just how nuts Daze and Cal were back in the day and could really only recall the boisterous girl who escaped. Not only that, but she got out with Ralph and a few others.

"Sounds like those two have a history," Ruby giggled as she took a sip from her coffee.

"They've been thick as thieves since we started training. John tells me they were separated based on their own missions, but now that they found each-other again…" Sam shrugged, smiling a little as he recalled the pure adrenaline high of watching them escape during the last stages of their training, the chase and all, "Like staring into the past with'em."

The girl pushed a strand of hair out of her eye, then nodded before thinking of what to ask. She nodded to herself, then inquired, "What about Jorge and Noble?" as she leaned onto the counter, looking Sam in those deep blue eyes of his. Part of her thought of the fact that, yeah, he was the first to die, but he'd also been the first to help accomplish a mission. Her question was more to keep up the chatter…

"Jorge is the only II out of that whole team and the only other guy I know as being open, like Kurt or me," He shrugged, then continued, "Noble Team's… Kind of unknown to everyone but Doctor Halsey, John and Cortana, apparently, since the latter was actually escorted by them to the ship that pretty much started the end of the War…"

"Huh… Cool," Ruby smiled again, still feeling a little awkward.

"What about you girls? I mean…" He'd noticed this and decided to continue the chat himself. He wanted to keep talking to her, too, honestly. He did enjoy her company for what little his thoughts on the matter were worth, though his service prior wouldn't have allowed this kind of interaction. Or at least it felt like it wouldn't have. An outside perspective looking in at all of them.

"... Well, you obviously know me and Yang are half-sisters, so there's that bit," The girl replied, a bit surprised at the question. She added, "I'd normally say it's Yang's business to tell ya, but she already let a lot of people know. Her mom ran away…" then she shrugged, "Then, my mom, Summer, came into the picture, comforted dad and I kinda appeared later… Then mom disappeared, too. On a mission…" and frowned.

"... Oh… I'm sorry," He replied, gently putting a hand on her shoulder.

Seeing that, she smiled again, blushing a little as she replied, "Nah, it's alright. Mom's the reason I'm here, so, ya know! Positives!" before she beamed. She blinked, realized something, then asked him, "You knew your parents? I mean… Going by what Doctor Halsey told us-" before pausing as she wondered if that was a sore subject.

"Somewhat…" Sam shrugged, faint memories not touched in ages appearing in his mind, the face of a woman, blurred, but still discernible in the dark recesses of said memory. He sighed and said, "I faintly remember mom's face, but that's about it. The Spartan Project's really all I've known. John and the others are my family nowadays."

"Ah…" The girl became awkward yet again, wondering if she'd actually hit a nerve. He did seem pretty calm about it, though, and with that last statement, she felt like she didn't mess up that bad. Then again, could she really know if she didn't ask? And what if she asked and he felt bad after all and she just made it worse? So many thoughts swam through Ruby's mind, it must've been visible to the Spartan, who simply raised a brow, slightly concerned.

"... Should we just make some more coffee and wait for the others to wake up?" He asked, wanting to make her feel at ease around him again. And when he saw her perk up and smile, he knew he'd practically succeeded in the matter, thank the maker. He smiled, too, watching the girl take a moment to think about it…

Then he heard her reply, "Sure! I'm gonna make everyone a mug!" with joy in her voice. Indeed, audible was the noise of others slowly stirring awake in the Inn. The Spartans, going by the weight of the footsteps, Sam thought. He honestly doubted John had slept as long as he supposedly did now, or that Spartans have slept at all.

"Heh. Alright, I'll help. C'mon. We ought to grab a bit more milk…" He nodded, however, taking himself out of his thought process and leading Ruby to the kitchen. As they walked in, the smell of fresh food welcomed them, the sizzle of eggs and bacon, the smell of toast and the surprising scent of a fresh salad. Both of them paused as they saw Doctor Halsey working the kitchen's oven and stove, mumbling to herself as she donned an apron instead of her usual labcoat.

She looked tired, but the bags under her eyes were very regressed compared to her usual. She even seemed content as she cooked, focused on her task. Though she was taken out of her momentary trance when Sam cleared his throat. She simply looked up, nodded and said, "Samuel. Miss Rose. Just in time for breakfast."

"... You can cook, doc?" Ruby asked, a bit surprised.

Halsey feigned being hurt, stating, "My dear girl, what do you take me for?" before sighing and dropping the act the moment she felt like she disliked it. She told the girl and Sam, "Yes, I can cook… Despite appearances and previous experiences, I don't just subsist on coffee and delivered food. I had to make my own food every once in a while in University."

Sam crossed his arms to his chest, stating, "First we've really ever heard of it, doc…" to which Halsey cast a glance his way that was neither hostile, nor accusatory, but still surprised the young man. He raised his hands, showing her to relax, but she sighed and shook her head, before motioning to the table to their right.

"How we doin'? Something smells good in here!" Yang called out as she, the rest of team RWBY and, obviously, Penny, walked in. Teams NOBLE and BLUE followed not far behind. The blonde-haired hand-to-hand expert gasped, then asked, "You can cook, doc?!" which caused both Ruby and Sam to laugh a little.

Halsey rolled her eyes, but cracked a surprisingly visible smile as she said, "Yes, miss Xiao-Long. Now, please, all of you, take a seat…" before she started plating the food for each of the dozen or so new arrivals. Last to come in were the members of team JNPR, for whom Halsey had also prepared food. Including pancakes for Nora.

As the woman spread out the plates onto the three tables in the room, she looked at Ren and asked, "Is it a problem if I've made these for miss Valkyrie, mister Ren?" to which Ren offered one of his usual small, friendly smiles, then put his hands together and bowed. Halsey took that as the hint she needed and handed a very giddy-looking Nora the pancakes.

She then sat herself down with Blue Team and Cortana, stating, "I suppose it would only be natural to ask if any of you, aside from Sam, caught any sleep?" to which the four other Spartans and Cortana all affirmed it with various gestures, Cortana cracking a smile as she looked at John. Halsey hummed at than, snorted, then started eating her own eggs.

"What's on the objective roster for today?" Jaune asked as they started eating, only to pause immediately after tasting one of the bacon strips and saying, "Oh, wow. Heh, that's actually pretty good. Must be some high-quality stuff the Innkeeper has in her fridge," to which Halsey nodded. Pyrrha gave a gentle elbow to Jaune, who then added, "O-Oh, right! Thanks for the meal, Doc!"

"You're quite welcome," Halsey replied, hiding her mouth to conceal a smile directed at Pyrrha, who gave a simple thumbs up to the doctor, all while wearing an awkward smile. The Doctor nodded quickly in thanks, then continued, "As for what we are to do today, I've only managed to do a preliminary read-through of Doctor Smith's data, so I will continue to search through it. The rest of you can continue patrolling the Village until then."

Nora quipped, "Basically just enjoying our vay-cay, then? Hehe! Can do, doc!"

"It would be nice to hang out a little more," Ruby smiled, looking at her team, then at Sam, her face flushing a little red. Weiss shook her head, rolling her eyes while wearing a smile. Meanwhile, Yang flashed a grin Sam's way and Blake hummed, then looked at Fred. Most of the crew seemed to concur with the idea that it'd be nice to just 'be there' for the moment, all while Halsey figured things out.

The Doctor spoke, "Then it's decided. Visit the Village while I deal with the data here. Rest…" and she continued eating. She mumbled to herself, "Who knows what awaits us in the next few days…" while poking one of her eggs with the fork. Kelly soon volunteered to deliver some food to Foe Hammer, who'd apparently been staying in their Pelican.

Vale

Sergeant-Major Johnson had decided to take a few of his Marine buddies and Daisy out for a coffee trip. Operationally speaking, they were also going to retrieve some supplies for the base, like more food items and maybe even securing a proper ammo supplier. Additionally, they were looking to get an engineer to help them figure out how to properly refuel a Pelican with the local Dust supply without having to fully rebuild the engines.

Polaski had joined them for that, since she was flying their other Pelican out nowadays. She'd taken the liberty of just not doing that and going by Bullhead this time, even if she felt every bit as unsafe aboard that thing as she did on board a Pelican that'd had its engines shot out from under it. Seriously, those aircraft felt incredibly flimsy.

As they walked, Johnson told them, "Remember, kids. Eyes peeled for that Food doc Halsey really likes. Don't wanna be the one to tell her Bisenti ate the last of it," to which the other Marines let out laughter, all while Bisenti himself sighed, mildly annoyed. Chips snorted and shook his head, patting the guy on the shoulder.

Polaski quipped, "Locklear sure would've liked that joke, Sarge. Take into account that son-of-a-bitch helped Bisenti here chow down," and she grinned, arranging her bandana. Johnson snorted, giving an approving nod as they walked. The crowds around them could only watch yet again as the Marines and their pilot walked through the place, looking for a specific store.

They walked out onto a square, pausing all at the same time as they saw a protest and counter-protest of some kind, both sides separated by the VPD's Riot Control Unit, men and women clad in heavy carapace-like armors and holding shields and batons. Though the Police, back-to-back with one another, seemed calm, the Protesters, some being part of the White Fang while the others had a strange emblem of a crossed-out paw, were swearing and hurling crap at each-other.

Johnson took a puff from his cigar, blew the smoke out through his nose, then walked up to the Precinct Chief of the Police, asking, "The hell's goin' on here, officer?" to which the cop, a man clad in a white shirt and black pants with aviators hiding his eyes, turned about, hand on his pistol. He paused, however, seeing Johnson, then sighed.

"You one of Ozpin's new friends?" He raised a brow. Johnson nodded, to which the Cop then said, "Well, you're lookin' at what we've had to deal with for the past few months:A protest from the Natural Order that the White Fang got riled up about…" before he crossed his arms, "If it were after me, I'd arrest both sides right here and now… Just don't have enough cops."

"Natural Order?" Johnson quirked a brow up. He could honestly already piece everything together from the situation, he just wanted a confirmation for the fact he could be angry at these bastards, honestly. He spoke, "Lemme guess," as he looked at the bunch on the left, a lot of'em looking like direct parallels to the other side. Unwashed, ugly, angry. He continued, "Human supremacists. Racists, basically."

"Pretty much," The man nodded, arms crossed, then sighed and said, "Man, I don't get paid enough for this crap…" and Johnson understood the sentiment. What the Protest was even about, no side knew, but Johnson could only assume it was about the fact that there was a store serving everyone or some bullshit like that.

He paused as he saw two people walking out. A human male and Faunus female with wolf's ears. Both looked… Terrifyingly familiar, Johnson thought as he flagged them down, asking, "You two alright?" as he looked them over. The man had familiar facial features, too, while the woman had surprisingly deep blue eyes and their child-whom Johnson had just now noticed-looked an awful lot like someone they knew…

"Yeah, we're alright," A surprisingly rough voice came from the man. It was still warm and welcoming, but, again, familiar. He spoke, "Those bastards didn't get to do any harm to us," and pointed at both sides. He stared rather intensely at the group of Marines, then grabbed Johnson by the arm and asked, "Are you all UNSC?"

"... We are…?" Johnson blinked, "Are ya-"

"Humans from Earth," The man replied with a nod, "Or, well… Eridanus II, more like," then he took a step back and sighed, rubbing his eyes and letting out a short laugh, "Oh, this is gonna be interesting," all while his wife stared at them with concern. He spoke to them, "I don't suppose any of you have seen a small kid, shaved head, about yae high," and he put his hand by his hip, "Walking around, have you? Or… Hell, I don't know how big he'd have grown."

"... What's your kid's name? We'll let you know if we've seen anything…" Johnson asked, feeling a slight pit in his stomach. Doc Halsey had been kind enough to tell them all most of the Truth about the Spartan Project like she had to Ozpin. Though Johnson wasn't one to comment on the matter, considerin' his own past as a soldier taken on by Humanity to gene engineer into a war machine, this might've come to bite them in the ass.

"John," The man replied, which caused the Sergeant-Major to suddenly feel that pit in his stomach growing just that little bit bigger. Polaski and the others all overheard this, with Jenkins staring at the 'Find Out' stage finally playing out in front of them. The father spoke, "... You look like I just said a Ghost's name, Marine."

"Well," Johnson spoke quietly, then sighed and took a puff from his cigar. Oh, this was gonna go over well. He told the man, "We'll let you know if we've seen anythin', like I said. Leave me a contact number and name and we'll talk over the Scroll," to which the man and woman, though suspicious, agreed. Their little kid stared up at Johnson as he was writing down the data. He gave the kid a smile, to which the kid smiled back, then he turned to finish the data collection.

After letting them walk, he stared at the pair for a second, mumbling, "Oh, that's gonna come back to bite Halsey hard," before sliding his Scroll back into a vest pouch. Jenkins stared at the family, to which Johnson said, "You can see the likeness too, right? Ain't just me bein' old and seeing shit anymore, that's them…"

"Guess we'll find out if Chief's happy to have them around when they come back," Jenkins mumbled as he shifted his rifle off his back. Footsteps thundered toward them, with Jenkins stating, "Sarge… Possible contact incoming," which caused Johnson to swivel about, hand hovering over the grip of his shotgun. One of the men obviously belonging to the Natural Order stepped forward, staring them all down.

He spoke, "Cops brought in mercs? Hah! What're ya gonna do?"

"We're just here to observe, kid," Johnson replied, walking in between Jenkins, Bisenti and the man. He told him, "Get back with your racist buddies before you give us an actual reason to intervene," as a bit of a warning. Despite the fact that he had come up to them all boisterous, he seemed to stand down a second later, scoffing and walking back.

Polaski stared at him, mumbling, "Good. Last thing we fucking needed was a dumbass starting shit with the rest of us," before turning toward Johnson and stating, "So, Sarge, what're we gonna do about those people whose number you just wrote down? Cuz I think they might call us first if they hear more UNSC people joined us at Beacon."

"They won't hear it," Jenkins spoke, sliding his rifle onto his back, "Right, Sarge? Not like they'll figure out we're not the only Marines on Remnant," and looking ahead. Johnson stared, still, stunned at the fact that they'd found two people that they never thought they'd meet. Jenkins then asked, "Sarge? You okay?"

"I'm fine…" he sighed, "Let's get moving. We still have shopping to do," and despite seeing the team exchange a few quick looks of concern, he didn't rush them or tell them to hurry the hell up. No, they were probably just as shaken by what had just happened as everyone else. They needed time to clear their minds and also needed to keep tabs on the Protest so it didn't turn into a 'Marines gotta intervene' deal…

… Christ, what a mess…

Chapter Text

Chief and the other Spartans had, for lack of a better term, found their little Sabbatical’s jobs. Patrolling the village and keeping it safe. The Spartan himself watched from a distance as Ruby and Sam were walking around together, the latter cradling his MA5B and keeping it at the ready. The Chief felt Cortana’s hand rest on his shoulder and looked at her as she smiled.

Ruby was skipping beside Sam more than walking. She had Crescent Rose on her back, which posited the question of ‘how’ someone like her was managing to skip around with a weapon of that weight on her back… Then again, that was probably a question they should’ve asked themselves a few months ago. Cortana, however, finally broke the awkward silence and said, “You think anything’s gonna happen between them?”

“If you’re about to suggest we bet on it…” He started quietly, causing her to snort. He continued, “... Sam’s the youngest of us. I think it might be good for him to have someone that understands his age bracket, if not the life he went through beforehand,” and he rubbed his chin. Part of him understood that was also very much Doctor Halsey’s view, or at least it aligned more directly with her recent change of heart.

Another part of him wanted Sam to have gone through the same situations as them. He died very early in the Covenant’s campaign. He missed the others going down, the Spartans slowly dwindling down in numbers from the forty-odd there were to what had only been around eleven or twelve S-IIs by the end of the Conflict. 

Though that latter part was not one he would listen to. He knew Sam was technically the most innocent out of all of the Spartans. And Ruby was most definitely the single most innocent being on Remnant now, bar maybe Penny. He felt Cortana poke his cheek, then looked toward her as she said, “You’re a bit deep in thought… What’s bothering you?”

He sighed, “Sam… Like I said. He’s the youngest. He hasn’t seen what we’ve seen. Experienced what we lost… For all intents and purposes, in terms of Spartans, he’s the single most innocent being out of all of us.”

“And you want him to be happy, right?” Cortana asked, staring at the two as Ruby tripped, fell and was caught by Sam. Though she blushed, the two began laughing it off together, meaning the AI-turned-Android could quip with, “... Seems like we’re doing a good job of that without even trying, don’t’cha think?”

John looked at her, then a faint smile crossed his lips. He nodded, “Yeah. C’mon. I and Fred took the western walls for guard duty. Don’t want to keep the Lieutenant waiting.”

The girl giggled and replied, “Why don’t you ever accept promotions?”

“Optics,” He replied as he stood up, putting his helmet on and grabbing his weapons. Cortana stared at him with mild confusion as they walked over toward the walls. He continued, “... ‘The Admiral’ doesn’t have the same ring as ‘The Master Chief’,” and he waited to see if his joke landed. The man was pretty new to the idea of humor. 

When Cortana burst into laughter(a second after her brows furrowed in concern), he knew the Joke had landed. Proud of that, he drew his own personal weapon and climbed the walls where Fred was. The team Lieutenant nodded to him and said, “Considering Cortana’s belly laugh, I’m guessing something good happened?”

“He cracked a joke again! Unprompted!” Cortana replied wildly, as if this was some big achievement, while still smiling.

Fred looked at John and tilted his head. John gave him a very light nod, then checked over his mag rifle and aimed down the scope. Doctor Halsey was still actively busying herself with research, obviously, so they couldn’t do the climb yet. Everyone else enjoyed the little Spa Town in a different way. To Spartans, relaxation was patrols and chatter.

To teams RWBY and JNPR, it seemed to be spending time with each-other and their newfound friends. Ruby herself was rather obviously enjoying her time with Sam, going by the fact the two were still talking about guns and stuff. So, Yang (with Blake close behind her) was watching the interactions between the two with a grin on her face, obviously sitting behind a house.

She whispered, “Never thought I’d see the day, sis. Finally found ya a man and he’s a hottie.”

Blake sighed and said, “Should we really be stalking them?”

“It’s a date, so yes. Gotta make sure Sam’s a good dude,” Yang quipped.

The black cat rolled her eyes, then gestured to Yang as she asked, “It’s a patrol? Y’know, the kind of stuff Spartans usually do even back at home? The kind of stuff we do when we get it as homework, too?” and she waited for her Blonde Brawler pal to process it. When Yang let out a mere ‘Nah’ and waved it off, then looked around the corner again. Blake sighed, pinching the bow of her nose and smiling.

She moved over to the corner and crouched behind Yang, poking her head out, too. She saw Sam and Ruby stop in front of an ice cream stand, with the young man buying her Ice Cream. That made the Faunus girl blink and whisper, “Oh, it is a freakin’ date, isn’t it?” as she worked to process seeing Ruby jumping like a little kid at her favorite ice cream:Strawberry.

“Toldja!” Yang chuckled. The two girls proceeded to follow close behind the two for the rest of the ‘patrol’/’date’...

… Weiss was back at the Inn. She was helping Doctor Halsey parse through the research of that odd raggedy man they’d seen with his pair of odd assistants. She carried two mugs of fresh coffee into the Doctor’s room, offering the warmest one to the Doctor, to which the older woman spoke softly, “Thank you, miss Schnee.”

“You’re quite welcome,” Weiss replied, picking up the papers and starting to look through them, too. She took a sip of her coffee, feeling the light bite of the bitter liquid. She’d made it dark specifically to be properly awake for the duration of this research. While she processed through information pertaining to a ‘Matrix’ of some kind, Doctor Halsey was going through data on the station itself, including a possible Monitor, an AI meant to maintain and guide it like the Monitors of other installations.

Questions gnawed at her mind, however. At Weiss’s, that was. The Spartans were Doctor Halsey’s creation, though what that entailed, she did not know. She could process the fact the Doctor had made them into what they were today, not to mention the whole Human-Covenant War issue, though that was a terrible tragedy to get an idea of for someone who’d only seen Great Cities, not entire planets colonized by mankind, and read the scant-recorded history of her own homeworld to know many such cities and Kingdoms fell previous to their own four existing.

So, she decided it was best to ask. She lifted her eyes from the paper she was reading on the quantum entanglement communications Doctor Smith had detected as coming from the Station, then asked with a meek voice, “Doctor Halsey?” and waited.

The woman turned toward her, adjusting her thick glasses on her face, then asked, “Yes, miss Schnee?” with a surprising, if welcome calm in her voice. 

“... I wished to ask about a few of the files you’ve given Headmaster Ozpin, General Ironwood and us…” Weiss began, watching the doctor’s expression almost imperceptibly shift between three distinct emotions:Concern, realization and resignation. When the Doctor urged her to continue with a very, very slight nod, Weiss’s voice was quieter than before. Quieter than she thought she could actually speak. She asked, “The Spartan program, specifically. The Spartan-IIs and IIIs.”

… The pause that followed felt like an eternity of waiting. The doctor barely sketched an emotion on her face, but when she did, that resignation came back hard. She breathed a sigh, turning back to examining Doctor Smith’s papers, then whispered softly, “I knew the day would come when one of you asked me about this,” and urged her with a louder, stronger voice, “By all means, Miss Schnee, ask away.”

“Are the statements in this report true?” She asked as she lifted up her Scroll, showing the data which had been delivered to it (and all items like it among their closed circle of friends) through Doctor Halsey’s electronic mail address. Weiss then continued, voice slowly filling with concern, “And if yes… How old were John and the others when they were taken in?”

“Yes, the statements are entirely true. Seventy-five children were taken from their families and replaced by rapidly-dying flash clones of their real selves,” Halsey answered with an eerie, but solemn calm. Her hand hovered over her tablet for half-a-second, time in which she pondered if she should open the ‘MIA’ list. She forewent that idea for later.

Weiss’s gasp gave her pause. A pang of guilt struck Halsey while the girl pressed, “You’d so readily admit…?”

“That I did it? Yes. Because I don’t find a need to hide the truth anymore in this life,”The Doctor answered, finally turning to face Weiss fully. She furrowed her brows in surprise, having expected Weiss to look more or less disgusted with her, like Ozpin had. Instead, she found herself staring down a pair of kind, if extremely worried eyes. 

“... What were they made for then? Because this file also mentions the Covenant only arrived at the end of the Spartans’ training in 2525,” Weiss inquired, trying to understand more rather than judge directly, like Ozpin. She checked her Scroll, reading through the data and finding no mentions. Certainly, some stuff must’ve been kept classified even from the woman that had made the program, but…

“... Do you know that Cortana is an AI?” Halsey inquired, a rhetorical question. Everyone and their mother knew the fact her artificial progeny was artificial.

“Yes? I feel like that was part of the general briefing we all received when the reveal happened,” Weiss affirmed her thoughts on the matter, setting her Scroll back down onto the desk and leaning against it. She seemed genuinely interested in the discussion at hand, even if it was going to be a horrific eye-opening historical retelling.

“Then let me explain it here, because the files do go into too much depth…” The Doctor sighed, then began explaining morosely, “Humanity is not as unified as it is in your world. We did not have a common enemy like your Grimm until the Arrival of the Covenant nearly thirty years ago… In fact, we had many factions akin to the White Fang and many more that were worse.”

“What does that have to do with AIs and John and his people?” Weiss asked, though she was slowly putting things together in her mind. Artificial Intelligence technology like the one that made Cortana was common enough that the UNSC relied on these AIs, these pseudo-living machine organisms, to do some part of both menial labor and the calculations for things like FTL and weapons targeting.

… Hell, Cortana was apparently a really, really good hacker if she managed to find her way into Atlas’s CCTS Network…

Halsey breathed, then leaned back into her seat with a cup of coffee in hand and began to explain, “A peer of mine had utilized similar Artificial Intelligences to run a simulation. His name was Doctor Elias Carver and the thesis he wrote based on that research?” And she lifted her tablet, handing the girl the exact report, “We call them The Carver Findings. They posited that, unless the political situation in the Outer Colonies was stabilized by force, the Civil War that would ensue with the rise of the Insurrection would rip man’s small domain apart. And he wasn’t wrong. One colony burned. Another was nuked by the Insurrection with tens of millions dead and many, many other events the likes of that occurred.”

“... So, the Spartans…?” It finally came to the younger Schnee. She just needed confirmation.

“Were a project spawned out of the mind of a much younger and far, far more pragmatic and fearful Doctor Halsey. I had graduated only a few years prior to theorizing the Spartan Project and suggesting its effectiveness to the Office of Naval Intelligence. I postulated its creation as a possible tool to excise the Insurrection due to fear, but… It seems they liked it enough to approve it,” The Doctor nodded, though the volume of her voice lowered yet again.

“Gods…” There it was, Weiss thought. She whispered, “So they were designed to quell rebellion, not fight the Covenant?” 

“Not the Class-IIs that I created,” The Doctor answered, still surprisingly calm. She then tapped a file on the girl’s Scroll and told her, “The IIIs, however, were. NOBLE Team, bar Jorge, obviously, were all Spartan-IIIs, made by a rival of mine in ONI. Colonel Ackerson. And unlike the IIs, which were a precise instrument, the IIIs were mere suicide units. Entire companies, deployed to fight the Covenant behind the enemy lines with substandard equipment.”

“And you went along with it?” The Heiress inquired, crossing her arms. Maybe she didn’t go along with it willingly. The file did mention that a Second Class of Spartan-IIs was never approved due to Halsey refusing to participate in another one of those acts. Now, if it was embellished or not, Weiss had no way of knowing, due to this being a report given by Halsey to everyone else. Gods, what would Ruby’s and Yang’s reactions to it be…

“I’d only partially learned of the IIIs thanks to Noble Team prior to their deaths on Reach. I only learned the rest after the planet was glassed, so I was not able to stop Alpha and Beta Company’s destruction. Gamma, however, survived,” Halsey admitted, eyes locking onto an item of interest ing the research files.

“You still didn’t answer about their age,” Weiss replied firmly, shutting off her Scroll and looking at Halsey sternly.

The Doctor didn’t lift her eyes off of the crude blueprint of the structure as drawn by Doctor Smith. She told the girl warily, “Considerably younger than you. Seven years for the IIs. As young as five for the IIIs due to relaxed genetic templates.”

“SEVEN!?” Miss Schnee stumbled back, covering her mouth, “You took seven-year-old children to… And the Spartan-IIIs were…”

“... About as old as you were when the tales of Huntsmen and Huntresses were told to you or miss Rose, I assume,” Halsey sighed deeply. She had thought of how Ruby, the most kindhearted out of all of team RWBY, would react to the news her new friends, all of whom had years given back to them by the alien machinery here, being the sick experiments of a woman who’d damn near lost her own soul.

“Are you suggesting-” Weiss seemed to take offense to that comment. As if her choices weren’t made by her, but rather by some propagandized view of the profession of being a Huntress.

“That you are very much like my Spartans in some respects? Yes, I argued the same thing with Headmaster Ozpin,” The good Doctor answered, putting together a few papers and neatly stacking them, before placing them off to the side and taking a sip of the coffee Weiss had so kindly brought to her.

“That’s preposterous. We do have a choice, unlike the others…” Weiss spoke, though there was hesitation in her voice. As if reality had just opened up to her. Indeed, Weiss had always thought it strange that one of the single most respected and feared institutions Mankind and the Faunus worked in were almost micro-states of their own. Atlas, Shade, Haven and Beacon. Schools for Warriors with their own continuous presence of armed troops…

“That hesitation tells me all I need to know…” The Doc told her, then leaned back into her seat and spoke with softness in her tone again, “I’m sorry to burst your bubble, miss Schnee,” mostly because she was. One’s choices to fight were and would always be influenced by their childhoods. It was why Spartans were so easy to mold into Spartans. 

Weiss took a moment to reflect on matters. Indeed, Huntsmen and Huntresses were prevalently displayed in every piece of important media, every comic or story. Hell, Atlas actively employed them as part of the Atlas Military’s Special Forces detachments… She sighed, then told the doctor, “I’d like to think we do have a choice, however. Not all children of Remnant wind up fighting as Hunters,” while fiddling with a device on the table.

“Indeed, but you are driven toward that from youth by the tales, as I mentioned… Certainly, if enough people sign up, then there will be an army to fight the Grimm,” Halsey then offered. Yes, she believed some were willingly signing up, even if they’d never encountered the ideas. But the fact of the matter is, one would have heard of and seen Huntsmen, like Ruby had, and wished to join them.

“... I see…” Weiss conceded, sighing and shaking her head.

The doctor was confused, furrowing her brows at Weiss and stating, “You seem far less upset than Ozpin was when he learned of this,” while she yet again turned to their work. She didn’t know if that said more about Weiss’ upbringing, her life in the most militarized kingdom of Remnant, or about her as a person.

The girl decided to confirm it was a sort of combination, stating bluntly, “Because, despite my better judgement and much to my concern, I can see the reasons for the Spartans’ creation. And crime or not, they did save mankind…” Then she quirked a brow up at the doctor, tilting her head slightly as she asked, “Right?”

“Indeed…” Her reply came, quick and concise. She then added, “I, however, wish I’d never thrust that fate upon them, even as I defend their creation as a boon for mankind,” while her hands began to shake slightly. She still recalled the first true casualties of the War. Even before Samuel. All of the wounded Spartans… All those that had died during Augmentation.

“And that’s another reason I can’t exactly look at you with any real ire, just concern,” Weiss offered with a surprising kindness, wearing a small smile on her face. She knew Halsey was extremely (and by that she meant extremely repentant) about the actions she’d done. At least to the degree of wanting to give her Spartans a new home here. So, she told her, “Because you do seem to care for them in your own way. Should we get back to work?”

For the first time in a long time, the good Doctor allowed herself a somewhat larger smile. She told Weiss fondly, “If you wish so, miss Schnee,” before turning about in her swivel chair and lifting her tablet again. She scanned one of the blueprints under Weiss’s gaze and activated the small three-dimensional hologram emitter on the pad with a touch of her thumb, setting it aside and examining the station’s design and what they knew of its layout.

“Okay. And call me Weiss, please,” Weiss told her calmly, taking one of the free UNSC Tablets that Halsey had laid out on the table, making sure she didn’t delete any important information off of it, then beginning to learn it while helping with the Research. She’d rather not be the one they blamed for the loss of highly-sensitive local operations data for the UNSC…

… And she’d rather not be the one to get Halsey in even more trouble. With that in mind, she also decided not to tell her team any more about this. Not until they read the reports, too.

“Very well. Weiss,” The Doctor showed some mild confusion at the request, but seemed to otherwise take it in stride.

“Now,” The girl then began, her old poise and posture returning as she finally figured out how to operate the tablet. She smiled again and told the doctor, “I’d like to find out how you’ve all wound up here, so let’s see what this doctor Smith left behind,” as she thumbed the pad and activated it. Streams of data flowed across the screen as she scanned each piece of intel she could find.

“Indeed,” Halsey offered, smiling brightly and turning to work. Weiss was… An interesting person. Born rich, didn’t want to be stuck in her company’s or father’s shadow. And now, showing compassion to someone who may as well have been no better than a genuine Grimm? She was certainly one of the good people of Remnant.

With Blake

The catgirl managed to separate herself from Yang’s little ‘follow your sis and her date’ escapade. She wasn’t sure she wanted to deal with Yang stalking Rubes and Sam right now, especially not if it involved finding out if Samuel was actually dangerous. The Spartans were practical, sure, but Sam didn’t seem like a bad guy. Or, at least, not the type to take advantage. 

He did seem incredibly ‘dangerous’ in the sense of being very much a Spartan. An elite fighter with a history of dealing with alien invasions, human-led insurrection groups and now, with monsters that were actively trying to murder them all. Fred, Kelly, Linda, John, Samuel, Daisy, Cal and all the others… All of them were different. 

Speaking of Lieutenant Frederic Ellsworth, Blake found herself slamming face-first into his breast-plate which immediately snapped her out of her trance. She looked up at him, eyes wide, then mumbled an “I’m sorry…” when she saw him staring right back down at her. She kept forgetting how tall Spartans were in reality. Especially in armor.

”It’s fine,” He replied, stowing his rifle on his back, “You okay?”

Blake scoffed, “I’ll be alright.”

“I take it you didn’t like following Sam and Ruby around just because of Yang,” He commented, arms crossed to his chest. She looked at him with shock strewn across her face, eyes wide and a tinge of red on her cheeks. He tapped the left side of his helmet and told her, “Sam noticed both of you first and relayed it to us. He also gave the all-clear.”

“Of course, you guys would see us,” Blake sighed, “That motion tracker stuff must be really useful.”

“Sam saw you two with the corner of his eye. You weren’t exactly being the pinnacle of stealth,” He answered. A mild red flush glowed on the Cat Faunus’s cheeks. She sighed deeply, rubbing her eyes, then listened to Fred explain, “Anyways. I’m guessing Yang is just in her ‘overprotective sister’ phase, right?”

Catty nodded, “That about sums it up. I think she’s aware Sam’s a good guy, though. Just wants to watch Ruby ‘be normal’ for a change. And Sam does seem the most normal of all of you,” then she shrugged at him as the blush in her cheeks faded. She saw him lower his arms by his side next, then told him, “You know, for a fourteen-year-old that’s seven feet tall…”

The Spartan let out the quietest of snorts, then replied with amusement in his tone, “He and Jorge were the two tallest Spartans. I think Kurt beats them, though.” 

He gestured to the right, toward a pathway leading to some nearby gardens, then suggested, “If you wanna tag along with me for the rest of the patrol, I might need someone to talk to. Specifically about more of those books you recommended to me,” which got Blake nothing short of ecstatic, going by how she immediately perked up, ears rising and everything. She nodded quickly, then let Frederic lead the way.

Good to know, Cortana thought, that most of the teams seemed to be doing well. She saw Team JNPR wandering the local market with Nora hyperactively ordering anything sugary to eat and Ren trying to talk her down. Jaune and Pyrrha, meanwhile, continued about their business, seemingly talking about visiting that structure on top of the mountains.

That climb was gonna be ‘fun’…